Repeat Offenders

They call it "the book."Every police cruiser assigned to the Baltimore County neighborhood of Hillendale carries a copy of the white three-ring binder that identifies offenders on probation who live in the community. It's an innovation that has helped make Hillendale one of the state's most successful "HotSpots" communities.In its first 18 months, the program that pairs police and probation officers and enlists community support has helped to lower crime 20 percent statewide in targeted areas.

Crime in Carroll County dropped 14.4 percent during the first six months of 1999 and the decline is no fluke, authorities say, citing their efforts to target repeat offenders and tap state-funded crime prevention programs.Compared with the first six months of 1998, Carroll's statistics surpassed the statewide 9 percent decline in overall crimes and showed a 1 percent rise in violent crimes, which include murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assaults.The statistics from the Uniform Crime Reporting Program are compiled by the Central Records Division of the Maryland State Police and include offenses reported to state police at the Westminster barracks, as well as those reported by police in Westminster, Hampstead, Manchester, Taneytown and Sykesville, said Lt. Terry Katz, state police commander in Westminster.

If the success of Reality, an intervention program for first-time drug and alcohol offenders, is best measured by the number of repeat offenders, then Maryland's three-year statistics are glowing.The state's 5 percent recidivism rate matches the 1-in-20 repeat-offender rate in Tennessee, where the program began nine years ago. The Tennessee program has had about 6,000 participants, compared with more than 800 in Maryland.Terry Ober, the former Maryland state trooper who was recently appointed Reality's national coordinator, called the 5 percent figure "a proven barometer."

FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kan. -- In the stratified world of the U.S. military, a measure of equality is found behind these century-old granite walls. Colonels and privates are addressed by the same title. There is no snapping to attention, no salutes."That's a privilege. We don't afford that to them," says Army Col. Mike Lansing, commandant of the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, known among those in uniform as simply "the DB."Heading off to work stations in dark brown work clothes are full Army colonels and buck privates, Navy petty officers and Air Force sergeants.

Hoping to catch repeat offenders before their next crime, Maryland today launches "community probation" in 35 high-crime areas across the state, more than a dozen in the Baltimore area -- the first statewide program in the nation to put probation officers on the street.Begun in Boston and successfully piloted in Prince George's County, the program will team at least three probation agents in each area with police officers, making house calls, checking curfews and talking to residents about the behavior of probationers.

The campaign to tighten the noose on sex offenders by notifying communities of their release from prison has intensified with a new legislative assault on pedophiles and rapists. This one is intended to keep the most dangerous of them from getting back on the streets in the first place.Going beyond the notification measures prompted by the Megan Kanka case, several states have enacted laws giving officials the power to commit violent sex offenders to mental hospitals involuntarily once their prison terms are up -- a strategy that employs civil laws after criminal ones are exhausted.

For the first time in four years, the number of runaway youths in Howard County has gone down.Police predict there will be about 540 reports of runaway youths this year, 37 percent fewer than last year's total of 859. Until this year, the number of reports increased steadily, rising 72 percent from 1993 to 1996.Credit for the decrease goes to an award-winning task force formed by Howard police Detective Brian Markley, the only detective assigned full time to track youths who run away from home.

Long frustrated by juvenile crime -- and especially by repeat offenders -- police in the Towson Precinct are launching a program to track young criminals and make sure they receive appropriate punishments.If successful, Baltimore County police officials say, the program could be expanded to other precincts."I kept hearing from my officers that they were arresting the same kids over and over again," said Maj. Michael H. Stelmack, commander of the Towson Precinct."I think these kids are falling through the cracks of the system, and when they go to court, it is not always known if they are repeat offenders," he said.

A device that shuts down a vehicle's engine if the driver has been drinking reduces the chances that chronic drunken drivers will be rearrested for alcohol-related traffic violations, a University of Maryland at College Park study has found.The study, released yesterday and funded by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, was the first in the nation to investigate whether an ignition-interlock system has an effect on repeat offenses among randomly selected drunken drivers.It found that just 17 out of 698 repeat drunken drivers who had the $700 interlock system installed on their vehicles' ignition systems committed alcohol-related traffic violations over a one-year period beginning in 1992.

WASHINGTON -- No one is going to waste any sympathy on sexual predators. But the nation is going to have to find some way to deal with sex offenders that doesn't violate the civil liberties of those who don't represent a continuing threat.And for those offenders who do represent such a threat, government agencies must find a way to deal with them that doesn't prove counterproductive by driving them underground.Elected officials are caught up in a frenzy of legislative activity to meet the legitimate concerns of their constituents.

Reducing Baltimore's homicide rate will take more than just getting illegal guns off the streets and arresting the most violent offenders. It will also require putting more resources into apprehending the illegal-gun dealers who provide the weapons that fuel the city's homicide epidemic. That's the conclusion to be drawn from Sun reporter Peter Hermann's perplexing report last week that the steady decline in nonfatal shootings in Baltimore over the last 12 years has not been matched by a comparable drop in gun fatalities.

A dozen repeat, violent criminals got a stiff warning this week from Annapolis police, and Anne Arundel County and federal prosecutors: Commit another drug or weapons offense - even a minor one - and you will be looking at lengthy federal prison time and local prosecutors with no deals to offer. Tuesday's meeting was the first "call-in" held in Annapolis for violent repeat offenders, modeled on similar call-ins for criminals held elsewhere, police said. It is part of the Capital City Safe Streets program.

Law enforcement officials yesterday arrested nine people - including at least one police say is part of the city's "dirty dozen," Baltimore's most elusive violent repeat offenders - after 18 federal raids that netted heroin, automatic weapons and bags of cash. It was the second major takedown in two days. On Wednesday, officers raided a West Baltimore home and seized roughly seven kilos of heroin, $200,000 in cash and automatic weapons in a separate case. Four were arrested in that investigation; a fifth suspect, Mark "Doughboy" Owens, who police also count among the "dirty dozen," is still at large.

New strategy is making headway on homicides Annie Linskey reports in The Sun that some city judges are concerned about requests to strictly enforce probation violations for violent repeat offenders ("Sweep aims at the most dangerous," July 13). Judges are reportedly concerned about the erosion of their discretion. Judicial autonomy cannot be undermined, and any efforts to co-opt this branch of government must be squashed immediately. However, Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III is not asking judges to indiscriminately detain probation and parole violators.

Baltimore police, prosecutors and other agencies are making the strict enforcement of probation rules a key component of their crime-fighting strategy, sweeping dangerous criminals off the streets for the slightest infractions. But some city judges are wary of the plan, saying that it pushes them to give up their discretion in the courtroom. Police and probation agents are asking the judges to sign onto an extraordinary program targeting about 960 of the area's most violent repeat offenders - those who have been arrested at least seven times, are involved with a gang or face handgun charges.

A state law passed in June makes it a crime for registered sex offenders to set foot on school grounds, as Melvin L. Jones Jr. did last year when he visited the 11-year-old he is charged with killing. Had the law been in place a year ago, the principal of Collington Square School - who banned Jones from the campus and called the boy's mother when he learned of the man's history as a sex offender - would have been compelled to notify the police. If authorities had known of Jones' contact with Irvin J. Harris, which included helping him with his classwork and accompanying him to the cafeteria, Jones could have been sent back to prison for violation of his probation.

Carroll County school officials continue to tinker with their hotly debated alcohol and drug regulations - easing penalties for students merely present when banned substances are consumed but stiffening punishment for repeat offenders. Superintendent Charles I. Ecker said yesterday that the regulations are being changed to differentiate two levels of violations, separating drug users and underage drinkers from nonparticipating partygoers. "I just don't think it's fair that someone that's not drinking gets the same penalty as those who are drinking or doing drugs," Ecker said.

Carroll County school officials continue to tinker with their hotly debated alcohol and drug regulations - easing penalties for students who are merely present when banned substances are consumed but stiffening the punishment for repeat offenders. Superintendent Charles I. Ecker said yesterday that the regulations are being changed to differentiate two levels of violations, separating drug users and underage drinkers from nonparticipating partygoers. "I just don't think it's fair that someone that's not drinking gets the same penalty as those who are drinking or doing drugs," Ecker said.

Seeking to make Maryland's roads safer, the General Assembly began considering yesterday proposals to crack down on drunken drivers and target speeders through cameras capable of issuing hundreds of tickets an hour. The radar cameras are a spinoff of automated equipment used in Maryland to issue citations to drivers who run red lights. They would allow police to send $100 tickets to speeders though the closest officers might be miles away. "The people who obey the law will not have any problem with this," said Sen. Jennie M. Forehand, a Montgomery County Democrat and sponsor of the bill.

Beginning next month, a new Maryland law will force anyone convicted of drunken driving twice within five years to install ignition interlocks that require a puff of alcohol-free breath to start a vehicle's engine. The law requires a one-year mandatory license suspension before repeat offenders can drive with an interlock, which must be used for a year. The law takes effect Sept. 30. It was passed by this year's Maryland General Assembly and signed into law in the spring by Gov. Parris N. Glendening.