Old Orchard Beach is considering placing restrictions on where sex offenders can live in the seaside, southern Maine community. While such restrictions could make residents and visitors feel safer, registries and limits on where offenders can live and work haven’t been shown to make much difference in their two-decade history. Instead, a heightened focus on treatment and rehabilitation would likely be more effective at reducing the horrific crime of sex abuse. Full Article
Read MoreCategory: General News
‘Right to be forgotten’ threatens free speech
Last year the European Union’s highest court ruled that European citizens have a “right to be forgotten” when it comes to search links to unfavorable Internet posts that are harmful and irrelevant. The court ruled in favor of a Spanish citizen who complained that Google’s links to an old notice about his house being repossessed violated his privacy rights because the issue was now irrelevant. The court ruled that search engines must have a mechanism to allow people to request the removal of links to negative stories, even if the…
Read MoreReport a sex offender on Craigslist, win cash prize (SLO PD)
The San Luis Obispo Police Department and SLO County nonprofit Crime Stoppers have issued a cash reward to a tipster who reported a Craigslist post containing a photograph of a man’s genitalia and a message soliciting “young girls” for sexual acts. Full Article
Read MoreHere’s an IUD–but wait! You can’t have sex yet! [Opinion]
By now virtually everyone in the “sex offender laws reform” camp knows the story of Zack Anderson, the 19 year old Indiana youth who faces imprisonment and sex offender registration for a sexual liaison with a 14 year old who pretended to be 17. His parents have pushed and pushed for publicity on this—good for them!—and they have it. The story made the New York Times, quoting RSOL’s executive director Brenda Jones saying that the public registry was “a conviction on steroids.” Lenore Skenazy wrote a wonderful piece for reason.com…
Read MoreStatutory Rape Laws [Letter to the Editor]
“Teenager’s Jailing Brings a Call to Fix Sex Offender Registries” (front page, July 5), about statutory rape, raises important issues. In a recent review of a decade of statutory rape cases, I found that both the apparatus to police sexual violence against minors, as well as its application against consenting minors, creates legally untenable results that frequently impose legal and extralegal burdens on minors. … In many states, sex with a minor is a felony. Ironically, in most of the cases I’ve researched, the teenagers have admitted that their sexual…
Read MoreThe Sex-Offender Test
How a computerized assessment can help determine the fate of men who’ve been accused of sexually abusing children. Full Article
Read MoreHave Sex-Offender Registries Gone Too Far?
Some 800,000 registered sex offenders can’t live near parks or schools — or sometimes even in the homes of their own parents. Is it time to re-visit sex-offender registries that cast a wide net and often treat juvenile offenders as if they were adults? Full Article
Read MoreThe heat is turned up (one hopes) against sex offender registry statutes
As I’ve noted a number of times here on the VC (most recently here) I’ve gotten involved over the last few years in a series of constitutional challenges to various State “sex offender registry” statutes, which typically impose a series of reporting requirements (e.g., tell your probation officer of every address change, or email address you use) and disabilities (on owning property near a school, say, or on using the Internet) on persons who have been convicted of certain sex-related crimes. Full Article
Read MoreSex Offender Registries And Calls For Reform
For more than 20 years, states have been keeping public lists of convicted sex offenders. These registries are intended to help police and communities monitor the whereabouts of nearly 800,000 pedophiles and others found guilty of sexual crimes. Many people are listed for crimes committed when they were minors and not all are egregious: Sending a lewd text or public urination, for instance, can lead to sex offense charges. We look at sex offense registries, the restrictions for those on the lists and the protections these restrictions can offer communities.…
Read MoreGeneral Comments July 2015
Comments that are not specific to a certain post should go here, for the month of July 2015. Contributions should relate to the cause and goals of this organization and please, keep it courteous and civil.
Read MoreTurning 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
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