Sex predator program backed by experts, not public
The plight of an unwanted sex offender is not something most people care about, but the uproar in Vallejo over the release of convicted predator Fraisure Earl Smith is the ultimate manifestation of a rehabilitation program that has failed to convince the public it is workable.
Smith, who committed five sexual assaults over 15 years and underwent intensive therapy, was released from a psychiatric hospital last month and has been forced to live as a transient.
It is an ongoing issue with California’s troubled “sexually violent predator” program, which transfers the most egregious sex violators to a psychiatric hospital after their sentences are up so they can undergo psychological counseling before their release.
The public fury that people like Smith generate is a conundrum for the state, which developed the program in an effort to prevent repeat offenders from being released without treatment or supervision. The “violent predator” label is frightening on the one hand, but these convicts are watched closely, affixed with GPS an-
kle bracelets and are sometimes chemically castrated.
Experts say they also have a lower recidivism rate than virtually any other type of crime, including the vast majority of people convicted of sex crimes, who generally receive no counseling and are not supervised upon their release.
Evicted from Motel 6
Smith, 51, was kicked out of a Motel 6 in Vallejo this week amid a public outcry and is now apparently living out of a vehicle somewhere in the Vallejo area under the watchful eye of security officers for Liberty Health Care Corp., the contractor that the state hired to handle his release.
“Liberty told me he’s sleeping in a car and they are watching him,” said Vallejo police Capt. John Whitney. “They are not telling us where he’s at. He’s technically transient. They don’t have to. He’s in the city somewhere. He just has to register as a transient every 30 days if he’s in our jurisdiction.”
Vallejo requires transients to register with the police, although few actually do so.
Police and residents were furious when they discovered Wednesday that Smith had been secretly housed at the Motel 6, which promptly evicted him.
“It appears that Motel 6 did not know that they had rented a room to Mr. Smith,” said Daniel Keen, the Vallejo city manager. “Once they confirmed that he was staying there, they acted immediately to evict him.”
Police publicity
The Vallejo Police Department publicized Smith’s presence at the motel and issued a press release saying Liberty workers had “concealed Mr. Smith’s identity” and used their own names in registering him. It is not illegal to put someone else’s name on a motel register, but the police brass and city officials made it clear they would not go along with the deception.
“We’re not a decision maker in any of this process, but we’re charged with keeping the citizens of Vallejo safe,” said police Lt. Jeff Bassett. “Part of that is notifying the citizens when a violent sexual predator is in their community.”
Smith has created an uproar everywhere the state has tried to release him. It had become such a dilemma by October that Judge Arvid Johnson of Solano County Superior Court ordered him released from a psychiatric hospital as a transient.
The judge said Smith must be released by Nov. 30 in Solano County, where he committed his crimes. Liberty agreed to find temporary housing for Smith in motels until it could find a permanent residence in the county. The plan was to move him every five days, officials said.
Defending system
Psychiatrists and other defenders of the sexually violent predator program argue that it is the only workable solution for sex predators, who must be released once they serve their prison sentences. And it works, they say. The state- designated predators receive therapy and have to submit to round- the- clock supervision. It is a rigid system, too. There are 555 state- designated sexually violent predators in Coalinga State Hospital in Fresno County, said Ken Paglia, spokesman for the Department of State Hospitals. Since the program began, he said, just 32 predators have been released under supervision, with 12 of them still living in communities around the state and 10 who have subsequently been released without supervision, he said.
One patient was returned to prison for possessing child pornography, and eight others were returned to the hospital after they broke program rules, Paglia said. One of the released predators has died.
It is a recidivism rate that experts say is far lower than that of other types of sex offenders.
‘ Dumping ground’
Regardless, Whitney argues, Smith did not commit his crimes in Vallejo and never lived in the city, so he shouldn’t be released there.
“We’re trying to get him out of our city,” he said. “We feel like we were treated like a dumping ground for him. The city doesn’t want him in the city, and the citizens do not want him in the city.”
Smith was convicted of sexually assaulting a 17- yearold girl in Suisun City in 2007, one of five convictions for violent attacks on young women. He was committed to Coalinga State Hospital in July 2010.
Smith, who has told reporters he is impotent after suffering prostate cancer, filed a petition for conditional release two years later, and in 2013, the court ordered him released.
Officials then looked at more than 4,000 placement possibilities for Smith in Solano, Napa, Yolo and Contra Costa counties. Community opposition derailed all of the ones his caretakers selected.
A common problem
The intensity of the fight over Smith’s release isn’t unusual. Earlier this month, protesters in the small delta town of Bethel Island managed to delay the release of convicted child molester Robert Bates, whose history of violence and drug abuse dates back to 1989.
In fact, almost every case has provoked community outrage since Brian DeVries was rejected by more than 100 sites more than a decade ago. In desperation, officials put him in a trailer on prison grounds in Soledad ( Monterey County).
As Smith discovered this week, the climate hasn’t warmed for released sex offenders.
“Nobody wants him in their community,” Bassett said. “We’re not just going to allow him to be in our community without alerting people to his presence.”