New York sex offenders chafe at phone restrictions

---

3-7-17 New York:

Will need to give officials lists of people they call

Convicted sex offenders who have completed their prison sentences but who remain in civil confinement have been bombarding the state's Justice Center with calls, complaining that a pending new phone policy violates their patient privacy rights (HIPAA).

That's because these offenders, who are confined in secure state hospitals, under a new policy will have to provide officials with a list of up to 15 people they wish to call from the facility's phones.

Those people may then be notified by the hospital and asked if they want to keep receiving calls from a sex offender.

"This is, like, the most blatant violation of the HIPAA law that there is,'' said Charles Gerena, who since 2013 has been confined at the state Office of Mental Health's Central New York Psychiatric Center in Marcy, near Utica.

HIPAA, or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, protects patient information from public view.

Gerena, 58, is among a raft of CNYPC residents who have been calling the Justice Center and registering complaints, alleging their privacy is being violated.

"I started calling last week. At least a dozen have called today,'' added Keith Reeve, 67, who is also civilly confined.

After calling the Justice Center hotline, they said they were given case numbers and told that OMH will be notified and ordered to conduct an initial investigation of the complaint.

OMH officials, though, say the screening forms are not a HIPAA violation but are instead part of the treatment plan for the patients.

The idea is to screen out people who might be inappropriate to call, or who don't want to be contacted, said agency spokesman Jim Plastiras.

And Justice Center spokesman William Reynolds said the complaints aren't in their jurisdiction since they don't involve allegations of neglect or abuse.

The Justice Center for the Protection of People with Special Needs was created in 2013 in response to a series of stories about abuse and neglect of disabled people under state care. These disabled individuals often live in residential centers operated or licensed by the state Office for People with Developmental Disabilities.

Justice Center investigators can also probe allegations from facilities run by OMH and other state agencies.

No matter how it ends up, the phone issue is one of the latest twists to arise since New York a decade ago began allowing civil confinement of sex offenders, keeping them in locked hospitals after they complete their prison terms.

Since the law was passed in 2007 it has sparked a number of lawsuits regarding its execution and the way in which offenders are adjudicated to be kept in such confinement.

In addition to CNYPC, another state hospital, the St. Lawrence Psychiatric Center in Ogdensburg, is switching phone providers.

Several other states that have civil confinement laws are also tightening their phone policies, said Wayne Bowers, executive director of SORT, or Sex Offenders Restored through Treatment, a national reform group.

"They are trying to revert to prison mode,'' added James Murphy, a Schenectady-based prison reform activist.

Gerena, who served 32 years in prison for sodomy, said the new phones even look like those in the prisons.

Like many people in civil confinement, Gerena doesn't have a wide circle of people to call. A lot of the calls go to reform advocates or mental health lawyers.

But Gerena also calls his mother, 83, a few times a week in a Long Island nursing home. He hopes that the new policy won't hinder calls to his mother who has dementia.

"If I don't sign off on this, I can't call my mother,'' he said. ..Source.. by Rick Karlin

---