Category: General News

A federal appeals court said Indiana’s sex and violent offender registry unconstitutionally violated the due process rights of thousands of registrants because it did not give them a chance to fix mistakes. The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago rejected arguments by the Indiana Department of Correction that it was not directly responsible for errors in the registry, which contains about 24,000 names, and that registrants had other procedures to challenge mistakes. Full Article

by Marshall Burns, Ph.D.  —  Sex offender. The words strike fear in the heart and soul like no others. But who is it that wears this label? I wanted to know. So I set out to drive around the United States to meet people on the registry and hear their stories. My purpose was to gain an understanding of what it means to be a registered person in 21st-Century America. In this report, I share some of what I saw and learned on the trip. Full Article

FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin – … Media news outlets have portrayed that abductors primarily consist of strangers or registered sex offenders (RSO), which has proven invalid in the past 2 fiscal years (FY). When a child is reported missing, members of the media advise parents to check sex offender registries to prevent their child from possible abduction or sexual victimization. However, FBI reporting indicates that RSOs are a minimal part of the problem. In FY 2009, an RSO was the abductor in 2 percent of child abduction cases; in FY…

An Ohio Appeals court has held, again, that Ohio’s Adam Walsh Act do not apply to individuals who were originally sentenced under Megan’s Law. The court, however, is awaiting further guidance from the Ohio Supreme Court. The case is State v. Davis, 2012-Ohio-3570. In 2004, the Defendant pled guilty to sexual battery and gross sexual imposition. He was sentenced to five years probation. Pursuant to Ohio’s Megan’s Law, the sex offender registration system then in effect, the Defendant was classified as a sexually oriented offender, the least restrictive classification. As…

The state credits community-based treatment efforts, designed to deliver more effective rehabilitation and save money, for a 17 percent decline in juvenile sex offenders over a three-year period. The Ohio Department of Youth Services reported that 85 juvenile offenders were admitted into DYS in 2011 for sex-related crimes that included rape, gross sexual imposition and sexual battery. Year-to-date figures in 2012 suggest a 48 percent decrease in these type of offenders statewide. Full Article

GRAND MARAIS, Minn. — A sex offender opened fire in a northern Minnesota courthouse shortly after being convicted Thursday, injuring three people — including the local prosecutor, authorities said. The suspect, Daniel Schlienz, 42, was taken into custody after the shootings Thursday afternoon at the Cook County Courthouse in Grand Marais, a remote town near the Canadian border, State Public Safety spokesman Doug Neville said. Schlienz, who had been on trial earlier Thursday on sexual misconduct charges. His father told the Duluth News Tribune that he went to the courthouse…

Some Mesa parents are outraged that a convicted sex offender lives near their children’s elementary school. What makes them angrier is that there is nothing they can do about it. The parents gathered at Superstition Springs Elementary School on Wednesday to pass out fliers to others dropping their children off on the first day of school. The fliers contain a picture of convicted sex offender Aaron Peeples and a warning that he lives nearby. Full Article

According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), there are about 500,000 convicted sex offenders across the country who do what they’re supposed to do: register themselves with the local police in their communities. But, according to NCMEC, about a 1 in 5 convicted sex offenders do not register themselves.   And local authorities don’t always have the manpower or resources to go looking for every one of them.  In response, the U.S. Marshals Service started a program called, “Operation Guardian,”  which has targeted the worst of the…