Police frustrated by 'revolving door' arrests of sex offender, burden on system

A sex offender with a long pattern of being released from jail only to be re-arrested a short time later is costing taxpayers a lot of money and law enforcement personnel a lot of time, says a Winnipeg police spokesperson.

Winston George Thomas, 41, was released from Headingley Correctional Centre on Sunday after serving four months for breaching probation conditions.

The sentence was the third one in the past 1½ years for Thomas, a designated high-risk sex offender, whose name has become synonymous with frustration for the Winnipeg Police Service.

"I don't know what the answer is. It's a revolving door," said Const. Tammy Skrabek, who said the frustration is as much with Thomas's repeated arrests as with the burden on the system.

Thomas has a lengthy criminal history, with his first adult criminal conviction in 1999. Since that time, he has incurred 52 convictions, and has been the subject of three Canada wide warrants.

In 2003, he was charged for breaking into a home and sexually assaulting a woman.

In 2006, he was convicted of sexually assaulting another woman, and in 2008, he received another conviction for sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl.

Those crimes resulted in Thomas being categorized as a high-risk sex offender. 

That means every time he has served his sentence and been released, the Manitoba Integrated High Risk Sex Offender Unit, a joint forces unit of the Winnipeg Police Service and the RCMP, must notify the public and other police agencies.

Since 2010, he has been arrested 13 times, amassing a total of 22 convictions.

On Monday, the MIHRSOU issued a warning that Thomas is expected to live in Winnipeg and "is considered high risk to reoffend in a sexual and/or sexually violent manner against all females, both adults and children."

That same message has been issued at least eight times since Thomas's last serious offence, in 2008, with him routinely being taken into custody then set free after serving a few months behind bars.

More often than not, however, those arrests have been for relatively minor things — using alcohol or an electronic device or for breaking his curfew — which are all against the conditions of his release.

"Nine out of 10 times, sex offenders are not reoffending but breaching conditions," Skrabek said.

But every time, because of his designation, Thomas must be automatically re-incarcerated, she said.

"And it means you're taxing a lot of resources," she said.

There are the officers to arrest him, to transport him in custody between jail and court, and to who make the decisions on his status, those who do the paperwork, and those who monitor him upon release.

And repeat.

"It's a whole lot of people for one simple breach," Skrabek said, questioning whether the system itself needs an overhaul for the way those are handled.

Or perhaps there is a way to cut down or eliminate the risk of some of those breaches in the first place. For instance, Thomas is prohibited from using electronic devices to access the Internet, but having a phone has become a necessity in today's society, said Skrabek.

Maybe there could be a place where offenders like Thomas could go to access the Internet, under strict surveillance, for a short time, she suggested.

"Maybe there could be a centre and they could use it for say, 15 minutes to find what they need," she said.

That doesn't address the requirement to abstain from alcohol but at least it could eliminate the electronics breach — and all the work required to arrest Thomas for it.

"The amount of time and money being spent on [some of these breaches] is an issue that has to be addressed politically," Skrabek said. "It's beyond what I can do.

"But until there is better community support for sex offenders, they're going to continue to breach."

Of course, the police are more than willing to be involved in holding Thomas to account when the matters are more serious, such as in 2015.

That year he assaulted a railway police officer who found him intoxicated and trespassing in the CP rail yards near the Arlington Street bridge.