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A Message From The Chief About Sex Offender Registration

Recently the State of Maine announced the launching of the Maine Sex Offender Registry Search web site. Prior to this, the Scarborough Police Department had already taken a proactive stance and for over a year now has had registered sex offenders posted on our web site.

As a result of the recent media coverage, many citizens have focused more attention on knowing about registered sex offenders in their community. Although I am pleased to see that citizens are taking the time to keep themselves informed, this recent attention has also caused some confusion, misunderstanding, and unwarranted fear. Because of that I would like to explain a little bit about how this process works and how the Scarborough Police Department handles these matters.

The Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act of 1999 requires registration of individuals convicted of certain sex related crimes and sentenced after June 30, 1992 . If an individual is convicted of a sexual offense that is regulated by Title 34-A MSRA, Section 15 , the state will accordingly classify an individual as either a “10 Year Registrant” or “Lifetime Registrant” Contrary to popular belief, not all of these offenses involve children.

In the event that a “10 Year Registrant” or “Lifetime Registrant” moves to Scarborough or is released from incarceration to return to his/her home in Scarborough , the State of Maine will notify the Scarborough Police Department. Upon notification, Detective Eric Greenleaf will begin a file review. This review will include case facts, probation reports, risk assessments, and other pertinent documents as well as a personal interview with the offender and if the offender is on probation, the probation officer assigned to this case.

During the course of the review, Detective Greenleaf will keep me apprised of any information that might indicate a need for immediate neighborhood intervention. I know that many people have asked why the Scarborough Police Department does not do door–to-door notifications or leafleting as they have seen in other communities. The answer is twofold. The first deals with sheer volume. At the time of this writing Scarborough has six registered offenders living in our community, while at the same time the City of Portland has 59 registered offenders. With the larger number of overall offenders comes a larger number of the dangerous and violent individuals that would warrant this type of notification. The second part of the answer deals with the offenders themselves. For a variety of demographic reasons, many of the more dangerous and violent offenders choose to live in larger urban communities.

With respect to public notification, the law leaves it to the discretion of the Police Department to determine what level of notification, if any, is necessary to ensure the safety of the community. It has been, and will continue to be, my policy to commence an immediate neighbor intervention (leafleting, face-to-face notification, reverse 911 notifications, etc.) in any case where a real and imminent danger to the community exists. I do, however, feel that overuse of these methods can lead to complacency on the part of our citizens. If and when there comes a time that you see Scarborough Police Department conducting door-to -door notifications I want you to recognize that we have perceived a very real threat to our community.

I can certainly appreciate the fact that knowing that an offender is living nearby can make us very uncomfortable.  We do, however, need to take some comfort in the fact that at least this is someone that we know about and can identify. The reality is that there could in fact be other individuals living in our community whose crimes have gone unreported and have never been identified.

That is why I think it is so important for us to teach our children about talking with strangers and the dangers of being lured into unsafe places as well as to help them understand what are or are not appropriate behaviors for people with whom they come in contact. These lessons should be taught and reinforced on an on-going basis and not just when there is an indication that an offender may be living nearby. 

The questions that have been raised however have made me think about ways that we might better keep you informed about registered offenders in our community. In order to accomplish this we have developed a submission form for you to supply us with your e-mail address in the event that you are interested in receiving an e-mail notification each time there is a modification to the sex offender section of our web site. This notification would be triggered any time that an offender is added, removed, or edited on our site.

I hope that this information and the information contained in the links to other sites that we have provided is helpful to you. Should you feel that you need additional information that is not provided please feel free to contact me 207-883-6361.

Be Safe,

Robert Moulton

Chief of Police