News

Alptraum “Zachary, now 19, is in jail awaiting sentencing for five pictures his teenage girlfriend sent him of herself in her underwear. He faced a choice between a possible (though unlikely) maximum sentence of 350 years in prison, or lifetime on the sex offender registry as a “sexually violent offender”—even though he never met the… Continue reading Teen Girl Sent Teen Boy 5 Inappropriate Pictures. He faced Lifetime Registry as a Violent Sex Offender or 350 Years in Jail.

‘People in the lobby were staring at me. Women and men backed away, and a pathway straight to the door was cleared. I suddenly realized what had happened. I’m a sex offender. I mean, they think that I’m a sex offender. “It’s not me. There is someone else with my same name and birthdate. I… Continue reading The government made me a sex offender

“There will always be cases where circumstances call for, if not practically compel, sentences which exceed the standard guideline recommendations,” Judge Bender wrote, noting that trial judges have wide discretion. “However, we expect that sentencing courts understand that a standard range sentence is the norm and, consequently, that sentences which exceed (or fall below) the… Continue reading Superior Court questions whether Common Pleas judge is over-punishing sex offenders

‘Prescott told Quartz those findings shouldn’t be surprising. Policies like alerting people to the presence of sex offenders or restricting where they live would intuitively seem to decrease risk. But that’s a static way of looking at the problem, he says—those policies themselves can make returning to prison look more desirable since ex-offenders find it… Continue reading New evidence says US sex-offender policies are actually causing more crime

los angeles times “Who wouldn’t want to ban creepy activity or creepy people from playgrounds? But what O’Farrell is proposing goes far beyond targeting worrisome activities that, in most cases, are already outlawed. It would bar any adult from sitting on a bench, exercising or otherwise enjoying public space near playground unless he or she… Continue reading L.A.’s proposed ban on single adults near playgrounds is fear-based policy making at its worst

…to help the National Center for Reason and Justice and receive a tax-deduction for 2016. NCRJ works to free the wrongfully convicted and to prevent future injustices through rational criminal-justice reform. You can make a credit-card donation via PayPal (you don’t have to have a PayPal account to do this) by clicking here. You can… Continue reading There’s still time…

Photo: Matt McClain/The Washington Post “Pizzagate shares much of its content with an outbreak of collective hysteria over imaginary occult pedophile rings three decades ago, which can now summed up in three words: satanic-ritual abuse. At the beginning of the 1980s, it seemed eminently plausible to many people that an extensive underground network of sadistic… Continue reading What the Pizzagate conspiracy theory borrows from a bogus satanic sex panic of the 1980s

photo credit: debbie nathan   THE SAN ANTONIO 4 — Anna Vasquez, Elizabeth Ramirez, Cassie Rivera, and Kristie Mayhugh — are innocent. So declared the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on November 23, 2016. The four young Chicana lesbians were imprisoned for almost 15 years on false accusations of sexually abusing Liz’s two little nieces… Continue reading The San Antonio Four Declared Innocent — Please Help the NCRJ

los angeles times “Those defendants have won the right to proclaim to the citizens of Texas that they did not commit a crime. That they are innocent. That they deserve to be exonerated,” Judge David Newell wrote in the majority opinion. “These women have carried that burden. They are innocent. And they are exonerated.” Read… Continue reading Women known as ‘San Antonio Four’ are exonerated by Texas’ highest court after almost 15 years in prison

“Twenty years of research has established that people with convictions for sex offenses have low rates of recidivism and that the expanding realms of post-release punishment do not prevent sexual violence. But no matter how many times the data are repeated or extrapolated, they have negligible effect on policy, as repealing or even softening any… Continue reading Are Sex Offenders Human?