Author: R H

[The Daily Caller] Federal investigators nearly doubled the number of investigated sex crimes involving children between 2004 and 2013, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced Thursday. Child sex crime cases include possession or production of child pornography and child sex trafficking, the BJS reported. Federal investigators took up 1,405 of these cases in 2004, compared to 2,776 cases in 2013. More than 70 percent of the prosecutions each year were for possessing child pornography, followed by those suspected of sex trafficking at 18 percent and those who produced child…

[The Seattle Times] PHOENIX (AP) — The state Supreme Court says registered sex offenders without addresses or permanent places of residence aren’t subject to Arizona’s requirement to provide notice of address changes within 72 hours. Instead, the court’s unanimous ruling Friday says those offenders only have to register as transients at least every 90 days. The ruling overturns a lower court’s ruling that upheld a man’s felony conviction for failing to notify law enforcement officials of a new residence or address within 72 hours after he left a halfway house…

[slate.com] When David Silva returned in 2006 from serving 38 months in New Jersey state prison for offenses related to his substance abuse, he faced more than $35,000 in debt. He didn’t owe this money to private creditors; he was in debt to the government for his prosecutions and stints in prison. Silva’s debts for “use” of the criminal justice system included public defender fees, various surcharges that went to things such as police uniforms and drug-use prevention, and probation supervision fees, as well as restitution and fines. Silva’s debts…

[The Rapidian] Fred Stella, the Pracharak (Outreach Minister) for the West Michigan Hindu Temple, responds: “West Michigan Hindu Temple has not had to deal with this issue up to date so I have to speculate on this one. Before anything we must understand that the term ‘sex offender’ has multiple meanings. It stretches from a make out session gone a bit too far between teenagers who have just a couple of years of age difference between them all the way to the most heinous crimes beyond the imaginations of most…

[truth-out.org] In December, after more than seven years behind bars, 32-year-old LeeAnn walked out of federal prison. But she’s not a free woman — she will spend the rest of her life on the sex offender registry. Her crime? Letting a girl shower in her mother’s apartment, giving her a clean change of clothes and holding the girl’s $40 while she had sex with a man in another room. These are normal actions in the daily life of sex workers trying to keep themselves and each other safe. But the…

[bigthink.com] One of the objectives of the criminal justice system is to protect the innocent and discourage would-be perpetrators from harming them. Whether it does this in reality or not is another matter. But who among us is more innocent or vulnerable than our pets? They rely on us for so much. Most of us consider our pet a member of the family. The question is, how far should the law go to protect them? This debate has blossomed recently, due to the number of US jurisdictions passing laws creating…

[U.S. News] When the U.S. Supreme Court last week declined to hear a challenge to the constitutionality of Minnesota‘s sex offender program, it relieved the pressure for major near-term change in a program that confines over 700 people who’ve finished their prison sentences. Only rarely is anyone released. Here’s a look at a program that is often opaque to the public, and at the handful of people who — at least on paper — may have a shot at release sometime soon: Read more  

Professor Catherine Carpenter (Southwestern Law School), a nationally renowned criminal law scholar in the area of sex crimes and sex offender registration laws, came to St. Francis College on September 26 to talk about The Unconstitutionality of Sex Offense Laws. Read more and watch video  

[Brown Daily Herald, Rhode Island] Last month, a bill that would cap the proportion of registered sex offenders in homeless shelter beds at 10 percent for shelters whose capacity exceeds 50 people passed in the Rhode Island State House. A coalition of activists are now asking via petition that Gov. Gina Raimondo veto the bill, arguing that the legislation is “against the public interest.” The bill passed the state Senate in June after the Senate Judiciary Committee recommended it for passage. The bill was passed in concurrence by the Rhode…

[The Detroit News] Michigan’s ill-advised scheme to pile on punishment for convicted sex offenders failed to get even a hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court, leaving the Legislature to craft a new law that will restore both sanity and fairness to the state’s sex offender registry. The High Court said Monday it will not take up Michigan’s appeal of a 6th Circuit Court ruling that struck down its practice of applying new restrictions retroactively to those on the list. Now, the state has no choice but to draft new rules…

[WKOW Madison, Wisconsin] Sex between most Wisconsin high school students would be reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor, under the so-called “Romeo and Juliet bill” heard Thursday by the Assembly Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety. Public testimony brought out some very strong emotions from people who have seen their lives, and the lives of loved ones, turned upside down by a decision to have sex as teenagers. Cindy Komorowski fought back tears as she told lawmakers about her teenage son, Mitchell. “In the eyes of the law,…