[richmond.com 5/1/18] SEATTLE (AP) — A landlord group has sued the city of Seattle over an ordinance passed in August that prohibits them from making rental decisions based on a tenant’s criminal background. The Rental Housing Association of Washington sued the city in King County Superior Court Tuesday. The complaint alleges the city has violated property owners’ due process and free speech rights. It says landowners have a right to select their tenants and the ordinance is unreasonable. The Seattle City Council unanimously approved the “fair chance housing” ordinance in…
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WA: New legislation makes our community safer [stop unconditional SVP release]
[tacomaweekly.com] Flanked by Pierce County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist, State Representative Dick Muri, and others, Governor Jay Inslee signed House Bill 2271 into law on March 27. The new law will help prevent the release of sexually violent predators (SVP) into our community. The bill was prompted by a recent Washington State Supreme Court case, in regards to the detention of John Marcum, which potentially entitled SVPs to a new unconditional release trial each time an annual review found a less restrictive placement or conditional release was appropriate even if the…
Read More‘Living beyond the label’
____ ____ ____, 29, is a married father of two. He’s enrolled in Peninsula College’s Composites Recycling program, and is a member of the school’s Carbon Club. He’s also a level-three sex offender. Full Article
Read MoreWA: Law Would Reduce Severity of Charges for Teens Who Send, View Sexually Explicit Images
[chronline.com] The state Senate a week ago passed legislation amending state law to reduce charges against teens over 12 years old for sending, producing or viewing sexually explicit material of other teens over 12 years old from a felony to a misdemeanor charge. According to a news release from the Washington state Senate Democrats, the changes reflect the distinction between the sending of sexually explicit images by teens, as opposed to distributing such materials through malicious intent. The legislation was introduced by Sen. Manka Dhingra, D-Redmond. Under current law, any…
Read MoreWA: Bill to Protect Minor-Aged College Students From Sex Offenders Considered in State House
A bill under consideration by the state House of Representatives has been introduced in an effort to protect minor-aged college students, such as those in Running Start, from level three sex offenders. Full Article
Read MoreWA: Home helps Walla Walla sex offenders stay on straight and narrow
[union-bulletin.com] About 860,000 registered sex offenders were living in the United States in 2016, according to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Washington state Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs said Friday that 19,600 of those offenders are in this state. Today 124 of those live in Walla Walla County: 87 in the city, 17 in College Place, and the rest scattered up to Burbank. Seven sex offenders here are listed as homeless. Some of those, almost all low-level offenders, live in an ordinary-looking house in the Eastgate…
Read MoreWA: The Island Where Washington State Sends Its Sex Offenders (video)
[VICE News channel on YouTube.com] Twenty minutes off the Puget Sound coast is an island that was the home to a state penitentiary until it closed in 2011. Now, it is used as a facility for the civil commitment of the state’s most violent sex offenders. Watch video
Read MoreOnce a sex offender always a sex offender — even beyond death?
Who was Benjamin Gran? Registered sex offender sentenced to a lifetime of supervised release after he was caught with a massive amount of child pornography; Autistic young man caught in a “witch hunt” after being duped by an unrepentant pedophile; Third fatality in the deadly Amtrak derailment; Member of the Special Olympics team; Member of a pedophile group online; Someone who paid his debt to society and was on the right path; Convicted sex offender found in possession of child porn while working in IT at a college; Huge train…
Read MoreWA: ‘He’d pulled it together’ – Mom on son killed in Amtrak crash
____ ____ was a train enthusiast, a beloved son and an autism success story. He was also a registered sex offender, having served nearly two years in federal prison for child pornography crimes. On Wednesday, the world learned that he among the three men killed in the derailment of the Amtrak Cascades that crashed into Interstate 5 during an inaugural run. Much was made at SeattlePI and elsewhere of ____ ‘s criminal history in the hours after the 40-year-old’s identity was released. Speaking by phone Wednesday evening, though, ____’s mother…
Read MoreWA: Water at sex offender center violates health standards, state records show
Water at the Special Commitment Center on McNeil Island has repeatedly exceeded standards for various chlorine-related chemicals and been cited for violations dating back to 2006, according to an Associated Press review of state Department of Health records. Full Article Related APNewsBreak: Sex offenders blame island’s water for deaths
Read MoreWA: Cowlitz County has the highest rate of sex offenders per capita in the state
As the number of registered sex offenders in Cowlitz County grows — and the state rate drops — the county’s rate per capita has become the highest in the state. Full Article
Read MoreWA: Juvenile sex crimes can be basis of civil commitment
Civil commitment of offenders who have been designated as sexually violent predators can be indefinitely extended for those whose crimes occurred when they were juveniles, the Washington Supreme Court unanimously ruled Thursday. Full Article
Read MoreWA: Seattle set to prevent landlords from considering applicants’ criminal records
[The Seattle Times] Seattle set to prevent landlords from considering applicants’ criminal records. Seattle landlords would be almost completely prohibited from screening prospective tenants based on their criminal histories, under a proposed ordinance approved by a City Council committee Tuesday. The only people who could be denied housing based on their criminal histories would be those listed on sex-offender registries because of adult convictions. And landlords denying housing to such sex offenders would still need to state a legitimate business reason for doing so. Read more
Read MoreWA: He spent 9 years on McNeil Island without his day in court
____ had spent more than a year in the Yakima County Jail when he filed an Alford plea — not admitting the crime but conceding he likely would be convicted — on a second-degree attempted kidnapping charge. “I was told that I was going to be released the day I was processed,” he said. Instead, he spent the next nine years at the Special Commitment Center on McNeil Island, without ever having a civil commitment trial or being convicted of a violent sexual offense. Full Article
Read MoreWA: State corrections agency right to retire the word ‘offender’ (Editorial)
Words matter because the meaning that we give words matters even more. This is especially true of the words we use to describe each other, which is why it’s useful to have a discussion about the words we use to refer to those who have committed crimes, those who are currently incarcerated or are otherwise serving their sentences and those who have rejoined society at large. And it’s why a recent decision by the state Department of Corrections to phase-out the use of the term “offender” in written policies and daily…
Read MoreWA: Former Mesa mayor posts 21,000 sex offender names after long legal battle
This fall, Donna Zink posted a spreadsheet with the names of 21,000 registered sex offenders in Washington, two-thirds of whom had not been previously identified on public registries. Zink spent three years battling in court to release the information under Washington’s Public Records Act, during which she was frequently vilified as a would-be vigilante. To date, the Mesa-based public records advocate has received just one phone call, and law enforcement sources say they don’t know of any incidents stemming from convicted offenders whose information was previously treated as confidential. Full…
Read MoreWA: State Dept. of Corrections finds the term ‘offender’ offensive
OLYMPIA —The state Department of Corrections plans to stop referring to the men and women serving time behind bars as “offenders.” Acting Corrections Secretary Dick Morgan told agency employees in a memo Tuesday the word will be replaced in policies and programs with terms such as “individuals,” “students” or “patients” depending on the circumstances. … The term won’t disappear completely as registered sex offenders will still be identified in that manner. “That won’t change. They will be known as a registered sex offender,” Barclay said. “That is codified in law.”…
Read MoreWashington enacts Certificate of Restoration of Opportunity
Washington State courts are now authorized to grant certain individuals a Certificate of Restoration of Opportunity (CROP), which prohibits many state licensing entities from disqualifying the holder solely based on his or her criminal history. A CROP also protects employers and housing providers from liability for negligent hiring and renting. The new certificate authority was created by HB 1533, which was signed by Governor Jay Inslee on March 31 and took effect last month. In light of the trend toward giving courts responsibility for restoring legal rights and certifying rehabilitation, we took…
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