Sex offenders are 70 per cent less likely to reoffend if they are part of a restorative justice programme which exists in other countries but has not yet been introduced inIreland, a conference heard yesterday. The Circles of Support and Accountability (COSA) programme was developed in Canada and 100 such programmes are now in operation in the UK for sex offenders who have been released from prison. Full Article
Read MoreMonth: November 2013
San Diego Gets in Your Face With New Mobile Identification System
The San Diego regional planning agency, SANDAG, has been quietly rolling out a new mobile face recognition system that will sharply change how police conduct simple stops on Americans. The system, which allows officers to use mobile devices to collect face images out in the field, already has a database of 1.4 million images and serves nearly 25 federal, state and local law enforcement agencies in the region. Full Article Also: Facial recognition, once a battlefield tool, lands in San Diego County
Read MoreViewpoint: Sex offenders need stronger punishments
Baylor Lariat – A couple months ago, more than 100 people convened in Los Angeles for the Fifth Annual National Reform Sex Offender Laws conference, “Justice for All.” The purpose of the conference is to shed light and try to bring about reform of national and state sex offender laws that they claim deny the civil rights of more than 750,000 sex offenders. I find this to be offensive. These laws exist for a reason and they exist to protect everyone, especially children. To think that, as a sexual offender, your…
Read MoreFresno State ASI: Revised sex offender resolution passes
A debate over a revised resolution regarding the disclosure of sex offenders on campus, which has been among the main focuses of Fresno State’s Associated Students, Inc. agenda for most of the semester, came to a near-unanimous conclusion Wednesday. The resolution, authored by Neil O’Brien, senator for the College of Health and Human Services, calls for students to receive a general notification email from the University Police Department that informs a student if a registered sex offender is enrolled in their class, lives in the same campus housing as them…
Read MoreUK: 10 years for killing sex offender
A man who admitted killing a convicted sex offender in a flat fire in Worcester has been jailed for 10 years. Daniel Martin, 25, set fire to a wheelie bin and pushed it up against the front door of ____ ____’s flat in the early hours of December 14, 2011, sparking a rapidly spreading and ferocious blaze in which the 52-year-old was killed. Sentencing Martin for manslaughter at Birmingham Crown Court, Mrs Justice Thirlwall said the crime was “shockingly stupid”. She said he had intended “to do something so frightening, it…
Read MoreEx-San Jose officer cops plea over teen’s pics
… As a condition of his plea to a felony charge of distributing or exhibiting harmful matter to a minor, ____ has resigned from the department where he had served for eight years, authorities said. When ____ is sentenced, the judge will determine if the conviction will be reduced to a misdemeanor, in which case ____ would not have to register as a sex offender for life. Full Article
Read MoreAR: Sex Offenders, Experts Question Effectiveness of New Restrictions
LITTLE ROCK, AR – After serving their time, some sex offenders can be on another list for the rest of their lives. Convicted sex offenders are required to register with their local law enforcement office for at least 15 years, often much longer than that. Now some registered sex offenders and their families are saying this branding is doing more harm than good. Full Article
Read MoreOR: Sex offenders commute to easy registration sites
… Recently, Fairview Police Chief Ken Johnson reported an unusually high number of sex offenders registering in Fairview. Even more odd, a majority of them don’t live in Fairview, but are arriving from Portland and elsewhere within Multnomah County. Full Article
Read MoreCO: Denver Post article, shows eight amendment violation, for lack of treatment
An article in the Denver Post on November 3, 2013 was titled “Unintended effect of 1998 Colorado law: More sex offenders in for life”. This article brought to light that Colorado has not been offering treatment, as is required by law to people who have been sentenced for crimes. These people can only be released after receiving effective treatment and the state is not offering that treatment supposedly because of facilities and financial issues. Full Article
Read MoreStatic-99 developers embrace redemption – Sex offender risk plummets over time in community, new study reports
And now — drum roll — the authors of the most widely used actuarial tool for assessing sex offender recidivism are conceding that even sex offenders cross a “redemption threshold” over time, such that their risk of committing a new sexual crime may become “indistinguishable from the risk presented by non-sexual offenders.” Tracking a large group of 7,740 sexual offenders drawn from 21 different samples around the world, the researchers found that those who remain free in the community for five years or more after their release are at drastically…
Read MoreTX: Is the public sex offender registry fair?
Kids across Southeast Texas are gearing up for Halloween, and with the holiday season upon us, parents should be aware of who lives in the homes their children are visiting. As part of a special report, 12News has researched which cities in SETX have the most registered sex offenders per capita. According to city-data.com, Woodville has the highest percentage, with one in every 79 residents being a registered sex offender. Next is Kountze, with one in every 86 residents being an offender. Third is Buna, with one sex offender for…
Read MoreWI: Sex offender ordinance is working, Sheboygan officials say
Five years after Sheboygan first enacted strict limits on sex offenders seeking to live here, the city’s sex offender population has slowly waned, with the city now denying about a quarter of all residency requests it receives, records show. The 2008 ordinance essentially barred most registered sex offenders from living here without first receiving a waiver from a city committee and ultimately the Common Council. Since then, the city’s sex offender population has fallen by 13 percent, state records show, with 184 offenders now living at a Sheboygan address — some…
Read MoreCanada: Trouble with registries
On Sept. 16, Prime Minister Harper promised Canadians a national, online database accessible to the public listing the names of high-risk child sex-offenders to replace a patchwork of existing databases. Another proposed change announced by him would have such offenders planning to travel outside the country alert Canadian authorities before they leave, and who, in turn, may warn destination countries. The prime minister said this registry will come into effect in this session of Parliament. The problem with sex registries! Not only are these registries notoriously incomplete but they are also…
Read MoreTX: Online solicitation statute ruled unconstitutional
In a surprising decision – both for its unanimous outcome and the unlikely reference to Miley Cyrus “twerking” in a Texas judicial opinion – the Court of Criminal Appeals today declared Texas Penal Code §33.021(b), criminalizing online solicitation of a minor, “facially unconstitutional” in a habeas corpus writ styled Ex Parte John Christopher Lo. See their unanimous opinion (pdf) written by Judge Cathy Cochran which ruled that the statute is “overbroad because it prohibits a wide array of constitutionally protected speech and is not narrowly drawn to achieve only the legitimate objective of…
Read MoreCO: Unintended effect of 1998 law: More sex offenders in for life
In Colorado prisons, the number of men and women serving life sentences for sex offenses today is 41 times greater than that of just 14 years ago. On the roster of lifers, sex offenders now outnumber everyone else — killers, kidnappers, armed robbers, arsonists, habitual offenders, adults who fatally abuse children. Sixty-three percent of all Colorado prisoners sentenced to life are sex offenders, a figure that is more than four times the national average. This wasn’t supposed to happen. The sponsor of a 1998 law providing lifetime supervision of sex…
Read More‘Operation Boo’ nets convicted pedophiles
PASADENA, Calif. (KABC) — Police officers and parole agents were out in force in the San Gabriel Valley on Halloween night, making sure convicted pedophiles weren’t trying to lure trick-or-treaters into their homes. It was all part of “Operation Boo.” At a motel in El Monte, officers arrested a registered sex offender. Authorities say he violated his parole by keeping Halloween candies in his room. “This (candy) is what we were looking for, and he had it in a way where you could distribute it to trick-or-treaters,” state parole agent Bernard Villa…
Read MoreAZ: Professor – Halloween sex offender scare is a myth (CBS5 News)
PHOENIX (CBS5) – It’s something you hear about every Halloween – to be on the lookout for convicted sex offenders preying on Valley children. But CBS 5 News has learned that the Halloween sex offender scare may be just a myth. CBS 5 News contacted law enforcement agencies in Phoenix, Mesa, Glendale, Peoria, Scottsdale and Surprise. None of the police departments have reported any problems involving a sex offender and children on Halloween, over the past five years. Full Article
Read MoreGeneral Comments November 2013
Comments that are not specific to a certain post should go here, for the month of November 2013. Contributions should relate to the cause and goals of this organization and please, keep it courteous and civil.
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