“Sounds like you enjoy sex with kids,” a reader tweeted at me after seeing a blog post I wrote about former Subway pitchman Jared Fogle. It was 2015, and Fogle had just signed a plea agreement in which he admitted to looking at child pornography and having sex with two 16-year-old prostitutes. “You also look like [a] pervert,” the reader added. That’s the sort of response you can expect if you write about the broad category known as “sex offenders” and suggest that not all of them are the same…
Read MoreCategory: General News
General Comments March 2017
Comments that are not specific to a certain post should go here, for the month of March 2017. Contributions should relate to the cause and goals of this organization and please, keep it courteous and civil.
Read MoreFBI Used Best Buy’s Geek Squad To Increase Secret Public Surveillance
Recently unsealed records reveal a much more extensive secret relationship than previously known between the FBI and Best Buy’s Geek Squad, including evidence the agency trained company technicians on law-enforcement operational tactics, shared lists of targeted citizens and, to covertly increase surveillance of the public, encouraged searches of computers even when unrelated to a customer’s request for repairs. Full Article
Read More“Shaming the Constitution: The Detrimental Results of Sexual Violent Predator Legislation” (Book)
The title of this post is the title of this notable new book authored by Michael Perlin and Heather Ellis Cucolo which provides a fitting follow-up to prior posts in this space this week concerning problems with sex offender recidivism data and expanding use of crime registries. Full Article
Read MoreAfraid of Jail? Buy an Upgrade
How California’s pay-to-stay jails create a two-tiered justice system. Full Article Also see Los Angeles Times article
Read MoreThe big lie about sex offenders
Much of the destructive, extra-punishment punishment we inflict on sex offenders is due to the widely held belief that they’re more likely to re-offend than the perpetrators of other classes of crimes. This has been the main justification for the Supreme Court’s authorization of sex-offender registries and for holding sex offenders indefinitely after they’ve served their sentences. Lower courts have then cited those rulings to justify a host of other measures, from severe restrictions on where sex offenders can live to GPS monitoring of their every move. Full Article
Read MoreFacebook reports journalists to police for flagging possible child porn — on Facebook
Facebook reported journalists at the BBC to police for sending them images related to suspected child pornography on the site, even though Facebook had requested examples, the news organization reported Tuesday. The BBC, which was following up on a past investigation of child exploitation on the social networking site, had found dozens of recent photos of children in sexualized positions and with suggestions of more obscene content, it reported. Other troubling content on Facebook included pages “explicitly for men with a sexual interest in children” or groups for “stolen images…
Read MoreThe Lingering Impact of Justice Kennedy’s Trumpesque Claim About Sex Offenders
Last week Robert Montgomery, a senior deputy attorney general at the North Carolina Department of Justice, seemed to have little success convincing the Supreme Court that his state’s law banning sex offenders from social media is consistent with the First Amendment. But at least one statement Montgomery made in defense of the law went unchallenged, even though it has no empirical basis. “This Court has recognized that [sex offenders] have a high rate of recidivism and are very likely to do this again,” he said. “Even as late as 20 years from when…
Read MoreThe Supreme Court’s Sex-Offender Jurisprudence Is Based on a Lie
The Supreme Court believes most sex offenders will keep committing sex crimes. The data suggests otherwise. Full Article
Read MoreHow the Supreme Court Spread a False Statistic About Sex Offenders
When a false idea gains traction, spreading far and wide, it’s always interesting to try to trace it back to its source to figure out what caused it to catch on in the first place. The New York Times has an NY Times: Dubious Data Belies Supreme Court’s Stance on Repeat Sex Offenders, and it pertains to a common myth about sex offenders: that they have extremely high recidivism rates relative to other types of criminals. Full Article Related NY Times: Dubious Data Belies Supreme Court’s Stance on Repeat Sex…
Read MorePublic Crime Registries Rarely Work, So Why Do They Continue to Grow?
____ ____ says he’s a changed man. After spending 25 years in jail for killing a man during a home invasion, ____ is looking for a second chance: “I’m not in the lifestyle I used to be in. I don’t drink. I don’t do drugs. I’m just trying to build something up before it’s too late. I’m 55 years old and I don’t have social security, retirement, or a pension.” While it’s difficult for most ex-felons to reintegrate into society, ____’s road is particularly tough. That’s because he is required to…
Read MoreDubious Data Belies Supreme Court’s Stance on Repeat Sex Offenders
Last week at the Supreme Court, a lawyer made what seemed like an unremarkable point about registered sex offenders. “This court has recognized that they have a high rate of recidivism and are very likely to do this again,” said the lawyer, Robert C. Montgomery, who was defending a North Carolina statute that bars sex offenders from using Facebook, Twitter and other social media services. The Supreme Court has indeed said the risk that sex offenders will commit new crimes is “frightening and high.” That phrase, in a 2003 decision upholding Alaska’s sex offender registration law, has…
Read MoreFirst, They Came for the Sex Offenders …
We must speak up for the rights of those on the fringes of society. The Supreme Court’s ruling on sex offenders’ First Amendment rights will signal how much protection we can all expect. Full Article
Read MoreWho Is a Sex Offender?
You are not going to like this article. In fact, unless you are on the sex offender list or someone you care about is being forced to live with this stigma, chances are that you have almost no sympathy for those who have been found guilty of sex crimes. I would like to ask you to think about these people with an open mind. As the father of a daughter, I can tell you that I regularly checked the sex offender web sites to know which of my neighbors to…
Read MoreSCOTUS: Argument analysis – Justices skeptical about social media restrictions for sex offenders
At today’s oral argument in Packingham v. North Carolina, a challenge to a state law that imposes criminal penalties on registered sex offenders who visit social networking sites, Justice Elena Kagan suggested that social media sites like Facebook and Twitter were “incredibly important parts” of the country’s political and religious culture. People do not merely rely those sites to obtain virtually all of their information, she emphasized, but even “structure their civil community life” around them. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg echoed those sentiments, telling the North Carolina official defending the…
Read MoreSCOTUS: Court may strike law barring sex offenders from social media
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court appeared likely Monday to strike down a North Carolina law that prohibits sex offenders from using Facebook and other social networking sites. At least five justices suggested during argument that they would rule for North Carolina resident Lester Packingham Jr. He was convicted of violating a 2008 law aimed at keeping sex offenders off internet sites children might use. Packingham used Facebook to boast about beating a traffic ticket. The state’s lawyer said the law deals with the virtual world in the same way that…
Read MoreSCOTUS: Court to consider social media access for sex offenders [updated with media links]
In April 2010, Lester Packingham’s traffic ticket was dismissed, prompting him to take to Facebook to celebrate. He posted that “God is Good! How about I got so much favor they dismissed the ticket before court even started? No fine, no court costs, no nothing spent . . . Praise be to GOD, WOW! Thanks JESUS!” … Based on his Facebook post, Packingham was charged with violating a North Carolina law that makes it a crime for a registered sex offender to “access” a “commercial social networking Web site” when he…
Read MorePresident Trump: War on Human Trafficking
According to the FBI, human trafficking is believed to be the third-largest criminal activity in the world. In recent years cases have been piling up and leads are hard to follow in many instances. President Trump has vowed to bring “full force and weight” to battle this epidemic aggressively . In a Reuters video the president pointed out the seriousness of this issues in America and worldwide. A short synopsis of the statements maid by President trump indicate that globally nearly 21 million people are victims of human trafficking, according to the…
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