Mary Sue Molnar estimates that she gets at least five calls a week from Texans on the sex offender registry who can’t find a place to live. Numerous towns around the state have passed ordinances prohibiting those on the list from residing within a certain distance — anywhere from 500 to 3,500 feet — of a school, park, daycare facility or playground. In some towns, that’s almost everywhere. “We’ve got people living in extended-stay motels,” says Molnar, who runs the sex-offender-rights group Texas Voices for Reason and Justice. “We’re in…
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Sex-offender registries: How the Wetterling abduction changed the country
After Jacob Wetterling was abducted in 1989, a pastor named Thomas Gillespie of the St. Joseph Parish offered support and comfort to the Wetterling family. He invited them to dinner, opened the church for a community prayer service and presented them with hot cross buns at Easter. What the Wetterlings did not know at the time was that Gillespie was a sex offender who admitted molesting a boy in the 1970s and was finally removed from the ministry in 1996. Full Article
Read MoreGeneral Comments October 2016
Comments that are not specific to a certain post should go here, for the month of October 2016. Contributions should relate to the cause and goals of this organization and please, keep it courteous and civil.
Read MoreFormer Inmate Hosts Video Podcast On America’s Criminal Justice System
Already an established independent filmmaker with five film credits under his belt, Matt Duhamel has now set his sights on a weekly video podcast about America’s broken criminal justice system. ‘Solitary Nation’, which is available in both video and audio format on Google Play Music and Stichter, is an interview style show on important subjects such as sex offenders in the community, mass incarceration, collateral effects on family members, children of incarcerated parents and post prison success stories. Duhamel states that the main reason he decided to produce and host…
Read MoreCalifornia Employers’ Fair Chance Hiring Toolkit
Root & Rebound is proud to announce the launch of the first-ever California Employers’ Fair Chance Hiring Toolkit, a critical resource for California employers, H.R. departments, corporate counsel, and business professionals on “Fair Chance” hiring! Full Article
Read MoreSurvey – International Travel after IML
If you have traveled to a foreign country after President Obama signed HR 515 / International Megan’s Law into law on February 8, 2016, please complete this survey to help gather details about the effects of this legislation. We will also share this data with the RTAG group for incorporation into their travel matrix. Thank you. Go to International Travel Survey
Read MoreJustice Department Announces Almost $18 Million In Awards To Support Sex Offender Registration, Assessment, Intervention
Today the Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs (OJP) awarded almost $18 million to implement and enhance sex offender programming throughout the United States. “We have made tremendous strides over the last decade toward building a comprehensive sex offender registration and notification system,” said Director Luis C. deBaca, Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering and Tracking (SMART Office). “The new awards take our efforts to the next stage, giving our state, local and tribal partners evidence-based tools and technologies that will enhance their capacity to manage sex…
Read MoreSex Offenders International
It would have taken enormous courage to say no because it was a shockingly awful idea that played well to the simplistic and ignorant. President Obama lacked that courage. Perhaps he’s too busy with his lame duck session. Perhaps he feared that a courageous move would have affected the chances of the Democratic candidate for president. Perhaps his talk of reform was just talk, and he’s every bit as good with bad criminal law policy as everyone else. No matter. He signed it. It’s now law. After months of hype…
Read MoreFederal Judge Dismissed Challenge to IML
A federal district court judge today granted the government’s motion to dismiss a challenge to the International Megan’s Law. The law, passed by Congress in February, allows the federal government to notify foreign countries that a registrant whose offense involved a minor is traveling to that country and requires the federal government to add a conspicuous unique identifier to their passports. “Today’s decision is a travesty of justice,” stated ACSOL president Janice Bellucci. “As a result of this decision, registrants’ lives will be placed in danger and their ability to…
Read MoreAtlanta RSOL Conference 2016 take-away: Whose voice is missing?
This year’s RSOL conference in Atlanta was the author’s first, as speakers from across the country brought to bear upon an audience ready and needful of informative lectures and empathetic, well-sourced thought-pieces a whole host of ideas long overdue. Full Article
Read MoreAfter Jacob, work harder to prevent child sexual abuse [Commentary]
This week, the nation finally learned the truth of the kidnapping, sexual assault and murder of Jacob Wetterling at the hands of ____ ____ (“Jacob’s killer gives detailed confession,” Sept 7). Upon hearing the harrowing details, we wept, knowing Jacob’s final moments were filled with fear, pain and pleading. We learned that the man who killed Jacob had previously kidnapped and assaulted another boy, Jared Scheierl. We raged, knowing that for 27 years ____ enjoyed a freedom he did not deserve and, we hope, will never again possess. Full Commentary
Read MoreGet angry about crime. But don’t use it as a reason to pass bad laws.
Two seemingly unrelated cases in the news this week share a troubling link. ____ ____, the infamous former Stanford student who was convicted of sexual assault of an unconscious woman, was released from jail after three months last Friday, reviving outrage over his months-long sentence. Just days later, the Jacob Wetterling case — in which a young Minnesota boy was abducted, assaulted, and murdered 27 years ago — came to a close, as his long-suspected murderer confessed to the crime. Full Article
Read MoreBig headlines make bad laws (Opinion)
When horrific and ugly crimes make headlines, politicians like to seize the opportunity — to make their own headlines. So when Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky sentenced former Stanford student Brock Turner, now 21, to six months in jail — he served only three months — for sexually assaulting a woman who was too inebriated to consent to sex in 2015, California lawmakers did not hesitate. The same California Legislature that just passed the Restorative Justice Act, which touted alternatives to incarceration, shamelessly passed two tough-on-crime laws. Both are now…
Read MoreGeneral Comments September 2016
Comments that are not specific to a certain post should go here, for the month of September 2016. Contributions should relate to the cause and goals of this organization and please, keep it courteous and civil.
Read MoreAZ: Court rejects Cochise County man’s challenge of sex-offender registry
WASHINGTON – A federal court Friday upheld a Cochise County man’s conviction for failing to register as a sex offender, even though the state’s the sex-offender registry law was passed the year after his sexual misconduct conviction. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected David Bernard Clark’s argument that applying a law that passed after his crime was an improper ex post facto application. Full Article Decision Oral Argument Related MI: Court voids state sex offender registry for imposing unconstitutionally retroactive punishment [UPDATED] The 6th…
Read MoreState Dept. restricts passports for sex offenders
The State Department is threatening to take away the passports of certain sex offenders. Federal law requires registered sex offenders to display a unique mark on their passports to notify officials in foreign governments when they travel abroad. Passports that do not contain the mark could be confiscated, the State Department said Thursday. Full Article Related https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2016-21087.pdf Janice Bellucci comment: According to the article, the IML case was dismissed which is not true. The article links to an article from April 2016 which correctly reported that our Motion for a Preliminary…
Read MoreFBI’s massive porn sting puts internet privacy in crossfire
For two weeks in the spring of 2015, the FBI was one of the largest purveyors of child pornography on the internet. After arresting the North Carolina administrator of The Playpen, a “dark web” child-pornography internet bulletin board, agents seized the site’s server and moved it to an FBI warehouse in Virginia. They then initiated “Operation Pacifier,” a sting and computer-hacking operation of unparalleled scope that has thus far led to criminal charges against 186 people, including at least five in Washington state. Full Article
Read MoreJudges Are Starting to Question Overzealous Sex-Offender Laws
There’s a stark divide between lawmakers and experts when it comes to laws which restrict where registered sex offenders can live. Cities and states all around the country have enthusiastically banned offenders from living too close to schools — and introduced other, similarly oriented restrictions — on the grounds that such legislation is a common-sense way to help keep kids safe. Experts, on the other hand, have insisted that these laws at the very least don’t reduce recidivism, and could have the opposite of the intended effect, increasing the odds…
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