The Alliance for Constitutional Sex Offense Laws (ACSOL) is dedicated to protecting the Constitution by restoring the civil rights of registrants and their families. In order to achieve that objective, ACSOL will educate and litigate as well as support or oppose legislation.
Important News / Announcements
General News Feed
17
Jan
2017
Join us for ACSOL’s first annual conference on June 16/17 in Los Angeles! The featured speaker will be Emily Horowitz PhD. Emily is a Professor in Sociology and Criminal Justice at St. Frances College in New York and author of the book “Protecting our Kids? How Sex Offender Laws are Failing Us”. She is excited to share with us at the conference the results...
15
Jan
2017
A federal lawsuit challenges the city's residency restrictions for registered sex offenders, concluding that the local ordinance's exclusion zones "cover virtually all residential property within the city" and are more stringent than rules by similar municipalities. Filed Dec. 8 in U.S. District Court by Sacramento-based attorney Janice Bellucci, the lawsuit claims Adelanto's local law violates the 14th Amendment, which ensures due process and equal...
FRESNO, California (KFSN) -- The owner of a remote trailer in Squaw Valley was the only one of several hundred properties that were deemed suitable for Jeffrey Snyder to live in. Just days after it was announced the property owner would allow the violent sexual predator to live there the home was destroyed by a fire. Full Article
Less than two weeks into the new year, it’s clear that we have a lot of work to do in the State Capitol. We are already facing a bill that would prohibit all registrants, including parents, from visiting all schools for all reasons as well as the promise of a bill that would end the state’s lifetime registry. It is understandable that Senator Connie...
12
Jan
2017
The Alliance for Constitutional Sex Offense Laws (ACSOL) will lead a lobbying effort on Jan. 30 and 31 in Sacramento to discuss both the tiered registry bill and a bill that would prohibit all registrants from visiting all schools. Registrants, family members and supporters are welcome to join the effort. Training will be provided on Jan. 30 at 9 a.m. in the ACSOL office...
It's a common refrain online: An inmate posts a want ad seeking a pen pal while describing themselves in the most flattering terms someone behind bars can come up with. The inmates often described the loneliness of being incarcerated. But, few, if any, ever disclose why they are behind bars on sites like WriteAPrisoner.com or Prisoninmatepenpal.com. Someone choosing to correspond with them could end up writing...
11
Jan
2017
There is a new bill in Congress HR 61 - Fair Chance for Youth Act of 2017 the purpose being "To provide for the expungement and sealing of youth criminal records, and for other purposes." However, if the offense is a sex offense, that youth would not be eligible for expungement and sealing of youth criminal record. Again it seems that more than the...
11
Jan
2017
The U.S. Sentencing Commission is seeking public comment on proposed amendments to the federal sentencing guidelines. The deadline for public comment is February 20, 2017. One of the proposed amendments is related to first offenders and alternatives to incarceration. The Commission plays an important role in the sentencing of individuals convicted of federal sex offenses, including possession of child pornography. Written comments should be sent to the Commission by...
Therapists in California can be required to report patients who have looked at child pornography on the Internet despite the therapists’ claim that their clients are entitled to confidentiality and pose no threat to children, a state appeals court ruled Monday. Full Article Decision Background:Los Angeles Drug Counselor to Therapists: Don't Out Child Porn Patients Assembly Bill No. 1775
Politicians have a knack for taking on problems that aren’t really problems, proposing solutions that won’t really do anything and then exaggerating the significance of what they’ve just done. The latest Inland politician to do this is Sen. Connie Leyva, D-Chino, who has introduced the “Keep Kids Safe at School Act,” touted by Leyva and her staff as “important legislation to protect school children...
Sometimes when I post about the Sex Offender Registry, I get comments like, “Those scum don’t deserve to EVER live a normal life!” This note below is to remind us that a study of 17,000 people on the registry by the The Georgia Sex Offender Registration Review Board found that about 5% were “clearly dangerous,” and 100 could be classified as sexual predators. Not...
Minnesotans who receive the label “sex offender,” and are determined either a “sexually dangerous person” or “a person with a sexual psychopathic tendency,” now face the potential for life incarceration in a civil commitment facility. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals recently held the North Star State’s policy of locking up allegedly dangerous persons for an indeterminate period of time is completely rational and...
Last month the supreme court decided State v. Moir. It is a case about how a state sex crime—namely, indecent liberties with a child—fits within the offense tiering system set out in the federal Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA). Full Article
In the past few years, the growth of incarceration and the inequality perpetuated through the US carceral system have become common topics of discussion and debate among academics, politicians, and the general public. Perhaps nowhere are these debates more salient than in the state of California, which houses the largest incarcerated population in the United States. In the most recent election, five out of...
Colorado’s Department of Corrections is wasting as much as $44 million annually because it has not fixed problems in a treatment program intended to prepare sex offenders for release from prison, a recent state audit found.Full Article
FBI agents and prosecutors usually strut inside Santa Ana's Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse, knowing they've focused the wrath of the criminal-justice system on a particular criminal. But an unusual child-pornography-possession case has placed officials on the defensive for nearly 26 months. Questions linger about law-enforcement honesty, unconstitutional searches, underhanded use of informants and twisted logic. Given that a judge recently ruled against government demands to...
05
Jan
2017
An appeals court on Wednesday reinstated the conviction of a serial child molester from Maryland whose case was held out as a major success of a law to punish sexual predators overseas. Full Article
04
Jan
2017
In Lauren Book's Dec. 11 column, she wrote about the dangers that sexual predators pose to children and admonishes parents to be suspicious of staff at youth-serving organizations. We all want to protect children, so how could such a column be objectionable? Because it is alarmist, misleading and mostly false. Full Opinion Piece Related Lauren Book: UK abuse cases show need to safeguard children
LINCOLN — Reactions ranged from bewilderment to outrage over a Nebraska Supreme Court decision earlier this year that allowed two girls to remain in the home of a felony sex offender. And the decision set a clear precedent, said Brandon Brinegar, the Kearney lawyer who represented the biological father who had tried to remove the girls from the sex offender’s residence. Brinegar said lawmakers...
A City Councilman in Los Angeles, Mitch O’Farrell, has proposed a bill to keep playgrounds “free of creepy activity” by not allowing anyone unaccompanied by kids to enter one. Shamefully, that is already the rule here in my burg, New York City. This has lead to the arrest of two women who dared to eat donuts on a playground bench in Brooklyn (exposing kids...