A Grandma Reflects on Sex Offender Laws: “My Husband Would Have Gone to Jail”

Following up on the Zach Anderson case — the 19 year old on the Sex Offender Registry for 25 years for having consensual sex with a girl who said she was 17 (but was really 14) — comes this grandma’s letter. The Sex Offender Registry is a Free-Range issue because it grows out of the belief our kids are in constant danger and it perpetuates that belief, by making many non-threatening people like Zach into scary dots on the “maps of local sex offenders.” Full Article (FreeRangeKids)

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CT: Sex Offender Registry Review A Tricky Task [Editorial]

Connecticut’s sex offender registry was created in 1998 to protect the public. Does it work? A committee of the Connecticut Sentencing Commission hopes to answer that question in the next 30 months as it reviews the state’s laws and policies relating to sex offenders. “This is not an easy topic,” said committee co-Chairman Robert Farr, former chairman of the Connecticut Board of Pardons and Paroles. Full Editorial

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IN: Indiana sex offender’s porn ban tossed out by appeals court

A federal appeals court panel has overturned a lower court’s order banning an Indiana sex offender from viewing adult pornography. The panel of judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit ruled Thursday that a probation requirement barring convicted sex offender Jeffrey P. Taylor of Logansport from accessing “legal adult pornography” was not supported by evidence in his criminal case. The decision, however, has little actual impact on Taylor. His probation period ended Friday — the day after the appeals court decision was issued. “Since the service…

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When the sex offender registry goes too far

You may have heard about questionable instances of people being put on a sex offender registry: teenagers having sex with other teenagers, overly curious children touching each other’s private parts, someone urinating in public. These are hardly the pedophiles and violent criminals who abduct and rape the innocent, but oftentimes they are subject to the same stringent restrictions on where to live and shop and the same stigma that makes finding a job very difficult. The case of Zachary Anderson helps to illustrate the failure of this one-size-fits-all punishment. ……

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