[floridaactioncommittee.org – 3/26/20] The Law Review article linked to below was written by Kenneth H. Browning, a third-year law student at Barry University School of Law. He examines ethics in the sex offender registration scheme and questions whether it is ethical to sweep up everybody into a common dust bin. Read the full article on floridaactioncommittee.org
Read MoreCategory: Commentary
Sex Registration and the COVID-19 Pandemic
[ACSOL] A word or two concerning sex registration and the COVID-19 pandemic. As the landscape continues to change, and additional containment measures go into effect, I want to assure you that ACSOL is committed to protecting the health and safety of our community as well as that of the general public. Therefore, all those who are required to register should continue to comply with state law. However, since the pandemic will affect jurisdictions and law enforcement agencies in different ways, registrants should call the agency they register with first before…
Read MoreKat’s Blog: Things That Make You Go, Hmmm
Not wanting to fill jails during the coronavirus, LA police have decreased the amount of arrests they make from 300 per day to 60. A sort of “catch and release program”, if you will. If they can do that now, doesn’t that mean they’re usually arresting and putting far too many people in jail? Hmmm. Prisons and jails have begun releasing low-risk inmates early, (with the exception of those with a sex offense), putting them on community supervision, parole and GPS ankle monitoring in an attempt to free up space…
Read MoreKat’s Blog: The Hypocrisy of Society
By now we are all on coronavirus overload. It’s a serious pandemic. We hear about it all day long, watch newscasts of cruise ships that are forbidden from docking, parked out in the ocean, passengers awaiting clearance or confinement. Citizens around the world are wearing face masks and hand sanitizer is selling for $200 a bottle on eBay. There’s a new danger in our communities and society is in panic mode. Daily we are bombarded with scary words that put fear in all of us, infection, isolation, segregation, self-quarantine, containment…
Read MoreFive lessons pandemics can teach us about criminal justice reform
[prisonpolicy.org – 2/6/20] No need to wait for pandemics: The public health case for criminal justice reform We offer five examples of policies that could slow the spread of a viral pandemic in prisons and jails – and would mitigate the everyday impact of incarceration on public health. by Peter Wagner and Emily Widra The United States incarcerates a greater share of its population than any other nation in the world, so it is urgent that policymakers think about how a viral pandemic would impact people in prisons, in jails,…
Read MoreShould the United States Use Chemical Castration For Sex Offenders?
[thelibertarianrepublic.com – 3/7/20] The term “castration” brings a chill to every man. The idea of having your ‘junk’ cut off is horrifying. It’s barbaric. Castration is like the archaic practice of locking someone in stocks or something that would be seen in a third world country, but not the United States But it’s not. It is used in our modern world, including America. Not only do many other countries have castration laws, but several of our states do as well. Even as recent as last year, states have been approving…
Read MoreKat’s Blog: If Not You, Then Who?
If asked, would you join a lawsuit as a “John Doe”? Recently I was asked that question by a registrant who was in the process of having to consider just that. It seems sort of fickle that we’re at a point where registrants are encouraged to come out of the shadows, to stand up and speak up to get laws changed, but at that same time they’re often anonymous “John Doe’s” in lawsuits fighting against registry rules. From the gist of what I’ve read, modern lawsuits revealing the identity of…
Read MoreKat’s Blog: App. Goes to Disturbing Lengths to Catch Predators
Good Morning America has run two recent segments on a parental control phone monitoring app. called Bark. For a fee, the tech company advertises that it’s app. can monitor your children’s social media online activities for signs of potentially dangerous situations such as cyber-bullying, adult content, sexual predators, drug use, depression, suicidal ideation, threats of violence and other assorted issues. Understandably, the online world can be a dangerous place, so some parents might choose to monitor their children’s computer activities by paying a tech company to act as “big brother”,…
Read MoreMI: Forum: Re-examine child sexual abuse policy
[record-eagle.com – 2/26/20] Kristen Burgess took a courageous step forward (Record-Eagle, Jan. 5) to shed light on the community’s response to intrafamilial sexual abuse. When I started my career in 1987, there were “family-centered” programs for parents who decided not to divorce after intrafamilial child sexual abuse. Families were ordered into long-term programs supervised by the Family Courts. Offenders served time in jail and were slowly reintegrated into the family if agreed upon by all involved. As research demonstrated the impact of child sexual abuse on victims in adulthood, the…
Read MoreTime to Purge Bloated Sex Offender Registries
[creators.com – 2/22/20] Those who fight for a more equitable way to keep track of sexual predators won a big victory in Michigan last week. That is a state with some 44,000 names on its sexual offenders registry. U.S. District Court Judge Robert Cleland put his foot down and gave the Michigan legislature 60 days to rewrite its current “unconstitutional” registry statute. Last spring, Cleland set a 90-day deadline for lawmakers to rework the law, but he was ignored. This time, he’s serious. Everyone agrees we need to keep track…
Read MoreKat’s Blog: The Power of Intimidation
It’s a phone message you don’t want. Someone from the registry office calling. “This is Mr. ……, call me back, ASAP”. Your mind goes into overdrive. What did I do? Did I go someplace I wasn’t supposed to? Did I cross some imaginary boundary line that I wasn’t aware of? Did someone file some false complaint against me? Your imagination runs amok. Even though you know that you haven’t done anything wrong, that message has put you into panic mode, you’re scared to death to make the return call. You…
Read MoreKat’s Blog: Maryland Mom’s Petition Misrepresents Registrants
A mother in Maryland has a change.org petition which seeks to overhaul Maryland state guidelines/Bill 320 for “sex offenders” by requiring lifetime supervision. (The full article can be read on the ACSOL website.) The impetus for her zealous petition appears to be a child- abuse situation within her own family, a spouse who allegedly abused one of her children. In reading her petition, she provides an overview of the emotional drama going on within her particular situation, the financial costs of sexual abuse to her family and her request for…
Read MoreKat’s Blog: The Silent War
There are silent wars going on in thousands of households across this country. They are the quiet, underlying disputes between family members of registrants, those that speak openly about the registrant in their lives and those family members that take the “less said, the better” stance. Both sides may be totally at peace and supportive of the registrant they care about, but a cavernous gap lies between the opposing sides, as gap as wide as the Grand Canyon. For many of us, the more we open up to family, friends…
Read MoreKat’s Blog: Band-Aid Fixes
I’m not sure what’s going on in Tennessee. Lately there seems to be an avalanche of bills proposed challenging the rights of registrants. Most of these bills seem to serve no purpose other than to intimidate and scare the bejeezus out of registrants and then, if passed, make their lives more difficult. Rep. Doggett has the “no registrants sleeping in a home with minor children” bill. Rep. Griffey has his “let’s chemically castrate all registrants on parole” bill. Now, here comes Rep. Patsy Hazlewood with HB1922 that would supposedly make…
Read MoreKat’s Blog: Sext Education
An interesting article a few weeks ago out of the United Kingdom has me wondering who’s responsible when children and teens are caught “sexting”? According to The Guardian, there are children as young as 4 years of age sharing indecent photos of themselves via smartphones, 9 yr. old children posting nude pictures of themselves on Facebook Messenger and Instagram. Between Jan. 2017 and Aug. 2019, in the United Kingdom there were 6,499 cases of underage children sexting, cases investigated by British authorities, cases where some of those children actually ended…
Read MoreKat’s Blog: The Side Effects of Law
Less than 2 weeks into the New Year and already 2020 is turning out to be a year that will be fraught with court battles. And the side effects, if we lose these battles, will be increasingly harsh and even barbaric for registrants and their families. In Wisconsin, Gov. Tony Evers is blocking a bill that would have made positive changes in residency restrictions for registrants. The side effect of not passing the bill is hundreds of registrants may be left homeless and may freeze to death during Wisconsin’s harsh…
Read MoreKat’s Blog: Polygraphs and Integrity
Watching one of those forensic tv shows, a police officer was accused of murdering his wife. All the evidence pointed to him as the killer. He took a polygraph and passed. He still went to jail. Later, re-creation of the murder scene and testimony by expert witnesses on the angles of gunshots found the officer not guilty, the murder was instead, a suicide. Passing a polygraph in this case, as in many cases, didn’t really seem to matter. Failing a polygraph is what gets the fingers pointing and tongues wagging,…
Read MoreKat’s Blog: Pardons and Commutations
Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin spent some of his last days in office/2019 issuing pardons and commutations. A fine gift of “peace on earth and good will towards men” if you ask me. But there are grinches among us. Many people were not quite so happy with the Governor’s actions when word got out that some of those pardons and commutations went to those who had been convicted of violent crimes including murder and rape. One of the most contested pardons, the one picked up by the major news stations, was…
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