Dennis Mansfield wants me to call him. For those of you who don't know who he is, Mansfield is the head of a group that owns several transitional homes for ex-cons. They are essentially halfway houses for prisoners who have been released but who are not yet quite ready for full integration into society. The furious pace at which Mansfield's New Hope Ministries is buying up and creating these homes in suburban neighborhoods has generated a serious backlash from residents who don't want single family homes with anywhere from 8-12 ex-cons living down the street.
As we've covered the issue in recent weeks, my reporters have asked Mansfield for comment and he has refused. But each time, he asks that I call him because he feels our news organization owes him an apology, and that we need to begin the 'healing process.' It seems Mansfield blames KIVI-TV in part for the backlash against his transitional homes. He may be right.
We sort of tripped over the issue more than a year ago when investigating a story about a camera in a neighborhood that was reportedly monitoring neighbors' activities. We never did find the camera, but upon investigating learned the home was a transitional home where several ex-cons who were also sex offenders were living. This puzzled us since zoning laws usually prohibit so many unrelated people from living in the same home. We later learned these homes were protected by a federal court ruling and could pretty much be set up in any community without input or interference from neighbors or public officials. Our news investigation into this issue is even now used by the City of Boise as a sort of primer for officials and communities.
Since our first stories, the topic of transitional homes has exploded with packed meetings and flaring tempers. That in turn led to state legislation that attempts to regulate and control transitional homes. And Dennis Mansfield doesn't like any of it.
He's even gone so far as to call the new legislation a form of 'red-lining.' Red-lining is a practice designed to keep minorities out of certain communities. Putting aside Mansfield's equating discrimination against ex-cons with discrimination against minorities, I think Mansfield has actually benefitted until now from a court ruling that permits a sort of 'reverse red-lining.' Many communities still do not allow more than three unrelated people to live together in the same single family home, whether they be white, hispanic, black, college kids, priests, Culligan men or the Boise State Broncos wrestling team. But if they are ex-cons, they are somehow protected. Odd.
I don't deny that Mansfield's transitional home efforts can be beneficial. If he can find a business model that makes these halfway houses both effective and profitable, then he's on the cutting edge of a cottage industry that makes money while doing good.
But Mansfield forgot one thing along the way. He forgot that laws are primarily meant to protect those who don't break the law, not those who do. Placing ex-cons who have violated society's trust into communities full of non-law-breakers is more than unfair ... it is morally wrong. These neighborhoods are full of people who have worked hard, done their best to follow the rules, paid their taxes, are trying to raise children as successfully and safely as possible, and perhaps hoping that the biggest investment of their lives ... their home ... will rise in value over the years. Placing a dozen ex-cons next door or down the street threatens much of that, especially when you consider 1-in-3 ex-cons in a transitional home will reoffend. If there are 12 living in your neighborhood, knowing on average 4 will reoffend can be pretty scary odds.
But in Mansfield's mind, the rights of those who have broken the law but served their time are somehow equal or even greater to those who never committed a felony in the first place. I don't agree with that logic, I don't think most people do, and I would tell Mansfield that ... that is if he ever decides to call and talk to me himself. The number is 381-6650 Mr. Mansfield, but be warned. You won't get any apology from me.
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