[thenewstribune.com – 2/17/21] Part of the job of a lawmaker is to be a law eraser. Washington legislators are sometimes asked to scrub anachronistic language from the statute books, not just because it’s embarrassing and offends our contemporary values, but because it can have damaging consequences today. Consider laws from the early 1900s that condoned sex between adults and children as young as 10 years old, as long as they were married. Believe it or not, this language has persisted for more than a century in state law, making Washington…
Read MoreMonth: February 2021
Book Review: Justice Perverted: Sex Offense Law, Psychology, and Public Policy
[littlefieldtccc.com – 1/13/21] Book review by Charles Patrick Ewing [The author is a first rate attorney who has worked with registrants for decades] Over the past quarter century Congress, state legislatures and the courts have radically reshaped America’s laws dealing with sex offenders in an effort to reduce the prevalence of sex offenses. Most convicted sex offenders must now register with the authorities, who then make information about them available to the public. Possession of child pornography has been made an extremely serious crime often punishable by prison sentences that…
Read MoreFL: Urban City Walk Mission in Tallahassee (registrants can stay in their shelter)
[floridaactioncommittee.org for citywalkmission.com – 2/16/21] City Walk opened as a “Cold Night Shelter” in late November. Where the City and City Walk disagree is on the definition of a “cold night.” Our local government says it’s not a cold night until it is ‘35 degrees or below for three or more consecutive hours.’ So if it is 36 degrees and raining our local government says it’s not cold enough to activate. Many of our congregation are elderly, some in their 70’s and 80’s and many others with severe disabilities. A…
Read MoreStranger Danger: A Conversation with Historian & Author Paul Renfro on March 5 (Zoom)
Join Paul Renfro as he discusses his book: Stranger Danger Family Values, Childhood, and the American Carceral State (Oxford University Press, 2020). March 5 8:15 AM Pacific Time Click here for more details and to register Beginning with Etan Patz’s disappearance in Manhattan in 1979, a spate of high-profile cases of missing and murdered children stoked anxieties about the threats of child kidnapping and exploitation. Publicized through an emerging twenty-four-hour news cycle, these cases supplied evidence of what some commentators dubbed “a national epidemic” of child abductions committed by “strangers.”…
Read MoreCA: ‘Nobody cares about sex offenders.’ COVID deaths spike at state hospital in Fresno County
[fresnobee.com – 2/15/21] A spike in coronavirus-related deaths at a state-run psychiatric hospital in Fresno County has angered and alarmed patients, who blame hospital staff for a massive outbreak that infected hundreds and killed more than a dozen patients over the past six months. One patient who spoke with The Bee said he struggled to bring attention to the outbreak at Coalinga State Hospital in Fresno County. He said he’s been “ignored” and “neglected” for one simple reason — most of the patients in Coalinga are rapists, child molesters, and…
Read MoreND: Committee hears push to seal certain criminal records
[thedickinsonpress.com – 2/15/21] Individuals must be free of convictions for three years to have a misdemeanor charge sealed and five years for a felony charge. The time requirement begins after conviction of the crime. Crimes that are considered violent or that require registering as a sex offender are not eligible. Read the full article
Read MoreWA: Should People With Criminal Convictions Be Able to Work in Health Care? Bill in Legislature Would Relax State Laws
[chronline.com – 2/14/21] Washington lawmakers are discussing a bill that would end the automatic disqualification of people with certain criminal convictions from working with vulnerable populations in health care or home care. Bill sponsors say it would address the shortage of qualified caretakers and empower people with convictions to take charge of their lives. House Bill 1411 would allow people with certain crimes on their record to be eligible to apply for jobs with the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) at long-term care facilities or as in-home caretakers.…
Read MoreIn Furor Over Poet With Child Porn Conviction, Prison Abolitionists Debate the Limits of Mercy
[theintercept.com – 2/14/21] Is Poetry magazine “platforming toxicity” or promoting the “practice of freedom”? A bedrock principle of the prison abolitionist movement is that you don’t ask an incarcerated person what they’re in for. It’s more than etiquette. To eschew the identity that the punitive state assigns — which could be false — is to see someone whole. “Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done,” says Equal Justice Initiative founder Bryan Stevenson. Even a murderer is somebody’s baby. That’s the way guest editors Tara Betts, Joshua…
Read MoreACSOL Phone Meeting Feb 20
Listen to the recording Please join ACSOL Executive Director and civil rights attorney Janice Bellucci as well as ACSOL President and criminal defense attorney Chance Oberstein for our next phone meeting. The meeting will be held on Saturday, Feb 20, beginning at 10 a.m. Pacific time and will last at least two hours. This meeting will be recorded and then posted as an audio recording. A link to the recording will be at the top of our pages. People from all states are welcome. (712) 770-8055 Conference code 983459 Discussion…
Read MoreCA DOJ Reverses Position on Important Tiered Registry Issue
The California Department of Justice (CA DOJ) has reversed its position on an important tiered registry issue. Specifically, the state agency has agreed to delete a sentence included in previously issued tier assignment letters that state individuals whose tiers are “to be determined” must wait until their tier has been assigned before petitioning for removal from the registry. The sentence will also not be included in future tier assignment letters. “Due to this change in position, individuals who receive a tier assignment letter stating that their tier has not yet…
Read MoreCanada: Psychiatric patients awarded nearly $10M in lawsuit over experimental treatments
[orilliamatters.com – 2/12/21] ‘Those who were youths were harmed in a severe and lifelong manner that deserves particular attention,’ judge finds Patients who were subjected to “degrading and inhumane” experimental treatments at the former Oak Ridge maximum-security psychiatric facility in Penetanguishene have been awarded a total of just under $10 million. The awards for the 28 patients range from $1,000 up to $2.7 million for a vulnerable teenager in “mental agony” who was shackled naked to other patients, including a sex offender. … In 1975, after running away, stealing and…
Read MoreDystopian AI Patent Uses Facial Recognition to Identify Homeless and Drug Users [and Sex Offenders]
[interestingengineering.com – 2/12/21] Last year, The New York Times reported that, in order to test its software, facial recognition startup Clearview AI collected up to three billion images from platforms including YouTube and Facebook without attaining users’ express consent. Now, a new patent application by Clearview AI, first discovered by Buzzfeed, details several potential uses for the firm’s software, including date matching, sharing “headshots of high-risk individuals,” and identifying homeless people and drug users. … The technology could also be used to identify a “sex offender” Read the full article
Read MoreTX: ‘Left to die’: Therapists say Texas sex offender treatment program too often fails on purpose
[houstonchronicle.com 2/11/21] Texas’s civil commitment program for sexually violent offenders has earned a reputation as an unforgiving place. Much of that is by design. Each of the 378 men in it has already served his full prison term, some 20 years or longer. After their sentences were up, Texas evaluated them as too likely to re-offend, however, so they were ordered kept locked up indefinitely until ready to rejoin the free world. Their average age is nearing 60. The program’s sole facility, a collection of low buildings and temporary trailers,…
Read MoreRacial Disparities Found in Federal Sex Crime Sentencing
[thecrimereport.org – 2/10/21] Researchers at the University of Texas at San Antonio found that Black and Hispanic Americans charged in federal sex abuse cases are receiving disproportionately harsher sentences In a recent study published in the journal Sexual Abuse, the researchers explored what they said was a trend in more severe punishment over the past decade since Congress has enacted several pieces of legislation aimed at increasing the punishment in federal sex offender and child pornography cases. The researchers University of Texas at San Antonio criminology and criminal justice professors…
Read MoreNC: New NC bill would push sex offenders further away from school grounds
[myfox8.com – 2/10/21 – NC residents write and call!] CHARLOTTE, N.C. (FOX 46 CHARLOTTE) – Right now, in some North Carolina counties, sex offenders can live right beyond 1,000 of the front door of a school due to the way current laws are written. Now, one lawmaker is pushing to make sure they’re further away from those properties. In some areas, sex offenders could theoretically live right up to the school’s fencing if the yard is big enough, but if Senate Bill 52 passes, sex offenders won’t be able to…
Read MoreAction Alert for Florida Residents: Call and Write to Oppose Senate Bill 234
[floridaactioncommittee.org – 2/11/21] On Monday, February 15, 2021, the Florida Senate Judiciary committee will consider Senate Bill 234. It is item number 3 on their agenda. Among other things, this bill introduced by Senator Lauren Book would change the definition of “day” to mean part of any calendar day. Therefore, as written, anywhere you are physically present 4 or more times a year would technically have to be registered within 48 hours. Visit your parent’s home once a week for dinner? Play cards at a friend’s house once a month?…
Read MoreNew Zealand: Man wins appeal to have name struck off Sex Offender Register
[rnz.co.nz – 2/9/21] The man was sentenced to nine months home detention in early 2018 after pleading guilty to possessing child pornography in early 2016. At his 2018 sentencing, the Judge also made an order that he be placed on the Child Sex Offender Register, which was established using the Registration Act in late 2016. The man committed the offence prior to the Registration Act coming into force but was convicted and sentenced after that date. The man did not seek to appeal his nine-month home detention sentence but challenged…
Read MoreMD: Annapolis, MD (KB) Frederick County Delegate Jesse Pippy said he is sponsoring sex offender legislation
[wfmd.com – 2/9/21] Annapolis, MD (KB) Frederick County Delegate Jesse Pippy said he is sponsoring five pieces of legislation at the 2021 General Assembly in Annapolis. One has to do with the sex offender registry and expungement. “There has been a push recently to expunge certain offenses off peoples’ records,” he explained. Delegate Pippy said this bill will make sure that individuals who are on the sex registry are prohibited from getting their sex offenses expunged. Read the full article Bill search
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