ACSOL will conduct Lobby Day this year on March 24, 2026. We will once again educate the legislators and staff about the need for revising the Tiered Registry Law to increase the number of people eligible to petition for removal from the registry. Every person who participates in Lobby Day will be a member of a team led by someone who has done this before. It is an empowering experience. 3/10/26 UPDATE: The good news is that more people have signed up for Lobby Day than expected. The bad news…
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Does the Ellingburg decision open the door to revisiting Ex Post Facto as it relates to sex offender laws?
Source: Florida Action Committee 1/21/26 [ACSOL note: This is well written and invites other organizations to come together to plan a way forward.] Related article: Non-Punitive in Name Only: How Ellingburg v. United States Threatens Florida’s “Civil” Registry Model The Supreme Court’s decision in Holsey Ellingburg v. United States (No. 24-482) should reopen a long-overdue conversation about the constitutional foundations of modern sex offender laws. In Ellingburg, the Court made clear that labels do not control constitutional analysis: when a legal consequence operates like punishment, is imposed as part of a criminal…
Read MoreFL: South Florida registered sex offender’s citizenship revoked: U.S. Attorney
Source: nbcmiami.com 1/20/26 A Peruvian-born registered sex offender who was living in South Florida has had his U.S. citizenship revoked after he obtained it by fraud, authorities said. Renzo William _______, 25, had his citizenship revoked and Certificate of Naturalization canceled, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida said Tuesday. Renzo, who had been living in Fort Lauderdale, was also sentenced to 100 days of home detention and one year of probation after pleading guilty to unlawful procurement of citizenship or naturalization, prosecutors said. Court records, on…
Read MoreSingapore to ban unwanted visitors from boarding planes
Source: bangkokpost.com 1/20/26 Singapore will order airlines worldwide to prohibit undesirable passengers from boarding flights to the city-state from Jan 30 under a new policy to boost security. The Singapore Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) said no-boarding directives would be enforced for all airlines flying to the country to prevent people who fail to meet requirements or “undesirable immigrants” from boarding planes. Travellers are normally denied entry to a country by immigration authorities after they arrive at a port of entry. The ICA said the new rule is a step forward as…
Read MoreJanice’s Journal: HOPE in 2026
The word HOPE has several definitions. Those definitions include a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen, grounds for believing that something good may happen, and a person or thing that may help or save someone. Applying each of those definitions to the registrant community, there is HOPE for the year 2026. Let’s examine each of those definitions and explore why. First, HOPE is a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen. There are many things we desire to happen in the…
Read MoreACSOL Online Meeting February 21, 2026
You are invited to join ACSOL Executive Director Janice Bellucci and President attorney Elie Miller to our next meeting. The meeting will be held on Saturday, February 21 online on Zoom beginning at 10 a.m. Pacific time, 1:00 PM Eastern, and will last at least two hours. You can use the Zoom app or you can call in using a Zoom phone number. There is no registration needed for this meeting. No government officials are allowed to attend the meetings. This meeting will be recorded and posted within a couple…
Read MoreMO: Attorney General Requests New Hearing in MO Halloween Sign Challenge
Source: ACSOL The Missouri Attorney General filed a petition today with the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals asking for reconsideration of the Court’s decision issued on January 2. That decision agreed with plaintiff that the Missouri state law at issue requiring all registrants to post a sign on their home on Halloween was unconstitutional. In its petition, the Attorney General argues that the 8th Circuit Court of Appeal judges that ruled in favor of plaintiff misapplied controlling U.S. Supreme Court precedent as well as a decision by the 5th Circuit…
Read MoreCanada: Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) has launched a national, publicly accessible High-Risk Child Sex Offender Database
Source: rcmp.ca 1/15/26 The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) launched the High Risk Child Sex Offender Database, a national publicly accessible tool. This is the first of its kind in Canada. The Database contains centralized information about people who have been found guilty of a sexual offence against children and who pose a high risk of committing crimes of a sexual nature. The Database contains information that has previously been made public by a police service or public authority. Only the offenders deemed as high risk of committing a crime…
Read MoreCA: New AB 1568 Legislation Could Reduce Number of Petitions Granted
Source: ACSOL IMPORTANT EVENT: CA Action Alert: Join us March 3 to stop AB 1568 that blocks registrants from petitioning A new bill was introduced on January 12, 2026, that could reduce the number of petitions granted that remove individuals from the registry. The bill number is AB 1568 and the author of the bill is Assemblyman Juan Alanis, a Republican, who represents Modesto and other nearby communities. Alanis is co-chair of the Assembly Public Safety Committee. If AB 1568 becomes law, it would add three additional requirements…
Read MoreCA: California launches investigation into child porn on Elon Musk’s AI site
Source: hanfordsentinel.com 1/14/26 SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California announced an investigation into Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI on Wednesday, with Gov. Gavin Newsom saying that the social media site owned by the billionaire is a “breeding ground for predators to spread nonconsenual sexually explicit AI deepfakes.” Grok, the xAI chatbot, includes image-generation features that allow users to morph existing photos into new images. The newly created images are then posted publicly on X. In some cases, users have created sexually explicit or nonconsensual images based on real people, including altered depictions…
Read MoreSC: Prosecutors want 20-year sentence for ex-South Carolina lawmaker for sharing child sex abuse videos
Source: abcnews.go.com 1/13/26 Prosecutors are seeking a 20-year sentence for a former South Carolina legislator who pleaded guilty to distributing child sex abuse videos on social media COLUMBIA, S.C. — Prosecutors are asking a judge to sentence a former Republican South Carolina legislator to 20 years in prison for sending hundreds of videos of children being sexually abused to people across the country on social media as he advocated for several laws meant to protect kids. RJ May is asking the judge for mercy and a five-year sentence, saying he was addicted to…
Read MoreWA: Legislators Furious Hysteria Over Re-Entry Housing Facility for Sex Offenders
Source: newstalk870.am 1/13/26 According to information released by 8th District legislators Senator Matt Boehnke, and House Reps Stephanie Barnard and April Connors–as well as Kennewick Police–the sex offender home is coming to Kennewick. The operator of a similar facility in Walla Walla has applied to have one in Kennewick Since 2017 Joe Fields has operated Joe’s Place in Walla Walla, where as many as 9 registered mostly low-level sex offenders are voluntarily housed. That facility began just after creation of the state’s STAR Program or Succesful Transition and Re-Entry Program. It is supposed to get offenders on…
Read MoreEffectiveness of sex offender registration policies in the United States
Source: grokipedia.com [ACSOL’s note: This document was generated by AI, but it does have useful information. It also has extensive references at the end. Take what you find useful, and leave the rest] [Wikipedia’s description of Grokipedia: Grokipedia an AI-generated online encyclopedia operated by the American company xAI. The site was launched on October 27, 2025. Some entries are generated by Grok, a large language model owned by the same company, while others are forked from Wikipedia, with some altered and some copied nearly verbatim.] Sex offender registration policies in…
Read MorePlease Help ACSOL’s Matching Grant Program for Two Important Lawsuits
A generous and anonymous donor has pledged up to $5,000 for a matching grant program in support of two important lawsuits. One lawsuit will challenge an ordinance recently adopted by Fresno County that limits the number of registrants that can live in a home. This lawsuit will include an application for a temporary restraining order (TRO). The second lawsuit will challenge the failure of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR’s) to fully implement recently issued treatment regulations. The regulations were issued in settlement of an earlier lawsuit challenging…
Read MoreUK: Scottish National Party presents Bill to strip Mandelson and other friends of sex offenders of their peerages
Source: morningstaronline.co.uk 1/11/26 The Scottish National Party (SNP) will present a Bill Tuesday to strip Peter Mandelson and other friends of sex offenders of their peerages. It comes as Lord Mandelson declined to apologise to Jeffrey Epstein’s victims for remaining friends with the convicted financier. The former ambassador to the US said he had paid a “calamitous” price for being sacked over his association with “evil monster” Epstein. He apologised for a system that failed Epstein’s victims, but not for his continued support after Epstein’s first conviction. Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to…
Read MoreSupreme Court Vigil to Be Held in D.C. on March 7, 2026
Individuals who oppose the U.S. Supreme Court decision, Smith v. Doe, will conduct a vigil near that court on Saturday, March 7. The vigil will begin at 10 a.m. and last for about one hour. The vigil will be recorded but there will be no livestream of the event. “The Supreme Court made a significant mistake when they ruled that the requirement to register is not punishment,” stated ACSOL Executive Director Janice Bellucci. “We need to remind the Court that they need to correct this mistake by overruling that decision.”…
Read MoreSC: Bills aim to stiffen penalties for CP, including a minimum penalty
Source: foxcarolina.com 1/8/25 COLUMBIA, S.C. (FOX Carolina) – As South Carolina lawmakers prepare to head back to the statehouse, there’s now a push to crack down on penalties for child predators. FOX Carolina Investigates previously uncovered how hundreds of offenders convicted of having child pornography are able to avoid prison time. In South Carolina, if someone has child pornography, also called child sexual abuse material, they are charged with sexual exploitation of a minor. The law carries three degrees depending on the severity of the crime. For first degree, which is the…
Read MoreFL: Zoning committee approves ordinance that allows Jacksonville daycare to reopen within 2,000 feet of sex predator
Source: news4jax.com 1/7/26 JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Jacksonville Land Use and Zoning committee approved an ordinance that allows a day care to reopen within 2,000 feet of a sex predator. The current city code requires a 2,500-foot distance between the two. The request that the day care owner is making would shrink that distance to 1,980 feet, putting the offender just outside the radius. “There is a great need for day care in the neighborhood,” Paul Harden, the attorney for the day care, said. “This provides day care for folks who work…
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