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This blog is dedicated to issues and topics that affect northern Beaufort County, including Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, and Naval Hospital Beaufort, as well as the area's veterans service organizations.
Patrick Donohue is the Gazette’s Police, Fire, and Military reporter. Donohue is a native of Terre Haute, Ind. and a graduate of the Ernie Pyle School of Journalism at Indiana University. He was previously a general assignment reporter at The Destin Log in northwest Florida.
Beaufort Marine official: On-base housing free of sex offenders
Beaufort military officials say the area’s military and private-public housing developments are not affected by a new Corps policy that requires registered sex offenders to move out of on-base housing or apply for a waiver to live there.
“It’s not an issue for us,” said Maj. James Jarvis, spokesman for Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort. “We don’t have any registered sex offenders living in the housing near the air station or out at (Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island) or in the military housing at the Naval Hospital. We also haven’t received any waiver requests.”
All of the area’s military housing falls under the auspices of the air station’s commanding officer, Col. Jack Snider, Jarvis said.
The policy was initiated in October by Navy Secretary Donald Winter as part of a wide-reaching crackdown on sex offenders across the Navy and Marine Corps. Winter’s policy prohibits convicted sex offenders from using Navy and Marine Corps facilities, living on base or in public-private ventures — such as Beaufort’s Laurel Bay — or enlisting or being commissioned into the Navy or Marine Corps.
All service members applying for government housing and family members older than 14 who will be living with them now will be screened, according to the Corps.
The Corps’ top installations official, Maj. Gen. Edward G. Usher, finalized the policy Dec. 31 and in February instructed base commanders to screen all housing residents by April 15 and report results by April 22. Usher is the Corps’ deputy commandant for installations and logistics in Washington, D.C.
All waiver requests to live on base must go through the base’s chain of command all the way up to Usher, according to the Corps.
Jarvis said the air station used several sources to identify possible sex offenders living in Beaufort, including Family Watchdog, a private online database that compiles information from daily checks of all state registries, the FBI’s National Crime Information Center database, and the database of the State Law Enforcement Division.
State law requires SLED list those older than 17 who were convicted of criminal sexual conduct, criminal sexual conduct with a minor and engaging a child for sexual performance.
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