RSOL’s SIXTH ANNUAL CONFERENCE will be held inDALLAS, TEXASJULY 16-19(that is Wednesday evening through Saturday afternoon – a change from past years) KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Lenore Skenazy (“Free-Range Kids” blogger and TV personality) Focus this year will be on building stronger advocates for the Cause. We’ll be announcing other speakers, and as always looking for experts and experienced advocates to lead workshops on such topics as lobbying, constitutional arguments, fundraising, organization-building, volunteer management, and other concrete skills needed by advocates.
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Petition: Pardon all people arrested and coviction of Internet Sex Stings
The internet sex stings concerning the solicitation of a minor are unconstitutional and do nothing more than test the will of average law-abiding males with consensual sex. These stings do not protect anyone because teens do not typically search for adults to have sex with on adult sites. These stings are nothing more than entrapment and the courts do not see the damage nor the rights of all involved. These stings are done on adult websites where age verification is required. Law enforcement posing as minors who are posing as…
Read MorePutting the Cart Before the Horse: The Forensic Application of the SRA-FV
As the developers of actuarial instruments such as the Static-99R acknowledge that their original norms inflated the risk of re-offense for sex offenders, a brand-new method is cropping up to preserve those inflated risk estimates in sexually violent predator civil commitment trials. The method introduces a new instrument, the “SRA-FV,” in order to bootstrap special “high-risk” norms on the Static-99R. Curious about the scientific support for this novel approach, I asked forensic psychologist and statistics expert Brian Abbott to weigh in. Full Article
Read MoreAre Americans increasingly taking the law into their own hands?
WASHINGTON, January 8, 2014 — Instances of citizen vigilantism – citizens exercising law enforcement practices without legal authority – have been showing up in the media more frequently. Apparently a growing number of American citizens feel as if their law enforcement officials are not doing enough to prevent crime and do not want to solely rely on the government for their personal security.While violent crime in the U.S. is on the rise again for the first time after 2006 – 1.2 percent increase compared to 2012 after years of steep…
Read MoreThe Bitter Legacy of Adam Walsh
We can all become angry and frustrated with life. Some of us have been known to express that frustration in ways that later, upon reflection, seem foolish or even tragically self-destructive. John Walsh, with the help of a public that cannot have rational conversation about how to intelligently manage sexual criminality, has succeeded in turning his son’s memory into a curse on a nation. Full Article
Read MoreGeneral Comments January 2014
Comments that are not specific to a certain post should go here, for the month of January 2014. Contributions should relate to the cause and goals of this organization and please, keep it courteous and civil.
Read MoreOne in four GPS devices on criminals in L.A. County were faulty
One in every four GPS devices used to track serious criminals released in Los Angeles County has proved to be faulty, according to a probation department audit — allowing violent felons to roam undetected for days or, in some cases, weeks. The problems included batteries that wouldn’t hold a charge and defective electronics that generated excessive false alarms. One felon, county officials said, had to have his GPS monitor replaced 11 times over a year; for five days during the 45-day audit period, his whereabouts were unknown. Full Article Related: Audit:…
Read MorePedophilia Is A Sexual Orientation, Canadian Experts Say
Doctors in Canada say pedophilia is a sexual orientation that is partly wired in the brain and can’t be changed. After a decade of research, Dr. James Cantor and his team at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health say some people are born pedophiles, meaning they are primarily sexually attracted to children. Researchers say one to five percent of all men are pedophiles. Full Article
Read MoreGangsters to Greyhounds: The Past, Present and Future of Offender Registration
Contrary to popular belief, offender registries are not a recent phenomenon. Offender registries are government-controlled systems that track the movements and other activities of certain persons with criminal convictions. While today they are most commonly used for sex offenders, registries have been adopted since the 1930s to regulate persons convicted of a wide variety of offenses including embezzlement, arson, and drug crimes. Early registries were widely criticized as ineffective and overly punitive, and many were eliminated through litigation or legislative repeals. Others simply fell into disuse over the course of the 20th century. Now, there is a growing…
Read MoreNew Google Glass App Can Recognize Up to 450,000 Sex Offenders so You Know When to Run
Though Google has banned facial recognition from Google Glass, one company is throwing that to the wind and is doing their own, anyway—and it’s specializing in sex offenders. NameTag, the Nevada-based company, has developed a Glass app that can recognize up to 450,000 sex offenders, and pulls its data from FacialNetwork.com. “I believe that this will make online dating and offline social interactions much safer and give us a far better understanding of the people around us,” said NameTag’s founder Kevin Tussy. “It’s much easier to meet interesting new people…
Read MoreLawmakers, Credit Card Companies Take Aim at Mug Shot Websites
For people who find their faces splashed across mug shot websites, even if they were later found innocent of the crimes, it can haunt them for the rest of their lives. Now, lawmakers and even credit card companies are stepping in to help protect people from further humiliation. Owners of mug shot websites will post the photos released by police departments with the person’s name and information. Many then make money by charging people, sometimes hundreds of dollars, to have a mug shot removed. Dozens of these sites exist and can…
Read MoreWhere Is the Outcry in a World Gone Mad?
I am old enough to remember the world before it went mad. I read about a child–a baby, really, six–suspended from school for sexual harassment after he kissed a little girl in his class on the hand. Yes, he had apparently given her attention before, and some indications are it was unwanted attention, and correction of behavior may well have been warranted, but SEXUAL HARASSMENT at six? The school has apparently removed that specific language from his record after an outcry that swept almost from shore to shore. Thank God we are…
Read MoreGuilty Until Proven Innocent
One evening in February 2012, Vassar College students Xialou “Peter” Yu and Mary Claire Walker, both members of the school’s rowing team, had a few drinks at a team gathering and left together as the party wound down. After a make-out session at a campus nightspot, they went to Yu’s dorm room, where, by his account, they had sex that was not only consensual but mainly initiated by Walker, who reassured her inexperienced partner that she knew what to do. At some point, Yu’s roommate walked in on them; after…
Read MoreSymposium: Predators, Porn & the Law
The growing enactment of sex offender restrictions has been one of the most notable developments in criminal law in recent decades. Thus far, courts across the country have been relatively complacent in allowing legislatures to test the limits of various civil liberties. The Ex Post Facto Clause has been among the first constitutional victims of these new laws. Whereas the Clause was once construed as a substantive right protecting citizens against vindictive or arbitrary legislative actions often based upon the hysteria of the moment, it has become a hollow shell…
Read MoreSenator’s chief of staff arrested on child porn-related charges, authorities say
(CNN) – U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander’s chief of staff was arrested on Wednesday on child pornography related charges, federal prosecutors said. ____ ____ ____, 35, was held pending a planned hearing on Thursday in federal court in Washington, according to a Justice Department statement. “I am stunned, surprised and disappointed by what I have learned,” Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, said in a statement earlier in the day, noting that his office is cooperating in the investigation. Full Article
Read MorePolice overkill has become the default American policy
If all you’ve got is a hammer, then everything starts to look like a nail. And if police and prosecutors are your only tool, sooner or later everything and everyone will be treated as criminal. This is increasingly the American way of life, a path that involves “solving” social problems (and even some non-problems) by throwing cops at them, with generally disastrous results. Wall-to-wall criminal law encroaches ever more on everyday life as police power is applied in ways that would have been unthinkable just a generation ago. Full Article
Read MoreYet another effective review of the child porn restitution challenges facing SCOTUS
I have already blogged some previews of the fascinating Supreme Court case of Paroline v. United States even though oral argument is still six weeks away because the issues strike me as so interesting and dynamic. (The parties’ main briefs and now lots of amicus briefs are now available via SCOTUSblog on this Paroline case page.) And I suspect we are seeing other notable coverage of the case already because lots of others are also intrigued by the issues and arguments now before the Justices in Paroline. The latest example comes via Emily Bazelon here at Slate, and it is…
Read MoreThe Vigilante of Clallam County
On a morning last fall, Patrick Drum sat quietly in his black and white striped uniform and handcuffs as he awaited his fate. The sleeves of his top were short enough to reveal a tattoo reading “Win Some” on his right forearm and one reading “Lose Sum” on the left. From the court’s gallery where dozens of reporters and community members sat, he seemed barely to move as the families of the two men he had killed four months before came forward to speak. Full Article
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