Devoid of any signage — save for an address plaque — the light gray building with pretty mauve shutters looks harmless enough.
But what lies behind the fa�ade of 1221 Bainbridge St. has unnerved a lot of folks who live in and around the Hawthorne neighborhood.
Convicted sex offenders — 24, to be exact — pass through the doors of this former halfway house. For them, it’s home. The men, who range in age from 24 to 69, were transferred in June from three halfway houses in North Philly, said Luis Resto, regional director for the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC) Bureau of Community Corrections. Another 25 were transferred to a halfway house at 15th Street and Cecil B. Moore Avenue.
Most of the offenders new to South Philly were relocated from a Luzerne Street treatment center, Resto said.
The Department of Licenses and Inspections has since ordered the Luzerne Street facility shut down after finding two zoning-code violations.
Much like the North Philly halfway house on 15th Street, the Bainbridge facility has elicited fear and loathing among some neighbors. The property previously had housed nonviolent criminals, but not sex offenders. Neighbors have opposed other changes at the facility in the past, including a plan to expand in 2000.
This latest issue again has stoked the fires of controversy.
"You pack them up and send them here and don’t notify us?" asked Pat Bullard, president of the Hawthorne Empowerment Coalition. HEC, along with bordering neighborhood townwatch organizations Bella Vista and Washington Square West, are fighting the recent transfer.
Of the 24 sex offenders living at the Hawthorne-based center, 23 are parolees and four are from South or Southwest Philly, Resto said.
According to Susan McNaughton, press secretary for the DOC, the parolees fall under the Board of Probation and Parole’s jurisdiction. It is the board’s responsibility to make the proper community notifications under Megan’s Law. Named after 7-year-old Megan Kanka — who was raped and strangled by a sexual offender living in her Hamilton, N.J., neighborhood in 1994 — the law took effect in Pennsylvania in 1995.
Megan’s Law was enacted to protect the safety and welfare of the public by providing for registration of "sexual offenders" and for registration and community notification of "sexual violent predators" scheduled to be released into the community.
Yet, according to Lauren Taylor, spokesperson for the state Board of Probation and Parole, the law only requires communities be notified of "sexually violent predators." And none of the 24 offenders living in South Philly — or for that matter, in any of the other community facilities across town — falls under that category, she said.
"None of the offenders have been declared sexually violent predators," Taylor said. "So there were no notification issues involved here beyond the offenders themselves registering with state police. The state and local police were not required to notify the community because the court did not recognize them as sexually violent predators."
While the DOC’s Resto would not release specifics about the nature of the sexual offenses, he said six of the 24 are "prior offenders," meaning, in some cases, the men had a sex charge as juveniles and now are serving time for a different type of offense.
Under the law, sex offenders are required to notify state police whenever they move or change jobs. Transferring from one facility to another qualifies as a move, Taylor noted. Board of Probation and Parole agents made sure the 24 offenders registered within the required 10-day period, she added.
But that’s not good enough for HEC’s Bullard and many others. For starters, there are two daycare centers within blocks of the Bainbridge halfway house. There’s also a high school, middle school, charter school and two colleges — Peirce College and the University of the Arts — nearby, Bullard pointed out.
"We don’t want those type of people in this area. We have too many children and young people in this area," she said. "It’s just not appropriate to have this in the city."
Over the weekend, Bullard joined North Philly opponents and met with Resto and other officials to demand the DOC remove the offenders from their neighborhoods. According to Bullard, a tentative agreement was reached to do just that.
But as of Monday afternoon, all Resto would say was that "all options are being considered at this point."
"I don’t think the department has committed itself one way or another."
Meanwhile, Bullard rallied her troops, along with Bella Vista and Washington Square West townwatch members, for a protest in front of 1221 Bainbridge yesterday at 11 a.m. Councilman Frank DiCicco spoke at the demonstration.
While Resto empathizes with community concerns, he’s confident of the supervision the DOC provides for sex offenders living in halfway houses. "Certainly I understand the community’s concerns. The community certainly has its right to be concerned," he said. "This type of offender is an offender some people respond to emotionally, and we certainly understand that. We try to track these individuals as close as we can."
In addition, the offenders receive outpatient treatment three times a week, said Resto.
The Bainbridge Street facility is one of 14 across the state operated by the Harrisburg-based DOC, said McNaughton. Such facilities are transitional centers for two incarcerated groups — parolees and pre-release inmates actively serving their sentences.
Sometimes the Board of Probation and Parole will release inmates to a center rather than straight to the street, McNaughton explained. This affords them an extra level of supervision and the opportunity to complete or continue some type of programming — be it substance abuse or anger management, the spokesperson added.
"I think what people have to understand is that 90 percent of our inmate population is going home one day — regardless of what they’re in for. Whether it’s theft, drugs or sex offenders — they serve their time and go home," McNaughton said. "These centers provide a valuable service for the community by allowing them supervision, continuing with programming, reestablishing family bonds and finding gainful employment. The whole purpose is to ease them into society so they can become productive law-abiding citizens."
The press secretary believes that society must play a role in the acclimation process by reaching out to the offenders so they have positive role models once they reenter the community. She added that centers like the one on Bainbridge have been around for decades.
"I think that maybe we haven’t done a good job in educating the public that they are there and how vital they are," she said.
