Commentary Archives

Emily Horowitz: The Real Monsters – Sex offender registries don’t make us any safer. Abolishing them would.

·June 3, 2022
·26 Comments

Source: inquest.org 6/3/22 Watching the Senate hearings for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, I was struck by how Republican senators pounced on the judge’s thoughtful, considered, and mainstream sex…

The Supreme Court Won’t Dismantle the Administrative State Quite Yet

·April 20, 2022
·8 Comments

Source: barrons.com 4/19/21 Progressives, conservatives, investors and Supreme Court-watchers are all anxiously awaiting the court’s decisions later this spring in two cases—American Hospital Association v. Becerra and West Virginia v. Environmental…

Making Headlines: The criminal legal system is massively punitive toward people who commit sex offenses

·April 12, 2022
·10 Comments

Source: inquest.org 4/8/22 The death threats started almost immediately. On April 3, 2020, The New York Post published the story of our case under an impossibly salacious headline: “Child rapist…

Stranger Dangers: The Right’s History of Turning Child Abuse Into a Political Weapon

·March 31, 2022
·23 Comments

Source: motherjones.com 3/28/22 Josh Hawley’s attacks on Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson are part of a long, sad tradition. At some point between the ’80s and now, leaving children unattended in…

Hawley’s cynical attack on nominee may be misguided

·March 29, 2022
·13 Comments

Source: ocregister.com 3/28/22 In a 1996 Harvard Law Review article, Ketanji Brown Jackson, then a law school student, noted the “climate of fear, hatred, and revenge” in which policies dealing…

Child sexual abuse: Why spend billions on prison, but not prevention?

·March 28, 2022
·12 Comments

Source: futurity.org 3/28/22 Download the report The United States government spent an estimated $5.4 billion last year at the state and federal level to incarcerate adults convicted of sex crimes…

Emily Horowitz: The hollowness of the child porn smear: Ketanji Brown Jackson has been bold and prescient

·March 24, 2022
·70 Comments

Source: nydailynews.com 3/24/22 Soon after her nomination, it was reported that as a law student in 1996, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote a Harvard Law Review note analyzing the constitutionality…

Experts say sex offender registries don’t work. Can they be fixed?

·March 24, 2022
·17 Comments

Source: news.yahoo.com 3/24/22 What’s happening During confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, Republicans hammered away at her record in cases involving sex offenders. Much of that centered around misleading claims about…

The Trailer: How campaign rhetoric about child porn made it to the Supreme Court hearing

·March 23, 2022
·8 Comments

Source: washingtonpost.com 3/22/22 In this edition: Why Republicans are talking about pedophilia this week, how contempt is shaping Ohio's U.S. Senate primary, and what's happening in the race to replace…

Is the Sex Offender Registry Fair?

·March 9, 2022
·3 Comments

Source: thecrimereport.org 3/9/22 Sexual offenses are serious crimes. There is no doubt that the intentions behind creating the laws meant to punish and deter sex offenders were noble. However, according…

9-Year-Olds Are Being Forced to Register as Sex Offenders. That Might Finally Change.

·February 1, 2022
·14 Comments

Source: slate.com 2/1/22 It’s hard not to get emotional about child sexual abuse. The thought of anyone hurting a child in this way is so egregious that it’s no wonder…

The new Bill Cosby documentary ‘We Need to Talk About Cosby’ refuses to make a case against him

·January 31, 2022
·2 Comments

Source: news.yahoo.com 1/25/22 Showtime's four-part series "We Need to Talk About Cosby" debuted at Sundance over the weekend. Comedian W. Kamau Bell, a self-described "child" of Cosby, directs. Unfortunately, Bell…

Is the Sex Offender Registry Fair?

·January 11, 2022
·25 Comments

Source: legalreader.com 1/11/22 Failure to Register, in most states, is a serious felony, punishable by jail or prison time. The 1990s saw a significant rise in horrific sex offenses directed…

FAC Member Contribution: The Last to Finish Can Win the Race

·January 6, 2022
·1 Comment

When I was in my late forties I ran two miles a day. It was a joy to run on the rural Georgia roads, enjoying the clouds overhead and the…

The Collateral Consequences of Exoneration

·December 28, 2021
·3 Comments

Source: thecrimereport.org 12/23/21 The holiday season is often a time for family gatherings, and while many will be preparing for reunions in the coming days, it is important to remember…

Transparency Laws Let Criminal Records Become Commodities

·December 23, 2021
·12 Comments

Source: wired.com 12/23/21 For millions of people, details from an arrest—even a mistaken one—live on after being sold to data brokers. And the state profits. In April 2018, Adnan (a…

FL: Sex offender registry laws don’t work. Here’s what might.

·December 16, 2021
·9 Comments

Source: tampabay.com 12/16/21 The uncomfortable truth? Those who commit sexual offenses are usually not strangers. There are roughly half a million sexual assault incidents in the United States every year…