E-mail alerts help public track them
There are 68 convicted sex offenders currently living in St. Charles Parish, and the fact that national statistics point to 50 percent of them re-offending makes that number even scarier.
Almost every city in the area has at least two offenders living within its boundaries, and the Sheriff’s Office says that there is an 80 percent chance that one of the 65 men and three women live within a mile of your residence.
Another frightening statistic is that more than half of the rapes and sexual assaults that occur in this country happen within a mile of the victim’s home, according to the United States Department of Justice.
Though the sex offenders live in all corners of the parish, the majority of them are clustered on the West Bank. Des Allemands leads all cities with 12 sex offenders, while Boutte has eight, and Hahnville and Luling both have seven. There are also three sex offenders living in Paradis and two each living in Killona and Ama.
On the East Bank, St. Rose has nine sex offenders, followed by Norco and Montz, who both have four. There are also three sex offenders living in Destrehan.
Others are currently serving time in jail.
If the offender has committed an aggravated offense, he or she must update their registration with the Sheriff’s Office every 90 days. If the crime involved a minor, registration must be updated every six months. For an offense that isn’t defined as aggravated and doesn’t involve a minor, the sex offender must update his or her registration yearly.
But along with updating their registration, sex offenders must also give warning to their immediate neighbors.
According to state law, each offender must send community notification by mail using the Offender Watch program. The offender must pay a fee to the service, which in turn sends sex offender cards to the specified residents and businesses within three tenths of a mile from the sex offender’s home.
The information on the cards includes the offender’s name, photograph, race/sex and other describable traits. The cards also contain information on the type of offense that was committed.
“This process is taken completely out of the hands of the offender to ensure that it is completed as specified by law,” Sheriff’s Office spokesman Capt. Pat Yoes said. “The offender must also send the notification each time residency is changed, and notification must occur at least once every five years whether or not their residency is changed.”
Additionally, each sex offender must pay for a similar notification to be printed in the Herald-Guide in two separate issues.
“A person who has served his time for this offense has a lawful right to live in a community,” Yoes said. “In the same light, the law provides that the community has a right to know if sex offenders live in their community.”
To ensure that they keep track of the sex offenders, the Sheriff’s Office does random address and information verifications twice a year and also conducts residence compliance verification on every sex offender on Halloween evening.
“Children are particularly vulnerable to sex offenders,” Yoes said. “Open communication between parents and children is vital to family safety. If a picture is available from the local law enforcement’s Web site, show it to your family.
“The purpose behind community notification is to reduce the chance of future victimization by better informing the public.”
There are also rules that govern how close sex offenders can live to schools or daycare facilities.
Those who were convicted of a sex offense against a victim under the age of 13 after 2006 must stay 1,000 feet away from any school, park or recreational facility. This doesn’t only include living near one of these areas, but also being physically present inside that radius.
And in the instances when offenders do not comply with the law, there are a plethora of issues that follow, Yoes said.
“With the majority of sex offenders, compliance is not a problem,” Yoes said. “But there is, and always will be, several offenders who choose not to comply with state regulations.”
Eight of the parish’s 68 sex offenders are currently listed as non-compliant and six have active warrants for their arrests.
Non-compliance results in fines and/or imprisonment depending on the violation.
Sex offenders are, upon initial registration, immediately entered into a statewide program that automatically post information about each of them on local Sheriff’s Office Web sites. St. Charles Parish residents can locate this information by logging on to www.stcharlessheriff.org and selecting “Sex Offenders” on the left side of the page.
Residents can also sign up for e-mail alerts that notify them when a sex offender moves within a mile of their homes.
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