Does a convicted and paroled sex offender live in your neighbourhood? While police occasionally issue public warnings about offenders moving into communities, their addresses are not disclosed. In some cases, such individuals may live in a residential area for months or years without the knowledge of their neighbours. Full Article Note: This is Part 1 of several…
Read MoreTag: Canada
Canada: Supreme Court says judges can ban convicted sexual predators from Internet
OTTAWA — The Supreme Court took steps Thursday to bring the law up to speed to protect children in the rapidly evolving realm of cyberspace in a ruling allowing judges to ban convicted sexual predators from using the Internet. The case turned on one narrow legal issue — whether a new law can be retroactively applied to case that predated it. As a matter of legal principle, the high court rarely allows laws to be applied retroactively, especially when it comes to changes in criminal law on how punishment is…
Read More‘The most viscerally hated group on earth’: Documentary explores how intervention can stop pedophiles
An unsettling new documentary that features pedophiles advocating for themselves on camera argues that unless we provide these men with preventive therapy and mental-health support, we are failing their victims. Spotlighting “the most viscerally hated group on earth,” I, Pedophile stresses a crucial distinction few of us care to make: the difference between pedophiles and child molesters. Full Article
Read MoreCanada: American Sentenced For Possession Of Child Pornography . . . Of Cartoon Characters
There is an interesting criminal case in Canada where American ____ ____ 25, of Murrells Inlet, S.C., is under arrest for possession of child pornography. However, the images were not of human beings but cartoon characters. Canada treats sexual cartoon images as pornography – a view widely rejected in the United States as inimical to free speech protections. Full Article
Read MoreThere’s a Reliable Therapy for Sex Offenders — But Nobody Wants Them to Get It
In June of 1994, a convicted child molester named Charlie Taylor moved into a small apartment in downtown Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, across the street from a community center. He had no family. He had no parole officer. At the time, sex offenders deemed too dangerous to be let out of prison early were, paradoxically, released at the end of their sentences with no ongoing oversight or treatment from the Correctional Services of Canada. Full Article
Read MoreCanada: Border agents stopped 150 U.S. sex offenders from entering Canada
Canada Border Services agents stopped more than 150 U.S. sex offenders from entering Canada, in part due to a partnership with United States customs, the federal government announced Monday. Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney made the announcement Monday morning at Montreal’s Trudeau International Airport. In 2014 alone, information provided by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents helped CBSA agents refuse entry to 59 sex offenders. Full Article
Read MoreCanada: B.C. rights group says mandatory minimums cost billions but don’t reduce crime
VANCOUVER – Ottawa’s push to implement mandatory minimum sentences is potentially adding billions of dollars in costs to the criminal justice system without reducing crime or making the public safer, says a report released Monday by a British Columbia-based rights group. Instead, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association’s report says longer prison sentences can actually make inmates more likely to re-offend while disproportionately affecting marginalized groups. The report adds to criticism that has followed the shift to mandatory minimums. The Conservative government has doubled the number of offences that carry compulsory…
Read MoreCanada: RCMP considers outsourcing creation of Harper government’s planned public sex offender registry
The Mounties are considering outsourcing the replacement and modernization of the national sex offender registry — and the creation of a proposed new public website — to the private sector. This is in advance of new legislation, expected this fall, which will toughen penalties for sexual predators. A spokesman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said the force is taking a “proactive approach” by exploring “possible solutions offered by the private industry” for the creation of a new public website on high-risk child sex offenders, which would replace the current one.…
Read MoreFlorida sex offender granted asylum in Canada
A Florida sex offender, who claimed asylum in Saskatchewan, has been granted protected person status. In 2008, ____ ____ was convicted of having unlawful sex with a minor. According to American media reports, the boy was 16-years-old and played on her son’s baseball team. ____ fled to Canada in 2010 before she could be sent to prison. She was sentenced to 30 years in jail and is still wanted in the United States. ____ claimed her sentence was cruel and unusual punishment and after arriving in Saskatchewan, she asked for asylum. Full…
Read MoreCanada: Sex offenders in the neighourhood rate less concern than traffic and noise
When he thinks of his kids safety, John Neary, thinks about speeding cars and urban traffic, not sex offenders. A member of the Beasley Neighbourhood Association, the Hamilton doctor has two children under the age of five. “It’s never occurred to me that sex offenders should be high on the list of problems that make me worried for my children’s safety,” said Neary. 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 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 MoreCanada: Sex abuse arrests in Canada began with probe of company
(CNN) — A three-year investigation into an exploitative Toronto-based film company has netted nearly 350 arrests and rescued more than 380 children from sexual abuse, police said Thursday. Law enforcement from all over the world, primarily in Eastern Europe and the United States, worked with Toronto police since 2010 to arrest those who produced child pornography and those who purchased it. Full Article
Read MoreCanada: Trouble with registries
On Sept. 16, Prime Minister Harper promised Canadians a national, online database accessible to the public listing the names of high-risk child sex-offenders to replace a patchwork of existing databases. Another proposed change announced by him would have such offenders planning to travel outside the country alert Canadian authorities before they leave, and who, in turn, may warn destination countries. The prime minister said this registry will come into effect in this session of Parliament. The problem with sex registries! Not only are these registries notoriously incomplete but they are also…
Read MoreCanada: Father killed with one punch after being mistaken for a pedophile
MONTREAL – The Crown wants a six-year prison sentence for a 21-year-old man who killed a Montreal father with a single punch. The victim, Iqbal Ahmed, was simply trying to bring his wayward teen daughter home but other teens attacked him, thinking he was a pedophile. A judge will decide Francis Belanger’s fate in December following sentencing hearings that ended this week. Full Article
Read MoreCanada: Op-Ed – The danger of the sex-offender database
Stephen Harper has announced that his government will create a database of sex offenders who target children in Canada that the public can search through, once Parliament returns on Oct. 16. The National Sex Offender Registry that the RCMP currently operates is not available to the public. While Harper did not give extensive details for implementing his scheme for a searchable database, it is cause for grave concern that it’s even under contemplation. “We do not understand why child predators do the heinous things they do, and in all frankness,…
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