In America, Even Those Who’ve Done Wrong Have Rights

Once upon a time, in what passed for Americana, we celebrated our willingness to forgive people who had done time for their crimes. The notion of the ex-con “going straight” was actually considered a feel-good story line. Ex-burglar, ex-robber, even ex-killer could fit into the scenario of the man who erred but who then got a little place of his own, got a job and turned his life around.

None of those stories was about ex-child molesters, however.

Since being paroled last November after his second conviction for child molestation, Sidney Landau has gotten two little places of his own (forced out of one, about to be forced out of the other), gotten a job (fired) and, he says, wants to be left alone. Had he been paroled for robbing a bank or shooting someone, chances are he’d be living a life of anonymity right now.

Instead, he committed offenses that stir all rational adults to the quick. He went to prison twice. In between prison stints, he was arrested for lewd conduct with a young boy, but charges were dropped. Given his history, it’s a little hard to trash, with any conviction, the Placentia residents who want Landau out, out, out.

But where does their argument lead? Just where is it that Landau and others like him should go?

Placentia residents might well say, go anywhere as long as it’s not here. That makes sense for them but not for that somewhat larger portion of the U.S. population that does not live in Placentia. The inescapable fact is that Landau is going to live somewhere.

Another fact, according to the California attorney general’s office, is that the state has 70,000 registered sex offenders. Of that, about 60%, or around 42,000, are child molesters. About 1,500 of the 70,000 are classified as “high risk.” Landau is classified in the second category of “serious” offenders, which accounts for 55,000 of the registered offenders.

While Landau’s attorney argues vociferously that Landau’s status didn’t warrant community notification, Placentia Police Det. Corinne Loomis disagreed. The state attorney general’s office said local law enforcement has broad discretion in enforcing the notification law.

Even so, Loomis said the department didn’t expect or want what has happened since it notified residents.

“This has been a baptism by fire,” she said Thursday. “We set in motion, intentionally, events in a community that have been truly cataclysmic. The fear and hysteria and anger and frustration are so fever-pitched that, probably short of a natural disaster like an earthquake, I don’t think we could have gotten that much anxiety over it.”

I once took the columnist’s pledge not to be a limousine liberal. To be true to that pledge, I’d have to be able to say that if I were the parent of young children, I wouldn’t try to force Landau from living on my block.

Can I make that statement? In cogitating that, I find myself digging deeper into my civil libertarian bag than ever before. If my core belief is that Landau has the right to live where he wants, how can I argue against that? The quick comeback to that is that if I were somehow convinced that Landau would molest a child again, I wouldn’t care what the system promised him--I would never want him on my block.

Coming from the other direction, I’m guessing that Placentians would be more inclined to leave Landau alone if they were convinced he wouldn’t molest again. They might still loathe him for his past actions but wouldn’t feel that their children were at peril.

Therein lies the conundrum. The issue, it seems to me, is not that Landau has molested before but that he might do it again. Placentians probably have read or heard the conventional wisdom that pedophiles are difficult to “cure” and that they have a high recidivism rate. The fact that Landau is twice-convicted only reinforces that position.

To get a better fix on that, I turned to a U.S. Department of Justice study released last year. It was the largest ever done of a prison population and, among other things, concluded that:

* One-third of the child molesters had attacked their own child or stepchild. Another 50% of the molesters were friends, acquaintances or more distant relatives of their victims.

* Only one in seven molesters assaulted a stranger.

* Three out of four committed the crimes either in their home or the child’s home.

Various studies and expert opinions place the pedophile recidivism rate at 40% to 50%. That conforms to the public’s notion that molesters repeat their crimes, but, for context, a Texas Department of Criminal Justice study found that the recidivism rate for other crimes (such as burglary, robbery and murder) was generally higher.

While hardly reassuring, the survey at least eased my mind that most molesters aren’t roaming the streets looking for strangers. Indeed, statistically the children on my block are more at risk from their fathers or stepfathers than from the Sidney Landaus of the world.

Decision time. Could I live with Landau on my block? For me, the moral puzzler is whether I could banish him, knowing he would simply wind up on someone else’s block.

First, I would instruct my children that under no circumstances were they to ever talk to him or go to his house. Second, I’d get a group to join me in talking to Landau, letting him know that we’re aware of his past and are leery of him.

This is still a free country, and so is my block and Landau’s block. I glumly have to concede that I may not welcome him to my block, but I don’t have the right to force him out.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at the Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.