Danie M. HuffmanSoon, sex offenders won’t have much room to hide. More restrictions will be placed on them to make communities a safer place to live.
Soon, sex offenders won’t have much room to hide. More restrictions will be placed on them to make communities a safer place to live.
According to Parker County Sheriff Larry Fowler, a task force was formed by the United States Marshals Service Northern District of Texas in light of sex offenders included in the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act.
Fowler and Weatherford Police Chief Jerry Blaisdell are looking forward to using the resource.
“A team was established to assist us when sex offenders abscond,” Fowler said. “It gives us a nation and worldwide reach. And as a former deputy of the marshals service for 24 years, I understand the concept and importance of having those resources available to us. It’s a great tool and I intend to fully utilize it.”
Congress passed the Federal law last year by taking varying, existing federal laws and consolidating them into one bill, making it more comprehensive.
In that bill, the United States Marshals Service was named the lead agency to assist local law enforcement agencies in tracking down unregistered sex offenders in their area.
“We work closely with their fugitive units and we’ve had really good success,” said Randy Ely, Unites States Marshal of the Northern District of Texas.
In 2004, the Dallas Fort Worth Fugitive Apprehensive Strike Team (FAST) was set in place to assist the agencies with the most violent and high-risk offenders. About 40 deputies and officers from six offices along with 13 participating agencies serve in the FAST initiative for the Metroplex, covering 100 counties.
“We took the structure of FAST and added responsibility for it, so we can devote the totality of those resources over to that one hot case,” Ely said.
Since the inception of the task force and Operation FALCON, a fugitive apprehension effort focusing on sex offenders, 5,319 arrests have been made in the area.
Deputy U.S. Marshal Debbie Crook was named coordinator of educating local agencies on the initiative.
Ely said Crook was the liaison for agencies with sex offender issues. She is responsible for initial consultations on cases and provides presentations of the Walsh Act and what role the USMS plays in relation to the act.
“We primarily focus on violent offenders,” Ely said. “But this does not preclude us from assisting agencies on other felony cases. We want the public to know this is our effort to improve the quality of life in their neighborhoods and take some of theses offenders off the street.”
Although Texas has not adopted the Walsh Act, the Federal law supersedes, and individual states were given three years to adopt it. Texas has until July 2009.
Crook said smaller states may have chosen not to implement the act due to lower budgets and because in some states, sex offender violations are considered misdemeanors rather than felonies.
“The Walsh Act makes it a felony to not comply with sex offender registration laws,” Crook said. “But in Texas, it is [already] a felony if sex offenders fail to register and comply.”
With the act, the task force and all deputy U.S. Marshals have two duties — recovering absconded sex offenders and to find and locate Adam Walsh Act violators.
State registered sex offenders violate the act by crossing state lines without advising their registrar. Although, Federal sex offenders do not have to cross state lines to violate the act.
“It was set in place to protect the public especially children,” Crook said.
Texas’ current law states a sex offender violates the law with failure to notify the registrar within seven days of a change of address, employment or school or to cross state lines.
With the Walsh Act, a violation occurs if the offender fails to do so within three days.
Also with the act, high-risk offenders are required to report to their registrar every three months. Current Texas law states they must report every 30 days and it will be mandatory to submit palm prints rather than finger prints.
Locally, Parker County has 164 current registered sex offenders and there are 32 offenders living within Weatherford’s city limits.
Parker County Sheriff’s Sex Offender Registrar Deputy Mike DeWitt said the number of local offenders in the area has significantly increased in recent months due to population growth and the number of Texas Department of Corrections releases.
“I’ve been advised by the Austin filed representative that the population of registered sex offenders could additionally increase due to further inmate releases,” DeWitt said. “The U.S. Marshals Service will be our first call. The sheriff ordered that after a warrant is issued, we are to call them immediately.”
Fowler said he finds the resource an extreme asset.
“You can’t put a dollar value on cooperative works and efforts,” he said. “It’s just good law enforcement to utilize the resources available.”
Blaisdell agreed and said the initiative is outstanding.
“It’s something positive we would use to hold these offenders accountable when they choose to not comply with the law,” Blaisdell said.
For more information on the Walsh Act, sex offenders, national initiatives and FALCON statistics, log onto www.usmarshals.gov.
For a list of local registered sex offenders, log onto www.parkercountytx.com or www.weatherfordtx.gov/police.
