[Richmond Times-Dispatch] ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. (AP) — Shelby Hoogendyk says that when she, her husband and her 17-month-old son arrived at an emergency shelter as Hurricane Irma closed in, they were separated from others by yellow wristbands and told to stay in an area with other people like them — the homeless. Sheriff’s deputies, she says, told them the wristbands were prompted by problems that arose among homeless people at the shelter during Hurricane Matthew a year earlier. “We were treated like we were guilty criminals,” Hoogendyk says. In the…
Read MoreDay: October 1, 2017
TX: Underage teenager faces life as registered sex offender for having sex with underage girlfriend
[injusticetoday.com] A 14-year-old Houston teenager may be a registered sex offender for the rest of his life after he was charged with having sex with his 12-year-old girlfriend. The seventh grader, whose name has not been revealed, has been charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child. His girlfriend is in the sixth grade, the Houston Chronicle said. “He had consensual sex with his little girlfriend and he loved her. They were boyfriend-girlfriend,” the teen’s mother said. Texas law has the “Romeo and Juliet” exception, which means that having sex…
Read MoreHouse Passes Bill That Could Have Teens Facing 15 Years For Trying To Sext
[Forbes] In Washington as in life, certain roads may be paved with good intentions, but critics of a purportedly well-meaning new bill warn it would lead to major suffering for the very people it’s meant to protect: U.S. teenagers. Last week, the House of Representatives approved H.R.1761, also known as the “Protecting Against Child Exploitation Act of 2017,” which builds on current law that makes teen-to-teen sexting a crime. Reportedly aimed at closing “loopholes” in child pornography legislation, the bill received support from all but two Republican congressmen, Reps. Justin…
Read MoreColumn: Sex offender restriction about school proximity unnecessary
I applaud the members of the Lewiston City Council for tabling their decision on a sex offender restriction zone to give the matter more thought. This is the kind of issue for somebody who has no stake in the matter that seems obvious. Disallowing sex offenders to live within 750 feet of a school or daycare appears, on the surface, to be a smart move but, upon closer inspection, has no basis in history or science. Full Article
Read MoreAZ: Sex offender treatment taking place at Phoenix resort hotel
A Valley behavioral counseling organization announced it will stop holding treatment sessions for sex offenders at a resort hotel, following a CBS 5 Investigation. CBS 5 hidden cameras filmed sex offenders wandering the halls of the Sheraton Crescent Hotel, sitting in the courtyard by the pool and surfing the web on the hotel lobby computers during the counseling session lunch break. Full Article
Read MoreTX: The Cost of Texas’ Sex Offender Registration Program
As of September 1, 2017, the State of Texas had 90,616 registered sex offenders. Sex offender registration has been around a long time in Texas—since 1991, in fact. The state legislature has continually amended or tweaked these programs ever since. For example, the legislature mandated that the public be notified about registered sex offenders in 1995 following the 1993 abduction/murder of seven-year-old Ashley Estell in Plano, Texas. Full Article
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