The boy was 11 when he was abducted while riding home on his bike. An Annandale man charged with possessing child pornography is a person of interest in the case, authorities said. Full Article Related Wetterling Family Statement
Read MoreCategory: General News
A 50-state look at officer decertification for sex incidents
An Associated Press investigation into sexual misconduct by law enforcement officers in the U.S. identified some 1,000 in six years who lost their licenses for sexual assault or other sex offenses or misconduct, including possession of child pornography, voyeurism and sex on duty. The findings are based on an analysis of state records for an administrative process called decertification, but the AP found that policies regarding decertification vary widely from state to state. Forty-one states provided information, three did not, and six states and the District of Columbia said they…
Read MoreThe FCC Just Voted to Reduce the Exorbitant Cost of Prison Phone Calls
A long campaign to reduce the exorbitant sums that inmates are charged to speak to friends and family on the phone just notched a major victory, with the Federal Communications Commission voting 3–2 to aggressively regulate an industry that until recently was, in the words of the Prison Policy Initiative’s Peter Wagner, “a dark little backwater of telecommunication that the FCC was not paying attention to.” Full Article
Read MoreHALLOWEEN SEX OFFENDER LAW HEARING TO BE HELD OCT 26 [UPDATED 10/26 5pm]
CDCR Withdraws Halloween Sign Requirement Statewide – more details to follow. First Media Reports: Decision made over requirement that paroled sex offenders post signs on Halloween (10News) Sex Offenders on Parole Will Not Have to Post Signs on Door: Dept. of Corrections NBC Sex offenders not required to post signs on Halloween CBS No door signs required for parolees on Halloween Union Tribune For Release October 26 -The Southern District of California will conduct a hearing today regarding whether to grant a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) that would halt a…
Read MoreSex Offender Registry Laws Don’t Make As Much Sense As You’d Thought
The need for criminal justice reform has gotten a lot of attention recently, but there’s one aspect that rarely enters the conversation — sex offender registries. Online records of people convicted of sexual crimes are intended to keep everyone, especially children, safe from sexual predators — the words “sex offender,” after all, illicit the image of a violent rapist or child molester. However, just like American jails and prisons, these state registries are overcrowded and may be doing more harm than good, which is why Americans should be talking about…
Read MoreChris Hansen Is Back To Catching Predators
In mid-August, the police department in Fairfield, Connecticut, received a most unusual phone call. It was from Chris Hansen, former host of the infamous NBC reality series To Catch A Predator, which filmed the arrests of men caught soliciting sex from underage decoys online. Hansen informed the department that he was setting up a sex sting in Fairfield that would mirror the operations he became famous for a decade ago, with one key difference: This time, he was going at it without the backing of a major—or any—television network. It…
Read MoreHow Safe Are Trick-or-Treaters?
States, municipalities, and parole departments have adopted policies banning known sex offenders from Halloween activities, based on the worry that there is unusual risk on these days. The existence of this risk has not been empirically established. National Incident-Base Reporting System crime report data from 1997 through 2005 were used to examine daily population adjusted rates from 67,045 nonfamilial sex crimes against children aged 12 years and less. Halloween rates were compared with expectations based on time, seasonality, and weekday periodicity. Rates did not differ from expectation, no increased rate…
Read More“BE AFRAID. BE VERY AFRAID.”
It’s Halloween again. It’s my first Halloween since being released from prison. and until Monday, I didn’t really care. Seriously, I didn’t care. I’ve never been a big fan of Halloween. It was always a pain-in-the-ass “holiday” where it’s socially permissible for kids I don’t know to bang on my door. Annoying. Go away. But if I don’t give them candy, I’m the asshole. And it wasn’t much better when I was a kid. I always felt like a mooch asking people I didn’t know to just give me candy.…
Read MoreL.A. school board fires Rafe Esquith, one of nation’s most lauded teachers
Flowery praise of teachers is a standard part of speeches by superintendents, school board members and principals. But they never mention a sad truth. If our most energetic and effective educators make others look bad, someone is eventually going to punish them for that. Full Article
Read More“I Am The Creepy Guy at the Park”
Yesterday was a beautiful day, I think you will agree. I decided to take a short walk from my house on Hamilton Street to Dana Park, which I have been coming to almost daily since 1989, the year my son was born. As I often do, I brought my camera, sat on a bench for about 10 minutes, did one lap around the park and headed home. I had barely gotten across the street when three police cars pulled up: I was told to stop, and swiftly surrounded by six…
Read MoreWe are all sex offenders now — Happy Halloween.
2008 – One can almost bet that a politician is, right this moment, concocting some new stupid piece of legislation. And he will crow if he manages to pass the new absurdity into law — and the more absurd it is, the more likely it is that it will pass. Consider that we are now about to enter Halloween. It is not a holiday I have ever particularly enjoyed, not even as a child. And my general response has been to ignore it. I don’t wear a costume and I…
Read MoreWithdrawn Plea, Vacated Convictions Included in Ever Expanding Reach of Sex Offender Registration
SORNA, the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, became law in 2006. We recently posted a piece about how the Fifth and Eleventh Circuit Courts of Appeals have expanded the definition of what constitutes a sex offense under the law. These two circuits were following the trend in SORNA cases. In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Kebodeaux said “SORNA’s general changes designed to make more uniform what had been ‘a patchwork of federal and 50 individual state registration systems” which had “’loopholes and deficiencies’ that had…
Read MoreJustice Can Be Served Without Putting Kids Behind Bars
Last month, the Seattle City Council resolved to end the practice of putting young lawbreakers behind bars. Resolution 31614, which passed unanimously, is a commitment to “eliminate the need to detain or incarcerate youth” by cutting off the “school-to-prison pipeline” and finding alternatives to incarceration. Full Article
Read MoreIs sexting the new first base?
A study by the American Academy of Pediatrics found that sexual texts are considered the new normal for young people. Local law enforcement say a growing number are pre-teens. Full Article
Read MoreWe are NEVER safe–but we CAN control our destiny. A cautionary tale from Rhode Island
We at RSOL heard the news on Monday with a sinking despair that could only be topped by the desperation clearly felt by Rhode Island’s Level III registered citizens. In June of 2015, Rhode Island legislators passed a law that would restrict all Level III’s from living within 1000 feet of any school. That’s a 700-foot increase over the previous restriction. The article reported on how registrants were in shock – although most had known this was coming – begging for more time to find a new place to live,…
Read MoreThe Pariahs of America: Reforming Sex Offender Laws
This summer, 19-year-old Zachary Anderson was featured on the front page of the New York Times. Unfortunately, Anderson became a national figure after he was placed onto the sex offender registry — for making a simple mistake. Zachary had consensual sex with a 14-year-old girl, but she had led him to believe she was actually 17. When everyone realized this situation, Anderson turned himself in and served a 90-day jail sentence. In September, The Atlantic reported on yet another story of a young person threatened with the registry. A 17-year-old…
Read MoreOverly broad definition of sex assault ensnares innocent students
As I wrote in my column yesterday, not all accusations of campus sexual assault are black and white. Yet colleges are treating accusations as if the accused were a potential rapist, even when the accusation involves nothing more than requesting social media connections one too many times. Full Article
Read MoreGeneral Comments October 2015
Comments that are not specific to a certain post should go here, for the month of October 2015. Contributions should relate to the cause and goals of this organization and please, keep it courteous and civil.
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