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Photo: Gabrielle Lurie/AFP/Getty Image “The United States imprisons a higher proportion of its population than any other developed country. The American incarceration rate is roughly 3.5 times as high as the median rate in Europe, according to a 2013 report from the European Council of Annual Penal Statistics. This is not because Americans commit more… Continue reading Expanding Incarceration Is Not the Best Way to Fight Rape Culture

Mark Makela for The New York Times Nearly 30 years ago, at 22, Mr. Harrell was arrested on suspicion of raping a teenage girl and later served four years in a New Jersey prison. But when he was released on parole, what amounted to his second sentence started: For the next two decades, he had… Continue reading Wrongfully Convicted of Rape, a New Jersey Man Finds More Punishment After Prison

“There was never a day I just never stopped fighting or looked for strength from God. I never gave up,” Elizabeth said. “I had three friends incarcerated with me and my family, and that was my strength to say I’m not giving up and the truth will one day come forward.” Then, she struck up… Continue reading Unheard but Unafraid: The Story of the San Antonio 4

“Making a mild criticism of sex offender registries looked like it could have hurt a Massachusetts judge in her bid to serve on the state’s Supreme Judicial Court. But on Wednesday the Governor’s Council, an eight-member elected body responsible for approving judicial nominees, voted unanimously in favor of Superior Court Judge Kimberly Budd’s nomination to… Continue reading Judge Critical of Sex Offender Registry Confirmed to Massachusetts High Court

“Parents, it’s time to panic: Kids who venture outside to play Pokémon Go are going to end up in the clutches of sex offenders, unless we do something pointless, political and pathetic. “We must fearmonger!” Read the article by NCRJ Director Emily Horowitz in the New York Post.

What’s the most common age of sex-offenders? It’s not a trick question, but unless you follow this stuff closely you’ll almost certainly answer wrong. In fact, most people are shocked to learn that the most common age of people charged with a sex offense isn’t a creepy 39, or 51. It’s 14. Read the article… Continue reading Bogus “Sex Offender” Labels are Ruining Lives

“The Turner case exemplifies a problematic pattern in American policymaking. The case, similar to other sensationalized instances of leniency for sexual assault, has animated calls for harsher punishments, mandatory minimums and removing judicial discretion. All of these law-and-order responses, coming particularly from the left, continue a tradition in the United States of channeling efforts to… Continue reading Beyond Panic and Punishment: Brock Turner and the Left Response to Sexual Violence

“So-called Romeo offenders, convicted of sex with an underage girlfriend or boyfriend, exist side by side with rapists. There is no consideration as to whether a molestation occurred within a family — and thus, experts say, is statistically unlikely to reoccur outside it — or was committed by a predator snatching an unknown child off… Continue reading Program to corral ballooning sex offender registry failing

July 1997: State Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, a former schoolteacher and proponent of the state’s strict 1995 Ashley’s Laws for sex offenders, attends a conference in Bellevue, Wash., about sex offender registries. She begins her speech by noting that “putting the modern sex offender into the traditional criminal justice system is usually as successful as… Continue reading How a Plano legislator’s remarks bred strict sex offender laws

Rick Meyer/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images “But I realize now that many of my clients would choose to take on more jail time, more fees — anything to avoid being labeled a sex offender for life. That’s because our current sex offender registration laws apply an unbending and inhumane one-size-fits-all approach that does not… Continue reading I’m a public defender. My clients would rather go to jail than register as sex offenders.