Is a life sentence for child sexual abuse just?

Arguably Chicago’s most notorious figure in the national Roman Catholic priest sex abuse scandal was committed indefinitely Wednesday to a state facility for sex offenders. In refusing to release ____ ____ under strict monitoring, Cook County Judge Dennis Porter noted that the defrocked priest had never cooperated with treatment or even admitted to a problem. Full Opinion Piece

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The Christmas I Sat Next to a Sex Offender

Last year my husband and I celebrated our first Christmas with our infant daughter. She couldn’t understand the holiday, of course, but that didn’t stop us from discussing Advent calendars, wreaths, and Jesse Trees in depth, continuing a friendly argument about Santa Claus that has been going on since our engagement. Citing our childhood experiences as rationale, we hashed out the significance of the Incarnation in the form of felt, cardboard calendars filled with chocolate, and a fat man driven around by reindeer. Christmas in my youth meant festive cooking…

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AK: Personal rights and stigma: when and where can sex offenders participate in the community? (Opinion)

[KBBI Alaska] Towns across Alaska have to grapple with what to do once a known sex offender returns to the community after serving their punishment. Though there are clear limits in some areas, there are massive gray zones, as well. Residents in Homer are struggling to balance fairness with safety ahead of one of the Kenai Peninsula’s biggest celebrations.   Read more  

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Overextending the definition of sexual assault is also harmful (Opinion)

We are going to need some new words. As allegations of sexual misconduct continue to flood our mass media, the term “sexual misconduct” won’t suffice. Neither will “sexual assault” or “harassment.” “Misconduct” is a handy catchall when we are not sure which actions under discussion are criminal and which are merely disgusting, but the legal terms of assault and harassment are surprisingly and unhelpfully broad. Full Opinion Piece

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I Shot a Sex Offender

[Jewish Journal] I frequently write about the importance of listening to the other side on tough issues, but are some positions so odious that they never deserve a hearing? A couple of years ago, an Australian friend was directing a documentary about a difficult subject: child sex-abuse in his Jewish community. One of the interviewees was a former abuser who had gone on to live a normal family life for decades. My friend had filmed a conversation between this man and a well-known sex-abuse survivor who had become a whistleblower.…

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Get rid of the registry [Opd Ed]

There’s nothing I can say about the tragedy in Las Vegas, except this: some version of that will happen in Michigan, probably sooner rather than later. The politicians are either in the pay of the gun lobby fanatics or resigned to the fact that they can’t possibly overcome them, so nothing will change. Nothing, that is, unless and until people somehow demand that democracy and sanity be restored. So far, they haven’t, and the senseless killing will go on. But there is something we do have an opportunity to change:…

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AK: Going home – Even sex offenders should get a chance to rejoin society

The good news is that Alaska’s sex offender treatment program works. The bad news is that a shortage of providers creates a many-months-long waiting list that traps sex offenders from rural Alaska in Anchorage, sometimes homeless. With 250 sex offenders coming out of Alaska prisons annually, 45 percent of them Native, this is a public safety threat and a humanitarian fiasco. We must do better. Full Opinion Piece (3rd of 3)

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Sex offender rules need to be revisited (Letter to the Editor)

Surely there needs to be a lot of changes made in the sex offender registry. I heard about a man in his early thirties who committed some sort of a sex crime. This young man wanted to become a male nurse. But because of his record, he could not get into nurse’s training. He paid an attorney $2,000 for his service, but his case is still pending. It went all the way to the governor two years ago, and the governor has not taken action to seal his records. This…

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