Transcript for the 54-minute version version of No Brother of Mine
BILLBOARD
Sex offenders are among the most feared and demonized people in America. Especially when one moves in close to home.
I have a 10-year-old daughter. I let her roam. Now, you know, I’m scared to death now. I don’t want her out of my house.
In an effort to prevent future sex crimes, many states restrict where offenders can live after their release from prison.
The problem is not so much where they live as where they are, what they’re doing. In many ways, it creates a false sense of security.
Other states keep some offenders locked up even after they’ve completed their criminal sentences. It’s a controversial practice that critics argue is unconstitutional.
I’m Todd Melby.
In the next hour, reporter Diane Richard and I will explore whether these get tough laws are the best way to prevent future sex crimes. We talk to offenders, experts and worried citizens.
Our documentary is called “No Brother of Mine.”
SEGMENT A
ANNOUNCER This story contains sexual subject matter and descriptions of violent behavior. Listener discretion is advised.
ANNOUNCER From 2 below zero, independent producers of public media
MUSIC Kronos Quartet, “Flugufrelsarinn” (Kronos version)
PREBIL & MURPHY Wouldn’t it be just cheaper to just lock these people up and keep them away from us?
SFX Last call for chow!
MICHAEL ANDREWS The way society looks at us, they have a right to be scared, they have a right to look at us as if we are ugly people. Cause we did ugly things.
ERIC JANUS The rape murderer I think has come to stand for in our policy mind the entire range of sexual offenders.
TIFFANY You know, I told some of my friends, and I told my mom. And they got really scared for me. But I just, this Reggie is not the old Reggie.
FRANKLIN ZIMRING The big lie is that most of the people who we have in prison for sex crime would do it again if we let them out.
SUSAN GAERTNER If you get one of them wrong, and they go out and commit another offense, that’s a horrible situation that no one in my position wants to be in.
NARRATOR: TODD MELBY Sex crimes are a radioactive issue. Sex offenders are among the most feared and demonized people in America. To most people, the term conjures up images of child rapists and murderers. And of their victims—like Dru Sjodin, Adam Walsh, Megan Kanka.
NARRATOR: DIANE RICHARD In response to these horrific crimes, legislators have passed hundreds of new get-tough laws to regulate the conduct and whereabouts of released sex offenders. These laws include Internet registries. Neighborhood notification for high-risk offenders. And restrictions affecting where released offenders can live.
TODD And these laws almost always pass by large margins. It’s one thing Democrats and Republicans agree on.
DIANE Some of the laws seem like common sense. Who wouldn’t want to know if a convicted rapist moves in down the street?
TODD Others are more questionable, like the one in Maryland that prevents released offenders from handing out candy on Halloween. Or the Miami ordinance that’s so restrictive about where offenders can live, the only place left for them is under a bridge.
DIANE I’m Diane Richard.
TODD I’m Todd Melby.
DIANE In 2005, we wrote a letter to the Minnesota Department of Corrections. We asked if we could interview people convicted of sex crimes. At first prison officials were reluctant to grant us access. But we explained our goals. We wanted to find out if these post-prison laws work.
TODD And we wanted to take an in-depth look at a subject that most people don’t even want to think about. Ultimately, we got permission.
DIANE Since then, we’ve gotten to know four inmates — Reggie, Ronnie, Tyrell and Michael. In many ways, these men represent the complexity of the issue. Their crimes span a spectrum of sexual violence. All are felons. All of them completed a sex offender treatment program.
TODD We spent time with these men in prison and since their release. And over the past few years we’ve followed their reintegration into society.
DIANE The documentary you’re about to hear is called “No Brother of Mine.”
SFX Apartment
REGGIE Hey, Mitch, this is Reggie. It’s 10:30 and I’m heading out to deliver that vehicle. Talk to you later. Bye.
TODD That’s Reggie. He just got off the phone with his probation officer.
REGGIE Alright, so we’ll go ahead and lock up the house here.
TODD Reggie is a father, a Catholic, a student and a salesman. In 2003, he was convicted of attempted rape.
DIANE On this night, we’re driving in a Jeep Commander with a serious new car smell. Reggie’s dropping it off personally. Right out of prison, he got a job selling cars for a local dealership. He was released from prison eight months ago.
DIANE (off mike): Now, how did you work this out with your parole officer?
REGGIE I was upfront with him right away. I told him exactly what was going on. In a way it’s really good that you guys are here, because it validates what I’m doing at this particular time. Normally I’d be at home, probably sleeping, cause it’s about 11:30. Usually I hit the hay about this time.
DIANE Reggie is about six-feet-tall and in his mid-30s. He’s handsome in a Keanu Reeves sort of way. He’s been on the job for less than a year. Already he’s one of the dealership’s top salesmen.
REGGIE Do you have any questions on the truck? Customer: How do you run it? [laughs] One thing I will tell you, my manager suggests, because we’ve had it quite a while …
TODD We first interviewed Reggie on his last day in prison.
REGGIE My name is Reggie. I’m a sex offender. I’m currently incarcerated at MCF Lino Lakes facility. And I’m going to be released tomorrow on 8/15/06.
DIANE Reggie was convicted of attempted rape, a crime he admits to. He asked us not to use his last name. He’s been at this Minnesota Correctional Facility—MCF—almost four years.
TODD Reggie used to party. Even though he was married and had a son, he liked to go to strip clubs and drink. That’s what he was doing on the night of his crime.
REGGIE Well, I remember it was a Wednesday. And I was looking to meet some friends at a bar. And I was hoping to go out and have some drinks, meet some women, and go home with one of them.
TODD He met a woman in her twenties. They went bar-hopping.
REGGIE On the way home, that’s when the sexual offending occurred in an abandoned parking lot, where I sexually assaulted her.
TODD What exactly did you do?
REGGIE I violently ripped open her shirt and told her we were going to do this. At some point, when she started crying and pleading for me to stop, is when I stopped.
TODD She called the police. He was arrested two hours later.
DIANE Date rape is one of the most common sex crimes. Karl Hanson is a researcher at Public Safety Canada. That’s a national agency that oversees law enforcement policy and crime prevention.
R. KARL HANSON The two biggest categories of victims have to do with date rape among late adolescent girls, usually in drunken parties by their peers. The second biggest category are children who are molested by family and extended family.
DIANE U.S. statistics back that up. Only a small minority of victims—14 percent—are sexually assaulted by complete strangers. Another 26 percent are sexually assaulted by family members. Sixty percent are sexually assaulted by people they know—neighbors, coaches, bosses, guys they met in bars.
TODD Date rapists rarely show up in the criminal justice system. That makes Reggie’s case unusual. His victim pressed charges, which he later fought in court. He was convicted anyway.
DIANE Four years later, he sees things differently.
REGGIE I had a really skewed viewpoint on women. I thought that all women were sexual creatures there for my pleasure. As I look back on it, it was very degrading. It took away the dignity of the human person.
TODD In prison, Reggie attended a daily sex offender treatment program. He says it forced him to confront his thought patterns and to question the cultural messages around him. He became a Catholic and received treatment for alcoholism.
REGGIE Hey Todd, it’s Reggie calling you back. Say, sorry it took me so long. It’s been one of those crazy days. The good news is I sold some cars today, so. Anyways I want to get back to you. My number, well, you can try my cell phone…
SFX Apartment
TODD The next time we see Reggie, he’d gotten that job selling cars. He shows us around his apartment, in the diciest part of Minneapolis.
REGGIE It’s still a work in progress. We have yet to get the furniture in in the living room. We have a kitchen table and all the necessities right now.
TODD Reggie’s apartment is filled with items he bought off Craig’s List. Comfy but mismatched. The living room walls are painted the color of Tang. Scented candles make the room smell like vanilla. A portrait of Pope John Paul II hangs above the couch.
DIANE Reggie’s days are almost as structured as in prison. That’s because he’s on house arrest. For one year, he can only leave his apartment for work, AA or church. And his probation officer can stop by anytime to check in on him and to get a urine sample.
TODD We asked how things are different for him now.
REGGIE In the past, I really didn’t care. I didn’t really know what I was doing was wrong. Certainly I knew the choice I made was wrong. There’s no question about that. I would go to strip clubs and I would associate with people that didn’t hold me accountable. That’s the difference between now and then. I’m with people that will hold me accountable. I know that if I objectify or sexualize women, it’s just going to go in a wrong direction and a bad path for me. I have a better understanding of myself and where my danger areas are.
MUSIC Sia, “Breathe Me,” Six Feet Under, Vol. 2
TODD Reggie says at first he was wary about spending time around women. Then, he met Tiffany at the Cathedral of St. Paul. He invited us back, a month or so later, to meet her.
REGGIE We both were sitting together on that first night. Really, my interest was like, Hmm, who’s this? What’s this all about?
TIFFANY Well, I noticed him because he’s a snazzy dresser, ‘cause he sells cars, and he dresses really good.
TODD After the meeting, they got to talking.
TIFFANY And he was just like, ‘Do you want to go to coffee sometime? Here’s my card, just give me a call.’ I threw the card away, right away. Because I was interested and I couldn’t be, I shouldn’t be.
TODD Tiffany had a boyfriend at the time. Two weeks later, they talked again.
TIFFANY That Thursday I came to group, I was getting my wisdom teeth pulled on Friday, so I asked everyone to pray for me. And afterwards, I asked him for his card again. His face tells a story, you know what he’s thinking. So he was really surprised. And he got his card out and was all excited. And he said, ‘Give me a call tomorrow.’ And I was like, I’m getting my wisdom teeth pulled. Did you forget already? And he’s like, ‘O.K., call me on Saturday then.’
MUSIC Sia, “Breathe Me,” Six Feet Under, Vol. 2
TIFFANY He came over and had dinner with my parents. My mom just loved him. Then, my mom, when we were leaving, goes, ‘Take care of my girl’ or something like that. She doesn’t say that. I mean, I take care of myself. She knows that.
TODD Tiffany didn’t know everything about Reggie’s past. But she knew he was a felon on probation. And that he had to be back for curfew. So she went over to his place. That’s when he told her about his crime.
TIFFANY It’s not just the fact that he told me the first night. But it was how he told me. It was out there, it was honest. He was wounded; I could see it. He showed me that. He was real about it.
REGGIE But I took a chance with that. I knew it could be an issue. But I felt safe enough to just say, I’m just gonna tell her and I know I’ll feel better.
TIFFANY He, just that first night, was just humble and he told me things that scared me, obviously. But it was his humility about it. He looked me right in the eyes and he said, ‘This is what I did.’
REGGIE I’m learning now, it’s really difficult to do that in my life. I’ve always liked to keep secrets, I’ve always liked to appear like I’m this really good person, but in reality I’m not.
TIFFANY You know, I told some of my friends, and I told my mom. I’m very honest with the people in my life. And a few of them, you know, they got really scared for me. But this Reggie is not the old Reggie.
TODD By this time, they’d been together a couple of months.
REGGIE In treatment, you have to do a self-assessment. You have to list all your character defects, all your strengths and weaknesses. One of my biggest weaknesses is conflict. I’m the type of person who’s very passive when it comes to conflict. I don’t stick up for myself. I don’t assert myself in healthy ways. That’s what makes me so dangerous. People think, ‘Well, he seems like a really nice guy.’ What happens is, especially when I drink alcohol or do something…
TIFFANY Used to drink.
REGGIE Right, I should say, if I were to drink alcohol, I don’t know how to put the stops up that normal people do, like cognitive thinking, maybe I should just let this go. When I drink, I don’t know how to do them and I become very aggressive.
REGGIE I still struggle with that. Even sober, I’ll be really nice, then all of a sudden you’ll notice I’ll get really uptight.
TIFFANY But he’s not mean. He’s not mean.
REGGIE But I’m uptight.
TIFFANY But he’s uptight. He’s busy. He’s disconnected. He’s just got to get stuff done. He becomes a little obsessive compulsive about things like cleanliness. Like this morning, he forgot to put deodorant on, and so he’s just bitching and moaning in the car, ‘Oh, I’m just so angry.’ And I’m like, ‘Honey, it’s deodorant. It’s a small thing and you’re taking all this other stress, all these big stressors, and you’re focusing on this tiny little thing.’ Later on, we were cuddling, and I smelled his armpits and he smelled good. And I was like, ‘What are you so worried about?’
TODD Ultimately, the relationship between Reggie and Tiffany didn’t last.
DIANE Still, experts say the ability to form positive relationships is an encouraging sign. Karl Hanson of Public Safety Canada.
HANSON When you find they actually do establish a relationship with a lover and it seems to be going O.K., you sort of relax a bit. It’s not everything, but it’s a really good sign that they’re making a readjustment or having some links to things which are important to keep them from offending in the future.
MUSIC Death Cab for Cutie, “Transatlanticism,” from Six Feet Under, Vol. 2
TODD Later in this program, we’ll meet Tyrel. As a teenager he had sex with another teen and went to prison for it.
TYREL Just because it says on a paper statutory rape, that doesn’t mean I raped this person, you know.
SEGMENT B
60-second interlude: MUSIC Philip Glass, “Etude V,” Etudes for Piano
MUSIC Death Cab for Cutie, “Transatlanticism,” from Six Feet Under, Vol. 2
DIANE You’re listening to a special report, “No Brother of Mine.” I’m Diane Richard.
TODD I’m Todd Melby. If you’re just joining us, this documentary is about sex offender policies and the patterns of behavior that often lead to sex crimes. It’s a topic that may not be appropriate for all audiences.
DIANE When Reggie was in prison, he met Ronnie Johnson, a fellow inmate serving time for rape. They hit it off, though they’re sort of an odd couple. Reggie is clean cut and suburban. Ronnie wears his hair in cornrows and is from the deep bayou of Louisiana. Reggie’s got some college education. Ronnie dropped out at 16.
TODD But they have things in common too. Neither had a father in his life. Both have sons they haven’t seen in years. Both are recovering alcoholics.
DIANE Reggie was released from prison before Ronnie. On this day, Reggie is picking up Ronnie at a halfway house. They’re going to be roommates.
SFX Car on gravel
RONNIE Hey, what’s up? Park down here cuz I got to load all that stuff in there.
REGGIE Good to see you.
RONNIE How you doing, buddy? Everything good? Oh, everything’s alright. Yeah, man. I got to load this sucker. I didn’t know I had all this stuff. It’s wild, man.
DIANE Released felons have to do a few things. Like find housing. Get a job. And follow the rules of their probation. Failure to do any of these things will bounce them back to prison.
SFX Driving
DIANE Was it hard to find a job?
RONNIE Oh yea, oh man, you should’ve seen it. I went to some places and, you know what they told me? You gotta get up outta here, partner.
DIANE What’d they say?
RONNIE You gotta get up outta here, cuz a lot of people they don’t like to hear about sex offenses, you know.
DIANE So they wouldn’t even talk to you?
RONNIE In a way, they: See, one thing about being in prison, you get out here you learn to read between the lines, you know what I’m saying? Even the temp service told me I had to leave. They hire some felons but not sex offenders. Yep.
DIANE Were you discouraged?
RONNIE There were some days, man, when I was saying, man, you know, man, enough of this. I might just as well go on back in there, man. I don’t have to worry about dealing with all this stuff here, man. It was like, man.
DIANE Ronnie is under special pressure, because he owes more than 20 thousand dollars in back child support. He finally got a job as a warehouse handyman.
REGGIE What do you do? I don’t even know what you do.
RONNIE I do like janitorial work up in there. I do shipping and receiving. I cut steel pipes and stuff like that. Yesterday I was cutting up palettes, you know. I do all kinda stuff. So that’s why they pay me the big bucks.
REGGIE Big bucks, huh?
RONNIE Yeah, man.
DIANE Why do you think he wanted to hire you so bad?
RONNIE Well, he looked at those skills ol’ Ronnie had, you know. And, you know, the motivation I brung to the table, you know. And I told him, you know, I’m the best.
DIANE Ronnie is charismatic and easy going. But he wasn’t always this way. He says he used to party and deal drugs. But the crime that put him behind bars is rape of a child.
TODD We first interviewed Ronnie in prison.
RONNIE My name is Ronnie Johnson. I’m here in Lino Lakes MCF prison. I’m coming on release this year here.
TODD Ronnie was sentenced to eight years for raping his girlfriend’s daughter. She was six years old. It was New Year’s Eve 1997. He was drunk.
RONNIE My son’s cousin, he busted in and caught me. I ended up hollering at him, slapping him, and punching the victim, the little girl. Called them names, called him stupid, called her stupid. They ended up all running over, we got into a big fight. They called the cops. That’s what landed me here.
TODD Ronnie’s life fits a pattern for a lot of sex offenders. His dad was an alcoholic, and rarely around. As one of ten kids, he didn’t get a lot of attention. He dropped out of high school to deal coke.
DIANE None of these things excuse his crime and the damage he’s caused his victim. But they do give us a few clues. Karl Hanson of Public Safety Canada.
HANSON Sex offenders share many characteristics with other offenders, in terms of negative background. These people often have very poor parental supervision, have inconsistent and harsh parenting, very little direction and very little self control.
TODD Ronnie’s been through five years of state-mandated sex offender treatment. He’s also gone through treatment for alcoholism.
RONNIE Me? I wasn’t the type of person who was led and showed in which way to go. So this makes me a person that’s really lost.
TODD David D’Amora is a psychologist at the Center for the Treatment of Problem Sexual Behavior in Connecticut. He says that, for some sex offenders, the rehabilitation work starts from the ground up.
DAVID D’AMORA We don’t have people who were doing well and one day something happened and they just stopped doing well. We have folks who literally never developed the skills, the abilities, the internal structures to make it in our society in a pro-social fashion. So in essence we’re not really rehabilitating, we’re not bringing people back to some prior mode of operation. We’re habilitating. We are developing a set of skills and abilities that never existed in their repertoire.
TODD Ronnie says it’s sad that it took him years in prison to straighten out.
RONNIE This is the place where I’ve learned everything I know now. Most of the stuff I’ve learned, how to talk and conduct myself now, it wasn’t on the outside. It was in here.
TODD Ronnie says the most important things he learned are how to identify his sexual triggers and control his behavior. Sex crime researcher Karl Hanson.
HANSON And so a lot of the interventions with offenders have to do with learning ways of not feeling compelled to act upon your sexual thoughts. Yes, you’ll have sexual thoughts. Yes, you’ll feel like you want to do them. But you don’t have to.
TODD Still, Ronnie doesn’t kid himself into thinking he’s cured.
RONNIE But I don’t put it past myself that I’m not still attracted to young girls. Because I keep it in front of me that I did it once and I’m always capable of doing something again. I have to always keep that in check.
TODD Studies show that sex offender treatment programs don’t greatly reduce the chances of reoffense.
DIANE But Karl Hanson says they do make a difference.
HANSON Reasonably good treatment can reduce the probability of reoffending from about 17 percent after 5 years to about 10 percent. It’s not a huge reduction, but if you actually count up the number of victims that’s prevented, it’s making the world a better place.
DIANE So how often do sex offenders reoffend? In a 2004 meta-analysis, Hanson found that within five years of release from prison, fourteen percent of sex offenders are rearrested for a new sex crime.
TODD That’s lower than many people think. And so is that threat of stranger danger, attacks by people unknown to the victim. Psychologist David D’Amora.
D’AMORA We still want to believe that most sexual violence is committed by the few, the perverted and the far away. Most sexual violence is in fact committed by people who we know, often whom we love and who care for us in other ways.
TODD Popular media sometimes send us a very different message.
SFX “To Catch a Predator”
DIANE For years, “To Catch a Predator” was one of NBC’s top-rated prime time television shows. The show’s producers posed as teenagers online and wooed men to vacant houses with hidden cameras. When the men showed up, NBC reporters confronted them. It made thrilling TV.
TODD But it gives people a skewed vision of most sex crimes. David D’Amora.
D’AMORA What they don’t understand of course is that more often than not children have more to risk from their families and from their families’ friends than they do from strangers. That stranger sexual assault is extremely rare and that stranger sexual assault that results in the death of a child is extremely, extremely rare. You would not know that from television.
DIANE Another assumption is that sex offenders are hard wired to reoffend. Research shows only a very small proportion commit serial sex crimes. Franklin Zimring is a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
FRANKLIN ZIMRING Why do we assume it’s so high? Because we further assume that if somebody has a deviant sexual impulse, we either cure that deviant sexual impulse or they’re going to act on it. Well, that certainly isn’t true with what we know about drugs, smoking, and other kinds of criminal behavior. Why do we think it’s true in sex offenders?
DIANE Because, with sex offenses, no one—not legislators, not the public—is willing to risk a possible new crime. Recently, at least five states have imposed the death penalty for rape of a child.
ZIMRING The big lie is that most of the people we have in prison for sex crimes would do it again if we let them out. The uncomfortable truth is that a minority of them would, but they do enough of it so that we want to keep a lot more of them locked up. Rather than face our own true preferences, we tell ourselves a convenient lie.
SFX Public meeting
ANOKA POLICE CHIEF JOHANSON Welcome, and thank you for attending the meeting tonight. This is a community notification meeting for two Level 3 predatory offenders that will be moving into …
DIANE We’re at a public meeting in a Twin Cities suburb. Police and prison officials are speaking to a crowd at a local school. Mug shots of two men flash on the screen. The men will soon be released into the neighborhood.
PR LADY … is required to register as a predatory offender for life. That means that for the rest of his life he has to provide information about where he lives, where he works, if he goes to school, where that is, any changes in his appearance and any vehicles he drives.
DIANE Those words don’t calm the fears of Andrea Tangen. She lives two blocks away from where the sex offenders will be staying.
ANDREA TANGEN They did it more than once when they were first sent to prison and in my opinion, people like that are not rehabilitate-able.
DIANE Where would you put them?
ANDREA Anywhere you have schools and children, and everything. I guess my opinion is they shouldn’t be let out of prison, period. I am a victim of molestation myself. And they shouldn’t be let out at all.
DIANE Tangen’s friend, Lynnette Wenzel, says she’ll have to change the way she parents now.
LYNETTE WENZEL I have a 10-year-old daughter. I let her roam. Now, you know, I’m scared to death now. I don’t want her out of my house. I couldn’t even imagine. Cause I let my daughter go to the store. Never again.
DIANE These women aren’t alone in their opposition. More than 25 states and dozens of municipalities restrict where sex offenders can live. Residency restrictions keep sex offenders from living near schools, daycare centers and other places children gather.
TODD Ernie Allen is director of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. He understands why these laws are popular. Still, he says they often have unintended consequences.
ERNIE ALLEN Sex offenders have to live somewhere. Clustering them or having situations like we see in the Miami area, where a bunch of them are living under a bridge, is not in society’s best interest. The problem is not so much where they live as where they are, what they’re doing. In many ways, it creates a false sense of security. The guy may not live in your neighborhood, may not live within the radius of your elementary school, but is he coming into your community to be a volunteer at your church or coach your child’s soccer team?
TODD That’s where registration comes in. Under the federal Adam Walsh Act of 2006, every released felon with a sex offense is identified online. Allen supports the use of this act, to increase public safety.
ALLEN You begin with the premise that two-thirds of America’s sex offenders are not in jails and prisons, they’re in the community. So at a minimum, we need to know where they are and what they are doing. We need to insure that someone who has been convicted of molesting children is not holding employment in elementary schools or day care centers.
TODD Today, over 600 thousand sex offenders are registered online in the U.S. for crimes large and small.
DIANE For instance, online registries in 32 states include exhibitionists. In thirteen states, they include people caught urinating in public. And in 29 states, they include teens who’ve been charged with having sex with another teen.
TODD Ernie Allen thinks certain crimes don’t warrant registration.
ALLEN In a lot of states, there’s no way for a member of the public to differentiate a registered offender who was arrested under one of these Romeo-Juliet type things, when a 19-year-old had sex with a 15-year-old. Where that’s the case, we want to make sure that the public knows that the guy on their street who’s a registered sex offender doesn’t represent a very high risk.
TODD The Romeo-Juliet example is called statutory rape. It presents a special challenge. In most states, laws establish an age of consent. Usually it’s somewhere between 16 and 18 years old.
DIANE Anyone above that age who has sex with someone below it could wind up in prison.
TYREL KENNEDY My name is Tyrel Kennedy. I’m an inmate here at Lino Lakes. The date is August 14, 2006.
DIANE Tyrel was 17 when he began dating his 15-year-old girlfriend. But once he turned 18, their sexual relationship became illegal. That’s because it violated age-of-consent laws.
TODD Tyrel is 29 now. He’s gangly, with dirty blond hair.
DIANE To this day, he does not accept the label of “sex offender,” though it will follow him wherever he goes.
TYREL I know what went on. I know how much I loved her. I know that it was a relationship. I’d have done anything for her. I never did anything to hurt her. They still want to tell me, yeah, I raped this person. No, I didn’t. Just because it says on a piece of paper ‘statutory rape,’ that doesn’t mean I raped this person, you know.
DIANE We made several phone calls to get her side of the story, but we reached a dead end. So we searched court records. By her account the couple had sex several times a month, over a period of six months. Tyrel insists the sex was consensual.
TYREL When I go into a relationship, the main thing I’m seeking is a 50:50. If I wanted to do something, I talked it over with her, and it was in agreement with us. If she didn’t want to do it, we didn’t do it.
TODD Tyrel’s life was about to get even more complicated.
DIANE Tyrel served one year for statutory rape. He returned home, met a different woman and got engaged. She got pregnant. Then he got caught smoking pot and was sent back to prison for three more years because marijuana use violated his probation.
TODD It was during this stint in prison that his daughter, Elizabeth, was born. But the years in prison were long, and his fiancée broke it off with him.
DIANE Still, Tyrel was determined to be in his daughter’s life.
DIANE How often do you want to see Elizabeth?
TYREL Every day. One of the guys just asked me that. What do you want: to raise her. I don’t want a day apart. I want her there. I want to raise my kid.
DIANE We visited Tyrel several times in prison. Elizabeth was all he talked about. If there was a light at the end of the tunnel, it was her golden halo.
TYREL My first day of release we’ve already agreed to go over — she’s going to be home and everything — to see her.
DIANE So you’re going to see Elizabeth your first day of release? That’s intense.
TYREL Yeah, I don’t want to wait.
SFX Outdoors ambi
TODD Tyrel is sitting beneath a tree next to his dad’s trailer home. He has a can of Mountain Dew in one hand and a toy fishing pole in the other. Elizabeth is tugging at the line. She’s 3 years old.
TYREL Gotcha. Got it! Got a big one! I’ve got to reel it in. She’s a fighter. [Yay!]
TODD It’s been four months since Tyrel was released from prison. He met his daughter, as promised, on that first day out.
DIANE In many ways, Tyrel can be thankful he committed his offense in Minnesota. The state is known for its measured approach toward released sex offenders. For instance, it places greater restrictions on those considered to be of higher risk. Tyrel wasn’t in that category.
TODD Tyrel also has his ex-fiancee to thank. She could have tried to use his criminal history against him to prevent his relationship with Elizabeth.
DIANE He remembers the first time he met his daughter. Elizabeth was at her mother’s house. Her mom was standing on the porch, with a new boyfriend. As Tyrel stepped out of the car, he could feel their eyes on him. Elizabeth wasn’t in sight.
TYREL I was nervous. I didn’t know what was going to happen. She’s never seen me or nothing. She’s only heard me over the phone. So I didn’t know: Is she going to like me? Is she gonna be afraid of me? Is, I mean, she’s a little kid, is she gonna know who I am?
DIANE Tyrel climbed the porch steps. His former fiancee gave him a nod. He opened the screen door.
TYREL Elizabeth was sitting there on the floor by herself, playing with Legos, building a castle. I said her name, Elizabeth. And she turns around, sees me, gets up, walks right up to me and goes “Daddy!” And wraps her arms around me. It was just one of those…a pretty great moment.
TODD Tyrel struggled to find work after prison. Eventually he found a job as a church janitor.
DIANE He spends his weekends with Elizabeth. He’s cooking her hot dogs for lunch.
DIANE What does she call you?
TYREL What do you call me? Who am I?
ELIZABETH Daddy Ty!
TYREL There you go.
TODD Unlike other offenders in this story, Tyrel wasn’t put on probation when we interviewed him after his release.
DIANE Still, his photo, workplace and home address will appear on a national sex offender online database for a decade.
MUSIC Death Cab for Cutie, “Transatlanticism,” from Six Feet Under, Vol. 2
TODD After a short break, we’ll explore how some states are handling the most violent offenders. And we’ll meet a man who prosecutors considered locking up forever.
MICHAEL ANDREWS I was one of those type of people where if you weren’t for me you were against me. And if you were against me then, I don’t know, God have mercy on you cause I was going to getcha.
Segment C
60-second interlude: MUSIC Philip Glass, “Etude V,” Etudes for Piano
MUSIC Death Cab for Cutie, “Transatlanticism,” from Six Feet Under, Vol. 2
DIANE You’re listening to a special report, “No Brother of Mine.” I’m Diane Richard.
TODD I’m Todd Melby. If you’ve just tuned in, we’re in the final chapter of our documentary about sex offender policies. Because this segment deals with the most violent offenders, it may not be appropriate for all audiences.
SFX PRISON Count in Progress / Guardhouse
MICHAEL ANDREWS My name is Mike Andrews. I’m here at Lino Lakes Correctional Facility. Today’s date is August 25, 2006.
DIANE You can tell how Michael Andrews has been feeling by the length of his hair. If he’s got an afro, he’ll be easy-going, even jokey. He’ll tell you the big plans he has once he gets released. If he’s bald, he’ll stare at you until you have to look away.
TODD When we first met Michael, he was locked up for raping his girlfriend’s 10-year-old daughter.
DIANE He told us how he groomed his victim. He bought her presents. He took her side in arguments. He stretched the rules when her mom wasn’t around. That’s how it started, he said.
TODD It wasn’t his first sex crime. Twenty years earlier, Michael and several other men were convicted of gang raping a young woman.
MICHAEL I have a history of violence.
TODD He’s also been arrested for the malicious punishment of a child, domestic abuse, possession of a handgun and possession of a stolen car. He knows his criminal record scares people.
MICHAEL The way society looks at us, they have a right to be scared. They have a right to look at us as if we are ugly people. Cause we did ugly things.
DIANE Michael says his mother was a prostitute and his father, a man he never met, was her pimp. As a teenager, Michael joined a gang. Court records say he was a member of the Disciples.
TODD He told us that he ran with the 60s Crips. His street name was Smurf.
DIANE You have talked about a box of your crimes, like a box full of papers that document your crimes. Can you think about when you were perpetrating the crimes, did you have any foreknowledge of, someday I’m really going to regret this? What I hear from you is…
MICHAEL Didn’t even care. Nope, I didn’t care. I was living life for me. I was a taker. I took from anybody and everybody I could. I was one of those type of people where if you weren’t for me you were against me. And if you were against me then, I don’t know, God have mercy on you, cause I was going to getcha.
TODD Why do you think you were sexually attracted to this child?
MICHAEL [breathes] Well, I think because I wasn’t dealing with a lot of my own stuff. One thing I wasn’t dealing well with was rejection from age-appropriate women.
DIANE These days, at 42, he says he’s not the threat he once was. But the State of Minnesota is not so sure. Just months before his scheduled release, Michael received a letter notifying him that he might not get out, perhaps ever. Prosecutors were considering him for something called civil commitment.
MICHAEL What happens first is you get notified that they’re reviewing your case for commitment. And once you get that, it’s instant alarm.
TODD Civil commitment is a rare and controversial approach to keeping sex offenders off the street for fear of crimes they might commit in the future. After inmates serve their criminal sentences, a small number of them — considered to be the worst of the worst — are reviewed for an indefinite sentence in a psychiatric hospital.
DIANE About twenty states employ civil commitment. Those include California, Minnesota, New York and Washington.
TODD In Minnesota, more than 550 men are institutionalized under civil commitment. That’s the highest number per capita in the country.
DIANE The open-ended commitment lasts until the person can demonstrate that he or she is no longer dangerous.
TODD Michael knows that, if committed, he might never see the light of day again.
MICHAEL It probably would have been better if I’d murdered somebody. I probably wouldn’t be going through this. At least not commitment. They don’t commit murderers, do they?
TODD Eric Janus opposes civil commitment. He’s a lawyer and dean of William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul. He’s the author of “Failure to Protect: America’s Sexual Predator Laws and the Rise of the Preventive State.”
ERIC JANUS Most of us would do whatever we could do to prevent someone else from being hurt. The problem is that, in order to do that, we have to trample on a lot of our fundamental ideas about civil liberties and what our democracy is about.
TODD To be civilly committed, a court must decide that someone like Michael has a mental disorder and poses a risk of future sexual harm. The court weighs a number of factors before making that decision, including the individual’s criminal and mental history, the type of sex crime perpetrated and age.
DIANE Proponents call it treatment that helps keep the public safe.
TODD Opponents call it a penalty and a threat to civil liberties. Eric Janus.
JANUS This is a legal technique that is on the edge of constitutionality. When we make that shift and we begin taking away people’s liberty based not on what they’ve done in the past, but our concern about the risk they pose for the future, that’s when we cross over into a very dangerous territory
TODD Many Americans if not most Americans seem perfectly willing to cede their liberty or someone else’s liberty in exchange for safety.
JANUS I think that’s the key. We’re, many people are willing to cede someone else’s liberty in exchange for safety. We think of quote, unquote these people—sex offenders—as monsters, as less than full citizens. It’s clear that the series of laws that we’ve passed is based on a notion of what I would call a “degraded other.”
DIANE Susan Gaertner is Ramsey County Attorney in St. Paul, Minnesota. It’s her office’s job to decide whether people like Michael Andrews should get another chance. She supports civil commitment.
SUSAN GAERTNER I think it is appropriate. I think we’re safer because of it.
DIANE Gaertner isn’t in a position to take any chances.
GAERTNER If you get one of them wrong, if you decide you don’t have enough evidence to proceed, that this isn’t a case that you should pursue and you’re wrong and they go out and commit another offense, that’s a horrible situation that no one in my position wants to be in.
DIANE Since a highly publicized rape-murder in Minnesota in 2003, Gaertner’s workload has exploded. In 2002, 13 men were considered for civil commitment in Minnesota. Just two years later, that number spiked to 170.
TODD What happened in 2003 was the kidnapping, rape and murder of a college student, Dru Sjodin. The perpetrator—Alfonso Rodriguez—was a released Minnesota sex offender.
DIANE Gaertner reviews every case being considered for civil commitment in Ramsey County. She points to a stack of files that reaches almost to her shoulders.
DIANE What kind of toll does that take?
GAERTNER It was kind of rough going initially because the crimes are graphic, the tragedy is apparent. It would wear on me. But now to some extent my problem is keeping them straight because it begins to sound very much like the same behavior over and over again. You get sort of numb.
TODD After a suspenseful six months, Michael Andrews got what he wanted—yet another chance. Susan Gaertner’s office decided not to attempt to civilly commit him. She refused to discuss any specific case with us.
DIANE Michael’s been out of prison for two years now. He’s had several different apartments and one job. Life on the outside has been tough.
MICHAEL I got out thinking things were gonna be easy: I was gonna get a job, I was gonna save some money, and everything was going to be cool. And it’s not cool. It’s not.
DIANE That’s because his job, tearing apart wooden pallets, paid only $8 an hour. He worked that job for almost two years. Then he got fired.
TODD Without employment, offenders may be more likely to violate parole. Michael told us he’s considered dealing drugs, but that the consequences of getting caught are too great.
MICHAEL I can’t afford to go back to prison. Prison’s played out. I’ve been to prison four or five times. I’m a five-time felon. One more crime puts me off the grid. I can’t do it. I would rather hold court in the streets before I go back to prison. I would rather they kill me.
SFX Phalen Park
TODD It’s a late summer day. Michael invited us to the lake where he used to hang out.
MICHAEL Back in the day, Phalen was the park to come to when you wanted to see all the old school cars. I’m talking about Novas, Cudas. Just old-school cars.
TODD Michael’s girlfriend, Andreia, has joined us for the outing. They’ve been together for a year.
DIANE And they’ve known each other since they were teens.
ANDREIA In high school I had a big, big, big crush.
TODD But they hadn’t seen each other for decades. Then one day she ran into him on a bus.
DIANE So after some 20 years, what’s the first thing she did? She went online to see if he had a criminal record.
DIANE When did he tell you everything that happened?
MICHAEL That’s a good question.
ANDREIA He was forced. I looked him up on the Internet. I told him to tell me and don’t lie. He didn’t lie, he told me everything.
TODD Why is his past O.K. with you?
ANDREIA I mean, it’s not O.K. I don’t condone what he did. But I feel that everybody deserves a second chance at life. He messed up. He made a mistake. He did it. He went to prison for it. O.K., let him live his life and get over it. Let it go.
MUSIC Solo the Soloist (aka Michael Andrews) “I’m Still Here,” Black Rose Mafia
TODD After he got out of prison, Michael did something he’s always wanted to do: write and record a rap album.
MICHAEL This song right here, there are only two verses, both verses are based on true events. The first verse is about some guys who shot me after a crap game. The second verse is I got jumped by rival gang members. So if you really listen to it, it tells about everything that happened.
TODD Michael may rap about the past. But if he wants Andreia to be in his future, he’d better stay out of prison.
ANDREIA I’d say I’d wait. But I don’t know if I could. I don’t know. But it’s not going to happen. I’m not going to let him. [laughs]
TODD Why are you confident he’s going to do the right thing and be O.K.?
ANDREIA I have a lot of faith in Michael. And I think I was a good thing in his life.
MUSIC
TODD It’s been four years since we started reporting this story. Over that time, we conducted about three dozen interviews with the four Minnesota offenders you’ve heard this hour.
DIANE Reggie, Ronnie, Tyrel and Michael have made their way back into society. None has been rearrested. A lot has happened in each of their lives.
REGGIE My name is Reggie. Today is Friday. I’m in my new place of residence…
TODD Reggie, the car salesman, kept taking better job offers, working his way up to a big media company. Then he was laid off — hit, he said, by the bad economy.
DIANE It was about that time Reggie stopped agreeing to interviews with us. He said he wanted to keep a lower profile.
TODD But in a recent e-mail, he wrote that his job search had been frustrating. Twice, after being upfront about his criminal record, he received written job offers, only to get shot down later by H.R. He has since gotten work as a salesman for the health care industry.
DIANE Reggie has had a few girlfriends since Tiffany, though he’s single now.
RONNIE My name is Ronnie. Well, you know, treatment is still going good, you know…
TODD Ronnie’s still got the same job, working as a factory handyman. Now he’s welding, and he hopes to get certified to operate a forklift. He wants to earn extra money so he can buy a house for his new family.
DIANE That’s because Ronnie got married, to a woman with five kids. They met at church. We attended the wedding, though we were asked to leave our recording equipment behind.
TODD Because Ronnie’s crime was against a child, warning flares went up over his plans to marry. His wife’s children are all teenagers.
DIANE Before the wedding, Ronnie says he and his fiancée met with his parole officer and went through intensive therapy sessions together. They continue to attend a weekly couples meeting.
TODD Ronnie says his new responsibilities, at work, at home and at church, help him to stay sober and accountable.
TYREL My name is Tyrel Kennedy. My daughter seems to be getting a lot taller and a lot older. She’s growing up real quick…
DIANE Tyrel still spends weekends with his daughter Elizabeth. He just got his boiler license and is getting a diploma in building maintenance.
TODD Although things are going well, Tyrel does have some concerns. The top one is at his janitorial job, at the church. The man who hired him knows about his criminal record. But the church board has passed a new policy, requiring background checks on all employees. Now Tyrel fears he may lose his job.
DIANE Tyrel is also worried about his neighbors. He’s living with his new fiancée now in a nice neighborhood. But every six months or so, a sheriff drives up to take his picture and ask him questions. He hopes those visits don’t alarm the neighbors. He wants to put down roots.
TODD Neighbors don’t always want released sex offenders around, even if they stay out of trouble.
DIANE Like Andrea Tangen. We met her at that sex offender community notification meeting a few months ago.
SFX Apartment building entryway
ANDREA TANGEN Hi, Jim. How are you doing today?
JIM OK, so far.
TODD Andrea knows pretty much everybody at the apartment building she manages. It’s a three-story cement-block building located on a dead-end street.
DIANE We step inside Andrea’s apartment. A TV plays cartoons. A kitten chases her toddler around on the floor.
SFX Apartment sounds
DIANE Andrea remembers the day she told neighbors about the sex offenders moving in nearby.
ANDREA As soon as I handed the notices out and got all the parents — I was going knocking door-to-door to hand ’em to ’em after I put up the notice — and all the parents whose childrens were outside ran outside and brought them in the house.
DIANE But a few months later, some kids started playing outdoors unsupervised. Not her kids.
ANDREA I know me personally and a couple of other apartments, our children ain’t out of our sight, do not go outside unless we’re there.
DIANE So it sounds like your alert is still up? I was wondering if it might have even might have smoothed over.
ANDREA Not at all. Not at all.
DIANE As a survivor of sexual abuse, Andrea says she’ll always be vigilant. But she thinks, ultimately, people have to take responsibility for their own actions.
ANDREA You know, you hear, yes, how they were raised or abused or what not. Then you need…Go and get help. Go and get help. Before you allow something like that to happen, go and get help. Talk to somebody. Get medicated. Whatever you need to do. Prevent it.
MUSIC Kronos Quartet, “Flugufrelsarinn” (Kronos version)
ANNOUNCER You’ve been listening to “No Brother of Mine,” a documentary reported and produced by Diane Richard and Todd Melby. The editor was Robbie Harris.
Diane Richard and Todd Melby are senior producers at 2 below zero, independent producers of public media. For more information on this program, including a list of resources and studies, go to 2belowzero.org. That’s the number two, below zero.org.
Support for this program came from the Fund for Investigative Journalism and individual donors to 2 below zero.
Thanks for listening.
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