Archive for the ‘Sex Panic’ Category

A prison post from Shane Crum – My Wounded Spirit

Sunday, February 14th, 2021

“I have noticed that when you are charged with the crimes I have been, people treat you like you are less than human. Who wants to spend time getting to know a person who has committed crimes against a child? I explain I am innocent and attempt to show the evidence. They just do not want to waste their time. Especially when the grand prize is a friendship or intimate relationship with someone like that. I cannot win.

“It does not help that the whole of society acts this way. I am not found of people who harm children. Yet, my experience tells me, I cannot say who those people might be. I have been convicted of just such a crime, and there has never been any kind of evidence to suggest a crime occurred. Let alone the idea I am guilty. I have no doubt, that when you meet me, you would never guess I have been convicted of such a crime, much less being capable of committing it.”

Read the rest of Shane’s post.

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In Furor Over Poet With Child Porn Conviction, Prison Abolitionists Debate the Limits of Mercy

Sunday, February 14th, 2021

Photo: Zbigniew Bzdak/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

“A bedrock principle of the prison abolitionist movement is that you don’t ask an incarcerated person what they’re in for. It’s more than etiquette. To eschew the identity that the punitive state assigns — which could be false — is to see someone whole. “Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done,” says Equal Justice Initiative founder Bryan Stevenson. Even a murderer is somebody’s baby.

“That’s the way guest editors Tara Betts, Joshua Bennett, and Sarah Ross — poets, abolitionists, and educators behind bars and in the free world — approached the submissions to “The Practice of Freedom,” the February 2021 issue of Poetry magazine. The issue features the work of people who are or were incarcerated, their families, and those who work in “carceral spaces.” The contributors had already been judged and punished; the editors would judge the work, no rap sheet attached, not its makers. ”

NCRJ Director Judith Levine offers compassion and common sense in response to sex hysteria.

Read her article in The Intercept.

Sex Offense Civil Commitment: An LGBTQ and Racial Justice Issue

Friday, February 12th, 2021

Thank you Bill dobbs. if you want to join The Dobbs Wire email list or have something to say: info@thedobbswire.com Twitter: @thedobbswire

“This webinar will feature a discussion on recent research on the overrepresentation of Black and sexual minority men in civil commitment programs and provide a brief history of civil commitment and the legal challenges to it. Panelists will also discuss the need to address violence in our communities without further expanding mass incarceration.”

Watch the webinar.

Pretending Prisoners are Patients

Wednesday, February 10th, 2021

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“Twenty states, the District of Columbia, and the federal government have laws that authorize civil commitment of sex offenders who would otherwise be released after serving their prison terms. The Supreme Court upheld the practice in 1997, saying it was appropriate for people who “suffer from a volitional impairment rendering them dangerous beyond their control.”

“That logic is puzzling. The state punishes people who commit sex crimes based on the assumption that they could and should have controlled themselves. But when it is time for them to be released after completing the punishment prescribed by law, the state says that was not actually true; now they must be locked up precisely because they can’t control themselves.”

Read the article by Jacob Sullum in Reason magazine.

Injustice Behind Bars — a new prison post from Shane Crum

Sunday, January 31st, 2021

“My last couple of post were failed attempts to convey just how difficult it is for me to accept harsh treatment, and how O.D.R.C. staff apply their rules unequally. Try to imagine being punished for something you not only did not do, but something that obviously never occurred. Imagine being punished with individuals who have done things.”

Read the rest of Shane’s post.

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Please Join us for an Important Educational Event!

Friday, January 22nd, 2021

A Conversation with Judith Levine
February 5, 2021 @ 11:10am EST via Zoom
RSVP to ehorowitz@sfc.edu for Zoom link

Join Judith Levine and Emily Horowitz for a conversation about Judith’s new book THE FEMINIST AND THE SEX OFFENDER (Verso, 2020).

At the heart of the conspiracy theory that stirred many in the mob that stormed the Capitol on January 6 was the lie that a cabal of Democratic and “deep state” pedophiles are trafficking and killing thousands of children. A demented “Save the Children” campaign led to a near coup d’etat and the death of five people. This is what people fighting for fairness for “sex offenders” are up against. How can feminism help us understand the hatred of the “sex offender”? How can social justice movements work together to end personal, political, and state violence?

The Feminist and the Sex Offender, co-authored by Judith Levine & Erica Meiners, makes a powerful feminist case for accountability without punishment and sexual safety and pleasure without injustice.

With analytical clarity and narrative force, The Feminist and the Sex Offender contends with two problems that are typically siloed in the era of #MeToo and mass incarceration: sexual and gender violence, on the one hand, and the state’s unjust, ineffective, and soul-destroying response to it on the other. Is it possible to confront the culture of abuse? Is it possible to hold harm-doers accountable without recourse to a criminal justice system that redoubles injuries, fails survivors, and retrenches the conditions that made such abuse possible?

Drawing on interviews, extensive research, reportage, and history, The Feminist and the Sex Offender develops an intersectional feminist approach to ending sexual violence. It maps with considerable detail the unjust sex offender regime while highlighting the alternatives we urgently need.

A Prison Post from Shane Crum: Giving Thanks

Monday, December 14th, 2020

“When inmates discuss the conditions of their confinement, it always appears they are simply complaining. Some people would tell them “not to come to prison, and they would not have anything to complain about”. Truth is, they have more to complain about than they should. The quality and content of the food, health care, recreation and library being closed far too often, the way big business exploits inmates and their families, and the way most staff treat us as throw away humans. I am sure there are many other issues I could list here, but that is not the purpose of this post. In fact, I do not want to sound like I am complaining about anything. Rather, I want to talk about some of the positive things that happen in prison. More to the point, I want to express my gratitude toward the individuals who have helped me over the years.”

Read the rest of Shane’s post.

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Frank Fuster Prison Post: The Truth about my Convictions

Wednesday, November 18th, 2020

“I am aware of the fact that, the current circumstances of my human experience, i.e., being incarcerated under horrible allegations of crimes against children under the age of ten years old, have effectively eliminated; or reduced to a minimum, my credibility. Therefore, I ask myself: Why should anyone believe anything that I write? After all, Janet Reno had me convicted twice of child molestation, thus assassinating my character in the process. Anyone could argue that I have been in denial since 1981, even though that is very hard to believe; and that I can declare all the allegations that I want in pursue of my objectives.”

Read the rest of this post.

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A Prison Post from Frank Fuster

Friday, November 6th, 2020

Most readers of this blog will remember Frank Fuster. His was perhaps the most notorious of the bogus daycare hysteria cases of the 80’s and early 90’s. While just about everyone else wrongfully convicted in these cases has been released, some with and some without exoneration, Frank is still behind bars. A forgotten man.

But he has started a blog from his prison cell. Here is his first post.

You may refresh yourself about his case at his web site.

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Frank Fuster has been forgotten for far too long.

Frank Fuster

Saturday, October 10th, 2020

The web site for Frank Fuster was very out of date. So I’m doing some work on it.

Visit https://fuster.ncrj.org/

-Bob