An Irish parliamentarian has resigned after admitting he sent inappropriate messages to a teenage girl on Facebook. Independent MP Patrick Nulty said he had been “under the influence of alcohol” when he sent messages to a 17-year-old. His shock resignation came hours before Irish tabloid the Sunday World was due to print the story. Full Article
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Australia: Morcombes support sex offenders register
Broadcaster Derryn Hinch says his plan for a public sex offenders register is almost complete and he hopes Daniel Morcombe’s murder will force politicians to act. Hinch has long campaigned to name and shame pedophiles and says the Morcombe case proves the need for a national register so Australians can understand threats in their communities. … Hinch, who has gone to jail for revealing details about sex offenders’ past crimes, says a national register is a no-brainer and that in the US it hasn’t resulted in the kind of vigilante action…
Read MoreUK: Jamie is 13 and hasn’t even kissed a girl. But he’s now on the Sex Offender Register after online porn warped his mind…
(April 2012) Jamie was ten years old when he saw his first pornographic sex scene. During a sleepover, a classmate offered to show him ‘some funny pictures’ on his laptop. ‘At first I found it a bit scary and a bit yucky,’ Jamie told me as he shifted uncomfortably on his chair during our therapy session. ‘I didn’t know it was possible for people to do those sort of things — and there were lots of nasty close-ups. But it gave me funny feelings and the pictures started to stick in…
Read MoreNew Zealand: Another attempt to establish a sex offenders register
The Police Minister says research has been done on how to establish a sex offenders register in New Zealand. Police and the Corrections Department are working on the proposal and legislation enabling a register could go to Parliament before the election. Police Minister Anne Tolley says they’ve had a look at problems that were identified when former ACT MP Deborah Coddington tried – and failed – to establish such a register a decade ago. Full Article
Read MoreUK: Senior Tory adviser arrested on child abuse images allegations
A senior adviser to David Cameron was arrested on child abuse images allegations, Downing Street said tonight. … The Prime Minister brought him into Downing Street in 2011 to work in the Number 10 policy unit. He took responsibility for home affairs issues and was among officials who were involved in drawing up controls against internet images of child abuse. Full Article
Read MoreCanada: Conservatives propose public sex offender registry, despite its failure in the U.S.
The federal Conservatives have announced they are continuing their pursuit of the lowest of low-hanging fruit: registered sex offenders. The Tougher Penalties for Sexual Predators Act, which was formally tabled in the House of Commons Feb. 26, includes nine proposals for dealing with those convicted of sexual offences, including increasing prison sentences for certain child sexual offences and harsher penalties for violations of release conditions. Some of the proposals, quite appropriately, assign greater severity to a system of punishment that is often derided as far too lenient. But nestled among…
Read MoreCanada: Proposed sex-offender registry will not deter crime, criminal lawyer warns
The Conservative government’s plan to create a publicly-accessible database of child sex offenders will do little if anything to deter sex crimes and could actually lead to an increase in offences, an Ottawa-based defence lawyer warns. Michael Spratt, who has testified at numerous parliamentary committees on criminal legislation, says the sex registry is being sold as a way to protect children and assist parents, but it is nothing more than “false advertising.” The Conservative government’s legislation, introduced Wednesday, would create a publicly-accessible database of high-risk child sex offenders. It would…
Read MoreCanada: Public child sex offender database planned
OTTAWA – The federal government plans to create a publicly accessible database of high-risk child sex offenders as part of a bill that takes aim at those who prey on young people. The legislation introduced Wednesday would also require registered sex offenders to provide more information when they travel abroad and permit more sharing of information between federal agencies. In addition, the bill proposes making those convicted of child sex crimes against multiple children to serve their sentences consecutively. “Make no mistake about it,” said Justice Minister Peter MacKay. “If you sexually…
Read MoreUK: Children as young as 10 arrested for rape as 10 cautions given out for child sex crimes
Ten offenders have been given a ‘slap on the wrist’ by Cambridgeshire police over sex crimes involving children, as tough new rules are brought in over cautions for serious offences. New data has also revealed children as young as 10 have been arrested on suspicion of rape. A total of 52 under 16 year- olds have been arrested over alleged rape since 2009 and of those, 36 saw no further action taken, including two 11-year-old boys and a boy aged 10. Full Article
Read MoreGermany: Child pornography’s legal grey zone
A German ex-parliamentarian is being investigated for possessing child pornography. Prosecutors and other experts are often forced to make difficult distinctions on whether a given image crosses the line into illegality. When it comes to the legal definition of child pornography in Germany, a large grey area exists. Just by entering relevant terms in a search engine or trying to open a picture on a computer, individuals can face prosecution. That’s because searching for and attempting to obtain child pornography are illegal in Germany, just as the possession of such…
Read MoreSexual assaults by US military in Japan unlikely to end in prison
At US military bases in Japan, most service members found culpable in sex crimes in recent years did not go to prison, according to internal Department of Defence documents. Instead, in a review of hundreds of cases filed in America’s largest overseas military installation, offenders were fined, demoted, restricted to their bases or removed from the military. Full Article
Read MoreIreland: Councils to house sex offenders in radical new plan
SEX offenders should be given homes by local authorities on their release from prison, according to a report being considered by Justice Minister Alan Shatter. A high-level plan devised by a number of powerful state agencies recommends that sex offenders be placed in social housing estates and apartment complexes so as to avoid homelessness. The plan, which relates to the Dublin region, is designed to assist sex offenders who have just left prison or returned from abroad. Full Article
Read MoreUK: More than 100 sex offenders use human rights ruling to get names taken off register
More than 100 of the country’s most dangerous sex attackers – including paedophiles and violent rapists – have had their names secretly removed from the Sex Offenders’ Register, it has been revealed. The criminals have used a human rights ruling to remove themselves from the list, arguing that they no longer pose a threat to the public. Full Article Related: Human rights victory for rapists and paedophiles, Sex Offenders and the Human Rights Act
Read MoreNY: I Got Myself Arrested So I Could Look Inside the Justice System
Ten years ago, when I started my career as an assistant district attorney in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, I viewed the American criminal justice system as a vital institution that protected society from dangerous people. I once prosecuted a man for brutally attacking his wife with a flashlight, and another for sexually assaulting a waitress at a nightclub. I believed in the system for good reason. But in between the important cases, I found myself spending most of my time prosecuting people of color for things we white kids…
Read MoreCanada: Ten Laval teens face child pornography charges
Ten teenage boys from Laval have pleaded not guilty to a series of child pornography-related charges stemming from the sharing of indecent photos of teenage girls on a popular app known as SnapChat. Laval police, who rounded up the boys Thursday morning, said that the youths, all aged 13 to 15 years old, used persuasion or intimidation to get the girls to send nude photos of themselves. Eight of the 10 boys face two charges related to the possession and distribution of child pornography. The other two face the same charges…
Read MoreAUS: Men who cuddle children
This is for all you men who like to cuddle little boys and girls … and for anyone who read that sentence and thought “that’s a bit creepy”. This is for the men secure and aware enough to navigate the minefield of showing other people’s kids comfort, affection and encouragement, despite a cultural coercion akin to the slander slung at Muslims. ‘Cos that’s where we’re at folks: when it comes to men and children, we are the terrorist living next door, the suspect who sleeps down the hall, and you…
Read MoreSentencing and Prison Practices in Germany and the Netherlands: Implications for the US
Germany and the Netherlands have significantly lower incarceration rates than the United States and make much greater use of non-custodial penalties, particularly for nonviolent crimes. In addition, conditions and practices within correctional facilities in these countries—grounded in the principle of “normalization” whereby life in prison is to resemble as much as possible life in the community—also differ markedly from the U.S. In February 2013—as part of the European-American Prison Project funded by the California-based Prison Law Office and managed by Vera—delegations of corrections and justice system leaders from Colorado, Georgia,…
Read MoreUK: Dad jumped to his death after being wrongly accused of child abuse
A father jumped to his death from the Humber Bridge after he was falsely accused of child abuse. ____ ____, 56, had been cleared of sexually assaulting a young girl more than 20 years ago but he never recovered from the ordeal of going to court and had already tried to kill himself twice. An inquest at Hull Coroner’s Court heard how ____ wrote a suicide note, before cycling to the Humber Bridge from the city centre home he shared with his teenage daughter. His brother Michael, who last saw ____ on the Sunday…
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