Category: Documentary

Tech 5 takeaways from CNBC’s investigation into ‘nudify’ apps and sites

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Source: cnbc.com 9/28/25 Key Points: CNBC investigated “nudify” apps and how a group of friends in Minnesota became key figures in the fight against nonconsensual, AI-generated porn. Experts said these services, which are often promoted via Facebook ads, are available to download on the Apple and Google app stores and are easily accessed using simple web searches. “That’s the reality of where the technology is right now, and that means that any person can really be victimized,” said Haley McNamara, senior vice president of strategic initiatives and programs at the…

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Automated Sextortion Spyware Takes Webcam Pics of Victims Watching Porn

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Source: wired.com 9/3/25 A new specimen of “infostealer” malware offers a disturbing feature: It monitors a target’s browser for NSFW content, then takes simultaneous screenshots and webcam photos of the victim.   Sextortion-based hacking, which hijacks a victim’s webcam or blackmails them with nudes they’re tricked or coerced into sharing, has long represented one of the most disturbing forms of cybercrime. Now one specimen of widely available spyware has turned that relatively manual crime into an automated feature, detecting when the user is browsing pornography on their PC, screenshotting it, and taking…

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Predators trailer explores To Catch A Predator’s complicated legacy

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Source: yahoo.com 8/19/25 On the surface, To Catch A Predator may seem like it was a moral net-positive. The Dateline series helped apprehend multiple criminals before they could target more children. That, at least on paper, sounds like a good thing. Predators, a new documentary delving into the repercussions of the popular show, however, argues that its legacy is a lot more complicated than that.  “A cultural sensation from its inception in the early 2000s, Dateline NBC’s candid-camera investigative series To Catch A Predator ensnared sex offenders and lured them to a film set, where…

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Digital punishment, lateral surveillance & the sex offense registry

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Source: journals.sagepub.com 8/25/25 Abstract The maintenance of a public sex offense registry has been codified as a non-punitive civil policy since the 2003 Supreme Court case of Smith v. Doe. But since then, sex offense registries have transformed from a centralized state repository of information to a sprawling digital archive of personal data about people required to register. We identify and report the current technological capabilities of state-run sex offense registries through a 50-state survey and draw from the analysis to argue that the digital turn has changed the form…

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Roblox Banned a Creator for ‘Hunting’ Pedophiles — And Critics Are Pissed

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Source: rollingstone.com 8/25/25 The company provoked the ire of its community by banning Schlep, a popular creator who tracks suspected sex predators, even as it faces a flurry of lawsuits claiming it doesn’t protect kids After a popular YouTuber who entraps suspected sexual predators he contacts through Roblox was banned from the youth-targeted gaming platform this month, the company found itself defending its approach to moderation and user safety. But the furor over harm to minors hasn’t been limited to the game’s community. Now a Congressman, state officials, and families are demanding accountability and…

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Denied for old crimes: The complex challenge of long-term care for America’s aging PFR

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Source: mcknights.com 8/18/25 As a case manager for the Department of Veterans Affairs, Stephanie Jerstad once had a client die in transitional housing after being rejected by 212 different nursing homes in Illinois and Indiana. None of them would take the man because he was on a sexual offense registry for a long-ago offense. Admission was repeatedly denied despite professional evaluations of his appropriate behavior during a preceding hospital stay of more than 30 days. He also needed so much assistance with daily activities that he would have been physically…

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Experience With State Courts Highlights Areas for Improvement

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Source: pew.org 8/4/25 Overview Throughout the country, people rely on state and local courts to resolve a wide variety of issues, from traffic tickets and divorces to debt cases and shoplifting charges.1 These interactions can affect their lives, their communities, and their opinions of the legal system. To learn more about how people in the U.S. interact with and view courts, The Pew Charitable Trusts conducted a national poll of 2,016 adults in August and September 2024. The poll, administered by public opinion polling firm SSRS, asked individuals about their general…

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Hotel Sex Trafficking Suit Can Proceed, Inviting Hotels to Profile and Harass Guests

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Source: reason.com 8/11/25 Can a hotel be guilty of sex trafficking just because it didn’t surveil its customers enough?   A hotel could be legally liable for sex trafficking because it failed to intervene against a guest who wore “sexually explicit clothing” and had condoms in her room, according to a recent ruling from Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. Kacsmaryk—who gained national notoriety a few years ago for a ruling that suspended approval of the abortion pill mifepristone—denied the hotel’s motion…

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Sex offenders trying to rebuild their lives find ‘angels’ in Circles of Support and Accountability (CoSA)

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Source: catholicregister.org 8/10/25 EDITOR’S NOTE: Some of the names in this article have been changed to protect the identity of the individuals.  Few crimes elicit society’s rancor and scorn like sex abuse. Whether it’s the vulnerability of the victims or the intimacy of the assault, sex crimes have a unique stigma that follows offenders into prison. This presents a challenge not just for society, but especially for Christians, who believe in God’s radical love and forgiveness, even for sex offenders.  Circles of Support and Accountability volunteers are helping sex offenders…

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JAMA Study shows dramatic increase in mortality risk among incarcerated and recently released

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Source: jamanetwork.com 6/3/25 Key Points: Question  Are individual incarceration status and county incarceration rates associated with all-cause and overdose mortality in the US? Findings:  In a nationally representative cohort study of approximately 3.26 million adults observed from 2008 through 2019, individuals incarcerated at the time of the survey experienced a 39% higher risk of all-cause mortality and more than 3 times the risk of overdose mortality compared with nonincarcerated individuals. County incarceration rates were also associated with increased all-cause mortality risks, even for nonincarcerated residents. Meaning:  These findings suggest that incarceration…

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Emerging Technology and Risk Analysis for Crimes That Involve Targeting and Exploitation of Children

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Source: rand.org 6/18/25 Paper overview: his report is one in a series of analyses on the effects of emerging technologies on U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) missions and capabilities. As part of this work, the research team was charged with developing a technology and risk assessment methodology for evaluating emerging technologies and understanding their implications in a homeland security context. The methodology and analyses provide a basis for DHS to better understand the emerging technologies and the risks presented. This report describes the implications that the metaverse could have…

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Taking Child Pornography Seriously by Improving Restitution for Victims

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Source: heritage.org 8/4/25 With President Trump again in office and the Justice Department under new leadership, this is a good time to evaluate the vital task of providing restitution for victims of child pornography. This Legal Memorandum explains the unique nature of child pornography and how it impacts victims and highlights ways in which it has not been taken as seriously as it should be. It then examines how the Supreme Court’s misguided interpretation of the existing restitution statute in Paroline v. United States actually made obtaining restitution more complicated…

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Sex Offenders With Autism Face Obstacles In Federal Prison

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Source: forbes.com 7/31/25 Incarceration is challenging for most individuals, but it poses unique and often severe hardships for those with mental health conditions such as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). For inmates with sex offense convictions, the prison environment is particularly hostile, marked by frequent bullying, social isolation, and even physical violence. When an individual has both ASD and a sex offense conviction, the combination can be profoundly damaging—amounting to a near-constant psychological assault on someone who may struggle to fully comprehend their offense or the intense hostility they face behind…

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How Parenting Changed After Etan Patz [fear of everything]

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Source: nytimes.com 7/28/25 It was 1979, and Nils Johnson-Shelton had a lot in common with a classmate named Etan Patz. Both were 6-year-old boys with bowl cuts, the sons of artists living in lofts in SoHo. They rode the same bus to the same elementary school, where they both attended first grade. On the morning of May 25 that year, Etan went missing and was never found. His disappearance not only shocked New York City; it was later credited as the event that forever altered parenting, a word that had…

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Sex Offenders: An Overlooked but Significant Subpopulation of the Homeless [paper]

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Source: ciceroinstitute.org 4/28/25 Executive Summary The homeless population in the United States is very diverse. Over the last decade, scholars have made considerable progress in advancing our understanding of the various subpopulations and the myriad drivers of homelessness that are associated with each. But even as researchers have found a history of criminal offending in a sizeable proportion of homeless people, analyses of criminal history and homelessness remain simplistic and underdeveloped. Homeless sex offenders present a special case of interest within this subpopulation because of their unique set of social…

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U.S. Sexual Assault Rate Continues to Decrease

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Source:  counciloncj.org Jan 2025 The sexual assault rate in the United States continues to decrease, according to a newly released study from the Council on Criminal Justice.  Overall, the rate of sexual assault in 2024 was about 26 percent lower than the rate in 2019. The report includes forcible rape and statutory rape among other sex offenses in its definition of sexual assault.  The decline in the sexual assault rate began in the year 2019 and has continued since that time. Read the full article  

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‘Rape Club’ Prison’s Legacy Continues to Haunt in Criminal, Civil Trials– Even the Warden Was Involved

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Source: dailymuck.com 10/9/24 FCI Dublin’s official website shows an innocuous, even peaceful atmosphere at the prison, which became notorious for the pervasive and depraved sexual abuse of inmates.  How can anyone forget the years of sexual assault, rape, humiliation and terror that the staff of the infamous Dublin, Calif. federal women’s prison inflicted on its unfortunate residents? Seven employees of Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Dublin– a low-security prison– have been convicted or pled guilty to charges of sexual abuse of inmates in the past few years. No doubt their wrists…

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A vanishingly small number of violent sex crimes end in conviction, NBC News investigation shows

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Source: nbcnews.com 1/10/25 [ACSOL is showing you this because it is very disturbing and will be used against us] Data from eight major cities shows that less than 4% of sex crimes result in conviction Less than 4% of reported rapes, sexual assaults, and child sex abuse allegations in certain cities across the United States ever result in a sex crime conviction, an NBC News investigation found. The results of the investigation — based on a review of thousands of documents from police departments, prosecutors and courts in cities from…

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