|
|
10/17/06
Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --
Does the punishment fit the crime or is Proposition 83 too harsh even for sex offenders?
Ron Smith>> Our children are the most important thing that we have, so anything that we can do to protect them.
Dr. Wesley Maram>> There's absolutely no research, not one iota of valid research, that indicates where a person lives is related to sex-offending behavior.
Val Zavala>> And then, one day soon we'll all be touch-screen voting, but can we trust democracy to machines?
These stories and more next on tonight's Life and Times.
Announcer>> Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.
And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.
Val Zavala>> It's one of the most difficult crimes to understand. How could an adult molest a child? And in the case you're about to meet, his own granddaughter. Well, now voters are being asked whether they want to toughen the penalties for sex offenders and put them on high-tech tracking devices. Will it work? Sam Louie takes a look at both sides of Proposition 83.
Sam Louie>> He agreed to share his story with us only if we protected his identity. We'll call him "Paul". Paul is a convicted sex offender.
"Paul">> I've lived some sixty-some years with only a couple of minor traffic violations in my history.
Sam Louie>> He was found guilty of lewd or lascivious acts with a child under fourteen years old, his granddaughter.
"Paul">> She was six and a half when this happened and, up until that time, I had no inclinations of doing anything like that. I love my granddaughter. When I was doing this, I wasn't even aware that it was a crime. I mean, I didn't think -- because if I'd have thought that, it wouldn't have happened.
Sam Louie>> It happened two years ago when Paul was babysitting her. First, there were strange signs.
"Paul">> One evening, I tucked her into bed. I was going to tell her goodnight and I sat on the edge of the bed and looked in her eyes and I saw, in my mind, like a nineteen or twenty year old girl.
Sam Louie>> A few weeks later, it culminated with the crime.
"Paul">> You know, it was the furthest thing from my mind, but then the third weekend that she was here, we were watching television and it happened. I touched her in an inappropriate place.
Sam Louie>> Eventually, his own son questioned him. Paul acknowledged the wrong behavior and was sentenced to a year in jail with five years probation. As part of his probation, he must register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. He's also required to go to counseling, see his probation officer and stay away from all children.
"Paul">> "Do not associate with minors or frequent places where minors congregate, including, but not limited to, school yards, parks, amusement parks, concerts, playgrounds, swimming pools and arcades." That's pretty restrictive.
Sam Louie>> But should the punishment be more restrictive? That's what supporters of Proposition 83 are hoping for. Provisions of Proposition 83 on November's ballot would increase penalties for violent and habitual sex offenders and child molesters. It would require lifetime GPS monitoring of their whereabouts. It would also toughen restrictions on where sex offenders could live, extending the residential restrictions from thirteen hundred feet of any school to two thousand feet of any school or park.
Ron Smith>> I think that's the main reason to keep them away from there and not living by there because what they do is, they get into those neighborhoods. They start ingratiating themselves to the children or to the, you know, school and that's how they are able to build that relationship. So I think it's important to try to keep them away.
Sam Louie>> So how effective are residency restrictions in deterring sex crimes against minors? Opponents of Proposition 83 say not very.
Dr. Wesley Maram>> There's absolutely no research, not one iota of valid research, that indicates where a person lives is related to sex-offending behavior.
Sam Louie>> Dr. Wesley Maram is a forensic psychologist. He also evaluates sex offenders for the state's Department of Mental Health. Maram says that Proposition 83 would force many sex offenders to move, severely disrupting their ability to rehabilitate.
Dr. Wesley Maram>> What keeps them stable is employment and people knowing who they are and where they are and living a responsible life.
Sam Louie>> He says other states that have passed tougher restrictions have been disappointed in the results.
Dr. Wesley Maram>> In Iowa, the District Attorney's Association of the County of Iowa has gone on record requesting that they rescind their residency restriction laws for sex offenders. They recognized that it's not working. It's ineffective and it's going to drive people underground. They now have three times the number of people that have failed to register compared to what they had before the law.
Sam Louie>> And how would tougher residence restrictions impact someone like Paul?
"Paul">> I would probably have to sell my house and move somewhere else. We couldn't sell here and buy here because of the prices the way they are now. We'd have to move out of the area, which means she'd have to quit her job unless we rented someplace, but rents are expensive, if not more than house payments.
Sam Louie>> But are children likely to be snatched and molested at a park or school? Statistics show that's highly unlikely.
Dr. Wesley Maram>> Ninety percent of the sex offenders are people that they know. They're typically family members or neighbors that you know, trust and love and been involved in your life.
Sam Louie>> Another controversial provision of Proposition 83 is the GPS requirements. It would require that sex offenders be monitored their entire lives by wearing GPS, or Global Positioning Satellite ankle bracelets. Currently, GPS is used only on those most likely to re-offend. But if Proposition 83 passes, GPS would be used on all sex offenders like Paul.
"Paul">> I don't see where they are like persecuted the rest of their lives so much. I mean, like a murderer. I don't know if they have to wear GPS. I don't see people carrying placards around the place where somebody lives because they know that a murderer lives there or attempted murderer or any serious crime.
Sam Louie>> Maram says GPS tracking would be completely impractical, that there isn't enough manpower to monitor everyone and it would cost the state tens of millions of dollars.
Dr. Wesley Maram>> There are a hundred four thousand individuals that are registered sex offenders. Let's get real. Do you really think that we have that many police officers to follow those individuals and to monitor them on a computer?
Sam Louie>> Maram adds that only three percent of sex offenders are violent predators.
Dr. Wesley Maram>> Especially violent predators, the ones we read about. They appear to be a very nasty group of people that are very dangerous and need to be handled in a very assertive and aggressive fashion.
Sam Louie>> But retired Los Angeles County deputy sheriff, Ron Smith, says that the financial cost of GPS tracking is high, but worth it.
Ron Smith>> There was a parolee that they put an ankle bracelet on and, within three weeks, they found him to have gone to a school, to a Doll House, and to a kid's amusement park. Because of the GPS system, they were able to track him within fifty feet of where he was and now he's back in prison because of that.
Sam Louie>> Supporters of the measure believe Proposition 83 will give them the additional peace of mind they're looking for.
Ron Smith>> A lot of these child molesters are not rehabilitative. They always go back. There's a high reoccurrence, so any way to track them and keep them under control or keep them in prison longer is important.
Sam Louie>> As for Paul, regardless of what voters decide on come election day, he'll continue to try to put his life back together.
"Paul">> Because I am a responsible person. I dealt with it. My life is virtually destroyed since this happened. Right at the time when I should be thinking of the golden years, you know, and being able to enjoy life, well, that's gone basically and, if I mess up when I'm on probation, I go to prison for ten years.
Sam Louie>> I'm Sam Louie for Life and Times.
Val Zavala>> So what do you think of GPS tracking for sex offenders? Let us know on our Blog. Just go to kcet.org and click on the Life and Times Blog. And if you'd like information on this and all the initiatives on the ballot, you can go to voterguide.ss.ca.gov.
Announcer>> Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, plus transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org, scroll down the page and click on "Life and Times".
Val Zavala>> This November, a third of all the precincts across the country will be offering voters electronic voting. Instead of paper ballots, you'll be able to touch a computer screen. But are computers trustworthy? Spencer Michaels takes a look at electronic democracy.
Spencer Michaels>> Kim Alexander is looking for trouble.
Kim Alexander>> "Are you the polling inspector?"
Spencer Michaels>> At the polling place.
Kim Alexander>> "Hi, I'm Kim Alexander. I'm with the California Voter Foundation."
Spencer Michaels>> As Director of the nonprofit California Voter Foundation, she spent primary election day trying to find out how well new touch-screen electronic voting machines were working.
Kim Alexander>> "What do you think about using the touch-screen voting machine?"
>> "I think it's wonderful myself."
Spencer Michaels>> While some voters told her they liked them, Alexander was dismayed by security problems she found.
Kim Alexander>> "The other polling place I went to had a little sticker there."
>> "Yeah. One of my workers pulled them off. I have them written down."
Kim Alexander>> "Oh, how come they pulled it off?"
>> "They didn't know which one they were supposed to take off."
Kim Alexander>> "Which sticker were they supposed to take off?"
>> "This one."
Kim Alexander>> At this polling place here this morning, they had trouble getting the machines started and one poll worker told me that they had an anxiety attack and they started tearing all the seals off all of the machines. Three out of the four machines in this polling place do not have those security seals on them right now.
Spencer Michaels>> Those security seals are designed to prevent tampering by anyone and that's a concern now that much of the country has switched to electronic voting machines. The switch was made in response to problems voters had with punch-card voting systems in the disputed and protracted 2000 Florida presidential election. Two years later, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act and appropriated $3.8 billion dollars to buy new voting machines and to otherwise improve elections.
Kim Alexander>> A lot of states rushed out and bought new electronic voting machines, thinking that that would solve all of their problems. What we found is that those systems are not only more expensive than paper voting systems, but they're also less transparent and they are hardly glitch-free.
Spencer Michaels>> At this polling place in Stockton, California, some seniors had trouble using the touch-screens and needed help from poll workers.
Don LeBlanc>> "Vote for Secretary of State and it will come back to you write-in. So if you don't do it within two minutes, the machine shuts down."
Spencer Michaels>> What do you see this time with these machines?
Don LeBlanc>> Confusing.
Spencer Michaels>> What do you mean?
Don LeBlanc>> Most of the people who come in here are elderly and they're intimidated by the machines.
Spencer Michaels>> At the heart of the most recent controversy over computerized touch-screen machines is the security of memory cards which store the ballots and votes inside the machine. In Utah, the computer scientist named Harry Hursti investigated the security of a particular machine made by Diebold Election Systems. He found that hackers could reprogram the memory cards to make the machines either completely shut down or throw votes to a different candidate.
David Jefferson is a computer scientist who works at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and has independently reviewed Hursti's work for California's Secretary of State.
David Jefferson>> What Mr. Hursti discovered in Utah is the most serious vulnerability that we've ever seen in a voting system. This particular vulnerability is serious enough that you can affect multiple machines from a single attack. That's what makes it so dangerous. I can't talk about it any more detailed than that because we're trying to keep the technical details of this vulnerability secret until the problem is fixed.
Spencer Michaels>> Mark Radke, Marketing Director for Diebold, says it's not possible to infect multiple machines and the problem is being exaggerated.
Mark Radke>> I think a very minimal issue is being sensationalized to people. It's a situation where a lot of the procedures, a lot of the layers of protection involved with electronic voting that you see in every jurisdiction, are being ignored. Of course, the units are stored in locked enclosures. There is testing before every election. Also, each and every one of the units is tagged with a security audit tag after it's tested to ensure that no tampering takes place.
Spencer Michaels>> In San Joaquin County, the Registrar of Voters says that the security procedures she has in place make it virtually impossible for a hacker to get into her system.
Deborah Hench>> They've got to break into my warehouse, the floor we deploy, and have to change sixteen hundred sixty units. They're going to have to do it all within about an hour or two because my alarm is going off somewhere along the line and we expect the police department to be there shortly. We send our database to the Secretary of State before election day and then we have to send another copy afterwards so that they can compare it to see that nothing has been changed.
Spencer Michaels>> In the June election, California enforced for the first time procedures to ensure that votes were correctly recorded, including a requirement that voters be able to look at their electronic votes on a paper printout. In addition, state law mandates a manual recount of one percent of the ballot, which is impossible to do without a paper trail. But on election day, it wasn't clear that poll workers understood that voters were supposed to look at the paper printout.
Don LeBlanc>> "Every time you vote for one, you get this."
Spencer Michaels>> Don LeBlanc mans the polls in Stockton. Well, they get to look at the paper trails to see if they voted correctly.
Don LeBlanc>> Well, you're looking at the computer screens.
Spencer Michaels>> But not the paper itself?
Don LeBlanc>> No, just the computer.
>> "You're finished voting?"
>> "Yeah, I'm finished here."
>> "Okay. Just put next."
Spencer Michaels>> When California's protections are enforced, computer scientist David Jefferson thinks they're effective, but he's worried about states that don't have them.
David Jefferson>> I'm more concerned about other states that don't have the voter-verified paper trail, don't have a manual account procedure, or perhaps are not even well-informed about the issues.
[Film Clip]
Spencer Michaels>> Many voting activists are not convinced that electronic voting can be made safe. They've staged protests from Washington, D.C. to Point Reyes Station, California. Megan Matson, founder of Main Street Moms, favors a paper-based system that is scanned optically and counted at the polling place.
Megan Matson>> We've got to go back to the future and have paper ballots optically scanned with audits or hand-counted so that we can all trust that we're electing who we elect.
Spencer Michaels>> Warren Stewart is with Vote Trust USA.
Warren Stewart>> No one can observe the counting of votes on an electronic voting machine. If they took the ballot, went into a dark room and came out and told us what the results are, we'd simply have to trust them.
Mark Radke>> There's a small group of vocal individuals that want to use another type of technology and that would probably be going back to paper. We all know what that means as far as going back to the Florida debacle of 2000.
Spencer Michaels>> While some jurisdictions are reverting to paper, nearly forty percent of Americans who will vote in the November mid-term election will vote on the still-controversial electronic touch-screen machines.
Announcer>> To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address:
Life and Times
4401 Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, California 90027
You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org.
Val Zavala>> They defy traditional notions of a dance company. Diavolo is a cross between dancers and acrobatics and they'll thrill you even if you aren't a dance fan. Vicki Curry met artistic director, Jacques Heim.
[Film Clip]
Vicki Curry>> It's part dance and part acrobatics with maybe a little circus act thrown in. It's called Diavolo and the man behind it is Jacques Heim.
Jacques Heim>> I want to touch my audience. I want them to be inspired. I want them to have fun.
Vicki Curry>> Heim is founder and artistic director of Diavolo Dance Theater. He's trying to redefine dance so that it's more accessible to mainstream audiences.
Jacques Heim>> Modern dance for a lot of audiences, for general audiences, is very strange. It's very obscure. Dance is on the way to be extinct a little bit and I think why Diavolo is great is that it's mixing the art and entertainment together. "Hey, Crystal, you're going to make that one."
Vicki Curry>> If anyone is going to have a non-dance dance company, it's Jacques Heim. Growing up in Paris, he never thought about dance, but when he went to Middlebury College in Vermont, he took a class that changed his life.
Jacques Heim>> I was going to go into theater when I arrived in this country in America, but then because my accent was so strong, people would say, "Jacques, I'm sorry, but you cannot do Tennessee Williams or Shakespeare. Nobody is going to understand you." So then my friends told me, "Why don't you come in and take some dance class? You don't have to speak." I really discovered the power of movement. For me, it was another form of theater.
Vicki Curry>> Heim got a Masters in choreography at CalArts and, when he graduated, he decided to start his own company.
Jacques Heim>> And I wanted to do something different, so I look what is out there. And because I'm very fluent by texture, by environment, that's why I want to mix movement in structure.
[Film Clip]
Vicki Curry>> Diavolo's signature is large set pieces like this wheel. The dancers use it as a springboard for a flurry of hyperkinetic movements and athletic feats.
Jacques Heim>> I'm not a traditional choreographer because I'm not a dancer, so I want to create pieces that are very visual, very organic, very visceral.
Vicki Curry>> When Heim wants to create a new piece, he starts with a new structure and then asks the dancers to just play around on it.
Ken Arata>> He just said, "Get on it and go" and about half an hour later, I had to show him a couple of things I had on it and we kind of collaborated on what I could do here and there on it, going over it, around it, through it, and it's a great feeling to be able to just create.
[Film Clip]
Jacques Heim>> So if I had to create a salad that is a Diavolo salad, it would be a little bit of everyday movement, pedestrian movement. It would be a little bit of gymnastics. It would be a little bit of acrobatics. You add a little ballet, a little bit of modern dance. You put structures. You put music, costumes and lights. You mix it and you have a Diavolo.
Vicki Curry>> To make a Diavolo salad, you need ingredients you don't usually find in a dance company.
Jacques Heim>> So I have dancers from the ballet background, modern background, gymnastic, acrobatic, theater backgrounds and we all come together in our space and collaborate.
[Film Clip]
Jacques Heim>> I've said artists are actually all very abstract. What we do is live abstract paintings. I tell my audience that actually that, as they watch the piece, they're actually in a way creating fifty percent of the piece. They have to create their own story. In a way, it has a theme underneath our pieces, but it's still very abstract. So therefore we do this piece called "Trajectory" which is sort of the abstract boat. That's a piece about destination and destiny.
[Film Clip]
Jacques Heim>> We have a piece called "Detour", this twelve-foot high wall with the pegs coming out and it's very intense. That's a piece about the cares of everyday life through an abstract military obstacle course.
[Film Clip]
Vicki Curry>> Most Diavolo dances are dangerous to perform, but Heim says that's not just for show. He thinks danger forces people to work together. He first experienced this after the Northridge earthquake in 1994.
Jacques Heim>> I did not know my neighbors, but it's only when the earthquake happened, when we became in a state of survival, that all my neighbors came out. Suddenly, we were talking with each other. We were sharing water and food and blankets and we were helping one another. There I realized suddenly a small community on our street started to form and that's what I wanted with my dance company.
Vicki Curry>> The audience not only sees this teamwork in action, they hear it. The dancers call out to each other during the performances.
[Film Clip]
Garrett Wolf>> The flyer will not see her catchers until the very last second, so she really needs to know before she jumps off into space that her catchers are there. So that's the reason why there's so much communication on stage.
[Film Clip]
Vicki Curry>> As a gymnast in the group, these kinds of athletic acts are second nature. But for the classically trained dancers, it takes a little more time to adjust.
Crystal Zibalese>> Some of the bigger flies are a little nerve-wracking at first, but you always feel pretty comfortable with the group. Everyone is really focused and, you know, works together and, if you're ever in trouble, they're there to help you.
Jacques Heim>> "Guys, help each other, talk to each other, communicate to one another because you don't want something negative. I need to see touch."
Vicki Curry>> Heim teaches that same sense of teamwork in Diavolo's education program.
Jacques Heim>> I love teaching because it's a way of sharing. It's a way of collaborating with students and teaching is dear to me. With Diavolo, I wanted all of my dancers to be able to teach because it is very important for them to understand about communication and understand about sharing ideas.
[Film Clip]
Jacques Heim>> Education is very important and I believe it's very important to inspire kids so eventually, you know, kids can see that art is not really a very strange thing and it can be part of their whole life.
[Film Clip]
Vicki Curry>> It's all part of the mission of Diavolo Dance Theater. Take the mystery out of dance, make it exciting and, hopefully, win over new fans.
Jacques Heim>> Diavolo is a sort of mixture between the art form and the entertainment form. That's very valuable because then people can realize that dance is not so strange after all.
[Film Clip]
Val Zavala>> The Diavolo dance troupe will be performing October 23 at USC. For details, you can go to their website at diavolo.org. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.
Announcer>> Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.
And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.
Sponsored in part by:
|
