Every day across the United States, convicted robbers, rapists and murderers are granted a special "right to privacy" the minute they go behind bars.
Their criminal records and jail behavior become confidential. And when they are released, often sooner than expected, many of their victims are not informed. The results can be tragic.For example, on April 14, 1982, Renae Wicklund of Clearview, Wash., lay sick in bed with a bronchial problem. Her neighbor, Barbara Hendrickson, went over to help Wicklund's daughter prepare dinner for her mother.
Hendrickson did not return. Her husband walked to the Wicklunds home and discovered his wife lying dead in the hallway, her throat slashed. Then he found Wicklund's nude, battered body on the bedroom floor; close by lay her 8-year-old beaten and nearly decapitated.
A palm-print left on a drinking glass enabled investigators to identify Charles Rodman Campbell, a chronic criminal who, the morning of the murder, had signed out of a prison work-release center to go to a job. He had returned in the evening, drunk.
It was not the first time Campbell had entered the Wicklund home. In a random attack 7 1/2 years earlier, he had forced his way in and sexually assaulted Renae Wicklund at knife-point. He was sentenced to 30 years.
After Campbell entered prison, however, a veil of secrecy descended. State laws and prison policies kept information on Campbell's prison record and whereabouts from local authorities - and from Ranae Wicklund.
By law, Campbell's record and internal prison proceedings were kept confidential. Thus Wicklund was not informed that he had been assigned to the Everett Work Release facility only 10 miles from her home.
The strange idea that a criminal has a right to keep his record a secret emerged in the late 1960s, when reformers argued criminals were victims of circumstance who committed crimes only because they lacked other opportunities. Once criminals were "rehabilitated" in prison and released, it was unfair to saddle them with the "stigma" of their past transgressions.
What can be done?
First, state criminal-record laws should be changed to allow public access to adult and juvenile criminal histories, including prison disciplinary records and transfers. Wisconsin, Oklahoma and Florida have shown that an open-records system can work with few problems. "We have safeguards to ensure that records are complete and accurate," says Fred Johns, deputy director of Florida's Criminal Justice Information Systems.
Second, victims and police should be notified of escapes, impending paroles, furloughs or other releases. "Knowledge never harms public safety," says Craig Klugman, who chairs the American Society of Newspaper Editors' Freedom of Information Committee. "We ought to know if a convicted murderer, rapist or embezzler is being released to live in our city or neighborhood."
Largely because of Renae Wicklund's murder, Washington state has passed laws requiring the state to notify victims, their families and witnesses about inmate releases.
Finally, sex-crime victims should be able to require their assailants to undergo blood tests and be informed of the results. In Kansas, former district attorney Dennis Moore drafted legislation to allow manadatory AIDS testing on those convicted of sex crimes. The bill is now law.
Other states should not wait for more murders or violent crimes to happen before they act. A criminal's right to privacy is a fiction invented by social reformers and politicians who lost sight of the real dangers of this policy. Unlocking the secrets will require legislation by virtually every state. That will come only when outraged citizens demand it.