SAN RAFAEL, Calif. – A 68-year-old registered sex offender has no time left on his stay at a Marin County hotel and his case manager is making an unusual plea for someone to house his client so that he doesn’t have to sleep in a tent under a freeway.
“The day I get released, I’m supposed to be on the street with diabetes,” said Socorro ____, whose first language is Spanish. He is a registered sex offender who served three years in prison after being convicted for molesting his girlfriend’s nieces more than a decade ago. He is on parole for another year and a half.
Then, pointing to his ankle monitor, he said: “And I have no place to charge the device.”
While there are some unusual aspects of Alvarado’s story, it’s exposed a pretty common debate over the release of sex offenders: There are those who don’t want sex offenders living near their homes and children and feel they shouldn’t receive any help or compassion for what they did in the past. And there are those on the other side, who believe that society should do everything they can to help and rehabilitate all those with criminal pasts, even those who committed sexual offenses.
However, despite these stark philosophical differences, there are at least two things these unlikely allies do agree on: Giving sex offenders stable housing cuts down on recidivism rates and knowing where they are living is better for public safety.
/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/6TXIY5MTDJMONLJODT6LU5DORI.jpg)
