CHICAGO — A lawsuit has been filed accusing the state of Illinois of violating the rights of convicted sex offenders by maintaining policies that do not allow a number of them to be released from prison after they have served their sentences, effectively leaving them informally sentenced to life in prison. Full Article
Read MoreTag: Civil Commitment
State owes counties millions in sex offender legal costs
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
Read MoreAUS: Dangerous offender laws the antithesis of free and democratic society
DETAINING people after they have served the sentence imposed on them by a court is unconscionable. Yet this practice, which has its origins in Nazi Germany, has become common across Australia, and the Turnbull Government’s plan to keep people convicted of terrorism offences locked up potentially until they die is the latest incarnation of this trend. Full Article
Read MoreIA: Sex offenders sue over Iowa’s civil commitment program
Nine men who were convicted of sex crimes, served their prison sentences and are now indefinitely confined to an Iowa mental health unit have filed a federal lawsuit against the state, claiming its civil commitment program is unconstitutional. Full Article
Read MoreMN: What is deserved for a sex offender?
Two painful, recent stories illuminate complex controversies that surround Minnesota’s practice of locking up certain sex offenders in a “treatment program” after they’ve served prison sentences for their crimes. Full Article
Read MoreMN: 26-year-old is cleared for unconditional release from MSOP
A Minnesota court has ordered the first-ever full and unconditional discharge from Minnesota’s sex offender treatment program, choosing a young man who has spent the past six years in state confinement solely for sexual acts he committed as a child. Full Article
Read MoreNY: These guys are really bad – NY wins big victory in locking up sex offenders forever
Albany, NY — New York’s top court this month delivered a big victory to state prosecutors who want to remove some of the worst sex offenders from society — possibly forever. It dealt a blow to those who fear that the state is expanding a controversial confinement program beyond its Constitutional grounds. Full Article
Read MoreMN: Appeals court hears challenge to constitutionality of Minnesota Sex Offender Program
A federal appeals court in St. Louis heard oral arguments Tuesday about whether the state of Minnesota’s sex offender treatment program violates the Constitution with its practice of indefinite detention. The case before the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals could force the state to make a series of politically unpopular reforms to the Minnesota Sex Offender Program (MSOP), which has come under fire for its failure to release more offenders into the community. Full Article
Read MoreFL: Court Rules Public Has Access to Sex Offender Hearings
An appeals court has ruled the public cannot be excluded from a courtroom when a judge is considering whether a sex offender should be committed indefinitely after his prison sentence has expired. Judge Jack Tuter gave NBC 6 permission to bring a camera into the courtroom. But the attorney for Corey Lake, a sexually violent sexual predator whose 13-year prison sentence expired in 2012, objected. Assistant public defender Rob Jakovich argued details of confidential treatment records would be exposed in open court, unless the public was barred. … Because ___ was seeking…
Read MoreTX: Mentally ill offender to stay in treatment program officials say he cannot understand
At the state’s home for sex predators, the Billy Clayton Center, the word “detention” has been removed from the facility sign. – The Texas Civil Commitment Office will create a special mental health treatment program for one man at a West Texas lockup after losing a fight with the state health department over which agency should house and treat a felon it says is too ill to benefit from – or even understand – the sex offender treatment he has been ordered to undergo. Full Article
Read MoreConfined at Coalinga: California sex offenders face indefinite detention
____ _____ ____, 54, is a pedophile; no one disputes that, not even his lawyer. Since the 1980s, he has been convicted three times of molesting very young girls — including his 4-year-old daughter. His crimes resulted in three years in prison. He finished serving the last of those years in 2000. But that wasn’t the end of his incarceration. Under California law, there are two sets of punishments for sex offenders: one for the crimes they are known to have committed and one for the people the legal system…
Read MoreTX: Court orders 83-year-old sex offender freed
AUSTIN — In a decision that could presage other releases, a state appeals court in Beaumont on Thursday ordered an 83-year-old man be immediately freed from a controversial supervision program for sex offenders because he no longer qualifies to be in it. The order by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals was the first complete release of an offender from the program in its 16-year-history, even though one other man was freed on a provisional basis and another left the state after an appeals court overturned his commitment — before…
Read MoreAre We All Sex Offenders? Galen Baughman – TEDxCUNY
Galen works alongside many others in reforming the criminal justice system, but his angle might surprise you. Join him as he shares his crusade for equal justice, which has led him to the courtroom, advocacy, and beyond. https://youtu.be/pYt-3fai-PI View on youtube
Read MoreWhy Some Young Sex Offenders Are Held Indefinitely
On the afternoon of ___ ___’s 18th birthday, three parole officers showed up at his home in West New York, N.J. Sanchez was in his slippers and shorts, and when his mother asked if she could grab her son something else to wear, an officer assured her that ___ would be gone only for a little while. That was five years ago. ____ is behind bars, but he is not in a regular prison. He is considered a resident, one who is detained involuntarily and indefinitely at the Special Treatment…
Read MoreCalifornia’s laws test whether sexual predators can ever be rehabilitated
At the foot of a fence around a small house in the desert, a protester cleared her throat. She wanted to scream loud enough for the man inside to hear. “Raaaaaapist!” she shouted. “Go away, rapist!” “No one in this world loves you,” her friend yelled. “You are a sexually violent predator!” The shrieks were met with silence from the white, two-bedroom home outside Palmdale where ____ _____ ____ has lived since his 2014 release from a California mental hospital. Full Article
Read MoreWho is a sex offender? Lenore Skenazy
A guy you might be scared to meet, Galen Baughman, gave a talk at a TEDx event in New York City recently. TED is known for introducing new speakers with new ideas on everything from tech to society to teaching. But Baughman was the first presenter who happens to be on the registry. The sex offender registry, that is. His crime? He had sex with a teen when he was a teen. He was 19; his boyfriend, 14. They had sex once. It was consensual. The younger teen did not…
Read MoreTX: Why Texas’ civil commitment program was found unconstitutional
Recently the Honorable P.K Reiter made headlines by finding Chapter 841 of the Texas Health and Safety Code unconstitutional. On Monday, December 14, Judge Reiter agreed with Defense Counsel Bill Marshall’s conclusion that the involuntary commitment of Alonzo May under the recently amended law was punitive and a denial of the man’s due process rights under both Texas and U.S. Full Article
Read MoreMN: Order Halts Changes to Minnesota Sex Offender Program
A federal appeals court has granted a full stay of a judge’s order requiring changes to Minnesota’s sex offender program. Full Article
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