Source: reason.com 8/5/24 Warrantless surveillance, Comic Con “sex trafficking,” and the persistence of trafficking myths Moral panic about sex work leads to law enforcement practices that reach far beyond anyone engaged in or with erotic labor. The latest example comes from San Diego County, California, where cops are putting up a creepy surveillance tower under the auspice of stopping sex sellers and sex buyers from meeting. The prostitution surveillance tower, stationed along National City’s Roosevelt Avenue, will record video of anyone who happens to be in the area. Read the…
Read MoreYear: 2024
When Is Sexual Behavior Out of Control?
Source: medscape.com 7/31/24 A 25-year-old man comes in with a pulled muscle. You ask if he has anything else to discuss. Sheepishly, he says he is concerned about his use of pornography. A 45-year-old woman struggling with depression finds herself persistently seeking sex outside the bounds of her long-term relationship. Her partner is threatening to leave. She is devastated and tells you she doesn’t understand her own behavior. Do these patients have some form of sex addiction? How should a primary care clinician intervene? Is a referral to a 12-step…
Read MoreLessons learned? I believe I was the target of a police sting – Atwo Zee
Source: Florida Action Committee By Atwo Zee, Registered Traveler . . . Not long after I returned to Iowa after the 2024 NARSOL conference in Atlanta, I received an email forwarded by the national NARSOL office. This message came to them on their main “Contact Us” email address, and whoever sent it was looking specifically for me, “whose story “Unwanted Images” hit home when I was suicidal and wracked with fear …” The sender also complimented my travel blog and expressed a desire to have me participate in a podcast…
Read MoreACSOL Online Meeting August 17, 2024
You are invited to join ACSOL Executive Director and civil rights attorney Janice Bellucci and an ACSOL board member for our next meeting. The meeting will be held on Saturday August 17 online on Zoom beginning at 10 a.m. Pacific time, 1:00 PM Eastern, and will last at least two hours. You can use the Zoom app or you can call in using a Zoom phone number. There is no registration needed for this meeting. No government officials are allowed to attend the meetings. This meeting will be recorded. Within…
Read MoreR. Kelly hopes key technicality will move Supreme Court justices to overturn convictions for sexually abusing teenage girls in the 1990s
Source: lawandcrime.com 7/30/24 Robert Sylvester Kelly, the R&B singer better known as R. Kelly, is looking to overturn his Illinois federal convictions for child pornography and the sexual abuse of teenage girls by making the case to the U.S. Supreme Court that Congress, when extending the statute of limitations on such offenses in 2003, did not “expressly” intend to retroactively punish him for conduct going back to the 1990s. Read the full article
Read MoreGeneral Comments Aug 2024
Comments that are not specific to a certain post should go here, for the month of Aug 2024. 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.
Read MoreEfforts to release prisoners from long sentences draw new interest, including in Oklahoma
Source: duncanbanner.com 7/31/24 Lawmakers across the country have considered legislation this year that would allow courts or parole boards to reevaluate a person’s long prison sentence and decide whether they can be safely released into society. The bills, known as “second look” legislation, often focus on older populations, people sentenced as minors, or those whose crimes might have had a mitigating factor such as self-defense against domestic violence. As America’s prison population both ages and increases, the “second look” movement has gained interest as a way to reduce overcrowding and…
Read MoreMI: Michigan Supreme Court decision will likely strike hundreds from sex-offender registry
Source: apnews.com 7/29/24 DETROIT (AP) — Michigan’s policy of putting people on a sex-offender registry even if their crime was nonsexual is unconstitutional, the state Supreme Court said Monday. In a 5-2 decision, the court said a portion of a 2021 law is “cruel or unusual punishment” barred by the Michigan Constitution. A Wayne County man in 2015 was convicted of holding his wife and two children at gunpoint for hours. After his release from prison, he would face 15 years on the sex-offender registry because his unlawful-imprisonment conviction involved…
Read MoreCA: Registrant who ‘started 160,000 acre California wildfire by pushing his burning car into gully’ is pictured – as inferno triggers terrifying fire tornado
Source: dailymail.co.uk 7/25/24 A California sex offender has been arrested for allegedly starting a 160,000 acre wildfire – the state’s largest this year. Ronnie ____ II, 42, was caught pushing his burning car into a gulley in upper Bidwell Park near the city of Chico on Wednesday, the Butte County District Attorney’s Office announced. The vehicle then tumbled 60 feet down an embankment, sparking a fire tornado that engulfed more than 71,000 acres of northern California overnight and prompted mass evacuations. Read the full article
Read MoreBloated federal supervision system makes everyone less safe
Source: thehill.com 6/1/24 More released convicts living under the watchful eye of a probation officer means safer communities, right? Wrong. Big government has tainted the criminal justice system. This includes federal supervised release, which is failing everyone it is supposed to help, from taxpayers to law enforcement officers to those trying to rebuild their lives after prison. The Safer Supervision Act before Congress would restore federal supervision to its intended scope and purpose, create safer communities and use taxpayer money more responsibly. Congress originally established federal supervised release to help people “transition…
Read MoreThe Quiet Epidemic of Predators in Uniforms
Source: slate.com 7/23/24 A series of recent groundbreaking investigative reports unveiled what many advocates for police accountability have known for decades: Child sex abuse by law enforcement officials is far too common across our country. Systemic failures within policing—coupled with lax oversight by police departments, prosecutors, and judges—too often shield police officers from meaningful accountability. Child sex abuse is chronic and widespread, yet justice for survivors is rare. Studies have found that nearly 25 percent of girls and roughly 8 percent of boys experience sexual abuse before turning 18. Numerous…
Read MoreCO: Colorado Jail Guard Must Stand Trial for Opening Accused Sex Offender’s Cell, Subjecting Him to Assault
Source: prisonlegalnews.org 7/1/24 On December 13, 2023, the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado denied summary judgment to a jail guard who allegedly failed to protect a pretrial detainee from assault by another detainee. But the Court dismissed a municipal liability claim against Colorado’s Chaffee County, even though the guard had been disciplined before—three times—for failing to keep cell doors locked. Jason Harter, then 34, was arrested and booked into Chaffee County Detention Center (CCDC) on February 20, 2020, on charges of kidnapping, forcible rape of an individual…
Read MoreSenate To Vote on Web Censorship Bill Disguised as Kids Safety
Source: reason.com 7/24/24 Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D–N.Y.) will force a vote this week on the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), a measure certain to seriously restrict free speech and privacy online for everyone. The meat of the bipartisan bill is creating a “duty of care” for a huge swath of digital companies (any “online platform, online video game, messaging application, or video streaming service that connects to the internet and that is used, or is reasonably likely to be used, by a minor”). This means they’re legally required…
Read MoreDutch rapist Steven van de Velde’s partner issues staunch defence of Olympic selection
Source: yahoo.com 7/23/24 The playing partner of Steven van de Velde, the Dutch Olympian permitted to compete in beach volleyball at the Paris Games despite raping a 12-year-old British girl, has described him as being “like a second father to me”. Van de Velde refused to answer questions upon arrival in Paris where he was confronted by a Daily Mail journalist. Matthew Immers, the other half of the Netherlands pair, has mounted a staunch defence of his team-mate. “I feel comfortable with him, we take good care of each other,”…
Read MoreJanice’s Journal: A Small, But Significant Victory
Marion County, Arkansas, posted signs on the front door of registrants last year identifying those individuals as people required to register as a sex offender. The signs stayed in place not for one day, but for about two weeks – a week before Halloween, Halloween and then a week after Halloween. This Halloween sign requirement was not a state law. In fact, it was not a county law. Instead, it was a decision by a county sheriff who printed signs with his name on it. Implementation of the Halloween sign…
Read MoreChanges to be Made in Treatment for CA Registrants on Parole
Source: ACSOL The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has agreed in writing to stop their unwritten policy that required all registrants on parole to undergo treatment the entire time they are on parole. The agreement is the result of a lawsuit filed on behalf of registrants earlier this year. “This agreement is significant because it will help almost 7,000 registrants currently on parole,” stated ACSOL Executive Director Janice Bellucci. “This agreement will lead to early discharge for many of those registrants.” In the settlement agreement, CDCR agreed that…
Read MoreRI: Cranston YMCA employee fired for letting sex offender on grounds
Source: wpri.com 5/16/24 The YMCA of Greater Providence (GPYMCA) fired an employee earlier this month after learning she allowed a registered sex offender on the premises. The former employee worked for the aquatics program at the Cranston branch and the sex offender is her fiancé, GPYMCA CEO Karen Santilli told 12 News on Thursday. Watch the video
Read MoreTN: Tennessee will remove HIV-positive people convicted of sex work from violent sex offender list
Source: abcnews.go.com 7/19/24 NASHVILLE, Tenn. — HIV-positive people who were convicted in Tennessee of sex work under a decades-old aggravated prostitution law will no longer be required to face a lifetime registration as a “violent sex offender” under a lawsuit settlement finalized this week. Last year, LGBTQ+ and civil rights advocates filed a federal lawsuit challenging the Volunteer State’s aggravated prostitution statute, arguing that the law was enacted in response to the AIDS scare and discriminated against HIV-positive people. Read the full article
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