Elissa Alvarez is paying a high price after she was filmed having sex on a crowded public beach. She told INSIDE EDITION: “I am a sex offender right now.” The 21-year-old and her bodybuilder boyfriend, Jose Caballero, are now on the national sex offender registry. Full Article
Read MoreCategory: National
IA: Sex Offender Registry marks 20th year
WATERLOO | Iowa’s Sex Offender Registry marked its 20th anniversary this year. Judging the list for effectiveness, though, depends less on longevity and more on users’ expectations. The law went into effect in 1995 and the state’s website, iowasexoffenders.com, launched five years later. Full Article
Read MoreFL: FAC Sues Seminole County, Florida over Sex Offender Exclusion Zones Ordinance
The Florida Action Committee (FAC) has sued Seminole County and its Sheriff over the County’s proximity ordinance, which prohibits certain registered sexual offenders and predators from traveling through or being present within “exclusion zones” that encompass most of the County. The problem is that the zones are so broad and so vague that law abiding registered citizens cannot comply with the ordinance. Full Article
Read MoreLA: Lake Charles man arrested after not paying state sex offender fee
LAKE CHARLES, LA (KPLC) –A Lake Charles man was arrested after he didn’t pay the required $60 state sex offender fee authorities said. Lake Charles police detectives arrested ____ ____ ____. Wednesday and booked him into the Calcasieu Correctional Center, according to Deputy Chief Mark Kraus. He is charged with failure to register/notify as a sex offender — failure to pay fee. His bail is set at $2,500. Full Article
Read MoreState Courts Strike Down Overbroad Residence Restrictions for People Convicted of Sex Offenses
After two decades of imposing increasingly harsh residence restrictions on people convicted of sex offenses, several key states are rejecting blanket restrictions. Full Article
Read MoreMD: Boy Faces Assault Charges For Kiss Made On A Dare
PIKESVILLE, Md. (WBFF) — Baltimore County Police and Baltimore County school officials responded to a report of assault involving two eighth-grade students at Pikesville Middle School on Wednesday. School officials took a report regarding a 13-year-old boy who kissed a 14-year-old girl during school hours. The unwanted kiss was allegedly the result of a dare made by students. Full Article
Read MoreMD: Study of Balto. Co. – Fewer sex offenses reported in neighborhoods with more registered sex offenders
Amid a growing national debate over sex offender registries, researchers who studied years of crime data from Baltimore County have released a new finding: Neighborhoods with more registered sex offenders experienced fewer reported sex offenses. The researchers from Princeton University and the University of Michigan, who chose Baltimore County because it was the first place they found where they could get all the data they sought, say the finding underscores misconceptions about where and how sex crimes are most likely to occur. Full Article
Read MoreAL: Sex offender statutes turn productive citizens into homeless pariahs
The Constitution’s ex post facto clause prohibits passing a law that retroactively increases the punishment for a criminal act that an offender committed before the law was passed. But in an ingenious 2003 Supreme Court ruling, a 6-3 conservative majority held that retroactive placement on a state sex offender registry–being put on a registry that was created after an offender committed his crime–doesn’t violate ex post facto because registration isn’t punishment. Full Article
Read MoreNC: Teen Boy Will Be Charged As Adult For Having Naked Pics of a Minor: Himself
A North Carolina 17-year-old caught in a sexting scandal faces charges of sexually exploiting a minor that could land him in jail for up to 10 years, since the law considers him an adult. But one of the minors he supposedly exploited is himself—which raises an obvious question: how can a teen be old enough to face adult felony charges, but not old enough to keep a nude picture of himself on his phone? Full Article
Read MoreGuam: Sex offenders to get chemical castration
HAGATNA, Guam — The Guam Legislature Thursday narrowly passed a bill for the creation of a pilot program to chemically castrate convicted sex offenders. The Chemical Castration for Sex Offenders Act passed 8-7, according to a release from the legislature. Full Article Related Guam Passes Legislation To Chemically Castrate Convicted Sex Offenders
Read MoreNH: Sex registry questioned after prep school grad’s conviction
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) – A graduate of an elite prep school who was convicted of having sexual contact with a 15-year-old classmate as part of a game of sexual conquest will be required to register as a sex offender for life, a punishment his lawyer likens to being branded and legal experts and reform advocates say exceeds the crime. Full Article
Read MoreNM: Farmington therapist’s practice offers juvenile sex offenders a second chance
FARMINGTON — A Farmington therapist stands by her belief that young people who commit sex offenses are worthy of a second chance at a healthy, normal life. Full Article
Read MoreNV: Sex offenders challenge Nevada supervision law
More than a dozen sex offenders are challenging the Nevada Parole Board’s authority to impose conditions on their lifetime supervision. The offenders, identified only as Does 1-16, filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against several state and local officials, including Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt. According to the lawsuit, the Parole Board has relied on an unconstitutional Nevada law to place movement and residency restrictions on convicted sex offenders who are under its supervision. In some cases, those restrictions have prevented the plaintiffs from attending religious services or associating with certain…
Read MoreMA: High court shoots down city’s residency restrictions on sex offenders
BOSTON – In a ruling that could affect dozens of Massachusetts communities, the state’s Supreme Judicial Court on Friday agreed an ordinance limiting where sex offenders can live in the city of Lynn cannot stand. Several registered sex offenders sued the city after local officials enacted an ordinance in 2011 that prevented Level 2 and 3 offenders from living within 1,000 feet of a school or park. A level 3 offender has been deemed the most likely to commit another crime, according to the state Sex Offender Registry. Full Article…
Read MoreAL: Sex Offender Law Challenged
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (CN) – Sex offenders in Alabama must comply with debilitating restrictions that encompass “virtually every facet of their lives,” eight men claim in a class action. Eight John Doe plaintiffs sued General Luther Strange III and Secretary of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency John Richardson in Federal Court. The Aug. 20 complaint seeks court relief to prevent application of the Alabama Sex Offender Registration and Community Notification Act, or ASORCNA, claiming the law is unconstitutional. The lawsuit argues that the act violates due process by denying sex offender…
Read MoreMI: Anderson sentencing hits home with other parents
BERRIEN COUNTY, Mich. – The Anderson family of Elkhart are back to waiting, after an uneventful court appearance Wednesday afternoon. The judge delayed a decision on resentencing 19-year-old Zach Anderson who must register as a sex offender in Michigan and Indiana. Full Article
Read MoreIN: Suit – Law impedes sex offender’s voting rights
HARTFORD CITY – The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana on Tuesday filed a federal class action lawsuit on behalf of a Hartford City man concerned that a change in state law might impede his ability to vote. A new law went into effect July 1 that prohibits “serious sex offenders” from entering school property. “One of the consequences of this is that these persons will be prohibited from voting at their designated polling place if it is located on school property,” the ACLU’s suit, filed in U.S. District Court in…
Read MoreSex Offenders Locked Up on a Hunch [Updated with Responses]
The essence of the American criminal justice system is reactive, not predictive: You are punished for the crime you committed. You can’t be punished simply because you might commit one someday. You certainly can’t be held indefinitely to prevent that possibility. And yet that is exactly what is happening to about 5,000 people convicted of sex crimes around the country. This population, which nearly doubled in the last decade, has completed prison sentences but remains held in what is deceptively called civil commitment — the practice of keeping someone locked…
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