Please join us for an evening of learning and discussion on one of the most controversial issues in America today…
The Case for Dismantling the Sex Offender Registry: What the Research Shows
with Dr. Emily Horowitz, author of Protecting Our Kids? How Sex Offender Laws are Failing Us
Thursday, October 25 @ 7pm
Cambridge Friends Center, 5 Longfellow Park (off Brattle Street coming out of Harvard Square, Cambridge)
Emily Horowitz, Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice at St. Francis College (Brooklyn, NY), will review some of the research and evidence about sex offense registries and the harm they cause. She will discuss recent efforts to challenge these popular but ineffective and damaging policies.
“The sex offense registry is essentially a naming and shaming scheme that doesn’t protect anyone. Over 20 years of studies and research show our sex offense legal regime doesn’t make us safer or protect anyone, as it costs millions and destroys lives. There are nearly 1 million people on sex offense registries in the United States, and the number increases each year. Those interested in criminal justice reform must consider the draconian sex offense legal regime in advocacy efforts, though it is an issue that is often orphaned in bipartisan efforts to reduce mass incarceration.” Emily Horowitz
Following Dr. Horowitz will be a panel discussion with those impacted by the registry including:
- Nancy DiZio, treatment provider, New England Forensic Associates
- Tim Anderson, resident at the Southampton street shelter
- Bill Canavan, director, Boston Release Network
Sponsored by the: Sex Offender Policy Reform Initiative (SOPRI) of the Criminal Justice Policy Coalition, ACLU of Massachusetts, National Center for Reason and Justice, and Boston Release Network.
For Information call 617-623-5288 or go to www.sopri-ma.org
“As hard as this may be to read or hear, it must be understood. Common sense is now officially suspended when it comes to Catholic priests and sexual abuse. A moral panic has taken its place. It is especially painful – even catastrophic – when the Catholic media and the highest levels of Church governance suspend a search for truth and settle only for the fastest means to smother the fires of scandal. We have lost our way.”
“Thirty-three years ago, Fuster, along with his young wife, Ileana, was convicted of sexually abusing children at his suburban Florida home, where Ileana provided day care. He is the last person charged in the mass sex-abuse-in-day-care scares that made headlines from the 1980s to the mid ’90s to remain in prison. Part of a broader obsession with child sex abuse — therapist-induced repressed “memories” of incest destroyed thousands of families — the day-care cases were a modern version of the Salem witch trials of the 1690s, down to allegations of Satanic rituals by caregivers. They stand as a warning to those who look condescendingly at our Salem ancestors, incredulous that judges and public alike would believe girls writhing and shrieking that they were at that moment being pinched by the accused sitting far away in the dock.”
A while back I was contacted by supporters of a convicted Catholic priest, Father Joseph Maurizio. Subsequently, I exchanged a few letters with Father Joe.
