“If we had been aware of his record,” says Maureen Kanka, “my daughter would be alive today.” She is referring, in a statement on the website of an anti-crime group she founded, to Jesse Timmendequas, a neighbor in Hamilton Township, New Jersey, who raped and murdered her 7-year-old daughter, Megan, in 1994. Three months later, the state legislature enacted Megan’s Law, which created a publicly accessible registry of sex offenders. Full Article
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NY: Niagara County Sex-Offender Laws May Be Repealed
The Niagara County Legislature has scheduled a public meeting for October 2nd at 6:45pm to discuss plans to repeal the county’s tough sex-offender law. The move comes after recent court rulings said local laws cannot be more strict than the one enacted by New York State. Full Article
Read MoreNM: Repeat Sex Offender Numbers Low in County
Every Halloween night, between 30 and 50 Bernalillo County Sheriff’s deputies spread out all over the county and knock on the doors of registered sex offenders, as a reminder that the county knows where they are and what they’re doing. The Halloween blitz is just one of the tactics the Sheriff’s Department says could be behind the county’s remarkably low sex offender re-offense, or recidivism, rate. Of more than 1,200 registered offenders that include sex offenders as far back as the 1970s, the sex offender registry unit has identified only…
Read MoreMedia from RSOL Conference in NM
A collection of media reports about the National RSOL Conference. Quote from one attendee: “The media coverage, which began with great concerns and some misunderstandings about our purpose, changed to fair, balanced, and very favorable reporting and stories, primarily because they did what all good journalists and reporters do; they came; they listened; they interviewed; they asked questions; they recorded and filmed. We thank them for their kindnesses.” http://www.krqe.com/dpp/news/local/central/sex-offender-conference-begins-dr http://www.koat.com/news/new-mexico/albuquerque/Conference-on-sex-offender-laws-passes-without-incident/-/9153728/16546406/-/9bwnmoz/-/index.html?absolute=true http://www.krqe.com/dpp/news/crime/sex-offender-law-reformers-draw-warning http://abcnewsradioonline.com/albuquerque/conference-to-reform-the-sex-offender-registry-ends-without.html http://www.kob.com/article/stories/S2753195.shtml?cat=500 http://www.krqe.com/dpp/news/crime/apd-to-hold-sex-offender–town-hall http://www.abqjournal.com/main/2012/09/04/abqnewsseeker/city-to-host-town-hall-meeting-over-sex-offender-conference-safety-concerns.html http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/e88c4f828e07493182f620adc7c1ab20/NM–Sex-Offender-Conference http://www.kob.com/article/stories/S2751352.shtml?cat=500 http://www.abqjournal.com/main/2012/09/05/news/meeting-draws-negative-attention.html APD to hold sex offender town hall9.4.12.flv <http://db.tt/ehxRyY8z> Sex offender conference opens…
Read MoreFBI: Crimes Against Children Spotlight – Child Abductions
Known Relationships Are the Greater Danger – According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), every year, more than 200,000 children are abducted by family members. An additional 58,000 are taken by nonrelatives with primarily sexual motives. However, only 115 reported abductions represent cases in which strangers abduct and kill children, hold them for ransom, or take them with the intention to keep.1 Media news outlets have portrayed that abductors primarily consist of strangers or registered sex offenders (RSO), which has proven invalid in the past 2…
Read MoreWA: Man who killed sex offenders gets life
PORT ANGELES — A man who gunned down two sex offenders on the Olympic Peninsula was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison without possibility of parole, but a judge warned those sympathetic to his cause to back off. Patrick Drum, 34, shot Gary Lee Blanton, 28, on June 2 at a home Drum was renting near Sequim. Blanton was renting a room in the home. Drum then drove to the home of Jerry Wayne Ray, 57, in the Agnew area near Port Angeles where Ray was killed the next morning. Full Article
Read MoreYou can request to have your address removed from online mapping services
Did you know you can request your home address be removed from Google, Yahoo, Bing and other mapping services? Well you can, and we recommend you do it for your own safety, especially if you are wearing the “sex offender” label. Many online registries use these mapping services, and if you request yours be removed, then it will also be unmappable from the many registries as well. Below is a link for Google Maps, but other mapping services have a similar process: http://tinyurl.com/9tsedws Instructions
Read MoreCommentary
click image for larger view © S. Meyers, Sunday Maine Telegram
Read MoreMN: Study finds state program for sex offenders effective
Sex offenders can stir up a lot of fear and anger in a community. But an innovative program from the Department of Corrections (DOC) is preventing new crimes by matching a sex offender about to be released from prison with a group of four to seven volunteer mentors, according to a study that will be published in Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment. Full Article Also see here.
Read MoreFL: South Fort Myers apartment complex welcomes sex offenders with nowhere to go
Fairfield Apartments sits in a quiet neighborhood in south Fort Myers. On a recent afternoon, children played on well-groomed lawns as a boy rode his bicycle down a winding street dotted with palm trees. But Julie Evans has a message for her neighbors in the apartment complex down the street. “I got a gun,” she said. “And I will use that gun.” There are 22 registered sex offenders living at Fairfield Apartments and 12 in surrounding homes. Despite hostility from neighbors such as Evans, this neighborhood has offered the warmest…
Read MoreNH: Sex offender residency case dropped
The city of Franklin has dropped its legal fight to overturn a January court decision that found its ordinance restricting the residency of sex offenders unconstitutional. But the city will try other ways to keep sex offenders from living near schools, parks and other places children congregate, Mayor Ken Merrifield said. The city’s appeal was scheduled to be heard by the state Supreme Court next week. “We have conferred with our legal counsel, and we really had only filed the appeal to keep that door open,” Merrifield said. “It really…
Read MoreME: Suit says Maine’s sex offender registry is unfair
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Fifteen people challenging the constitutionality of the retroactive nature of Maine’s sex offender registry have gone before the state’s highest court. A lawyer for most of the men listed as John Doe in court papers told the Supreme Judicial Court on Thursday they were required to register long after they had served time and gone years without any new offenses. He says they weren’t given hearings or allowed to argue that they were no longer dangerous. He said some of them went decades with no new offenses. Full Article…
Read MoreSex Offenders React To Tougher Residency Restrictions
Local sex offenders said they are fed up with yet another round of proposed restrictions on where they can live. The ordinance being drafted by the Kern County Board of Supervisors would enhance Jessica’s Law, passed in 2006, and would limit newly paroled sex offenders from living near school bus stops, churches, day care facilities, and other places where children gather. The ordinance would apply to all offenders regardless of whether they committed crimes against children. Full Article
Read MoreSex offender residential requirements unconstitutional, court rules [updated with Court Decision]
A blanket restriction prohibiting sex offenders from living near places where children congregate is unconstitutional, a state appellate court ruled Wednesday, throwing a surprising wrench into a popular law. The decision by Division 1 of the 4th District Court of Appeal concerns the 2006 ballot measure known as Jessica’s Law, which barred registered sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park. The court said the across-the-board enforcement of that restriction as a condition of parole violates offenders’ constitutional rights. While the decision applies specifically to San…
Read MoreA Letter to the Lancaster City Council
This was sent to the Lancaster City Council before the City Council Meeting on September 11: It has recently come to my attention that the city of Lancaster wishes to prohibit registered sex offenders from entering their town. It seems that excluding registered sex offenders is one of those bipartisan issues that everyone can agree on. I frankly don’t understand why. Liberals and progressives who are worth their salt have at least heard of Immanuel Kant. Kant is widely considered the forerunner of any serious liberal system of ethics. A…
Read More“Gary Blanton Jr. – Beyond The Label” Sneak Preview
Sneak Preview of the upcoming independent film project tentatively titled “Gary Blanton Jr.- Beyond The Label.” On June 2, 2012, a career criminal named Patrick Drum killed two people and planned to kill a third along the Washington state peninsula. Because his victims were listed on the state’s public “sex offender” registry, Drum was labeled a “hero” by many in the community. But they judged the victims on the label alone. Link
Read MoreLancaster furthers restrictions on registered sex offenders [with Video]
LANCASTER – The Lancaster City Council Tuesday approved an ordinance that imposes restrictions and regulations upon registered sex offenders in addition to those imposed under state law. Specifically, the new ordinance prohibits registered sex offenders: From living within 2,000 feet of any school, park or day care center. From living at a residence or hotel/motel/inn where another registered sex offender already lives (with a few exceptions). From being within 300 feet of a school, day care, park or bus stop near a park, playground, public library, public museum, crisis center…
Read MoreSex offender arrested in attempt to meet girl, 13
Agents with the Orange County Child Exploitation Task Force arrested a registered sex offender suspected of arranging a meeting at the Huntington Beach Pier with an undercover officer he believed to be a minor, authorities said Monday. The arrest came after an investigation into a teen chat room that allows users to have private webcam chats, according to a written release from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. Full Article
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