The lights remained on. Some of the audience members played with their phones, a few with earbuds in.
For Bloomington’s sex offenders, the movie mattered far less than saying they’d been there.
Ken Bugler, who has run “Safe Halloween” for 15 years, said the mandatory meeting during the city’s trick-or-treating hours keeps sex offenders free from potential accusations from the public.
“The whole purpose for doing this is really to keep the offenders on probation or parole safe,” said Bugler, a probation officer for Monroe County. “What better alibi could they have than to say they were with a parole officer?”
“It’s just a sense that nothing can be said that’s untrue,” Mike, one attendee, said.
Mike spent his first Halloween in the Justice Center after being charged at age 18, fighting the ruling for two years, then spending two more years and nine months in the Department of Corrections.
“They just told me that this was for our well-being and the community,” Mike said. “I think it’s a good place for us to be.”
Mike said when he was a teen, he went to a party where he drank and had sex with a girl who he thought was of age — he said she had piercings, tattoos and looked older.
Two weeks later, the police informed him the girl was 13, and he was charged and convicted with child molestation.
Since there were drugs and alcohol involved in his case, Mike, now 23, said he’ll be on the sex offender registry for life.
He has had restrictions placed on his housing, work, internet and personal relationships.
“Everybody thinks that all sex offenders are child molesters that molest 5- and 6-year-olds, and that’s not the case,” Mike said.
He listed indecency charges like public urination or streaking that could place someone on the sex offender registry.
“I encourage people not to be so harsh when they hear the label ‘sex offender,’” Mike said. “Because not everyone is a predator.”
Before the movie began, Bugler made calls to two of the men on his probation list.
One was running late due to traffic, another had a back injury.
Bugler then dispatched parole officers to check on the people who had been given permission to work instead of attending.
Bugler said he’d never had an offender plead work who hadn’t been in the office when checked.
And staying at home with the lights off may be an option in other areas, but not with him.
“Typically if they’re here in Bloomington, they’re here, with us,” he said.
Bugler said the group Saturday night was smaller than last year’s — to some extent because of work, but perhaps also due to stricter reactions to parole violations.
Depending on whether an offender is on parole or probation, the consequences for skipping could range from more stringent restrictions to a return to jail, Bugler said.
Marion County has a similar program on Halloween, he said.
“I’ve been doing this so long, it’s just been accepted,” Bugler said.
Bugler has been a probation officer for 26 years, he said, and began specializing with sex offenders in 2000.
“I just had this idea to make sure that my guys would have a place to go,” Bugler said.
So if any accusations were made by parents or trick-or-treaters, the offenders could point to the justice department to prove they weren’t on the streets while children were out and about.
“I always recommend once they’re off the paper that they come back, so they have a safe place to be,” Bugler said.
However, men and women on the registry who are no longer on probation or parole are not legally bound to come in, Bugler said.
The group watched “Million Dollar Arm,” a live-action Disney flick about a sports recruiter working in India.
The movie has to be pre-screened for sexual content.
Because there is such a range of offenders in the room, it is difficult to tell what kinds of scenes might stimulate one or another, Burgler said.
Burgler explained it is almost impossible to find a movie without any sexual or otherwise inappropriate content.
There have been rare occasions when he hasn’t picked out the film and there has been an issue. But Burgler said the offenders have let him know immediately.
