How are sex offenders different from you and me? They just are, says a college professor who not only has multiple degrees in psychology and sociology, but also worked for 30 years in Ohio’s prison system. Full Article Related Bob Dyer: Are sex offenders ruined for life? Bob Dyer: Sex-crime punishments incredibly inconsistent
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These 10 Questions Can Mean Life Behind Bars
A short checklist called the Static-99 weighs facts about a sex offender’s past in order to predict the likelihood of future crimes. Many legal and scientific experts worry that the way the test is often used — to make high-stakes decisions about an individual’s liberty — is critically flawed. Full Article
Read MoreFacing the system: Former UB student struggles as Level 2 sex offender
____ ____ just had heart surgery and was lying on a mattress set up in his living room when officers from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security brought his son Daniel through the front door. His damaged heart raced. What had happened to his shy, socially awkward son? Had he done something or had something been done to him? Full Article
Read MoreBob Dyer: Sex-crime punishments incredibly inconsistent
We seem to have no trouble differentiating between a minor fistfight and an assault with a crowbar that turns someone into a vegetable. But for some reason, we tend to lump all sex crimes into one big category. Full Opinion Piece
Read MoreGeneral Comments May 2015
Comments that are not specific to a certain post should go here, for the month of May 2015. Contributions should relate to the cause and goals of this organization and please, keep it courteous and civil.
Read MorePrediction of dangerousness, length of treatment, and psychological damage
As many of you might realize from my writing that I have a real problem with the pseudoscience of psychiatry and psychology. Especially when it comes to constitutional values and allowing the government to control the thinking of the populace through the questionable methods of mind control, which is in fact, what behavior modification programs are. It’s one thing if someone goes into these programs of their own free will, because they want to make changes. It’s another thing for the government to force them into them. This is especially…
Read MoreWhy You Can’t Trust the Nation’s Frequently Inaccurate, Terribly Organized Sex Offender Registries
Just in time for the all-important May sweeps period, a local television anchor somewhere is bound to open a newscast with a question specifically designed to simultaneously titillate and scare the crap out of you. “Does a pedophile live on your block?” the menacing voice will intone. “Are your children safe?” The answer, invariably, is “probably” and “probably not.” If you tune in, you’ll confront a terrifying graphic that the station’s self-glorifying “investigative reporter” has cooked up showing a map crowded with dots. Each one, you’ll be told, represents a…
Read MoreBob Dyer: Are sex offenders ruined for life?
Well, here’s something new. How about an 85-year-old woman from a small Wayne County town rushing to the defense of a convicted sex offender she doesn’t even know? And how about that same sex offender agreeing to sit down for an interview with the Beacon Journal just days after a thorough public shaming? Full OpEd Piece
Read MoreSecondhand Pariah: A Plea for Empathy from the Girlfriend of a Sex Offender
One morning in January of 2014 my life changed forever. Out of nowhere, seven highly militarized FBI agents wielding guns and a search warrant raided the home that I shared with my partner. Barely awake, I couldn’t believe what was happening. Then we discovered his charges: possession and distribution of child pornography. He is not a monster; he is not even attracted to children. While he was on a torrent site looking for music to download, he came across pornographic images that he thought he’d check out, against his better…
Read MoreHow We Will Take Down Public Registries (RSOL)
Although many of our constituents would love to see some sort of silver bullet to end public sex offender registries once and for all, realistically, this is a long-term war. It will take many more battles across many different fronts to win. Those fronts include our legal system, our legislatures, and the general public. It also includes… ourselves! EVERY battlefront is important, and EVERY soldier is needed The Legal Front We have many legal “soldiers” out there challenging various aspects of public registration, sometimes for individuals, sometimes for entire groups.…
Read MoreSenate passes amendment closing military sex offender loophole
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Senate voted Wednesday to close a legal loophole that enables military sex offenders to evade registering with civilian law enforcement. On a 98-0 vote, Senators adopted the Military Sex Offender Reporting Act as an amendment to the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act, which the Senate passed later Wednesday afternoon. Full Article
Read MoreLA: AL sex offender files suit challenging LA registry laws in federal court
A New Orleans man convicted in Alabama of transmitting obscene material to a minor is challenging the constitutionality of recent Louisiana sex offender registration statutes in federal court. … The suit claims two state laws illegally intend to dissuade convicted sex offenders in other states from moving to Louisiana. Full Article
Read MoreWomen Against Registry (W.A.R) Lawsuit
The WAR (Women Against Registry) Admin Team AND our Class Action Core Team are proud to announce that we will begin work this week on two law suits to be filed at the federal level this fall. That’s right – two of them! The first is on behalf of registered sex offenders and the second on behalf of families and friends of registered sex offenders. The challenges will be against SORNA and the impact to the registrant families, which has been verified and documented by researchers. Also, the public impact…
Read MoreOne Survivor’s Crusade Reveals a Plague of Errors in Nation’s Sex Offender Registries
Estimates of the number of entries with crucial mistakes run into the tens of thousands. One man—and pretty much only one man—is trying to fix them. Full Article
Read MoreSex offenders registry may put man back in prison for offence committed as child
Josh Gravens is trying to figure out how he’s going to tell his five children that he might be going to prison for a very long time. Gravens, 28, is a one-time convicted juvenile sex offender facing a possible 25 years to life sentence for a felony related to a crime he committed in his childhood, and for which he has been to prison already. The current charge is not a repeat sex offence; he just failed to correctly update his personal information with his local police department in Texas.…
Read MoreDatabase Infamia: Exit from the Sex Offender Registries
Since originating in the early-mid 1990s, sex offender registration and community notification laws have swept the country, now affecting the lives of hundreds of thousands of individuals. The laws require that individuals provide, update and at least annually verify personal identifying information, which governments make publicly available via the Internet and other means. Typically retrospective in their reach, and sweeping in their breadth, the laws can target individuals for their lifetimes, imposing multiple hardships. This symposium contribution surveys the extent to which states now afford registrants an opportunity to secure…
Read MoreChris Hansen using crowd funding to get back to catching predators
Chris Hansen is going back into the predator-catching business, but this time he’s asking his fans to help him. The veteran network news correspondent, known for the “Dateline NBC” investigative series “To Catch a Predator,” is turning to crowd funding to support a new hidden-camera operation to capture men who use the Internet to find underage sex partners. The results will become the basis for a new series, “Hansen vs. Predator.” Full Article
Read MorePunitive Effect of Retroactive Application of Sex Offender Registration Requirements
Typically, the courts find that the retroactive application of sex offender registration statutes does not violate the Ex Post Facto Clause, because such statutes are found to be nonpunitive. See, e.g., Smith v. Doe, 538 U.S. 84 (2003). Recently, however, the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine held that particular amended provisions of the Maine Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (“SORNA”), as applied to Doe, the registrant in the case before it, Doe v. Anderson, 2015 ME 3, 2015 WL 149030 (not yet released for publication), were punitive and that…
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