[salemnews.net – 10/18/19] LISBON — With about 158 registered sex offenders living in Columbiana County, the county sheriff’s office is reminding residents they can check for the registered addresses online so children can avoid those houses while trick-or-treating. “We do the best we can in making sure sex offenders live where they tell us, so it is crucial that our citizens visit our website to see who the registered sex offenders are and where they are living,” said Chief Deputy Kip Dowling, adding he encourages county citizens to check…
Read MoreYear: 2019
LA: Louisiana sheriffs promoting new app that alerts parents if sex offenders contact children
[theadvocate.com – 10/16/19] Louisiana sheriffs are backing a new mobile app that will alert parents if a registered sex offender contacts their child. The app, Safe Virtual Neighborhood, is the newest development from OffenderWatch and parent company Watch Systems, a Covington-based company known for tracking sex offenders. Watch Systems and Louisiana’s law enforcement community have worked together since 2000, when the company launched its sex offender registry system. … The Safe Virtual Neighborhood app utilizes existing information collected in law enforcement offender databases and applies it to people’s personal mobile…
Read MoreKY: ‘It will also prevent this from happening again.’ Neighbors, including local prosecutor, sought park to displace sex offender
In a neighborhood of broad lawns and trees, residents wanted one of their neighbors to leave – and they seized on an unusual way to try and get the city’s help to force him out. The drama involved a local prosecutor, a sex offender, and a tiny sliver of land along Dixie Highway with a handful of benches and a doggy bag dispenser. In the spring, a registered sex offender moved in next door to Kyle Burns, who also happened to be an assistant Commonwealth attorney for Campbell County. Burns had an…
Read MoreNY: Sex offenders form PAC to try and gain political voice
[timesunion.com – 10/14/19] Voting blocs, where people support candidates on specific issues, have long played an outsized role in New York politics – from labor unions that focus on workplace rules, to environmentalists who place clean air and water at the top of the list. But now an unusual bloc is emerging from an unexpected place: the locked sex offenders unit at one of the state’s major psychiatric hospitals. Convicted sex offenders at Central New York Psychiatric Center are joining a PAC, or political action committee, which could conceivably raise…
Read MoreACSOL Meeting October 19 in L.A.
Please mark your calendars for ACSOL’s upcoming meeting: Saturday, Oct 19 10 a.m. ACLU Building 1313 W. 8th Street, Los Angeles (free parking below building) Registrants, friends and family and interested service providers are invited to attend these free meetings. There will be no law enforcement or media present in order to protect everyone’s privacy. The meetings start at 10 am and last about 2-3 hours. Topics of conversation include information about ACSOL’s advocacy as well as current topics and pending legal action. Please Show up, Stand up, and Speak…
Read MoreCO: Colorado considers keeping some juvenile sex offenders off registry
[thedenverchannel.com – 10/12/10] DENVER (AP) — Colorado lawmakers have advanced a proposal to place fewer convicted juveniles on the state sex offender registry and partially seal the list from the public, officials said. The draft was endorsed Thursday by an interim committee of lawmakers tasked with considering changes to how the state justice system treats people with mental illness, The Denver Post reported . The proposed changes are informed by research showing that harshly penalizing juvenile sex offenders often does nothing to improve public safety or rehabilitate the offenders, lawmakers…
Read MoreUK: Manchester Teen Faces Sex Offender Status for Touching 17-Year-Old on the Arm, Waist
Last fall, in Manchester, England, an awkward 19-year-old male student touched a 17-year-old female classmate’s arm on the street during the daytime. He later said he had wanted to make a friend. This rattled the young woman so much that she went to the police. Now the young man is facing possible jail time and could be placed on the sex offense registry. Full Article Related https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/touching-teenage-girl-way-home-17061816?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar
Read MoreKat’s Blog: Time to Dispel the Halloween Myth
It’s that time again, Halloween, pumpkins, trick or treaters, candy, Stranger Danger news coverage and the registry police. It’s hard to imagine that between law enforcement and the news media, what was once an enjoyable festive holiday for young and old alike has by all accounts been turned into a fictitious, stranger-danger, panic event of epic proportions for registrants. All these years the public’s been led to believe that children are at an increased danger at Halloween because of registrants. (Somehow the fact that the highest risk to children at…
Read MoreMO: Sex Offender’s Art Sculpture Allegedly Attracts Children, Disrupts Neighborhood
An art sculpture in the front yard of a Kansas City home attracts a lot of children, which has the surrounding neighbors upset. Normally such art wouldn’t be a problem, though in this case, it’s in the yard of a registered sex offender. The sculpture is made of hanging bikes, and a majority of the bikes look like they’re for kids. The neighbors thought it was a piece of art until they found out the creator and man who lives there is a registered sex offender in Missouri. Full Article
Read MoreGA: NCSO to host 13th annual Halloween Shut-In for sex offenders
The Newton County Sheriff’s Office and the Department of Community Supervision will host their 13th annual sex offender Halloween Shut-In from 6 to 10 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 31. Full Article
Read MoreNJ: Fights to Keep Tabs on Qualifying Sex Offenders
A lawyer for New Jersey arguing Monday before the state Supreme Court called it vital to public safety that certain sex offenders register as such for life. “Society has the right to know of their presence, not in order to punish them, but to protect itself,” Deputy Attorney General Emily Anderson said, defending a provision of a 1994 law named for 7-year-old Megan Kanka of Hamilton Township who was raped and murdered by a neighbor already twice convicted of sexual assault. Full Article
Read MoreAustralia: WA’s sex offender laws ‘as tough as they can be’, says Premier Mark McGowan
[http://brandsauthority.com – 10/7/19] Premier Mark McGowan says WA laws are as tough as they can be in dealing with dangerous sex offenders following the release of a notorious paedophile.________, a repeat sex offender, walked free on Monday after convincing a judge he was no longer a threat to children.His release is subject to a record 61 conditions – including that he undergo chemical castration. The Premier said that as a parent he was unhappy whenever a sex offender was released from jail but said people could not be kept in…
Read MoreUK: Sex offender – ‘I’ve never had so many deviant thoughts’
In 2017, the government’s flagship treatment scheme for people convicted in England and Wales of rape or child sexual abuse was scrapped after it was shown to raise the risk of reoffending. Two sex offenders have told BBC Radio 4’s File on 4 programme what it was like to take part in the rehabilitation programme. Full Article
Read MoreWhen Prison Is A Better Option
[Scott H. Greenfield at blog.simplejustice.us – 10/4/19] Years ago, I wrote of the creation of a permanent underclass. No, not the one woke people are willing to fight for. Rather, the one we’ve created because as much as we can forgive a murder, especially if it was committed by a black man because they’re in fashion at hipster cocktail parties, there is no forgiveness of a sex crime. Not when they get caught. Not when they get prosecuted. Not when they get convicted or sentenced. Not even when they get…
Read MoreGetting Registered
He was a small man, a proud member of the Tohono Oʼodham Nation. He’d worked as a jockey in his youth, and though he had a hard life on the streets, he was still in amazing physical condition. He had run 60 miles through the Arizona desert to Nogales to visit cousins. He often worked as a truck stop lumper or hung around Home Depot hoping for day labor. A skilled roofer, he occasionally scored a job with a roofing company. The jobs never lasted long. With his record, truth…
Read MoreKat’s blog: Hope
When I read the most recent “Janice’s Journal: The Big Picture” piece, it reminded me why so many of us have sought out websites like ACSOL, WAR, NARSOL and other advocacy group sites. Each of us was looking for HOPE. Hope that there were others like us somewhere out there that understood what we were going through. Hope that someone had answers, information or solutions to the mountain of questions and concerns we had. Hope that someone somewhere was trying to do something to change things. Hope that there was…
Read MoreIL: Former Sex Offenders can Proceed with Lawsuit Challenging Restrictions on Internet Use
A group of former sex offenders may continue with their lawsuit, challenging the constitutionality of the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC’s) restrictive policy on internet access for those convicted of sex crimes. A federal district court has ruled that it is premature at this early stage of the litigation to dismiss the lawsuit. Full Article
Read MoreGeneral Comments October 2019
Comments that are not specific to a certain post should go here, for the month of October 2019. Contributions should relate to the cause and goals of this organization and please, keep it courteous and civil. This section is not intended for posting links to news articles without additional relevant comment.
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