Newsletter: October 2003: Alternative Prevention Strategies

The New York City Criminal Justice Coordinator, the five District Attorney's Offices, the New York Police Department, the Department of Probation, and the Division of Parole are working together to prevent the most dangerous sexual offenders from offending again.  Called the Specially Targeted Offenders Project (STOP), it developed a set of criteria to identify those at heightened risk for re-offending.  Criteria include crimes with multiple victims, vulnerable victim populations and serious injury or death.  STOP makes better use of enforcement tools like Megan's Law, parole and probation violations to re-incarcerate dangerous offenders.

Once an offender is included in the program, three basic components are put into gear.  First, that person receives more intensive supervision by Probation, Parole or the NYPD Sex Offender Monitoring Unit.  Second, each borough has specially trained prosecutors and a special court part for all Failure to Register cases.  Third, improved information sharing between partner agencies about any of the offenders ensures that responses are coordinated.

This project is seen as a way to prevent rapes from occurring by ensuring that these most dangerous rapists are behind bars.  Currently, there are approximately 600 STOP offenders.  According to Richard Plansky, General Counsel for the Criminal Justice Coordinator, early results are encouraging: for the first half of the year, Failure to Register arrests are up 35%.  Mr. Plansky credits the STOP program with this increase, and with putting more dangerous sex offenders in jail for victimless crimes, before they rape again.

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