The U.S. House of Representatives will not vote on legislation on Tuesday and Wednesday because of the severe winter storm that hit the country’s capital city over the weekend, according to Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s office. The next vote by the congressional chamber is expected on Feb. 1. THIS MEANS ONE EXTRA WEEK TO CONTACT YOUR REPRESENTATIVE TO RECORD YOUR OPPOSITION TO HR 515. ACTION ALERT! Contact YOUR national HOUSE representatives TODAY via email, and then CALL their office again on Monday. Here is a link to locate YOUR representative:…
Read MoreMonth: January 2016
International Megan’s Law, A Law That Fails Miserably To Make Its Case (But Which Is About To Be Enacted, Even So)
The erosion of the rights of the Registered Sex Offender to travel despite no evidence that they are committing crimes We are assured, both by the media, who have mastered the art of feeding a credulous (and hungry) public, as well as by our government minders who continue to whittle away our few remaining rights that, on the strength of their pervasive hunches, sex offender registrants are surely committing waves of sex crimes in their travels abroad and must be stopped with the broadest strokes possible. Since, in their estimation,…
Read MoreA Government Which Simultaneously Murders Children Abroad While Barring U.S. Citizens From International Travel
Let’s put the whole sex-offender-as-existential-threat-to-children trope in perspective, shall we? While our government, the U.S., has made it difficult-to-impossible for “sex offender registrants” to travel to foreign countries due to its implementation of an alert system to notify foreign governments of the sex offender status of U.S. citizens (and is about to make that system even more egregious through the anticipated passage of the current International Megan’s Law bill) it has killed thousands of children in the Middle East in its ongoing, and massively failed, military adventures which we, the…
Read MoreNJ: Court Sets Polygraph Limits for Sex Offenders
TRENTON, N.J. (CN) – Polygraph testing is par for the course when New Jersey releases sexual offenders on permanent supervision, but the state’s parole board is barred from using such tests as evidence, a state appeals court ruled today. The decision comes in answer to a lawsuit five convicted sex offenders brought in 2013. Full Article Related Decision N.J. court upholds lie detector tests for sex offenders
Read MoreFBI ran website sharing thousands of child porn images
WASHINGTON — For nearly two weeks last year, the FBI operated what it described as one of the Internet’s largest child pornography websites, allowing users to download thousands of illicit images and videos from a government site in the Washington suburbs. The operation — whose details remain largely secret — was at least the third time in recent years that FBI agents took control of a child pornography site but left it online in an attempt to catch users who officials said would otherwise remain hidden behind an encrypted and…
Read MoreEmotional Support Group to Meet on Jan. 30 in Los Angeles
The second meeting of the Emotional Support Group for registered citizens and family members will be held on Saturday, January 30, starting at 10 a.m. at the ACLU Building, 1313 W. 8th Street, in Los Angeles. There is no cost to attend and free underground parking is available. The meeting will focus upon emotional challenges that registrants and their family members face in their personal and professional lives. No legal advice will be available during the meeting. Attendance at the meeting is open only to registered citizens and members of…
Read MoreLiving with 290: The Inevitable Question
Part of the process in being a student in the field of psychology is trying to figure out the career path that you think will be the best fit for you. In psychology there are many different paths you can take with the degree such as private practice, forensic, schools, hospitals, teaching etc. While attending school, we are encouraged to try different populations and different settings whilst keep an open mind so we are better able to choose a path after graduation. I have always been interested in forensic settings,…
Read MoreGroup says 350 sex offenders in city
VICTORVILLE — The California Department of Justice might be under-reporting the number of registered sex offenders in the city by as much as 24 percent, according to a state and federally contracted counseling agency seeking to establish a presence here. “Currently, from the last numbers we ran, there are approximately 350 individuals who register as sex offenders that are in Victorville,” Scott Smith with Open Door Counseling Agency told the Planning Commission last Wednesday. … “There are so many people that’ve been let out of jail,” Smith said, “the least…
Read MoreLiving with 290: About to Discharge Parole. Now What?
After being convicted of a felony and 3 misdemeanors, I served 50% of 5 years (2.5 years) in prison and am now approaching the end of my 3 year parole. For all of the negatives that can come with Parole, there is at least one positive: someone tells you exactly what you must comply with. You’re told where you can and cannot live, you’re told what you can and cannot do for Halloween, and you’re told where you can or cannot be. I’m excited to have most of my limitations…
Read MoreKids As Young As 9 Are on the Sex Offender Registry…for Life
Southwestern Law School Professor Catherine L.Carpenter puts it bluntly in her new research paper, Throwaway Children: The Tragic Consequences of a False Narrative. “Truth be told,” she writes, “we are afraid for our children and we are afraid of our children.” Being afraid for our kids has lead us to create ever harsher sex offender registration laws. We want to protect our kids from creeps. But this protection plan of ours has backfired. And now, Carpenter writes, whenever we arrest a minor for a sex crime, our fear “of our children…
Read MoreThe Relationship Between Juvenile Sex Offender Registration and Depression in Adulthood
Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies – Abstract: Accounts of sexual abuse appear daily in the media. Rightfully, this issue demands attention. Juveniles may be victims; they may also be offenders who are subject to sex offender registration and notification (SORN) policies. Growing research finds that SORN policies fail to achieve intended public policy outcomes. Little is known, however, about the unintended consequences of SORN for juvenile offenders. This study contributed to a more comprehensive understanding of the effects of these policies on this population. Merton’s concept of manifest and latent…
Read MoreMy Voice: Sex registry ‘does more harm than good’ (Opinion)
As citizens, we must be aware of what is going on in our Legislature. Prison is “big business;” educate yourself as to what is really happening in our society before you demand to know where every sex offender lives. America (the land of the free) is number one for incarcerating more of its citizens than any other country. There are currently 2.2 million incarcerated citizens in the nations’ prisons and jails. There are 3,432 registered sex offenders in South Dakota. Full Opinion Piece
Read MoreNC: Sex offenders should be formally banned from NC State Fair, agriculture official says
Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler’s department says the state needs tougher laws banning registered sex offenders from the N.C. State Fair. Sex offenders were arrested around the State Fairgrounds twice during last year’s fair. A Raleigh man was charged with flying a drone over the fair, and a convicted child molester was charged with posing as a state ride inspector to get into an area reserved for children’s rides. Full Article
Read MoreTX: City denies illegality of sex offender ordinance
The Texas Voices for Reason and Justice, Inc. filed a petition in Travis County District Court alleging the city of West Lake Hills’ sex offender ordinance is in violation of state law. In response, the City Council voted Jan. 13 to instruct City Attorney Alan Bojorquez to file a denial of the allegations. Full Article
Read MoreMA: Mass. Forced To Remove Names From Sex Offender Database
BOSTON (CBS) – They are the faces of predators, with lists of their charges on public view in most police stations, and anyone can use the state’s registry to search for sex offenders in their community. But many of those names are now being removed from the internet database due to a Supreme Judicial Court decision that will grant many of these offenders new hearings about their classification. Full Article
Read MoreTX: Appeals court overturns seven convictions for online ‘dirty talk’ to minors
AUSTIN — The state’s top criminal court on Wednesday reversed the convictions of seven men who were sentenced to prison for talking dirty to minors online. Five men from Harris County, one from Collin County and another from Montgomery County are among the first to see their convictions reversed after a 2013 Texas Court of Criminal Appeals decision overturned a 2005 law criminalizing sexually explicit online communication with minors. Full Article
Read MoreBill allowing cities and counties to adopt stricter sex offender ordinances voted down
A bill which would have allowed cities and counties to adopt sex offender ordinances more restrictive than state laws was voted down by an Assembly committee Tuesday. Assembly Bill 201, authored by Assemblymen William Brough, Mike Gipson, and Marc Steinorth, would have given localities the ability to enact not only more stringent restrictions on where persons required to register as sex offenders can live, but also “presence restrictions,” which would limit their ability to visit places such as parks, libraries, swimming pools, or arcades. “In addition to the myriad of…
Read MoreWe Stopped AB 201!
Due to the efforts of registrants, family members and supporters Assembly Bill 201 was stopped today during a Public Safety Committee hearing. During a vote of its members, only 2 of 7 members voted in support of the bill while the remaining 5 members either voted “no” or abstained from voting. “We succeeded today because of letters sent and phone calls made to members of the Public Safety Committee,” stated CA RSOL president Janice Bellucci. “We sincerely thank you all for showing, standing up and speaking up on this important…
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