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Minnesota's program for keeping sex offenders confined after they complete their prison sentences is constitutional, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday, reversing a lower-court judge who said it violates offenders' rights because hardly anyone is ever released. Full Article Decision Related ‘A System That Is Clearly Broken’ The Latest: Official: Sex offender program needs more money

A “modern-day leper.” Those are his words, not ours. Ventae Parrow is branded by the state of Wisconsin as a “homeless sex offender” and, by many in society, an outcast to be feared, warned about, and shunned. He’d have more rights to move freely if he’d killed someone. He’s served his prison sentence (again), but the elaborate network of Milwaukee city ordinances places almost...

Conviction rates for sexual assault against women are shockingly low, to the extent that, even in a developed nation such as the United Kingdom, only 6 per cent of rape allegations result in a conviction, a far lower rate than for any other violent crime. As The Guardian columnist Julia Bindel puts it, ‘rape might as well be legal’. Disturbingly low conviction rates have...

California must reimburse its counties for the legal costs involved in determining whether sex offenders who have completed their prison terms should be sent to mental hospitals, a state appeals court ruled Wednesday. A lawyer for local governments said the statewide cost would be about $25 million a year for the reimbursements, which the state stopped paying in July 2013. Full Article

It is a measure of how insane our sex offender laws have become, to announce that this proposed bill in Montana is a relief. Senate Bill 26 would prevent 18-year-olds who have consensual sex with other teens under the age of consent (younger than 16, but at least age 14) from needing to register as sex offenders. It would also cap the time they can possibly...

Yesterday, EFF and its allies Public Knowledge and the Center for Democracy & Technology filed an amicus brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down under the First Amendment a North Carolina law that bans “registered sex offenders” (RSOs) from using all Internet social media. This law sweeps far too broadly. Social media are one of the most important communication channels ever created. People banned from social...

Facebook remains liable in damages for details about a convicted child abuser featuring on pages set up to name and shame paedophiles in Northern Ireland, the Court of Appeal has ruled. But senior judges restricted the period when the social network knew private information was being published – meaning a £20,000 compensation award to the sex offender could now be cut. Lord Chief Justice...

... Cases like this might seem to argue for even tougher controls on ex-offenders convicted of sex crimes. But new research indicates that the existing sex-offense regime in the US actually may be making repeat sex crimes more likely. Full Article

​Allison Finley is the mother of a sexual assault victim. "We found out some years later because my child could not verbalize at two and a half [years old] what had been done," she explains. The attacker is in prison but the impact continues. Full Article

A new study looks at the residential patterns of registered sex offenders 15 years after arrest. Full Article