Last year, Lenore Skenazy hosted a brunch at her home in New York City. The “free range kids” advocate invited journalists, fed them quiche, and introduced them to two guest speakers. Both were young men who had served time for sex crimes against minors. Full Article
Read MoreCategory: General News
Are Sex Offenders Human?
In July 16, 2015, Barack Obama visited a federal prison, the first sitting president ever to do so. It was a powerful statement of support for a broad movement—stretching from Black Lives Matter to Right on Crime—to reform the U.S. criminal justice system, one of the most punitive in the world. Six months later, on February 8, 2016, the president signed a law requiring the passports of citizens with convictions for sex offenses to be marked “Sex Offender,” globalizing an already extraordinarily harsh domestic system of surveillance and punishment. In…
Read MoreNotice of Appeal Filed in IML Case
A notice of appeal was filed today in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. This is the first formal step required in order to appeal the dismissal of the only court challenge to the International Megan’s Law (IML). “The IML unfairly and unjustly labels hundreds of thousands of American citizens as sex tourists and sex traffickers,” stated ACSOL President Janice Bellucci. “This punishment will increase when the State Department adds unique identifiers to their passports.” The IML challenge was filed in federal district court in February, one day after it…
Read MoreUS Department of Homeland Security’s Malicious Immigration Policy Has Destroyed at least 4000 Families Since 2011
Submitted by “Robert” – By the agency’s own statistics, the number of denied Adam Walsh Act family petitions will surpass 4000 by 2017. This is a staggering number of families decimated by USCIS for no apparent reason. Each of these cases highlights the stories of immigrant families and US citizens who struggle for years to cope with the heartbreaking effects of our country’s broken immigration system. USCIS’s malicious AWA policy serves no rational purpose and undermines the goals of family unity. For years after its enactment, the USCIS has either…
Read MoreReport Recommends Significant Registration Changes
Three prominent social workers, including Jill Levenson, recommend significant changes in “sex offender” registries in a recently released report. The recommended changes are (1) juveniles should be dropped from “sex offender” registries, (2) the length of registration should be guided by risk assessment research, (3) procedures for relief and removal should be available, (4) discretion should be returned to judges and (5) residency restrictions should be abolished. The recommendations are based upon several factors, including that while “registries make people feel safer, the data indicate that their actual effectiveness in…
Read MoreJudge has ‘ethical and legal’ concerns over FBI running a massive ‘dark web’ child-porn site
A federal judge said he has “ethical and legal” concerns over the Department of Justice’s decision to take control of a child-pornography bulletin board and allow the distribution of as many as 1 million illegal images while agents hacked the computers of the site’s visitors. Full Article
Read More“Hard to See”: A story of sex offenders takes center stage
“America is Hard to See” is a play based on the lives of Pahokee residents – Aupperlee, her family, and the hundreds of registered sex offenders who live in the town. The script is based on verbatim transcriptions of interviews and news reports about the place, including a 2015 story by First Coast News. Full Article
Read MoreGeneral Comments November 2016
Comments that are not specific to a certain post should go here, for the month of November 2016. Contributions should relate to the cause and goals of this organization and please, keep it courteous and civil.
Read MoreWA: State Dept. of Corrections finds the term ‘offender’ offensive
OLYMPIA —The state Department of Corrections plans to stop referring to the men and women serving time behind bars as “offenders.” Acting Corrections Secretary Dick Morgan told agency employees in a memo Tuesday the word will be replaced in policies and programs with terms such as “individuals,” “students” or “patients” depending on the circumstances. … The term won’t disappear completely as registered sex offenders will still be identified in that manner. “That won’t change. They will be known as a registered sex offender,” Barclay said. “That is codified in law.”…
Read MoreSupreme Court: Court adds five new cases to docket
… Among the court’s other grants today, Packingham v. North Carolina is the case of Lester Packingham, a North Carolina man who became a registered sex offender after he was convicted, at the age of 21, of taking indecent liberties with a minor. Six years after Packingham’s conviction, North Carolina enacted a law that made it a felony for registered sex offenders to access a variety of websites, from Facebook to The New York Times and YouTube. Packingham was convicted of violating this law after a police officer saw a…
Read MoreParents Concerned Over Possible Registered Sex Offenders for Halloween
State officials are cracking down on registered sex offenders, just as Halloween is around the corner. It’s called “Operation Boo,” which requires that all registered sex offenders to adhere to certain curfews and restrictions between 5 p.m. and 5 a.m., starting on Halloween night. They also cannot put up Halloween decorations or give out candy to trick-or-treating children. Full Article Related https://all4consolaws.org/2016/09/cdcr-agrees-to-drop-halloween-sign-requirement/
Read More“One strike for sex offenders should be enough” – change.org Petition
“The system failed me and my family and I’m going to do whatever it takes to put an end to the psychos running the streets.” – Shasta Groene For anyone living in the Pacific Northwest in May of 2005, the survival story of Shasta Groene is one you could not turn away from. It has now been almost 11 1/2 years since ____ ____ , a sex offender with a long record of assaults on children, abducted Shasta and her brother Dylan from their Idaho home where another brother, Slade,…
Read MoreState Department Replies to IML Petition
The State Department has modified the Final Rule it published on September 2, 2016, regarding implementation of the International Megan’s Law (IML). The modification corrects the erroneous statement in the Rule regarding whose passports will bear a “unique identifier”. The modification clarifies that “unique identifiers” will be added only to the passports of individuals convicted of a sex offense that involved a minor and who are currently required to register as a sex offender. The State Department’s modification occurred as the result of a petition filed by the Alliance for Constitutional Sex…
Read MoreACSOL Conference Call October 26 – Halloween (with Recording)
ACSOL’s will hold a public conference call on Wednesday, October 26, at 4 p.m. Pacific time. The topic of the call will be “Halloween” and the call will follow the same format as the previous calls. There will be a brief presentation of the topic to be followed by a Q&A session where call attendees may ask questions pertaining to the topic. Dial-in number: 1-712-770-8055 Conference Code: 983459 I look forward to having you call in. Sincerely, Janice Recording Related ***Listen to the Call Recordings (when done)*** ***ACSOL Conference Call Discussions by date /…
Read MoreAsperger’s, autism, and sex offenders
… Then he talked about his son’s diagnosis: Asperger’s Syndrome, a developmental disorder on the autism spectrum. As a young child, Nick flapped his arms and jumped a lot. At three, he barely spoke. As an adult, he still cannot tie his shoes, making it all the more impressive that he has achieved so much. Then the dad added one more item to his son’s resume: Nick is a convicted felon, a sex offender on the registry. He was found guilty of possession of child porn. Full Article
Read MoreLARGE RACIAL DISPARITIES IN SEX OFFENDER REGISTRY, PROFESSOR FINDS
A University at Albany assistant professor has begun looking into how sex offender registries reveal the inequalities of the criminal justice system. The findings of Trevor Hoppe, an assistant professor of sociology, have been published in his paper, “Punishing Sex: Sex Offenders and the Missing Punitive Turn in Sexuality Studies.” The study indicates that approximately 1 percent of African American males in the United States are registered sex offenders while white males are registered at approximately half that rate. Full Article
Read MoreSex offender registries need reform
Twenty-five years ago, with activist Patty Wetterling by his side, Minnesota governor Arne Carlson signed America’s first law establishing a public registry system for sex offenders. The law, which Wetterling helped to write, aimed to give police a starting point for tracking down sexual predators like Danny Heinrich, the man who had kidnapped, molested and murdered Patty’s son, Jacob Wetterling. Full Article
Read MoreThe Myth and the Propaganda of Halloween and Registered Sex Offenders
3 weeks from today is Halloween 2016 and in about 2 weeks I’ll post my annual Do’s and Don’ts list for RSO’s in Virginia on Halloween. Over the years of advocating for data-driven laws and reform here I’ve learned the worst time of year for Myth-Based and Hysteria-Driven articles, policies and laws is Halloween. Halloween can be more emotionally draining than the annual Virginia General Assembly in Richmond. Full Article on It’s Time to Reduce, Reconstruct, Reclassify, Rethink and Reform the Virginia Sex Offender Registry
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