Sexual offender registry still a work in progress

WINDOW ROCK, May 8, 2008

The Navajo Nation is probably a year away from getting a sex offenders registry set up on the Navajo Reservation.

Robert Platero, a spokesman for the Criminal Investigations Department within the police department, said tribal officials have been working for months to get the sex registry up and running.

Currently, the sex registry is overseen by the various county sheriffs' departments in New Mexico and Arizona and the Bureau of Prisons in Utah.

They're responsible for overseeing the hundreds of Navajos and non-Navajos living on the reservation who have been convicted of sex-related crimes, including child abuse and molestation.

Platero said that the tribal police work with the off-reservation law enforcement offices when the tribe receives a request for help in locating people who have not signed up for the registry or who have failed to show up for their scheduled meetings to update information.

But the tribe has received a $300,000 federal grant to set up their own sexual offenders registry and take over the monitoring of sexual offenders on the reservation.

The tribe currently has received the names of 427 individuals who are required by law to register as sex offenders, Platero said, but this is only a partial list provided by six of the 13 counties that cover the reservation.

Those counties that have provided information are Coconino, Navajo and Apache in Arizona and McKinley, San Juan and Bernalillo in New Mexico.

Platero said the tribe contacted the Bureau of Prisons in Utah but officials there admit that they are still "trying to get up to speed" on dealing with people who live in Indian reservations in the state.

What the tribe is planning is pretty much what the counties and the states now do - set up a Web site where people can see who in their area has been convicted of sexual offenses.

Platero said in some chapters the tribe is looking at designing posters that show who in their community has been convicted of sex offenses and where they live.

Not everyone on the reservation is happy to see this done, Platero said.

Many persons who should be on the registry refuse to sign up because they don't want the stigma of having their community know about their past problems. Their families argued that there is no good reason to bring up these past problems.

But Platero said that it's not only the law but people in the community have the right to know if there is someone in the community who may be a threat to their children.

One of the things that will have to be addressed as the tribe gets further along with the process is how tough the tribe will be about enforcing federal laws that say persons convicted of crimes regarding children cannot live within a certain distance of a school.

There may be cases where family home leases, some that go back generations, may be located too close to a school.

Should the family lose its leasehold or should the tribe force the person who has been convicted of sexual offenses to move away from the family?

The Navajo Nation Council will have to address these kinds of issues, said Platero.

He stressed that this is not only a law enforcement endeavor. A number of Navajo government departments, from social services to public defenders and from the president's office to the Department of Justice, have been working with law enforcement officials to come up with a program that protects reservation residents as well as deals with tribal and traditional aspects of the problem.

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