Lawmakers consider implanted chips for tracking sex offenders

[Ed: Well now, I suppose we shouldn't be surprised. One could have predicted this easily enough as the next logical step-if there be any logic about it-in the unfolding holocaust against sex offenders.

An alien race just arriving from a distant galaxy would surely conclude that these "sex offenders" everyone is so obsessively preoccupied with must surely pose a clear and present danger to the immediate survival of the human species and that all other threats are nothing in comparison.

After all, what sane civilization would allocate so unstintingly vast material and emotional resources to fighting an enemy that is hardly its gravest threat? Surely these humans have rationally identified sex offenders as such and are taking appropriate measures in ensuring the future survival of the human race? ]

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- Lawmakers are considering a controversial bill that would outfit sex offenders with a surgically-implanted device that tracks their movement.

The devices would replace the ankle bracelets that are currently used to track offenders. The bracelets have been criticized as a lacking device as offenders have successfully removed them in the past before disappearing off of the radar.

"(The devices would) be a little more difficult to take off," said Rep. Maralyn Chase, D-Edmonds.

Chase is among a handful of lawmakers are looking into radio chips that can be planted under the skin. Some of the designs are no larger than a grain of rice.

The radio chips would allow police to track an offender from a sex offender using the same technology used at the Tacoma Narrows bridge toll.

"Right now, we get a postcard at home every few weeks saying we have a sex offender moving into the neighborhood. But unless you know where they live and what they look like how are you going to have protection?" said Chase.

The Department of Corrections admits even with the current devices, officers often lose signal. DOC officials also note that no tracking device can prevent crime.

"It certainly is not prevention. It certainly is not 100-percent," said Anna Aylward with the state DOC.

The bill is currently in committee.

If passed, the bill would allow the state to hire the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs to determine whether chip implants would be more effective.

Similar technology is used to track criminals in the U.K. and school children in Japan.

Civilly Commited Sex Offenders Denied Conjugal Visits

Ed: It is essential to understand several things in these cases. 

1. "Sexually Violent Predator" does not require actual "violence". In every state using the term (and that's most of them) it means having any kind of sex with someone under the age of 14 or 13 (depends on State). The mere act of having sex with someone under that age is, in the State's definition, "sexual violence". 

2. Civil commitment of a sex offender for an indefinite period of time following the completion of their prison sentence was previously unknown in our society. A decade or more ago, before these civil commitments, they would be back home anyway. To argue that these men (and virtually ALL are men) are less deserving of conjugal visits than state PRISONERS who have not yet completed their prison terms and who ARE currently being punished is demonstrably unjust and gives lie to the conceit that Civil Commitments "are not being punished, but simply being removed from society for its protection". ]

Private nookie time for sexually violent predators in state treatment facilities is a no-no, a New Jersey appeals court has ruled.  [Ed: the writer here, ostensibly a "journalist", is obviously, like most journalists, an ignorant asshole]

The state's policy of banning conjugal visits was challenged by a predator who was committed after being convicted of kidnapping and rape, among other crimes.  Identified in court papers only as R.R., the patient called the policy "excessively restrictive," given that he was involuntarily committed to a rehabilitation and treatment facility instead of sent to prison. 

He requested "new rules" that would allow him some alone time with his wife.  Otherwise, he claimed, he was being denied "the pursuit of life, liberty, happiness, privacy, and procreation associated with lawful marriage" under rules that govern prison inmates.  

R.R. already was in the process of being commmitted when he got married in September 2004, court papers show.  After being sent to the unnnamed treatment facility, he asked the state Department of Corrections in May 2005 to grant him "marital privacy and conjugal visitation." 

That request was denied, as were subsequent bids each of the following two years. So he turned to the courts.  The justices agreed with state officials: Violent predators must be treated differently from patients who are, say, mentally ill or suffer from tuberculosis -- if for no other reasons than the safety and security of residents, staff and visitors, they said.  In their decision, published yesterday, the justices cited a previous ruling, in which they said: "Individuals are civilly committed...because they pose a danger to the public health and safety due to their behavior."  

The point of their being there in the first place, the panel added, is because a judge determined they were likely to commit a violent sex crime again and needed to be removed from society for the greater good.  And even though these facilities aren't intended to be run as prisons, the judges noted, state officials are responsible for protecting anyone else who might work in or visit the place.  

"R.R.is not denied other contacts with his spouse," reads the opinion, published yesterday. "During that time, kissing and hugging can occur at the commencement and conclusion of the visit.  "Additionally, hand holding is allowed, and both visitors and residents are permitted to place their arms around the shoulders of others and to place their heads on another's shoulder."  "Clearly," the judges concluded, "the DOC has an interest in monitoring interaction between residents and visitors in order to ensure that contraband is not passed to residents, that safety is maintained, and that treatment goals are not compromised."  Beyond that, they said, none of R.R.'s arguments "warrant further discussion."

Civilly Confined Sex offenders can't have conjugal visits, court rules

Ed: It is essential to understand several things in these cases. 1. Sexually Violent Predator does not require actual "violence". In every state using the term (and that's most of them) it means having any kind of sex with someone under the age of 14 or 13 (depends on State). The mere act of having sex with someone under that age is, in the State's definition, "sexual violence". 2. Civil commitment of a sex offender for an indefinite period of time following the completion of their prison sentence was previously unknown in our society. A decade or more ago, before these civil commitments, they would be back home anyway. To argue that these men (and virtually ALL are men) are less deserving of conjugal visits than state PRISONERS who have not yet completed their prison terms and who ARE currently being punished is demonstrably unjust and gives lie to the conceit that Civil Commitments "are not being punished, but simply being removed from society for its protection". ] Private nookie time for sexually violent predators in state treatment facilities is a no-no, a New Jersey appeals court has ruled. The state's policy of banning conjugal visits was challenged by a predator who was committed after being convicted of kidnapping and rape, among other crimes. Identified in court papers only as R.R., the patient called the policy "excessively restrictive," given that he was involuntarily committed to a rehabilitation and treatment facility instead of sent to prison. He requested "new rules" that would allow him some alone time with his wife. Otherwise, he claimed, he was being denied "the pursuit of life, liberty, happiness, privacy, and procreation associated with lawful marriage" under rules that govern prison inmates. R.R. already was in the process of being commmitted when he got married in September 2004, court papers show. After being sent to the unnnamed treatment facility, he asked the state Department of Corrections in May 2005 to grant him "marital privacy and conjugal visitation." That request was denied, as were subsequent bids each of the following two years. So he turned to the courts. The justices agreed with state officials: Violent predators must be treated differently from patients who are, say, mentally ill or suffer from tuberculosis -- if for no other reasons than the safety and security of residents, staff and visitors, they said. In their decision, published yesterday, the justices cited a previous ruling, in which they said: "Individuals are civilly committed...because they pose a danger to the public health and safety due to their behavior." The point of their being there in the first place, the panel added, is because a judge determined they were likely to commit a violent sex crime again and needed to be removed from society for the greater good. And even though these facilities aren't intended to be run as prisons, the judges noted, state officials are responsible for protecting anyone else who might work in or visit the place. "R.R.is not denied other contacts with his spouse," reads the opinion, published yesterday. "During that time, kissing and hugging can occur at the commencement and conclusion of the visit. "Additionally, hand holding is allowed, and both visitors and residents are permitted to place their arms around the shoulders of others and to place their heads on another's shoulder." "Clearly," the judges concluded, "the DOC has an interest in monitoring interaction between residents and visitors in order to ensure that contraband is not passed to residents, that safety is maintained, and that treatment goals are not compromised." Beyond that, they said, none of R.R.'s arguments "warrant further discussion."

Sheriff Drummond told Arnot he had a duty to protect the public.

Published: Wednesday, 14th January, 2009 09:00

Paedophile brands police Nazis

By Ally McGilvray Comments (0)   Print Article

Sheriff Drummond told Arnot he had a duty to protect the public.

A PAEDOPHILE banned from having access to the internet was caught with a computer in his home in Galashiels and a mobile phone with internet access after he sent an abusive letter to social work staff condemning his punishment - by email.

Michael Arnot, 44, of St Andrews Street, had previously admitted possessing indecent photographs of children and was sentenced at Selkirk Sheriff Court in June last year. It was his second offence for downloading child porn.

However, he was back in the dock on Monday after he admitted failing to comply with the probation order imposed.

Sheriff Kevin Drummond said: “The way this has come to the attention of police is the abusive email, running to five pages, to the social work department indicating that he has access to the internet. And the email makes it clear he is doing his utmost to avoid co-operation with the authorities.”

However, Arnot’s solicitor Mark Harrower claimed his client, who had described police as dictators and Nazis, no longer had access to the internet.

He insisted he asked a friend to send the email in October but wrote a hand written letter to the court apologising for his outburst.

Mr Harrower, who pointed out police and social work staff now visit Arnot’s home every week to prevent him reoffending, said: “He lives a rather lonely life and when he wrote it (the email) he was upset.”

But he added: “He has mental health issues and he knows what will happen if he puts another foot wrong.”

Continuing the probation order, giving Arnot one last chance to behave, Sheriff Drummond said: “This was imposed for public safety and I hope there will now be compliance. Had it not been for your difficulties I would be dealing with this rather differently.”

amcgilvray@bordertelegraph.com

Parents forced to protect their children?

Parents forced to protect their children?

Fathers who chased down people they suspected of targeting their children may reflect a trend in guarding against predators.

By DEEPA BHARATH

THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Comments  | Recommend 

Tom Flood still can't believe that a Friday night outing to Wal-Mart to pick out Cinderella towels for his daughter's bathroom would end with him chasing down a man, who would later be arrested on suspicion of inappropriate conduct with Flood's 3-year-old daughter.

Days after that May 19 incident in Westminster, Garden Grove resident Mark Dornan pounced on a man at the Garden Grove Strawberry Festival who he believed was taking questionable pictures of his 5-year-old daughter and another girl.

Dornan said he grabbed a camera and a gun from the man, who was later identified as Ralph Cameron Lakin II with the Los Angeles Police Department's Parker Center administrative headquarters.

More parents are getting proactive about protecting their children from predators – be it looking up the Megan's Law sex offender database or being more vigilant in public places where children may be photographed or approached by a stranger, child safety experts say. In the two Orange County incidents, the parents were willing to go beyond being watchful and actually take action when they believed their children's safety and dignity were at peril.

Parents have been forced to adopt a vigilante stance because, most of the time, the law is not on their side, says Grier Weeks, executive director of the National Association to Protect Children, an organization that lobbies for child safety legislation.

"There's nothing that stops people from taking pictures of children in public places," he said. "There is no adequate regulation or monitoring of convicted sex offenders in our communities. So when parents see something bad about to happen to their child, they are forced to act."

Advocates such as Weeks say they know, however, that parent vigilantism can have its downside. Parents could be criminally charged with assault if their suspicions turn out to be baseless. They could even face a civil slander lawsuit.

Both Dornan and Flood say they probably shouldn't have acted the way they did. Then again, both say they would do it again if it were to happen again.

"It's not anger, but your sense of responsibility to protect your child as a parent," Flood said. "If parents don't do it, who is going to do it?"

In both cases the fathers' concerns were taken seriously. Flood followed the man who he says caressed his daughter's hair at the Wal-Mart and tailed him in his car while talking to a 911 dispatcher. Police eventually stopped and arrested John Anderson of Long Beach, who was charged with one count of a lewd act with a minor. Anderson is being held in Orange County Jail in lieu of $100,000 bail.

"It was a horrible experience for both my daughter and for me," Flood said. "This is a toddler, who is still on the bottle. For her to have to go through something like this is unacceptable."

Flood says his action stemmed from his sense of guilt that he wasn't able to protect his daughter from the man even as he was standing 5 feet away.

Dornan says he saw Lakin take pictures of his daughter sitting on the wagon and up the skirt of another girl nearby.

"That man was going to get away with my daughter's image in his camera," Dornan said, his voice choking. "I just couldn't bear the thought of that."

Lakin is being investigated both by the Garden Grove Police Department and the LAPD.

The fact that both Dornan and Flood assumed the role of vigilantes is hardly surprising, Weeks says.

But when parents dare to take on such a role, they invite the physical dangers that accompany such vigilantism. In Dornan's case, Lakin had a gun, which Dornan did not know about until he tackled Lakin.

Then there are legal consequences when parents make assumptions or jump to conclusions. Attorney Kenneth Schreiber says that could easily happen with parents, whose judgment is usually clouded by their powerful instinct to love and protect their child. Besides, it's human nature to make assumptions about conduct, the Irvine-based defense lawyer says.

"These assumptions lie in the eye of a beholder," said Schreiber, who has defended several teachers accused of molesting students. "For example, if someone sees a man with his hand up a little girl's dress, it's easy to jump to a conclusion. But what if the girl had been hurt or wet herself and the man is just trying to help her?"

Society has changed in such a way that it is dangerous for any adult to touch a child without first getting approval from the child's parents, said Philip Putnam, an attorney who is representing Flood.

"Parents are taking proactive action against such offenders, and that's a good thing in many ways," he said. "There is more knowledge and awareness about these issues now, which did not exist until a few years ago."

Although parents might be tempted to attack an offender, they should resist that temptation unless the child is in immediate physical danger, said Erin Runnion, founder of the Joyful Child Foundation started in memory of Runnion's 5-year-old daughter, Samantha, who was abducted, sexually assaulted and murdered five years ago.

"What I advocate is vigilance, not vigilantism," she said. "We need to deal with it socially. If you stare or hiss at these guys, they'll usually go away. They do what they do because they are cowards."

Still, Runnion says the recent incidents show a certain brazenness.

"If they are bold enough to do this in a public place like the fair or a store, that is scary," she said.

Parents are usually aware these days when it comes to people who normally interact with their children, but can let down their guard when they are in crowded or public places, child safety experts say.

Most parents don't know that they have to worry about voyeurs who legally take photographs of their children in a public place and then manipulate them over the Internet, said Joan Irvine, executive director of Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection.

It has become common for pedophiles to take images of fully-clothed children and cut and paste their heads to bodies of young sex abuse victims, she says.

"This process is called morphing, and we've seen it happening for many years now," Irvine said.

Dornan, who is now worried about who has his daughter's photo and how it will be used, said the incident at the Strawberry Festival has taught him an important lesson.

"Parents need to empower themselves with a knowledge of the law and power of observation," he said. "So the next time you pack up for a day trip, the list should include juice boxes, snacks, sun block and your head in a swivel."

Report Calls Online Threats to Children Overblown

[Ed: Of course it's overblown. It's a "moral panic", "hysteria", and a "witch hunt". But don't you see? That doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that EVERYTHING which has fueled this 30 year hysteria, from the daycare witch hunts, to the "missing kids" hysteria, to the child porn panic to the "cyber threat", is a web of LIES! People believe what they want to believe and what they want to believe is that there are BOOGEYMEN all over the place!. It doesn't matter what the facts are, the facts will have no effect on anything. Our vast, ignorant population is going to continue to fall all over itself to relinquish what little liberty remains in this country. ]

The Internet may not be such a dangerous place for children after all.

A task force created by 49 state attorneys general to look into the problem of sexual solicitation of children online has concluded that there really is not a significant problem.

The findings ran counter to popular perceptions of online dangers as reinforced by depictions in the news media like NBC’s “To Catch a Predator” series. One attorney general was quick to criticize the group’s report.

The panel, the Internet Safety Technical Task Force, was charged with examining the extent of the threats children face on social networks like MySpace and Facebook, amid widespread fears that adults were using these popular Web sites to deceive and prey on children.

But the report concluded that the problem of bullying among children, both online and offline, poses a far more serious challenge than the sexual solicitation of minors by adults.

“This shows that social networks are not these horribly bad neighborhoods on the Internet,” said John Cardillo, chief executive of Sentinel Tech Holding, which maintains a sex offender database and was part of the task force. “Social networks are very much like real-world communities that are comprised mostly of good people who are there for the right reasons.”

The 278-page report, released Tuesday, was the result of a year of meetings between dozens of academics, experts in childhood safety and executives of 30 companies, including Yahoo, AOL, MySpace and Facebook.

The task force, led by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, looked at scientific data on online sexual predators and found that children and teenagers were unlikely to be propositioned by adults online. In the cases that do exist, the report said, teenagers are typically willing participants and are already at risk because of poor home environments, substance abuse or other problems.

Not everyone was happy with the conclusions. Richard Blumenthal, the Connecticut attorney general, who has forcefully pursued the issue and helped to create the task force, said he disagreed with the report. Mr. Blumenthal said it “downplayed the predator threat,” relied on outdated research and failed to provide a specific plan for improving the safety of social networking.

“Children are solicited every day online,” Mr. Blumenthal said. “Some fall prey, and the results are tragic. That harsh reality defies the statistical academic research underlying the report.”

In what social networks may view as something of an exoneration after years of pressure from law enforcement, the report said sites like MySpace and Facebook “do not appear to have increased the overall risk of solicitation.”

Attorneys general like Mr. Blumenthal and Roy Cooper of North Carolina publicly accused the social networks of facilitating the activities of pedophiles and pushed them to adopt measures to protect their youngest users. Citing studies that showed tens of thousands of convicted sex offenders were using MySpace, they pressured the networks to purge those people from their membership databases.

The attorneys general also charged the task force with evaluating technologies that might play a role in enhancing safety for children online. An advisory board composed of academic computer scientists and forensics experts was created within the task force to look at technologies and ask companies in the industry to submit their child-protection systems.

Among the systems the technology board looked at included age verification technologies that try to authenticate the identities and ages of children and prevent adults from contacting them. But the board concluded that such systems “do not appear to offer substantial help in protecting minors from sexual solicitation.”

One problem is that it is difficult to verify the ages and identities of children because they do not have driver’s licenses or insurance.

Prosecuted For Taking Pictures Of Fully Clothed Children

[Ed: This is really extraordinary! This guy is being prosecuted for taking pictures of young girls at a public event without their parent's permission. The girls, obviously, were fully clothed and yet the photos were alleged to be "sexually suggestive". Yeah, right. They weren't even posed. The girls were running around being kids. So because someone thought he was suspicious, the police were alerted and he was arrested, prosecuted and will have to register as a sex offender. So apparently, U.S. laws which had previously allowed anyone to photograph anyone or anything else in public without fear of arrest has been thrown out the window. When did this happen? Does anyone give a shit anymore? ]

Ex-LAPD officer who photographed young girls pleads guilty

Ralph Lakin surreptitiously took more than 90 sexually suggestive photos at a Garden Grove festival in 2007. He gets four years' probation and must register as a sex offender.

By Susannah Rosenblatt

1:09 PM PST, January 13, 2009

A former Los Angeles Police Department officer pleaded guilty today in Orange County Superior Court to charges he took sexually suggestive photographs of young girls at the Garden Grove Strawberry Festival in 2007.

Ralph Cameron Lakin, 55, of La Palma pleaded guilty to eight misdemeanor counts and was sentenced to four years' probation and 100 hours of community service. He also must register as a sex offender.

According to Orange County prosecutors, Lakin surreptitiously snapped digital pictures of nine girls, ranging in age from about 4 to 13, at the outdoor family carnival on May 26, 2007.

The officer took more than 90 such photos that morning, eventually following a 5-year-old girl to photograph her as she climbed out of a wagon in a dress. A witness alerted the girl's father, who detained Lakin until police arrived.

Authorities found nearly 150 similar photos of little girls on Lakin's home computer, including one image of a nude toddler, prosecutors said.

Lakin retired from the LAPD last February after 10 years. At the time of his arrest, he worked downtown reviewing excessive force cases.

Lottery winner attacked; one man taken into custody

Ed: Usually, the envy one feels when someone other than you wins the lottery does not extend to actual physical assault. But as we know, when that "someone else" is a sex offender, some feel compelled to express both their hatred of sex offenders as well as their jealousy and fury, in a very different way. Never mind that the sex offender bought the lottery ticket and took his chances just like everyone else. Anything he might do, even though it be something that everyone else is free to do, can be used, in this case LITERALLY, as a club against him. Jews in Nazi Germany were attacked with impunity on the streets by resentful "Aryans" who had been thoroughly programmed to despise them and their alleged wealth and power. Prior to the mass deportations to the death camps, Jews were increasingly and systematically excluded from taking part in much of German society. They were barred from schools, parks, buses and trams, universities, government offices, swimming pools, and much more. Without exagerrating, one can say that the sex offender in America today is facing an identical oppression. ]

The winner of the state's first half-million dollar lottery was severely beaten on a downtown street Tuesday afternoon by a man wielding a tire iron or metal pipe, according to Anchorage police.

Police say Alec Ahsoak, 53, was attacked in the 400 block of D Street at about 3:30 p.m. when a man, accompanied by two women, approached him to ask if he was the man who won the $500,000 jackpot.

Whether the attack was motivated by Ahsoak's winning the lottery, which was held to benefit an advocacy group for sexual abuse victims, or the widely distributed reports that Ahsoak is a three-time convicted sex-offender was unclear.

"There was no apparent attempt at robbery," police Lt. Dave Parker said. "He was struck eight to 10 times, and then he threw his Pepsi at the assailant and he ran for Phyllis' Cafe and the assailant ran off."

By Tuesday evening, Ahsoak had been discharged from the hospital. In a show-up, Ahsoak identified the suspect as his attacker, but the man in custody had not yet been charged with a crime, Parker said. Police had also identified one of the two women and were treating her as a witness, Parker said.

Ahsoak told officers he had been stopped by a white man believed to be about 21 and wearing a blue and white checked shirt, blue jeans and a white baseball cap as he entered the 5th Avenue Mall. The stranger asked if he was the lottery winner, and Ahsoak said he was, then went into the mall.

When he walked out minutes later carrying a Pepsi, the man approached him, saying nothing more, and began hitting him on the head with the weapon, police said.

"Oh my God, I was so afraid something was going to happen to him," said Nancy Haag, executive director of Standing Together Against Rape, the nonprofit that benefitted from the lottery. "I'm just very sorry to hear that this has happened. ... Nobody deserves to be a victim of any kind of violence, and that's our stand."

Ahsoak was transported to a local hospital to be treated for his injuries, which did not appear to be life-threatening, police said.

"There were injuries to his head -- lacerations, that kind of stuff," Parker said. "Nobody knows how bad it is until doctors do their job, but he was talking and able to communicate with the officers."

There were "loads of witnesses" to the attack, but none of them were immediately able to identify the man, Parker said. It did not immediately appear that the attack had been caught on any surveillance cameras, he said.

The lottery, billed as the first of its kind, was conducted under Alaska law that allows games of chance that benefit a charity. The charity must get at least 10 percent of what's left after the prize is paid out, and organizers have estimated STAR stands to get between $2,000 and $20,000.

Ahsoak claimed $350,000 in prize money after taxes, and, the day he came forward, pledged to give $100,000 of it to STAR, the owner of Lucky Times, Abe Spicola, has said. Spicola did not return a call seeking comment Tuesday.

Ahsoak came forward as the lottery winner Saturday, and reports that he is a convicted sex offender were soon publicized by KTUU Channel 2 News and picked up by other outlets, including the Daily News. By Monday, Ahsoak's victims were telling the media they thought Ahsoak should not benefit from the lottery, which was conducted by Lucky Times Pull Tabs to benefit the nonprofit Standing Together Against Rape.

Asked whether the media should have publicized that Asoak was a convicted sex offender, Haag said, "I think it put him, obviously, at greater risk because there are people who like to take justice into their own hands."

Ahsoak was convicted in 1993 of molesting two girls under the age of 13 and sentenced to four years in prison, according to court records.

Police arrested him again in March 2000 for molesting a different young girl he was baby-sitting. He was sentenced to six years in prison on a single count of sexual abuse of a minor in a plea deal that took another sex abuse charge and a charge of failing to register as a sex offender off the table.

Ashoak has finished his time in prison and is now on probation, but he is registered as a sex offender on a state-run public database. He told KTUU on Saturday that he's worked hard to turn his life around and has been in treatment for the past year.

A message left on the cell phone of Ahsoak's attorney was not returned Tuesday.

In reports that began surfacing Monday, some of Ahsoak's victims and their parents expressed an interest in suing him since he won the lottery, saying the money should go to his victims instead of benefitting a convicted sex offender.

One victim, who was molested in the early 1990s while Ahsoak, a family friend, was staying at her home, said Tuesday she thinks Ahsoak should not have gotten the money, especially since the money benefits STAR. But it was out of her hands and she doesn't think she'll sue, said the woman.

"I'm in shock that happened. That's terrible," she said upon hearing of the attack. "I don't wish that on anybody. The only thing I wished for him is that he would get better. ... I just think it's crazy the way that everything happened."

Find James Halpin online at adn.com/contact/jhalpin or call him at 257-4589. 

Online Sex Offender Info Rapidly Expands

Arizona parents who want to find out whether a suspicious e-mail has been sent by a registered sex offender now can check the sender’s e-mail address against the state’s database of convicted molesters.

Kansas City, MO - infoZine - Stateline.org - Utah residents can sign up for e-mail alerts to notify them when a sex offender moves into their neighborhood.Wisconsin’s online registry provides maps to let users know exactly where the closest sex offender lives.And in Texas, the state’s sex offender registry — which includes more than 54,000 people — now features information ranging from offenders’ work addresses to their nicknames and even shoe sizes.The four states are among more than two dozen that quietly have added a wide range of new services — and new categories of information — to their online registries of convicted molesters. All 50 states have publicly searchable sex offender registries, which are accessible through a national database kept by the U.S. Justice Department, a Web site that averages 2.3 million page views a day.The new features come as states approach a July deadline to comply with the Adam Walsh Act, a 2006 federal law intended to crack down on the estimated 674,000 registered sex offenders in the United States. The law was named after the murdered 6-year-old son of “America’s Most Wanted” host John Walsh, who was informed by police in Florida on Dec. 16 that his son’s killer was identified after more than 25 years.The Adam Walsh Act requires all states to adopt the same minimum standards for registering and tracking sex offenders, including the information they post online. Under the law, states must include where sex offenders work and go to school, the cars they drive, the aliases they use, the crimes they have committed and more.The law also calls for some juvenile offenders as young as 14 to be included in online registries, though many states so far have balked at that provision, arguing that juveniles should not be singled out publicly.Many state lawmakers, corrections officials, advocacy organizations and members of the public have criticized the Adam Walsh Act, questioning its costs, demands and whether aspects of it do more harm than good. The posting of new information about sex offenders also has drawn criticism. Blogs and other Internet forums have buzzed as visitors voice frustration over the trove of details now available to anyone at the click of a mouse.“The Justice Department says it’s there simply for information and not for punishment. If they were in our shoes, I think they’d reconsider,” said Carlos Robles, 32, a registered sex offender in Austin, Texas. Robles — who received probation for engaging in consensual sex with a 16-year-old when he was 20 — said nonviolent and low-risk criminals should not be included on the Texas registry.States are under pressure to comply with the Adam Walsh Act by July — or lose 10 percent of their share of funding under a federal grant program that pays for state and local police programs. No states have been deemed compliant with the Adam Walsh Act yet, though they can apply for a pair of one-year extensions.At least 13 states last year and 12 states in 2007 passed laws authorizing the collection of new information from sex offenders, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). Some states passed the laws on their own, while others did so specifically to meet federal Adam Walsh Act demands, NCSL said.While some of the new laws stipulate that the collected information can be posted only on internal law enforcement Web sites, many states are adding some of it to their public registries as well, in accordance with Adam Walsh Act requirements. Wyoming, for instance, is among a dozen states where residents can view license plate numbers or vehicle descriptions of the cars driven by registered sex offenders.A Stateline.org analysis of all 50 state sex offender registries, conducted in December, found:

All states include information about the crime committed by each sex offender or, in some cases, general information about the victim. New York, for example, includes whether sex offenders committed their crimes against family members.

At least 29 states provide mapping to show exactly where sex offenders live. Some states offer significantly more information on their maps.

Washington state shows where sex offenders live in relation to schools, day care centers and other places where children gather.

At least 19 states allow users to sign up for e-mail or other alerts to inform them when sex offenders change status, including when they move. North Carolina allows residents to sign up for telephone alerts as well.

At least 18 states list information about where registered sex offenders are employed, though details vary by state. West Virginia, for example, posts only the city and county in which offenders are employed, while Virginia provides the name of the employer and the company’s address.

At least 12 states post information about the cars sex offenders drive, such as vehicle make and model or license plate.

At least five states — Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Michigan and West Virginia — allow users to search for sex offenders by their online identifiers, such as e-mail address or instant messenger screen name.Those who support the surge in new online information say it can help law enforcers, parents and other members of the public keep a watchful eye on sex offenders, including many who are described as sexual predators and have used the Internet to commit their crimes.Supporters say states like Delaware — where each sex offender’s profile includes a phone number to contact the police agency responsible for monitoring the offender — are innovators that provide useful information that can be helpful for reporting and even deterring crime. Other states that allow users to provide tips directly to police through their sex offender registries include Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Oregon, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin.In Connecticut, state Rep. Mike Lawlor (D), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is pushing for the state to include more information in its sex offender profiles, including whether victims are male or female, an adult or a minor and an acquaintance of the offender or a stranger.“On Connecticut’s registry, only the technical name and number of the crime of conviction is listed, which is meaningless to citizens hoping to make decisions about the risk of a nearby offender,” Lawlor recently wrote in an opinion piece published in the Hartford Courant.But the expansion has generated resistance from civil libertarians, privacy groups and a small but growing number of advocates for sex offenders who say some of the new information could subject former offenders to harassment or even violence. Media reports in recent years also have tied sex offender suicides to the public registration requirements they faced.Critics say some online information, such as the size of offenders’ shoes in Texas, serves no reasonable law enforcement purpose.“I’m just curious, how is that keeping us safe?” said Mary Sue Molnar, who helped found Texas Voices, a support group for registered sex offenders in Texas. Molnar said one recent change to Texas’s registry — the posting of offenders’ places of employment, in accordance with the Adam Walsh Act — has caused law-abiding offenders she works with to lose their jobs.Battles over the Adam Walsh Act and similar state-level laws are playing out in state and federal courts around the country. Most have focused on whether the act’s requirements can be applied retroactively to those who committed their crimes before such laws were approved. Legal experts say few major cases have challenged the new information being included in online registries.Leonard Sharon, a criminal defense attorney in Maine who has defended sex offenders, said it could be difficult for lawyers to win lawsuits asserting sex criminals’ right to privacy. “Your right to privacy is restricted once you’ve been convicted,” he said.Meanwhile, a crucial undercurrent in the debate over the expansion of online sex offender information has been whether the information itself is reliable. A December report by the inspector general of the Justice Department found that public sex offender registries run by the states are “inconsistent and incomplete.”“The public,” the report said, “cannot use the state information…as a reliable tool to identify all registered and non-compliant sex offenders in their communities.”Moreover, if state Web sites inaccurately list firms that employ sex offenders, companies could be “stigmatized or potentially jeopardized by vigilante responses, however infrequent they may be,” said Wayne Logan, a law professor at Florida State University who has studied sex offender laws.Another twist is that not everyone who is listed on state sex offender registries is a sex offender, according to Kristen Anderson, director of case analysis with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which monitors 57 sex offender registries, including those of the states and overseas territories.Fourteen states include non-sex criminals in their registries, including arsonists and drug offenders, Anderson said. She said she did not know which 14 states because some information submitted to her organization from the states is provided anonymously.But perhaps the most contentious aspect of the Adam Walsh Act — its requirement that states add some sex offenders as young as 14 to their publicly accessible registries — appears no closer to being resolved, even with the law’s rapidly approaching deadline. Logan some some states have a “principled objection” to posting personal information about young offenders online.While many states have included some juvenile offenders in their online registries for years, Logan said, those offenders usually were convicted as adults. The Adam Walsh Act, by contrast, would include those convicted in special juvenile courts for aggravated and other serious sexual crimes.Many states are wrestling with whether to adopt that requirement. Wisconsin, for instance, has collected information from 1,900 people who committed their crimes as minors, said John Dipko, a spokesman with the state Department of Corrections. But the details are published only on the state’s internal Web site for law enforcement — not on the public registry

Online Sex Offender Info Rapidly Expands

Arizona parents who want to find out whether a suspicious e-mail has been sent by a registered sex offender now can check the sender’s e-mail address against the state’s database of convicted molesters.

Kansas City, MO - infoZine - Stateline.org - Utah residents can sign up for e-mail alerts to notify them when a sex offender moves into their neighborhood.Wisconsin’s online registry provides maps to let users know exactly where the closest sex offender lives.And in Texas, the state’s sex offender registry — which includes more than 54,000 people — now features information ranging from offenders’ work addresses to their nicknames and even shoe sizes.The four states are among more than two dozen that quietly have added a wide range of new services — and new categories of information — to their online registries of convicted molesters. All 50 states have publicly searchable sex offender registries, which are accessible through a national database kept by the U.S. Justice Department, a Web site that averages 2.3 million page views a day.The new features come as states approach a July deadline to comply with the Adam Walsh Act, a 2006 federal law intended to crack down on the estimated 674,000 registered sex offenders in the United States. The law was named after the murdered 6-year-old son of “America’s Most Wanted” host John Walsh, who was informed by police in Florida on Dec. 16 that his son’s killer was identified after more than 25 years.The Adam Walsh Act requires all states to adopt the same minimum standards for registering and tracking sex offenders, including the information they post online. Under the law, states must include where sex offenders work and go to school, the cars they drive, the aliases they use, the crimes they have committed and more.The law also calls for some juvenile offenders as young as 14 to be included in online registries, though many states so far have balked at that provision, arguing that juveniles should not be singled out publicly.Many state lawmakers, corrections officials, advocacy organizations and members of the public have criticized the Adam Walsh Act, questioning its costs, demands and whether aspects of it do more harm than good. The posting of new information about sex offenders also has drawn criticism. Blogs and other Internet forums have buzzed as visitors voice frustration over the trove of details now available to anyone at the click of a mouse.“The Justice Department says it’s there simply for information and not for punishment. If they were in our shoes, I think they’d reconsider,” said Carlos Robles, 32, a registered sex offender in Austin, Texas. Robles — who received probation for engaging in consensual sex with a 16-year-old when he was 20 — said nonviolent and low-risk criminals should not be included on the Texas registry.States are under pressure to comply with the Adam Walsh Act by July — or lose 10 percent of their share of funding under a federal grant program that pays for state and local police programs. No states have been deemed compliant with the Adam Walsh Act yet, though they can apply for a pair of one-year extensions.At least 13 states last year and 12 states in 2007 passed laws authorizing the collection of new information from sex offenders, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). Some states passed the laws on their own, while others did so specifically to meet federal Adam Walsh Act demands, NCSL said.While some of the new laws stipulate that the collected information can be posted only on internal law enforcement Web sites, many states are adding some of it to their public registries as well, in accordance with Adam Walsh Act requirements. Wyoming, for instance, is among a dozen states where residents can view license plate numbers or vehicle descriptions of the cars driven by registered sex offenders.A Stateline.org analysis of all 50 state sex offender registries, conducted in December, found:

All states include information about the crime committed by each sex offender or, in some cases, general information about the victim. New York, for example, includes whether sex offenders committed their crimes against family members.

At least 29 states provide mapping to show exactly where sex offenders live. Some states offer significantly more information on their maps.

Washington state shows where sex offenders live in relation to schools, day care centers and other places where children gather.

At least 19 states allow users to sign up for e-mail or other alerts to inform them when sex offenders change status, including when they move. North Carolina allows residents to sign up for telephone alerts as well.

At least 18 states list information about where registered sex offenders are employed, though details vary by state. West Virginia, for example, posts only the city and county in which offenders are employed, while Virginia provides the name of the employer and the company’s address.

At least 12 states post information about the cars sex offenders drive, such as vehicle make and model or license plate.

At least five states — Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Michigan and West Virginia — allow users to search for sex offenders by their online identifiers, such as e-mail address or instant messenger screen name.Those who support the surge in new online information say it can help law enforcers, parents and other members of the public keep a watchful eye on sex offenders, including many who are described as sexual predators and have used the Internet to commit their crimes.Supporters say states like Delaware — where each sex offender’s profile includes a phone number to contact the police agency responsible for monitoring the offender — are innovators that provide useful information that can be helpful for reporting and even deterring crime. Other states that allow users to provide tips directly to police through their sex offender registries include Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Oregon, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin.In Connecticut, state Rep. Mike Lawlor (D), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is pushing for the state to include more information in its sex offender profiles, including whether victims are male or female, an adult or a minor and an acquaintance of the offender or a stranger.“On Connecticut’s registry, only the technical name and number of the crime of conviction is listed, which is meaningless to citizens hoping to make decisions about the risk of a nearby offender,” Lawlor recently wrote in an opinion piece published in the Hartford Courant.But the expansion has generated resistance from civil libertarians, privacy groups and a small but growing number of advocates for sex offenders who say some of the new information could subject former offenders to harassment or even violence. Media reports in recent years also have tied sex offender suicides to the public registration requirements they faced.Critics say some online information, such as the size of offenders’ shoes in Texas, serves no reasonable law enforcement purpose.“I’m just curious, how is that keeping us safe?” said Mary Sue Molnar, who helped found Texas Voices, a support group for registered sex offenders in Texas. Molnar said one recent change to Texas’s registry — the posting of offenders’ places of employment, in accordance with the Adam Walsh Act — has caused law-abiding offenders she works with to lose their jobs.Battles over the Adam Walsh Act and similar state-level laws are playing out in state and federal courts around the country. Most have focused on whether the act’s requirements can be applied retroactively to those who committed their crimes before such laws were approved. Legal experts say few major cases have challenged the new information being included in online registries.Leonard Sharon, a criminal defense attorney in Maine who has defended sex offenders, said it could be difficult for lawyers to win lawsuits asserting sex criminals’ right to privacy. “Your right to privacy is restricted once you’ve been convicted,” he said.Meanwhile, a crucial undercurrent in the debate over the expansion of online sex offender information has been whether the information itself is reliable. A December report by the inspector general of the Justice Department found that public sex offender registries run by the states are “inconsistent and incomplete.”“The public,” the report said, “cannot use the state information…as a reliable tool to identify all registered and non-compliant sex offenders in their communities.”Moreover, if state Web sites inaccurately list firms that employ sex offenders, companies could be “stigmatized or potentially jeopardized by vigilante responses, however infrequent they may be,” said Wayne Logan, a law professor at Florida State University who has studied sex offender laws.Another twist is that not everyone who is listed on state sex offender registries is a sex offender, according to Kristen Anderson, director of case analysis with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which monitors 57 sex offender registries, including those of the states and overseas territories.Fourteen states include non-sex criminals in their registries, including arsonists and drug offenders, Anderson said. She said she did not know which 14 states because some information submitted to her organization from the states is provided anonymously.But perhaps the most contentious aspect of the Adam Walsh Act — its requirement that states add some sex offenders as young as 14 to their publicly accessible registries — appears no closer to being resolved, even with the law’s rapidly approaching deadline. Logan some some states have a “principled objection” to posting personal information about young offenders online.While many states have included some juvenile offenders in their online registries for years, Logan said, those offenders usually were convicted as adults. The Adam Walsh Act, by contrast, would include those convicted in special juvenile courts for aggravated and other serious sexual crimes.Many states are wrestling with whether to adopt that requirement. Wisconsin, for instance, has collected information from 1,900 people who committed their crimes as minors, said John Dipko, a spokesman with the state Department of Corrections. But the details are published only on the state’s internal Web site for law enforcement — not on the public registry

There Oughta Be A Law!

Suborning Perjury of A Child Witness In A Child Abuse Investigation and Prosecution

Esther Rantzen: Fear of paedophiles is harming children

'Now people are treating abuse as if it goes on behind every tree.'



Esther Rantzen has admitted she blames herself for raising fears of paedophiles to such a degree that adults are now scared to help crying children.

The veteran broadcaster, who founded the counselling service ChildLine, warned that young people are now being harmed by the widespread suspicion that anyone who has contact with children could be a child abuser.

Her fears were confirmed by an experiment she helped conduct in a busy shopping centre, which found that 99 per cent of adults chose to walk on by rather than going to the assistance of two children who looked lost and distressed.

Even the handful who did stop admitted they were worried that people would assume they were trying to abduct the children.

This comes amid growing concern that in the wake of high-profile cases such as the disappearance of Madeleine McCann and the Soham murders, all adults are now viewed as paedophiles unless they can prove themselves innocent.

There are now no men under 25 teaching in state-run nurseries, such is the fear of being branded a child molester, while from next year 11.3 million adults will have to have their backgrounds checked by the Independent Safeguarding Authority before they can work or volunteer with under-16s.

Even malicious allegations made against teachers or priests must now be kept on file until they retire, while council officers are questioning the motives of any lone adults who walk through a public park.

Rantzen asked of the results of the test, to be shown on TV tonight: "What does that say about our attitude to children now? Have we unwittingly put up barriers protecting ourselves, but harming them?

"It seems to me that many adults may now actually be putting children at risk, because we are so afraid someone will suspect us of having sinister motives if we help them.

"I blame myself for a lot of this. Thirty years ago most people didn't realise that abuse ever happened, so abusers just got away with it. But in 1986 we made a programme called Childwatch in which we pointed out that abuse is far more common than most people realise, but of course it's a secret crime, it happens mainly in children' homes, within the family.

"Now people are treating abuse as if it goes on behind every tree."

She added: "The tragedy is there are people who hurt children, and we must protect them against pain and abuse. But unless we hang on to our common sense the whole of child protection is going to suffer, so many of these rules and attitudes are designed to keep adults safe, to keep jobs safe, to keep organisations safe, to keep councils safe. Our priority should be to keep children safe."

In the experiment, to be shown on ITV1's Tonight programme, two child actors were left alone in a London shopping mall looking upset while hidden cameras were set up to observe how many people offered them assistance.

A total of 1,817 people walked past the children, a seven-year-old girl and a nine-year-old boy, but only five did something to help.

Almost 500 people walked past the boy before one of them informed the shopping centre manager about his plight, and more than 100 ignored the girl before one of them stopped to ask if she was OK.

In addition, the five adults who did stop to help all admitted they had been worried their would be seen as suspicious.

Mark Williams Thomas, a child protection expert and former policeman, said: "It does concern me that no member of the public is even asking this child are they OK. They actually had to walk around them."