HOUSTON – Protecting your children is any parent’s priority. Knowing, identifying, and detecting threats comes with the job. Sadly, some threats might be closer to home than one might realize, including predators.
A Channelview man, Calvin Morris, 76, is charged with indecency with a child. In November he was arrested, accused of inappropriately touching a child as he walked to school.
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Morris behind bars on a $50,000 bond. He is scheduled to appear in court on February 24th.
Morris lived in Sterling Green; a neighborhood next to Anthony Aguirre Junior High School for almost 30 years, and has done so without breaking any laws.
Court records show Morris was sentenced to five years of probation in 1974 for fondling a child in Corpus Christi. In 1982, Morris pleaded guilty to sexual abuse of a child in Harris County. He was sentenced to two years in prison for this crime.
Morris is not on the state’s sex offender registry and therefore did not have residency restrictions.
Alexa Cardenas has lived in Sterling Green for more than 20 years, down the street from Morris. She was unaware of Morris arrest in November and his past abusing children.
“Younger families are moving here, and they have kids and that’s very alarming,” Cardenas added.
Rania Mankarious, CEO of Crime Stoppers Houston explained sex offenders are required to register for either 10 years or life, depending on the severity of their conviction. Registration beings only after the sentence is complete, so if Morris had to register after his 1982 sentence, his registration requirement would have ended in 1994.
Sex offenders who complete their sentence and are no longer on parole or probation face no legal restrictions on where they can live. Residential restrictions (500 feet from a school or child safety zone) apply only to offenders who are ‘on paper’, meaning they are under supervision like parole of probation.
Mankarious said this case highlights the need for more robust systems to assess and manage risks posed by individuals with histories of sexual offences, even after their formal supervision ends. Sex offenders like Morris, whose registration periods have expired are no longer actively monitored.
“The system is completely broken in the sense that the way it’s structured right now, even if you follow the rules, it’s not doing its job and protecting children. So, you may have a predator living right next door to you and you have no idea. We’ve got to, as a community, step in here because we believe that the appetite for children and the appetite to exploit children is ever increasing. And it’s going to take the community to step in to stop it.” Explained Mankarious. “Residential restrictions and registration requirements fail to address individuals with multiple convictions deemed ‘less severe’.”
Cases like this raise the questions about how many other offenders might no longer be registered by still pose a risk to the community.
Jacey Jetton is the former State Representative for District 26 (Fort Bend County area). During the last legislative session, Jetton authored House Bill 1136, which ultimately did not pass, but aimed to strengthen laws against sex offenders. He said the state can do a better job at protecting its children. “I think we always have to continue to strive to protect our children more. All we can do is continue to look at the laws that are in place and make sure that we have really the strictest punishment that is possible to make sure that look, if you’re going to do this crime, there are serious consequences.”
State’s Sex Offender Registry: https://sor.dps.texas.gov/
