“Protecting Our Kids: How Sex Offender Laws Are Failing Us by Professor Emily Horowitz has been named among the Outstanding Academic Titles of 2015 by Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries.” See this post at the Crimcast blog.
Author: rbchatelle
Are Sex Offender Registries Cruel and Unusual Punishment?
“And what is absolutely mind-blowing is that the SOR’s have been proven not to work, and they cost the taxpayers gobs of money (see reference ‘a’ above). But now that they’ve become institutionalized in the justice system, they’re a political football. Now we have lots of people whose livelihoods derive from the SOR’s, and an… Continue reading Are Sex Offender Registries Cruel and Unusual Punishment?
Shutting Down Conversations About Rape at Harvard Law
Photograph by Gretchen Ertl / The New York Times / Redux “We have seen recent high-profile instances in which that article of faith has led to damaging errors, as in Rolling Stone’s reporting of a rape at the University of Virginia, or the prosecution of the Duke lacrosse case. The extent of the damage comes… Continue reading Shutting Down Conversations About Rape at Harvard Law
Two Articles About the Sex Offenders of Pahokee Florida
“Today, though, the town of Pahokee does more than tolerate the sex offender colony. It has come to embrace it. And nowhere is that turnaround more evident than at the United Methodist Church, where many offenders attend service.” Read the full article by Anne Schindler in First Coast News. “Travis Russ is founder and artistic… Continue reading Two Articles About the Sex Offenders of Pahokee Florida
The Online–Sex Predator Panic
“And then there are the patent absurdities created by such laws—signs that legislators, in search of novel ways to torture so-called sex offenders, have abandoned consideration of efficacy or justice. In the case of underage sexting, for instance, a person is both offender and victim at the same time.” Read the full article by Judith… Continue reading The Online–Sex Predator Panic
First Amendment woes in North Carolina
“I’ve said it many times before — these sex offender cases are of the deepest importance, not because of any special concern we might have for convicted sex offenders but because they’re the despised minority du jour, subject to the harshest treatment that legislators and law enforcement officials can dream up, and unless the courts… Continue reading First Amendment woes in North Carolina
States Struggle With What to Do With Sex Offenders After Prison
Tim Gruber for The New York Times “But now Minnesota’s civil commitment program — which detains more people per capita than any other state — is facing an overhaul. Earlier this year, a federal judge found it unconstitutional, calling it ‘a punitive system that segregates and indefinitely detains a class of potentially dangerous individuals without… Continue reading States Struggle With What to Do With Sex Offenders After Prison
Two articles critical of the sex offender registry
From the Cleveland Plain Dealer Sex offender registries draw criticism from some unlikely sources Sex offender says registry amounts to punishment for life
The mysterious nature of the “juvenile sex offender”
“If you ask John Q. Public about the public safety risk posed by a juvenile who has been arrested for a sex offense, chances are he will estimate too high. The public is woefully uninformed when it comes to risk of sexual reoffense in general, and nowhere is the gap between reality and media-driven anxiety… Continue reading The mysterious nature of the “juvenile sex offender”
Guilty until proven innocent.
(Photo by John Anderson) “Michael never confessed to the crime – because no sexual abuse of his cousin ever happened. The real story would be revealed years later when Stephanie admitted to lying (she believed) in order to help her mother LaVonna as she navigated an ugly divorce from the Arena brothers’ uncle. Stephanie has… Continue reading Guilty until proven innocent.