The Puzzle of Housing Aging Sex Offenders

6-1-17 National:

States are grappling with how to care for a growing population of registered offenders in long-term care facilities.

When state officials finally released William Cubbage from the Iowa Mental Health Institute in 2010, they predicted he was too sick to hurt anyone again. But the octogenarian only became an even more notorious sex offender.

Between 1987 and 2000, Cubbage was convicted in four separate cases of assault. Then, a year after his release, he molested a 95-year-old woman in a nursing home. Neither the home’s patients nor their families had been notified of his history. The woman’s relatives were unable to sue, when the Iowa Supreme Court ruled the state was not legally liable. The state took Cubbage back, and in 2016 he was in the news again for allegedly trying to grope a care worker during a bath.

New bill would remove sex offenders from group homes

Do all lawmakers have a brain the size of a pea? Here we see a bill supposedly to protect folks in group homes, there because of a physical or mental need, displacing folks who have the same need but are on a registry for a former sex offense many years ago. OK, now what do these pea brained lawmakers do with the folks their bill displaced? These are still citizens with a Americans with Disability Act need, who could use that Act to sue the state for discrimination.

3-17-15 New York:

It was a story that left a lot of people outraged. In one of our exclusive New York State Exposed segments, we told you about the state moving sex offenders into group homes right in the middle of neighborhoods.

Now, if passed, a new bill would ban sex offenders from being housed along with people with developmental disabilities; people lawmakers say are the most vulnerable in our society.

On Monday, we followed up with the Cades who live right near a group home on North Road. We checked. There is still a registered sex offender living there. The Cades feel some relief hearing about the senate bill, but they say they won’t rest until this bill becomes law, and they get some new neighbors.

“You never know, if you’re walking in your yard or on the street just going for a walk, who you’re going to run into,” said Beth Cade, lives next to group home.

Some Curbs on Sex Offenders Called Ineffective, Inhumane

11-22-2006 Georgia:

As convicted sex offenders go, they seem to pose little danger.

One is 100 years old. Another can barely walk and is in the late stages of Alzheimer's disease. Another is dying of heart disease in a nursing home.

Yet under a new Georgia law, thousands of registered sex offenders, even the old and feeble, could be pushed from their homes and hospices.

"He doesn't really know anything about it," said Ruby Anderson, 77, whose husband was convicted of having sex with a minor in 1997 and, at 81, no longer recognizes members of his family because of Alzheimer's disease. "The trouble is, I just don't know where we can go."

As states around the country have sought in recent years to control the whereabouts of convicted sex offenders, Georgia's law stands out as one of the toughest, a testament to the daunting public fears regarding children's safety.

Long-Term Care Facilities: Information on Residents Who Are Registered Sex Offenders or Are Paroled for Other Crimes

March 2006 National:

Approximately 23,000 nursing homes and intermediate care facilities for people with mental retardation (ICF-MR) receive federal Medicare and Medicaid funding. Media reports have cited examples of convicted sex offenders residing in long-term care facilities and, in some cases, allegedly abusing other residents. Given concerns about resident safety, GAO was asked to assess (1) the prevalence of sex offenders and others on parole for non-sex offenses living in long-term care facilities and the extent of any abuse they may have caused, (2) the legal requirements for notifying facilities and others when offenders are residents, and (3) the extent to which facilities have different supervision and separation requirements for offenders. GAO analyzed a national database for sex offenders and analyzed state databases in a sample of eight states for sex offenders and parolees. ..Continued.. GAO Office

Problem nursing home in Fayette County closes its doors

2-14-2014 Ohio:

A long-troubled nursing home in southwestern Ohio — the one that was home to more registered sex offenders than any other in the state — has officially closed.

The last one of 131 residents at Carlton Manor in Washington Court House in Fayette County was moved today.

Carlton Manor had become the state’s de facto nursing home for people who were difficult to place. In addition to 27 registered sex offenders living there, nearly all the other residents had some sort of behavioral, psychological or mental-health problem. Many had a history of violent or aggressive behavior and some had criminal backgrounds.

The Ohio Department of Health, which licenses nursing homes, said in January it was revoking the home’s license because of a series of failed inspections and a history of trouble, which included not reporting suspected sexual abuse and improperly restraining residents. The government has pulled the home’s Medicaid and Medicare funding.

Of the 131 residents in the facility when the state ordered the closure, 99 moved to other nursing facilities; 21 went to developmental-disability centers; four were placed in mental-health group homes; three moved home; and four died of natural causes.

Finding new homes for all the residents went more smoothly than expected, said Tessie Pollock, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Health.