Source: pewtrusts.org 12/3/20 More than 3.5 million, or 1 in 72, adults were on probation in the United States at the end of 2018—the most recent year for which U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) data is available—more than triple the number in 1980.1 Nationwide, on any given day, more people are on probation than in prisons and jails and on parole combined. At its best, probation—court-ordered correctional supervision in the community—gives people the opportunity to remain with their families, maintain employment, and access services that can reduce their likelihood…
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Sri Lanka: Psychiatric assessment essential for sexual offenders or victims with ADHD: Study
Source: nation.lk 9/14/21 By Ruwan Laknath Jayakody Owing to neuro developmental disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in turn being associated with sexual abuse and related offences in the Sri Lankan context, it is recommended that children and adolescents who are either victims of sexual abuse or offenders of the same, undergo psychiatric assessment, a local study noted. … The instant case described an adolescent who allegedly sexually abused another schoolboy in the context of previously undiagnosed ADHD. Child sexual abuse is the involvement of children and adolescents…
Read MoreIs Sex Offender Sentencing Getting Harsher?
Source: newsanyway.com 9/14/21 Sex crimes are taken very seriously by the state. Despite the harsh punishments that are attached to these crimes, they do nothing to deter the situation. In fact, in the past few years, sex offenders are some of the most harshly punished criminals in the country. However, the punishment doesn’t always fit the crime. Instead of focusing on the harm that was caused, sex crime penalties are focused on deterring repeat offenses instead of actually fitting the crime committed. How Sex Offenders are Prosecuted Recent political discussions…
Read MoreDid You Know? The sex offender registry is government sponsored doxxing that encourages vigilantism! [Video]
Source: NARSOL on YouTube 9/8/21 In May of 2021, someone called the Wheatland, California police at 1 a.m. to say he had “just shot somebody dead.” The killer brought a loaded gun and a cell phone jammer to the residence of Ralph Mendez, a person on the sexual offense registry, because of a much, much earlier sexual offense, and killed him. The killer spared Mr. Mendez’s 88-year-old mother. Police arrived and arrested Rory Banks, and the district attorney charged him with murder in the 1st degree. Police said they believe…
Read MoreFL: Letter to the Editor: Sex offender registry issue needs to be addressed
Source: nwfdailynews.com 9/2/21 As a counselor in the state of Florida, I think it’s time to address challenges concerning social media and illegal sex with minors, and the growing number of designated sex offenders in our state (356/100K – total 76,000 in Florida – 800K nationally). All sex offenders are not child molesters. Pedophiles and rapists are. The US Bureau of Justice reports the average age of a sex offender is 14! Policemen, prosecutors, and judges need to stand up against this bad law. It’s the only law that allows continued punishment after sentencing…
Read MoreA Culture Without the Possibility of Redemption Is a Toxic Culture
Source: thriveglobal.com 8/31/21 The paradox of social media, and so much of our technology, is that it keeps us locked in an eternal present, while at the same time creating an eternal archive that never fades away. The result isn’t just higher levels of anxiety, depression and loneliness, it also makes it harder for us to grow and evolve — which is, after all, our essential purpose at the heart of every spiritual and philosophical tradition. Evolution did not stop when we evolved from the apes. There is an instinct…
Read MoreWhy Blanket Registration of Youth as Sex Offenders is Bad Public Policy
Source: thecrimereport.org 8/5/21 We praise children for their curiosity. How else are they to learn to navigate the world? But sometimes a child’s curiosity leads to a lifetime of punishment and ostracism. Sadly, this is the harsh reality of many children who were charged with a sex offense. Although it can be a difficult notion to accept, children may exhibit sexual behavior as part of their normal childhood development. Some behaviors that stem from curiosity, such as ‘playing doctor’ or touching another child in their genital area can be problematic,…
Read MoreNew Report Finds IML Negatively Impacts Mobility of Registrants
The International Megan’s Law (IML) has negatively impacted registrants’ mobility across five dimensions, according to a newly released academic report. The dimensions are legally, bureaucratically, societally, subjectively and relationally. An advanced copy of that report can be viewed using the link below. According to the 200-page report, the IML is one part of a U.S. sex offence apparatus that continues to progress towards more unforgiving and counterproductive ends. The IML is the latest integration of domestic crime control databases with international mobility control databases exemplifies a growing immigration control industry…
Read MoreSex Offender Registries TW: Abuse
Source: youtube.com 8/12/21 Channel: sexplanations Video intro: Someone asked me once how I determined which topics to cover. I answered that I have all these topics in my mind but one at a time they move to my heart and I get really curious and passionate enough to research and teach — to sexplain. This is what happened with the registry. There wasn’t a personal experience or an audience question, it just shifted from my head to my heart and had to come out. At first I used the registry…
Read MoreWant to find more workers? Make it easier to hire people with criminal records.
Source: washingtonpost.com 8/17/21 The U.S. economy seems poised for revival, but “help wanted” signs that keep popping up in windows across the country tell a different story. With millions of positions going unfilled each month, it’s clear that our recovery won’t work unless it works for everyone. And yet for decades, an entire population of our labor force has been overlooked and undermined: the 77 million Americans with a criminal record. Because of stigma and misguided laws from the “tough-on-crime” era, job seekers with criminal records — no matter how old the…
Read MoreThe New “Crime Wave” Panic and the Long Shadow of John Walsh
Source: newrepublic.com 8/13/21 We are still living in the world that Walsh, and “America’s Most Wanted,” helped build: a paranoid populace that believes crime is everywhere and can only be solved through relentless policing. Neilson Barnard/Getty Images John and Revé Walsh’s lives changed on July 27, 1981, when Revé took her six-year-old son, Adam, to the Sears department store in a mall in Hollywood, Florida. Adam had asked to visit the toy department while his mother browsed the lighting and home furnishings section just a few aisles away. As Revé…
Read MoreAndrew Cuomo and the Myth of the Evil Perpetrator: Governor Cuomo’s recent scandal illustrates a myth about sexual abuse
Source: psychologytoday.com 8/11/21 Key points Prior to the reports of sexual abuse, Governor Cuomo was a popular and trusted public figure. The Myth of the Evil Perpetrator suggests that we are psychologically biased to think of sexual abusers as only archetypes of evil. In reality, even trusted figures are capable of sexual abuse (and often abuse from these individuals is even more prolific). We must be cognizant of our bias against finding “good” people culpable for sexual abuse, and understand how this bias can affect victims. “To cheapen or ridicule…
Read MoreFear in the Heartland
Source: slate.com 8/9/21 How the case of the kidnapped paperboys accelerated the “stranger danger” panic of the 1980s. By Paul M. Renfro In the early morning hours of Sunday, Sept. 5, 1982, 12-year-old Johnny Gosch vanished while delivering copies of the Des Moines Register. Two years later, 13-year-old paperboy Eugene Wade Martin disappeared under virtually identical circumstances on the south side of Des Moines. These cases terrified residents of Des Moines and Iowa, many of whom believed that the Midwest—a “safe,” and implicitly white, place—ought to be immune from “this…
Read MoreJim Cegielski, publisher of Leader-Call.com, wants victims to report abuse directly into the registry anonymously
Source: leader-call.com 7/30/21 By Jim Cegielski publisher Last week, we ran a front page story with the headline “Toddler Torture.” The headline was about as accurate of a description for what two small children had to endure as we could come up with. In his story, Mark Thornton wrote that those children had been taped to a wall and forced to watch their mother and her boyfriend have sex and were punched if they turned and looked away. Sadly, the rest of the details about what those kids went through…
Read MoreFederal Sentencing of Child Pornography: Non-Production Offenses
Source: ussc.gov 6/29/21 Overview (Published June 29, 2021) This report updates and expands upon the Commission’s 2012 Report to the Congress: Federal Child Pornography Offenses. In this report, the Commission provides data from fiscal year 2019 regarding: the content of the offender’s child pornography collection and nature of the offender’s collecting behavior; the offender’s degree of involvement with other offenders, particularly in an internet community devoted to child pornography and child sexual exploitation; and the offender’s engagement in sexually abusive or exploitative conduct in addition to the child pornography offense. The report…
Read MoreThe Punishment Economy: Winners and Losers in the Business of Mass Incarceration
Source: prisonlegalnews.org 5/1/21 by Daniel A. Rosen “This is an industry that profits from human suffering.” —David Fathi, Director, ACLU’s National Prison Project Starting with math may be a bad idea, but numbers help tell this story: In Virginia, keeping the average prisoner behind bars costs taxpayers about $30,000 per year; in some states like New York or California it’s twice that much. Prisoners over 50 years old with chronic health problems cost taxpayers as much as $150,000 a year. Yet experts have long agreed that most criminals “age out”…
Read MoreEmily Horowitz on the Failure of the Sex Offense Registry (Audio)
The Unspeakable Podcast w/Meghan Daum 6/13/2021 One sure way to lose a popularity contest is to fight for the rights of people convicted of a sex offense. But The National Sex Offense Registry, which was established during an era of panic over crime and child danger, has come with a host of unintended consequences. Sociologist Emily Horowitz is one of a handful of academics and researchers who speaking out against the registry, showing how it’s yet another blunt instrument of “tough on crime” 1990s legislation and ultimately does more to…
Read MoreSouth Carolina Supreme Court Declares Lifetime Registration Without Court Assessment to be Unconstitutional
[ACSOL] The Supreme Court of South Carolina issued a decision today that declared unconstitutional lifetime registration in that state because the state does not provide registrants “any opportunity for judicial review to assess the risk of re-offending.” Specifically, the Court ruled that lifetime registration violates the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. “Because of this decision, registrants in South Carolina will no longer be required to register for life unless and until a court assesses their risk of re-offending,” stated ACSOL Executive Director Janice Bellucci. “This is a big…
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