Do sentenced sex offenders deserve special mistreatment in prison?

Closing our eyes to prisoner abuse must stop

Prisons are not supposed to be fun or pleasant. They are designed for restrictions and punishment intended to bring about rehabilitation.

They are not intended to facilitate, even encourage, vigilante activities against those whom other prisoners choose to mistreat.

Men in prison for convictions involving sexual offenses are often considered “fair game” for mistreatment and violence, and all too often prison personnel appear to turn a blind eye to this.

Speculation is already dominating the reports of Ben McCormick’s conviction for child pornography and what will await him if he ends up behind bars. The irony in the situation is that, while a reporter for A Current Affair, McCormick was instrumental in exposing sit-com star Robert Hughes and for Hughes’ subsequent trial, conviction, and incarceration for child sexual abuse. 

Reports of the mistreatment visited upon Hughes are only exceeded by the speculation that the same fate or worse awaits McCormick if he is imprisoned. Reporters euphemistically speak of the “prison welcome” given to Hughes, a welcome in which inmates hurled at him their own feces and urine that they had saved up in milk cartons the first time he entered the prison yard.

Were there guards and other prison personnel who knew the inmates were hoarding their bodily wastes for this purpose? No one is even asking the question. And while this treatment is mild compared to the sexual violence, rapes, and murders that those convicted of sexual crimes fall victim to behind bars, no one is asking those questions either.

There are no statistics. No one knows how many instances of sexual violence prisoners are subjected to. It is not a horror that is visited only upon those convicted of sexual crimes, but they are without a doubt singled out especially for such treatment.

And what of beatings, of maimings, of murders? Prison is a violent place. People in prison are violent people. These things are bound to happen. As far as those who commit sexual crimes receiving more than their “fair share” of such treatment, it is “jail-house justice.” Even other criminals won’t “tolerate” those who sexually abuse children. It’s bound to happen.

But it should not happen because those who should and could prevent it are closing their eyes and tacitly enabling it to happen.

Those who harm others should be punished. The punishment should not put them in positions where others who are also being punished feel free to turn a prison sentence into a sentence of torture or a sentence of death. Those who do that are proving their criminality yet again.

And also earning the title of criminals are the prison officials who shut their eyes. Their refusal to see does not excuse them from their culpability. We must demand that they be held accountable.

New Rule: Those accused of sexual offenses should expect to act as their own counsel; no decent attorney would take the case

When something I write references something read elsewhere, especially when I use direct quotes, I always link to the other piece. Due to my refusal to give the other piece or its publisher any credence or recognition, this post will be the exception to that rule.

In a major election year, one expects nasty, attack campaign ads. The last few years the level of sleaze has deepened and this year threatens, like a spewing volcano, to engulf the entire political process in its roiling, broiling morass.

Interesting parallel — each year the level of sleaze leveled at the entire class of those who are required to be on a sex offender registry deepens, with the list of “cannots” against them growing and spreading, much like the deadly lava of a volcano.

They cannot live where they wish or, often, be where they wish.

They often cannot get/keep employment.

They cannot assume their normal rights as parents or as citizens.

They cannot assume the right to travel freely.

They cannot live free of fear and anxiety for their own and their family’s safety.

Some cannot hide their infamy from anyone viewing their drivers’ licenses or, soon and for all, their passports.

Most importantly, they cannot — ever — be forgiven.

And now, due to an interesting convergence of both political and sex offender sleaze, it seems a new cannot has been added.

In a political ad pretending to be actual journalism, one designed not to directly promote a specific candidate but to destroy one, a candidate was linked with an organization renowned for fighting for unpopular causes in matters of civil rights.

It seems that this organization is “an organization that has an appalling history of providing legal support for sex offenders throughout the nation.”

And the candidate? “Shockingly…like the ACLU, has a history of defending sex offenders as well.”

Appalling history? Shocking? The inference here is that those facing charges for sexual offenses should not be provided legal support, and that anyone who dares provide it is doing something unconscionable and beyond the pale.

So a new cannot joins the others: Those accused of sexual offenses even though, like everyone accused of any crime, considered innocent until proven guilty, CANNOT be represented by counsel because no attorney worth the name would represent such a person.

Much about the public registry and all that it has spawned plays fast and loose with many of our constitutional protections. Now, with this, the Sixth Amendment is not just biting the dust but being stomped, ground, and broken upon the cold, hard earth.

Another Sex Offender Entrapment Experiment? Oh, My!

I may be too angry to write this coherently, but I'm sure gonna give it a try.

Some of you will remember the "How easy it would be to kidnap your child in the park experiment" that I blogged about two years ago. With the parents' permission, a man lured children in a park to his van to "see his puppies." It was phony and contrived but certainly accomplished its purpose of terrifying a You-Tube viewing audience.

Cut from the same entrapment-type cloth, a new one went on line, as I write this, less than twenty-four hours ago and has had over a million views. Titled "The Dangers Of Social Media (Child Predator Social Experiment)," the brilliant conceiver of this "experiment" set up a Facebook identity as a young high school boy and, with the cooperation of each parent, contacted the 12 or 13 year old daughter on Facebook, claiming to go to her school and having seen her around. By day two or three, he convinced her to meet him at a nearby park, only to have the enraged father jump out from behind a trashcan and start screaming at her when she arrived for the rendezvous. (I only watched the first of what were apparently several events; my stomach was churning.)

But, as tacky as I found the video, that isn't what made me so angry. It was this statement on a Facebook posting accompanying the link to the video: "In the United State[sic] there are over 750,000 registered child predators." Full of righteous anger and statistics, I dashed to the "Report" function of Facebook--only to discover that the sentence wasn't written by Facebook. Off I rushed to Youtube, only to discover the same.

The villian is an online rag called "GoingViralPosts." The closest I came, with admittedly only moderate effort, to finding contact information was that they are headquartered in San Francisco.

Should parents educate children about potential dangers online? Certainly. Should they be terrified of some "registered sex-offender bogeyman" who lurks in cyperspace ready to pounce? Should they be

seduced by false statements and bogus "experiments" into believing that potential luring behavior, if it comes, is likely to be done by someone already on the registry, someone who is a stranger to the child?

Just as research shows that virtually all actual child sexual mistreatment is committed by those who are NOT already on the registry for previous offenses but rather those close to the chosen victims, it strongly suggests that by far the greatest Internet threats to children and teens are the peers of the potential victims.

One of my "sounding boards" suggested this solution to the danger to children posed in the video, and actually any danger at all--save a meteor crashing out of the sky and leveling the house and everyone in it. Anyone who has children commits to keeping them in the home every second of the first 17 years of their lives, with at least one of the parents having eyeball contact with the child each of those seconds. Any parent found negligent shall be imprisoned and the child taken into care where he or she will be assigned a surrogate to fulfill the parental role and expectations.

I hope I haven't given any aspiring politicians any ideas.

Hi there, I'm a sex offender

You may not know that, but you may know me. My son Billy is in third grade at Cooper Elementary. I drop him off and pick him up most days, and I have attended several of the parent days and parent lunches there with you. The superintendent has given me permission, and that was all that was needed. Now that has changed. Before I can come to school for any reason again, I have to run an ad like this one, at my expense, for two weeks. There will be a hearing at the end of the two weeks, and any of you who want to keep me from going on school property are invited to come and speak against me. As I understand the legislative bill, only negative testimony will be heard. Apparantly they don't want anyone saying anything good about me. Anyway, here's the notice, and it will run every day for two weeks, and then the meeting will be held in the board room at the administration building at 7 p.m. on February 28. See ya'll there!

If you aren't laughing by now, if you realize that this is real, then I hope that you are crying. The bill calling for everything outlined above, Virginia House Bill 1366, has passed the House Courts of Justice Committee unanimously. The full House of Delegates votes on the bill Tuesday, February 3--TODAY.

We are in the midst of a whirlwind at this point in time. More and more studies are being released, showing what we have been saying for years, and more and more journalists are writing the facts and the truth, and everything they write points to the utter ridiculousness of legislation such as this. And then the crosswinds of more restrictions and harsher laws and legislation based on nothing resembling facts and truth threaten to blow us away, especially, it seems, in the South.

I cringe for every child of every registered parent in the state of Virginia. Did the proponents of this horrible legislation consider them, I wonder, even for a moment?

What most registered parents of school children will choose, of course, in order to avoid the pain and humiliation and bullying and all the other negative consequences to their children, is to not place the ads, to not ask for a hearing, and to quietly remove their presence from their children's school lives.

Someone else will take them and pick them up. No more parent days or field trips or school lunches shared. No parent or counselor conferences. No school plays or basketball games to cheer on the budding actresses or future NBA stars. They will become the invisible parents, parents not allowed to do what even the most ignorant legislator surely knows is vital for optimizing the future of America.

They will no longer be involved, for thirteen years, in what is the major part of their children's lives.

Homeless ministry, Salvation Army get failing marks in treatment of those on the sex offender registry

First post of the new year, and my fury-level is high.

I just read this: "True Vine Ministries on Morganton Road to offer shelter for homeless on 'white flag' nights."

"White flag nights" are nights when the outside temperature in this part of North Carolina is expected to go below the freezing level. According to the article, the week between Christmas and New Year saw "multiple" white flag nights.

My fury went from 0 to 10 when I read this sentence: "Anyone can seek white flag shelter regardless of their status with the Salvation Army unless they are sex offenders, have previously assaulted Salvation Army staff members or residents, or have been terminated for having a weapon in the shelter."

Unless they are sex offenders.

I dashed off this response on their comment board:

" 'Anyone can seek white flag shelter...unless they are sex offenders....' Just to be sure I have this straight...a murderer, a dope dealer, and an arsonist are all welcome. However, the man who is on the registry because he had underage sex ten years ago at 18 with the woman who is now his wife will be turned away. Yeah, makes sense. Will his wife and child be allowed in and only he left to freeze outside? Just wondering...."

But that isn't sufficient. This CANNOT be tolerated. How dare an organization--a church in partnership with the Salvation Army--one that is unarguably doing good deeds, one that claims to be doing God's work, one that has to have the safety of those it serves as their primary motivation, just disallow, with those five words, a segment of society based on nothing but their inclusion in a group who are as diverse in deeds and character as--well, as any other group.

Unless they are sex offenders.

I had just read another article before this one. It tells of a Virginia state trooper who was charged with and pleaded guilty to a multitude of sexual crimes against a child. A kindly judge is allowing him to serve only 30 days jail time and two years probation of a nine year sentence and--the kicker--he will somehow not be required to register on the sex offender registry. The crimes to which he pleaded are, the article points out, "almost identical" to those for which this same judge not long ago--and not nearly so kindly--sentenced another man to 66 years in prison and--of course--he will be subject to registration should he live long enough to get out.

So this man, this law enforcement officer, would have no difficulty whatsoever seeking and being granted shelter at the True Vine Ministries should he find himself homeless on a frigid night; he isn't on the public registry; therefore, he isn't a "sex offender." But the man I referred to in my comment on the article, the man who as a high school senior had pre-marital sex with his sophomore girlfriend and was put on the registry when her mother reported their activity, the man who has been married to that

girlfriend for close to twenty years, not ten, as in my example, the man who is raising four children with her, not one, the man who will be on that registry until he dies, would be turned away to freeze.

This CANNOT be tolerated. This MUST not be tolerated. Those on the registry, as a random group, pose no greater danger to the safety or well-being of their fellow human beings than any other random group of homeless citizens seeking refuge from the elements.

I hope that no registrant, being turned away from True Vine Ministries, dies as a result. However, if he should, I hope that the organization, along with the Salvation Army, will know that his blood is on their hands.

Sex Offenders and Halloween--will it ever stop?

What do these four headlines have in common?

"Staying safe and avoiding sex offenders while trick or treating on Halloween"

"Sex Offenders in Colorado Can Open Doors on Halloween" (sub-text: and we've got to put a stop to that)

"Police out in force for Halloween; extra eye on sex offenders in Effingham"

"County sex offenders required to report on Halloween"

Not a very hard question, is it? These are headlines of just four of a multitude of articles that appeared in online and print media in the four weeks before Halloween. Multitude? Yes...multitude. I captured 50 separate articles, coming from 22 separate states. Those are the ones that crossed my desk in the regular course of my work. When I did an actual search, they are less than half the number that one search brought up.

The states that seem to have put forth the most are, like the first one above, from states that have no restrictions in place for registrants on Halloween. One assumes that someone did his or her homework and knows this is a non-problem and no laws are needed. Not satisfied with that, enterprising law enforcement and journalists took it as a challenge and issued warnings left and right about the danger of those on the registry on this night above all. They cautioned every parent to check the registry carefully before letting the kids go trick or treating. Two of those states now have legislators considering bills that will bring their states in line with the ones that have restrictions. And so it spreads, like a fungus or a cancer.

Additionally, after Halloween a plethora of new articles appeared, all with the same theme: "We did it! We protected your children on Halloween from the big, bad sex offenders. No children were molested by anyone on the registry!" Well guess what, California and Florida? Guess what, Nevada? None were molested in Alabama or Kansas, or any of the other states that have no state laws and very few or no jurisdictional ones that affect registrants on Halloween. None were molested anywhere by anyone on the registry while trick or treating--ever, as far as research has been able to determine.

But this is not what the public thinks. How could they when headlines and TV anchors shout at them for weeks about the necessity to take extra precautions on Halloween against "sex offenders"? This was made clear when, in response to an article titled, "Operation Scarecrow helped keep sex offenders away from kids on Halloween," I commented:

"Kept kids safe from sexual predators"--that is such a joke. I don't imagine any kids were attacked by hyenas either, so you might as well take credit for that also. I admit to that being a bit of hyperbole, but the fact is that children are at ZERO increased risk for sexual crime on

Halloween, and all of the law enforcement hype and political hype across the nation is just that--hype that has nothing to do with actually protecting children and much to do with making the public think so. There is no record of a child being molested by a registrant while trick or treating--ever. Now, if increased patrol cars and even foot patrols were out and visible, you may have had an impact on traffic safety and thus have saved a child from being hit by a car. That is what children are at increased risk for on Halloween, and six were killed this year trick or treating. We need facts and truth in laws, in law-enforcement, and in journalism.

I was immediately challenged by a well-meaning reader who wrote:

"the fact is that children are at ZERO increased risk for sexual crime on Halloween" Really, Shelly? And where did you obtain that fact from? From your extensive...several minutes worth of...thinking about the issue? Kudos to the officers for looking out for the kids. I'm glad they take the issue more seriously than Shelly does.

To his credit, when I nicely replied and gave an excellent research source as my evidence, he apologized and complimented me on my response. He is a rare, rare exception.

When did this start? I remember many articles last year, and the year before that, and....? Time out for research.

I searched "Halloween restrictions for sex offenders." I used the time frame of September 1 through November 15. I started at 2000 and came forward. I looked at every single entry. I did not look at any actual articles. If the entry did not clearly link danger from registered sex offenders with Halloween, I did not count it. Early on and continuing forward, the entries include reports of courts overturning or disallowing these restrictions. Frankly, I was surprised there were so many. Everyone needs to go to court over this. The entries also include material from advocates, experts, and research debunking the entire premise and the laws that are useless because there is no problem for them to address. This is by no means a "real" piece of research, but these are my results:

• 2000  0 articles
• 2001  1 article, written by someone denouncing the rumors of children's deaths by poison in treats; he calls it Halloween sadism; sex offenders are not mentioned, but I found it interesting.
• 2002  0
• 2003  3; California, Louisiana, and a third I was unable to determine announced their creation of laws restricting the activities of registrants on Halloween.
• 2004  1
• 2005  11; Megan's Law was mentioned in two of the entries
• 2006  8
• 2007  15
• 2008  60 ?? My guess is that SORNA was becoming a motivating factor.
• 2009  23
• 2010  40
• 2011  66
• 2012  100
• 2013  117
• 2014  177

With very few exceptions, the pattern is clear--an increase every year. I do not expect a decrease for next year, but maybe more will be announcing the overturning of some of these laws. The evidence is clear and compelling that they are laws that have no purpose and no merit. 

When it comes to sex offender facts, freedom of speech is squashed

~~by Shelly

This will be filed under Halloween, but it extends far beyond that.

A little town in Indiana named Bedford did something this Halloween that I found particularly despicable. The past week or so I have been commenting fast and furiously, as often as possible, against the need to expend extra-ordinary efforts protecting trick-or-treaters against registrants and for the more-needed addition of traffic patrols Halloween evening and night. I was getting rather blase about it because the articles were much the same: for the town's or county's registered citizens, no decorations; no lights; no costumes; no handing out treats; no being on the streets; mandatory meetings.

Then this morning, this headline really caught my eye: "Police use creative video to warn community about sex offenders before Halloween."  The opening paragraphs give the full picture--pun intended--better than I could paraphrase it:

Halloween is just days away, and one central Indiana police department is getting the word out about local sex offenders. 

The Bedford Police Department made a Facebook video that shows the faces of the nearly 50 sex offenders living in the city.

My first thought was, "Well, crap. What if some kid sees his or her daddy or uncle or grandpa on there? Will there be any end to the grief for that child, to the harassment and bullying that will result from peers?"

My second thought was, "This is SO wrong." I started hunting for a way to post an objection. The article did not have a comment board attached. I found a Facebook page for the news outlet that posted the original article and dropped in this comment:

This is horrible...and total nonsense. A little research would reveal that children are at zero increased risk for sexual harm from registrants or from anyone else on Halloween; it would reveal that exhaustive research has failed to turn up any cases of children being harmed by a registrant on Halloween. It will also reveal that every year several children are killed and more injured in auto-pedestrian accidents. What children are at increased risk for on Halloween is death by car. So, if the authorities of Bedford actually care about child safety and want to protect children on Halloween, they should direct their efforts to increased traffic patrol and traffic safety.

These two blog entries just came out and are very informative:

At With Justice for All: "This is getting boring, but it's Halloween again"

At Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment: "Halloween & Sex Crime: Myth vs. Reality"

It was delegated to some back page, but it was there--if you hunted for it. I then tried to find a Facebook page for the Bedford Police Department, and when a friend sent me the link to the page about the video, I put the comment there along-side a dozen or so others about the video display. Mine was the longest and therefore prominent. When I went back a few minutes later, my comment was gone--and so was the window for me to write another comment. They not only removed my comment; they also blocked my posting on that page. I then went to their main Facebook page; I was blocked from there also.

Maybe I shouldn't have said it was horrible or called it nonsense. I seriously doubt that would have made a difference, but I still wonder. The rest of my comment was fact and truth. If the Bedford Police Department Facebook moderator cared at all for the truth, he could have just removed the horrible and nonsense part and left the rest.

This is the greatest challenge that those of our advocacy face: getting the truth before the public. Our venues are limited; our blogs are read by each other and very few others. Mainstream publications and venues must be hit in the face with significant articles by prominent writers or results of research before they will publish anything giving the actual facts.

So what does this mean? First, we have a hard job ahead of us, but we already know that. More importantly, we will not be silenced. If one of us is blocked, ten more will find a way and a place to make our voices heard. There is no option. Facebook can block us; letters to the editor may be deemed not worthy of publication; law-enforcement sites may ignore or remove our comments. We will find a way. We will not be silenced.

  

The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth

On May 20, an editorial was printed in the Keene, New Hampshire's Sentinel. Titled "State's sex-offender registry overreaches,” it says much that is good and grounded in facts.

Its primary thesis is that inclusion on a public sex offender registry is punishment and not merely regulatory. When this scheme was first conceived, it was pronounced to be a regulatory mechanism, and the Supreme Court agreed. Since then, being placed on a public registry has indeed become, increasingly each year, a

death knell for many.

Employers have fired productive workers due to threats of boycotts and, in some cases, vandalism to their property because they employed a sex offender. Many registrants can’t even get hired.

Registrants with children suffer many varied punishments: inability to keep suitable housing in which to raise their children, forced separation from their families due to the housing and a myriad of other issues, having their children terrified by vigilantes vandalizing the home or the family vehicle, and seeing them come home in tears and even bruises from the treatment received at the hands of their peers due to daddy being on the sex offender registry.

Registrants and their family members are indeed targets for all sorts of acts of vigilantism, up to and including murder, as witnessed not only in Maine, as the article points out, but also in Washington State--twice--in California, in South Carolina, and, ironically, in a very suspicious case right there in Keene itself--and these are only the tip of the iceberg.

So--well done, Sentinel.

Until you said, "Given the recidivism rates involved in sexual assault cases, especially those victimizing children, there’s a lot to be said for keeping the public informed of legitimate threats."

Which recidivism rates, Sentinel? Those of the latest study by the Department of Justice showing the re-arrest rate for a second sexual offense by a registrant to be 5.7% and the re-conviction rate to be 3.5%? Or possibly New Hampshire's own  2010 state report of sex offenders returned to prison within five years for a sexual re-offense, as reported by the Citizens for Criminal Justice Reform. "... the 5-year new victim re-offense rate for sex offenders was just 1.2%….

"These low numbers suggests sex offenders respond well to supervision and treatment, and don't commit new sex crimes at the rate the public thinks they do, said Michael Lawlor, Connecticut’s chief of criminal-justice policy."

And as far as those who victimize children, two facts come into play. Children who are sexually abused are
overwhelmingly victims of those in close and trusted positions in their lives, many of them conditions of incest. Studies show that, once these types of offenders are arrested and dealt with in the court system, they have extremely low levels of re-offense, lower than the average lows, and it has nothing to do with "keeping the public informed." These are not the "legitimate threats"; they almost always are correlated with those whose chosen victims are random strangers, and those situations are rare.

Those who advocate for fact-based legislation governing the treatment of those who have sexually offended appreciate the Sentinel's tearing away some of the myths and exposing the facts. We will appreciate it more when all of the facts are revealed.

"We have to say you can't go out and kill sex offenders, but .... you really should"

This opinion piece masquerading as a public safety announcement has mastered the art of double-speak to a high degree.

The stated purpose of the piece is to inform their reading public that they will be publishing names and information on all registrants who move into the community. Yeah, they know that the info is available online and through the DPS and even to people's computers if they sign up, but they want to be sure they cover any gap, all in the interest of public safety, of course.

Really? After quoting the standard warning from the website about not using the information to injure or harass, this is their take on it: "In other words, just because you might know there is a convicted sexual offender in your neighborhood, it doesn’t mean you have the right to take the law into your own hands."

Take the law into your own hands---why? Because someone lives in your neighborhood?

And now the seed is planted. Being a convicted sexual offender, regardless of how rehabilitated, regardless of how law abiding a life is being lived now, regardless of how long ago the offense was, regardless of potential danger to children or other family members, is a reason for someone to "take the law" into his hands. What does that even mean, "take the law"? Surely we can hope that the law doesn't bully the children of registrants or egg their houses or beat them up or shoot at their cars for no reason whatsoever or ambush them and kill them.

Emboldened now, the article continues, "Many people wonder how the justice system can release predators and pedophiles back into society. Many of us wish they could be locked up forever or sent to an island somewhere ... or even more drastic measures be taken." Even more drastic measures...like bullying children, egging houses....committing murder?

Then, in an attempt to justify their thinly disguised attempts to encourage vigilantism, they continue: "We don’t condone any extralegal actions, though we don’t believe the judicial system is designed to adequately address the problems of sex offenders in society," and, "Despite how heinous the nature of their crimes might be, they have to be given the chance to prove they can hew to the straight and narrow. Unfortunately, many people with these deviant predilections never reform..."

Even a child could translate this: "The law just turns them loose and doesn't know how to deal with them, so it's up to us...they aren't ever going to change."

Even if that were true, even if statistical evidence did not abound that, once charged and punished, only a very small percentage of former sexual offenders will commit another sexual offense, the nastiness that seeps through every word of this article is the same sort of nastiness that left two little boys in Washington State without a father and took the life of a wife along with her registered husband in South Carolina and has swept and is still sweeping our nation like a blight, aided and facilitated by a hit list called the public sex offender registry.

And finally, for those of their readers who may have a few compunctions about picking on kids or vandalizing houses or attacking neighbors with baseball bats: "While you are legally restricted from harassing them, we don’t think a friendly reminder that we are watching is out of the question."

Other than really, really wanting their definition of "friendly," I wish they would at least look at the research showing that, along with housing and employment, community support for former offenders is essential in creating conditions that keep re-offense at its lowest and public safety at its highest. I mean, after all, this whole thing is about public safety....right?

Ironically, the title of this piece of writing is "Remaining Vigilant." Thanks to it, registrants struggling to build law-abiding lives and keep themselves and their children and families fed and with roofs over their heads now have another reason to be constantly vigilant for those who would harm them, their property, or their lives.

When is free speech not free?

~~by Shelly

We know we can't yell fire in a crowded theater. Or incite to riot. Or threaten the president.

What about gloating on air at the death of someone we don't even know because he is a registered sex offender? What about encouraging hate-mongering and violence against people who have paid their debts to society and have integrated into society as law-abiding citizens?

Comments posted on articles about the murders of or attacks on those on the registry make it clear that there is an element out there willing to encourage and praise such illegal vigilante activity, up to and including murder.

But from recognized radio personalities?

A portion of the Kimberly and Beck show from September 19, 2013, has these persons verbally high-fiving it with a caller who is expressing joy at a neighbor's death as a result of his house burning. Kimberly and Beck were encouraging all she said. Whichever of the two is the female seemed especially delighted that he might have been murdered, wondering aloud if someone might have tied him to the bed and set it on fire.

According to the broadcast, the man who died, Robert Harris, was on the public sex offender registry. He committed a sexual crime in 1993. These radio "personalities," one of them, with the other making grunts of agreement, said, "They never are rehabilitated." Since he has not re-offended in the 21 years since his original crime, for which he served his punishment, the ignorance of that remark is obvious.

It is disgusting that this hate-mongering and the dissemination of incorrect information was allowed to be made over the air. Among other comments, they said that he "got what was coming to him." That is the talk of vigilantes. He served his court-assessed punishment and was living a law-abiding life. Are they suggesting that private citizens have the right to mete out punishment over and above what the courts deem appropriate?

The radio station has received emails expressing consternation and condemnation. Due to the lag-time between when we discovered this abuse of public broadcasting and when it happened back in September, the station managers obviously feel our concerns are moot and warrant no response.

But what if their programming encourages more attacks on registrants? What if their hate-mongering finds fertile ground in some unstable mind and sends it out in search of a registrant to harm?

What if the cost of free speech turns out to be more lives?

Do sex offenders really deserve the best possible defense?

Many of you, along with me, read the blog Ethics Alarm written by fellow blogger Jack Marshall. The best description of my relationship with Jack is love/hate, and today the love is shining through.

The post is titled, "The 'Too handsome to rape' defense," and I gotta admit, I cringed at the title.                                                          
My position on rape is clear: it is a crime and deserves vigorous prosecution and imposition of punishment. I don't  see rape as an "iffy" issue. I subscribe to the theory of, "If you don't think it's rape when it's happening, it--I'll allow a probably--isn't." And the age of consent issue between an individual over it and one under it is simple also: I do not advocate anyone breaking any state or federal law, but at the same time, I will fight until I have no breath in my body to stop the criminalization of consensual sexual activity between two under-age teens.

Now that I've said enough to bring the radical feminists down on my head--again--I'll explain why I'm lovin' Jack today.

Within that post with the title that made me cringe, his primary purpose is to explain why the young man in question--and by extension, everyone--is entitled to, and his attorneys are obligated to produce, the most vigorous legitimate defense possible, and he goes on to explain why, "He's too hot to need to rape," is a legitimate defense.

He says this:

Lawyers are ethically obligated to advance whatever non-frivolous arguments and theories that are most likely to achieve their clients’ objectives, whether it is avoiding prison or rationalizing the crimes of the Japanese army. That is their job and societal function, and it is essential to our avoiding a jack-boot system where any of us could be thrown in jail by popular opinion or government edict. The laws are there to be used by every citizen, even when the citizen’s objectives are unethical, or when the citizen is a cur. 

Our rights are all protected well by this principle, and it’s high time we stopped bitching about it.

After my heart stopped palpitating, I quietly joyed in the words.

The cause for which I advocate, the cause that fills this blog, is not a popular one. It insists that once a sex offender has served his punishment, no matter how horrific the crime, if he expresses, through words, actions, or simply lifestyle choices, remorse and an intent to sin no more and a desire to show he is rehabilitated, that he must be given the opportunity to do just that, that this is what will best serve public safety, and that the laws that govern his comings and goings must be based on facts and evidence as to what facilitates that and what hinders it. This stance draws the sharpest criticism and most hostile reaction toward me and my fellow activists as well as the defense attorneys who are seen as "getting baby-rapers" off and setting them free to continue their pillaging.

The fact that the term "baby-raper" could be accurately applied to the tiniest, tiniest fraction of all who commit sexual offenses does not for a moment deter those who use it against everyone who is perceived of "supporting sex offenders," including their attorneys.

And so today Jack Marshall has shown us clearly why they are required to support their clients as vigorously as possible. In so doing, we are all protected.

Thank you, Jack; tomorrow I may hate what you write, but today, you're my main man.

Do we really need new sex offender laws every time a child is killed?

First, we need to get out of the way the accusations, based on the title of this post, that I don't care about the victims. I care about the victims much, much more than those who persist in supporting a system that all but ignores the victims and apparently doesn't care about any victims except those victimized by registered sex offenders.

Florida has just passed a plethora of laws, and is looking to pass more, under the guise of protecting children from those registered sex offenders

According to the FBI Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Statistical Briefing Book, 2008, family members and acquaintances are responsible for, depending on the age of the child, 98 to 95% of sexual crime against children. The remaining small percentages are committed by strangers, and those already on the registry are a small percentage of those small percentages, leaving the focus on registrants, the public registry, and all of its appendages a useless but very expensive exercise in futility, virtually worthless in addressing the serious issue of child sexual abuse.

As far as these new bills in Florida are concerned, careful analysis seems to reveal one impetus: an opportunity to make political hay driven by the tragic death of a child, Cherish, by a repeat sex offender. Even though Florida has some of the most self-defeating and draconian laws on the books, the civil commitment program that has been in place has actually done a good job. Much has been made of the fact that "...Florida has a serious problem with repeat offenders. Hundreds of violent sexual offenders have committed new sexual crimes after being released from prison...." That sounds so alarming, and of course any violent crime is alarming and should be answered with a prison sentence commiserate with the crime, but using all of Florida's numbers relevant to this reveals a totally different perspective.

Those hundreds of violent offenders--a few short of 600--represent the failures of the program over a 14 year period of time. During those 14 years, the program screened and released 31,000 individuals. That means that, under the program in place, 30,400 released sex offenders did not commit a second offense over the 14 years. It appears the program had a 98% success rate with violent offenders over the time period. The number of total re-offenses, including the almost 600 violent ones, for the 14 years is 1,400. For those who like recidivism--sexual re-offense--rates, that is less than 5%. Some states come in lower, some a bit higher. Florida is right in the middle, right at the figure the DOJ arrived at after a multi-state, mega-study released in 2003.

These new laws are not needed. I predict that the rates will not change. Somewhere around 5% of released offenders either will not choose or will not be able to alter their behavior and will be, deservedly, returned to prison. And children in Florida will continue to be sexually abused at exactly the same rate as they have been and by the same people, and so few of them will be registered sex offenders that everyone on the registry could drop dead today and the amount of sexual crime against children will be the same tomorrow.

Have we reached the sex offender registration tipping point?

According to Merriam and Webster, a tipping point is the critical point in a situation, process, or system beyond which a significant and often unstoppable effect or change takes place.

Maybe overload point would be a better descriptor.

In Chicago, a sort of tipping point seems to have been reached at the Chicago Police Department where registrants must renew their registration every year. They must also report any changes to this office within three days--changes like an address, a job--losing one or getting one--or enrollment in any school.

They start lining up before 6 a.m. in the well-below freezing weather, in the dark, pre-dawn hours of an Illinois winter. They wait for hours. Some make it in; some don't. Some are in violation because their three-day window closed during the days they stood there, unable to get in. The line is "cut" at noon, which means anyone still in line will not be processed, no matter how long they have been there. The office says it is open until three. A reporter who has monitored the situation for two weeks has observed the doors being locked before one in spite of the advertised hours of business being 8 a.m. until 3 p.m.

The doors are locked, a spokesman says, when they have more people inside than they can process by closing time.

Frustrated, angry, and hopeless men walk away, fearful men, because some of them are now in violation. They could be arrested for non-compliance, for failure to keep their registration current. It won't matter that they tried, that they stood in a line, cold and fearful, for hours, day after day, only to have the door locked yet another day. 

Is this a tipping point, a point at which the once-believed helpful concept of registering those deemed to be a danger to society has become so all-encompassing, so comprehensive, that the entities charged with facilitating the process are overwhelmed and, rather than fixing the problem within the organization, are instead shutting it off, locking it out, and refusing to deal with it?

What has caused this deplorable situation?-- for deplorable it is. It is not like advocates for a more fact-based system have not been warning for years of these consequences.  Requiring registration for some of the petty and misdemeanor offenses that in no way put anyone at risk of harm is the first of many errors. Keeping law-abiding citizens on the registry for years after they have completed all court-ordered punishment for a single offense doubles them. Having such a short window for updating change of address, etc., adds to the errors. Mismanaging the registration center to such a high degree compounds them to an almost incalculable degree. And being willing to incur the expense of re-incarcerating men who are trying their best to be compliant rather than using the money to fix the problem is criminal.                                       

Why do not the citizens of Illinois  protest en masse at the inefficiency and the ridiculous waste of their tax dollars? Why are not attorneys standing by, lined up with the registrants, waiting to file suit when a man is arrested for non-compliance under these circumstances?

Or--and here's a radical thought--why do the powers that be not open their minds to what experts and research studies and empirical evidence have been telling us for years--that the system is broken, that it was flawed from the beginning, that it goes against what everything tells us makes for a safer and healthier society, that it needs a major overhaul?

Will it take what is happening in Chicago to repeat itself at every registration center in every city and town in every state in the union?

The case of the malicious sheriff

Newbie Georgia Republican legislator Sam Moore has struck a blow--albeit an unpopular one--for constitutional rights, fact-based legislation, and common sense. His bill would remove restrictions on registered citizens, once their sentences are satisfied, that restrict their movements and prohibit their presence in places such as schools and parks. 

Shocking as it is in Georgia, there are many jurisdictions throughout the U.S. that do not place these restrictions on registrants. Following what research shows, that these restrictions offer no public safety benefit and that community re-entry is the best path to rehabilitation, which in turn is the strongest deterrent against re-offense and the greatest assurance of increased public safety, these towns and counties follow as a matter of course that which Georgia finds shocking; furthermore, they do it with no increase in sexual re-offense or children being snatched from school playgrounds and parks by registered citizens on the prowl.

At least one representative of the Georgia law enforcement community appears not to have read this research or, if he has, gives it no credence.     " 'In my 34 years of law enforcement I have never heard of such an insane law having been introduced,' said Cherokee Sheriff Roger Garrison Friday. 'Sexual predators are one of this country’s most violent (type of)
offenders.' " Sheriff Garrison appears not to know that those who can be classified as predators make up only a very small portion of the total of all registrants. He seems to make the same uninformed and ignorant mistake made by many, that of thinking that everyone on the registry is dangerous or has offended against a child or children.

As a member of law enforcement and thus one sworn to respect and uphold the rights of all citizens, not just the ones he likes, the sheriff's stance is troublesome. Furthermore, as one who is charged with fulfilling the dictates of the criminal justice system, which includes rehabilitation as well as punishment, it goes far beyond merely troublesome.

The Utah state contact of Reform Sex Offender Laws, Inc. took  exception to Sheriff Garrison's harsh words and wrote him a letter. He began by saying, "I respect the office of the Sheriff where I live and anytime I see the police in my community.  It is a tough job, dangerous, and takes a lot of dedication." Then he continued, saying to Sheriff Garrison, "You sir, disappoint me," and he told him why. His primary points are that the good sheriff is indulging in generalization and fostering an attitude of hate toward all registered citizens.

Sheriff Garrison replied immediately and succinctly. He wrote, "Your [sic] right I do hate sex offenders. I'm glad you don't live in Cherokee County. Stick to the issues in your community not mine!"

I contend that a person with the inability to show respect to all persons in his jurisdiction is unfit to hold an office of public trust. Nor is this limited to the state of Georgia or to a specific sheriff. I hear from many registrants and family members of registrants, and the attitude Sheriff Garrison displays is experienced by many.

But thankfully, so is its opposite. Many registrants and their loved ones have reported being blessed--and that is exactly the way they describe it--with parole officers, probation officers, and/or law enforcement/
registration/compliance officers and personnel who treat them with decency, dignity, and respect. These individuals have not only learned the golden rule but apply it in their everyday lives and work.

That is a lesson that Sheriff Garrison of Cherokee County, Georgia, would do well to learn.