UT: Ban polygraph tests for those who report sexual abuse, Utah lawmaker proposes

Source: sltrib.com 1/23/24 A recent investigation from The Tribune and ProPublica showed the damaging effects a polygraph test had on one Utahn who reported that his therapist had touched him inappropriately during sessions. Utah could soon ban government officials from asking alleged sexual assault victims to undergo a polygraph test — joining a growing list of states that bar the practice. Rep. Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, said she has introduced legislation banning polygraph tests in hopes that it will remove a barrier that could prevent someone from reporting they…

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CT: State of Connecticut using EyeDetect for Testing Adult Sex Offenders on Probation or Parole

Source: officer.com 7/23/21 The Judicial Branch Court Support Services Division (JBCSSD) of the State of Connecticut recently released public information indicating the EyeDetect lie detection technology is now being used for assessment and testing by Adult Sex Offender Services on a multi-year plan beginning Jan. 1, 2021. The contract calls for the state to administer 2,300 EyeDetect and polygraph exams annually. Adult Sex Offender Services maximizes public safety and reduces re-offense rates by overseeing the assessment and treatment services for known sex offenders under probation or parole. Many cases require…

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Kat’s Blog: Polygraph Predicaments

It’s hard to believe that some states are still performing polygraphs during the pandemic. Some polygraph technicians are performing the exams unsafely, they’re also asking some peculiar questions as well. Case in point, as recently as a week ago, in one TN location, polygraphs were being performed by technicians from another southern state that happens to have a much higher Covid-19 population.  The technician wore neither a mask nor gloves and social distancing was of course, obsolete. Registrants taking the exam were, however, permitted to wear masks. Registrants were subjected…

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Kat’s Blog: Polygraphs and Plethysmographs During a Pandemic

CDC Recommendations. Social distancing. Masks. Stay at home. Just like the registry and its restraints, little thought was given as to how registrants would be able to follow these guidelines. Masks, anything that alters or changes appearance are a no-no for registrants. Registering in person was an obligation. Polygraphs, plethysmographs weren’t optional. For safety’s sake, no one could register cars or apply for other licenses in person. For safety’s sake, we couldn’t do the million and one things that we usually did in person, every day. And yet, advocates for…

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Living with 290: The Polygraph is Pure Hocus Pocus

If anyone does not know, the California Sex Offender Management Board (aka CASOMB) has phone call conferencing open to the public. Well since I’m not only a registrant but a member of the public I thought I’d conference in on their call today about the polygraph and all its wonderness and goodness fantasticness. What I heard today was a lot of 100% USDA Ground Choice B.S. unfortunately. A lot of Orwellian Doublespeak (1984 book) also present. There were CASOMB people on the call, a few PO’s, and, you guessed it,…

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Kat’s Blog: Polygraphs and Integrity

Watching one of those forensic tv shows, a police officer was accused of murdering his wife.  All the evidence pointed to him as the killer. He took a polygraph and passed. He still went to jail. Later, re-creation of the murder scene and testimony by expert witnesses on the angles of gunshots found the officer not guilty, the murder was instead, a suicide. Passing a polygraph in this case, as in many cases, didn’t really seem to matter. Failing a polygraph is what gets the fingers pointing and tongues wagging,…

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The polygraph as applied: Are we focusing on technology at the expense of everything else that works?

[sajrt.blogspot.com – 8/22/18] By David S. Prescott, LICSW, Kieran McCartan, Ph.D., &Alissa Ackerman, Ph.D. Nothing divides the professional and academic community that works in the field of sexual abuse quite like the polygraph. It is a debate that has went on internationally for decades. A fascinating wrinkle in policy and the law recently came to the authors’ attention. In at least one state, there is a policy holding that people on probation cannot be sent back to prison for failing a polygraph examination. This makes sense given the current status…

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CO: Polygraph testing and treatment of sexual offenders

[jenniferkamorowski.net 5/19/18] On May 9, the Colorado legislature passed House Bill 1427, which prohibits individuals with a vested economic interest in administration of polygraph tests from serving on the sex offender management board (SOMB). Beyond the issue of conflict of interest, there are other reasons to keep polygraph out of sex offender treatment decisions. The primary reasons are issues with reliability and the coercive nature of compelling disclosures about thoughts and activities (legal or illegal). Polygraph testing in post-conviction sex offender treatment (PCSOT) is used in approximately 80% of community-based…

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CO: Owner of polygraphy firm would have to quit sex-offender management board or give up $1.9M contract under measure heading to Colorado governor

[denverpost.com 5/9/18] Members of the Colorado board that decides how the state’s sex offenders are managed no longer will be able to profit from multimillion-dollar state contracts related to their work with sex offenders under a law legislators passed Wednesday. House Bill 1427 bars members of the Sex Offender Management Board from having direct financial benefits from the standards and guidelines adopted by that board. The legislation, which passed 27-8 in a final Senate vote, now goes to Gov. John Hickenlooper for consideration. Legislators reacted in part to a report…

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GA: Can’t pay for a lie detector test? For one man that could mean jail

A North Georgia homeless man may go to prison for 18 months because he cannot come up with $250 to take a court-ordered polygraph test. Such a move would seem to violate a U.S. Supreme Court ruling declaring it unconstitutional to jail someone for failing to pay a fee or fine. But the man’s attorney, McCracken Poston, said the state Department Community of Supervision is nonetheless pushing for the punishment. “It’s crazy,” Poston told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, saying his client, Robert Murphy, has been unable to find a job since…

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CO: Pricey polygraph testing of sex offenders under fire as critics target accuracy, expense

Colorado has spent more than $5 million to administer polygraph tests on convicted sex offenders over the last seven years, despite concerns that the results are so unreliable that they can’t be used at trial. Polygraphs, often called lie-detector tests, are used to determine which prisoners convicted of sex offenses are suited for release by probing their sexual history, attitudes about their crimes and whether they are committing new offenses. They also guide how offenders on parole or probation are supervised. But a bipartisan group of legislators has joined offenders…

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CO: Professional polygrapher holds position of power on state’s sex-offender treatment board

A professional polygrapher has an influential role in rewriting the rules in Colorado for how often their profession conducts lie-detector testing on sex offenders, an arrangement that critics have called a conflict of interest. Colorado will pay Jeff Jenks’ Wheat Ridge polygraph firm, Amich & Jenks Inc., up to $1.9 million to polygraph sex offenders in prison from 2010 to 2020, according to state contracts. Full Article

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ACSOL Conference Call November 16 – Polygraph Exams [Recording Added]

ACSOL’s will hold a public conference call on Wednesday, November 16, at 5 p.m. Pacific time. The topic of the call will be “Polygraph Exams” and the call will follow the same format as the previous calls. There will be a brief presentation of the topic to be followed by a Q&A session where call attendees may ask questions pertaining to the topic. Dial-in number: 1-712-770-8055 Conference Code: 983459 I look forward to having you call in. Sincerely, Janice Conference Call Recordings

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Janice’s Journal: CASOMB Should Discontinue Use of Polygraph Exams for Registrants

The Fifth Amendment is alive and well for registrants in Colorado due to a decision this week by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.  In that decision, the Court ruled that registrants could not be forced to incriminate themselves by answering questions about their sexual history during a polygraph exam. In Colorado, registrants on supervised release were required to participate in polygraph exams and to sign an agreement and which allowed their answers to be shared with law enforcement.  In making its decision, the Court noted that the terms of…

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NJ: Court Sets Polygraph Limits for Sex Offenders

TRENTON, N.J. (CN) – Polygraph testing is par for the course when New Jersey releases sexual offenders on permanent supervision, but the state’s parole board is barred from using such tests as evidence, a state appeals court ruled today. The decision comes in answer to a lawsuit five convicted sex offenders brought in 2013. Full Article Related Decision N.J. court upholds lie detector tests for sex offenders

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DE: ____ charged for refusing polygraph, therapy

When former state Senate hopeful ____ ____ testified at his child rape trial last year, he swore he did not force a youngster to repeatedly have sex with him more than a quarter-century ago. The trial ended in a hung jury. When he pleaded “no contest” in March to two counts of unlawful sexual contact and was put on probation, ____ didn’t admit to sex crimes, only that he would not fight the state’s accusations. Authorities have since charged him with violating probation because he has refused to to speak…

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