In Memorium: Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, 1923 – 2008

Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, Nobel prize winner for his groundbreaking work in isolating and identifying the bizarre and deadly cause of "kuru", a disease affecting especially those of New Guinea, and closely related to Creuzfeld-Jacob, Scrapie, and B.S.E. ("Mad Cow Disease") died December 12, 2008. Later, he was convicted and served time in a U.S. prison after it was revealed that he had had sexual relationships with boys. He remained unapologetic for these relations and contended that the laws punishing those having such relationships were unjust. Subsequent to his release, he spent the remainder of his years in Europe where he felt attitudes were less puritanical (sadly, this seems no longer to be true).

His contribution to our understanding of neurodegenerative disorder as caused by prions was most valuable and one can only speculate as to further advances he might have achieved had he not been prosecuted and imprisoned. His brilliance will be missed.

Revisit Jessica's Law

Editorial From the Los Angeles Times

The sex-offender statute is unaffordable and doesn't improve safety. If it can't be dropped, it should be rewritten.

Of all the ill-considered ballot initiatives approved by California voters over the years, few can match Jessica's Law for sheer self-destructiveness. The measure, billed as a way to protect children from sexual predators when it appeared on the ballot in 2006 as Proposition 83, is worsening the yawning state budget gap amid zero evidence that it's protecting anyone -- in fact, according to a state panel, it may be threatening public safety.

This page warned that the initiative would be an expensive mistake, but that didn't stop 70% of voters from approving it. That may be because sexual predators are nobody's idea of a good neighbor, and voters thought that forcing sex offenders to wear GPS tracking devices for life and forbidding them to live within 2,000 feet of schools and parks would keep them at bay. What they didn't consider were cost and practicality.

Among its many failings, the measure doesn't distinguish between criminals who are at high risk of re-offending and those who aren't. That means a teenager convicted of having sex with his underage girlfriend, as just one example, is subject to GPS monitoring and residence restrictions for the rest of his life, even if he never commits another crime. It also fails to specify what agency is responsible for monitoring those thousands of former inmates, or to devote money to pay for it.

State corrections officials announced Jan. 12 that they are now monitoring all 6,622 paroled sex offenders with GPS devices, after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger set aside $106 million in last year's budget for the program. Where the state will come up with the money while facing a $42-billion shortfall over the next 18 months is an open question. What's more, the state will monitor sex offenders only for as long as they remain on parole -- after that, it's up to municipal agencies, none of which have the staff, equipment or spare funding to do the job.

The expense might be worthwhile if Jessica's Law were actually reducing sex crimes. Yet research has found no connection between where a sex offender lives and the likelihood that he'll offend again, nor is there any evidence that GPS monitoring lowers recidivism. Further, it's very hard for parolees to find homes that aren't near schools or parks, leading to a 12-fold increase in the number of homeless sex offenders since the law was passed in 2006. A lack of stable housing only increases the odds that an ex-con will return to crime -- or as the state Sex Offender Management Board put it in a report Tuesday: "Residency restrictions that preclude or eliminate appropriate offender housing can threaten public safety instead of enhancing it."

Lawmakers rarely show the courage to fix problems created by get-tough-on-crime voter initiatives, but there will never be a better time to improve Jessica's Law. The state budget and the prison system are in crisis and must be reinvented, and amending this law -- which the Legislature can do with a two-thirds vote -- would benefit them both. Ideally, the measure should be overturned, but at a minimum the Legislature should create a review process that allows low-risk offenders to escape the residency and monitoring rules. California simply can't afford to pay more to be less safe.

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

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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."

One Of Hundreds Who Are Arrested Weekly For The Crime Of Not Registering

[Ed: In essence, the government created his "crime". His was a "status" crime: The government stripped him of rights other citizens still (for the time being) possess and despite the fact that he had already served his time in prison. His "crime" was simply to assert his liberties and to insist that they could not be permanently shorn from him.

By not staying on the short leash they had decided to tie him up with, he became a "criminal" charged with a felony for NOT doing something that the rest of us take for granted: the right to be "let alone". By doing nothing, he committed a "crime" and will pay for it with what little freedom he possesses.

If he's lucky, he will get out of prison before he dies. If he's very unlucky, he will be attacked by real criminals who sate their own bloodlust and elevate their own deservedly wretched sense of importance by torturing or killing "molesters".

By refusing to acknowledge the government's control over him in a way that no other free citizen would tolerate, by making the decision to "disappear" from the radar of the police state because his life had become so intolerable, he will likely never see the outside of a prison cell again.

Ask yourself this question: if your rights had been stripped from you and you were forced to be treated by all of society as scum, often for little reason (which is what many sex offenses amount to) wouldn't you want to disappear, too? ]


Wisconsin fugitive arrested in Idaho

GARDEN CITY, Idaho (AP) -- Idaho police say they have apprehended a sex offender who eluded Wisconsin authorities for 14 years.

Garden City police say 65-year-old Dale Dolan was arrested Saturday at a local trailer park.

The Wisconsin Department of Corrections says Dolan was convicted in Dane and St. Croix counties in 1985. He was charged with two counts of second-degree sexual assault of a child. He fled the state following his parole in 1994.

Dolan was supposed to register as a sex offender for life. Officials say he has been living in several states the last 14 years.

Wallace says the arresting officers acted on a tip that Dolan was living in Garden City, located just west of Boise.

Dolan is in jail awaiting extradition to Wisconsin.

Washington A.G. Says All Pedophiles Use Child Porn

Ed: Yes, and all witches float when thrown into a body of water. Attorney General McKenna is a very wise man indeed, for he knows what many thousands of psychologists do not, namely that all pedophiles are obliged to consume child pornography. It is expertise such as his that has lead us to a state of hysteria in which criminal justice is guided by emotion and vengeance rather than reason and information, where pedophilia is conflated, without discrimination, with child abduction and murder, and where the worst amongst them determines the fate of all. Welcome to the witch hunt with none of the encumbrances of the 17th century and all of the conveniences of the 21st. ]

When state lawmakers launch the 2009 legislative session in Olympia next week, Attorney General Rob McKenna has a long wish list for them. Most of the proposals would cost little, but he said they would have a big impact on criminals, crime victims, consumers and struggling families. Among his proposals: Create a new crime of "viewing child pornography." People view it now, McKenna said, but try to foil prosecution by not downloading the files to their computer hard drives. "While not every user of child pornography is a pedophile — yet — every pedophile is a user of child pornography," McKenna said. The bill also calls for a study of the feasibility of a state "digital forensics lab" to aid porn investigations. "We want to catch these guys earlier, before they can actually physically harm a child," McKenna said, "and put them somewhere where they can get help." Among the bill's early backers: Rep.-elect Matt Shea, R-Mead. Impose tougher penalties for repeat domestic abusers. Some 25 years after lawmakers passed the first domestic-violence protection act, McKenna said, "our laws do not treat domestic violence with the seriousness it demands." He wants past offenses to count toward longer sentences for abusers, instead of seeing chronic criminals get "an effectively painless timeout in a local jail." Require Open Meetings Act training for elected officials, and allowing judges to order officials to record their closed-to-the-public executive sessions if they're caught wrongly discussing public business in such meetings. Clamp down on prison inmates who've made a "cottage industry" of filing spurious requests for public records to collect money for any violations. "These requesters gum up the works for everyone else," McKenna said. He cited the cases of several prisoners, including one who made 788 records requests and allegedly bragged he was using the law to try to harass prison officials into transferring him. Expand the new-vehicle lemon law, extending its protection for three years or 36,000 miles, among other changes. Extend state disclosure laws on mail prizes and promotions to the Internet and clamp down on "free-trial" offers that end up signing you up automatically for payments. "It's all about providing transparency for consumer protection," said state Rep.-elect Kevin Parker, R-Spokane, who's sponsoring the bill. Toughen sentences for preying on older or disabled adults.

Prosecutor: Accused Sex Offender Died While Fleeing Vigilante Gang

[Ed: The U.K. continues to lead the world in levels of unbridled hysteria over sex offenders with mob justice becoming increasingly more common.

I find it interesting that the English, renowned for their historically harsh mistreatment, both physical and psychological, of their children and, of course, their stoicism, can become so irrational when the topic turns to kids and sex.

The Queen herself and Prince Phillip are reported to have treated their own children with an icy coldness which would be almost unimaginable today. And this was a model loosely emulated down the ladder of class which, upon arriving at its bottom, frequently took the form of actual child-beating.

Of course, I must hasten to add that, over the last several decades, major cultural shifts have occurred in the British Isles and that parental treatment of children has vastly improved. That the froideur reserved for children in the past has become an anachronism in today's Britain, is certainly to the good and laudable.

But there are other characteristics, admirable qualities, which have diminished as well and I rather miss them. There was a rationalism and objectivity which seem to have completely vanished amongst the paroxysms of grief expressed in the aftermath of Princess Diana's death. And, as in the States, the freedom of children to roam about unchaperoned by fussing adults has virtually disappeared. And then there's the blind rage which we see now today when the subject turns to "paedophiles".

I wonder if these cultural shifts are somehow connected. One thing I am sure of: television has something to do with it. ]

A British man suspected of sexually abusing a teen fell to his death while trying to run from a group of five vigilantes, a prosecutor said Thursday.

Several individual showed up at the apartment of 44-year-old Scott Campbell in July 2008, hours after a 13-year-old boy claimed Campbell sexually assaulted him, the Manchester Evening News reported. Prosecutor Peter Cadwallader told a Manchester Crown Court that the group was armed with a variety of weapons, including a baseball bat, hammer and bicycle chain.

Campbell was able to close his door before the group could force their way in to his second floor apartment and tried to climb over his balcony in an attempt to escape as the gang banged on his front door, the Daily Mail newspaper reported. But he lost his grip on a rail and fell to the ground, dying instantly.

The five suspects allegedly tried to hide their weapons from CCTV cameras, which also captured Campbell's death.

"The only sensible conclusion is that they intended to give the man a beating,” the Manchester Evening News quoted Cadwallader as saying. “This was a vigilante group seeking revenge.”

The five suspects have been charged with manslaughter.

After massive search, Level 3 sex offender arrested

By Dan O'Brien / The Daily Item

SAUGUS - The Level 3 sex offender who caused a massive air and ground search Dec. 29 was found and arrested at his Holden Avenue home without incident Monday afternoon, police said.

Police tried to arrest Richard Breau, 30, of 19 Holden Ave., at his home last Monday around 3 p.m. for an alleged probation violation. Police said his live-in girlfriend answered the front door when they arrived but Breau ran out the back door into some woods, resulting in a massive search by Saugus and state police that included a helicopter and K-9 units.

The search was called off about 5 p.m. due to darkness.

According to police, Breau called his girlfriend two days later and told her he was somewhere in Revere. He said he borrowed a cell phone to call her.

The girlfriend told police Sunday that Breau said he had no money, clothing or means to contact her at the time, police said.

Police also interviewed Breau's father on Sunday but he said he hadn't heard from his son.

According to police, officers went to Breau's home about 1:05 p.m. Monday where he was found. He was taken into custody without incident, police said.

Authorities had initially tried to arrest Breau because he had an outstanding 2007 warrant for larceny over $250, which is a violation of his probation.

Breau was convicted in April 1998 of eight counts of child rape when he was 20 years old. Multiple sources said Breau was convicted of raping his then-girlfriend who was 15 years old at the time.

DEFINING "CHILD": Trying To Have It Both Ways

I particularly liked this statement which appeared as a comment to an online review of the movie "Doubt".

"It is always dangerous to combine “children” with “underage” as those are two different categories. One is a metaphysical reality and the other is a legal line drawn by politicians. And today, by defining teens as “children” the State has begun waging a war on teens who are now incarcerated as ’sex offenders’ for a romp in the back of the Chevy. Surely this is Big Government run amok and it doesn’t help when social conservatives push this exaggerated hysteria which is then used to prop up massive intrusions into family life.

These laws are removing parental power over their children and destroying family life. Because conservatives (and even some libertarians) promote this fear they are helping erect an edifice with immense powers over families.

While so-called liberals are defined as “anti-family” surely the Big Government intrusion into family life is even more anti-family. And need I point out that if the plot were different, but with the same characters, this review would be very different.

If the teenage boy in the film had committed a violent crime, and the family was claiming he was just a “mere child” the reviewer, I suspect would be shreiking that the teen be tried as an adult since “he knows better”. When it comes to sexual issues conservatives want teens seen as small childlren, when it comes to crime they want them seen as adult threats. Pick one side and stick to it."

Guilty plea avoids trial for mother who beat offender

The new neighbor was a convicted sex offender, so Tammy Lee Gibson attacked him with an aluminum baseball bat.

Gibson, a Pierce County resident, pleaded guilty Monday to third-degree assault stemming from the incident on June 16 of last year. It was a plea bargain, reduced from original charges of second-degree assault and felony harassment.

Gibson, 40, faces up to eight months in jail. Her sentencing is set for for Feb. 27 in Pierce County Superior Court.

Deputy prosecutor Sunni Ko said the guilty plea resolves a case that could have turned into a tricky trial. Initial police reports of the incident said the victim, William Allen Baldwin, might have suffered a broken arm. He didn’t.

Charging papers said Gibson saw fliers announcing that Baldwin, a Level 3 sex offender, had moved into the 7900 block of River Road East to live with a relative. Gibson, armed with the small aluminum bat, went to the address and knocked. Baldwin answered the door.

Gibson accused him of molesting her children. Baldwin hadn’t. Gibson started swinging.

Ko said a trial would have raised several questions. Would the small bat qualify as a deadly weapon? Would a jury sympathize with Gibson, allegedly a crime victim in the past?

“That could certainly sway a juror,” Ko said. “We took a lot of that into consideration. This is a plea to a felony, which still recognizes this person who was assaulted.” 

Pennsylvania Definition of S.V.P.

An individual convicted of a sexually violent offense or of attempt to commit a sexually violent offense. These are: Rape; Aggravated Indecent Assault; Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse; Sexual Assault; Kidnapping (victim is a minor); Indecent Assault ( victim is less than 13 years); Incest; Promotion of Prostitution (victim is a minor); Obscene and other Sexual Materials; Unlawful Contact or Communication with Minor and sexual exploitation of children. An individual convicted of an equivalent offense where the conviction occurred in another state, territory, federal court, the District of Columbia or where the individual was sentenced by court martial, or where the individual was required to register under a sexual offender statute in the jurisdiction where they were convicted, and the individual: resides in Pennsylvania; or is employed or is a student in Pennsylvania.

School speed zones benefit child predators

[Ed: Yes, dear reader, you read that correctly. It would seem that TERRY WHEET (gender unspecified) of Elmira Heights, New York, would prefer that children be hit by cars and possibly killed than that they be gazed upon by "child predators fulfilling their perverted needs". Terry has identified this as a real issue worthy of discussion and, the scary thing is, lawmakers seem to be listening to the Terry Wheets of the world. ]

School zone speed limits are everywhere these days. Supporters of this program say it makes the students safer because vehicles are traveling slower in the school zone.

While school districts are spending and taxing us out of existence, they apparently forgot to teach students to stay out of the road.

I believe the lower speed limit is foolish and dangerous. It allows a child predator to cruise the school zone at a speed beneficial to their perverted need to cause harm to a child. Normally, a vehicle traveling at 20 mph would be considered suspicious; now it can blend in with all the other slow-moving vehicles.

It is not the job of the government to have a rule for everything that occurs in daily life. It is time for everyone to take a little responsibility, think for themselves and pass their knowledge and common sense to the younger people in society -- without having a regulation telling them how to do it.

TERRY WHEET

Elmira Heights

In Britain, the Stain of Orange-Some See Offenders' 'Vests of Shame' as Unfair Punishment

Like moths attracted to a bright light, the British are suddenly enthralled by the site of criminals picking up trash along roadsides or scrubbing graffiti off buildings.

The new fluorescent-orange vests help. And so do the purple letters on front and back: "Community Payback."

The British government announced last month that offenders sentenced to community service would have to slip on luminous orange coverups while whittling away their hours. The jackets, Justice Secretary Jack Straw said, will debunk the myth that community service is a soft option and will help "the public to see that justice is being done."

Previously, offenders sentenced to community service wore ordinary clothes on the job. That allowed them to blend in with the crowd -- and most did, with a few exceptions, such as supermodel Naomi Campbell, who worked at a homeless shelter last year to serve part of the 200-hour sentence she received for kicking and spitting at a police officer at Heathrow Airport. [Ed: Do you know how nasty the security people are at Heathrow? You go, girl!]

The new attire -- or "vests of shame," as christened by the tabloids -- has touched off a debate about the rights of criminals and what constitutes fair punishment.

According to a survey published this week by Britain's National Association of Probation Officers, 75 percent of the groups that host placements, including churches and community centers, are refusing to hand out the vests. Some charities called the clothes demeaning; others said that highlighting a cluster of convicts scraping paint off a side wall was a deterrent to business.

Human rights groups argue that the vests are degrading, a throwback to less civilized times. The color orange has invoked comparisons to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Columnist Zoe Williams wrote in the Guardian that the uniform has "resonances of the Nazi yellow badge."

Many people writing in letters pages and on message boards have agreed with most of that -- but said criminals should wear them anyway. Writing on the Times of London Web site, Joseph Taylor of London said, "They should feel humiliated, belittled and generally demeaned; they are criminals."

And then there's that phrase: Community Payback. Those in the anti-vest camp suggest that it sounds like the title of a straight-to-DVD action movie. Charlie Brooker, a sardonic columnist in the Guardian, suggested that the label "Scum Slave" on a green leotard might be more effective.

One 25-year-old offender said he felt singled out enough without any leotard. "They might as well put a sign around your neck telling everyone what you've done," he told the Daily Mirror on a recent day, as he snipped hedges as part of his punishment. "I don't want to go through this again."
The probation officers' union said it feared offenders would be subject to intimidation and even vigilante attacks.

The Labor government has for years wrestled with the idea of the vests, which cost about $3 each. At the launch event, Straw explained to reporters that the jackets were not, in fact, "medieval," nor were they akin to "the stocks" -- a popular form of punishment here in the 18th century. (In the stocks, petty criminals were clamped between wooden boards and placed in a common area where the public would jeer, throw rotten fruit at them and tickle their feet.)

The government says most of the 70,000 offenders currently sentenced to unpaid community work are sartorially within the law. Those who flout the vest requirement receive a warning. If they do so twice, they are sent back to court, where they can face harsher sentences. Only one person has been recalled to court.

Some of the most gleeful supporters of the uniform have wondered aloud whether it might be extended to other members of society. Writing on the Times of London Web site, Peter James of Nottingham said: "Oooo. Goody. Can we have orange jackets for merchant bankers?"

Threatens To Expose Man As Paedophile, Then Kills Man's Children

[Ed: Who does he think he is? Janet Reno? ]

Queensland, Australia
A JUDGE will listen to a secret recording of Max Sica allegedly being told by his father to flee Queensland, before he decides whether to let the accused triple-murderer out on bail.

The prosecution told the Supreme Court in Brisbane yesterday that police had taped a conversation between Mr Sica and his father, Carlos, in September, 2006.

Mr Sica's father allegedly tells his son: "You go get yourself a ticket and get yourself out of here before it happens ... we can't do airport."

The tape allegedly contains evidence that Mr Sica was planning to go to Western Australia.

Mr Sica, 38, of Toorbul, north of Brisbane, was charged with three counts of murder four days ago, almost six years after allegedly killing his former girlfriend and two of her siblings.

The bodies of Neelma, 24, Kunal, 18, and Sidhi Singh, 12, were found at their family home in Bridgeman Downs, Brisbane on April 22, 2003.

Mr Sica is a former neighbour.

He applied for bail yesterday, represented by Michael Byrne, QC. He was not in court.

Mr Byrne argued that the conversation was more than two years ago and his client had not fled.

Justice James Douglas said now Mr Sica had been charged and faced a potentially heavy sentence if found guilty, there was a greater risk.

"I regard it (the tape) as significant," he said.

Mr Byrne said there was 'no logical or lawful basis' for bail to be refused, referring to the prosecution case as 'somewhat tenuous'.

During the bail application, Mr Byrne referred to an argument between Mr Sica and the father of the Singh children which took place weeks before the children were killed.

Mr Sica allegedly accused Vijay Singh of being a pedophile and of mistreating his children.

Mr Sica allegedly said: "I can cave your head in right now, you are a (expletive) pedophile ... I'll come here myself with the (expletive) cops and send you to jail."

Mr Byrne asked for an adjournment and that the tapes relating to Mr Sica being a flight risk be provided to the court so they could be put in proper context before bail was determined.

Director of Public Prosecutions Tony Moynihan, SC, said Mr Sica's defence team had wanted the matter brought on early and for them to seek an adjournment was 'absurd'.

Justice Douglas adjourned the hearing until January 27.

A committal mention date has been set for the Supreme Court in Brisbane on March 16.

Before closing the court yesterday, Justice Douglas warned Mr Sica's lawyer, Kerry Smith Douglas, of contempt of court if she continued making comments to the media which might be prejudicial after Ms Smith Douglas said the charges had been 'trumped up'.

"These are very serious charges, they must be tried fairly in the courts, not in the media," said Justice Douglas.

Outside the court, Carlos Sica wanted to say his son was innocent.

"If I knew my son did that, I'd kill him myself," he said.

Mr Sica said his son had been persecuted by the police and media.

"God witnessed who killed those kids," he said.

My New Year's Resolution: Talk To Strangers!

Editor: When the message of "don't talk to strangers" was taken to an obsessive and paranoid level during the child abduction hysteria some twenty-five years ago (abductions which were as vanishingly rare then as they are now [no pun intended]) few considered at least one likely outcome of obsessively drumming that message into children's heads: that they would grow up to become adults who DON'T TALK TO STRANGERS. Having now acquired considerable years over which to observe human behavior, it is quite apparent that young adults today are far less friendly and engaging with people they don't know, especially those not in their own age 'demographic', than were young adults when I was one. I also strongly sense a certain self-involvement approaching narcissism amongst today's young adults beyond that of my own generation, itself often (rightly) accused of excessive self indulgence.

We need to recognize that deliberate and fundamental changes in personal behavior and governmental policies necessarily bring with them the certainty of unforeseen consequences. "Not talking to strangers" has had, as was inevitable, a corrosive effect upon society and upon trust which cannot be a good thing.

Bruce Schneier, perhaps the world's foremost computer (and societal) security "guru", wrote a piece for his own website a few years ago which is as true today as it is now. Please read it, below. Thank you, Bruce!

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Talking to Strangers

In Beyond Fear I wrote: "Many children are taught never to talk to strangers, an extreme precaution with minimal security benefit."

In talks, I'm even more direct. I think "don't talk to strangers" is just about the worst possible advice you can give a child. Most people are friendly and helpful, and if a child is in distress, asking the help of a stranger is probably the best possible thing he can do.

This advice would have helped Brennan Hawkins, the 11-year-old boy who was lost in the Utah wilderness for four days.

The parents said Brennan had seen people searching for him on horse and ATV, but avoided them because of what he had been taught.

"He stayed on the trail, he avoided strangers," Jody Hawkins said. "His biggest fear, he told me, was that someone would steal him."

They said they hadn't talked to Brennan and his four siblings about what they should do about strangers if they were lost. "This may have come to a faster conclusion had we discussed that," Toby Hawkins said.

In a world where good guys are common and bad guys are rare, assuming a random person is a good guy is a smart security strategy. We need to help children develop their natural intuition about risk, and not give them overbroad rules.

Also in Beyond Fear, I wrote:

As both individuals and a society, we can make choices about our security. We can choose more security or less security. We can choose greater impositions on our lives and freedoms, or fewer impositions. We can choose the types of risks and security solutions we're willing to tolerate and decide that others are unacceptable.

As individuals, we can decide to buy a home alarm system to make ourselves more secure, or we can save the money because we don't consider the added security to be worth it. We can decide not to travel because we fear terrorism, or we can decide to see the world because the world is wonderful. We can fear strangers because they might be attackers, or we can talk to strangers because they might become friends.