STATE HOUSE – The General Assembly has approved legislation that will prohibit prospective employers for including questions on job applications regarding arrests, charges or criminal convictions. The legislation provides exceptions to that rule in certain cases: if a federal or state law or regulation creates a mandatory or presumptive disqualification based on a person’s conviction of one or more specified criminal offenses, or if a fidelity bond is required and an individual’s conviction of one or more specified offenses could prevent obtaining such a bond. All other potential employers would…
Read MoreMonth: July 2013
“Sexting”: From bad judgment to a registered sex offender
The technological phenomenon of “sexting” has seen such a dramatic increase in popularity that it is now defined in the Merriam Webster Dictionary: “the sending of sexually explicit messages or images by cell phone.” Moreover, if you ask a high school student to describe sexting, you may be surprised to hear it is a social norm. In a 2009 survey conducted by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen & Unplanned Pregnancy, twenty percent of teens said they had sexted. That number has since increased to over twenty-five percent. What these students and many others do…
Read MoreRSOL Conference: CONFERENCE DISCOUNTS END JULY 31
Discounts for the national RSOL conference, including registration and hotel, will end on July 31. In order to take advantage of those discounts, please register for the conference and hotel no later than that date. After July 31, the conference rate will increase from $90 to $100 and the hotel rate will increase from $89 to $130 per night. It’s easy to register online at www.nationalrsol.org. Scholarships for the conference are available to qualified California registrants and family members who volunteer at the conference. Please contact Janice at (805) 896-7854 or via E-mail…
Read MoreOR: Lawmakers pass univ. autonomy, tiered sex offender system bills
Lawmakers rushed to approve the final pieces of a two-year budget and leave Salem after 155 days — five shy of the constitutional deadline to finish their work. One of their final acts was passing an $800 million bonding package to fund construction projects around the state, including a 174-bed psychiatric hospital in Junction City. Some Republican legislators criticized the project because of the high costs associated with staffing and operating the facility after it’s built. The package, however, passed each chamber with a large majority Monday. Full Article
Read MoreKS: Sex offender who didn’t register gets 22-plus years
Defense attorney David McDonald had no problem with his client being required to register every three months with the sheriff’s office as a violent offender. However, the recent sentence that client ___ ____ ____, 33, received — 22 years and eight months tied to two Shawnee County cases for failing to register as an offender — is excessive, McDonald said. No one objects to keeping track of violent offenders, McDonald said, but the sentences “have just gone way too far. It’s gone incredibly too far.” Full Article
Read MoreKnowing the Numbers: How Bad Sex-Offender Data Could Cause More Harm
Guest Columnist Jill Levenson of Lynn University criticizes the reliance of the Supreme Court and others on inaccurate sex offender data… In the US Supreme Court’s recent decision upholding sex offender registration requirements (SORNA) under the Adam Walsh Act [PDF], the Court’s opinion [PDF] included the following statement: “SORNA’s general changes were designed to make more uniform what had remained “a patchwork of federal and 50 individual state registration systems … with loopholes and deficiencies” that had resulted in an estimated 100,000 sex offenders essentially disappearing off law enforcement’s radar. Full Article
Read MoreScapegoats and Shunning (2006)
Progressives in America are rightly concerned about increasing signs of fascism in this country, such as a so-called war on terrorism thatallows massive invasion of privacy and wholesale imprisonment without charge; such as state manufacture of propaganda for its ownpeople; such as the assertion that anyone who challenges government policies on these matters is a traitor; such as a “great leader” who puts himself clearly above and outside the law. They ought to be concerned also about another sign of the demise of American justice and human decency: scapegoating. One…
Read MoreTo help ex-cons, ban the box
The most telling predictor of whether an ex-offender will reenter the community as a law-abiding and productive member, or whether instead he or she will return to jail or prison, is employment. Former inmates with steady jobs have fairly high success rates. For those who can’t find work, prospects are dismal. Full Article
Read More[UPDATED] Sex offender awarded custody of 6-year-old girl
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — A judge in Oklahoma City awarded custody of a child to 55-year-old _____ _____, who is a registered sex offender from Bakersfield. The child is _____’s 6-year-old daughter. The ruling left the girl’s mother bewildered, she said. Full Article More on this story: Registered sex offender has daughter taken away after bullet arrest
Read MoreSex offender law affects past plea deal
A 2004 state law requires the names and addresses of all registered sex offenders to be made public. On Monday, the state Supreme Court ruled that the law could apply to a Bay Area man who admitted molesting a child in 1991, when sex offender registrations were confidential. Full Article
Read MoreAppellate Justices Amend Sex Entrapment Ruling Against Huntington Beach Police
A California Court of Appeal that last month rebuked a Huntington Beach Police Department (HBPD) sting operation targeting adults in pursuit of minors for sex on Craigslist has refused a California Attorney General’s office request to reconsider its decision, but nonetheless softened it stance in the case. Full Article
Read MoreGeneral Comments July 2013
Comments that are not specific to a certain post should go here, for the month of July 2013. Contributions should relate to the cause and goals of this organization and please, keep it courteous and civil.
Read MoreDE: Lawmakers Pass Juvenile Sex Offender Bill
DOVER, Del. – The state House has given final legislative approval to a bill giving Family Court judges the discretion to determine whether certain juvenile offenders should be declared sex offenders subject to inclusion on the state’s sex offender registry. Full Article
Read MoreDoe vs Harris Decision
“… requiring the parties’ compliance with changes in the law made retroactive to them does not violate the terms of the plea agreement, nor does the failure of a plea agreement to reference the possibility the law might change translate into an implied promise the defendant will be unaffected by a change in the statutory consequences attending his or her conviction. To that extent, then, the terms of the plea agreement can be affected by changes in the law.“ 6-1 Decision
Read More