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Read MoreCategory: General News
Turning Teens who Have Sex into “Sex Offenders” — The Story Continues
The front page of today’s New York Times features the case against Zach Anderson, a case you read about here three weeks ago. Zach is the 19 year old who met a young woman, 17, on “Hot or Not,” had sex with her once and now sits in jail. When he gets out next week he will spend the rest of his life on the Sex Offender Registry, and the next five years forbidden to go online. Full Article
Read MoreVA: Sex offenders held long after sentence
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – Having already served their sentences, hundreds of Virginia sex offenders are held behind bars for months – some for years – while waiting to see whether they’ll be sent to a psychiatric center indefinitely, an Associated Press review has found. Full Article
Read MoreTeenager’s Jailing Brings a Call to Fix Sex Offender Registries
ELKHART, Ind. — Until one day in December, Zachery Anderson was a typical 19-year-old in a small Midwestern city. He studied computer science at the local community college. He lived with his parents and two younger brothers in a sun-filled home on the St. Joseph River, where framed family photos hang from the walls and a pontoon boat is docked outside. Full Article
Read MoreReasonable People—Your Opinions Needed
Cruel and unusual punishment has no exact definition in law—a number of state constitutions describe it as punishment that’s so disproportionate to the crime committed that it shocks the conscience of a reasonable person. Our notions of it have changed over time and vary across cultures. In essence, it’s something like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s description of hard-core pornography–he couldn’t define it, he said, but “I know it when I see it.” A court case in Ohio offers a test of whether we think putting those convicted of any…
Read MoreMarried to a sex offender
Traumatized by their husband’s crimes and ostracized by friends and family “secondary victims” struggle to cope with shattered lives … Full Article
Read MoreReformed. . . or not?
Contrary to popular belief, convicted sex offenders typically don’t commit those acts again but it’s difficult to determine who will and who won’t. The idea of a sexual predator stalking our neighborhoods like hunters preying on innocent women and children is frightening. Certainly those predators exist: serial rapists and pedophiles who’ve assaulted numerous victims over months and years, even after prison sentences and convictions. They are the reason sex offender registration laws exist. But that perception of sex offenders casts a wide net over thousands of men and women in…
Read MoreThe Hunt for Child Sex Abusers Is Happening in the Wrong Places
It’s late March when Lauren Book and I head into the bowels of the Florida Civil Commitment Center (FCCC), armed with loose-leaf paper, pencils and the knowledge that we are about to sit face to face with three of the most dangerous sexually violent predators in the state. Full Article
Read MorePeople 2015: Josh Gravens, Advocate for Outcasts
In this week’s Dallas Observer we profile 20 of the metro area’s most interesting characters, with new portraits of each from local photographer Can Turkyilmaz. As a rule, convicted sex offenders don’t get much empathy, and usually for good reason. Often, cities don’t think twice about creating laws that restrict sex offenders’ lives to the point that they become unlivable. Full Article
Read MoreFederal court assumes jurisdiction over visa non-issuance
PHILADELPHIA – A motion to dismiss filed on behalf of U.S. Immigration Services and the Department of Justice regarding the non-issuance of an immigrant visa for lack of subject matter jurisdiction was denied in federal court on June 10. Judge John R. Padova, of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, ruled the Court is within its right to assume jurisdiction over the litigation regarding the denial of an immigrant visa for the wife of Phoenixville resident ____ ____, a convicted sex offender. Full Article
Read MoreThe Public Sex Offender Registry–A Perpetual Shame
Amanda Hess has written a brilliant piece about the re-emergence of public shaming using the tragic example of a father’s punishment of his daughter. For disobeying a house rule, he filmed his cutting off her hair, chastising her all the while, and posted it online. She was only 13, unable to deal with the humiliation, and she killed herself. Full Blog Post
Read More‘Frightening and High’: The Frightening Sloppiness of the High Court’s Sex Crime Statistics
This brief essay reveals that the sources relied upon by the Supreme Court in Smith v. Doe, a heavily cited constitutional decision on sex offender registries, in fact provide no support at all for the facts about sex offender re-offense rates that the Court treats as central to its constitutional conclusions. This misreading of the social science was abetted in part by the Solicitor General’s misrepresentations in the amicus brief it filed in this case. The false “facts” stated in the opinion have since been relied upon repeatedly by other…
Read MoreJanice’s Journal: Carson Court of Opinion to Convene on July 21
The City of Carson has taken a stance. It has “declared war” against registered citizens. That war includes both presence restrictions which prohibit all registered citizens from visiting both public and private places as well as residency restrictions which prohibit all registered citizens from living in a significant part of that city. The Carson City Council knows that its laws do not comply with recent state appellate court decisions which are based upon interpretations of the state and federal constitutions. Members of that Council have stated publicly, however, that they…
Read MoreCivil Regulation? The Registry & its Components are in fact Punishment.
The first thing that must be pointed out is that the sex offender registry came about because of the myth that people convicted of sexual related crimes were always going to reoffend. Some of the numbers that were tossed around at the time that the registry was conceived were 60 to 80% would reoffend. The registry was not originally designed to protect anyone, it was simply there to aid law-enforcement so that they would have suspects to look at because of this belief of high reoffense rates. Full Article by…
Read MoreHow Josh Duggar and Dennis Hastert could change the laws on sex crimes
Two days after former House speaker Dennis Hastert’s (R-Ill.) indictment became public, a small group of sexual abuse survivors gathered at Federal Plaza in downtown Chicago. The group, made up of members of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), was there say thank you to prosecutors for exposing Hastert’s alleged crimes. Full Article
Read MoreLet’s Stamp Out Perversion
The civil commitment of sexually violent predators (SVPs) is designed to protect society’s vulnerable from a group of perverts and monsters. What could be wrong with this? Only everything. Full Article
Read MoreConsenting Juveniles™ Research Study Announced
At the 47th annual conference of the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists (AASECT) on Saturday, Dr. Marshall Burns, president of SOL Research, presented preliminary results of a new project underway. “Soon after we first posted results of our research on sex laws back in 2007,” said Burns, “we began to be contacted by individuals complaining of being treated as abuse victims when they disagree.” He describes a call from a young woman he calls Amber. “She asked if was okay for her to contact her boyfriend in…
Read MoreWhy online harassment is still ruining lives — and how we can stop it
In 2010, ____ ____ threatened his estranged wife by writing rants on his Facebook page such as, “There’s one way to love you but a thousand ways to kill you. I’m not going to rest until your body is a mess, soaked in blood and dying from all the little cuts.” For making these threats, a federal district court sentenced him to more than three years in prison. Full Article
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