I was recently introduced to the term incrementalism in the book, “Notorious RBG”, a biography of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The term means gradual change and it is the opposite of sudden, radical change.
According to the book, Justice Ginsburg is an advocate of incrementalism because she believes incrementalism can provide a firm foundation for change. In direct contrast, radical change lacks a firm foundation and can crumble easily when threatened.
After reading this book, I am convinced that incrementalism is the best path for our civil rights movement. We need to build a firm foundation so that the changes we make will endure.
We started building that foundation in 2012 when we successfully challenged a law in the City of Simi Valley that required registered citizens to post a sign on the front door of their home. We continued to build that foundation in 2013 when we successfully challenged presence restrictions in the City of Lancaster that prohibited registrants from visiting public places such as parks, swimming pools and libraries as well as private places such as movie theaters and bowling alleys. We are now adding to that foundation with successful challenges to residency restrictions in cities such as Grover Beach and Arcadia.
In addition to success in the courtroom, we have experienced success in the state legislature where we have stopped bills such as Assembly Bill 201 in 2015 that would have authorized cities to reinstate presence restrictions and Senate Bill 54 in 2016 that would have required registered citizens to prove there is a lack of affordable and available housing in order to obtain relief from residency restrictions.
Each of these successes is an incremental step toward the change that is required. Each of these successes is another brick in the foundation of our movement. By building a strong foundation in an incremental fashion, we will reach our goal of protecting the Constitution by restoring the civil rights of more than 100,000 registered citizens and their families.
Today there are incremental steps to be taken both in the state legislature and in the courts. You are needed in Sacramento to help stop Senate Bill 448 on June 21 and Assembly Bill 2569 on June 28. You are needed in Oakland to protest the International Megan’s Law on July 27. Together we can and will achieve our goal.
I quite agree with you Janice. Since the SCOTUS has already ruled that the Megan’s Law is not punishment, we have no choice but to build our foundation brick by brick (or law by law) until we can reach our final goal of removing the public registry. Those people that think we can or should only be attacking the public registry as a whole are just not being realistic.
Keep up the good work, Janice. the Megan’s law that the SCOTUS curiously found to be non-punitive is not the same laundry list of laws that we have today and the courts are starting to come to that conclusion. oft times basing their decisions on their own state constitution. I wonder if at some point we will see a number of states who will refuse to forward their SO registry entries to the national database? One of these cases will end up in the SCOTUS soon, but I don’t even trust the “liberal” justices in such matters.
I agree with the approach of starting small and building a strategic plan to take back the rights we have been denied. I sometimes think about how both sides of the aisle are to blame for this catastrophe. The left has grown the state to such a place where the government is no longer safeguarding rights, it thinks it gives the rights. The right has gotten aboard this train putting it’s hand in the cookie jar. If only we could go back to what the founders invisioned of a limited government, where individuals had rights and not the government or some collectivist notion of “the people.”
Incrementalism or radical change is never quite so clear cut. And, a solid foundation can be created either way, there is no leaning by a radical approach to slight foundation. And either way can equally run off in the wrong direction or backfire with precedents against us, except that the incremental approach means many more chances for those negative precedents.
In our case, incrementalism guarantees that no one alive today will see the elimination of registration. And that time frame is unacceptable, and unnecessary.
Frankly, if all we are going to do is “incrementalism” around the periphery, then we are wasting our time, that will leave us under this oppression for pretty much the rest of the lives of all those alive today — and we cannot wait that kind of time frame. Incrementalism will take many decades. It took nearly 50 years for gays to go that route. It took 10 years for black people to go that route. That time frame is unacceptable. Incrementalism on a matter such as this is just the hobbyist approach, just dabbling.
The time involved must be a major consideration in the tactics. Incrementalism cannot work for those alive today. Instead of beating around the periphery, we need to go for the throat, go for the heart of the matter. We need major change in a reasonably short time frame, not in 50 or 100 years. Sometimes simply asking permission is not good enough, revolution is required.
What category does the SCOTUS decision that says that registration is not punishment fall into? Sudden or incrementalism? I think that SCOTUS made their decision based on the erroneous information that they had at the time, and looked for a way to sustain state action that was designed to protect the public. I think that we need to get our ducks in a row and attack the registry itself on multiple grounds in the lower courts and move forward. However, the lack of strong membership and fundraising drives leaves us with few resources and I am an older fellow and hope that I have at least a few years left to live in peace.
I think there is a place for both of these points of view and both approaches. Incrementalism does have its place. Look, a good negotiator will go for as much as he/she can get, and settle for the best they can get at that time. We’ve heard the expression “Aim for the stars; you might hit the moon.” Rather than look to a long-term strategy of incrementalism, perhaps the response to every opportunity should be determined based upon its own merits. Sometimes the response should be immediate. And other times, depending upon the issue, there could be a more cautious approach. But in every situation aim for the highest goal, settle for what you can get, and look for the next opportunity to bring us closer to the ultimate goal.
I strongly vote that CARSOL stay firmly on the path that it is on…a wise general picks and chooses their battles and even more importantly, prepares the battlefield in advance.
These are truths known for Millennium…they are so standard is it surprising to see them questioned at all…a wise warrior also knows that they hold the lives of people in their hands…as Dear Janice knows she holds our lives in her hands.
I trust Janice, she has done us well and going forward will always take steps to protect us and move us ever closer to where we need to be.
If some people wish to form their own group with their own agenda with their own funding and lawsuits aplenty…let them have at it.
Me? I am going to stand by the ONLY person that has ever helped me….helped all of us.
Other people? I wish them well…but let us see what results they bring home to us, if anything. Then we can have a conversation…until then, not so much.
Best Wishes, James
annoynamous hits on the head. we need radical change if we’re going to see the end of registration in our lifetime.although I support and am thankful for all Janice’s efforts and accomplishments I strongly disagree with her for the long run approach.
Well stated! This is no different than the Civil Rights Movement. We are fighting for our Civil Rights
I so wholeheartedly second James’ comment above that I’m copying part of it here for emphasis:
“A wise general picks and chooses their battles and even more importantly, prepares the battlefield in advance. These are truths known for Millennium…they are so standard it is surprising to see them questioned at all.
If some people wish to form their own group with their own agenda with their own funding and lawsuits aplenty…let them have at it.”
To those who want to see something different done: No one is stopping you. Please, sincerely, please be the one to put your ideas into action. This fight needs as many people actively involved as possible.
Saul Alinsky’s 12 Rules for Radicals
* RULE 1: “Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.” Power is derived from 2 main sources – money and people. “Have-Nots” must build power from flesh and blood. (These are two things of which there is a plentiful supply. Government and corporations always have a difficult time appealing to people, and usually do so almost exclusively with economic arguments.)
* RULE 2: “Never go outside the expertise of your people.” It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone. (Organizations under attack wonder why radicals don’t address the “real” issues. This is why. They avoid things with which they have no knowledge.)
* RULE 3: “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.” Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty. (This happens all the time. Watch how many organizations under attack are blind-sided by seemingly irrelevant arguments that they are then forced to address.)
* RULE 4: “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules. (This is a serious rule. The besieged entity’s very credibility and reputation is at stake, because if activists catch it lying or not living up to its commitments, they can continue to chip away at the damage.)
* RULE 5: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” There is no defense. It’s irrational. It’s infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions. (Pretty crude, rude and mean, huh? They want to create anger and fear.)
* RULE 6: “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.” They’ll keep doing it without urging and come back to do more. They’re doing their thing, and will even suggest better ones. (Radical activists, in this sense, are no different that any other human being. We all avoid “un-fun” activities, and but we revel at and enjoy the ones that work and bring results.)
* RULE 7: “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.” Don’t become old news. (Even radical activists get bored. So to keep them excited and involved, organizers are constantly coming up with new tactics.)
* RULE 8: “Keep the pressure on. Never let up.” Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new. (Attack, attack, attack from all sides, never giving the reeling organization a chance to rest, regroup, recover and re-strategize.)
* RULE 9: “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.” Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist. (Perception is reality. Large organizations always prepare a worst-case scenario, something that may be furthest from the activists’ minds. The upshot is that the organization will expend enormous time and energy, creating in its own collective mind the direst of conclusions. The possibilities can easily poison the mind and result in demoralization.)
* RULE 10: “If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive.” Violence from the other side can win the public to your side because the public sympathizes with the underdog. (Unions used this tactic. Peaceful [albeit loud] demonstrations during the heyday of unions in the early to mid-20th Century incurred management’s wrath, often in the form of violence that eventually brought public sympathy to their side.)
* RULE 11: “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.” Never let the enemy score points because you’re caught without a solution to the problem. (Old saw: If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Activist organizations have an agenda, and their strategy is to hold a place at the table, to be given a forum to wield their power. So, they have to have a compromise solution.)
* RULE 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)
Well, what a diversity of opinion on strategy! My hat off to everyone for their enthusiasm and large thinking. I am glad I am not in a leadership position here, but all your approaches sound reasonable. Best I can do is help provide the tools so that the proponents of any approach may have a strong resource behind them — empowerment of activists. I am working with a small group to develop a web based organization tool that begins with a data base of registrants and associates (family members, friends, etc.) This will be made available to organizations interested to educate, inspire and mobilize large numbers of people. The strategies for campaigns are up to the leaders.
It is a daunting task, that can’t be done anyway other than incrementally, gathering names, looking up phone numbers and voting districts, making phone calls and doing mailings. It is not as dramatic as appearing before a committee or even writing a letter, but it will make those acts more dramatic in effect by sheer numbers.
Any volunteers are welcome, to gather names or make phone calls, also those who have experience in coding, websites, technical writing, newsletter creating, blogging. Sorry, it is all volunteers. Oh, and this is not limited to those in California. Those in other states are welcome to have access to the site and surely to use it to build lists and membership campaigns of their own, coordinate with leaders in other states on nationwide campaigns. recruit@campaign-builder.org.
instead of bashing on me claiming I need to stop preaching and start protesting, because it is your personal opinion that protesting is somehow a much better tactic, I challenge any of you to help me perfect and revise this motion in preparation for me to file it in court. bash me if you want but my approach is that I will eventually get the help I can use sooner or later.
This court has jurisdiction because of the sex offender registration contractual agreement, that I was and am forced into through coercion and under duress with threat of imprisonment against my own volition, between the state of California and myself.
Statement of the case;
The defendants are knowingly and willfully misrepresenting the facts and empirical evidence with blatent disregard for the truth with statements of facts that they know or should have known are universally untrue in order to deprive me of my constitutional rights under color of law.
I am the plaintiff in this case. I am a United States citizen who resides in Sacramento, CA.
I am a non-violent, non-contact first time ex-offender from a incident that occurred over a decade ago. There was never any physical contact between myself and any victim. I completed my prison sentence and parole supervision without any incidents or violations despite all the obstacles and conditions of parole that were placed on me because of the sex offender designation. I have been arrest free and a completely law abiding citizen since my release. I do not pose any cognizable risk to the public. I was already severely punished for my offense and have been subjected to intensive monitoring and supervision while on parole. I should not be subjected to these registration and notification laws that involve consequences that are severely detrimental to so many aspects of my life.
Statement of Indisputable facts;
(1) The sex offender registration and notification laws (CA Penal Code § 290, Sex Offender Registration Act) violate my constitutionally protected liberty interest in my reputation which is protected under the federal due process clause in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and the California Constitution’s Article I, Section 7 on “due process, equal protection and the right to travel” with an irrefutable presumption of future offending that is universally untrue and which provides no meaningful process to determine such facts. See Exhibit (A)
(2) The sex offender registration and notification laws (CA Penal Code § 290, Sex Offender Registration Act) violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth amendment of the United States Constitution and the California Constitution’s Article I, Section 7 on “due process, equal protection and the right to travel” See Exhibit (B)
(3) Sex offender registration and notification laws (CA Penal Code § 290, Sex Offender Registration Act) violate my constitutionally protected liberty interests by infringing on my freedom of movement and my freedom of association which is protected under the Fifth and Fourteenth amendment of the United States Constitution and the California Constitution’s Article I, Section 7 on “due process, equal protection and the right to travel” See Exhibit (C)
(4) Sex offender registration and notification laws (CA Penal Code § 290, Sex Offender Registration Act) violate my constitutionally protected right to liberty and to be free from unreasonable, arbitrary and oppressive official actions, which is protected under the Fifth and Fourteenth amendment of the United States Constitution and the California Constitution’s Article I, Section 7 on “due process, equal protection and the right to travel” See Exhibit (D)
Exhibit (A)
(1) My constitutionally-protected right to reputation is encroached upon by an irrefutable presumption of future offending that is universally untrue.
These laws effectively brand me a “sex offender”, i.e., a public danger, for life. See Doe v. Pataki, 3 F. Supp. 2d 456, 467 (S.D.N.Y. 1998) [here in after Pataki III]; Doe v. Attorney General, 686 N.E.2d 1007, 1013 (Mass. 1997) [hereinafter Doe II];see also Bohn v. County of Dakota, 772 F.2d 1433, 1436 n.4 (8th Cir. 1985), cert. denied, 475 U.S. 1014 (1986).
Specifically, the public notification provisions imply that I am potentially dangerous, thereby undermining my reputation and standing in the community. Doe v. Poritz, 662 A.2d 367, 419 (N.J. 1995); cf. Neal v. Shimoda, 131 F.3d 818, 829 (9th Cir. 1997) (noting that “[o]ne need only look to the increasingly popular ‘Megan’s laws’, whereby states require sex offenders to register with law enforcement officials, who are then authorized to release information about the sex offender to the public, to comprehend the stigmatizing consequences of being labeled a sex offender”). Indeed, public notification that I am a convicted sex offender implicitly announces that, in the eyes of the State, I present a risk of committing another sex offense. Doe II, 686 N.E.2d at 144.
The sex offender registration and notification laws violate my liberty interest in my reputation by making public my current personal address and current photo which is not public information and which puts me in physical harm every time I enter or leave my home and even while I’m in my home I can not feel safe. This information is also being publicly distributed on the Internet from privately owned and operated websites such as homefacts.com. That information being made public puts not only myself but my families lives and property in danger of physical harm, harassment and vandalism. These claims are not hypothetical situations or exaggerations, these claims are facts and the possibilities of these incidents occurring are real and in fact some have already occurred in my case. The Megan’s law website also displays my criminal record which is only available to authorized individuals who meet certain criteria and have a need to know basis, not to the general public at a click of a computer mouse.
These laws affect and limit employment as very few employers will hire me simply because I am on a sex offender website that is accessible to the general public. These laws also restrict or limit my ability to travel for work or to be employed by local, state or federal agencies and severely affects my ability to obtain a business licence or business loans. They also limit what professions and careers that I can pursue and affect my personal and professional relationships in a severely negative way because of my inclusion on the sex offender registry and the publicly accessible Megan’s law website. These issues are not minor inconveniences but are major obstacles to my financial stability and to my fundamental right to life and liberty for me and my family. It also affects housing because very few property owners or property management organizations will rent to me for fear of vandalism and or the loss of present or potential tenants because of the accessibility to the registry by the general public. I am reluctant to move or purchase property for fear that I may violate some local ordinance or be forced to move because of some new law or ordinance being enacted and applied retroactively. I am also reluctant to move or purchase property for fear that I will be subjected to even worse harassment and vandalism by the community in which I move then I have already endured in my present location. These laws create real fears of being the victim of vigilante attacks, harassment and vandalism which forces me limit my activities to avoid being outside of my residence for fear of being harmed or harassed. I have had to call the police twice due to my family and I being physically threatened in one instance and having threats and profanity written all over our porch on the second incident simply because my information is on the Megan’s law website. My family and I have had our vehicles vandalized and our life’s threatened because I am subject to these registration and public notification laws. These laws cause me severe psychosocial stresses that cause major mental disorders such as major depression and anxiety disorders which can and do affect my ability to perform job duties or perform normal daily activities and to reintegrate into society. Once again these are not hypothetical, exaggerated incidents that have happened to other people but personal experiences in my case. I cannot move forward or successively reintegrate back into society because of all the collateral consequences caused by the registration and public notification laws.These collateral consequences will continue to cause me irreparable damage to my liberty interest as long as I am subjected to these registration and notification laws.
See also for collateral damage caused by these laws.
http://sosen.org/blog/2015/05/19/collateral-damage-in-americas-war-on-sex-crimes.html
, http://sosen.org/blog/2015/02/09/spouse-of-registered-citizen-forced-to-quit-job-and-her-three-children-lose-their-home.html
, http://sosen.org/blog/2014/12/01/refugees-usa-families-destroyed-by-the-registry.html
. http://sosen.org/blog/2014/02/25/government-sanctioned-cruelty-to-over-half-1-million-american-children.html
I have a liberty interest protected by the Constitution that entitles me to procedural due process because of: (1) the public disclosure of accumulated and synthesized personal information that would not otherwise be easily available; (2) the harm to my personal and professional life; (3) the foreseeable harm to my reputation; and (4) the statutory branding of me as a public danger, i.e., as a sex offender. I note that the “interest cannot be captured in a single word or phrase. It is an interest in knowing when the government is moving against you and why it has singled you out for special attention. It is an interest in avoiding the secret machinations of a Star Chamber.” Noble, 964 P.2d at 995.
When the laws that have been passed are based on the justification of the high numbers. And they come out, in fact, be not only low, but extremely low. Lower than any other group that does not have the same restrictions or requirements. You would think that there would be a public outcry to do away with these laws but because of politicians are continuing the myth for their political gain, as well as professionals who have a fiduciary interest in the myth continuing and victims advocates, whose only real purpose is revenge. as well as Sensationalism of the news media. All these people continue the myth. Even though the hard data shows that it is a lie. What is it going to take to bring sanity back to our country and overturned laws based on lies and myths? That are in fact a springboard to passing other laws taking away constitutional rights of the American citizens.
Finally what is this lie that is so corrupting and insidious that it has destroyed lives, family’s and children. And the fear of being added to the list created by this law has caused both adults and children to commit suicide. The laws based on this lie that have stolen the constitutional protected rights of not only individuals but whole families, well the answer is real simple. The lie is that people who are involved in sex crimes, have a high propensity to do it again. And even though at the time that these laws were passed there were studies showing lower reoffend rates of those in this group than any other criminal class, the laws were passed based on studies that since have been proven false and inaccurate and all the recent studies have shown no high propensity to reoffend.
Without this issue, (the high reoffend rate) to support the states justification of the existence of the laws the rest of their reasons fall way as nothing more than rules, regulations and laws based on fear that is now unjustified.
The Supreme Court has fed the fear of frightening high sex offender recidivism rates that has proven to be universally untrue. It’s become the “go to” source that courts and politicians rely upon for “facts” about sex offender recidivism rates that aren’t true. Its endorsement has transformed random opinions by self-interested non-experts into definitive studies offered to justify law and policy, while real studies by real scientists go unnoticed. The Court’s casual approach to the facts of sex offender re-offense rates is far more frightening than the rates themselves, and it’s high time for correction.
The sources relied upon by the Supreme Court in Smith v. Doe, a heavily cited constitutional decision on sex offender registries, in fact provide no support at all for the facts about sex offender re-offense rates that the Court treats as central to its constitutional conclusions. This misreading of the social science was abetted in part by the Solicitor General’s misrepresentations in the amicus brief it filed in this case. The false “facts” stated in the opinion have since been relied upon repeatedly by other courts in their own constitutional decisions, thus infecting an entire field of law as well as policy making by legislative bodies. Recent decisions by the Pennsylvania and California supreme courts establish principles that would support major judicial reforms of sex offender registries, if they were applied to the actual facts.
I am asking this court to apply the actual facts submitted in reports from the leading authorities and credible experts in the fields such as the following.
California Sex Offender Management Board (CASOMB)
Sex offender recidivism rate for a new sex offense is 0.8% (page 30)
The full report is available online at
http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/Adult_Research_Branch/Research_Documents/2014_Outcome_Evaluation_Report_7-6-2015.pdf
.
Document title; A Model of Static and Dynamic Sex Offender Risk Assessment Author: Robert J. McGrath, Michael P. Lasher, Georgia F. Cumming Document No.: 236217 Date Received: October 2011 Award Number: 2008-DD-BX-0013
Findings: Study of 759 adult male offenders under community supervision Re-arrest rate: 4.6% after 3-year follow-up
The sexual re-offense rates for the 746 released in 2005 are much lower than what many in the public have been led to expect or believe. These low re-offense rates appear to contradict a conventional wisdom that sex offenders have very high sexual re-offense rates.
The full report is available online at. https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/236217.pdf
Bureau of Justice Statistics
5 PERCENT OF SEX OFFENDERS REARRESTED FOR ANOTHER SEX CRIME WITHIN 3 YEARS OF PRISON RELEASE
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Within 3 years following their 1994 state prison release, 5.3 percent of sex offenders (men who had committed rape or sexual assault) were rearrested for another sex crime, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced today.
The full report is available online at. http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/press/rsorp94pr.cfm
Document Title: SEX OFFENDER SENTENCING IN WASHINGTON STATE: RECIDIVISM RATES BY: Washington State Institute For Public Policy.
A study of 4,091 sex offenders either released from prison or community supervision form 1994 to 1998 and examined for 5 years Findings: Sex Crime Recidivism Rate: 2.7%
Link to Report: http://www.oncefallen.com/files/Washington_SO_Recid_2005.pdf
Document Title: Indiana’s Recidivism Rates Decline for Third Consecutive Year BY: Indiana Department of Correction 2009.
The recidivism rate for sex offenders returning on a new sex offense was 1.05%, one of the lowest in the nation. In a time when sex offenders continue to face additional post-release requirements that often result in their return to prison for violating technical rules such as registration and residency restrictions, the instances of sex offenders returning to prison due to the commitment of a new sex crime is extremely low. Findings: sex offenders returning on a new sex offense was 1.05%
Link to Report: http://www.in.gov/idoc/files/RecidivismRelease.pdf
STATE Studies
AK 03% page 8 Criminal Recidivism in Alaska Alaska Judicial Council January 2007
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A754C96E86E37F71!8635&cid=a754c96e86e37f71&app=WordPdf
AZ 05.5 % Sex Offender Recidivism Arizona dept. of corrections note bottom of page 03.3%
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A754C96E86E37F71!8633&cid=a754c96e86e37f71&app=WordPdf
CA 00.8% The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) “2014 Outcome Evaluation Report“ https://all4consolaws.org/2015/08/new-cdcr-report-reduces-rate-of-re-offense-to-less-than-1-percent.
CA 05.0 % fig 12 California Department of Corrections And Rehabilitation
2010 Adult Institutions Outcome Evaluation Report
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A754C96E86E37F71!8632&cid=a754c96e86e37f71&app=WordPdf
CA 03.5% table 3-2 California sex offender management Board January 2008
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A754C96E86E37F71!8630&cid=a754c96e86e37f71&app=WordPdf
CA figure 11 01.9% California sex offender management Board 2012 in looking at this one I realize that this is another attempt to increase the visual concept of a higher reoffend rate than actually exists you will note in table 11 , that there are 8490 released sex offenders and that 5870 are returned to prison or 69.1% going onto figure 11. The pie chart does not represent the 8490 but rather represents the 5870 . When you take this into account and do the math. 1.9% of 5870 comes out to 111 and 111 people involved in the new sex crime, out of 8490 comes out to an actual reoffend rate of 1.3% . This is just another way that the government is using razzle-dazzle techniques. In doing their statistical analysis.
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A754C96E86E37F71!8943&cid=a754c96e86e37f71&app=WordPdf
CA 01.9 % figure 11 California Department of Corrections And Rehabilitation 2012 Outcome Evaluation Report
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CA 5 year study 03.2% RECIDIVISM OF PAROLED SEX OFFENDERS – A FIVE (5) YEAR STUDY
https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=A754C96E86E37F71&id=A754C96E86E37F71!8627
CA 10 year study 03.3% RECIDIVISM OF PAROLED SEX OFFENDERS – A TEN (10) YEAR STUDY
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A754C96E86E37F71!8626&cid=a754c96e86e37f71&app=WordPdf
CT page 9 01,7% And prisoners with no prior sex crime are six times more likely to be involved in a new sex crime Recidivism among sex offenders in Connecticut, State of Connecticut
Office of Policy and Management, Criminal Justice Policy & Planning Division, February 15, 2012
DE Table 26 03.1% REARREST 6 offenders and on table 27 3 Offenders were not found guilty of a crime that makes the percentage of people convicted of a new sex crime. 01.5% Rearrest should never be used as a determining factor. Delaware Sex Offenders, Profiles and Criminal Justice System Outcomes, January 2008
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A754C96E86E37F71!8622&cid=a754c96e86e37f71&app=WordPdf
DE 3.8% rearrest table 7 Recidivism of Delaware Adult Sex Offenders Released from Prison in 2001 July 2007
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A754C96E86E37F71!8621&cid=a754c96e86e37f71&app=WordPdf
DE 5% rearrest table 8 after 5 years Recidivism of Delaware Juvenile Sex Offenders Released in 2001 September 2007
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FL 4.2% page10 Figure 2 10 year follow up SEX OFFENDER RISK AND RECIDIVISM IN FLORIDA
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HI RECIDIVISM/REOFFENDING BY SEXUALLY ABUSIVE ADOLESCENTS: A DIGEST OF EMPIRICAL RESEARCH STUDIES Years: 1943-2008 85 RESEARCH STUDIES MEAN RECIDIVISM RATE FOR ALL STUDIES = 7.73%
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A754C96E86E37F71!8619&cid=a754c96e86e37f71&app=WordPdf
IA page 7 #4 “With the overall recidivism for sex offenses as low as 2% “ Iowa Sex Offender Research Council Report to the Iowa General Assembly January 22, 2009
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A754C96E86E37F71!8618&cid=a754c96e86e37f71&app=WordPdf
IA table 4 03% new sex crime THE IOWA SEX OFFENDER REGISTRY AND
RECIDIVISM Iowa Department of Human Rights Division of Criminal and Juvenile Justice Planning and Statistical Analysis Center
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A754C96E86E37F71!8617&cid=a754c96e86e37f71&app=WordPdf
IA ARREST 02.3% page 7 Iowa Department of Corrections Report to the Board of Corrections
Third in a series of reports highlighting issues contributing to corrections population growth April 2006 Sex Offenders
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A754C96E86E37F71!8616&cid=a754c96e86e37f71&app=WordPdf
IN bottom of page “1.05%of identified sex offender’srecidivated for a new sex crime within 3 years.” Indiana Department of Correction Recidivism Rates Decrease for 3rd Consecutive Year
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IN page 22 05.7% Recidivism Rates Compared 2005-2007 Indiana Department of CORRECTION
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ME page 12 03.8% Returned to prison for sex offense SEXUAL ASSAULT TRENDS
AND SEX OFFENDER RECIDIVISM IN MAINE 2010
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A754C96E86E37F71!8612&cid=a754c96e86e37f71&app=WordPdf
MI 8/10 of 1% three-year study has come out of Michigan looking at the number of people on parole that were returned to prison for new crimes they found that of the sex offenders who were released from prison and found that they were involved in the new sexually related crime at 8/10 of 1%, or in other words, that 99.2% DID NOT Reoffend in the new sex crime. And that they had the lowest reoffend rate of all the criminal classes released. the full report is here http://nationalrsol.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/CAPPS.pdf
MN 5.7 % over 12 years Table 2 page 21 Sex Offender Recidivism in Minnesota April 2007
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NY 04% profile and follow-up of sex offenders released in 1986 this one is another attempt to hide the facts . I finally found this information on page 19. They state that there were 556 offenders released below that on page 19. They show a table 14 the number of people related to each of those crimes that were returned to prison. If you look at the numbers for a new sex crime. You will see that they are 5,6,5 and 7 totaling 23 , when you do the percentages 23/556 UN that with the re-offense rate of 4% . If you look at the other graphs that they have provided they have shockingly high numbers . The problem is that they are only looking at the people that are returned to prison and ignoring the people that stayed out of prison. So their numbers are skewed because they did not include people not reoffending in their statistical data.
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A754C96E86E37F71!8607&cid=a754c96e86e37f71&app=WordPdf
OH report to the Ohio criminal sentencing commission, January 2006 sex offenders Sex offenders in Ohio have a lower recidivism rate than the recidivism rate of all offenders (38.8 percent). A 10-year follow-up of a 1989 cohort of sex offenders released from Ohio prisons found that only 8 percent of sex offenders were recommitted for a new sex offense
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A754C96E86E37F71!8604&cid=a754c96e86e37f71&app=WordPdf
OH Ten-Year Recidivism Follow-Up Of 1989 Sex Offender Releases EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Recommitment for a New Crime Sex Offense 8.0 % after 10 yeaars
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WA03 07% Re-offended Department of Corrections Public Safety Update What is the re-offense behavior for sex offenders under supervision in the community? •Of the 264 offenders who committed a re-offense:•83% or 218 were unemployed •73% or 192 DID NOT have stable housing
WY again I have to dig through the research to find the numbers . The end result is that between 2000 and 2005 , 545 sex offenders were released and of that 24 reoffended it in a new sex crime . That makes the reoffend charade of 04.4%
For further information and empirical evidence on recidivism rates see also,
http://sexoffender-statistics.blogspot.com/search/label/Recid%2001%25-05%25
http://sexoffender-statistics.blogspot.com/search/label/Recid%2001%25-10%25
http://sexoffenderissues.blogspot.com/p/studies.html
http://www.oncefallen.com/recidivismchart.html
http://sosen.org/blog/2015/01/12/simple-question.html
http://sosen.org/blog/2014/11/06/why-are-the-reconviction-rates-so-important.html
http://news.legislature.ne.gov/dist20/files/2013/08/NE_sex_offender_recidivism.pdf
http://therealosc.blogspot.com/2013/04/as-we-said-so-long-ago.html
https://rsoresearch.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/butner_study_debunking_kit.pdf
http://www.oncefallen.com/SOMyths.html
These conclusions are virtually the same in the majority of reports on this subject from multiple government agencies and throughout the academic community.
Exhibit (B)
The sex offender registration and notification laws are discriminating irrationally among classes of ex-offenders which violates the equal protection clauses.
All sex offenders fall into the classification of felons and felons are a group or classification. The question is, are sex offenders being treated the same as all other felons, do other felons have to register or have the community notified of their presence after they have completed their sentence, are they being denied state and government services, are other felons restricted where they can live, work and recreate, do other felons face criminal prosecution, a felony offense which is punishable by three or more years in state prison, not for engaging in any type of criminal conduct but simply for not providing personal information to the government within a certain time frame? The answer is, no they are not. The courts have found that a distinction among members of the class of offenders is irrational regardless of the importance of public safety consideration underlying the regulations or relevance of prior convictions simply discerning any regulatory reason, however plausible, will not serve to satisfy the rational basis requirement of equal protection; relevant inquiry more properly focuses on whether the means utilized to carry out the regulatory purpose substantially furthers that end.
These laws do not substantially further the regulatory purpose or the legislative objectives of increasing public safety, reducing sexual abuse or preventing recidivism as evidenced in the following reports and actual facts from the leading authorities on this subject.
California Sex Offender Management Board (CASOMB) End of Year Report 2014. (page 13)
Under the current system many local registering agencies are challenged just keeping up with registration paperwork. It takes an hour or more to process each registrant, the majority of whom are low risk offenders. As a result law enforcement cannot monitor higher risk offenders more intensively in the community due to the sheer numbers on the registry. Some of the consequences of lengthy and unnecessary registration requirements actually destabilize the life’s of registrants and those -such as families- whose lives are often substantially impacted. Such consequences are thought to raise levels of known risk factors while providing no discernible benefit in terms of community safety.
The full report is available online at. http://www.casomb.org/index.cfm?pid=231
National Institute of Justice (NIJ) US Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs United States of America.
The overall conclusion is that Megan’s law has had no demonstrated effect on sexual offenses in New Jersey, calling into question the justification for start-up and operational costs. Megan’s Law has had no effect on time to first rearrest for known sex offenders and has not reduced sexual re offending. Neither has it had an impact on the type of sexual re offense or first-time sexual offense. The study also found that the law had not reduced the number of victims of sexual offenses.
The full report is available online at. https://www.ncjrs.gov/app/publications/abstract.aspx?ID=247350
The University of Chicago Press for The Booth School of Business of the University of Chicago and The University of Chicago Law School Article DOI: 10.1086/658483
Conclusion.
The data in these three data sets do not strongly support the effectiveness of sex offender registries. The national panel data do not show a significant decrease in the rate of rape or the arrest rate for sexual abuse after implementation of a registry via the Internet. The BJS data that tracked individual sex offenders after their release in 1994 did not show that registration had a significantly negative effect on recidivism. And the D.C. crime data do not show that knowing the location of sex offenders by census block can help protect the locations of sexual abuse. This pattern of ineffectiveness across the data sets does not support the conclusion that sex offender registries are successful in meeting their objectives of increasing public safety and lowering recidivism rates.
The full report is available online at. http://www.jstor.org/stable/full/10.
From Justice Policy Institute.
Estimated cost to implement SORNA
Here are some of the estimates made in 2009 expressed in 2014 current dollars: California, $66M; Florida, $34M; Illinois, $24M; New York, $35M; Pennsylvania, $22M; Texas, $44M. In 2014 dollars, Virginia’s estimate for implementation was $14M, and the annual operating cost after that would be $10M.
For the US, the total is $547M. That’s over half a billion dollars – every year – for something that doesn’t work.
http://www.justicepolicy.org/images/upload/08-08_FAC_SORNACosts_JJ.pdf
These conclusions are virtually the same in the majority of conclusions and reports on this subject from multiple government agencies and throughout the academic community.
Exhibit (C)
The sex offender registration and notification laws violate my right to freedom of movement and freedom of association by severely curtailing my ability to travel both interstate and intrastate and also international travel. With all the different state laws and local ordinances that are in place and the constant introduction of new legislation in the different states and the constantly changing local ordinances in thousands of cities and counties across the country, it makes it virtually impossible for me to travel or visit anywhere in this country without a very real fear and potential for violating one of these laws or ordinances. It is virtually impossible for a person of average intelligence to research, assimilate and abide by all the different state laws and local ordinances that apply to registered sex offenders across the country. I can not visit family or friends without extensive research of local ordinances and state laws and even after extensive research I still fear I could have missed one of these laws or ordinances. I can not attend meetings or protest that occur in places that prohibit registered sex offenders from being present. The punishments for violating one of these laws or ordinances are severe. The registration and notification laws makes it virtually impossible for me to travel to a multitude of major countries in the world as they are notified by our government of my registration status so therefore I am denied entry. These are not hypothetical situations and are not minor inconveniences of registration but are major violations of my constitutional rights to liberty. These violations will continue to cause me irreparable damage as long as I am subjected to these registration and notification laws.
Exhibit (D)
The sex offender registration and notification laws violate my right to be free from unreasonable, arbitrary and oppressive official actions. These laws are completely irrational as applied to me in my case since I currently pose no cognizable risk of re offense. Since I am a non-violent, non-contact, first time ex-offender from a incident that occurred over a decade ago there is no rational basis to continue to subject me to these laws that have consequences that destabilize my life, restricts my abilities to reintegrate into society and have been shown to actually increase known risk factors for re-offense while not achieving any legislative objective of preventing sexual abuse, increasing public safety or reducing recidivism. Since these laws have been seen as strictly regulatory in nature and not considered part of the punishment for an offense, there must be some evidence that the regulations actually achieve some legislative objective. These laws were originally designed to give law enforcement a tool to investigate and apprehend sexually violent predators, child abductors/rapist and habitual repeat offenders when such acts have been committed in the community but have since been expanded to the point to make the registration and notification laws useless to law enforcement or the general public. Just because these laws are so popular within the legislature or the public does not mean that there is a rational basis for such laws. With the facts and evidence of all the destabilizing collateral consequences I endure and all the recent research done on this subject there is overwhelming evidence that these laws are completely irrational and counterproductive especially when applied to non-violent, first time offenders such as myself who currently pose no cognizable risk of re-offense.
Conclusion.
(1) The sex offender registration and notification laws (CA Penal Code § 290, Sex Offender Registration Act. ) as applied to me, severely violate my fundamental liberty rights to my reputation and to my right to due process.
(2). The sex offender registration and notification laws (CA Penal Code § 290, Sex Offender Registration Act. ) violate the equal protection clause.
(3) The sex offender registration and notification laws (CA Penal Code § 290, Sex Offender Registration Act. ) violate my freedom of movement and freedom of association.
(4). The sex offender registration and notification laws (CA Penal Code § 290, Sex Offender Registration Act. ) violate my right to be free from unreasonable, arbitrary and oppressive official actions.
Supreme Court Justice Brandeis noted that the Founding Fathers
recognized the significance of man’s spiritual nature, of his feelings and of his intellect. They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure and satisfactions of life are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone-the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men.
Olmstead v. United States,277 U.S. 438, 478 (1928) (Brandeis, J., dissenting), overruled in part by Berger v. New York,388 U.S. 41 (1967) and Katz v. United States,389 U.S. 347 (1967).
Law enforcement already has accessible records of my criminal record, including my DNA, my photograph and my complete set of prints and can easily locate me if they were to implicate me in a crime in the future. That process is the alternative to sex offender registration and notification laws and is the least restrictive measure that is available to the government that is related to the legislative objectives of increasing public safety and preventing recidivism. Furthermore, the government already has a meaningful process to determine if an individual poses a significant risk for re offense before ever releasing the person from custody. It is available in the states civil commitment statues. If a person is found to present a potentially high risk of re offense then that individual is confined under the civil commitment statues until it is determined that they no longer pose a risk to the public.
It is in the public best interest to grant me this relief as it will increase my ability to reintegrate into society and increase the probability that I will maintain stability in my life and be a law abiding, productive member of society which actually decreases my risk for re-offense even further. It will also allow governmental agencies and law enforcement agencies to re-direct their limited resources to monitor high risk offenders more intensively thereby increasing public safety. It will also save the state tax payer dollars that can be used for policies that have proven to actually be effective.
These laws will continue to cause me irreparable damage if the court fails to grant me relief.
No one can doubt that child sexual abuse is traumatic and devastating. The question is not whether the state has an interest in preventing such harm, but whether current laws are effective in doing so.
Prayer.
I pray the court grant me this motion for summary judgement in the amount of 2.5 million dollars for lost wages, pain and suffering, and the detrimental affects to my reputation.
I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct to my knowledge on __________ Signed: _____________________________
Under most circumstances, I agree with incrementalism. Suppose you need to improve health care in a community. You start with the most difficult problems and start to build solutions and structure. Then you go after other parts of the problem and develop refinements and better structure. You learn, you get better, you solve more problems.
But what about problems like slavery and nazism? What is the incremental approach to ending things like that? There is no incremental approach, because no foundation is necessary for building a solution. The solution is the absence of slavery or nazism. There is no bureaucracy for “not slavery”.
Registration is similar in this regard. It is wrong and it needs to end. The end to slavery and nazism came with violence (which exactly the WRONG way for us), but many intractable problems came to a rapid end without violence, for example marriage equality.
I think that our approach has been wrong. We have some hope that politicians will do the right thing regarding registration, but they won’t. Even if they know what the right thing is, they are not going to fall on their sword for us. Look at what happened with Brock Turner. This young guy got a lesser sentence and the world went crazy on the judge. Absolutely no one is talking judicial independence and “let judges be judges”. It is a lynching.
Our salvation is with the judiciary and not with the legislature. The legislature represents the people–with all of their hopes and fears (primarily fears). The judiciary represents the law. We know that fealty to the law is a hard thing, but logic and facts are on our side. Logic and facts stand a far better chance in a court room than in a legislature.
We should be building a strong legal case for ending this registration madness. It’s really the only way out.
damnnnn you for having a opinion that different than Janice’s on this site. you should stop preaching and start protesting and if you don’t agree with Janice’s tactics you shouldn’t be on here you need to start your own site or fight your own battles on your own. sarcasm. sorry that’s for the people who have bashed on me. I totally agree with you with all the evidence that I presented above and am still compiling we can and will take down the registry. it’s just a matter of time and a matter of building a rock solid case. it’s unfortunate what’s happening to that judge he laid out the punishment he felt fit the crime under the law and he’s getting hammered by the mob mentality who think there majority opinions should over ride the Constitution and the rule of law. maybe he did play favorism for this guy or maybe the evidence and circumstances didn’t merit a harsher sentence
this vigilante mob has no clue what the facts in the case were and don’t care they just want to satisfy their bloodlust for vengeance on anyone they can. people are brutal and they strive off of others misery. sad but true…..
if anyone wants to help me compile hard empirical data on the ineffectiveness of the registry it would be great. data with references and links or cited.
I actually am a critic of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s definition of “incrementalism” in her own use of the term. The part I disagree with is the fact that Ginsber specifically means changing the MEANING and INTERPRETATION of the Constitution, which is as blatantly wrong as the laws that support the oppression of registrants. While our movement is one that is trying to RESTORE Constitutional protections, incrementally or not, the purpose of progressive socialism is to deny the individual any rights in deference to the state. RBG realizes that sudden changes to meet her desired need of subverting (“creatively interpreting”) the Constitution will be met with opposition, but “gradually introducing” changes will make it “easier.”
To summarize, it’s technically “correct” to apply RGB’s incrementalism adherence to the RSO anti-Constitutional status and the need to correct the injustices, but don’t be fooled: RGB and progressives wants to fundamentally transform the Constitution, and I’ll be absolutely blunt: If oppressing RSO’s advances the incrementalism agenda to further this cause, so be it. Keep in mind that societal changes that were mandated by oppressive leaders that resulted in World War Two, the advance of world communism, the rise of ISIS, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump were all precipitated by creating a hatred for sex offenders. Every one.
Initially, the lack of well known information is what led to Justice Kennedy et al to reasoning that the registry was needed. The biggest problem is that there has been no 60 Minutes, or CNN special, or Global GPS or Full Measure program on the reality of the registry. All that is out there for the politicians or judges is myth. There is no political cover for anyone. As of now a person on the no fly list can buy weapons and they are now talking about changing the law to not allowing them to buy without an evaluation. We do not even deserve an evaluation. Thank God for Janice and people like her, but we need to get to work and grow our ranks. The clock is ticking.
James said “I know people are suffering and this is madness, a societal wide madness. But I tend to the opinion that society requires someone to hate as a means of social cohesion…and we are the last definable group that it is safe to hate…racism and homophobia and sexism are all excluded, and properly so”
The way I see it is that hateful legislation directed at registrants has been used to spin-off other current hatred of other groups as seen in legislation that now targets transgenders in North Carolina, as well as the proposal to register Muslims in the US, which the media buried after Ted Cruz said he is not a fan of registries of American citizens. Ted Cruz has already been discussed, but I mention it only to point out that its not a case of registrants taking one/many for the team/society as it is registrants, like in Nazi Germany, being the guinea pigs for testing how to decimate a population to be used on other targets of hatred. In the case of Nazi Germany the same tactics of rights deprivations were used soon later on Homosexuals, Communists, Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, Disabled, etc.
this is all I have and I need more of the same, any help would be great.
These laws do not substantially further the regulatory purpose or the legislative objectives of increasing public safety, reducing sexual abuse or preventing recidivism as evidenced in the following reports and actual facts from the leading authorities on this subject.
California Sex Offender Management Board (CASOMB) End of Year Report 2014. (page 13)
Under the current system many local registering agencies are challenged just keeping up with registration paperwork. It takes an hour or more to process each registrant, the majority of whom are low risk offenders. As a result law enforcement cannot monitor higher risk offenders more intensively in the community due to the sheer numbers on the registry. Some of the consequences of lengthy and unnecessary registration requirements actually destabilize the life’s of registrants and those -such as families- whose lives are often substantially impacted. Such consequences are thought to raise levels of known risk factors while providing no discernible benefit in terms of community safety.
The full report is available online at. http://www.casomb.org/index.cfm?pid=231
National Institute of Justice (NIJ) US Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs United States of America.
The overall conclusion is that Megan’s law has had no demonstrated effect on sexual offenses in New Jersey, calling into question the justification for start-up and operational costs. Megan’s Law has had no effect on time to first rearrest for known sex offenders and has not reduced sexual re offending. Neither has it had an impact on the type of sexual re offense or first-time sexual offense. The study also found that the law had not reduced the number of victims of sexual offenses.
The full report is available online at. https://www.ncjrs.gov/app/publications/abstract.aspx?ID=247350
The University of Chicago Press for The Booth School of Business of the University of Chicago and The University of Chicago Law School Article DOI: 10.1086/658483
Conclusion.
The data in these three data sets do not strongly support the effectiveness of sex offender registries. The national panel data do not show a significant decrease in the rate of rape or the arrest rate for sexual abuse after implementation of a registry via the Internet. The BJS data that tracked individual sex offenders after their release in 1994 did not show that registration had a significantly negative effect on recidivism. And the D.C. crime data do not show that knowing the location of sex offenders by census block can help protect the locations of sexual abuse. This pattern of ineffectiveness across the data sets does not support the conclusion that sex offender registries are successful in meeting their objectives of increasing public safety and lowering recidivism rates.
The full report is available online at. http://www.jstor.org/stable/full/10.
From Justice Policy Institute.
Estimated cost to implement SORNA
Here are some of the estimates made in 2009 expressed in 2014 current dollars: California, $66M; Florida, $34M; Illinois, $24M; New York, $35M; Pennsylvania, $22M; Texas, $44M. In 2014 dollars, Virginia’s estimate for implementation was $14M, and the annual operating cost after that would be $10M.
For the US, the total is $547M. That’s over half a billion dollars – every year – for something that doesn’t work.
http://www.justicepolicy.org/images/upload/08-08_FAC_SORNACosts_JJ.pdf
These conclusions are virtually the same in the majority of conclusions and reports on this subject from multiple government agencies and throughout the academic community.
I really don’t care if people like me posting or preaching as some have called it,I’m going to continue on my path and progress towards ending registration once and for all. here’s where I’m at with it if anyone has suggestions or evidence or can point out any fallacies please do.
This court has jurisdiction because ________________________________________________________________
I the plaintiff ______________________do hereby bring forth this motion for Declaratory and/or Injunction relief.
Introduction.
This motion is being brought forth as a as applied challenge to the constitutionality of the sex offender registration and notification laws or Megan’s law (CA Penal Code § 290, Sex Offender Registration Act) as applied to me.
I am the plaintiff in this case. I am a United States citizen who resides in Sacramento, CA.
I am a non-violent, non-contact first time ex-offender from a incident that occurred over a decade ago. There was never any physical contact between myself and any victim. I completed my prison sentence and parole supervision without any incidents or violations despite all the obstacles and conditions of parole that were placed on me because of the sex offender designation. I have been arrest free and a completely law abiding citizen since my release. I do not pose any cognizable risk to the public. I was already severely punished for my offense and have been subjected to intensive monitoring and supervision while on parole. I should not be subjected to these registration and notification laws that involve consequences that are severely detrimental to so many aspects of my life.
Issues.
(1) The sex offender registration and notification laws (CA Penal Code § 290, Sex Offender Registration Act) violate my constitutionally protected liberty interest in my reputation which is protected under the federal due process clause in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and the California Constitution’s Article I, Section 7 on “due process, equal protection and the right to travel”.
(2) The sex offender registration and notification laws (CA Penal Code § 290, Sex Offender Registration Act) violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth amendment of the United States Constitution and the California Constitution’s Article I, Section 7 on “due process, equal protection and the right to travel”
(3) Sex offender registration and notification laws (CA Penal Code § 290, Sex Offender Registration Act) violate my constitutionally protected liberty interests by infringing on my freedom of movement and my freedom of association which is protected under the Fifth and Fourteenth amendment of the United States Constitution and the California Constitution’s Article I, Section 7 on “due process, equal protection and the right to travel”
(4) Sex offender registration and notification laws (CA Penal Code § 290, Sex Offender Registration Act) violate my constitutionally protected right to liberty and to be free from unreasonable, arbitrary and oppressive official actions, which is protected under the Fifth and Fourteenth amendment of the United States Constitution and the California Constitution’s Article I, Section 7 on “due process, equal protection and the right to travel”
(5) The sex offender registration and notification laws (CA Penal Code § 290, Sex Offender Registration Act) violate my constitutionally protected right to procedural due process which is protected under the federal due process clause in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and the California Constitution’s Article I, Section 7 on “due process, equal protection and the right to travel” with an irrefutable presumption of future offending that is universally untrue and which provides no meaningful process to determine such facts.
Facts.
(1) My constitutionally-protected right to reputation is encroached upon by an irrefutable presumption of future offending that is universally untrue.
The United States Supreme Court has previously recognized that a person’s reputation is a protected liberty interest under the federal due process clause. Wisconsin v. Constantineau, 400 U.S. 433 (1971) (hereafter “Constantineau”); Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564 (1972) (hereafter “Roth”).
In Constantineau, the State of Wisconsin authorized the posting of a notice prohibiting the sale or gift of liquor to any person who “‘by excessive drinking’ produces described conditions or exhibits specified traits, such as exposing himself or family ‘to want’ or becoming ‘dangerous to the peace’ of the community.” On appeal, the Constantineau Court recognized that “[i]t would be naive not to recognize that such ‘posting’ or characterization of an individual will expose him to public embarrassment and ridicule.” 400 U.S. at 436. The Court therefore held that a protectible liberty interest is implicated “[w]here a person’s good name, reputation, honor, or integrity is at stake because of what the government is doing to him [or her.]” Id. at 437.
One year later, the Court again recognized a person’s liberty interest may be implicated by damage to his or her reputation. See Roth, 408 U.S. at 573. The plaintiff in Roth, a university professor, alleged that “the failure of University officials to give him notice of any reason for non-retention and an opportunity for a hearing violated his right to procedural due process of law.” Id. at 569. The Roth Court reasoned that in declining to hire the plaintiff, the state had neither advanced “any charge against him that might seriously damage his standing and associations in the community” nor “imposed on him a stigma or other disability that foreclosed his freedom to take advantage of other employment opportunities.” Id. at 573. The Roth Court noted, however, that “a different case” would have been presented had the state either damaged the plaintiff’s reputation or imposed a stigma on him. Id. at 573-74.
However, in Paul v. Davis, 424 U.S. 693, reh’g denied, 425 U.S. 985 (1976), the Court clarified that “reputation alone, apart from some more tangible interests such as employment, is [n]either ‘liberty’ [n]or ‘property’ by itself sufficient to invoke the procedural protection of the Due Process Clause.” Id. at 701. The plaintiff in Paul alleged a deprivation of liberty without due process of law after the circulation of flyers publicizing his conviction for shoplifting and labeling him an “active shoplifter.” Id. at 712. According to the Paul Court, because the plaintiff’s harm was not accompanied by the alteration of “a right or status previously recognized by state law,” there was no deprivation of a protectible liberty interest. Id. at 711-12.
Paul has been interpreted to require “stigma plus” in order to establish a constitutional deprivation. See, e.g., Valmonte v. Bane, 18 F.3d 992, 999 (2d Cir. 1994). In other words, “an allegation that government dissemination of information or government defamation has caused damage to reputation, even with all the attendant emotional anguish and social stigma, does not in itself state a cause of action for violation of a constitutional right, infringement of more ‘tangible interests’ must be alleged as well”. Borucki v. Ryan, 827 F.2d 836, 842-43 (1st Cir. 1987); see also Marshall v. University of Hawaii, 9 Haw. App. 21, 32, 821 P.2d 937, 948 (1991).
Courts have recognized the serious harm to other “tangible interests” as a result of registration as a sex offender. Potential employers and landlords are reluctant to employ or rent to me once they learn of my status as a “sex offender”. See Pataki III, 3 F. Supp. 2d at 468; W.P. v. Poritz, 931 F. Supp. 1199, 1219 (D.N.J. 1996), rev’d, 119 F.3d 1077 (3d Cir. 1997), cert. denied, 522 U.S. 1110 (1998) [hereinafter Verniero]; see also In re Reed, 663 P.2d 216 (Cal. 1983) (quoting In re Birch, 515 P.2d 12 (Cal. 1973)). (8). Indeed, the public notification provisions do adversely affect my personal and professional life, employability, associations with neighbors and choice of housing. Noble v. Board of Parole and Post-Prison Supervision, 964 P.2d 990, 995-96 (Or. 1998); State v. Myers, 923 P.2d 1024, 1041 (Kan. 1996), cert. denied, 521 U.S. 1118 (1997); Rowe v. Burton, 884 F. Supp. 1372, 1378 (D. Alaska 1994), appeal dismissed, 85 F.3d 635 (9th Cir. 1996) (personal and professional lives); Artway v. Attorney General, 876 F. Supp. 666, 668 (D.N.J. 1995),aff’d in part and vacated in part, 81 F.3d 1235 (3d Cir.), reh’g denied, 83 F.2d 594 (1996) (employability and associations with neighbors); Robin L. Deems, Comment, California’s Sex Offender Notification Statute: A Constitutional Analysis, 33 San Diego L. Rev. 1195 (1996) (citing Jenny A. Montana, Note, An Ineffective Weapon in the Fight Against Child Sexual Abuse: New Jersey’s Megan’s Law, 3 J. L. & Pol’y 569, 580-81 (1995)) (choice of housing). In addition, public disclosure encourages vigilantism and exposes me to possible physical violence. (9)See, e.g., Poritz, 662 A.2d at 430-31 (Stein, J., dissenting); Pataki I, 940 F. Supp. 603, 608-11 (S.D.N.Y. 1996); Doe v. Gregoire, 960 F. Supp. 1478, 1485 (W.D. Wash. 1997). Indeed, [w]hen a government agency focuses its machinery on the task of determining whether a person should be labeled publicly as having a certain undesirable characteristic or belonging to a certain undesirable group, and that agency must by law gather and synthesize evidence outside the public record in making that determination, the interest of the person to be labeled goes beyond mere reputation. . . . [I]t is an interest in avoiding the social ostracism, loss of employment opportunities, and significant likelihood of verbal and, perhaps, even physical harassment likely to follow from designation.
Noble, 964 P.2d at 995-96.
The Paul Court recognized that, in addition to the interests recognized by state law, “[t]here are other interests . . . protected not by virtue of their recognition by the law of a particular State but because they are guaranteed in one of the provisions of the Bill of Rights which has been ‘incorporated’ into the Fourteenth Amendment.” Paul, 424 U.S. at 710 n.5. As an example, in Bohn, 772 F.2d at 1436 n.4, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit found a protectible interest in reputation where the stigma of being identified as a child abuser was tied to the protectible interest in privacy and autonomy of family relationships. See also Poritz, 662 A.2d at 419 (holding that the stigma resulting from notification that petitioner was a sex offender was tied to the protectible interest in privacy inasmuch as he had an interest in his reputation); Neal, 131 F.3d at 830 (holding that Hawaii’s designating of prisoner as “sex offender” without hearing and requiring successful completion of treatment program as precondition for parole eligibility together implicated a liberty interest protected by the right to due process of law).
Justice Brandeis noted that the Founding Fathers
recognized the significance of man’s spiritual nature, of his feelings and of his intellect. They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure and satisfactions of life are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone-the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men.
Olmstead v. United States,277 U.S. 438, 478 (1928) (Brandeis, J., dissenting), overruled in part by Berger v. New York,388 U.S. 41 (1967) and Katz v. United States,389 U.S. 347 (1967).
Additionally, in an oft-quoted dissent in Poe v. Ullman,367 U.S. 497 (1961), Justice Harlan wrote,
[T]he full scope of liberty guaranteed by the Due Process Clause cannot be found in or limited by the precise terms of the specific guarantees elsewhere provided in the Constitution. This ‘liberty’ is not a series of isolated points pricked out in terms of the taking of property; the freedom of speech, press, and religion; the right to keep and bear arms; the freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures; and so on. It is a rational continuum which, broadly speaking, includes a freedom from all substantial arbitrary impositions and purposeless restraints.
Id. at 543 (Harlan, J., dissenting).[4] These words “eloquently” describe the Court’s role in the substantive due process inquiry. Moore v. City of East Cleveland,431 U.S. 494, 501 (1977).
These laws effectively brand me a “sex offender”, i.e., a public danger, for life. See Doe v. Pataki, 3 F. Supp. 2d 456, 467 (S.D.N.Y. 1998) [here in after Pataki III]; Doe v. Attorney General, 686 N.E.2d 1007, 1013 (Mass. 1997) [hereinafter Doe II];see also Bohn v. County of Dakota, 772 F.2d 1433, 1436 n.4 (8th Cir. 1985), cert. denied, 475 U.S. 1014 (1986).
Specifically, the public notification provisions imply that I am potentially dangerous, thereby undermining my reputation and standing in the community. Doe v. Poritz, 662 A.2d 367, 419 (N.J. 1995); cf. Neal v. Shimoda, 131 F.3d 818, 829 (9th Cir. 1997) (noting that “[o]ne need only look to the increasingly popular ‘Megan’s laws’, whereby states require sex offenders to register with law enforcement officials, who are then authorized to release information about the sex offender to the public, to comprehend the stigmatizing consequences of being labeled a sex offender”). Indeed, public notification that I am a convicted sex offender implicitly announces that, in the eyes of the State, I present a risk of committing another sex offense. Doe II, 686 N.E.2d at 144.
The sex offender registration and notification laws or Megan’s law is causing irreparable harm to my reputation and professional life, employability, associations with neighbors, and choice of housing.
The sex offender registration and notification laws violate my liberty interest in my reputation by making public my current personal address and current photo which is not public information and which puts me in physical harm every time I enter or leave my home and even while I’m in my home I can not feel safe. This information is also being publicly distributed on the Internet from privately owned and operated websites such as homefacts.com. That information being made public puts not only myself but my families lives and property in danger of physical harm, harassment and vandalism. These claims are not hypothetical situations or exaggerations, these claims are facts and the possibilities of these incidents occurring are real and in fact some have already occurred in my case. The Megan’s law website also displays my criminal record which is only available to authorized individuals who meet certain criteria and have a need to know basis, not to the general public at a click of a computer mouse.
These laws affect and limit employment as very few employers will hire me simply because I am on a sex offender website that is accessible to the general public. These laws also restrict or limit my ability to travel for work or to be employed by local, state or federal agencies and severely affects my ability to obtain a business licence or business loans. They also limit what professions and careers that I can pursue and affect my personal and professional relationships in a severely negative way because of my inclusion on the sex offender registry and the publicly accessible Megan’s law website. These issues are not minor inconveniences but are major obstacles to my financial stability and to my fundamental right to life and liberty for me and my family. It also affects housing because very few property owners or property management organizations will rent to me for fear of vandalism and or the loss of present or potential tenants because of the accessibility to the registry by the general public. I am reluctant to move or purchase property for fear that I may violate some local ordinance or be forced to move because of some new law or ordinance being enacted and applied retroactively. I am also reluctant to move or purchase property for fear that I will be subjected to even worse harassment and vandalism by the community in which I move then I have already endured in my present location. These laws create real fears of being the victim of vigilante attacks, harassment and vandalism which forces me limit my activities to avoid being outside of my residence for fear of being harmed or harassed. I have had to call the police twice due to my family and I being physically threatened in one instance and having threats and profanity written all over our porch on the
I have a liberty interest protected by the Constitution that entitles me to procedural due process because of: (1) the public disclosure of accumulated and synthesized personal information that would not otherwise be easily available; (2) the harm to my personal and professional life; (3) the foreseeable harm to my reputation; and (4) the statutory branding of me as a public danger, i.e., as a sex offender. I note that the “interest cannot be captured in a single word or phrase. It is an interest in knowing when the government is moving against you and why it has singled you out for special attention. It is an interest in avoiding the secret machinations of a Star Chamber.” Noble, 964 P.2d at 995.
(2) The sex offender registration and notification laws are discriminating irrationally among classes of ex-offenders which violates the equal protection clauses.
All sex offenders fall into the classification of felons and felons are a group or classification. The question is, are sex offenders being treated the same as all other felons, do other felons have to register or have the community notified of their presence after they have completed their sentence, are they being denied state and government services, are other felons restricted where they can live, work and recreate, do other felons face criminal prosecution, a felony offense which is punishable by three or more years in state prison, not for engaging in any type of criminal conduct but simply for not providing personal information to the government within a certain time frame? The answer is, no they are not. The courts have found that a distinction among members of the class of offenders is irrational regardless of the importance of public safety consideration underlying the regulations or relevance of prior convictions simply discerning any regulatory reason, however plausible, will not serve to satisfy the rational basis requirement of equal protection; relevant inquiry more properly focuses on whether the means utilized to carry out the regulatory purpose substantially furthers that end.
These laws do not substantially further the regulatory purpose or the legislative objectives of increasing public safety, reducing sexual abuse or preventing recidivism as evidenced in the following reports and actual facts from the leading authorities on this subject.
California Sex Offender Management Board (CASOMB) End of Year Report 2014. (page 13)
Under the current system many local registering agencies are challenged just keeping up with registration paperwork. It takes an hour or more to process each registrant, the majority of whom are low risk offenders. As a result law enforcement cannot monitor higher risk offenders more intensively in the community due to the sheer numbers on the registry. Some of the consequences of lengthy and unnecessary registration requirements actually destabilize the life’s of registrants and those -such as families- whose lives are often substantially impacted. Such consequences are thought to raise levels of known risk factors while providing no discernible benefit in terms of community safety.
The full report is available online at. http://www.casomb.org/index.cfm?pid=231
National Institute of Justice (NIJ) US Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs United States of America.
The overall conclusion is that Megan’s law has had no demonstrated effect on sexual offenses in New Jersey, calling into question the justification for start-up and operational costs. Megan’s Law has had no effect on time to first rearrest for known sex offenders and has not reduced sexual re offending. Neither has it had an impact on the type of sexual re offense or first-time sexual offense. The study also found that the law had not reduced the number of victims of sexual offenses.
The full report is available online at. https://www.ncjrs.gov/app/publications/abstract.aspx?ID=247350
The University of Chicago Press for The Booth School of Business of the University of Chicago and The University of Chicago Law School Article DOI: 10.1086/658483
Conclusion.
The data in these three data sets do not strongly support the effectiveness of sex offender registries. The national panel data do not show a significant decrease in the rate of rape or the arrest rate for sexual abuse after implementation of a registry via the Internet. The BJS data that tracked individual sex offenders after their release in 1994 did not show that registration had a significantly negative effect on recidivism. And the D.C. crime data do not show that knowing the location of sex offenders by census block can help protect the locations of sexual abuse. This pattern of ineffectiveness across the data sets does not support the conclusion that sex offender registries are successful in meeting their objectives of increasing public safety and lowering recidivism rates.
The full report is available online at. http://www.jstor.org/stable/full/10.
From Justice Policy Institute.
Estimated cost to implement SORNA
Here are some of the estimates made in 2009 expressed in 2014 current dollars: California, $66M; Florida, $34M; Illinois, $24M; New York, $35M; Pennsylvania, $22M; Texas, $44M. In 2014 dollars, Virginia’s estimate for implementation was $14M, and the annual operating cost after that would be $10M.
For the US, the total is $547M. That’s over half a billion dollars – every year – for something that doesn’t work.
http://www.justicepolicy.org/images/upload/08-08_FAC_SORNACosts_JJ.pdf
These conclusions are virtually the same in the majority of conclusions and reports on this subject from multiple government agencies and throughout the academic community.
(3) The sex offender registration and notification laws violate my right to freedom of movement and freedom of association by severely curtailing my ability to travel both interstate and intrastate and also international travel. With all the different state laws and local ordinances that are in place and the constant introduction of new legislation in the different states and the constantly changing local ordinances in thousands of cities and counties across the country, it makes it virtually impossible for me to travel or visit anywhere in this country without a very real fear and potential for violating one of these laws or ordinances. It is virtually impossible for a person of average intelligence to research, assimilate and abide by all the different state laws and local ordinances that apply to registered sex offenders across the country. I can not visit family or friends without extensive research of local ordinances and state laws and even after extensive research I still fear I could have missed one of these laws or ordinances. I can not attend meetings or protest that occur in places that prohibit registered sex offenders from being present. The laws effectively bar me from attending higher education institutions simply because there are day care centers on most college campuses therefor curtailing my ability to obtain a higher education. The punishments for violating one of these laws or ordinances are severe. The registration and notification laws makes it virtually impossible for me to travel to a multitude of major countries in the world as they are notified by our government of my registration status so therefore I am denied entry. These are not hypothetical situations and are not minor inconveniences of registration but are major violations of my constitutional rights to liberty. These violations will continue to cause me irreparable damage as long as I am subjected to these registration and notification laws.
(4). The sex offender registration and notification laws violate my right to be free from unreasonable, arbitrary and oppressive official actions. These laws achieve no legislative purpose as demonstrated above and are completely irrational as applied to me in my case since I currently pose no cognizable risk of re offense. Since I am a non-violent, non-contact, first time ex-offender from a incident that occurred over a decade ago there is no rational basis to continue to subject me to these laws that have consequences that destabilize my life, restricts my abilities to reintegrate into society and have been shown to actually increase known risk factors for re-offense while not achieving any legislative objective of preventing sexual abuse, increasing public safety or reducing recidivism. Since these laws have been seen as strictly regulatory in nature and not considered part of the punishment for an offense, there must be some evidence that the regulations actually achieve some legislative objective. These laws were originally designed to give law enforcement a tool to investigate and apprehend sexually violent predators, child abductors/rapist and habitual repeat offenders when such acts have been committed in the community but have since been expanded to the point to make the registration and notification laws useless to law enforcement or the general public. Just because these laws are so popular within the legislature or the public does not mean that there is a rational basis for such laws. With the facts and evidence of all the destabilizing collateral consequences I endure and all the recent research done on this subject there is overwhelming evidence that these laws are completely irrational and counterproductive especially when applied to non-violent, first time offenders such as myself who currently pose no cognizable risk of re-offense. The theory or legislative purpose for the sex offender registry that is stated by the legislative body and the courts is that there is a extremely high recidivism rate for sexual offences which has been irrefutably debunked.
The Supreme Court has fed the fear of frightening high sex offender recidivism rates that has proven to be universally untrue. It’s become the “go to” source that courts and politicians rely upon for “facts” about sex offender recidivism rates that aren’t true. Its endorsement has transformed random opinions by self-interested non-experts into definitive studies offered to justify law and policy, while real studies by real scientists go unnoticed. The Court’s casual approach to the facts of sex offender re-offense rates is far more frightening than the rates themselves, and it’s high time for correction.
The sources relied upon by the Supreme Court in Smith v. Doe, a heavily cited constitutional decision on sex offender registries, in fact provide no support at all for the facts about sex offender re-offense rates that the Court treats as central to its constitutional conclusions. This misreading of the social science was abetted in part by the Solicitor General’s misrepresentations in the amicus brief it filed in this case. The false “facts” stated in the opinion have since been relied upon repeatedly by other courts in their own constitutional decisions, thus infecting an entire field of law as well as policy making by legislative bodies. Recent decisions by the Pennsylvania and California supreme courts establish principles that would support major judicial reforms of sex offender registries, if they were applied to the actual facts.
I am asking this court to apply the actual facts submitted in reports from the leading authorities and credible experts in the fields such as the following.
California Sex Offender Management Board (CASOMB)
Sex offender recidivism rate for a new sex offense is 0.8% (page 30)
The full report is available online at
http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/Adult_Research_Branch/Research_Documents/2014_Outcome_Evaluation_Report_7-6-2015.pdf
.
Document title; A Model of Static and Dynamic Sex Offender Risk Assessment Author: Robert J. McGrath, Michael P. Lasher, Georgia F. Cumming Document No.: 236217 Date Received: October 2011 Award Number: 2008-DD-BX-0013
Findings: Study of 759 adult male offenders under community supervision Re-arrest rate: 4.6% after 3-year follow-up
The sexual re-offense rates for the 746 released in 2005 are much lower than what many in the public have been led to expect or believe. These low re-offense rates appear to contradict a conventional wisdom that sex offenders have very high sexual re-offense rates.
The full report is available online at. https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/236217.pdf
Bureau of Justice Statistics
5 PERCENT OF SEX OFFENDERS REARRESTED FOR ANOTHER SEX CRIME WITHIN 3 YEARS OF PRISON RELEASE
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Within 3 years following their 1994 state prison release, 5.3 percent of sex offenders (men who had committed rape or sexual assault) were rearrested for another sex crime, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced today.
The full report is available online at. http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/press/rsorp94pr.cfm
Document Title: SEX OFFENDER SENTENCING IN WASHINGTON STATE: RECIDIVISM RATES BY: Washington State Institute For Public Policy.
A study of 4,091 sex offenders either released from prison or community supervision form 1994 to 1998 and examined for 5 years Findings: Sex Crime Recidivism Rate: 2.7%
Link to Report: http://www.oncefallen.com/files/Washington_SO_Recid_2005.pdf
Document Title: Indiana’s Recidivism Rates Decline for Third Consecutive Year BY: Indiana Department of Correction 2009.
The recidivism rate for sex offenders returning on a new sex offense was 1.05%, one of the lowest in the nation. In a time when sex offenders continue to face additional post-release requirements that often result in their return to prison for violating technical rules such as registration and residency restrictions, the instances of sex offenders returning to prison due to the commitment of a new sex crime is extremely low. Findings: sex offenders returning on a new sex offense was 1.05%
Link to Report: http://www.in.gov/idoc/files/RecidivismRelease.pdf
More state studies;
AK 03% page 8 Criminal Recidivism in Alaska Alaska Judicial Council January 2007
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A754C96E86E37F71!8635&cid=a754c96e86e37f71&app=WordPdf
AZ 05.5 % Sex Offender Recidivism Arizona dept. of corrections note bottom of page 03.3%
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A754C96E86E37F71!8633&cid=a754c96e86e37f71&app=WordPdf
CA 00.8% The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) “2014 Outcome Evaluation Report“ https://all4consolaws.org/2015/08/new-cdcr-report-reduces-rate-of-re-offense-to-less-than-1-percent.
CA 05.0 % fig 12 California Department of Corrections And Rehabilitation
2010 Adult Institutions Outcome Evaluation Report
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A754C96E86E37F71!8632&cid=a754c96e86e37f71&app=WordPdf
CA 03.5% table 3-2 California sex offender management Board January 2008
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A754C96E86E37F71!8630&cid=a754c96e86e37f71&app=WordPdf
CA figure 11 01.9% California sex offender management Board 2012 in looking at this one I realize that this is another attempt to increase the visual concept of a higher reoffend rate than actually exists you will note in table 11 , that there are 8490 released sex offenders and that 5870 are returned to prison or 69.1% going onto figure 11. The pie chart does not represent the 8490 but rather represents the 5870 . When you take this into account and do the math. 1.9% of 5870 comes out to 111 and 111 people involved in the new sex crime, out of 8490 comes out to an actual reoffend rate of 1.3% . This is just another way that the government is using razzle-dazzle techniques. In doing their statistical analysis.
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A754C96E86E37F71!8943&cid=a754c96e86e37f71&app=WordPdf
CA 01.9 % figure 11 California Department of Corrections And Rehabilitation 2012 Outcome Evaluation Report
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A754C96E86E37F71!8943&cid=a754c96e86e37f71&app=WordPdf
CA 5 year study 03.2% RECIDIVISM OF PAROLED SEX OFFENDERS – A FIVE (5) YEAR STUDY
https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=A754C96E86E37F71&id=A754C96E86E37F71!8627
CA 10 year study 03.3% RECIDIVISM OF PAROLED SEX OFFENDERS – A TEN (10) YEAR STUDY
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A754C96E86E37F71!8626&cid=a754c96e86e37f71&app=WordPdf
CT page 9 01,7% And prisoners with no prior sex crime are six times more likely to be involved in a new sex crime Recidivism among sex offenders in Connecticut, State of Connecticut
Office of Policy and Management, Criminal Justice Policy & Planning Division, February 15, 2012
DE Table 26 03.1% REARREST 6 offenders and on table 27 3 Offenders were not found guilty of a crime that makes the percentage of people convicted of a new sex crime. 01.5% Rearrest should never be used as a determining factor. Delaware Sex Offenders, Profiles and Criminal Justice System Outcomes, January 2008
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A754C96E86E37F71!8622&cid=a754c96e86e37f71&app=WordPdf
DE 3.8% rearrest table 7 Recidivism of Delaware Adult Sex Offenders Released from Prison in 2001 July 2007
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A754C96E86E37F71!8621&cid=a754c96e86e37f71&app=WordPdf
DE 5% rearrest table 8 after 5 years Recidivism of Delaware Juvenile Sex Offenders Released in 2001 September 2007
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A754C96E86E37F71!8620&cid=a754c96e86e37f71&app=WordPdf
FL 4.2% page10 Figure 2 10 year follow up SEX OFFENDER RISK AND RECIDIVISM IN FLORIDA
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A754C96E86E37F71!8784&cid=a754c96e86e37f71&app=WordPdf
HI RECIDIVISM/REOFFENDING BY SEXUALLY ABUSIVE ADOLESCENTS: A DIGEST OF EMPIRICAL RESEARCH STUDIES Years: 1943-2008 85 RESEARCH STUDIES MEAN RECIDIVISM RATE FOR ALL STUDIES = 7.73%
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A754C96E86E37F71!8619&cid=a754c96e86e37f71&app=WordPdf
IA page 7 #4 “With the overall recidivism for sex offenses as low as 2% “ Iowa Sex Offender Research Council Report to the Iowa General Assembly January 22, 2009
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A754C96E86E37F71!8618&cid=a754c96e86e37f71&app=WordPdf
IA table 4 03% new sex crime THE IOWA SEX OFFENDER REGISTRY AND
RECIDIVISM Iowa Department of Human Rights Division of Criminal and Juvenile Justice Planning and Statistical Analysis Center
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A754C96E86E37F71!8617&cid=a754c96e86e37f71&app=WordPdf
IA ARREST 02.3% page 7 Iowa Department of Corrections Report to the Board of Corrections
Third in a series of reports highlighting issues contributing to corrections population growth April 2006 Sex Offenders
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A754C96E86E37F71!8616&cid=a754c96e86e37f71&app=WordPdf
IN bottom of page “1.05%of identified sex offender’srecidivated for a new sex crime within 3 years.” Indiana Department of Correction Recidivism Rates Decrease for 3rd Consecutive Year
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A754C96E86E37F71!8935&cid=a754c96e86e37f71&app=WordPdf
IN page 22 05.7% Recidivism Rates Compared 2005-2007 Indiana Department of CORRECTION
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A754C96E86E37F71!8936&cid=a754c96e86e37f71&app=WordPdf
ME page 12 03.8% Returned to prison for sex offense SEXUAL ASSAULT TRENDS
AND SEX OFFENDER RECIDIVISM IN MAINE 2010
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A754C96E86E37F71!8612&cid=a754c96e86e37f71&app=WordPdf
MI 8/10 of 1% three-year study has come out of Michigan looking at the number of people on parole that were returned to prison for new crimes they found that of the sex offenders who were released from prison and found that they were involved in the new sexually related crime at 8/10 of 1%, or in other words, that 99.2% DID NOT Reoffend in the new sex crime. And that they had the lowest reoffend rate of all the criminal classes released. the full report is here http://nationalrsol.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/CAPPS.pdf
MN 5.7 % over 12 years Table 2 page 21 Sex Offender Recidivism in Minnesota April 2007
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A754C96E86E37F71!8610&cid=a754c96e86e37f71&app=WordPdf
NY 04% profile and follow-up of sex offenders released in 1986 this one is another attempt to hide the facts . I finally found this information on page 19. They state that there were 556 offenders released below that on page 19. They show a table 14 the number of people related to each of those crimes that were returned to prison. If you look at the numbers for a new sex crime. You will see that they are 5,6,5 and 7 totaling 23 , when you do the percentages 23/556 UN that with the re-offense rate of 4% . If you look at the other graphs that they have provided they have shockingly high numbers . The problem is that they are only looking at the people that are returned to prison and ignoring the people that stayed out of prison. So their numbers are skewed because they did not include people not reoffending in their statistical data.
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A754C96E86E37F71!8607&cid=a754c96e86e37f71&app=WordPdf
OH report to the Ohio criminal sentencing commission, January 2006 sex offenders Sex offenders in Ohio have a lower recidivism rate than the recidivism rate of all offenders (38.8 percent). A 10-year follow-up of a 1989 cohort of sex offenders released from Ohio prisons found that only 8 percent of sex offenders were recommitted for a new sex offense
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A754C96E86E37F71!8604&cid=a754c96e86e37f71&app=WordPdf
OH Ten-Year Recidivism Follow-Up Of 1989 Sex Offender Releases EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Recommitment for a New Crime Sex Offense 8.0 % after 10 yeaars
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A754C96E86E37F71!8603&cid=a754c96e86e37f71&app=WordPdf
WA03 07% Re-offended Department of Corrections Public Safety Update What is the re-offense behavior for sex offenders under supervision in the community? •Of the 264 offenders who committed a re-offense:•83% or 218 were unemployed •73% or 192 DID NOT have stable housing
WY again I have to dig through the research to find the numbers . The end result is that between 2000 and 2005 , 545 sex offenders were released and of that 24 reoffended it in a new sex crime . That makes the reoffend charade of 04.4%
For further information and empirical evidence on recidivism rates see also,
http://sexoffender-statistics.blogspot.com/search/label/Recid%2001%25-05%25
http://sexoffender-statistics.blogspot.com/search/label/Recid%2001%25-10%25
http://sexoffenderissues.blogspot.com/p/studies.html
http://www.oncefallen.com/recidivismchart.html
http://sosen.org/blog/2015/01/12/simple-question.html
http://sosen.org/blog/2014/11/06/why-are-the-reconviction-rates-so-important.html
http://news.legislature.ne.gov/dist20/files/2013/08/NE_sex_offender_recidivism.pdf
http://therealosc.blogspot.com/2013/04/as-we-said-so-long-ago.html
https://rsoresearch.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/butner_study_debunking_kit.pdf
http://www.oncefallen.com/SOMyths.html
These conclusions are virtually the same in the majority of reports on this subject from multiple government agencies and throughout the academic community.
Recently a number of legislators and news articles have attempted to use information from a study that said that one in four girls and one in five boys have been sexually abused before the age of 18 as proof of the high re-offense rates for people on the registry and they have used the twisted data mentioned above from the 1997 US Department of Justice study to prove their point, even though that researched conclusion ha been thoroughly debunked.
First of all the student study on unreported sexual abuse has been called into doubt because of the type questions that were asked and the way that they were asked. They worded the questions on the study to get the answers that they wanted and not the facts or truth. They also biased study by using small numbers of the tested group that were chosen from specific locations that didn’t represent most groups of teenagers.
But even if the numbers are correct there are a couple of other issue that need to be brought out that are totally being ignored by the yellow journalists that are attempting to make a point by using this information. We now know through multiple studies and lots of number crunching that the re-offense rate for people on the registry is less than 1% in any given year, and that means of the new sex crimes that are committed each year 99% plus are by people that are not on the registry. If there is under-reporting then it also has to follow that particular logical progression and that is if there is a percentage of under-reporting then 99% of those unreported crimes are not done by people on the registry.
Here is the primary issue that should be pointed out, nowhere in the under-reporting study, or for that matter any accredited study, was there any proof that any portion of the under-reporting was due to people on the registry reoffending. For the media to jump to this conclusion is at the very least biased reporting.
Therefore attempting to use under-reporting to justify the existence of the registry is another myth, or a lie. This is another form of misinformation perpetrated by those who either have a fiduciary interest in continuing the unconstitutional treatment of a disfavored group or are seeking to justify their need for punishment for people who have already paid for their crime by loss of their freedom through incarceration and are now attempting to reenter society as honest citizens. When this information is placed into the public’s attention by naive media then you have to wonder if the media also falls into one of these two groups that are not truly interested in reporting the truth.
Both of these groups of people that have that type of mentality can be classified as vigilantes, bullies, or sociopaths, and are responsible for the destruction of our constitutional values and the erosion of personal freedoms in this country.
(5) The sex offender registration and notification laws (CA Penal Code § 290, Sex Offender Registration Act) violate my constitutionally protected right to procedural due process with an irrefutable presumption of future offending that is universally untrue,(as demonstrated in the above studies), and which provides no meaningful process to determine such facts. When “particularly important” interests are involved in a civil proceeding, whether or not physical restraint is threatened, the United States Supreme Court has mandated a clear and convincing evidence standard of proof and stated that, “[n]otwithstanding ‘the state’s “civil labels and good intentions,” ‘ . . . this level of certainty [is deemed] necessary to preserve fundamental fairness in a variety of government-initiated proceedings that threaten the individual involved with ‘a significant deprivation of liberty’ or ‘stigma.’ ” Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745, 756 (1982) (requiring clear and convincing evidence standard to support termination of parental rights), quoting Addington v. Texas, 441 U.S. 418, 425, 426, 427 (1979) (civil commitment); Woodby v. INS, 385 U.S. 276, 285 (1966) (deportation); Chaunt v. United States, 364 U.S. 350, 353 (1960) (denaturalization); Schneiderman v. United States, 320 U.S. 118, 125, 159 (1943) (denaturalization). A registrant’s liberty interest is seriously infringed in the creation of a long-term relationship with the police, in the potential criminal sanctions overshadowing that relationship, and in the stigma of notification – all penalties that are “more substantial than mere loss of money.” Santosky, supra, quoting Addington v. Texas, supra at 424.
The court also too easily confines the State’s interest to a single dimension. While the primary purpose of the registration statute is to protect the public from sexual predators, the State also has “an interest in ensuring that its classification and notification system is both fair and accurate.” E.B. v. Verniero, supra at 1107. The State has no interest in making erroneous classifications and implementing overbroad registration and notifications. Id. See Doe v. Pataki, supra at (slip op. at 32). Contrary to the court’s conclusion, the burdens on the government are great, without any likely benefit, when it holds hearings for and maintains the registration of thousands of registrants for whom there is no clear evidence that they pose any danger to the public. Requiring the government to assemble and present clear evidence of a sex offender’s dangerousness would ensure that limited adjudicatory and police enforcement resources would be concentrated on those individuals who realistically may pose.threats to young children and other vulnerable populations. As observed in an altogether different context, but oddly apropos of this classification system as well, “when everything is classified, then nothing is classified, and the system becomes one to be disregarded by the cynical or the careless.” New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713, 729 (1971) (Stewart, J., concurring).
Conclusion.
(1) The sex offender registration and notification laws (CA Penal Code § 290, Sex Offender Registration Act. ) as applied to me, severely violate my fundamental liberty rights to my reputation and to my right to due process.
(2). The sex offender registration and notification laws (CA Penal Code § 290, Sex Offender Registration Act. ) violate the equal protection clause.
(3) The sex offender registration and notification laws (CA Penal Code § 290, Sex Offender Registration Act. ) violate my freedom of movement and freedom of association.
(4). The sex offender registration and notification laws (CA Penal Code § 290, Sex Offender Registration Act. ) violate my right to be free from unreasonable, arbitrary and oppressive official actions.
(5) The sex offender registration and notification laws (CA Penal Code § 290, Sex Offender Registration Act) violate my constitutionally protected right to procedural due process with an irrefutable presumption of future offending that is universally untrue and which provides no meaningful process to determine such facts.
Supreme Court Justice Brandeis noted that the Founding Fathers
recognized the significance of man’s spiritual nature, of his feelings and of his intellect. They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure and satisfactions of life are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone-the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men.
Olmstead v. United States,277 U.S. 438, 478 (1928) (Brandeis, J., dissenting), overruled in part by Berger v. New York,388 U.S. 41 (1967) and Katz v. United States,389 U.S. 347 (1967).
Law enforcement already has accessible records of my criminal record, including my DNA, my photograph and my complete set of prints and can easily locate me if they were to implicate me in a crime in the future. That process is the alternative to sex offender registration and notification laws and is the least restrictive measure that is available to the government that is related to the legislative objectives of increasing public safety and preventing recidivism. Furthermore, the government already has a meaningful process to determine if an individual poses a significant risk for re offense before ever releasing the person from custody. It is available in the states civil commitment statues. If a person is found to present a potentially high risk of re offense then that individual is confined under the civil commitment statues until it is determined that they no longer pose a risk to the public.
It is in the public best interest to grant me this relief as it will increase my ability to reintegrate into society and increase the probability that I will maintain stability in my life and be a law abiding, productive member of society which actually decreases my risk for re-offense even further. It will also allow governmental agencies and law enforcement agencies to re-direct their limited resources to monitor high risk offenders more intensively thereby increasing public safety. It will also save the state tax payer dollars that can be used for policies that have proven to actually be effective.
These laws will continue to cause me irreparable damage if the court fails to grant me relief.
No one can doubt that child sexual abuse is traumatic and devastating. The question is not whether the state has an interest in preventing such harm, but whether current laws are effective in doing so.
Prayer.
I pray the court grant me Declaratory relief and/or Injunction relief or any other relief the court deems necessary and to enjoin local, state, and federal agencies from requiring me to register as a sex offender and subjecting me to the public notification laws (CA Penal Code § 290, Sex Offender Registration Act. ) .
I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct to my knowledge on __________ Signed: _____________________________
man if these politicians’ strategies for fighting terrorists are as useless and Ineffective as the sex offender laws this country and the world is in big trouble.
Mike r wrote “But even if the numbers are correct there are a couple of other issue that need to be brought out that are totally being ignored by the yellow journalists that are attempting to make a point by using this information. We now know through multiple studies and lots of number crunching that the re-offense rate for people on the registry is less than 1% in any given year, and that means of the new sex crimes that are committed each year 99% plus are by people that are not on the registry. If there is under-reporting then it also has to follow that particular logical progression and that is if there is a percentage of under-reporting then 99% of those unreported crimes are not done by people on the registry.”
1% re-offense rate does not mean 99% of new sex crimes are committed by non-registrants, although the 99% is probably very accurate. The number used is 95+% of new sex crimes that resulted in ‘convictions or maybe arrests’ is what has been measured. The number 99+%, which represents is probably accurate in reality because of the difference in under-reporting of non-registrant sex crime which may be under-reported because of a false sense of security which is from over-focusing on registrants at the peril of victims of the 19+ out of 20 sex crimes committed by non-registrants.
While every new law that takes away more constitutional rights must be opposed, and Janice must continue that fight, I do not agree that it will result in our end goal of getting rid of the registry.
Currently, it’s a never ending game of whack-a-mole.
Until a viable court case makes it to the Supreme Court and does so by an excellent legal team, not only will the SO Registry continue forever but other useless registries will keep forming and expanding.
I don’t know by whom or how that will happen, and I certainly can’t afford to help financially or in any way that further impacts my wife and two young kids more than they already are. I do pray that someone can step up.
Our state legislature is a complete sham made up of people who couldn’t make it to become REAL congressmen and senators in Washington D.C. (not saying that the D.C. politicians are any better, as they may be judged much worse to our cause). The California legislature even gets away, unchecked by the judiciary, with using the Static-99R, a fraud form of science. It’s all madness with no end in sight.