Halfway house to decide child-sex offenders' fate
Wednesday, April 8, 1998BY B.G. GREGG
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Leaders of an Over-the-Rhine halfway house for sex offenders will meet with the Adult Parole Authority todayto discuss whether offenders convicted of assaulting children will remain at the facility. Volunteers of America - Ohio River Valley Inc. (VOA) has housed several such offenders, despite a policy against allowing those convicted of assaulting children into the halfway house at 115 W. McMicken Ave.
Leaders this week acknowledged media reports that such offenders are in the agency's New Life Treatment program.
"We're going to discuss what the alternatives are for these people," said Chris Lohrman, president of the agency, about the meeting with the parole authority.
"We haven't kicked anybody out of the program."
The agency could let the offenders finish out their treatment at the facility, or try to get them transferred to another facility. One alternative not being considered, Mr. Lohrman said, is a change in policy that would allow the agency to take on more offenders who had been involved with children.
"That is not our intent at this time," he said. "If we were to do something like that, it would have to go to the board first." Mr. Lohrman would not say how many such offenders were in the program, nor does he know why they were allowed in.
The VOA did have access to criminal records that detail incidents with children but still permitted the men to join the program.
The offenders are not free to come and go. The Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections assigns the former prisoners to the New Life program as condition for their treatment. Only two places in the state -- the other in Mansfield -- take such offenders.
The VOA has a $2.6 million annual contract with the state to serve those offenders and other parolees who have problems such as substance abuse.
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