Bellone: Sex offender registry lacking

Eleven sex offenders are violating Suffolk County law by living within a quarter-mile of schools, parks and day care centers in the Town of Babylon, and two are simply missing, a report by the town's Quality of Life Taskforce found.

Babylon Supervisor Steve Bellone announced the findings Thursday, calling for strengthening the state system that tracks where sex offenders live and notifies neighbors.

"We're not doing our jobs in terms of protecting families," he said. And, he warned, "feel-good" laws without follow-through from police and municipal governments won't help. "A sense of security is not the same thing as security."

The report found six of the 49 sex offenders who reported living in Babylon were not at the addresses on the state sex offender registry. Two were missing, two left the state, and two were homeless.

The report also found 28 sex offenders were living in areas restricted by a Suffolk law forbidding them from living within a quarter-mile of certain locations frequented by children. Seventeen were not subject to the restriction because they moved in before it took effect, but the town notified Suffolk police about the other 11 offenders.

Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer said his department and other agencies like Babylon's update one another about sex-offender violations. When an offense is reported, he said through a spokesman, "we immediately initiate criminal cases against offenders."

"The registry is an important tool, but just one tool," Janine Kava, of the state's Division of Criminal Justice Services, wrote in an email. "Updates . . . are typically made within one business day."

Arrest warrants were issued last year for 656 offenders who didn't verify addresses, she said.

Richard Hamill, clinical psychologist and president of the New York State Alliance of Sex Offender Service Providers, said a focus on sex offender residency is misplaced. Most offenders comply with current laws, he said.

He and Laura Ahearn, of Stony Brook-based Parents for Megan's Law, which lobbies for tougher laws on sex offenders, called for longer supervision of offenders, which the report doesn't mention.

Bellone, Democratic front-runner for county executive in November, threatened in 2004 to sue Suffolk over a Sunrise Highway motel it was using to house sex offenders.

There are 989 registered sex offenders in Suffolk and 484 in Nassau, Ahearn said.