By The Daily News
Douglas Allen Alsteen, a repeat sex offender, has done his time. Now he's back in a Cowlitz County courtroom, facing the possibility of indefinite confinement at Washington's Special Commitment Center on McNeil Island.
The violent sexual predator law state prosecutors are hoping will keep Alsteen locked away continues to stir controversy 17 years after its enactment. Critics say the law smacks of double jeopardy and fails to accomplish its expressed purpose, which is to treat violent sex offenders until they no longer pose a threat to society.
According to a recent New York Times report on costs at McNeil Island and civil-commitment facilities at the 18 other states that enacted laws modeled on Washington's, this state pays an average of $127,632 anually for each person committed under the law. That compares to $29,055 annually for each prison inmate. Washington's civil commitment program now has 266 residents. It's budget for fiscal 2007 totals $45 million. Full Story
Committing sex offenders is costly, not very effective
Burned, Headless Man is ID'd as Child Sex Offender
November 9, 2007
BY BEN SCHMITT, Detroit Free Press
Northville police have identified the burned, headless body found on a cul-de-sac as a River Rouge man who was a registered sex offender.
Northville police, with the assistance of the Michigan State Crime Lab, used a fingerprint Thursday to identify the man as Daniel Sorensen, 26.
Sorensen was registered as a sex offender in Michigan and in Tazewell County, Ill., where records indicate he was convicted of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a victim between 13 and 16 years old. Full Story
Chesapeake ( VA) Wants To Add Community Centers, Parks and Libraries to List of Places Sex Offenders Can't Approach
November 8, 2007
Associated Press & 13News
CHESAPEAKE, Va. (AP) -- Chesapeake leaders want to add community centers, parks and maybe even libraries to the list of places that sex offenders can't approach.
The city plans to ask state legislators to amend the Virginia code to prevent convicted sex offenders from going within 100 feet of any public recreational area, community center or park.
Delegate John Cosgrove is supportive of the effort. He says it's a way to protect children and is "something we should have done a while ago."
"It just didn't make any sense to see that a sexual predator could have that type of access to a place with kids and vunerable folks," Cosgrove told 13News. "So, we need to make sure that that loophole is closed."
Board member Steve Johnson says he has heard of web sites that point predators to parks and recreation centers to find children. Full Story
Ohio Bill Would Make Sex Offenders Display Green License Plates
Thursday, November 08, 2007
A controversial bill to require sex offenders to display neon green license plates is making waves between Ohio lawmakers and law enforcement officials, MyFoxCleveland.com reports.
Prosecutors, sheriffs and police chiefs oppose Kristen’s Law, named for 14-year-old Kristen Jackson, who in 2002 was lured from a fair by a paroled sex offender, murdered and her body dismembered.
They say the perpetrators are smart enough to find other ways to corner their victims and fear the plates will cause vandalism and harassment against the offenders, as well as road rage and traffic hazards. Full Story
15-Year-Old Boy Charged with Failing to Re-Register as S.O.
by Raymond Rivera
11/08/2007 11:12 AM ET
DOVER, Del.- Delaware State Police arrested a 15-year-old Magnolia boy on charges of failure to re-register as a sex offender.
Police say the boy was arrested Wednesday afternoon in Meadowbrook Acres after police received information that he might be in the area. The boy is a tier-two, moderate-risk sex offender stemming from a 2005 fourth-degree rape conviction.
According to authorities, detectives also arrested the boy on an outstanding warrant for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. Police say that charge was the result of an Oct. 23 investigation.
The boy was arraigned at Kent County Family Court, and ordered held at the Stevenson House Detention Facility.
Little Elm restricts where sex offenders live and go
The Dallas Morning News, http://www.dallasnews.com
© 2007 The Associated Press
LITTLE ELM, Texas — This North Texas town has adopted new rules restricting not only where registered sex offenders can live, but also where they can go.
The Little Elm Town Council on Tuesday approved ordinances covering about 68 percent of the town's land.
Under one ordinance, registered sex offenders can't live within 1,000 feet of places where children commonly gather, such as schools, parks, libraries and day care centers.
A second ordinance prohibits registered sex offenders from going within 1,000 feet of places where children commonly gather. Full Story
Parks Emerging As The New "NO-GO" Destination
"Convicted sex offenders don’t have many advocates, but a recent rush of laws banning them from public parks has called into question just how many civil liberties these people should have to give up." ..."After the town of Woodfin in 2005 became the first municipality in the state [North Carolina] to adopt an ordinance banning sex offenders from public parks, the American Civil Liberties Union sued on the grounds that the prohibition was too broad and allowed for no exceptions." "The ACLU lost the case against Woodfin and a subsequent attempt to appeal was turned down by a North Carolina Court of Appeals in an Oct. 2 decision this year. Since the ordinance was upheld, other towns have moved to adopt their own versions." Full Story
Editor: Keep in mind, they are not talking about residency restrictions here. Now the push is on to "red-line" areas of the community where a registered sex offender can go. How long until we have complete banishment?
Scott Chris Thomas Is Not A Sex Offender
Scott Chris Thomas is not a sex offender. You can't find his name or his picture on California's Megan's Law Website. When he was released by the California Department of Corrections onto parole, he didn't have to go to a police station to register as a sex offender. He didn't have to find a place to live that was at least 2,000 feet from the nearest school or park.
But Scott Thomas, a known violent offender on parole, decided to rob a San Franciso bakery and stab a fifteen year old girl who happened to be there, almost to death. She lived, but now faces the possibility of never regaining the use of her right arm. A passer-by, coming to the aid of the girl, received three stab wounds, including a punctured lung. As it turned out, when the C.D.C. sprang him loose from San Quentin State Prison, they didn't realize that they were freeing the wrong “Thomas”. Scott Chris Thomas, who is white and 26 years old, was mistaken for another inmate with the last name “Thomas” who is black, much heavier, and in his fifties.
Here's my point: the State of California has implemented a rigid and encompassing mechanism for tracking and monitoring those convicted of sex offenses, even when the circumstances of their offense were devoid of elements of force, coersion, or violence. Those offenders receive tons of attention, not only from their parole officers, but from local police in the location to which they are paroled, the press, and the public. They immediately have to register as sex offenders at the local police station, their homes are carefully scrutinized to ensure compliance with the requirements of “Jessica's Law”, and local neighborhood “watch” committees may distribute flyers with their picture, their address, and the particulars of their offense to all of their new neighbors.
“Sex Offenders” receive seemingly unlimited attention from the government, the press and the public. But other criminals, regardless of their propensity for violence or its documented history, are unencumbered by any public registry and do not have to report to the police department, have their fingerprints taken, their photos taken, and their residence verified. Neither websites nor flyers bearing their photos can be viewed by local residents. And apparently, the California Department of Corrections can take a much more cavalier approach to their release.
The C.D.C. allocated very little concern to their release of Scott Chris Thomas, a cold and narcissistic thug whose mug shot exudes sociopathy through his contemptuous sneer. And yet I had a very difficult time finding this picture of him, despite his having recently nearly murdered a young girl. And that's because he's not on any public registry and the press spent very little time on this story compared to say, Cary Verse who, after completing years of sex offender treatment, was released into the community to the roars of public indignation and chased from one community to another, just trying to find a place to live. How do we reconcile the difference in attention received by these two types of offenders and how do we justify these differences as a matter of public policy?
I would suggest that the key difference lies not in the exercise of some carefully considered and objective standard for dangerousness but in a knee-jerk overreaction to sex offenses, especially those involving children on the one hand and an underreaction to amoral and pathological parasites like Scott Thomas, on the other.
A Warning To Parents On Halloween
When I was a kid, the big Halloween scare for our parents was the possibility of razor blades or needles placed in the apples or candy given out, presumably by diabolical adults, to the small and unsuspecting trick-or-treaters going door-to-door. That this scare was based not at all on fact and in the complete absence of documented cases, did not keep this urban rumor from becoming a major preoccupation of our parents and teachers. Indeed, this myth is still alive, although modern recommendations, such as having the collected candies X-rayed by benevolent police departments, are the contemporary countermeasures providing the societal upper hand in any negotiations with the evil spirit world. However, like ghost stories told around a campfire by cub scouts, our contemporary Halloween mythology requires ever more frightening embellishments to this specious, and seemingly eternal, narrative.
Far scarier than mere needles placed in a miniature Snicker's bar (after all, what's the worst that could happen? A painful trip to the emergency room?) is the much more ominous possibility of your little trick-or-treater being snatched from a pedophile's porch and tied up in his basement to suffer unspeakable sexual tortures. Even worse, one suspects that such a monster would not let them live after sating his perverse appetites.
That this much scarier myth is no more rooted in fact than the needles and razors of old is of no significance to the ever-vigilant fear mongers who obsessively quote one another in a mad dash to grab market share on the local t.v. news or in newspapers. The truth is, the little bunny or princess-costumed youngsters are far more likely to be killed in a traffic accident while being driven by their parents to a "safe" and organized Halloween venue with police volunteers posted at the doors of the staged events to deter any desperate molesters who might sneak in, than they would be if left alone, amongst their peers, going door-to-door and chanting "trick or treat"!
At some point, we need to ask what effect all of this "long night of fright" has upon our children, ourselves, and our society. There is a cost- I am sure of it- but clearly, it has been completely overlooked as one of the actual dangers we, and our children, face.
"Families for Freedom" (U.K.) On Childhood Fear mongering
Children do face very real problems today. They are over-protected and prevented from developing any life separate from their parents. They are driven to school, watched at play and their activities are organised by adults. As a result, they have less and less opportunity to explore the world for themselves, to choose their own friends, and to learn what it means to be independent.
People are susceptible to the scaremongering around children because we live in a society that has lost faith in itself. Families for Freedom argues the case for less worry and fewer restraints. We urge parents to relax and enjoy their children. We implore everybody to resist the scares that may frighten the life out of our future generation.
Exonerating the Friedmans
Hypnosis Rigged Sex Case Against Him, Says Jesse Friedman
By COREY KILGANNON, New York Times
The 2003 documentary “Capturing the Friedmans” raised questions about the prosecution of Jesse Friedman, who in 1988 pleaded guilty as a teenager to 243 counts of sex crimes against children he and his father taught in computer classes in their Long Island home.
Mr. Friedman, who served 13 years in prison, has sought to overturn his case and clear the family name, an effort that seemed bolstered by the documentary, which featured a 24-year-old man who said he remembered being abused as a child at the Friedman home in Great Neck only after being hypnotized. ...
“You have a group of kids who initially said they were not abused, wrangled by a group of therapists who utilized highly suggestive methods like hypnosis until the kids emerged from the sessions with the most lurid and highly unbelievable examples of sexual abuse and going directly to the grand jury,” he said. “There is no more inherently unreliable form of testimony than that.” full story
The Child Porn Hoax
By Susie Bright, SusieBright.com.
Posted October 2, 2007
"...How dare anyone call it a hoax! We know children are being abused. We know some of that abuse is sexual. We know the cameras are everywhere. Isn't it obvious? No, it's not."
"...Once upon a time, there was a very serious reporter for a very serious newspaper, who decided to investigate one of society's scourges: the child pornography ring. Two years after his exposés riveted the nation, it turned out the reporter had gone off the deep end. He'd paid his main source, become a webmaster at the very porn site he was investigating, lied and bullied anyone who questioned him, and had all but ostracized himself out of a reporting career. But it wasn't just him. The witch-hunters, bogeyman blamers, and moral-panic enablers -- were everywhere. Our little reporter might have landed in deep shit, but the hysteria he milked became bigger than ever before."
"Call him one of the most bizarre media offenders in the past two years of fear-mongering: Former New York Times and Portfolio reporter Kurt Eichenwald. He wrote two front-page stories on the subject of sex that won't be forgotten soon: Through His Webcam, a Boy Joins a Sordid Online World, and its followup, Child Sex Sites on the Run. From the get-go, both stories were creepy: the softcore sexy descriptions, the "blame the internet" righteousness, the homophobic ick factor, and the unexplained implication that Eichenwald had looked at piles of this material himself, when by current law, he wouldn't have that right, no matter how well-intentioned his purpose!"
"Why did Kurt portray himself as an elite one-man rescue mission, and why was he so lurid in his crusade? It didn't smell right."
"As [Debbie] Nathan revealed in her latest courtroom coverage in Counterpunch, Eichenwald has just retained a criminal defense lawyer -- and I don't think it's for jaywalking. The courts who've investigated the Berry sting operation found that Kurt himself was one of the webmasters with full access on Justin's web site. He gave large amounts of money to Justin and was in possession of many photographs and videos from Justin's portfolio." Speechless yet?" full story
Do tough sex laws help or hurt?
State's crackdown easier to apply to strangers; 93 percent of offenders know victims
October 20, 2007, DIANE JENNINGS and DARLEAN SPANGENBERGER / The Dallas Morning News
"...As a sexual abuse survivor, the Dallas woman understands the emotional appeal of harsher sentences for child abusers. But she says the new get-tough Texas laws promise more than they can deliver because they won't affect the vast majority of sex offenders. "We're focusing on stranger danger," she said of the crackdown, which includes 25-year minimum sentences and the death penalty for some child rapists. "That's not who's molesting the vast majority of our children."" ...
"According to federal statistics, juvenile sexual assault victims know their perpetrator a staggering 93 percent of the time. Often, it's a family member. Frequently, it's another child. Rarely is it a stranger. " ...
"...it's actually very rare that that kind of political reaction [harsher penalties] makes for good public policy." ...
"Crimes in which a child is snatched by a stranger are extremely unusual, despite public paranoia. Of almost 800,000 missing children in a one-year period, just 115 were victims of a stereotypical kidnapping, and half of those involved sexual assault, according to the Department of Justice."...
""The new laws are "sheer demagoguery," said veteran Dallas defense lawyer Vincent Perini, noting that long sentences were already available."...
"...A third of all sexual offenses are committed by juveniles, according to the Texas Council on Sex Offender Treatment." ... "Legal challenges: Child-on-child sex crimes are incredibly difficult to deal with, said Shannon Edmonds, director of governmental relations for the Texas District and County Attorneys Association. "Oftentimes, they occur within families. And the problem is trying to weed out the ones who are a danger vs. the ones who are just playing doctor." full story
The ACTUAL Risks to Children
Sex Offenders vs. Child Safety
by Shirley Lowery, S.O.S.E.N. (Sex Offender Support & Education Network)
September 3, 2007
"The laws enacted to monitor and control sex offenders are extraordinary. I think we can all agree to that. The general public believes these extraordinary laws are justified. The faces of murdered children, killed by sexual predators, are flashed on the TV urging us to "consider the children." And who could resist? Who would want to? Surely it is justified to face the threats to our children.
But what are those threats really? Is there a way to know? Actually, yes..." ...
"in 2002, your child was:
1400% more likely to hang themselves than be snatched and killed by a sex offender.
1500% more likely to shoot themselves than be snatched and killed by a sex offender
3200% more likely to be murdered with a firearm by someone besides a sex offender.
4000% more likely to be shot, stabbed, strangled, burned alive or poisoned than snatched and killed by a sex offender.
15300% more likely to be killed in a car crash than snatched and killed by a sex offender. full story
Boys, 9 and 11, Charged in Sex Assault
Howell, Michigan
Two boys, ages 9 and 11, have been charged with forcing a 7-year-old boy to perform oral sex on them on a school bus.
The boys, charged in juvenile court, could be placed on Michigan's sex offender registry for life if they are convicted, The Ann Arbor News reported Tuesday.
The incident reportedly took place in May. The boys- accused of first- and second-degree criminal sexual conduct and gross indecency between males-are students at Howell Elementary School, about 45 miles northwest of Detroit.
Authorities will request an evaluation to determine whether the sexual contact was predatory or experimentation, Livingston County Prosecutor David L. Morse said.
The 11-year-old was released Friday on a $25,000 personal bond. He is required to be monitored by an adult at all times and is not allowed to spend the night at his mother's house if his two younger siblings are present.
The 9-year-old was charged in August, but the status of his case wasn't available Tuesday.
The 11-year-old's court-appointed lawyer said his client pleaded not guilty, and he called the court conditions excessive.
"In the blink of an eye, he went from being a boy to being a man before the court," attorney Carolyn Henry said.
The father of the 7-year-old reported the incident to police after catching his son performing oral sex on his younger brother at home, WHMI-FM reported. The 7-year-old later told police that the 9-year-old boy forced him to perform sex acts on him several times on the bus, the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus reported.
'Corrective' Sex Education May Make Sex Offenders More Dangerous
Science Daily
University of Alberta study, Journal of Intellectual & Developmental Disability
Date: October 17, 2007
While it is commonly thought that men with low IQs sexually offend because of a lack of knowledge or sexual deviance, new research has found the men may sexually offend because of their exposure to "corrective" sex education previously taken. full story
Are We Teaching Children To Fear Men?
"And that men are out to hurt them? The answer, on many fronts, is yes".
By JEFF ZASLOW, Wall Street Journal, August 23, 2007
"When children get lost in a mall, they're supposed to find a "low-risk adult" to help them... "a pregnant woman," "a mother pushing a stroller" or "a grandmother." The implied message: Men, even dads pushing strollers, are "high-risk." " ... "Child advocate John Walsh advises parents to never hire a male babysitter. Airlines are placing unaccompanied minors with female passengers rather than male passengers. Soccer leagues are telling male coaches not to touch players". ... "People assume that all men "have the potential for violence and sexual aggressiveness," says Peter Stearns, a George Mason University professor who studies fear and anxiety. Kids end up viewing every male stranger "as a potential evildoer," he says, and as a byproduct, "there's an overconfidence in female virtues."" full story
Malaysia To Exchange Sex Offenders List With Other Countries
Asia Observer
By D.Arul Rajoo
"The Royal Malaysia Police, who are considering publishing the list of convicted child sex offenders, plan to exchange information on paedophiles, rapists, human traffickers and other criminals with enforcement agencies world-wide. Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Musa Hassan said that initially they would exchange the database of such offenders with their counterparts in Europe and Asean. "We want closer networking with other countries due to the trend in human trafficking". full story
The "Teen Sex Slave" Scams ABC's Primetime Fakery
CounterPunch, February 17, 2006
By DEBBIE NATHAN
"...the Bush Administration's mission to find foreign "sex trafficking" victims has gone belly up since it began in 2001. Almost no victims have been located, but the feds want to keep their law and rhetoric afloat and broaden it to other areas, including the culture wars. For ballast, they're trolling for a domestic demographic, warning that kids and prostitution is a new "trafficking" problem.
But the claim is specious. To make it, you have to play with language and omit facts or bend them so far that they break. That's what Primetime did, Thursday, February 9, with two teens, one pseudonymed "Debbie," and the other called by her real name, Miya." full story
Sex Offender Roundup Begins Today
By John Simerman
Contra Costa Times
State parole agents today will start arresting perhaps hundreds of recently paroled sex criminals, many of whom could land back in prison for living too close to schools and parks under Proposition 83, corrections officials said Thursday.
Plans for an aggressive roundup of parolee sex offenders who live within 2,000 feet of schools and parks where children "regularly gather" were announced a day after the California Supreme Court blocked the state from forcing four parolees to move out of the zones or have their parole revoked. full story
Registered Offenders Rights Being Defended
by Betty Price, Founder "Roar for Freedom"
October 14, 2007
"It is time for all Registered Sex Offenders to file these lawsuits. No one in the injustice system cares what happens to the entire family. In most instances, the family has to move to an apartment or another house, pay rent on where they are living and pay a mortgage on their house while trying to sell it. I pray this Gentleman and his Attorney take this as far as they can, if they have to. ...If more Registered Sex Offenders would fight back like this Gentleman, perhaps you could make some changes in these ignorant laws. Stop thinking fearfully and think logically and smartly."... "The right to own property in this country is a fundamental right. Why is he being deprived of a fundamental right to own and enjoy property?" Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer"
One Citizen's Response to Proposed Ordinance in Illinois
"The American people, it would seem, have embarked on a project to totally destroy the group of people it has defined as "sex offenders." It has, in other words, decided that it wants to purify itself by means of a holocaust. The term "holocaust," which has the literal meaning of a complete destruction by fire, is commonly used to refer to any massive destruction of a group of people by another group of people. The best known example is the Jewish Holocaust under Hitler. Is it overstating the case to use this term with regard to the treatment of sex offenders in the US? I would submit to you that, on the contrary, what we have been witnessing for some years now with regard to the sex offender issue has all the earmarks of an emerging holocaust. The first and perhaps most important step in the creation of any holocaust is the demonization of the group of people that is to be destroyed". full story
University of Washington wants sex offenders moved, Property Owner Suspects Ulterior Motives
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
October 12, 2007
By KATHY MULADY
"Carol Clarke believes in second chances. It's part of the reason she allows sex offenders who have served their prison time -- and have a plan for turning their lives around -- to live in the five houses she manages ...near the University of Washington. Clarke is mystified why suddenly, after seven years without problems, 13 sex offenders under state Department of Corrections supervision, who rent rooms in her homes along 18th Avenue Northeast, may have to find new places to live. ... Clarke suspects that the growing university wants to buy her houses. When she complained about her tenants being forced to move, she said, Godfrey told her, "There is a solution to our problem. We can buy a couple of your houses, and you can go set your program up somewhere else."" full story
Sex Offender Laws May Do More Harm Than Good
Sarah Tofte, for the Huffington Post
October 12, 2007
"It's not surprising that those who know something about the nature of sexual violence in the United States have started to criticize the way the laws treat former sex offenders. But it's a shame that politicians don't seem to be listening to the experts who could help to craft laws that might actually prevent sexual violence." read story
State defies high court over sex offenders: Hundreds will be sent back to prison for violating Jessica's Law
Michael Rothfeld, Los Angeles Times
October 12, 2007
SACRAMENTO -- — Vowing to fight an order from the state's highest court, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and corrections officials Thursday defiantly began sending hundreds of freed sex offenders back to prison for violating strict residency requirements imposed by voters last year. full story
Sex offenders' rights defended
Thursday, October 11, 2007 4:02 AM
By Mary Beth Lane, The Columbus Dispatch
"Forcing a registered sex offender to leave a home that he bought before a residence-restriction law went into effect in 2003 violates his constitutional property rights, a lawyer for an offender told the Ohio Supreme Court yesterday". full story
Mob beat up paedo slur victim
Christopher Peters was so terrified after locals on his estate falsely called him a pervert that he put in CCTV. Mr Peters - cowering indoors after an earlier assault - answered his door, expecting police. But James Nicholson, 19, ex-soldier dad James Snr, 52, and Andrew Smith, 23, rushed in to attack him and son Anthony late at night in Hythe, Hants, in March. Nicholson Snr, of Hythe, got 42 months for GBH and burglary and his son 28 months for ABH, GBH and two other offences. Smith, 23, got 32 months for ABH and GBH. All had previous convictions. Southampton crown court judge John Boggis QC stressed Mr Peters was "not and has never been a paedophile".A vigilante mob have been jailed after storming the home of a man wrongly branded a paedophile and battering him and his son.
Ordinance would restrict where sex offenders could go
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
BRIAN ECKHOUSE, THE CALIFORNIAN
" CANYON LAKE -- A proposed ordinance favored by the City Council would prohibit sex offenders from being within 500 feet of parks, beaches and bus stops. The ordinance would further restrict how close a sex offender could live -- and visit -- to these public places". full story
Judge strikes sex offense commitment law
By Mike Baker, Associated Press Writer
RALEIGH, N.C. — The U.S. government cannot keep sex offenders in custody beyond the end of their prison sentences, a federal judge has ruled, striking down a law aimed at holding some in mental hospitals. full story
Counterpunch Urges Support for Reform of Sex Offender Laws
By PAUL SHANNON, Counterpunch Magazine
July 10, 2007
You can sign this public statement at Reform Sex Offender Laws website to support the reform of existing sex offender laws.
"There is today in our country a growing threat to our legal system, to the rights of all of us, to the quality of life of children, and to common sense. This threat has been fanned by prosecutors, nurtured by the media, and ignored by those who usually speak out against such dangers. In its most narrow sense this threat can be defined as the particular approach to sexual deviance embodied in ever-more-draconian laws against all behaviors labeled "sex offenses" -- including those committed by minors -- and in the sex offender registries of every state and the Federal government. In this approach to sex offenses slander, hysteria and demonization often replace reason, solid research and proportionality". full story
Reform Sex Offender Laws: A Call to Protect American Society, our Children and our Liberties
(Sign the Petition! at reformsexoffenderlaws.org website)
"This is the statement of a group of concerned Americans, including educators, health workers, and community activists, based on a similar Call issued in Boston in 1999. We urge others to join us in this campaign". go to Reform Sex Offender Laws to read petition
Letter Writing Suggestions:
You can use this format to write a personal letter to show your concern for the Detainees in Coalinga Hospital. If you can, try to personalize this letter as you might write it so that it to distinguish it from the rest. See the list below for ideas of other possible concerns you may way wish to express to the Directors. Also, don't be discouraged if you don't get through to them on the first attempt and don't hesitate to communicate your concerns through letters, phone calls and emails (preferably, all three).
Please Note: Under privacy regulations, the Hospital is forbidden from discussing patient information until you have contacted your friend or family member and a release of Patient Information form is signed by them. Therefore, have them fill out and submit a CSH Release Form No. DMH 5671, REV. 3/04 granting you access to their records.
SAMPLE LETTERS TO COALINGA STATE HOSPITAL: (You can highlight and copy all text below (CTL+C) and then paste (CTL+V) into Word or some other text program (
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
[Date]
Mr. Norman Kramer, Executive Director
Coalinga State Hospital
24511 West Jayne Avenue
P.O. Box 5000
Coalinga, CA 93210-5000
Dear Mr. Kramer,
I am a [friend, parent, brother, etc.] of (name of patient), who is a patient at Coalinga State Hospital. I have received some news about problems in your facility and am very concerned. I want assurance that he is receiving fair evaluations and proper treatment.
In addition to my questions about the medical care he receives, I would also like to confirm that his legal and civil rights are being upheld. I would like to schedule a conference with you and tour your facility to help answer my questions and allay my concerns.
Sincerely,
[Name
Address
Phone
Email]
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
to send this message by email or to call Norm Kramer on the phone:
Tel: (559) 935-4300
Email: nkramer@dmh.ca.gov (this is unverified but you can try it)
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Stephen W. Mayberg, Ph.D. Director,
California Department of Mental Health
1600 9th Street
Sacramento, CA 95814
Sacramento, CA
Dear Mr. Mayberg,
I am a [friend, parent, brother, etc.] of [name of Detainee], who is a patient at Coalinga State Hospital. I have received some news about problems in your facility and am very concerned. I want assurance that he is receiving fair evaluations and proper treatment.
In addition to my questions about the medical care he receives, I would also like to confirm that his legal and civil rights are being upheld. I would like to schedule a conference with you, either in person or by telephone, and tour the Coalinga facility to help answer my questions and allay my concerns.
Sincerely,
[Name, Address, Phone, Email]
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
to send this message by email or to call Steven Mayberg on the phone:
Email: stephen.mayberg@dmh.ca.gov
Tel: (916) 654-2309
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Other Areas of Concern that you may wish to convey in your letters to Kramer and Mayberg:
- Lack of Professionally Administered Diagnostic Tests and Assessments
- Detainee rules for conduct and rights of appeal are in violation of their civil liberties under the law.
- Staff are not held to a standard of accountability and are allowed to make arbitrary, capricious and inconsistent rules.
- Staff or Police assault on Detainees and other misconduct or abuse.
- Insufficient contact between Patients and yourself due to visiting restrictions and lack of telephones.
- Lack of exercise opportunities.
- Problems sending and receiving mail. Mail is frequently lost or unlawfully opened.
- Ridiculous package restrictions and inability to easily send shoes, medical necessities and many other items that they should be able to have and that pose no threat to the safety and security of the institution.
- Inability to send books directly from publishers or legitimate vendors (why must these items be purchased from only two administration-selected vendors who also have a very limited selection?). Neither of these vendors have a reasonable selection of titles. -One of them sells only Christian-themed books while the other only sells unpopular remainders.
- Censorship. If books, movies and games are legal and allowed in the community at large and even in prison, why is it that Civil -Detainees (who, after all, are not be held for reasons of "punishment") are not allowed these same titles?
- Money sent to or from Detainees is frequently lost or delayed. A system of conservatorship is unlawfully imposed on Detainees.
- Educational and treatment materials are frequently prevented from reaching Detainees.
Sex-offender ghettos: Get-tough laws force predators to move but do little to make kids safer
Sunday, October 7, 2007
By Mary Beth Lane
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
"There is not a shred of evidence to suggest that the laws do anything to protect children," he said. "There is a growing consensus in the treatment, law-enforcement and victim's-rights communities that these laws are feel-good, fear-driven political measures that actually make the community less safe."
full story
If Paul Shanley's a monster, the state didn't prove it
Is Paul Shanley Guilty?
Jonathan Rauch, March 14, 2005
Reason Magazine
"As his parents tell it, in years of therapy Greg had tried, unsuccessfully, to recall being molested by anyone. When his parents showed him the Globe article, he didn't remember Fr. Paul Shanley or recognize his photograph. The Fords persisted, showing Greg a snapshot from his first communion with Shanley. At last Greg collapsed, sobbing, and said that from age 6 to 11 he had been raped by the priest. Later he estimated this happened 80 times. He alleged that Shanley took him from his one-hour Sunday school class, raped him, then returned him to his classmates."
"Last month, Paul Shanley was sentenced to 12 to 15 years in prison for child rape. Because Shanley was 74, this was effectively a life sentence". full story
Former D.M.H. Psychiatrist and Wife in Murder/Suicide including 7 Year Old Daughter
Tragic morning shakes Laguna Lake neighborhood after police responding to 911 call find two adults, one child dead
By Leslie Parrilla
San Luis Obispo police officers found Olivia Rivard and her parents, Mike and Barbara Rivard, dead inside the home on Frambuesa Drive after responding to a 911 call shortly before 7 a.m. Wednesday. Two other children were safely removed from the home. ... Rivard previously worked at another local psychiatry office and at Atascadero State Hospital. He was a staff psychiatrist at ASH from January 2000 to May 2006, hospital spokeswoman Barrie Hafler said. full story
Convicted child abusers are much less dangerous than the British public and the government believe
The end of innocence
Advocates of keeping lists and restricting employment point out that the sexual abuse of children is a horrendous crime which can lead to a lifetime of anguish. But the main justification is not the awfulness of the offence but the supposedly incorrigible character of the offender. "The nature of sexual attraction to children is that it is often lifelong and compulsive," explained Lady Scotland, a Home Office minister, in 2004. Such claims have been repeated so often that they have acquired the ring of truth. They are mostly false.
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Men convicted of sex offences involving children are not, in fact, all that likely to commit further crimes. Of those released in 2002, 17% were in trouble again within two years. That may sound appalling, but compared with other ex-cons, sex offenders were paragons of virtue. The re-conviction rate for all criminals was 60% (see chart). Most incorrigible were men who stole from vehicles, 85% of whom had been re-convicted within the same period.
It is also likely that most of the child sex offenders who got into trouble after their release were collared for a different (and less appalling) crime. A study by America's Department of Justice found that, while 39% of child molesters were arrested again within three years of release, just 3% were suspected of another sex crime against a child.
Jan 19th 2006
O.C. man sues over beating jail death of son
Lawsuit contends deputies set up John Derek Chamberlain to be beaten, ignored his pleas for help, then covered up their involvement.
By Christine Hanley
Los Angeles Times
October 4, 2007
The father of a Mission Viejo man who was beaten to death at Theo Lacy Jail has filed a lawsuit saying Orange County sheriff's deputies misidentified his son as a child molester to other inmates, telling them "he needed to be taken care of" and promising them special privileges if they followed through.
The wrongful-death lawsuit, filed last week in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, also accuses the deputies of ignoring John Derek Chamberlain as he cried for help for more than 20 minutes during the attack Oct. 5, 2006, and then trying to cover up their involvement by backdating a jail log.
"The guards just stood there and didn't do anything," Newport Beach attorney Jerry L. Steering, who is representing Chamberlain's father, said Wednesday. "They had to have seen it. They had to have heard it." full story
Sex offender recidivism less than other felons'
Sunday, September 02, 2007
Chattanooga Times Free Press
By Lauren Gregory
"It goes against normal public perspective because people believe they are always going to reoffend," said Tim Dempsey, chief executive officer of the nonprofit Chattanooga Endeavors, which seeks to help those released from prison transition back into society. "But if you're just looking at risk, sex offenders have always been in that lower-risk category." full story
No Crueler Tyrannies: Accusation, False Witness, and Other Terrors of Our Times
by Dorothy Rabinowitz
Review from Publishers Weekly:
Wall Street Journal editorialist Rabinowitz has collected her stories on false accusations of sex crimes into one harrowing account of failed justice. Though readers may be familiar with the court cases she details, which took place in the 80s and 90s, coming upon them all together is nonetheless chilling. Rabinowitz devotes the most attention to the Amiraults, a woman and her two grown children who ran a successful preschool in Malden, Mass., and who were all sent to jail on charges of child sex abuse. No scientific or physical evidence linked them to the crimes; rather, the courts relied on the testimony of children who appeared on the stand after lengthy coaching sessions in which counselors had used anatomically correct dolls and leading questions to encourage them to accuse their teachers. At times the author's careful documentation begs for interpretation. Why, for instance, did the public buy the increasingly bizarre accusations of teachers tying naked children to trees in the schoolyard, or of anal penetration with knives that left no physical mark? Rabinowitz leaves such speculation to others. But she presents her cases expertly-so well that her stories helped reverse the convictions of five people, which in turn helped her win the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for commentary. She writes clearly and for the most part resists melodrama, letting the facts speak eloquently for themselves.
Tennessee Men Accused of Setting Fatal Fire After Learning of Neighbor's Child Porn Charges
12:45 p.m. September 14, 2007 By Duncan Mansfield
HELENWOOD, Tenn. – Everybody in this little mountain community knew that Timothy Carl Chandler had been arrested on child pornography charges. It was in the newspaper and all over the TV news.
Two of Chandler's neighbors decided to do something about it, police say. They're accused of trying to scare him off by setting fire to his tiny house tucked away in a hardscrabble Appalachian hollow.
Chandler, 53, escaped from the flames. But his wife was killed in what authorities are calling an example of vigilante justice.
“I really wish it wasn't me who got out,” Chandler told Knoxville television station WBIR. “I wish it was her. She didn't deserve that.” full story
[ed - The same lies and scapegoating used to justify civil commitment are the ones that feed into crimes such as these and the many registry-abetted beatings and murders throughout the country.
Americans used to roar like lions for liberty;
now we bleat like sheep for security. - Norman Vincent Peale]
Great, Pithy Post!
I read this post on a foaming-at-the-mouth blog earlier today. They were referring to the the sites' indignant response to the Human Rights Watch report blasting the Pedo hunting industry. Wish Id written it although I'm not sure I share his optimism but I hope he's right.
"Well, you better get ready for lots more. After twenty five years of hysteria about sex offenders, including flying saucers whisking preschoolers off to Mars to be violated with broom handles (think that's not hyperbole?) and innocent lives (including many, many children's) being ABSOLUTELY AND UTTERLY DESTROYED by LYING prosecutors and therapists and hysterical bipolar mothers, the CHICKENS ARE ABOUT TO COME HOME TO ROOST! And if you played any role in creating the witch hunt, you might want to carefully consider your options right now!"
Despite Administration assertions to the contrary, Civil Detainees in California's $388 Million Coalinga State Hospital Remain On Strike
October 1, 2007
Despite Administration assertions to the contrary, Civil Detainees in California's $388 Million Coalinga State Hospital remain on strike in the second month of a non-violent action.
They charge that the Hospital's new Director, Norman Kramer, has also reneged on his recent promises to:
- Meet with Representatives of the Detainee Provisional government by Friday of last week.
- Transcribe tape recorded minutes of their prevous meeting with him and to make these available to Detainees and the media.
- Remove Clinical Director Rocky Spurgeon, one of the primary Defendants in a Detainee lawsuit recently reconfirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit Court and sent back to the Federal District Court for trial (1).
The Administration's repeated denial to media that a Detainee strike is underway at C.S.P. is seen by strike organizers as a means to circumvent adverse press coverage and establish a sense of normality which they hope will prevail by the time of the U.S. Department of Justice's visit there later this month. The scope of the D.O.J. inspection is quite broad and seeks to determine the conditions of confinement and treatment of Detainees in the dramatically understaffed facility. A drastic reshuffling of Administration staff since the strike began including one senior staff member being escorted off the premises by police escort gives little credibility to the Administration's assertion that a strike is neither underway nor having an effect on the Hospital's operations.
Detainees plan further, as yet unspecified, strike actions in the coming weeks.
For background on the strike including the issues leading to it, please go to: http://www.sexgulag.org .
###
Contact:
Friends & Family of California Civil Detainees
Allan Marshall, Director
Tel: 702-421-0467
Email: detainees@gmail.com
Civil Detainee Contact:
Mike St. Martin
CO-414-3, Unit 7
P.O . BOX 5003
Coalinga , CA 93210-5003
Telephone: 559-934-0391 / 559-934-0392
Shades of the Gulag - civil detention of sexual predators punishes acts suspected to occur in the future
Humanist Jan-Feb, 1998
by Barbara Dority
On June 23, 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Kansas v. Hendricks that the state may brand sex offenders as "violent sexual predators" and commit them indefinitely after they have served their full prison sentences, based on speculation about what they might do in the future.
In a majority opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas, the Court also declared that indefinite civil confinement is not punishment, that the new definitions stated above do not violate due process rights, and that a yearly review of a person's confinement need not be conducted by an impartial court but can be facilitated by a special committee set up by the state and accountable to no one. read full article
Maine Court puts needed halt on sex offender hysteria
The Associated Press
used to expose convicts to public scorn. see full story
Copyright © 2007 Blethen Maine Newspapers
The Guide Magazine: Uprising at California Sex Gulag
By French Wall
Civil detainees at California's Coalinga State Hospital are in their second month of a strike, protesting the conditions at the understaffed facility and "treatment" protocols that make it all-but impossible for them to gain their freedom. Coalinga houses more than 600 men who have completed prison sentences for sex crimes, but who remain incarcerated under California's civil-commitment law.
According to organizers, about three-quarters of those incarcerated in the Coalinga facility are participating in some way with the strike, which began August 6. Strikers are refusing to take part in the facility's activities and treatment programs, and are displaying "protest tags" carrying slogans such as "When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty." On September 2, over a dozen Coalinga detainees ratcheted up the protest by undertaking a hunger strike, vowing to refuse food until conditions are improved. read full story
The American Psikhushka (excerpt)
Ever since the US Supreme Court’s 1997 Kansas v. Hendricks decision, 14 more states have passed laws instituting civil commitment procedures for sex offenders (for a total of 20 states). These laws allow committal due to “mental abnormality”, which is a far lower standard than for any other mental disability and are quite clearly intended as further punishment for a despised group (subsequent court decisions allowed continued incarceration even when no “therapy” was offered.) As a society we once roundly condemned such psychiatric abuse – now we routinely practice it.
Psikhushka (Russian: психушка) is a Russian colloquialism for psychiatric hospital. In the Soviet Union, psychiatric hospitals were often used by the authorities as prisons in order to isolate political prisoners from the rest of society, discredit their ideas, and break them physically and mentally; as such they were considered a form of torture. The official explanation was that "no sane person would declaim against Soviet government and communism".
Psikhuskas had already been in use since the late 1940s (for example, Alexander Esenin-Volpin was imprisoned in 1949 for “anti-Soviet poetry”) and this increased during the Khrushchev era in the 1960s. (One of the first psikhuskas was the Psychiatric Prison Hospital in the city of Kazan. Beria transferred it to the NKVD in 1939. In 1969 the head of KGB, Yuri Andropov, submitted to the Central Committee of CPSU a plan for creating a whole network of psikhushkas.)
Soviet psychiatry created and then abused the diagnosis of sluggishly progressing schizophrenia (вялотекущая шизофрения) – a special form of the illness that supposedly affects only the person's social behavior, with no trace of other traits: "most frequently, ideas about a struggle for truth and justice are formed by personalities with a paranoid structure," according to the Moscow Serbsky Institute professors. Some of them had high rank in the MVD (the Ministry of Internal Affairs), such as the infamous Danil Luntz, who was characterized by Viktor Nekipelov1 as "no better than the criminal doctors who performed inhuman experiments on the prisoners in Nazi concentration camps" .
Psychiatrists described a “sufferer” of sluggishly progressing schizophrenia as a person appearing quite normal most of the time but who would break out with a severe case of "inflexibility of convictions," or "nervous exhaustion brought on by his or her search for justice," or "a tendency to litigation" or "reformist delusions." The treatment involved intravenous injections of psychotropic drugs that were so painfully administered patients became unconscious.
“Criminal lunacy” became part of the Criminal Code in 1961 and described a person who was unable to “realize his actions or to control them.” Such actions included, “dissemination of patently false statements defaming Soviet political and social system,” “abuse of a national emblem or flag” or “active participation in group acts that break public peace.”
Russian historian and archivist Anatoli Prokopenko said, “By certifying people who were undesirable for the State as insane, it was possible to isolate them in psychiatric hospitals without court actions or public, internal or international upset.”
The sane individuals who were diagnosed as mentally ill were sent either to a regular psychiatric hospitals or, those deemed particularly dangerous, to special ones, run directly by the MVD. The treatment included various forms of restraint, electric shocks, a range of drugs (such as narcotics, tranquilizers, and insulin) that cause long lasting side effects, and sometimes involved beatings. Nekipelov describes inhuman uses of medical procedures such as lumbar punctures.
At least 365 sane people were treated for "politically defined madness" in the Soviet Union, and "there were surely hundreds more"1.
Lest you think this was an abuse peculiar to the Soviet Union, another example is drawn from the work of a prominent Chinese forensic psychiatrist, who discussed crimes committed by persons with schizophrenia: "Among the cases under discussion ... the person would often display absolutely no sense or instinct of self-preservation, for example by openly mailing out reactionary letters or pasting up reactionary slogan-banners in public places—and even, in some cases, signing his or her real name to the documents ... ".2 By these criteria, political dissenters who openly attempt to build a democratic structure in China, rather than conspiratorially trying to undermine the communist state, are especially susceptible to being called mentally ill.
American psychiatrists are certainly not immune to bending science to the service of the state. Remember how not so very long ago they claimed homosexuality was a mental disorder and inflicted medieval tortures on people trying to “cure” their gayness?
Remember when “drapetomania” was a treatable psychiatric disorder? The term derives from the Greek δραπετης (drapetes, "a runaway [slave]") + μανια (mania, "madness, frenzy"). This was a diagnosis proposed in 1851 by physician Samuel A. Cartwright, of the Louisiana Medical Association, to explain the tendency of black slaves to flee captivity. In the case of slaves "sulky and dissatisfied without cause" – a warning sign of imminent flight – Cartwright proposed "whipping the devil out of them" as a "preventative measure."
We laugh at the obvious pseudo-science behind such nonsense, but you can bet the victims of those diagnoses weren’t laughing. The same holds true for the present day victims of civil commitment. Unless and until objective and independently verifiable criteria can be established, the civil commitment of sex offenders cannot be seen as anything other than a rank abuse of psychiatry and a failure of the law to protect the human rights of a despised minority. For a country that continually pats itself on the back for being a shining beacon of liberty, this is nothing less than a shameful shortfall from our professed ideals.
Notes:
0 This article excerpted from various Wikipedia entries and other web sides.
1Anne Applebaum, Gulag: A History, Doubleday, April, 2003, ISBN 0-7679-0056-1
2 Munro R: Judicial psychiatry in China and its political abuses. Columbia Journal of Asian Law 14:1-125, 2000
Video: Compulsory Psychiatric Medication in the US
Excerpt from documentary film "One Nation, Under Siege". Statement by Dr. Rima Laibow drawing parallels between use of psychiatric medications and techniques by Soviets to incapacitate political dissidents and the current U.S. practice of using those same techniques for identical purposes.
September 29, 2007 Coalinga Update:
Despite Administration assertions to the contrary, Civil Detainees in California's $388 Million Coalinga State Hospital remain on strike in the second month of a non-violent action.
They charge that the Hospital's new Director, Norman Kramer, has also reneged on his recent promises to:
- Meet with Representatives of the Detainee Provisional government by Friday of last week.
- Transcribe tape recorded minutes of their prevous meeting with him and to make these available to Detainees and the media.
- Remove Clinical Director Rocky Spurgeon, the primary Defendant in a Detainee lawsuit recently reconfirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit Court and sent back to the Federal District Court for trial1.
Roadblock” for his reputation of deliberately frustrating attempts by Detainees to exercise the few rights they enjoy.
The Administration's repeated denial to media that a Detainee strike is underway at C.S.P. is seen by strike organizers as a means to circumvent adverse press coverage and establish a sense of normality which they hope will prevail by the time of the U.S. Department of Justice's visit there later this month. The scope of the D.O.J. inspection is quite broad and seeks to determine the conditions of confinement and treatment of Detainees in the dramatically understaffed facility. A drastic reshuffling of Administration staff since the strike began including one senior staff member escorted off the premises by police escort gives little credibility to the Administration's assertion that a strike is neither underway nor having an effect on the Hospital's operations.
Detainees plan further, as yet unspecified, strike actions in the coming weeks.
1 Hydrick, et al. v. Schwarzenegger, et al. http://vlex.com/vid/20630509
Avoiding Kids: How Men Cope With Being Cast as Predators
September 6, 2007
JEFF ZASLOW, Wall Street Journal
These days, if Rian Romoli accidentally bumps into a child, he quickly raises his hands above his shoulders. "I don't want to give even the slightest indication that any inadvertent touching occurred," says Mr. Romoli, an economist in La Cañada Flintridge, Calif.
Ted Wallis, a doctor in Austin, Texas, recently came upon a lost child in tears in a mall. His first instinct was to help, but he feared people might consider him a predator. He walked away. "Being male," he explains, "I am guilty until proven innocent."
In San Diego, retiree Ralph Castro says he won't allow himself to be alone with a child -- even in an elevator.
Last month, I wrote about how our culture teaches children to fear men1. Hundreds of men responded, many lamenting that they've now become fearful of children. They said they avert their eyes when kids are around, or think twice before holding even their own children's hands in public.
Men, do you find yourself limiting contact with kids for fear that you'll be accused of being a predator? Is there anything that can be done about this societal problem? Share your thoughts3.
Frank McEnulty, a builder in Long Beach, Calif., was once a Boy Scout scoutmaster. "Today, I wouldn't do that job for anything," he says. "All it takes is for one kid to get ticked off at you for something and tell his parents you were acting weird on the campout."
It's true that men are far more likely than women to be sexual predators. But our society, while declining to profile by race or nationality when it comes to crime and terrorism, has become nonchalant about profiling men. Child advocates are advising parents never to hire male babysitters. Airlines are placing unaccompanied minors with female passengers.
Child-welfare groups say these precautions minimize risks. But men's rights activists argue that our societal focus on "bad guys" has led to an overconfidence in women. (Children who die of physical abuse are more often victims of female perpetrators, usually mothers, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.)
Though groups that cater to the young are working harder to identify predators, they also ask that risks be kept in perspective. Big Brothers Big Sisters of America does criminal background checks on each of its 250,000 volunteers, and has social workers assess them. Since 1990, the group says, it has had fewer than 10 abuse allegations per year. More than 98% of the alleged abusers were male.
"If we wanted to make sure we never had a problem, one approach would be to just become Big Sisters -- to say we won't serve boys," says Mack Koonce, the group's chief operating officer. But, of course, that would deny hundreds of thousands of boys contact with male mentors.
The Boy Scouts of America now has elaborate rules to prevent both abuse and false accusations. There are 1.2 million Scout leaders, and the organization kicks out about 175 of them a year over abuse allegations or for violating policies.
These policies can be intricate. For instance, four adult leaders are needed for each outing. If a sick child must go home, two adults drive him and two stay with the others, so no adult is ever alone with a Scout. "It's protection for the adults, as well as the children," says a Scouts spokesman.
The result of all this hyper-carefulness, however, is that men often feel like untouchables. In Cochranville, Pa., Ray Simpson, a bus driver, says that he used to have 30 kids stop at his house on Halloween. But after his divorce, with people knowing he was a man living alone, he had zero visitors. "I felt like crying at the end of the evening," he says.
At Houston Intercontinental Airport, businessman Mitch Reifel was having a meal with his 5-year-old daughter when a policeman showed up to question him. A passerby had reported his interactions with the child seemed "suspicious."
In Skokie, Ill., Steve Frederick says the director of his son's day-care center called him in to reprimand him for "inappropriately touching the children." "I was shocked," he says. "Whatever did she mean?" She was referring to him reading stories with his son and other kids on his lap. A parent had panicked when her child mentioned sitting on a man's lap.
"Good parenting and good education demand that we let children take risks," says Mr. Frederick, a career coach. "We install playground equipment, putting them at risk of falls and broken bones. Why? We want them to challenge themselves and develop muscles and confidence.
"Likewise, while we don't want sexual predators to harm our kids, we do want our kids to develop healthy relationships with adults, both men and women. Instilling a fear of men is a profound disservice to everyone."
Hi-tech tool against paedophiles unveiled
By Duncan Walker
BBC News Online
A computer database which can identify paedophiles and their victims within seconds has been unveiled by police. The Childbase system uses sophisticated software to compare the faces of people in new abusive images with those in pictures already investigated.
"We are trying to make the global village an area we police in a global sense.""
© BBC MMVII
August 27, 2007 Coalinga Update:
Now in the third week of a non-violent strike, Civil Detainees in California's $388 Million Coalinga State Hospital point to a staff shakeup and a facility-wide shutdown as evidence of the strike's effectiveness and the administration's desperation in containing the revolt. Detainees, refusing to participate in most programs during the strike, have effectively shut down all Sex Offender Treatment.
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