News

“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”

(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.

“What is sexual victimization? The definitions change with history. It did not occur to me for years that Adam might have assaulted me. Sophie came to that conclusion in a matter of days. What most shaped my perceptions were feminist politics that stress sexual pleasure as much as sexual danger.” Read the article by Judith… Continue reading What Has Owen Labrie’s Trial Accomplished?

(Jason Malmont / Associated Press) On one level, numbers shouldn’t matter: Rape is ugly, it’s serious and can have devastating consequences for its victims. But if numbers are being used to generate a national panic or to institute university policies that may cause more harm than good, then we need to assess them as dispassionately… Continue reading What we talk about when we talk about rape

(Photo by John Anderson) “Prosecutors who bend or even break the rules to win a conviction almost never face any punishment. But even given lax controls, the blatant and systemic misconduct in the Orange County district attorney’s office in Southern California stands out. In a scheme that may go back as far as 30 years,… Continue reading Dishonest Prosecutors, Lots of Them

Photo by J. Lloyd. “At what point do professionals in these settings openly acknowledge to them/ourselves that we are participating in systems that are openly unconstitutional and therefore unlawful according to the standards of much of the Western world? Even beyond American law, consider the case of Shawn Sullivan, who fled the US and was… Continue reading As courts censure civil detention practices, is it time for professionals to speak up?

“Satanism lacks a Jones or Koresh. Satanism has no Jonestown, no Waco, no Kool-Aid, no casual point of reference. This is because Satanic cults, as imagined in popular culture, do not exist. Still, some places across the country—West Memphis, Arkansas; Manhattan Beach, California; Edenton, North Carolina; Austin, Texas—belong to a brotherhood of cities united not… Continue reading Conviction of Things Not Seen: The Uniquely American Myth of Satanic Cults

Monica Ramos “Protecting children from sexual abuse is, of course, a paramount concern. But there is not a single piece of evidence that these laws actually do that.” Read the editorial in the New York Times.

“Sure there was no evidence. The dead animals weren’t found. The missing and murdered children don’t seem to have been missing or murdered. The pornographic films (or the studios where they were made) weren’t discovered. The gouged out eyeballs and lopped off body parts don’t seem actually to have been gouged or lopped. But the… Continue reading Great Review of We Believe the Children

Hanna Barczyk “The essence of the American criminal justice system is reactive, not predictive: You are punished for the crime you committed. You can’t be punished simply because you might commit one someday. You certainly can’t be held indefinitely to prevent that possibility.” Read the full editorial in the New York Times.