Parsons Sun, N.Y.
The safety of children in school has become a top priority for districts across the nation in recent years.
Magnetic door locks, cameras inside and out, visitor check-in and IDs, officers on campus and emergency crisis plans have been implemented.
Students in many schools are still exposed to danger, said Oswego USD 504 superintendent Terry Karlin. Only a handful of schools in the nation have adopted plans to protect children from sex offenders, he said.
While some states (Kansas excluded) have laws stating that sex offenders cannot live within 500 to 1,000 feet of a school, most states, including Kansas, have no laws keeping sex offenders from entering schools or attending school events.
Because some sex offenders are parents, creating laws that do not disenfranchise them from their rights as parents is a concern. But so is protection of other children, Karlin said.
Idaho adopted laws limiting sex offenders' access to schools, protecting both offender parents' rights and students' rights.
Labette County has 44 registered sex offenders living inside its borders, according to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, and 15 of those list an Oswego address, although nine are residents of the Labette Correctional Conservation Camp. Because of this, the USD 504 board voted this week to implement a policy restricting sex offenders' access to school property.
"Obviously, we have known sex offenders that live in the district and obviously we have some that have children," Karlin said. "Coffeyville school district has a similar policy."
Although not every person required to register as a sex offender poses a threat to students, Karlin said, by law the district is not allowed to isolate or distinguish between one offender or another based on their violations, so the district had to make its policy all encompassing.
"If they are going to be on our grounds, it will be under the supervision as outlined," Karlin said.
The policy states: "The board prohibits registered sex offenders from entering any district school building, being on the grounds of any attendance center or in any district-owned vehicle used to transport students to and from school or to and from any school-related activity unless such registered sex offender is a parent or guardian of a student enrolled at a particular school and fulfilling responsibilities as follows:
"1. Attending a conference at a school with school personnel to discuss the academic or social performance and/or progress of his/her child.
"2. Participating in a student review conference wherein decisions may be made with respect to his/her child's needs regarding special education services; or
"3. Attending a conference to discuss other student issues concerning his/her child such as discipline, retention or promotion.
"When it is necessary for a registered sex offender to be involved in parent responsibilities as stated above the offender will first notify the superintendent to request permission to be on school property. If permission is granted, the superintendent will inform the building principal who will then schedule the time and place as appropriate for the conference or meeting," the policy states.
"If a sex offender desires to be on school property or enter any school building for any reason other than stated above, including attending programs, concerts or school activities, the offender must first notify the superintendent to get special permission. Each such request will be considered individually and permission granted or denied based on the nature of the offender(s) conviction(s), the age of the students involved, and the district's ability to provide adequate supervision during the time the offender will be on school property.
"Upon entering any building, the sex offender will report directly to the principal's office to sign in and be recognized as a visitor to the building.
"If such conference or meeting is during school hours, the offender must always remain under the direct supervision of a school official.
"Any sex offender that violates any terms or provisions of this policy will be immediately referred to local law enforcement for prosecution."
To ensure it knows exactly who is registered as a sex offender, the district visits the KBI Web site frequently.
"If a parent or guardian has a record, we are generally aware, and we take precautions," Karlin said.
All those listed on the site living in the district or with children attending school in the district will be sent a copy of the district's new policy, Karlin said.
"We will rigorously enforce this policy," Karlin said, "We take our responsibility for the security of our students and staff seriously."
Although the majority of sex offenders in the county have registered addresses in Parsons (25 of the 44), USD 503 superintendent Deb Perbeck said the district has no board policy in place prohibiting sex offenders from participating in their child's education.
The board also has no policy preventing any other sex offender from visiting the building or going to school events, but Perbeck said, "We have quite a bit of security at our buildings and strong adult supervision of our students at events so we know where they are and what they are doing."
[Ed: Obviously, this law is essential to prevent the thousands of children who are abducted from school buildings each year. What's that? There have been NO abductions from school by stranger pedophiles that anyone can recall? Well then, it's still essential to SEND A MESSAGE that we will be lying in wait for the first pedophile who attempts to do this! And we can never have too many laws on our books.]
Oswego schools restrict sex offenders' access to buildings
Shannon Lee Graling
PAROLED SEX OFFENDER ARRESTED AT MOTEL WITH BOY.
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Byline: Lee Quarnstrom Knight Ridder Tribune News Wire
Police and a parole officer in Santa Cruz, Calif., were feeling good Thursday after thwarting what they believe was an attempt by a convicted sex offender sex offender n. generic term for all persons convicted of crimes involving sex, including rape, molestation, sexual harassment and pornography production or distribution. In mosst states convicted sex offenders are supposed to report to local police authorities, but many do not. (See: rape, molestation, sexual harassment, pornography) to molest a 10-year-old boy.
``We saved this kid. I tell you, I slept well last night,'' California Parole Agent Nick Brautovich said the day after the arrest of Shannon Lee Graling.
Using information Brautovich said he received Wednesday from a confidential source, police arrested Graling, 42, as he tried to check into a beach-area motel with the boy. Graling, also known as Edward Neal, was booked into Santa Cruz County jail on a charge of failing to register as a sex offender.
Brautovich, who had been Graling's parole agent after the Santa Cruz man had been paroled from state prison on a child-molestation molestation n. the crime of sexual acts with children up to the age of 18, including touching of private parts, exposure of genitalia, taking of pornographic pictures, rape, inducement of sexual acts with the molester or with other children, and variations of these acts by pedophiles. Molestation also applies to incest by a relative with a minor family member, and any unwanted sexual acts with adults short of rape. (See: pedophilia, rape) conviction, said he got in touch with police after he received the tip that Graling and a boy were about to check into a motel.
Officers said Graling had befriended the boy's mother, a local resident who was unaware of his history of sex offenses.
``He had taken the boy to the boardwalk,'' Brautovich said. ``Police arrested him as he was trying to book a room'' at the Westwind Motel not far from the popular beachside amusement park.
Police Sgt. Tom Watson said Graling had failed to register as a sex offender - as required by law - after moving out of a residence where he had lived since 1994, when he had completed his parole from state prison. During the six months or so that he was not registered, said the sergeant, Graling apparently spent some time in Portland, Ore.
Watson said he is contacting Portland police to see if Graling had registered as a sex offender in the Oregon city.
Watson said the failure-to-register charge was filed because Graling had apparently not yet had the opportunity to molest the boy.
``I think we saved this child,'' Watson said. ``That is our first responsibility in a case like this. Now we hope we can convict Graling, but at least we think we averted a case of molestation.''
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Son Convicted in Mother's Murder Kills Sex Offender In Prison
A California State Prison inmate, who as a Rocklin teenager was convicted of strangling his mother and keeping her in a back room while he partied, is suspected of fatally stabbing another inmate Thursday. Steven Matthew "Matt" Schultz, now 28, is suspected of stabbing Shannon Lee Graling, 53, in the neck with a homemade weapon at the Folsom facility, according to a prison representative. Graling was transported to an area hospital where he was pronounced dead. He was serving 400 years plus 25-years-to-life for child molestation offenses. In 1999, a Placer County jury found Schultz guilty of first-degree murder in the death of his mother, 40-year-old Barbara Schultz, two years earlier. Schultz was 17 at the time. His mother’s body was found chained to a propane tank and weighted down in a rock quarry. Schultz was sentenced to 25-years-life in prison.
[Ed: One more murder of one more sex offender whose blood is on the California Department of Corrections' hands. The C.D.C. remains indifferent and unconcerned at the suffering and violence suffered by those convicted of sex crimes, particularly those involving children. In this, as well as many other respects, they closely resemble the more savage of those whom they imprison.]
N.Y. Senate passes legislation to require more information from sex offenders about how they use the Internet
Poughkeepsie Journal
The New York State Senate has passed legislation to require more information from sex offenders about how they use the Internet, said Sen. Steve Saland, R-Poughkeepsie.
The Senate passed the Electronic Security and Targeting of On-Line Predators Act that would provide a number of protections so the public, especially children, can use the Internet more safely.
“Throughout my career I have made the protection of children one of my highest priorities. I passed similar legislation in the Senate last year and I am pleased the attorney general recognized the importance of this issue by putting forward this omnibus bill to help make the Internet a safer place and give parents more peace of mind when their children are online,” said Saland.
The bill would extend current laws regarding how the State tracks sex offenders from geographically to also tracking their Internet usage. For example, the current Sex Offender Registration Act requires sex offenders to register their Internet accounts – this bill requires them to register all their Internet accounts including all their chat names and screen names, and requires them to notify the Division of Criminal Justice Services whenever they change their identifiers. The information would then be available to social networking sites, such as MySpace.com or Facebook.com so they can take steps to prevent convicted sexual predators from accessing certain online services.
Just as convicted sexual predators are restricted geographically, such as not being allowed near schools, e-Stop would restrict predators from using the Internet under many circumstances. It would also authorize courts to impose Internet restrictions on sex offenders on probation.
“It is no longer enough to keep convicted sexual predators away from schools and day care centers, and track where they live and work. We must now protect children in the virtual world too. Young people can be trusting and have no idea their Internet ‘friend’ could be a convicted sex offender trolling the Internet looking for his or her next victim. As it stands now, anyone with a computer can instantly have access to millions of trusting children and these children need the best protection we can provide. The Internet may be a virtual world but this bill puts real protections in it,” Saland said.
The bill has been sent to the Assembly for consideration.
[Ed: Just in case any of our readers hadn't been reading the tea leaves in recent months, passing laws to require sex offenders to divulge all of their email addresses, i.s.p.'s, instant messaging accounts, etc. is the new, new thing in legislative heroics. Lawmakers have adapted what has by now become a tried and true method for grabbing headlines as well as the moral high-ground: Inventing a danger (Internet predators) then inventing myriad "remedies" (more laws) to determine the most effective way to... raise their poll ratings. That it does nothing to stop any crime and does cost huge amounts of money to taxpayers, strips sex offenders of what little is left of their civil liberties and privacy and diverts law enforcement attention away from actual crimes, seems not to occur to many of their constituents. ]
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080214/NEWS01/80214044
Clarity Sought on Electronics Searches U.S. Agents Seize Travelers' Devices
[Ed: This story comes days after this writer, returning to the U.S. from Asia, was detained by U.S. Customs for an hour and a half while they conducted an extensive search of my laptop and its hard drive, my digital camera and all the images from ten memory cards, as well as everything else in my suitcases and on my person. Throughout this, they asked very probing and intrusive questions ("Have you always been a bachelor? How come you've never married? Who did you associate with during your trip? Do you plan on traveling again soon?"). Needless to say, they found nothing. During that time I was not allowed to use my cell phone to let friends know that I was still stuck inside (they were waiting outside the terminal, wondering if I had missed the flight). The whole time, I wondered what my rights were and if I was truly obligated to answer all their questions. For the record, I'm a U.S. citizen. So just what is the penalty for not answering their questions and since when do they have the right to forbid me from telephoning? On what authority are they authorized to read all the documents in my computer, read private correspondence and copy all contact information for friends, clients and family?
It's important to note: I learned a long time ago not to take a defensive or challenging tone with these people. I answer every question and unzip every bag with the utmost politeness. While in Customs another fellow, a Pakistani, I think, who was being searched next to me, was caught bringing in 50 cartons of cigarettes. I asked the officer conducting my search offhandedly what the penalties for him would be. His answer? "It all depends on his attitude. If we don't like his attitude, then it'll be very expensive for him". I wonder what they would have made of Thomas Jefferson's attitude?]
By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 7, 2008; A01
Nabila Mango, a therapist and a U.S. citizen who has lived in the country since 1965, had just flown in from Jordan last December when, she said, she was detained at customs and her cellphone was taken from her purse. Her daughter, waiting outside San Francisco International Airport, tried repeatedly to call her during the hour and a half she was questioned. But after her phone was returned, Mango saw that records of her daughter's calls had been erased.
A few months earlier in the same airport, a tech engineer returning from a business trip to London objected when a federal agent asked him to type his password into his laptop computer. "This laptop doesn't belong to me," he remembers protesting. "It belongs to my company." Eventually, he agreed to log on and stood by as the officer copied the Web sites he had visited, said the engineer, a U.S. citizen who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of calling attention to himself.
Maria Udy, a marketing executive with a global travel management firm in Bethesda, said her company laptop was seized by a federal agent as she was flying from Dulles International Airport to London in December 2006. Udy, a British citizen, said the agent told her he had "a security concern" with her. "I was basically given the option of handing over my laptop or not getting on that flight," she said.
The seizure of electronics at U.S. borders has prompted protests from travelers who say they now weigh the risk of traveling with sensitive or personal information on their laptops, cameras or cellphones. In some cases, companies have altered their policies to require employees to safeguard corporate secrets by clearing laptop hard drives before international travel.
Today, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Asian Law Caucus, two civil liberties groups in San Francisco, plan to file a lawsuit to force the government to disclose its policies on border searches, including which rules govern the seizing and copying of the contents of electronic devices. They also want to know the boundaries for asking travelers about their political views, religious practices and other activities potentially protected by the First Amendment. The question of whether border agents have a right to search electronic devices at all without suspicion of a crime is already under review in the federal courts.
The lawsuit was inspired by two dozen cases, 15 of which involved searches of cellphones, laptops, MP3 players and other electronics. Almost all involved travelers of Muslim, Middle Eastern or South Asian background, many of whom, including Mango and the tech engineer, said they are concerned they were singled out because of racial or religious profiling.
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman, Lynn Hollinger, said officers do not engage in racial profiling "in any way, shape or form." She said that "it is not CBP's intent to subject travelers to unwarranted scrutiny" and that a laptop may be seized if it contains information possibly tied to terrorism, narcotics smuggling, child pornography or other criminal activity.
The reason for a search is not always made clear. The Association of Corporate Travel Executives, which represents 2,500 business executives in the United States and abroad, said it has tracked complaints from several members, including Udy, whose laptops have been seized and their contents copied before usually being returned days later, said Susan Gurley, executive director of ACTE. Gurley said none of the travelers who have complained to the ACTE raised concerns about racial or ethnic profiling. Gurley said none of the travelers were charged with a crime.
"I was assured that my laptop would be given back to me in 10 or 15 days," said Udy, who continues to fly into and out of the United States. She said the federal agent copied her log-on and password, and asked her to show him a recent document and how she gains access to Microsoft Word. She was asked to pull up her e-mail but could not because of lack of Internet access. With ACTE's help, she pressed for relief. More than a year later, Udy has received neither her laptop nor an explanation.
ACTE last year filed a Freedom of Information Act request to press the government for information on what happens to data seized from laptops and other electronic devices. "Is it destroyed right then and there if the person is in fact just a regular business traveler?" Gurley asked. "People are quite concerned. They don't want proprietary business information floating, not knowing where it has landed or where it is going. It increases the anxiety level."
Udy has changed all her work passwords and no longer banks online. Her company, Radius, has tightened its data policies so that traveling employees must access company information remotely via an encrypted channel, and their laptops must contain no company information.
At least two major global corporations, one American and one Dutch, have told their executives not to carry confidential business material on laptops on overseas trips, Gurley said. In Canada, one law firm has instructed its lawyers to travel to the United States with "blank laptops" whose hard drives contain no data. "We just access our information through the Internet," said Lou Brzezinski, a partner at Blaney McMurtry, a major Toronto law firm. That approach also holds risks, but "those are hacking risks as opposed to search risks," he said.
The U.S. government has argued in a pending court case that its authority to protect the country's border extends to looking at information stored in electronic devices such as laptops without any suspicion of a crime. In border searches, it regards a laptop the same as a suitcase.
"It should not matter . . . whether documents and pictures are kept in 'hard copy' form in an executive's briefcase or stored digitally in a computer. The authority of customs officials to search the former should extend equally to searches of the latter," the government argued in the child pornography case being heard by a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco.
As more and more people travel with laptops, BlackBerrys and cellphones, the government's laptop-equals-suitcase position is raising red flags.
"It's one thing to say it's reasonable for government agents to open your luggage," said David D. Cole, a law professor at Georgetown University. "It's another thing to say it's reasonable for them to read your mind and everything you have thought over the last year. What a laptop records is as personal as a diary but much more extensive. It records every Web site you have searched. Every e-mail you have sent. It's as if you're crossing the border with your home in your suitcase."
If the government's position on searches of electronic files is upheld, new risks will confront anyone who crosses the border with a laptop or other device, said Mark Rasch, a technology security expert with FTI Consulting and a former federal prosecutor. "Your kid can be arrested because they can't prove the songs they downloaded to their iPod were legally downloaded," he said. "Lawyers run the risk of exposing sensitive information about their client. Trade secrets can be exposed to customs agents with no limit on what they can do with it. Journalists can expose sources, all because they have the audacity to cross an invisible line."
Hollinger said customs officers "are trained to protect confidential information."
Shirin Sinnar, a staff attorney with the Asian Law Caucus, said that by scrutinizing the Web sites people search and the phone numbers they've stored on their cellphones, "the government is going well beyond its traditional role of looking for contraband and really is looking into the content of people's thoughts and ideas and their lawful political activities."
If conducted inside the country, such searches would require a warrant and probable cause, legal experts said.
Customs sometimes singles out passengers for extensive questioning and searches based on "information from various systems and specific techniques for selecting passengers," including the Interagency Border Inspection System, according to a statement on the CBP Web site. "CBP officers may, unfortunately, inconvenience law-abiding citizens in order to detect those involved in illicit activities," the statement said. But the factors agents use to single out passengers are not transparent, and travelers generally have little access to the data to see whether there are errors.
Although Customs said it does not profile by race or ethnicity, an officers' training guide states that "it is permissible and indeed advisable to consider an individual's connections to countries that are associated with significant terrorist activity."
"What's the difference between that and targeting people because they are Arab or Muslim?" Cole said, noting that the countries the government focuses on are generally predominantly Arab or Muslim.
It is the lack of clarity about the rules that has confounded travelers and raised concerns from groups such as the Asian Law Caucus, which said that as a result, their lawyers cannot fully advise people how they may exercise their rights during a border search. The lawsuit says a Freedom of Information Act request was filed with Customs last fall but that no information has been received.
Kamran Habib, a software engineer with Cisco Systems, has had his laptop and cellphone searched three times in the past year. Once, in San Francisco, an officer "went through every number and text message on my cellphone and took out my SIM card in the back," said Habib, a permanent U.S. resident. "So now, every time I travel, I basically clean out my phone. It's better for me to keep my colleagues and friends safe than to get them on the list as well."
Udy's company, Radius, organizes business trips for 100,000 travelers a day, from companies around the world. She says her firm supports strong security measures. "Where we get angry is when we don't know what they're for."
Staff researcher Richard Drezen contributed to this report.
Rule by fear or rule by law?
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"The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist."
- Winston Churchill, Nov. 21, 1943
Since 9/11, and seemingly without the notice of most Americans, the federal government has assumed the authority to institute martial law, arrest a wide swath of dissidents (citizen and noncitizen alike), and detain people without legal or constitutional recourse in the event of "an emergency influx of immigrants in the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs."
Beginning in 1999, the government has entered into a series of single-bid contracts with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) to build detention camps at undisclosed locations within the United States. The government has also contracted with several companies to build thousands of railcars, some reportedly equipped with shackles, ostensibly to transport detainees.
According to diplomat and author Peter Dale Scott, the KBR contract is part of a Homeland Security plan titled ENDGAME, which sets as its goal the removal of "all removable aliens" and "potential terrorists."
Fraud-busters such as Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, have complained about these contracts, saying that more taxpayer dollars should not go to taxpayer-gouging Halliburton. But the real question is: What kind of "new programs" require the construction and refurbishment of detention facilities in nearly every state of the union with the capacity to house perhaps millions of people?
Sect. 1042 of the 2007 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), "Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies," gives the executive the power to invoke martial law. For the first time in more than a century, the president is now authorized to use the military in response to "a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, a terrorist attack or any other condition in which the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to the extent that state officials cannot maintain public order."
The Military Commissions Act of 2006, rammed through Congress just before the 2006 midterm elections, allows for the indefinite imprisonment of anyone who donates money to a charity that turns up on a list of "terrorist" organizations, or who speaks out against the government's policies. The law calls for secret trials for citizens and noncitizens alike.
Also in 2007, the White House quietly issued National Security Presidential Directive 51 (NSPD-51), to ensure "continuity of government" in the event of what the document vaguely calls a "catastrophic emergency." Should the president determine that such an emergency has occurred, he and he alone is empowered to do whatever he deems necessary to ensure "continuity of government." This could include everything from canceling elections to suspending the Constitution to launching a nuclear attack. Congress has yet to hold a single hearing on NSPD-51.
U.S. Rep. Jane Harman, D-Venice (Los Angeles County) has come up with a new way to expand the domestic "war on terror." Her Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 (HR1955), which passed the House by the lopsided vote of 404-6, would set up a commission to "examine and report upon the facts and causes" of so-called violent radicalism and extremist ideology, then make legislative recommendations on combatting it.
According to commentary in the Baltimore Sun, Rep. Harman and her colleagues from both sides of the aisle believe the country faces a native brand of terrorism, and needs a commission with sweeping investigative power to combat it.
A clue as to where Harman's commission might be aiming is the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, a law that labels those who "engage in sit-ins, civil disobedience, trespass, or any other crime in the name of animal rights" as terrorists. Other groups in the crosshairs could be anti-abortion protesters, anti-tax agitators, immigration activists, environmentalists, peace demonstrators, Second Amendment rights supporters ... the list goes on and on. According to author Naomi Wolf, the National Counterterrorism Center holds the names of roughly 775,000 "terror suspects" with the number increasing by 20,000 per month.
What could the government be contemplating that leads it to make contingency plans to detain without recourse millions of its own citizens?
The Constitution does not allow the executive to have unchecked power under any circumstances. The people must not allow the president to use the war on terrorism to rule by fear instead of by law.
Lewis Seiler is the president of Voice of the Environment, Inc. Dan Hamburg, a former congressman, is executive director. Full Story
Jessica's Law hits enforcement roadblocks
Interpreting residence rules, finding financing difficult
By VIRGINIA HENNESSEY Herald Salinas
The realities of Jessica's Law have hit home for a Gonzales man convicted of sexual battery against his ex-girlfriend at Hartnell College. The case demonstrates some of the difficult issues confronting local authorities over application of the law. Passed by 70 percent of voters in November 2006, Jessica's Law requires lifetime electronic monitoring of sex offenders paroled from prison and prohibits all registered sex offenders — even those never sent to prison — from living within 2,000 feet of a "school or park where children regularly gather."
For an increasing number of sex offenders in the state, that means registering with law enforcement as a "transient" because there is no place for them to live legally, especially in urban areas.
For 22-year-old Samuel Almanzar, it means leaving the Gonzales home where he was raised and which his family has owned since 1953. His single mother, recently diagnosed with a serious heart ailment, must decide whether to sell her parents' home or send her son away.
"I would be hard pushed to think of (a location within city limits that complies) under these restrictions," said Marcia Parsons, deputy chief probation officer for Monterey County. "There are a lot of issues with Jessica's Law that really, really need to be ironed out."
Money needed for monitoring
Powers said, local law enforcement and probation departments were "extremely alarmed" that once offenders complete terms of release and are no longer supervised by state parole officers, "by default, 'We're going to have to go and supervise for life all registered sex offenders.'"
Local authorities wanted to know where the funds would come from to cover the costs of equipment and personnel.
Sen. George Runner said Almanzar's biggest problem isn't going to be finding a home. "The biggest challenge for him is people can look up his name and address on any computer and see he's a registered sex offender," the senator said.
Public notoriety is low on the list of worries for an increasing number of sex offenders who have been forced to register as transients and take to the streets when they are unable to find compliant housing.
The Oakland Tribune profiled an East Bay man with a wife and three children who lived in the family's apartment during the day but wandered the streets and slept on bus-stop benches at night to comply with residency requirements.
Defense lawyer Bengston questioned the logic of forcing sex offenders into rural areas or homelessness, where it's more difficult to watch them. And statistically, she added, "The residency requirement really doesn't seem to have anything to do with keeping children safer. There is no nexus between living near a park or school and molesting a child."
Ed Freeman, district administrator of the state parole department's Central Coast division, agreed.
"There's a perception that most of the child molesters are this individual who cruises the street and snatches a kid out of a bus stop, and that's just not the case," he said. "Most are coaches, teachers, uncles, stepfathers for sure, that know the child. The number of predatory individuals is probably less than 5 percent.
"When you pass a law like that and drum up the fear of the public, you're only getting half-truths out there," he added. "People go out to the polls and pull their ballot form and they're not well informed."
Full Story
Protect children from sexual violence: Don't adopt the Adam Walsh Act
By Sarah Tofte
As state legislatures begin their 2008 sessions, lawmakers will need to decide whether to comply with the federal Adam Walsh Act on sex offenders or lose federal money for law enforcement. The choice for states is to dramatically increase their registration and community notification requirements for convicted sex offenders by 2009 or lose significant federal law enforcement grant money. It doesn't seem like a difficult choice. Who wouldn't want to support laws targeting convicted sex offenders and be paid for it? Yet legislatures from Arizona to Illinois to Rhode Island are leaning against implementing the law. Because once you get past the painful emotions and look hard at the problem of child sexual abuse, it turns out that sex offender registration and community notification laws might not actually prevent sexual violence.
Sex offender laws are based on two popular myths about child abuse: that children have most to fear from strangers, and that sex offenders will repeat their crimes. In fact, more than 90 percent of child sexual abuse is committed by someone the child knows. And authoritative studies show that three out of four sex offenders do not reoffend within 15 years of release from prison. In fact, 87 percent of sex crimes are committed by people with no previous sex offense convictions.
The Adam Walsh Act doesn't tackle the real dangers to children, and contains disturbing provisions. It requires states to register and identify online children age 14 and older who commit sex offenses. Many states treat child sex offenders differently than adults, exempting them from community notification. They understand that child sex offenders respond well to treatment and have an excellent chance of rehabilitation - and that crimes they committed as children should not haunt the rest of their lives. Thus the Illinois legislature, knowing it was acting in conflict with the Adam Walsh Act, recently overrode the governor's veto of a law exempting child offenders from online registration.
In the past, federal law required only that states register sexually violent offenders for 15 years. The new act requires states to register virtually anyone convicted of a sex offense. This would force some states to significantly expand their registries. While it may seem a good idea to place all convicted sex offenders on a registry, law enforcement officials and child safety advocates say that expanding the registry to include all offenders reduces its usefulness in helping law enforcement to identify and monitor individuals considered a real risk to the community.
The Adam Walsh Act also extends from 15 years to 25 years or life the time someone is on a registry and subject to community notification, without the possibility of petitioning to be removed. If Congress had consulted experts on sexual violence, it would have found that the longer a convicted sex offender lives offense-free in the community, the less likely he is to re-offend, which is why experts often advocate giving convicted sex offenders an opportunity to be released from registry requirements upon a showing of rehabilitation.
Implementing the changes required by the act will cost states a lot of money. At a legislative hearing in Arizona, witnesses testified that the state would lose between $700,000 and $800,000 in federal law enforcement grants if it didn't comply with the law - but that it would cost millions of dollars to expand the state's sex offender laws to comply with the Adam Walsh Act.
And there are other costs to implementing the act. Subjecting convicted sex offenders to community notification for the rest of their lives may do great harm - both to the individuals and to community safety. Offenders included on online sex offender registries endure shattered privacy, social ostracism, diminished employment and housing opportunities, harassment and even vigilante violence. Their families suffer as well.
Unnecessarily expansive community notification laws may drive more offenders underground, away from supportive services like treatment, and away from the supervision and monitoring of law enforcement. Harsh enduring consequences also provide little incentive for former offenders to live without re-offending: as one registrant told Human Rights Watch, ''No one believes I can change, so why even try?''
Every child has the right to live free from violence and sexual abuse. Promoting public safety by holding offenders accountable and by instituting effective crime prevention measures is a core governmental obligation. But states can address the real problem of sexual violence by refusing to adopt the Adam Walsh Act - and then limiting their registration and community notification laws to individuals identified as posing a real risk to the community.
SARAH TOFTE is a U.S. researcher for Human Rights Watch and the author of No Easy Answers: Sex Offender Laws in the U.S. Readers may write to her at HRW, 350 Fifth Avenue, 34th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10118-3299; Web site: www.hrw.org.
Indiana official wants to ban sex offenders from Web sites
By Sue Loughlin, The Tribune-Star
TERRE HAUTE— Vigo County resident Jackie Kellar has three teenage daughters who use Facebook and other Internet sites.
Similar to parents nationwide, she worries about some of the dangers out there in cyberspace, including sexual predators.
Kellar was glad to hear that Indiana"s attorney general, Steve Carter, and some state legislators are trying to pass a law to protect young people from some of those dangers.
Carter, who visited Terre Haute on Thursday, is pushing legislation to ban convicted sex offenders from using online social networking sites, chat rooms or instant messaging programs that allow minors to participate.
"We don"t have any restriction in Indiana that prevents sex offenders from being on those same social networking sites that our children are on," Carter said. "It"s time for us to pass a law in Indiana that restricts sex offenders" access to our kids via these social networks."
House Bill 1134, authored by Rep. Shelli VanDenburgh, D-Crown Point, incorporates the proposal.
The bill could receive a hearing next week before the judiciary committee, said Staci Schneider, Carter"s press secretary.
A survey by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children indicates that one in seven young people between the ages of 10 and 17 has received unwanted sexual solicitations online that tried to contact the youth in person, over the telephone or via mail. [Ed: Am I not mistaken but was it not this same Center for Missing & Exploited Children that quoted figures of thousands of children abducted by strangers every year in the '80's? Why does anyone believe anything these people say? Perhaps it's because they WANT to. Hmm...]
The survey also indicated that one in three children has experienced unwanted exposure to sexual material on the Internet.
"The growth of the Internet and the ability to hide an identity is a challenge to parents and law enforcement alike," Carter said. A state law addressing the problem is a step in the right direction.
The proposed legislation would make it a class-D felony (punishable by six months to three years in prison) for a convicted sex offender to use a social networking Web site or instant messaging or chat room program frequented by minors.
The penalty would be increased to a class-C felony (punishable by two to eight years in prison) if the offender uses the program to contact a child or has a prior conviction under the law.
Four states have passed laws regulating a convicted sex offender"s use of and activities on social networking sites, Carter said.
Mark Miller, principal at Sarah Scott Middle School, is aware of some of the problems and dangers that can arise on the social networking sites. "It"s a potentially real dangerous problem," he said.
Miller supports legislation to ban convicted sex offenders from those sites.
Each year, convicted sex offenders in Indiana must register on a sex offender registry list. If the new legislation passed, Carter also would like to collect their e-mail addresses and user names when they register. That information would then be available to law enforcement.
While the new law, if passed, might be difficult to enforce, it still sends a message and tells predators they risk committing a felony if they access those sites, Carter said. [Ed: Oh, here we go, let's "send a message!" just to let everyone know how righteous we are. This is every bit the same as those who pray ostentatiously so that everyone can witness their sanctimony. And I'm convinced that that's what this is all about.]
State Sen. John Waterman, R-Shelburn, who attended Carter"s news conference, said the legislation is needed and that he would support it. [Ed: Ask yourselves, where is this going to end? What's next? Are we to continue giving these dreadful busybodies the benefit of the doubt as to their emotional stability? Why aren't more people questioning the motivation of these obsessive and irrational crusaders? Is it not obvious that it is THEY who suffer from dark and sadistic impulses? Why are so few questioning their priorities which are vastly out of proportion to any real threats?] Full Story
http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080106/NEWS/801060334/-1/NEWSLETTER100%22
Perilous Web snares children
By George Brennan
STAFF WRITER
January 06, 2008 6:00 AM
Zoie is 11 years old. She's having a tough time at home. Her father doesn't understand her, and her mom doesn't want to hear it. She likes in-line skating, going to the arcade and chatting on her computer.
Tommy says he's 11, too. He has the same interests and he can relate to Zoie's family woes.
Zoie is telling the truth. Tommy is not.
In just a few short encounters online, Tommy gets Zoie to share her phone number and favorite arcade. With the phone number and a Google search, Tommy has her home address in seconds and is ready to pounce.
It's a true story that Shaun Cahill, assistant director for youth programs at the Barnstable County Sheriff's Department, tells over and over in classrooms across the Cape.
It's a wake-up call about the dangers of the Internet, Cahill recently told a group of sixth-graders at Quashnet Elementary School in Mashpee.
These are not your father's perverts. They don't wear trench coats and stalk playgrounds. Instead, they lurk on social networking sites such as MySpace and Friendster waiting for someone to open up, so they can close in.
The problem isn't as dire as an episode of Dateline's "To Catch a Predator" might lead television viewers to believe. And it's not quite the media myth Benjamin Radford, editor of Skeptical Enquirer, makes it out to be.
"The truth is we just don't know," said Parry Aftab, an attorney and expert in Internet safety.
Internet predators have the attention of Congress, which is considering tougher penalties and creating a division in the Justice Department geared specifically toward cyber crime.
In Massachusetts, Attorney General Martha Coakley has made online safety a priority.
"There's an increasing number of children using the Internet and predators who realize the Internet is a great place for them to find victims," said Coakley, who worked on crimes against children as a prosecutor in Middlesex County.
In the past, most sexual assaults against children were by someone the child knows, but the Internet has changed that, Coakley said. "Twenty years ago, you were worried about the guy in the raincoat at the playground or a family member."
Close to home
On Cape Cod, three recent, high-profile cases involving Internet-related allegations were prosecuted by outside law enforcement agencies — one resulting in a conviction.
In 2004, an undercover police officer in New Hampshire, posing as a 14-year-old girl, had intimate chats with then-Sandwich police officer Michael Caico.
After he was indicted on a solicitation charge, Caico quit his job as a school resource officer before being fired. Ultimately, the charges against him were dismissed, mainly because he never set up a meeting with "Tammy." But a New Hampshire judge called Caico's online behavior "reprehensible."
Repeatedly, Caico asked "Tammy" for photographs and engaged in sexually laden conversation that fell just short of solicitation.
Prosecutors believe Caico, because he was a police officer, chose his words carefully online. His chats were cagey and calculated, prosecutors said.
In October 2006, a 17-year-old Bourne teen was lured to the home of a Georgia sheep farmer through an encounter on MySpace. The teen went willingly to Georgia but, once he got there, sent a text message to friends saying he was being kept against his will.
Ted Roy Williams, the Georgia man, was cleared of false imprisonment and aggravated sodomy charges in connection with his contacts with the Bourne teen, but last April pleaded guilty to charges unrelated to the Bourne case. Williams was convicted of one count of attempted child molestation and two counts of possessing explicit photographs of children, Coweta Judicial Circuit District Attorney Pete Skandalakis said. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison, five to be served.
Men aren't the only Internet predators out there, although experts say they make up the vast majority.
In September, a 25-year-old Dennis woman pleaded guilty to charges of fourth-degree sexual assault and using a computer to entice a minor in Connecticut, according to the Hartford Courant.
Sarah Colby was sentenced to 10 years probation after she was convicted of driving to Cromwell, Conn., to meet a 15-year-old boy she'd contacted through MySpace and online chats, the Courant reported. Among the terms of her probation, Colby cannot have contact with children under the age of 16, and she cannot use a computer or the Internet at home.
But the prize in the region catch came across the canal, where a team of law enforcement personnel known as HEAT — High-Tech Evidence Analysis Team — caught a newly elected Plymouth selectman in "Operation Trenchcoat."
In September, former selectman Sean Dodgson, 47, was convicted of six charges, including distributing obscene material to a minor and enticement of a child under 16. He was sentenced to three to five years in state prison.
Dodgson sent photos of an erect penis to what he thought were two 13-year-old girls. He arranged to meet the girls at a fast-food restaurant in Kingston but realized it was a police sting when he arrived. Investigators took note of Dodgson's behavior at the scene, dug further and charged him.
His defense for the sexually explicit chats and the lewd photos was that he was doing undercover work to make sure the police were doing their jobs.
The jury, after hearing the content of his explicit chats, didn't buy it.
In a recently completed sting, Operation Trenchcoat II snagged another six accused predators online, a spokesman for the Plymouth County Sheriff's Department said.
Surfing with care
Aftab and Cahill don't believe sexual predator cases should scare children off the Internet. They preach using the Internet with care.
Parents need to be tuned in to their children's computer use, Aftab said.
Teens need to protect the information they give away online, according to Cahill.
Internet predators are not typically registered sex offenders. They are people who feel insulated by the keyboard, Aftab said. They test the boundaries, and sometimes children bite.
"Kids are communicating online with people they know to be adults, and they think it's cool because they're safe," she said.
Parents worry their children will be abducted, but that's not usually the biggest risk, Aftab said. "Internet predators get your heart, not your house."
That's why giving too much information about favorite movies and music is not a good idea. "It allows the bad guys to find a way into the kid's heart," Aftab said.
The insidious nature of Internet predators is demonstrated in the Zoie-Tommy scenario, Cahill said.
Tommy made the right connections, hit the right buttons.
"When I was younger, parents would always tell us, 'Don't talk to strangers,'" Cahill said. "When you open up the Internet, you are inviting the whole world in."
Social networks such as MySpace allow users to keep their profiles private. But Cahill makes sport out of getting teens to let him view their pages. Before he did an Internet safety program with local high school students, Cahill contacted teens online under an assumed name. They welcomed him, even though none of them knew his identity. "It's easy," he said.
Making up user names and phony cities isn't enough to keep predators at bay, either, Cahill said. He's been able to identify teens by searching the comments and profiles of their online friends. In some cases, he's seen teens exchange telephone numbers online.
There are safeguards that teen and preteen Internet users can take, Cahill said. "If you don't know the person outside of a computer, you don't let them on your buddy list," he said.
To drive home his point that Tommy was not who he said he was, Cahill shows a photograph of a middle-aged man, butt-naked, with rolls of fat covering his private parts, as he sits at a computer screen. There are audible "eeewwwws" from the preteen audience at Quashnet School and one student blurts out, "That is disturbing."
It's the effect Cahill wants. "This is who I want you to envision when you go online," he said.
George Brennan can be reached at gbrennan@capecodonline.com.
Fighting the problem
A bill before the U.S. Senate and passed by the House in November would establish $1 billion in spending over the next eight years to beef up and coordinate prosecution of online crimes against children by creating a Justice Department office specifically for prosecuting cyber criminals. The bill would also fund Internet safety programs for schools. Separate bills, also approved by the House, would make distributing pornography over the Internet an interstate crime and would allow probation officers to better monitor the online activity of convicted sex offenders.
* In his campaign for president, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has proposed a "One Strike, You're Ours" policy, according to a campaign press release. Romney's policy would have mandatory penalties for first-time offenders who use the Internet to sexually assault children. It also calls for Internet sex offenders to be monitored by GPS. Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O'Keefe and Barnstable County Sheriff James Cummings both endorse Romney's proposals.
* In December, Attorney General Martha Coakley's office hosted more than 180 middle school teachers, high school teachers and law enforcement officials from across the state at a series of regional Internet safety seminars to teach them how to expose online dangers to parents, teens and young children. Officials from Bourne, Brewster and Provincetown were among those who participated in the seminar, which is part of Coakley's effort to make fighting cyber crime a top law enforcement priority, a spokesman for the AG's office said.
Source: U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz's Web site, presidential candidate Mitt Romney's Web site, Attorney General Martha Coakley's office.
Predator campaign top priority for Fla.
News Press (Florida) Editorial Originally posted on January 05, 2008 THE LAW Here are some features of the state's new Cyber Crimes Against Children law:
• 15-year maximum sentence for contacting a child online and attempting to meet the child for sexual purposes
• Increases from five to 15 years the prison term for possession of more than 10 images of child pornography, and from 15 to 30 years for promotion and distribution of such materials
• New penalties for offenders who misrepresent their ages online
• Requires sex offenders to register all e-mail addresses and instant-message names they use, so social-network sites can block them
The Internet is a marvel for young people, with the potential for vastly enhancing their education and general mental fitness — but it's a jungle out there in cyberspace. Young people online are terribly vulnerable to sexual predators. [Ed: "Cyberspace" is without "space". If one confines oneself to "cyberspace" then one need never worry that a hand (or other body part) will reach through the computer monitor and grab you or your children. The same anonymity which you so greatly fear when enjoyed by a "predator" also affords you a vast physical remove from the physical world, a "moat" which surrounds you and your computer. As long as you don't foolishly divulge important personal information, then your children will be utterly safe. This is the only real knowledge you, or your children, need as protection within "cyberspace". Teach them that, like credit card numbers, personal information, physical address, future locations, etc. are all to be kept confidential. This is your responsibility as a caregiver to your children. It is not society's responsibility to constrain the rights of other children or adults as a means of circumventing all risks or remotely conceivable dangers. Soon, requiring sex offenders to surrender their rights to utilize the internet in their daily lives will seem as ridiculous as forbidding them to use a telephone or take a bus. If those possibilities do not seem absurd to you, then you are on the hysterical side of the divide.]
They must be aggressively educated about the dangers, and monitored by savvy, vigilant parents (and teachers and librarians, too). The other half of the campaign is law enforcement, and in that regard we are happy to see that Florida has torqued up its efforts to catch and punish these villains. At the urging of Attorney General Bill McCollum, the 2007 Legislature increased his cyber-predator unit from six to 56 positions and opened new offices in several cities. It's going to be very important to see that the funding isn't rescinded in the impending state budget crunch. The cyber-pervert campaign is one of those core public safety government functions that has to be shielded from budget-cutting. It has to have top priority. That's because Internet access is becoming a universal part of young people's experience in America, and because tech savvy does not necessarily equal real sophistication. Many young teens are emotionally vulnerable, innocent or foolish. It's one of several downsides to the Internet, including invasion of privacy, identity theft and and child pornography — all of which McCollum is also eager to tackle, to his great credit. The blatant, compulsive nature of sexual predation online makes it crucial to raise the stakes. The new law, for example, provides a 15-year maximum sentence for contacting a child online and attempting to meet the child for sexual purposes. Given the tough penalties and the widespread publicity given to sting operations, one might think predators would be pulling back. One would be very wrong. This is going to be a permanent war over the safety of our children. At last we're starting to fight back hard. [Ed:These people always like to portray themselves as a disadvantaged group having long-suffered at the hands of "liberal" judges and "lenient" laws and exhorting others to join them in "fighting back". The truth, however, is that we now live in the most punitive society of all, with a greater percentage of our citizens incarcerated than any other country on Earth (except possibly for North Korea). As for society being soft on "molesters" we have the most draconian laws with the longest prison sentences of any working democracy. And now we're supposed to "start getting tough?" I think it's time to demand our lost liberties from hysterical fear-mongers like you] Full Story
Death penalty for child rapist goes to Supreme Court
The high court agrees to hear an appeal from a Louisiana man convicted of raping his 8-year-old stepdaughter. He would be the first to be executed for a crime other than murder in more than 40 years.
By David G. Savage, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Supreme Court said today it will decide whether a convicted child rapist can be put to death, thereby reconsidering a more than 40-year trend in the United States in which executions have been limited to murderers.
The justices agreed to hear an appeal from Patrick Kennedy, a Louisiana man who was convicted of the brutal rape of his 8-year-old stepdaughter. His lawyers described him has "the only person in the United States who is on death row for a non-homicide offense."
Rape was commonly prosecuted as a capital offense in the 19th and early 20th Century, particularly for blacks in the South. In May 1964, Missouri executed Ronald Wolfe for rape, the last such as execution in this country for a sexual assault that did not result in death.
In September 1964, Alabama electrocuted James Coburn for robbery, the last execution for "any non-homicide offense," according to the Stanford University Law School professors who appealed on Kennedy's behalf.
Capital punishment was suspended in the late 1960s, but the Supreme Court restored the death penalty as an option for the states in 1976.
Just a year later, however, the justices struck down the death penalty for a rapist from Georgia. "We have the abiding conviction that the death penalty, which is unique in its severity and irrevocability, is an excessive penalty for the rapist who, as such, does not take human life," the high court said in Georgia vs. Coker. Full Story
[Ed: It is worth noting that, in this case, the perpetrator had, indeed, genuinely "raped" a young girl in a way in which we can all agree was non-consensual, violent and forcible. However, the term "child rape" does not always, nor even usually, mean that a sexual act was committed by force or with violence. "Child Rape" is yet another inflammatory term used to obfuscate the facts surrounding any case involving an adult and a juvenile. As with the term "sexual violence" , "child rape" as a specific criminal charge has been redefined nationwide to obscure the real dynamic of age-of-consent violations as a class of offenses. In these cases, terms such as "Rape" or "Sexual Violence" have been redefined by our lawmakers to mean simply that one of the parties was under the age of 18 and the other was over the age of 18 (these ages and conditions vary somewhat by state). The result is that we rarely know or are told by law enforcement or the media if force or violence was actually committed. Instead, the public is left to assume, wrongly as it so often turns out, that the charges brought against individuals are genuinely descriptive of the actiions for which they are being charged. So, in light of that, do we really want to start going down the road of executing "sexually violent" "child rapists"? Beyond that concern for justice, those depraved individuals who, like the Death Row Defendant in Louisiana, are genuinely dangerous to children and need to be removed from society may, because of their depravity, find that it makes some kind of twisted sense to simply KILL their victims rather than face them in a court in which the death penalty is in play.]
Indiana AG Pushes Sex Offender Web Ban
http://www.theindychannel.com/news/14977725/detail.html
Plan Aims To Keep Offenders Off Certain Sites
INDIANAPOLIS -- Convicted sex offenders' access to certain types of Web sites would be regulated under a plan brought forth Friday by Indiana Attorney General Steve Carter.
Legislators and Carter are crafting legislation that would ban sex offenders from using social networking sites, chat rooms or instant messaging programs that also allow minors on their sites.
Proactive enforcement of such a regulation would likely be difficult, given the relative anonymity of the Internet, but if the proposal becomes law, it could be used to mount additional charges against anyone arrested in an Internet-related child sex crime.
"The Internet is a powerful communication tool that is being exploited by convicted sex offenders who have found cyberspace a convenient avenue for hiding their identity from young people," Carter said in a release. "Indiana must be proactive in establishing laws that address this type of deceitful behavior by convicted felons."
The proposal would make it a Class D felony for a convicted sex offender to use social networking sites, chat rooms or instant messaging programs frequented by minors.
The offense would be a Class C felony if the offender contacted a child or was previously convicted.
A survey conducted by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children indicated that as many as one in seven people between the ages of 10 and 17 has gotten unwanted sexual solicitations online in which contact was attempted in person, over the phone or through the mail.
As many as a third of children with Internet access has been exposed to unwanted sexual material on the Web, the survey concluded.
Carter's office said four states already have laws regulating sex offenders' access to social networking sites.
Copyright 2008 by TheIndyChannel.com All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Police try out new powers (in Wales)
Jan 3 2008 by Linda Elias, Cynon Valley Leader
POLICE officers in Rhondda Cynon Taff have become the first in Wales to use new powers to monitor sex offenders.
The new powers, come under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 and are designed to allow them to enter and search the homes of registered sex offenders.
They allow officers to insist on entry into, and to search the premises of, any registered sex offender who does not comply with their registration conditions or refuses to let officers inside on compulsory unannounced visits.
The new entry warrant must be applied for by a police superintendent and issued by a magistrate and can allow officers to enter a property on more than one occasion if they are obstructed by the offender.
This is the first time the new powers have been used in the South Wales Police force area and is believed to be only the third time they have been used in the UK since they became available at the end of August.
Division Superintendent Simon Clarke says the powers will help officers to more strictly manage offenders if they refuse to comply with police requests.
“South Wales police canvassed nationally for additional legislation to give us this power of entry and it will be another valuable tool we can use whenever an offender tries to stop us doing our job,” said Supt Clarke.
“It sends a strong message to offenders and members of the public that we will use all means available to us to manage sex offenders and protect our communities, “ said the police chief. [Ed: what's not quite clear here is whether these S.O.'s have to be on parole or probation first (or their equivalents in the U.K.) in order to be subjected to these "police powers" If not, then it would be a step further down the path of tyranny than what the U.S. laws currently allow. If so, then this is truly an alarming development as it would mean that men who have served their time in prison and have been subsequently released from parole will not have even the most basic of their civil liberties restored ] Source
State fosters homelessness with offender registry law
Daytona News Journal Editorial
Because of its perverse laws against sex offenders -- laws that permanently brand offenders and forbid them to live in many parts of the state -- Florida is actively creating homeless colonies.
At least two have cropped up with the Department of Corrections' help. One is under a bridge below the Julia Tuttle Causeway in Miami. About 20 offenders live there. Another is in the woods off John Young Parkway in Orlando, long frequented by the homeless. Needless to say, neither colony has running water, electricity, sanitation, telephones or security. At least one murder took place at the Orlando camp this year.
Before offenders are released from prison, the Department of Corrections spends up to three months locating a place to stay for them anywhere in the state. When the search proves fruitless, they point to the homeless camps. Some offenders go there. Others disappear, which goes against the state's interest in keeping track of them.
It's easy to say that the offenders get what they deserve. No one forced them to break the law, after all. Now they're paying for it. Not exactly: Paying for it is going to jail, serving out sentences and supervision time. Once they've done that, they're owed the same basic rights as anyone else. Creating colonies of homeless ex-offenders isn't the offenders' doing. It's the doing of state and local laws that wantonly deny ex-offenders their rights, property rights among them.
The system goes out of its way to ensnare former offenders again. Take Gideon Bernhard, a 59-year-old man who lived in Deltona until summer. In 1998, he was convicted in Seminole County and sentenced to probation and community control on charges of sexual acts with a 14-year-old girl. In 2006, he was again on probation. He had not recommitted sexual acts with a minor. Most sex offenders don't recommit. His offense: He'd failed to register as a sex offender. That year, the law changed, requiring offenders to register twice a year instead of once. But why require ex-offenders who have served their time to register at all, especially when it turns into such an easy setup for lawbreaking?
For Bernhard, probation set him up for his next problem. At a July 4 parade he was arrested for disorderly conduct for pointing a laser light at spectators. (He owned an LED laser light business.) The charges were dropped, but not before Bernhard spent 120 days in jail awaiting a hearing. Because of the probation charge, he was ineligible for bail. And because he spent 120 days in jail, he was thrown out of his three-bedroom home in Deltona and his business inventory was seized. He'd been able to live in that Deltona home because his residence there pre-dated the city's draconian ordinance forbidding sex offenders from living within 2,500 feet of where children gather, including bus stops. Without the grandfather clause, Bernhard had to find a place that fit the new restrictions. Aside from swampland on the periphery of the city. Deltona barely has such places.
So Gideon Bernhard, who'd been living a relatively productive life, lost it all due to a series of circumstances, none of which should have led to his eviction. Now he's homeless and living in the wretched camp in the woods off John Young Parkway. Bernhard paid his debt for the 1998 sentence. Now he's paying the state's debt for hysterical, indefensible laws.
States and localities, pushed by courts, are beginning to realize that the draconian laws forbidding sex-offender residence are wrong and counterproductive. But it's a slow process. As far as eliminating Florida's homeless colonies is concerned, it shouldn't be. The state created the problem with those draconian laws. The state should assume the responsibility of housing the offenders more decently by providing a shelter or underwriting the costs of the offenders' stay -- anywhere appropriate but in homeless camps. Source
[Ed: Bravo! Journalists do not often criticize the witch hunt and this one is to be commended for exercising both bravery and intellect in taking these wretched laws to task.]
Sexual Predator Driver’s Licenses
WJHG-TV
Since summer, Florida law requires convicted sexual predators and offenders to have a code on their driver’s license that identifies them. Florida is the only state with this requirement. The sheriff who pushed for the law hopes other states follow Florida’s lead.
You have to look closely to see whether a person is a sexual predator or offender by their driver’s license. The identifier is a small number in the lower right hand corner.
Jefferson County Sheriff David Hobbs came up with the idea. It became law in July. He believes it helps officers quickly identify if someone could cause trouble, when computer systems go down, like during a hurricane inside a shelter.
“I think the public needs to be made aware if it, at any costs. That’s a lifestyle that individual chooses. And I personally have no tolerance or patience for an individual that would do anything to a child.”
Sexual predators and offenders already have to register with the state. They also have limits on where they can live. Some parents like Jason Knowles wonder if the law goes too far.
“I don’t know if that’s the best way to identify who sex offenders are, by putting a marking on their driver’s license. But I think it is important to identify who the sex predators or potential child molesters are.”
The Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles says there are no known issues with the requirement.
Because kids often can’t protect themselves, the sheriff behind the law hopes other states adopt similar measures.
“If you stop a car on the interstate and there’s a small child in there with this individual. Do you know if it’s his child, do you?”
A sexual predator or offender who fails to register with DHSMV could face up to five years in prison. Full Story
Sex offenders struggle to follow Jessica's Law: When transience is the best option
SAN PABLO -- S.T. is a registered sex offender with a wife, three children and a cozy apartment near Hilltop mall. But every night he roams the dark streets in a pea coat, a wool cap and a Global Positioning System tracker strapped to his left ankle.
He would rather stay home. But that could mean running afoul of Jessica's Law -- and a return trip to prison.
So at 10 p.m. he slips on the soft prison shoes he wore out of San Quentin State Prison last month and walks to his favorite bus stop shelter. He sits and chats with the drivers. He circles the mall. Then he treks down near the Richmond BART station to watch the hookers and drug dealers and to lie on a sheet of cardboard plucked from behind a KFC restaurant.
When light breaks, he shakes off the chill and heads home -- but never before 7 a.m., because that is when his parole officer says it is OK, said S.T., who asked to remain anonymous, saying he fears upsetting his parole agent.
"My hands get so cold they turn actually red and get numb," he said on a recent night out. "Mentally and psychologically, I'm fighting."
S.T. lives under a kind of reverse-curfew that owes to the state's enforcement of Proposition 83, the 2006 ballot measure that bans newly released sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park.
He is not alone. State corrections figures show a big increase in parolee sex offenders who, like him, are registering as transient -- homeless or bouncing from bed to bed, doing anything to comply with the 2,000-foot rule.
The surge started in August, when parole agents began to enforce a law that was billed as a way to ease safety fears over children. Yet concern is mounting among state officials, parole agents, victims' advocates and even the law's author, that this is not the way.
Of the 3,952 parolees who now fall under the ban, nearly one in five were registered as transient last week, up from very few before the law, officials said. In the parole region that runs along the coast from Ventura north to the Oregon border and includes the Bay Area, more than a third of the 859 sex offender parolees who fall under Jessica's Law are officially transient.
The situation is most acute in urban areas, where the 2,000-foot rule leaves few places for newly released offenders to live.
Prop. 83, or Jessica's Law, added several get-tough measures against sex offenders. The most controversial is the ban on newly released sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet -- about four-tenths of a mile -- of a school or park where children "regularly gather."
As judges and policymakers sort out the legal and practical implications, what has emerged is a makeshift -- some say slipshod -- system of enforcement.
Parole agents measure off the 2,000 feet "as the crow flies," under state policy. But they have leeway over what it means to live somewhere. For S.T. and others, it is where they spend the night.
The rise in transients is a concern, said Gareth Lacy, spokesman for state Attorney General Jerry Brown, whose office keeps the state sex offender registry.
"It's much harder to track and manage offenders who are moving around and not in one location," he said.
Most of the transients are fitted with GPS anklets. They also must report daily to their parole agents, instead of weekly. But the tracking is no cure-all, said Mark McCarthy, a parole agent who oversees sex offenders.
"The big fallacy with GPS is that it's going to curtail crimes. It isn't going to make them not molest kids or rape women. We'll just know if they did it or not," he said. "For public safety purposes, I'd rather know where a guy's at -- at home -- than have him transient, out in the streets somewhere."
A state corrections official denied there is any policy for parole agents to tell people such as S.T. to go transient. Some agents, though, say it is written between the lines of an Aug. 17 memo detailing the agency's policy on the law.
The choices are few in some counties. In San Francisco, where state maps show virtually no compliant housing, 31 of the city's 97 Jessica's Law parolees are now registered transient.
"We had an obligation to make sure parolees knew their options under the law," state corrections spokesman Bill Sessa said. "We weren't directing them. We were simply saying, you either have to find a compliant address or register as transient."
A third option: a parole violation and possible return to prison.
As many as 700 sex offenders are paroled each month. They all fall under the 2,000-foot rule for life unless a court rules otherwise. The state Supreme Court is expected to rule in the spring on a challenge to the restriction.
"The continuing issue is there have to be places for people to live," Sessa said. "The number of sex offenders covered by the law will be constantly expanding."
Transients cannot set up anywhere, Sessa said. They cannot sleep, for instance, under a bridge for several nights if it is too close to a school or park, he said. However, parole agents have discretion.
"There's a common-sense perspective of what it means to live somewhere," he said. "There is a balancing act here, because all the research shows that having a stable environment is the biggest key to rehabilitation, and so agents are always trying to strike a balance." ...
His wife often joins him early on his nightly journey. They hold hands and circle the mall. Then he walks her home, across from a church school.
"This is for me to feel what he's going through," she said as they walk. "He has a place to come to. He has a family. We have children. It is so weird. He just can't be home."
S.T. said that his parole officer told him: "Wherever you go, just keep it moving." That usually is what he does, if only to keep warm.
"I'm really -- how would you say? -- traumatized," he said. "Being in the cold, being tired, walking in the rain. ... What if I have to use the bathroom? It is very degrading."
The author of Jessica's Law now says that the state is misguided in its early enforcement of the law and that policymakers need to be more "creative."
Sen. George Runner, R-Lancaster, described S.T.'s case as "a very tortured interpretation, obviously. Somebody in corrections has decided it was easier to go let somebody be transient than to insist that they follow the law."
Still, Runner said that he never meant the law for people such as S.T. who fall under Jessica's Law only because of nonsex convictions. That borders on being retroactive, he said. [Ed: What disingenuous nonsense! Apparently, Runner feels that he can write any piece of crap law and those obligated to enforce it are supposed to know (and have the authority to CHOOSE) which elements to enforce and when and with whom. In other words, they are supposed to realize that they are to enforce it capriciously! George Runner and his Legislator wife should be chased out of office and, what the hell, maybe their home, too!]
He also disagrees with how the state strictly measures 2,000 feet, when in some cases freeways split a home from a school or park. He said he thinks cities can better define parks. Should all of Golden Gate Park count, or only areas that children frequent?
"We're always concerned if there are issues that make something impossible to implement," he said. "We believe there's a big difference between impossible and hard. The bottom line is it's going to work."
Critics blame Runner for writing a vaguely worded law that was ripe for trouble. Corrections officials say they merely are enforcing the letter of a law that 70 percent of voters passed.
The California Sex Offender Management Board, formed under Jessica's Law, is studying the fallout and possible repairs, including the idea of "cluster housing" for sex offenders
"It's really about keeping sex offenders from living in a place where they have easy access to children," said Nancy O'Malley, chief assistant district attorney in Alameda County.
She could not grasp the purpose of S.T. wandering the streets at night.
"That's not good," she said. "What does that do?" Full Story
Reach John Simerman at 925-943-8072 or jsimerman@bayareanewsgroup.com.
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