A group of Harvard Law School professors condemned the university’s new sexual misconduct policy, saying it violates the rights of the accused and “departs dramatically” from current law. Full Article
Read MoreCategory: General News
Don’t Water Down This Law [Editorial]
Along with big-time drug dealers and terrorists, registered sex offenders may constitute the most odious group of individuals with which society must contend. But despite the disdain most people feel for them, a movement is afoot to strike down local ordinances that go beyond the limits of California law, which restricts only those sex offenders who are on parole and whose victims were under age 14 from visiting public parks without their parole officer’s OK. Full Editorial
Read MoreIn defense of John Grisham
The Internet is enjoying a good piling on right now at the expense of author John Grisham. In an interview with the Telegraph, Grisham talked about over-incarceration in America. As part of that discussion, Grisham also mentioned that he thinks the laws and sentences for viewing or possessing child pornography are excessive. Cue the Internet outrage machine. Full Article
Read MoreWas John Grisham Right? How Child Porn Laws Fuel Mass Incarceration
Popular author John Grisham made headlines this week for speaking out against harsh sentences for child pornography, citing the recent prosecution of a friend for downloading child porn. His friend was sentenced to three years in prison for downloading pornography that claimed to depict 16-year-old females. Predictably there was an immediate backlash, with people accusing him of sympathizing with dangerous pedophiles and even going so far as to find his views an implicit admission of his own child porn fetish. Disappointingly, Grisham then backtracked within hours and entirely took back…
Read MoreJohn Grisham: men who watch child porn are not all paedophiles [updated]
America is wrongly jailing far too many people for viewing child pornography, the best-selling legal novelist John Grisham has told The Telegraph in a wide-ranging attack on the US judicial system and the country’s sky-high prison rates. Mr Grisham, 59, argued America’s judges had “gone crazy” over the past 30 years, locking up far too many people, from white collar criminals like the businesswoman Martha Stewart, to black teenagers on minor drugs charges and – he added – those who had viewed child porn online. Full Article Update: A STATEMENT FROM…
Read MoreWe Need to Make It Easier for Pedophiles To Seek Help
All too often, our attention, resources and shock are focused on what happens after a crime is committed—we need to be asking how we can prevent child sex abuse. Full Op-Ed Piece
Read MoreTricks-Not-Treats: Halloween Predator Panic Laws
I remember coming home from “trick-or-treating” as a child and turning over my bag of candy to my mother for inspection. After all, one of our neighbors could have slipped rat poison in our Tootsie Rolls or razor blades in our apples. Aside from certain choice pieces missing as a result of mom’s ingestion… er, “inspection” process, my mother never found any razor blades or rat poison in our Halloween Candy. Despite virtually no confirmed cases of Halloween poisonings, the myth has remained a constant in our culture [1]. Full…
Read MoreMistaking My Dad for a Predator
My late father’s occupation, and love, was teaching mobility to blind students. He was employed by the school district and taught blind, k-12 students how to move about in the community. The “classroom” consisted of busy intersections, the mall, the post office, and many other places. He had been doing the work for 35 years and had seen society change so much. Full Article
Read MorePedophilia: A Disorder, Not a Crime (Opinion)
THINK back to your first childhood crush. Maybe it was a classmate or a friend next door. Most likely, through school and into adulthood, your affections continued to focus on others in your approximate age group. But imagine if they did not. By some estimates, 1 percent of the male population continues, long after puberty, to find themselves attracted to prepubescent children. These people are living with pedophilia, a sexual attraction to prepubescents that often constitutes a mental illness. Unfortunately, our laws are failing them and, consequently, ignoring opportunities to…
Read MoreOur criminal justice system is making it really hard for people to find jobs
Although the American economy has rebounded from the Great Recession, many people still struggle to find jobs. Politicians blame taxation, trade policies and automation. Some have even singled out the current welfare system. Often overlooked? The many punitive effects of the criminal justice system. Nearly 65 million Americans have a criminal record. This black mark carries with it potentially mandatory restrictions on jobs, housing, education and public assistance. As detailed in a National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers study, the federal government and every state imposes some sort of “collateral…
Read MoreCITY OF COMMERCE ORDINANCE CHALLENGED IN FEDERAL DISTRICT COURT
A sex offender ordinance adopted by the City of Commerce has been challenged in a lawsuit filed today in federal district court on behalf of a registered sex offender (“registered citizen”). “This lawsuit was filed because the City of Commerce prohibits registered citizens from visiting the public library, parks, bus stops and commercial establishments that provide a children’s playground,” stated California RSOL president Janice Bellucci. “The City has failed to revise or repeal its ordinance despite recent court decisions that determined such ordinances are preempted by state law.” This is…
Read MoreGeneral Comments October 2014
Comments that are not specific to a certain post should go here, for the month of October 2014. Contributions should relate to the cause and goals of this organization and please, keep it courteous and civil.
Read MoreDo Residency Bans Drive Sex Offenders Underground?
Early last year, Los Angeles set aside a sliver of land in its Harbor Gateway neighborhood for the city’s newest and smallest park: two jungle gyms on a fifth of an acre. The project was more than just an effort to increase the city’s green space. City Council members made clear that one of the park’s principal reasons for existence was to force 33 people on the California sex offender registry who were living in a nearby apartment building to move out. State law bars those on its registry from living within…
Read MoreJustice Department Announces $17.6 Million in Awards to Support Sex Offender Registration, Intervention and Treatment
The U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Office of Justice Programs (OJP) today announced more than $17 million in Fiscal Year 2014 grant assistance for states, territories, tribal governments and other entities to use to implement, enhance and maintain sex offender programming throughout the United States. “These awards provide a wide range of assistance to help states, communities, tribes, and even institutions of higher learning manage sex offenders,” said Dawn Doran, Acting Director of the Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering and Tracking (SMART). “They will give jurisdictions the tools…
Read MoreWhat I Want You To Know About Being The Sister Of A Convicted Sex Offender
I used to believe in monsters. Until my brother became one. Three years ago, I got a call that my brother had been arrested for molesting his step-daughter. Certain there had been a mistake, I was obviously dumbfounded. Until he confessed. Through slurred words, drunken ramblings and tears that, yes, he had, and on more than one occasion. The arrest was just the very first drop in a roller coaster of emotion. This event has single handedly shaken my world like nothing before it. It has transformed my family in…
Read MoreEver have Your Fortune Told.
Human beings have the habit of wanting somebody to be omniscient In powers to predict the future. When you think of a fortuneteller you think of a Gypsy type woman in a dark room with a turbine on her head in front of a crystal ball. We know in our hearts that these people are charlatans, whether they use a crystal ball, tarot cards, numerology or our astrological signs. Why then should we put any more faith into forensic psychologists who disregard the limits of science by overstating the accuracy…
Read MoreCT: Norm Pattis – Courts create special rules for sexual misconduct cases
A future historian might one day write the following of our time: “Despite a generally permissive culture in which sexually suggestive photographs were used to advertise products ranging from toothpaste to cars, 21st century Americans nonetheless harbored draconian and puritanical laws involving sexual misconduct. It is almost as though they were afraid of the very desire they relied upon to entertain and to titillate themselves.” Full Op-Ed Piece
Read MoreJurors Beware: State Crime Labs Incentivized to Help Falsely Convict
Many jurors are led to believe that evidence and results provided to them through state crime labs are objective data on which they can rely in determining the fate of the defendant. Earlier this year, we discussed the crime lab scandal at the Hinton Lab in Jamaica Plain in Massachusetts, in which a chemist who was socially wooed by prosecutors falsified lab results in favor of conviction for years, calling 40,000 convictions into question. Jurors should be aware that there are even stronger incentives for state crime labs across the country to…
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