No Sex Offenders Need Apply

HR-5722: "International Megan's Law"

2008-05-11T15:16:00.000-06:00

The site just mentioned below has a serious item posted on it: Bill HR-5722, "International Megan's Law" which apparently calls for notifying the destination country that an American registered sex offender is headed to, for any purpose including vacation.

The site's owner correctly notes that if this bill passes, the destination countries will prevent the registered sex offender from entering.

This cuts off the one right a lawyer friend called the one right to preserve above all else -- the right to leave. The walls are rising...

Bookmark this site

2008-05-11T15:10:00.000-06:00

Researching some material a few days ago I ran across this very interesting site:
(http://www,geocities.com/voicism): "News & Noteworthy: Articles Concerning Sex Offender Issues"

The Sex Offender Hoax: America´s Screwed Up Priorities

2008-03-28T20:50:00.000-06:00

Article by Jessica Lee. Appeared on "American Chronicle" and subsequently pulled (are they bowing to the forces of Political Correctness and practicing self-censorship? I don't know). It took some digging to find this cached version. Now I'm not a Ron Paul For President fan (I WANT him as a presidential cabinet member, though), and the link at the end of this post refers back to the posting that "American Chronicle" yanked, so beyond that point you're on your own. But Ms. Lee makes a lot of sense here.

I have voted on a lot of sex offender legislation but the latest development makes me ashamed to be an American.

At a time when most of us are struggling to put gas in our cars and food on our tables Texas has completed a 1.2 million dollar upgrade to list employers of sex offenders on registries. This is not to protect anyone but to insure that people fail. We have actually found a way to reach a new low.

Even the Mafia would not use such under handed tactics as those being used here. The government feeds this information to the public knowing full well that it will be used in the exact fashion as intended. Employers will not want nor do they deserve to be listed on a sex offender registry so this is a huge step up for increasing lawlessness. It tends to make law abiding citizens want to gag.

These efforts are due to the requirements of the Federal Adam Walsh Act and being in compliance will bring millions of dollars to the individual states. The truth is that the Feds don´t have the millions of dollars to give the states. If they did it would still not be enough to keep this program afloat. It will end up costing us millions and that is a well known fact.

We are in a hard economic crunch. Many of us don´t care where sex offenders work. We are more concerned with gas for the car, food for the table and roofs over the heads of our families. Since we have all of these extra millions why are Medicaid and Medicare constantly being cut? It is evident that that our poor and elderly are not a concern. Hot button issues are needed for reelection but that is wearing thin. We have spent fortunes for empty promises and have succeeded in creating an even bigger mess.

In England sex offender issues are not used as political brick bats. There is no law against it but the British have a code of ethics that is completely lacking in the United States. Their leaders are united in keeping children safe and it puts our system to shame. They don´t have the problems that we do and politicians aren´t trying to out-tough one another by exploiting kids. When it comes to a choice between buying food and paying for a sex offender registry I will opt for the food every time.

Four thousand solders have given their lives and many more are maimed from trying to protect their dysfunctional homeland. How demoralizing it must be to put one´s life on the line for a nation of people who fear sex offenders more than foreign terrorists and home is a corrupt place that is being gutted from within by our American brothers and sisters.

Our foreign debt has far exceeded our worst expectations and chunks of the core of America continue to be sold to the Asians and the Arabs. As America crumbles into decay there seems to be only one certainty. We are a sinking nation that will go down with a death grip on sex offender laws but some of us won´t have current information. Cable TV and Internet services are being canceled in record numbers because of reduced budgets. Those extras are useless in a vagrant society where an alarming number of families are losing their homes.

Sex crimes are serious and are committed by less than 5% of the population. Something is very wrong if authorities can´t handle this without putting out hit lists in the form of public registration. Our entire way of life has changed because of a problem that tends to originate within the home. Less than one half of one percent of these crimes includes strangers, stalking, abduction and death.

Having recently lost a child I understand the feelings of rage and horror but the rest of the world is not responsible for my loss. I would never leave a child alone in the Sears toy department and don´t know any parent who would. But, as my child´s caretaker, a couple of things done differently could have changed the outcome. That is something I have to live with and I will not be pointing fingers at people who had no involvement. Our country is incredibly short on personal responsibility.

There are many among us who will jump at the opportunity to aid and abet in making more people jobless, homeless and hopeless but I am not one of them. My soul is not for sale.

There are vigilante groups online that thrive on blaming everyone else for their personal problems. These are nasty people so if you know the identity of Stitchess77, Daydreamer of Oz, Jacey, Violet Leaves or Boycott_Amazon I would appreciate your input. There are subpoenas waiting to be served.

On April 15th there is a Take Back America Rally being held on the west lawn of the Whitehouse. Ron Paul will be leading the charge so make your voices heard! more.. by Rebecca Lee

Sex Offender Neighbors Seek Tax Breaks

2008-03-16T19:46:00.001-06:00

SOUTHBURY, Conn. — Neighbors of a convicted sex offender are seeking tax breaks on their homes.

Some two dozen homeowners in the Fox Run Drive area believe their property values dropped last fall when David Pollitt moved to his sister's home in their neighborhood.

They tried but can't force Pollitt to move out, so they have asked the town to reduce their property tax assessments by as much as 17 percent.

They argue the presence of a registered sex offender has lowered the sale price of their homes.

Pollitt, 54, was released in October after more than 24 years in prison for a series of rapes.

Carolyn Nadeau, president of the Connecticut Association of Assessing Officers, said the request may be the first of its kind in the state.

"I've never had an instance like this," she said. "Any number of times there are distractions that people feel negatively impact their property values, such as unsightly blight, but we haven't seen this."

The company that revalued all properties in Southbury last fall rejected the residents' plea for help. The new values took effect Oct. 1 and Pollitt didn't move to the neighborhood until Oct. 12.

Residents plan to take their case to the Board of Assessment Appeals in March.

Mark Lynch, who lives next door to Pollitt's sister in a house assessed at $243,080, believes residents deserve a break.

"If I wanted to sell my house tomorrow morning, how many people would want to buy it?" Lynch said.

Homes are assessed at 70 percent of their fair market value for tax purposes.

Woodbury real estate agency owner Joyce Drakeley said her agents would tell a client if a house was in a neighborhood with a sex offender, but the issue has not come up. Sex offenders must register with the state and the registry, including addresses, is available online.

"Buyers are not coming in and saying, 'Tell us if there are sex offenders in the area,"' she said. "I think it would affect the housing price if the buyers knew who was in the area. [The seller] has fewer people to sell to."

No Easy Answers: Sex Offender Laws in the US

2008-01-27T08:21:00.000-07:00

Human Rights Watch has published an interesting report called No Easy Answers: Sex Offender Laws in the US. I've only read the summary and not the entire report (yet), but it points out the many problems with sex offender laws in this country.

I'm not sure that the report adequately observes the fact that the laws were originally sold to the public along with a completely false premise that for its longevity puts the Energizer Bunny to shame. But the conclusion in the summary, "...legislators will have to show that they have the intelligence and courage to create a society that is safe yet still protects the human rights of everyone" is laughably and incredibly naive.

Legislators are sheep -- if they're not following the herd they're trying to see where the herd is going so they can look like they're leaders. And, as they have and continue to do with sex offender laws in this country they run right over cliffs without a thought to what they're doing. This blog has long since noted the moral cowardice of the Iowa legislators too fearful to undo the nasty mess they created, yet other legislatores continue to propose running over the very same cliff -- how's that for intelligence?

Another Megan's Law murder

2007-12-11T23:56:00.000-07:00

Once again, Megan's Law has facilitated a murder.

Megan's Law, which allows the names and addresses of convicted sex offenders to be listed on the Internet, is often criticized for its theoretical ability to facilitate vigilante violence.

The Los Angeles Times reports on a killing in Lake County, Calif., in which prosecutors are investigating the possibility that this very fear may have come true for the first time in the state.

Convicted rapist Michael Dodele had been free just 35 days when sheriff's deputies found him dead from stab wounds last month in his mobile home. They quickly arrested his neighbor, 29-year-old construction worker Ivan Garcia Oliver, who made "incriminating comments, essentially admitting to his attacking Dodele," police said.

Oliver pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder, burglary and elder abuse on Nov. 30.

A neighbor of Oliver's said that two days before the killing, he "told every house" in the trailer park that he found Dodele's name listed on the Web site of convicted sexual offenders, and was uncomfortable living near him.

... Oliver said he had a son who was molested in the past and he took action to protect the child.

"Society may see the action I took as unacceptable in the eyes of 'normal' people," Oliver said. "I felt that by not taking evasive action as a father in the right direction, I might as well have taken my child to some swamp filled with alligators and had them tear him to pieces. It's no different."

As it turned out, Dodele was not actually a child molester. His records show he sexually assaulted adult women. ...

Charlene Steen, a psychologist who examined Dodele ... blamed the messenger. "I think [Oliver and Dodele] are both victims of the Internet," she said.

Steen needs to get a grip... or maybe she has a good point. If Oliver is a "victim of the Internet," then perhaps Megan's Law should be repealed to prevent further such innocent victims.

But in reality, Oliver has taken Megan's Law to the point desired by many Americans, as evidenced by many a comment on sex-offender news articles online using the very same justification Oliver used. A lot of people would turn Oliver loose with a commendation; to them the end justifies the means. They should pray they don't live long enough to see their philosophy become predominant (if it isn't already).

Ohio to pay more for less safety [Adam Walsh Act strikes]

2007-11-25T19:38:00.000-07:00

Early adopters take the arrows... and expenses. Good luck Ohio, you bought that pig in a poke.

Sex-offender law may task sheriff’s offices
NEWARK — Changes to Ohio’s sex-offender laws likely will expedite the judicial process, but they could bog down law enforcement, local officials said.

On Jan. 1, the labels of sexually oriented, habitual and predator will be gone and replaced with a three-tiered system. Classification hearings will be a thing of the past because offenders will be designated as Tier I, II or III — Tier III has the strongest notification requirements — depending on the crime they are convicted of.

The legislation passed by the Ohio General Assembly this summer will be retroactive, meaning all 33,000 sex offenders in Ohio could be affected, said Jennifer Brindisi, spokeswoman for the Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation.

Although the switch to tiers will remove an additional hearing from the prosecutor’s schedule, it could require many more visits with offenders for those in charge of the registry, said Detective Brock Harmon, of the Licking County Sheriff’s Office.

“We are anticipating it’s going to be a lot busier because of the new laws,” he said.

Harmon, who is the sole detective in the office charged with keeping up sex-offender records, said with the changes he potentially could have a rapist now classified as a sexually oriented offender, the lowest level under the active tags, automatically become a Tier III offender. This adjustment would, among other changes including lifetime registration, require the offender, who checked in annually as a sexually oriented offender, to meet with Harmon every three months, he said.

More responsibility could lead to increased infractions, Harmon said.

...

He added that it is possible that defendants facing a lifetime of registration as a sex offender might choose to fight the charges instead of working with the prosecution and pleading guilty.

...

Oswalt said he does expect to see the law challenged in higher and local courts, but added he does not have much sympathy for those affected by the modifications.

“If you don’t think you should be a Tier III offender, you shouldn’t have committed the crime,” he said.

This is so pathetic, but then again it seems Ohio has yet to see a "sex-offender" law not worthy of passage.

I hope Ohioans will be happy when somebody who appears to authorities to be truly dangerous and likely to re-offend gets labeled a "Tier 1" due to his prior conviction. And then re-offends.

Or when their limited law enforcement resources get eaten up tracking the very large number of new "Tier 3s" who were formerly determined to be "Level 1", least likely to re-offend.

Or when a whole bunch of those formerly Level 1s, now Tier 3s, decide to drop off the map because it's way too much "in your face" and law enforcement has to go looking for them -- and remember, it's roughly $25000/year to incarcerate each one of those you catch, over and above the expense for prosecution. Money that won't be spent on prosecuting those whose crimes actually hurt people, as opposed to evading registration. (Which is not to say that evading registration doesn't create a danger in itself -- it can, so why encourage it?)

But the most pathetic remark in this article belongs to Oswalt: “If you don’t think you should be a Tier III offender, you shouldn’t have committed the crime,” he said.
Has he ever heard about the antiquated, archaic, irrelevant notion of ex post facto law? Guess not because he, and many others, haven't.

Homeless sex offenders' isolation can add to problem

2007-11-20T10:39:00.000-07:00

Elliott Bloom, a convicted sex offender, lived in his car for nine months this year, parked on a street corner in Miami.

"I just pulled the chair back to sleep," says Bloom, 30, a chef-in-training who was convicted two years ago for having sex with a 15-year-old girl.

He had a tough time finding an apartment because state law bars him from living within 1,000 feet of places children gather, putting most of Miami off-limits. He listed his address on the mandatory registry of sex offenders as "transient.

In Richmond, Va., Keith Francis registered his address as "under Canal Bridge." Francis, 51, convicted in Florida in 2001 of luring a minor he met online, says, "I put plastic down and have a few blankets."

Francis works temporary jobs but says he doesn't have enough money for an apartment. He says he could probably go to a homeless shelter, but, "I used to be a Boy Scout. I like to camp outside."

Nationwide, thousands of sex offenders like Bloom and Francis are registering as homeless or giving police vague addresses such as highway mile markers.

Some blame the residency restrictions that keep offenders away from youngsters. Others cite lack of money or rejection by landlords after background checks reveal their criminal record. "As sex offenders are more and more in the media, people are starting to think twice before renting to them," says Patty Morris, supervisor of sex offender compliance at the Arizona Department of Public Safety.

'The modern-day lepers'

Many sex offenders lack jobs or family support, says Jo Ellyn Rackleff, spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Corrections. She sees more of them becoming homeless, and that worries police.

"A homeless sex offender is a much more dangerous sex offender," says Elizabeth Bartholomew of the Maryland Division of Parole and Probation.

They are less likely to receive mental health care and substance abuse treatment and are more difficult to monitor, says Jill Levenson, a sex-crimes policy analyst at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla.

"Being homeless is also demoralizing," Levenson says.

Sex offenders are likely to behave better if they have a stake in their community and "something to live for," says psychiatrist Fred Berlin, founder of the Johns Hopkins Sexual Disorders Clinic. Sex offenders are increasingly being shunned and isolated. "They are the modern-day lepers," he says.

David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, says research on criminals suggests that having an unstable home makes them more likely to commit another crime.

"How much it increases the risk is hard to say," says Finkelhor, who questions the value of residency restrictions. "Homelessness and all the stresses that go along with it is more of a risk factor than being in a neighborhood with children."

At least 27 states and hundreds of cities have passed laws in the past decade to restrict where sex offenders live.

The laws don't necessarily keep sex offenders away from kids, says Florida's Rackleff. "What people don't realize is these offenders are in our communities," riding buses and walking around, she says.

"It's a waste of resources to check where they're sleeping," says Corwin Ritchie, executive director of the Iowa County Attorneys Association. He says sex offenders may sleep in one place and spend their days elsewhere. He says it is better to monitor where they go.

States are increasing their use of electronic devices, often attached to an ankle or belt, to monitor sex offenders. California has 2,300 Global Positioning System units for paroled sex offenders but plans to have10,000 for all parolees by June 2009, says Bill Sessa of the California Department of Corrections.

Housing in Washington, D.C., is so expensive that a third of parolees lack permanent housing, and many homeless sex offenders considered high-risk are tracked with GPS devices, says Leonard Sipes, spokesman for the Court Services and Offenders Supervision Agency.

Keeping track by satellite

"We need to know where these offenders are," says Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. He says the effect of residency restrictions has varied nationwide, but states are putting more resources into tracking sex offenders.

States report widely varied information on online sex offender registries. Many states allow sex offenders to be homeless but require them to report a location, even if it's a shelter or "under a bridge."

"People will use homelessness as a way to evade monitoring," says Melissa Roberts of the Wisconsin Department of Corrections.

Several states see a rising number of homeless sex offenders. In Connecticut, 46 are registered as homeless or at shelters, up from fewer than a dozen three years ago, says Sam Izarelli of the state's sex offender registry.

"I've seen an increase in homelessness," says Paula Stitz, manager of Arkansas' registry. "It's difficult for a lot of these sex offenders to find a place to live." She says one person lived in a van under the Broadway Bridge in Little Rock for two years.

In Miami, Bloom says he and his pregnant girlfriend finally found an apartment that complied with state and local residency restrictions and moved in last week. He may not be staying long. Unless the therapist he sees as a condition of his probation gives approval, he will have to move out once the baby is born.

But isn't the boost politicians get for passing such laws, saying they're making us all much safer, worth it all?

New sex-offender law faces opposition [OK & Adam Walsh Act]

2007-10-28T21:13:00.000-06:00

So in a classic case of not looking (or thinking) before you leap, Oklahoma lawmakers complied with the federal Adam Walsh act in order to save $200k - $300k of federal funds dangled before them. Looks like they bought a pig in a poke.

A three-tiered ranking system takes effect Thursday.

New restrictions for sex offenders -- including a three-level ranking system that designates how long they must register -- take effect Thursday.

However, some of those who are on the front lines dealing with sex offenders believe that Oklahoma's law is having an adverse effect and needs further changes.

''Most people who know anything about this are frustrated. It is just not helpful -- the laws as they are now,'' said Randy Lopp, treatment subcommittee chairman of the Oklahoma Sex Offender Management Team.

Lopp is also a member of the review board established by the new law to categorize the sex offenders into three levels.

''I think if the general public understood the research, they would be willing to back the legislators to change the laws to make more sense and to protect children, because the laws as they are written are not protecting children," he said. "They are doing more harm than good.''

Categorizing offenders: Lawmakers changed the state law to comply with the federal Adam Walsh Act, said Jim Rabon, who oversees sex offender registration
for the Oklahoma Department of Corrections.

What the federal law calls a ''tier system,'' the new state law calls a ''numeric risk level.'' The risk level is determined by the type and severity of crime for which the offender was convicted and the number of convictions that person has, he said.

Level One offenders will register for 15 years; Level Two offenders will register for 25 years; and Level Three offenders will register for life.

As in the previous version of the law, those who are categorized as ''aggravated'' or ''habitual'' sex offenders will also be required to register for life.

Rabon said the committee that set up the levels reviewed cases of people beginning prison and probation between July 2006 and June 2007 and determined that most sex offenders fall into the highest risk category.

The review revealed that 78 percent of the sex offenders fall in Level Three, 3 percent in Level Two and 19 percent in Level One.

Based on those numbers, Tulsa Police Sgt. Gary Stansill, who has spent more than 20 years investigating sex crimes in Tulsa, said he believes that the Oklahoma law is too broad.

Under the law, he said, an 18-year-old who is convicted of statutory rape for having sex with a 15-year-old and someone who is convicted of groping an officer during an undercover sting would both be registered sex offenders for life.

''The least number of people should be in the worst tier, but the most number of people are going to be in the worst tier under the new law,'' Stansill said.

Federal law mandates that any state that does not adapt to the Adam Walsh Act will receive up to a 10 percent reduction in federal grant money. Based on past funding, that might amount to a loss of about $200,000 to $300,000 for Oklahoma, Rabon said.

The loss in funding is part of the reason the state has moved to comply with the federal law, he said. Another reason is consistency.

''We do recognize that if all of the states' registration systems are similar, that does make it easier to track offenders when they move from state to state,'' Rabon said.

He said it is important that people realize that Oklahoma has what he believes is one of the best sex offender registration systems in the country.

By that, he means a lot of information is available on the Department of Corrections Web site that is easy for the public to access and local law enforcement agencies to update. He said Oklahoma has a low percentage of delinquent offenders compared to other states.

The residency debate: Lopp said he doesn't believe that the offense-based assessment is the the best way to categorize offenders. He thinks a tiered system is a step in the right direction but that it should be based on the risk of the individual.

Some states have refused federal funds so they can continue to develop risk-based assessments, he said.

A risk-based assessment could then correspond with the residency restrictions, which have created headaches for law enforcement agencies across the country.

Stansill said residency restrictions have driven sex offenders underground in Tulsa.

The controversial state law that went into effect last year has put 90 percent of the city off limits for sex offenders by prohibiting them from living within 2,000 feet of playgrounds, parks or child-care facilities. They were already prohibited from living within that distance of a school.

The new law does loosen the residency restrictions slightly by specifying that offenders are precluded from living near only child-care centers -- and not including day-care homes, which are numerous.

Before the residency laws, Tulsa had about 540 registered sex offenders at the peak. As of Sept. 20, 329 were registered here, Stansill said.

''If I really thought it would really do some good, then I would be all for it (the residency restrictions). Then we could focus on the people who don't want to register -- who have no good excuse for not registering -- because they are the people who are likely to be re-offending.''

The new law that takes effect Thursday requires police to register sex offenders even if the offenders intend to move into restricted areas. Previously, Tulsa police would tell an offender to look for another place to live and then come back to register.

''If I register those people, does that give them the right to live there?" Stansill questioned. "Or are we supposed to register them and turn about and work a case against them for violating the residency law?''

Stansill said sex crimes detectives are already overloaded with sex offender law violation cases.

From 2006 to 2007 Tulsa police have investigated 228 sex offender registration violation cases. During the same time period, they investigated 275 rape cases.

Forcing offenders to move from place to place because of residency laws could do more harm than good, Lopp said.

''When you keep making these people move, you are disrupting their stability; you are disrupting their jobs; you are causing an immense amount of stress on that population,'' Lopp said.

''What do we know about re-offense? Stress, job instability, living instability increase the chance of re-offense.''

Authorities say research shows that where sex offenders live is not a factor -- that most of them know their victims and that attacks often occur in the victims' own homes. But Rabon said there is more than one side to the argument about residency restrictions.

''The other side of that is that between the DOC and all of the local law enforcement agencies, . . . everybody works hard trying to locate them and keep the addresses current,'' he said.

That results in Oklahoma having a high rate of compliance, Rabon said. Of 5,462 registered sex offenders statewide, 870 are classified as delinquent, meaning their locations are unknown.

''When the residency restriction went into effect, we saw the delinquent number bump up a little bit, not a huge number,'' he said.

Meanwhile, Lopp hopes the committee works to encourage state and federal legislators to change the laws to make them more effective.

''What ultimately is going to have to happen to change this law is the community is going to have to get in touch with legislators and tell them, "This is not helping; this is making things worse,' " Lopp said.

Correctamundo! But we'll see if the Oklahoma legislators more courageous than the Iowa legislators who know they did wrong, but dare not attempt to fix it (as noted on this blog). I'm betting they won't be.

Halloween assertion

2007-10-27T19:56:00.000-06:00

Prove me wrong:

On Halloween, more trick-or-treater children have encountered razor blades in apples/candy (I read of one such, do not know if it is true) than have been snatched/assaulted by registered sex offenders.

(I expect the latter number to be zero, unless some parents have been totally indifferent or near-criminally negligent.)

Shadowed by the past

2007-10-21T19:15:00.000-06:00

Excerpt:

... One one side: the federal Adam Walsh Act. Passed this year, it mandates greater constraints on sex offenders, requires states to place juvenile offenders on public registries, establishes a tiered registry system based on the crime and requires states to maintain registries online, with detailed information down to the license plate numbers of any car the offender uses. States could lose federal funding if they don't comply.

On the other side: a call to completely overhaul, if not eliminate, sex offender registries as they are now. In September, an international human rights organization issued a 146-page report that concluded registries "may not protect children from sex crimes but do lead to harassment, ostracism and even violence against former offenders." It cited Maine's two sex offender murders as an example. ...

I haven't heard about this "international human rights organization" report, but am interested. Any reader know of this?

Another perspective on sex offenders

2007-10-21T19:06:00.000-06:00

Read it all:

By Tim Walden

Sunday, October 21, 2007

I'm becoming disgruntled with the inaccurate and unfair media attention former sex offenders are receiving. I understand the stigma and political sensitivity, as I understand a parent's desire to protect a child, but at what point does the unjustified witch hunt end and the truthful recognition of fact begin?

During the campaign for Jessica's Law, I began doing research. On the Department of Justice Web site, I found a report entitled "Recidivism of Sex Offenders Released from Prison in 1994," November 2003.

This is what I learned.

Fact: "Compared to nonsex offenders released from state prison, sex offenders had a lower overall re-arrest rate."

Fact: "Released sex offenders with one prior arrest (the arrest for the sex crime for which they were imprisoned) had the lowest re-arrest rate for a sex crime, about 3 percent."

Fact: "Following their release in 1994, 209 of the total 9,691 released sex offenders (2.2 percent) were re-arrested for a sex offense against a child."

Fact: "Of the 9,691 released sex offenders, 3.5 percent (339 of the 9,691) were reconvicted for a sex crime within the three-year follow-up period."

Fact: "Released child molesters with more than one prior arrest were more likely than those with only one arrest in their criminal record to be re-arrested for a new sex crime (5.7 percent compared to 3.2 percent). The same was true of statutory rapists (5.3 percent compared to 3.5 percent)." A statutory rapist is an individual who had illegal consensual sex with a minor.

These statistics are documented evidence that former offenders pose very little threat to our community, although it's politically taboo for politicians or the Department of Corrections to admit it.

Research has shown that where an offender lives is unrelated to where he/she commits a crime. A predator can find a potential victim regardless of where they live.

...

Bet it won't work

2007-10-13T13:49:00.000-06:00

From this news item:

Officials say they will have access to more information about sex offenders in Tennessee. Offenders will have to wear tracking bracelets around their ankles.

The system will alert officials if the offender goes near a school or routinely visits areas where he or she does not live. Officials will be alerted if the offender removes the tracking device. ...

Easily circumvented. There are places where, even if these are real-time tracking devices (unlike the less expensive and more common trackers that upload every 24 hours), they are disconnected from the network. Think of areas where you have no cellphone signal, for example. All the sex offender has to do is locate such an zones where the tracker is disconnected (very easy to find, if you know what you're looking for), enter it, cut off the tracking device, wrap it securely in foil, dispose of it and disappear.

Given the prevalence of such zones, it's highly unlikely the police will be called out every time a unit drops off the network. (Think of the police being called on you every time your cellphone signal drops.)

Just more wasted taxpayers dollars in the pursuit of false security. The only winners here are the demagogue politicians who pushed this.

Sex Offender Laws May Do More Harm Than Good

2007-10-13T13:43:00.000-06:00

From blogger Sarah Tofte, who gets it:

Sex offender laws may be doing more harm than good. That is the conclusion Human Rights Watch came to after two years of intensive research into sex offender registration, community notification, and residency restriction laws in the United States. Our research convinced us that politicians failed to do their homework by enacting popular laws without seeking expert

Instead of an informed debate about how sexual violence ravages this country, politicians and the media have largely focused on child victims of truly horrific crimes by previously convicted sex offenders -- like the murders of Megan Kanka, Polly Klaas, and Jessica Lunsford. Horrific yes, but uncommon, which means the laws are designed to tackle only a tiny minority and fail to address the full picture of sexual violence.

A growing number of child safety and rape prevention advocates agree that current laws are not working. For example, the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault (CALCASA), a state-wide coalition of 84 rape crisis centers and sexual assault prevention programs, had this to say about residency restriction laws: They "waste valuable resources on sex offenders who are unlikely to reoffend, while leaving a deficit of treatment, supervision, and focus on offenders who we know should be receiving more intense scrutiny."

Two popular myths about child abusers underlie many of our sex offender laws: first, that our children have most to fear from strangers, and second, that sex offenders will inevitably repeat their crimes. But the data tell a different story. More than 90 percent of child sexual abuse is committed by someone the child knows and trusts. And recidivism rates for sex offenders are far lower than most people believe -- authoritative studies show that three out of four do not re-offend within 15 years of release from prison.

Furthermore, focusing much of our public policy resources on restricting the rights of former sex offenders will do very little, if anything, to protect the 87 percent of victims of sexual violence who were abused by someone who had no previous sex crime conviction.

Residency restriction laws, in place in 20 states, are based on another popular belief about former offenders -- that keeping them away from places where children gather will reduce their risk of re-offending. But there is no evidence these laws diminish crimes against children and some to suggest the opposite.

A recent study by the Minnesota Department of Corrections analyzed 224 sex offender recidivists to see if where they lived had an effect on their crimes. The study found that residential proximity had very little impact on a recidivist's opportunity to re-offend. Many took pains to drive far from their neighborhoods in order to re-offend. More than half (113) came into contact with their victims through "social or relationship proximity" to the child. The most common example was that of a male offender who found his victim(s) while socializing with their mother.

The main impact of residency restrictions may be to drive former offenders underground, away from families, police supervision and the help that can stop them re-offending. As an Iowa sheriff pointed out, "We've taken stable people who have committed a sex crime and cast them out of their homes, away from their jobs, away from treatment, and away from public transportation. It's just absolutely absurd what these laws have done, and the communities are at greater risk because of it."

Law enforcement officials and sex offender treatment providers repeatedly told Human Rights Watch that isolating former offenders is counter-productive. Existing parole and probation laws already permit law enforcement agencies to place restrictions and conditions on former offenders when appropriate.

All registered sex offenders must provide a home address, but because of the restrictions, some do not have a home. Police in Iowa, which has seen residency restrictions backfire, have resolved this conundrum by allowing individuals to register as homeless, if they specify a location. So users who go to Iowa's online registry will find addresses listed as "on the Raccoon River between Des Moines and West Des Moines," "behind the Target on Euclid," and "underneath the I-80 bridge." I visited some of these "addresses." The areas are industrial, polluted, noisy, full of debris, and, in one case, right next to an active railroad track.

As a Des Moines police officer explained, "We don't expect that the registrants are actually living under the bridge, it's just one of the few places where they are legally allowed to admit they are living, and so they list that as their address, and go live someplace else."

Since the law took effect in Iowa, police have lost track of hundreds of former offenders.

Even online registries, where the personal details of offenders, but not necessarily the nature of their crime, are accessible to anyone with an Internet connection, may not be that useful. Some were convicted of non-violent offenses, others were children when they committed their crime. Police already have the duty to inform neighbors when an offender who might pose a threat moves in.

But it's one thing to say parents should be told there's a dangerous man living next door -- which they should -- and quite another to let anyone browse the registries to see who's listed, regardless of any need to know. Unfettered access to registry information can and does lead to harassment, ostracism and even violence against former offenders. That doesn't protect anyone. More effective would be to ensure that police actually pass on potential threats to the relevant community.

We deserve laws that protect everyone from sexual violence. Former offenders need laws that allow them to rebuild their lives -- because when they succeed in safely rejoining their communities, we are all made safer. State and federal legislators should end residency restrictions and reform online registry and community notification laws so they target high-risk offenders.

It's not surprising that those who know something about the nature of sexual violence in the United States have started to criticize the way the laws treat former sex offenders. But it's a shame that politicians don't seem to be listening to the experts who could help to craft laws that might actually prevent sexual violence.

Some good comments, too.

Logical extension

2007-10-13T13:31:00.000-06:00

We deserve to know if any offender lives nearby

After reading the excellent series by Matthew Tully, "Life on the edge," I started thinking: We require sex offenders to list where they live and work, ostensibly because this protects society. So why do we not require it for all criminals?

Don't we deserve to know if there is a drug dealer living down the street? What about people convicted of violent crimes using guns and knifes or even their fists?
Drunken drivers usually re-offend. Want to know if there is one driving down your street before you let your kid play there? Gang members often return to gangs after prison, so why not list where they live and work? What about burglars, robbers, arsonists and murderers?
The recidivism rate for sex offenders is lower than for many of these other criminals, especially for those who obey the law and register. So if we require these people to tell us where they live, if we limit where they may live or work, then it only makes sense to extend this logic to everyone ever convicted. Or are the politicians only interested in sex crimes?

Nick Ames

Indianapolis

Maine Court puts needed halt on sex offender hysteria

2007-09-30T19:47:00.000-06:00

Internet registries can punish sex offenders but may do little to protect children.

Pillory was the name of a punishment device used in Colonial times. Usually made from two hinged boards with holes cut for the head and hands, this technical upgrade to the stocks was used to expose convicts to public scorn.

In his novel, "The Scarlet Letter," Nathaniel Hawthorne described one of the machines, and said, "There can be no outrage, methinks ... more flagrant than to forbid the culprit to hide his face for shame."

In our times, "pillory" has become a verb meaning "to lay open to ridicule, public shame and abuse." It is a word that could be used to describe what happens to a person whose name and photograph appears on an Internet sex offender registry.

In an important ruling this week, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court opened Maine's sex offender registry law to legal challenge. This opinion should force the public and all levels of government to reconsider the effectiveness of online registries as a weapon against sexual violence.

COURT'S RULING

The unanimous court found that restrictions on where a sex offender can live and work flow from public notification. That makes the registry a form of punishment that should be imposed selectively as part of a criminal sentence, and not applied indiscriminately through civil law.

The Legislature's Criminal Justice Committee will meet next month to review the law in light of the court's opinion. The lawmakers should realize what two of the judges found: Amendments to the Sex Offender Registry and Notification Act made over the last seven years have turned a reasonable law- enforcement tool into a vindictive weapon against one class of criminal.

Lawmakers should especially reconsider their decision to make the mandatory registration retroactive, applying it in some cases to people who have lived quiet, law-abiding lives for years since completing their sentences.

This is not about being nice to sex offenders or ignoring the often-lifelong damage caused by their crimes. It is about justice and public safety.

Maine's online registry, and others like it in almost every state, does little to protect children and others from abuse because it can drive offenders underground, making them harder to track. Most sex crimes against children are committed within households, and a public registry does not provide information that would protect many of those victims. In fact, it could give their parents a false sense of security.

The main purpose of the online registries appears to be punitive. While the criminal justice system imposes punishment, the state should also focus attention on education and other areas that could prevent crime.

Maine passed its notification law in 1995. At that time, it required people convicted of gross sexual assault when the victim was under the age of 16 to register as part of their sentence. By law, the information was given to "certain police agencies and to members of the public who the department determines appropriate to ensure public safety."

LAW AMENDED

Subsequent amendments to the law have been driven by federal programs that tie changes to the registry to access to federal crime-fighting dollars.

In 2001, the law was made retroactive for people sentenced for crimes committed as far back as 1992. Registrants had to report every 90 days to a local police station for fingerprinting.

A 2003 amendment put the information online, including the registrant's address, place of employment and photograph. In 2005, the registry was made retroactive to crimes committed as far back as 1982.

Stephen Marshall, a deranged Nova Scotia man, used the state's Web site to target the two Maine registrants he murdered on Easter Sunday 2006.

Shortly after those killings, a man known in court papers as "John Doe" challenged his order to register.

He had been convicted of unlawful sexual contact with a 12- year-old relative more than 20 years earlier, and had no subsequent sexual offenses. Doe said his wife would leave him to protect her children if his name and address appeared on the registry. He was also afraid he would lose his job and his neighbors would force him to move away.

All of this would be imposed without any evidence other than his conviction that he would pose a threat to another child.

His case was dismissed because a pair of court decisions, one from the U.S. Supreme Court and one from Maine's, appeared to have settled the issue in favor of the registry.

But in its ruling this week, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court said the registration law had been so drastically changed through its amendments, it has become something entirely different. The opinion sends the Doe case back to the Superior Court.

LAWMAKER'S TASK

In the meantime, lawmakers should consider what the registry has become over the last 12 years. Rogues' galleries on the Internet perpetuate myths about sex abuse, and do little to protect victims from the real dangers.

If public notification is a form of punishment it should be viewed that way and made part of a sentence.

Lawmakers should also consider if it isn't a type of punishment, like the pillory, that we put aside long ago.

You really don't have to go far beyond the comments on this article to understand that the general populace sees through the pretense that these laws aren't additional punishments -- and supports the pretense. However, it's highly likely that these very same folks will be the ones squealing the loudest when the denial of liberty and privacy to others that they supported gets applied to them. And there are so many agendas out there, it will.

A disaster waiting to happen

2007-09-07T19:51:00.000-06:00

Absolutely incredible. Parents abdicating ALL responsibility:

Zina Linnik's neighbors demand change

TACOMA - Dozens of residents in the city's hilltop neighborhood gathered at Peace Lutheran Church on Thursday to demand that all sex offenders be swept out of the community.

...

"I don't think we have to watch our kids everyday. When I was growing up, they didn't have to watch me everyday, " said Oscar Freeman, a parent. "The police should be up here, doing more patrolling."

...

There's a clinical word likely to be applied to the Freeman children.

It's "victim."

A win for "ex post facto"

2007-09-07T19:16:00.000-06:00

Longtime blog readers know that I am very down on the "ex post facto" element of many of the sex-offender laws being passed, and why not? If the government can encroach on somebody's rights after the crime, well, then that right was never really there to begin with and what was taken away from one for whatever person can be taken from another for another purpose.

If governments can dictate today where some people cannot live, based on a prior conviction, it's really a very small step to dictate where they CAN live. (And you can bet it will always be Not In My Back Yard.) There are many people living today who have seen this happen before -- it's just a matter of against whom the hue & cry is being raised. And if the outsiders are made unpopular enough... well, I see signs that maybe it's not going to go that far in this country.

In any event Ohio, which has lately been on the forefront of "beat up the sex offenders" (who've done their time, and federal judicial stats say a significant number will never re-offend at all, much less with a sex offense), got slapped back a little according to this report.

Don't get me wrong -- two strikes are two too many, and if you've got a prosecutor more ethical than Nifong I'm not going to quibble about what you get for a sentence. But all the exclusion zones, branding, Mr Yuck license plates and all the rest, it's all lazy and sleazy politicians with no concern for their constituency grabbing for the easy issues. And so what if it increases recidivism, causes more crimes? It can't be laid directly to their account.

CLEVELAND (AP) — A federal judge struck down part of a law barring convicted sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of a school, saying offenders can remain in their homes if their crimes were committed before the law went into effect.

In a decision Tuesday, Judge James S. Gwin in Akron ruled that the law cannot be applied to anyone who committed a crime before July 31, 2003, the effective date of the Ohio Legislature's ban.

...

Douglas Powley, chief city prosecutor in Akron, said Wednesday he hopes lawmakers can craft a law that can withstand a constitutional challenge.

Summit County Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh plans to appeal the ruling.

Sex Offenders VS Child Safety

2007-09-03T19:26:00.000-06:00

Shirley Lowery

September 3, 2007

The laws enacted to monitor and control sex offenders are extraordinary. I think we can all agree to that. The general public believes these extraordinary laws are justified. The faces of murdered children, killed by sexual predators, are flashed on the TV urging us to "consider the children." And who could resist? Who would want to? Surely it is justified to face the threats to our children.

But what are those threats really? Is there a way to know?

Actually, yes...

- U.S. Department of Justice, National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Throwaway Children.
<

http://www.missingkids.com/en_US/documents/nismart2_overview.pdf

This report states that in 2002 an estimated 1,325,600 kids went missing. 797,500 were reported as missing.

628,900 of these children were identified as runaway/throwaway kids.

Of the other 528,100 children their parents didn't even bother to file a report.

Yet the we hear the constant scream of "if it saves one child". Oh, there are so many more than that who need to be saved so let’s look at where the danger lies.

Out of 1,315,600 missing kids 115 were snatched in the sense that everybody is worried about. And that includes kids that were snatched for ransom, and kids that were snatched by a disturbed or distraught person who wanted a child of their own, so how many are left that were snatched and killed by the sex offenders that are hiding behind every tree? That's what we're really worried about, right? Actually, the report tells us that number is 40 but let’s be generous and use the entire 115 who were snatched out of the 1.3 million who went missing.

You will find that less than 1/100th of 1% were snatched but the number that people care about and are willing to spend our resources on is much lower. To qualify for an outcry there must be a combination of sex, violence and death.

Page 11 of the report states that "…40 missing children who were stereotypically kidnapped and killed (an estimated 35) or were still missing (approximately 5) at the time of the study." Yes, that is too many. But are we going to ignore all the others to concentrate on less than 1/200th of 1%?

Now, it is a sad fact that there are more children who die each year than just these 40. Many more. How many more and how are they dying?

Center for Disease Control

http://webapp.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/leadcaus10.html

A quick look at Top Ten deaths in minors in 2002 shows that there were 17,759 kids who died (excluding infant mortality).

Of those:

1296 were shot to death by someone,

145 were stabbed to death,

89 were strangled,

37 were burned alive,

17 were poisoned,

603 shot themselves,

559 hung themselves, and

6132 were killed in traffic accidents.

This tells us that in 2002:

Your child was 1400% more likely to hang themselves than be snatched and killed by a sex offender.

Your child was 1500% more likely to shoot themselves than be snatched and killed by a sex offender

Your child was 3200% more likely to be murdered by firearm by someone besides a sex offender.

Your child was 4000% more likely to be shot, stabbed, strangled, burned alive or poisoned than snatched and killed by a sex offender.

Your child was 15300% more likely to be killed in a car crash than snatched and killed by a sex offender.

We find more information here.

The American Journal of Psychiatry

http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/162/9/1578

- Among children under age 5 years in the United States who were murdered in the last quarter of the 20th century, 61% were killed by their own parents: 30% were killed by their mothers, and 31% by their fathers

Paying to register? Stupid idea

2007-08-25T19:48:00.000-06:00

Some sheriffs consider sex offender fee

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Some Indiana counties are looking to charge convicted sex offenders an annual fee to register their addresses as required under state law.

Supporters of the fees say they would provide police agencies with much-needed money, while critics say they might be unconstitutional and could discourage some offenders from registering.
The sheriffs in St. Joseph County, which includes South Bend, and Bartholomew County, which includes Columbus, said the fees -- $50 each year and $5 for an address change -- would only cover a portion of the costs their departments face to process the registrations and track offenders.

"The cost has to come from somewhere," St. Joseph County Sheriff Frank Canarecci said. "I would classify it as a user fee. I think those who use government services should pay."
Susan Hancock, executive director of St. Joseph County Community Corrections, said she worried such a fee would hurt the registry's purpose of informing the public of sex offenders' whereabouts

"My concern is that there may be an unintended consequence and that some of these guys say, 'Oh gosh, I don't have the $50, so I just won't register,"' she said. "We do have the reality that some of these individuals do not have the money to pay for a meal, let alone pay a fee."
The $50 and $5 charges are the maximum allowed under Indiana law.

...

Ken Falk, legal director for the ACLU of Indiana, said he questioned whether such fees were constitutional as the $5 fee for changing one's address would essentially penalize people for moving.

This one comes from time to time, and has not withstood whatever tests it has come against.

A good thing, in my humble opinion, because such "fees" will be highly counter-productive. First off, enacted ex post facto they're a trigger to the dutifully registered convicted sex offender that life will get worse for him no matter what he does.

Second, they impose an economic burden that can invite backlash. Perhaps, instead of taking waste materials like old furniture or old computers to the local dump/recycling center (where charges are imposed), such materials get deliberately dumped roadside. (Worse, such backlash in itself will further isolate the would-be ex-offender from a feeling of being a member of society, not a contribution to rehabilitation.)

Third, this invites resistance -- especially where it applies lifelong. Can't afford it anymore? Take the easy way out. The quality of the provisions are quite poor but you get lifelong "three hots and a cot, free health-care, etc." -- and you can get it by saying "I can't afford it" and give up your "home" under that bridge.

I'm just waiting until some enterprising politician thinks he he can "drive out the sex offenders" by raising the registration fee to a few thousand dollars per quarter. If the initial "fee" assessment stands, it is going to happen, be assured of that! You have to look no further the Georgia and Iowa on residency zones to see that. (And how much they want to but cannot, back off on those laws.)

Crime figures show sex offender laws don’t work

2007-08-25T18:39:00.000-06:00

...

Every state has laws intending to protect children from repeat offenders such as Gorczyca, but crime figures show those laws just aren’t working. What’s more, residence laws in some states, which push offenders out of their homes, put children at greater risk since the offenders disappear from police sight.

Since 1996, all states have required sex offenders to register their addresses with local police. That’s when “Megan’s Law” was enacted, after a girl in New Jersey was snatched, raped and murdered by a neighbor no one knew had committed sexual attacks on two young children. The Adam Walsh Act of 2006 updates those registration guidelines nationwide, ranking offenders by severity of their crimes.

More than half the states also impose residence restrictions through state law or local ordinance designed to deliver predators from temptation.

...

Levy and others who’ve drafted similar laws in statehouses and town halls nationwide say they only want to keep predators as far from children as possible.

Problem is, residency laws don’t deliver. Crime numbers in states that have such bans don’t reflect any clear-cut decrease in sex offenses or crimes against children after the laws are enacted. Most molestations are tracked back to perpetrators children already know and trust, with precious few resulting from “stranger danger.” And the residence restrictions for sex offenders are proving expensive, costing taxpayers in lawsuits, enforcement and drops in property value.

Nor do strict residence laws that relegate offenders to society’s fringes hold sex offender numbers down, since the count keeps growing. And the laws don’t determine where sex offenders will settle once released from prison, despite their supporters’ claims that absent residence laws, a state or town becomes a pedophiliac haven.

Alaska leads all 50 states in sex offenders per capita. The northern state of 670,000 has 630 offenders per 100,000 residents, and no residence laws.

But neither does Pennsylvania, at the bottom of that same list with 62 offenders per 100,000 residents -- about a 10th of Alaska’s rate.

Kansas also has no residence law for sex offenders and settles near the middle of the list. The state averages 144 sex offenders per 100,000 residents, which places Kansas 29th overall.

Some states have begun debating the laws’ effectiveness.

Prosecutors in Iowa called last year for its 2,000-foot law to be repealed, saying the stricter the ban, the more offenders end up shirking the registry outright and disappearing once released from prison.

“It’s a form of banishment,” said Corey Rayburn Yung, a professor at John Marshall Law School in Chicago who runs the blog Sex Crimes (http://sexcrimes.typepad.com). “You’ll find in Iowa a motel where all sex offenders live. We’re starting to get ghettoization, which is very new in America. We don’t have these sorts of ghettos of criminalization that way. The United States has a long history of resisting banishment.”

Yet other legislators continue to draw ever-widening circles around parks, schools, playgrounds - even bus stops - where convicted offenders may not live and sometimes may not loiter.

In June, Nevada became one of the latest states to push through a law that bars the most dangerous offenders from entering a safety zone around kid hangouts: schools, daycares and video arcades.

In Florida, where a 1,000-foot state rule bars pedophiles from schools and parks, many counties and municipalities widened the circle to 2,500 feet. In Miami, that left only a swath of land for five offenders under a bridge, where they lived with state approval.

And Marlborough, Mass., enacted its law in June - finalized as a 1,000-foot loop around schools, parks and daycares where sex offenders can’t live, plus a 500-foot “safety zone” where they can’t loiter.

But a Colorado study found that molesters who reoffended didn’t live any closer to schools or childcares than those who didn’t abuse again. Sex offenders in that state can live wherever they choose.

“Placing restrictions on the location of … supervised sex offender residences may not deter the sex offender from reoffending and should not be considered as a method to control sexual offending recidivism,” the study stated.

Random stranger attacks on children grab headlines but account for only about 10 percent of sexual assaults on kids, according to the Department of Justice.

Only about 100 of 60,000 annual sex assault reports involve abduction by a stranger.

Most state laws don’t distinguish between serial rapists and repentant mooners. Very few states - including Massachusetts - allow offenders a chance to prove they’re no longer a risk.

Illinois saw a jump from 1,187 sexual offenses against children in 1999, the year before its residence laws began, to 1,871 offenses in 2005, the most recent year the state police released statistics.

Iowa made 279 sex crime arrests the year before it began restricting where sex offenders could live, but 322 in 2005.

So the state, with prosecutors’ approval, is backtracking.

“(We) believe that the 2,000 foot residency restrictions … do not provide the protection that was originally intended,” the leading state prosecutors association (www.icaa.org) said in 2006.

“We do know that people who have offended and have undergone good treatment, have jobs, have stable living situations and have family and other support will not reoffend,” said Corwin Ritchie, the organization’s head. “And that’s why we don’t want them living under bridges, in motels with dozens of other sex offenders, without jobs, without treatment and all those other things we know are effective in preventing recidivism.”

To challenge residence bans as unconstitutional banishment and ongoing punishment, offenders have sued. Suits dragged on in Iowa and Ohio, and continue in Georgia and Missouri. Those ruled on have deemed any retroactive law unconstitutional.

Residence laws end up backfiring because they push sex offenders away from support, said Jill S. Levenson, a professor who’s studied sex offender behavior.

Offenders often search for victims far from their hometowns so they are less likely to be recognized, Levenson wrote.

Housing restrictions increase isolation in sex offenders and add to financial and emotional problems, according to a study Levenson published in 2005. Half the offenders questioned said they had to move, and more than 40 percent couldn’t live with family anymore - and that stress makes it harder to resist temptation, Levenson concluded.

But the laws are popular among voters and politically tricky to oppose.

Kansas shot down a residence ban and prohibited local laws, citing Iowa’s troubles. After Iowa enacted its residence law, police lost track of 400 offenders who gave fake addresses or moved without telling police, compared with 140 the year before.

As states sign on to the federal Adam Walsh Act of 2006 (they have until July 2009 to do so or lose federal money), sex offenders nationwide will be ranked according to the same criteria, and then told to register for 15 or 25 years, or for life, depending on the severity of their crimes.

Meanwhile, in 12 states, offenders must register for life, no matter how trivial the crime. In other states, offenders who insist they pose no danger to society - those caught having sex with teens a few years younger - say their years of registration are solely for punishment.

The mother of a Texas teen, who ended up convicted of sexual assault after a Romeo-and-Juliet romance soured, can’t believe her son is classed alongside dangerous rapists.

“The effects of the lifetime sex offender status will never end,“ she said. “Did my son break the law? Certainly. Should he be punished? Definitely. But should his consequences be the same as those for a violent, forced rape or an offense against a young child? Is using a lifetime of resources to monitor someone like this a sensible use of taxpayer money?”

Even a Massachusetts mother whose three children were repeatedly molested by a trusted family friend, said she’d rather see money spent on housing or treating dangerous offenders than monitoring lesser criminals who never touched a child.

“Where are they going to live?” asked the mother of three who wanted to be known only as “Jane.”

“None of us wants them here. I don’t want them living next to me. No, we don’t want them near daycares and schools, but it doesn’t prevent them from going to a mall,” she said of laws passed in towns near hers.

“You know, we somehow feel comfortable, but we don’t really know where they are. … It’s a false sense of security.”

Giving up liberty... for what?

2007-08-13T18:31:00.000-06:00

Sorry for the long absence. Vacation followed by another computer crash, but at least the "password issue" was better in hand this time and I am back.

Listening to the radio today, it sounds like the region I live in today is about to undergo big attempts to implement the laws that have been failing or worse, elsewhere in the country. There's no doubt that a lot of folks will be lured into such counterproductive measures.

No matter how much liberty they give up in the process, in exchange for the false promise of a little more security.

For example, if it is legal for a locale to arbitrarily zone out convicted sex offenders, why can it not also zone out convicted drink-drivers (there aren't many arterials where I live, so the probability of encountering some may be increased)? Murderers? Thieves? Meth-makers? Speeders? Car-thieves (victim of that more than once, and once is Too Often!)? Many landlords might like to advertise to potential occupants of their rental units that the units are in a Convicted-Offender-Free Zone!

...with the appropriate disclaimers in the really fine print, and woe the poor sap who buys into it. Just like the victims, their husbands, parents and boyfriends who buy into the promise of "sex-offender non-residency" laws.

As I've said before on this blog, these law only create "target-rich environments."

(Hm! On a hunch I revisited the Bureau of Justice Statistics Report "Sex Offenders and Offenses" and on Table 2, printed page 21, it turns out that of those imprisoned in state prisons for "rape and sexual assault" 48.2% are black, 48.1% white, 3.7% "other". Given the study results in "Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 1997", the same year as the previous study, one finds the race breakout: black = 42.0%, white = 40.6%, hispanic = 15.7%. It seems obvious that Hispanics will be lumped in with white if their category disappears, therefore the sex-offender laws are disproportionately racist against blacks. Or at least there might be those who would argue such.)

Be careful of your vote: Kosiur would expand sex offender laws

2007-07-14T17:38:00.000-06:00

Looks like another politician, Ed Kosiur of Schenectady County, NY, is trying to ride The Easy Issue. Click on the title to see the whole article:

The new law, described by some Kosiur campaign ads as the toughest in the state, bans all levels of sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of any school, daycare center, playground, swimming pool, park, or youth center.

It doesn’t just prohibit sex offenders from moving into those locations, it’s [SIC] in fact requires all the ones currently living in those places to move. It leaves only a small portion of the town of Duanesburg for sex offenders to live within county borders.

This blog has long since noted the massive failure of such laws. End result: registered sex offenders slip away and the state incurs massive expenses 1) trying to track every single one of them dowm, 2) incarcerating them for months or years after doing so, and 3) supporting their families (if they have such, I don't have numbers on the proportion who do) on welfare during their incarceration.

But if that's what New York voters want, they're welcome to pay for it.

The FBI: how much more hysterical can they get?

2007-07-14T17:13:00.000-06:00

I have to say I was almost literally rolling on the floor laughing then I read this article:

FBI: Sex Offenders Could Exploit Free WiFi (Per the site's request, I am providing only the link, not the content.)

So. Free WiFi can "attract dangerous criminals"? I guess so (clearly the FBI is not concerned about non-dangerous criminals). And terrorists too. But you know, free anything will attract the same folks, along with everyone else.

(sarcasm:) Is the FBI saying that nothing should be free?

Sex Offender Laws Pummeled

2007-07-07T10:00:00.000-06:00

Good news, for once! (And if I've been quiet for a while, it's because I'm researching and writing my opposition comments to the Department of Justice guidelines for the Adam Walsh act.) Thank you Amanda Rogers and the American Chronicle.

EX OFFENDER LAWS PUMMELED AS GAP BETWEEN BEING TOUGH ON CRIME AND BEING SMART ON CRIME WIDENS

Washington D.C.: In a desperate attempt to keep the flow of misinformation alive, John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted - who has always sought vengeance over prevention (and makes a ton of money doing it) assembled a small group of parents whose children have been murdered, whether by a registered sex offender or not and went to Capitol Hill last week to push for yet even more ineffective and blatantly vindictive laws in the name of a handful of murdered children.

The group called “The Surviving Parents Coalition,” enlisted the services of a PR (public relations) firm. This is important to note as, in the words of Eugene Kennedy, quoted from the New York Times: “You call in public relations operatives when the truth won’t do.”

The coalition's PR company: (R.M.S. PR) sent out a press release that the group would be meeting with a few “fools on the hill” last week in Washington urging them to “declare war on sex offenders.” Declare war? There was also to be a press conference. To date, I have seen only one single article covering this event - evidence that Mr. Walsh and his entourage have pushed the envelope too far. Vengeance against 600,000 plus people for the actions of the handful responsible for the despicable crimes which took the lives of these parents’ children cannot continue. The silence upon Capitol Hill last week spoke volumes and sends a clear and powerful message: It is no longer enough for the American people for elected officials to look “tough” on crime. The American people want legislators to be “smart” on crime - to focus on prevention, not retribution.

Across the nation, a growing number of top mental health experts, law enforcement agencies, and victim advocacy groups are becoming fed up with costly, ineffective, and counter-productive sex offender laws, and they are speaking out. The over-inflated balloon of hype and hysteria which has been the platform for creating and passing much of the legislation is deflating as factual data on the issues surrounding sex crimes comes to the forefront.

For example, ALL of these laws focus on former registered sex offenders who statistically are responsible for a miniscule 3% of new sex crimes. That means that 97% of new sex crimes will be commited by someone who is NOT a registered sex offender. To put it in perspective, out of the 400 Dateline "To Catch A Predator" stings only 4 out of the over 400 caught were actually registered sex offenders. So then, WHY are all these laws only targeting those on the registry that pose the lowest risk to society?

The tide is turning and lawmakers who don’t want to be left holding the bag for the miserable failures that have been created in the name of protecting the public are taking notice. With the exception of the three "fools on the hill" that are still trying to make a name for themselves via deception and who have obviously not done their homework. Those lawmakers being: Senator Joe Biden-(D) DE, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz-(D) FL , and Congressman Al Green-(D) TX.

Multiple states across the nation are delaying and in some cases even outright refusing to comply with the Federal government’s mandate of the Adam Walsh Act passed last year in a closed door session, at the bequest of Rep. James Sensenbrenner.

Community notification laws, residency restrictions, and all the other “one up man-ship” policies that have been set into law to date haven’t protected a single child and it has cost the American people dearly. These laws have torn a huge hole in the fabric of our society. ALL of these laws have been based on a handful of tragic and brutal crimes, some involving someone with a previous sex offense and some not. America’s children have a greater chance of being struck by lightening than by having their child abducted. The crimes are horrific but they are in fact, extremely rare. The majority of sex crimes are not committed by strangers or even registered sex offenders, yet that is who John Walsh and others constantly focus on when lobbying for laws against everyone and anyone with a past sex charge, whether for Romeo and Juliet relationships or kids caught playing doctor. Everyone has been lumped together and publicly slandered by vote hungry politicians and the ratings hungry media, trying to convince us that everyone on the sex offender registry is a child molesting, incurable pedophile capable of murdering a child at any given moment. Bullshit. If all registered sex offenders posed that kind of threat to the public, we’d be neck deep in the bodies of murdered children just by walking out our front door. Think about it.

Lawmakers are (finally) doing their homework. They are finally beginning to pour over the numerous reports which government agencies and mental health experts have compiled and that the taxpayers have paid for regarding recidivism, types of offenders, factual data and the negative consequences of the plethora of ill thought out legislation.

Sex crimes are down? That’s no surprise. I wonder how many cases will never see the light of day because family members fear the wrath of these laws and keep sexual abuse “within the family” to themselves instead of reporting it? How is this protecting children or helping to solve the problem?

The ever growing group of organizations and individuals who have read the mountains of data and oppose laws like community notification, residency restrictions, and the Adam Walsh Act include, but are not limited to:

Patty Wetterling

Nancy Sabin

The Jacob Wetterling Foundation

Franklin Zimring, law professor University of California at Berkeley

Scott Poland, past president of the National Association of School Psychologists

Robert Prentky, a psychologist and nationally renowned expert on sex offenders in Bridgewater, Massachusetts

Kansas department of Corrections

Iowa County Attorney’s Association

Colorado Department of Public Safety

Iowa Coalition Against Sexual Assault

Minnesota Department of Corrections

NACDL

Montana Treatment Association

California Coalition on Sex Offending

Therapy Key

SATA

ETAY

My5th.org

NAESV

American Bar Association

JJAG

Dr. Jill Levinson PhD

Dr. Fred Berlin

I don’t know what’s worse, someone who exploits a child sexually or someone who makes a career out of exploiting their own child’s tragic death for personal gain at the expense of thousands of others (and their families,) who had nothing to do with the perpetration of these heinous crimes.

Amanda Rogers - 7/03/2007