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CONTACT THE ENTERPRISE Jocelyn Robinson, Copy editor jrobinson@heraldnet.com

System failing to protect the victims

It's the phone call every rape victim dreads: notification from the department of corrections that his or her rapist is being released from prison.

In the case of missing sex offender David Torrence, however, authorities not only failed to notify the victim that Torrence was being released, they released the convicted rapist to live under a bridge within walking distance of his victim's home in Monroe.

Torrence, convicted of raping a 15-year-old 14 years ago, was first released in 2002 but sent back to prison in 2007 for failing to register as a sex offender. He served one year and was released April 20 with an electronic ankle bracelet -- the key component in the state's new program to monitor level-3 sex offenders.

Torrence's bracelet and GPS unit were found at a Lynnwood apartment complex three days after his release, and Torrence was nowhere to be found. He's the fifth offender to have reportedly removed his tracking device since the monitoring program was implemented in late 2007. Of those five, only two are back in custody.

The electronic monitoring program was established shortly after the rape and murder of 12-year-old Zina Linnick, the Tacoma girl who was taken from her yard July 4, 2007, by repeat-sex offender and now convicted murderer Terapon Adhahn.

Gov. Chris Gregoire formed the Sex Offender Task Force in August to recommend strategies to better protect the public from predators considered likely to reoffend.

Electronic monitoring: is that really what the public had in mind?

Torrence is among some 50-or-so homeless sex offenders in Snohomish County -- homeless, because more and more cities are banning state and private sponsored halfway houses for level-three sex offenders.

Maybe the public's reluctancy to welcome repeat sex offenders into their communities is a signal to lawmakers that child molesters and rapists belong in prison.

It's absurd to ask a task force: "How do we protect the public from sex offenders?"

First of all, you don't quietly release predators -- ankle bracelets or not -- to live in alleys and under bridges.

Second, you treat rape and molestation like the heinous crimes they are, and sentence perpetrators accordingly.