Author: rbchatelle

‘The Los Angeles Times called International Megan’s Law “vindictive,” just one more torture exacted upon today’s designated boogeyman. In the Washington Post, David Post noted that a passport is not just a travel document but also a “badge of citizenship”—of identity. He and others have compared the “unique identifier” to a Scarlet Letter, the yellow… Continue reading Going Nowhere

(Courtesy of Tammy Bond) Taken as a whole, Agan says, the existing research shows that “registries and post-release notification laws do not on balance seem to be effective at reducing sex crimes or recidivism by sex offenders.” Read the article by Erica Meiners in In These Times.

Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff/Globe Staff “Perrot’s conviction rested heavily on the analysis of a single hair found at the scene of the violent rape of his neighbor in Springfield. Perrot always maintained his innocence, and the victim, then 78 and now deceased, never identified him as her assailant. The man who attacked her was clean shaven,… Continue reading Springfield man is freed after 1992 rape conviction is overturned

[Mike] Ware [Executive Director of the Innocence Project of Texas] continued, “I have had the opportunity to review the expert medical testimony at trial and the techniques used in the sexual assault examinations back in 1994. As well as the conclusions and opinions reached and expressed in court to the jury by the government’s experts.… Continue reading S.D. case attracts Texas Innocence Project

“… there’s a deeply questionable moral calculus involved in holding people’s crimes against them long after they’ve paid their debt to society. In theory if not in practice, our justice system is built on the idea that this is wrong. Yet when it comes to sex offenders, American lawmakers seem not just willing but eager… Continue reading Obama Just Signed a Really Bad Criminal Justice Law

(David Paul Morris / Getty Images) “After rousing themselves from the 30-plus-year bad trip that was the war on drugs — or rather, the war on drug users — many Americans in and out of elected office looked around for someone else to persecute. Someone, somewhere, must be so depraved and hateful that liberals and… Continue reading Do sex offenders deserve a scarlet letter on their passport?

In a rebuttal printed as an appendix in the report, the State Department noted that there was no evidence anyone on that list had traveled in order to commit a sex crime, and that it already has the authority to deny passports to people convicted of sex tourism involving minors and those whose probation or… Continue reading Congress Acts to Mark Passports of Sex Offenders

“The psychiatrist isn’t the only person deeply skeptical of Billy Doe and his stories. The detective who led the Philadelphia district attorney’s investigation into Gallagher’s allegations against the priests and teacher also has some disturbing doubts. In a confidential deposition obtained by Newsweek, retired Detective Joseph Walsh was asked on January 29, 2015, about nine… Continue reading Catholic Guilt? The Lying, Scheming Altar Boy Behind a Lurid Rape Case

“Recidivism rates — the rates at which juvenile sex offenders re-offend — are so low as to be indistinguishable from the rate that non-offenders offend. But that’s not what the public believes. Instead, it believes that juvenile sex ‘criminals’ (including a slew of teens who had consensual sex) can never stop pouncing.” Read the article… Continue reading Kids As Young As 9 Are on the Sex Offender Registry…for Life

“There is something truly odious — “Scarlet Letter”-esque, one might say — about requiring people to bear, for their entire lives, this conspicuous badge of dishonor, whatever their prior crime (for which they have already been duly punished) may have been. And the fact that the category of “covered sex offenders” includes many thousands of… Continue reading The yellow star, the scarlet letter and ‘International Megan’s Law’