2-24-2007 Wisconsin:
Man released after being confused with illegal immigrant, sex offender
Heriberto Tirado is the first to admit he's no saint.
But he's also not an illegal immigrant or a convicted child molester.
The 49-year-old Cudahy man spent six nights in jail this month on suspicion of both, in what has turned out to be a bizarre case of mistaken identity involving a twice-deported Mexican national.
Federal agents resolved the confusion this week. And the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Department said it's taking steps to make sure the error isn't repeated.
But Tirado's family is skeptical. And Tirado filed a notice of claim Friday against the county and the Sheriff's Department seeking compensatory damages of $25,000.
"This is going to happen again and again," said Anna Sanchez, Tirado's longtime companion, who contends he's been trying for years to get the Social Security Administration to address his claims of a stolen identity. "Every time this person does something, they're going to come after him."
"This person" is Heriberto Matias - or Miguel Rodriguez, or Juan Zayas, or any one of the 25 aliases he's used over the years, according to John Nienhardt, a special agent in the Milwaukee office of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Matias, who authorities say has used Tirado's birth date, address and Social Security number, has a 1997 conviction for second-degree sexual assault of a child. He served two years in a federal prison for re-entering the country after deportation and was sent back to Mexico in June 2004, Nienhardt said.
Tirado, a U.S. citizen born in Puerto Rico, has had his own troubles with the law, including a 2003 conviction for drug trafficking.
"But I'm not a child molester," Tirado said from his Cudahy home.
County sheriff's detectives arrested Tirado on Feb. 14 at the federal courthouse after he had been summoned by the Social Security Administration for what he thought was a resolution of a claim. He was directed from there to the courthouse, where he was handcuffed by detectives.
Tirado was arrested on four outstanding warrants - three involving municipal traffic tickets, and the fourth, against Matias, for failing to register as a sex offender.
News that Matias was arrested triggered an immigration hold that would have led to his deportation, a prospect that terrified Tirado's family.
"How can they do that if he's from Puerto Rico?" said Sanchez's daughter Denise Calaff-Garcia, as the family frantically tried to win his release. "We are legal citizens of the United States."
Part of the problem, Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Kim Brooks said, was that Tirado has used the name Matias in past encounters with police. When the jail ran his prints, she said, they matched his own in the system and listed Matias as an alias.
Tirado denies using Matias, part of his family name, in the more than 20 years he's lived in the Milwaukee area.
Nienhardt said it was quickly apparent to agents that Tirado might not be their man. For starters, he claimed to be Puerto Rican, not Mexican. Tirado was missing Matias' distinctive tattoos, and their criminal histories didn't match, he said.
"We ran his fingerprints, and the FBI numbers were not the same, so we released him," Nienhardt said.
Brooks said the Sheriff's Department could have cleared Tirado earlier if it had the same information. Both the warrant and immigration hold documents included just basic data about Matias, and neither listed his FBI number, she said.
A Milwaukee County Circuit Court commissioner dismissed the charge against Tirado on Thursday.
Now Tirado said he just he wants to get back to work. He learned Friday that he will keep his job assembling wheels for airplanes. The company needed corporate approval because the jail stint caused him to miss more than the approved three days of work.
"That is a relief," Tirado said Friday. "I have three children, and they are relying on me." ..Source.. by Annysa Johnson
November 22, 2014
Mistaken identity leads to jail time
December 21, 2009
Debate on Child Pornography’s Link to Molesting
It is important to read this in its proper context, and the findings CANNOT be applied to ALL SEX OFFENDERS! The only offenders allowed to participate were KNOWN child pornography offenders who ALREADY had a conviction for some form of child pornography. This -choice of offenders allowed to particpate- shows why the results cannot be applied to all offenders; simply said, this group is not representative of the entire population of offenders.7-19-2007 North Carolina:
Experts have often wondered what proportion of men who download explicit sexual images of children also molest them. A new government study of convicted Internet offenders suggests that the number may be startlingly high: 85 percent of the offenders said they had committed acts of sexual abuse against minors, from inappropriate touching to rape.
The study, which has not yet been published, is stirring a vehement debate among psychologists, law enforcement officers and prison officials, who cannot agree on how the findings should be presented or interpreted.
The research, carried out by psychologists at the Federal Bureau of Prisons, is the first in-depth survey of such online offenders’ sexual behavior done by prison therapists who were actively performing treatment. Its findings have circulated privately among experts, who say they could have enormous implications for public safety and law enforcement.
Traffic in online child pornography has exploded in recent years, and the new study, some experts say, should be made public as soon as possible, to identify men who claim to be “just looking at pictures” but could, in fact, be predators.
Yet others say that the results, while significant, risk tarring some men unfairly. The findings, based on offenders serving prison time who volunteered for the study, do not necessarily apply to the large and diverse group of adults who have at some point downloaded child pornography, and whose behavior is far too variable to be captured by a single survey.
Adding to the controversy, the prison bureau in April ordered the paper withdrawn from a peer-reviewed academic journal where it had been accepted for publication, apparently concerned that the results might be misinterpreted. A spokeswoman for the bureau said the agency was reviewing a study of child pornography offenders but declined to comment further.
Ernie Allen, who leads the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which is mandated to coordinate the nation’s efforts to combat child pornography, said he was surprised that the full study had not been released. “This is the kind of research the public needs to know about,” Mr. Allen said. Others agreed that the report should be published but were more cautious about the findings. “The results could have tremendous implications for community safety and for individual liberties,” said Dr. Fred Berlin, founder of the Johns Hopkins Sexual Disorders Clinic. “If people we thought were not dangerous are more so, then we need to know that and we should treat them that way. But if we’re wrong, then their liberties aren’t going to be fairly addressed.”
Everyone agrees that researchers need to learn more about online consumers of illegal child images. The volume of material seized from computers appears to be doubling each year — the National Center collected more than eight million images of explicit child pornography in the last five years — and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales made child protection a national priority in 2006.
Those who are arrested on charges of possession or distribution of child pornography generally receive lighter sentences and shorter parole periods than sexual abusers. They do not fit any criminal stereotype; recent arrests have included politicians, police officers, teachers and businessmen.
“It’s crucial to understand the sexual history of all these offenders, because sometimes the crime they were arrested for is the tip of the iceberg, and does not reflect their real patterns and interests,” said Jill S. Levenson, an assistant professor of human services at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla., and head of the ethics committee of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers.
Previous studies, based on surveys of criminal records, estimated that 30 percent to 40 percent of those arrested for possessing child pornography also had molested children.
The psychologists who conducted the new study, Andres E. Hernandez and Michael L. Bourke, focused on 155 male inmates who had volunteered to be treated at the Federal Correctional Institution in Butner, N.C., according to a draft of the paper obtained by The New York Times from outside experts who want the study published.
The Butner clinic is the only residential program devoted to the treatment of sexual offenders in the federal prison system. The inmates in the study were all serving sentences for possession or distribution of child pornography.
About every six months as part of an 18-month treatment program, they filled out a record of their sexual history, including a “victims list” tallying their previous victims of abuse. Therapists encouraged the men to be honest as part of their treatment, and the sexual histories were anonymous, according to the paper.
The psychologists compared these confessions with the men’s criminal sexual histories at the time of sentencing. More than 85 percent admitted to abusing at least one child, they found, compared with 26 percent who were known to have committed any “hands on” offenses at sentencing. The researchers also counted many more total victims: 1,777, a more than 20-fold increase from the 75 identified when the men were sentenced.
Dr. Hernandez and Dr. Bourke concluded in the paper that “many Internet child pornography offenders may be undetected child molesters.” But they also cautioned that offenders who volunteer for treatment may differ in their behavior from those who do not seek treatment.
They submitted the paper to The Journal of Family Violence, a widely read peer-reviewed publication in the field, and it was accepted.
But in a letter obtained by The Times, dated April 3, Judi Garrett, an official of the Bureau of Prisons, requested that the editors of the journal withdraw the study, because it did not meet “agency approval.”
Editors at The Journal of Family Violence did not respond to phone or e-mail messages asking about the withdrawal.
Dr. Hernandez mentioned the research briefly during testimony before a Senate committee last year. But the bureau blocked Dr. Hernandez and Dr. Bourke from attending some law enforcement conferences to speak about the findings, said two prosecutors who did not want to be identified because they have a continuing work relationship with the bureau.
“We believe it unwise to generalize from limited observations gained in treatment or in records review to the broader population of persons who engage in such behavior,” a bureau official wrote to the organizers of a recent law enforcement conference, in a letter dated May 2 and given to The Times by an expert who is hoping the study will be published.
Some prosecutors say they could use the study to argue for stiffer sentences. While some outside researchers agreed that the risk of over-generalizing the study’s results was real, almost all the experts interviewed also said that the study should still be made public.
Dr. Peter Collins, who leads the Forensic Psychiatry Unit of the Ontario Provincial Police, called the findings “cutting-edge stuff.”
“We’re really on the cusp of learning more about these individuals and studies should be encouraged, not quashed,” Dr. Collins said.
Understanding the relationship between looking at child pornography and sexually assaulting children is central to developing effective treatment, psychologists say.
It is not at all clear when, or in whom, the viewing spurs action or activates a latent, unconscious desire; or whether such images have little or no effect on the offender’s subsequent behavior. But the relationship probably varies widely.
“My concern is about sensationalism, about the way something like this is handled in the media,” said Michael Miner, an associate professor in the department of family medicine at the University of Minnesota who treats sex offenders. “The public perception is that all of these guys will re-offend, and we know that just isn’t true.”
At least some men convicted of sexual abuse say that child pornography from the Internet fueled their urges. In a recent interview, one convicted pedophile serving a 14-year sentence in a Canadian federal prison said that looking at images online certainly gave him no release from his desires — exactly the opposite.
“Because there is no way I can look at a picture of a child on a video screen and not get turned on by that and want to do something about it,” he said. “I knew that in my mind. I knew that in my heart. I didn’t want it to happen, but it was going to happen.”
How many offenders does he speak for? The study may help answer that question, some say.
“The penalties we seek, the vigor with which we prosecute — the very importance we give to child pornography cases — all of these things are affected by what we know about the offenders,” said Leura G. Canary, the United States attorney for Middle Alabama who also leads the Attorney General’s Working Group on Child Exploitation and Obscenity. “And right now we know very little.” ..Source.. New York Times, JULIAN SHER and BENEDICT CAREY
May 18, 2009
NJ- How a Photo Can Ruin Your Life
Your family photos could get you arrested. Just ask one New Jersey grandmother.
Three-year-old Sarah M. is either a toddler in her birthday suit playing in the garden, or a nude temptress with a sultry look who requires protection from the culprits who took this photograph -- her doting parents.
This is the fix we're in, now that computers have opened the barn door on kiddie porn. The FBI has issued blanket requests to photo processing labs and computer repair shops in some cities to be on the lookout for pictures of kids in compromising positions, urging them to call the authorities whether they're sure or not about a picture's legality. The big national chains that have photo processing labs -- Costco, CVS, Rite-Aid, and Wal-Mart -- have company policies that compel them to notify the police about any criminal activity they see in customers' photos. And when children are involved, they're more than willing to err on the side of caution.
"You can't have a blanket set of guidelines because pictures are subject to interpretation based on community standards," says Mike DeAngelis, a spokesman for CVS Pharmacy, with about 5,400 outlets nationwide. "But the store managers know it's up to law enforcement to decide what's criminal."
Tragically for a number of people all over the country, innocent family photos turned over to the police have led to financial ruin, divorce, debt, public humiliation, and lifelong scorn as a registered sex offender for mothers and fathers.
Some cases involved pictures much less provocative than Sarah M.'s. Based on the way prosecutors interpreted photos in a few of those cases -- Marian Rubin, a New Jersey grandmother charged for taking nude photos of her granddaughters, then aged 3 and 8; and Jeffrey B., a New York father who lost custody of his two daughters after he shot pictures of them mooning him -- it's possible to spot red flags where our innocence used to be.
Here's how a zealous prosecutor could view Sarah M.'s picture: Smoldering eyes; styled, tousled blond tresses; pouty, parted lips; splayed legs; an engorged navel. And that viscous liquid dripping from the wand onto her thigh? Money shot.
A blurry line
Just because they didn't shoot the picture for the purpose of sexual stimulation doesn't mean parents who just want to document their child's garden years can't get stuck in the sordid world of pedophilia.
Since there have been documented instances where photo lab employees have kept copies of sexually explicit pictures that were dropped off for development or printing, including from digital sources, imaginative authorities believe that it's possible for child pornography to be inadvertently made and unknowingly distributed. (Adult porn isn't illegal unless it's found to be obscene.)
This has led to a more proactive, better-safe-than-sorry approach to snooping into people's photo archives, which gives civil libertarians the jitters.
The claim has been made that we all have to view innocent photos through the eyes of a pedophile, for the good of the children. But, attorney Andrew McCullough argued before the Utah Supreme Court in a case involving allegedly arousing pictures of underage children, "lots of things are innocent enough and can be misused, but you can't be responsible for everybody's thoughts."
And in Honolulu, after the local FBI office started contacting computer repair shops about what they should be on the lookout for inside customers' computers, the ACLU Hawaii's executive director, Vanessa Chong, was quoted as saying that the G-men's fishing expedition "needlessly violates the privacy rights of honest consumers to find the guilty few."
The question of whether you surrender privacy rights when you hand over a computer full of personal information to a repair shop is still open. Cops say they're sensitive to these issues. Photo labs and computer repair shops "haven't sent us anything that wasn't clearly child pornography, or could reasonably be suspected," remarks Lt. C.L. Williams, in charge of the Crimes Against Children unit of the Dallas, TX, police department.
Lt. Williams acknowledges that there's a gray area when it comes to interpreting photos of children, and often the kids are taking pictures of each other without their parents' knowledge. His unit frequently determines that pictures referred to them are innocent artistic or family photos, "but there's very little artistic value in a crotch shot of a 6-year-old girl." He says his investigators are now seeing pictures of penetration on 2-year-olds.
"We're not trying to pry into people's lives," he says. "I wouldn't want the government sticking its nose into my photography, and I don't want to be the one doing it to someone else. But when a picture crosses the line into child abuse, then it's my business." ..News Source.. by Neal Matthews
FL- Police blotter: Teens prosecuted for racy photos
2-9-2007 Florida:
What: Teenagers taking risque photos of themselves are prosecuted for violating child pornography laws.
When: Florida state appeals court rules on January 19.
Outcome: A 2-1 majority upholds conviction on grounds the girl produced a photograph featuring the sexual conduct of a child.
What happened, according to court documents:
Combine unsupervised teenagers, digital cameras and e-mail, and, given sufficient time, you'll end up with risque photographs on a computer somewhere.
There's a problem with that: Technically, those images constitute child pornography. That's what 16-year-old Amber and 17-year-old Jeremy, her boyfriend, both residents of the Tallahassee, Fla., area, learned firsthand. (Court documents include only their initials, A.H. and J.G.W., so we're using these pseudonyms to make this story a little easier to read.)
On March 25, 2004, Amber and Jeremy took digital photos of themselves naked and engaged in unspecified "sexual behavior." The two sent the photos from a computer at Amber's house to Jeremy's personal e-mail address. Neither teen showed the photographs to anyone else.
Court records don't say exactly what happened next--perhaps the parents wanted to end the relationship and raised the alarm--but somehow Florida police learned about the photos.
Amber and Jeremy were arrested. Each was charged with producing, directing or promoting a photograph featuring the sexual conduct of a child. Based on the contents of his e-mail account, Jeremy was charged with an extra count of possession of child pornography.
Some more background: Under a 1995 ruling in a case called B.B. v. State, the Florida Supreme Court said that a 16-year-old could not be found delinquent for having sex with another 16-year-old.
"The crux of the state's interest in an adult-minor situation is the prevention of exploitation of the minor by the adult," the majority said at the time. The court ruled that a Florida statute punishing sex between teens was "unconstitutional as applied to this 16-year-old as a basis for a delinquency proceeding."
The same applies to Amber and Jeremy. Even though he is a year older than her, he is still a minor in Florida.
In other words, under Florida law, Amber and Jeremy would be legally permitted to engage in carnal relations, but they're criminals if they document it.
Amber's attorney claimed that the right to privacy protected by the Florida Constitution shielded the teen from prosecution, an argument that a trial judge rejected. Amber pleaded no contest to the charges and was placed on probation, though she reserved her right to appeal her constitutional claim.
By a 2-1 vote, the appeals court didn't buy it. Judge James Wolf, a former prosecutor, wrote the majority opinion.
Wolf speculated that Amber and Jeremy could have ended up selling the photos to child pornographers ("one motive for revealing the photos is profit") or showing the images to their friends. He claimed that Amber had neither the "foresight or maturity" to make a reasonable estimation of the risks on her own. And he said that transferring the images from a digital camera to a PC created innumerable problems: "The two computers (can) be hacked."
Judge Philip Padovano dissented. He wrote that the law "was designed to protect children from abuse by others, but it was used in this case to punish a child for her own mistake. In my view, the application of this criminal statute to the conduct at issue violates the child's right to privacy under Article 1, Section 23 of the Florida Constitution."
Excerpt from Wolf's majority opinion:
As previously stated, the reasonable expectation that the material will ultimately be disseminated is by itself a compelling state interest for preventing the production of this material. In addition, the statute was intended to protect minors like appellant and her co-defendant from their own lack of judgment...
Appellant was simply too young to make an intelligent decision about engaging in sexual conduct and memorializing it. Mere production of these videos or pictures may also result in psychological trauma to the teenagers involved.
Further, if these pictures are ultimately released, future damage may be done to these minors' careers or personal lives. These children are not mature enough to make rational decisions concerning all the possible negative implications of producing these videos.
In addition, the two defendants placed the photos on a computer and then, using the Internet, transferred them to another computer. Not only can the two computers be hacked, but by transferring the photos using the Net, the photos may have been and perhaps still are accessible to the provider and/or other individuals. Computers also allow for long-term storage of information which may then be disseminated at some later date. The state has a compelling interest in seeing that material which will have such negative consequences is never produced.
Excerpt from Padovano's dissent:
If a minor cannot be criminally prosecuted for having sex with another minor, as the court held in B.B., it follows that a minor cannot be criminally prosecuted for taking a picture of herself having sex with another minor. Although I do not condone the child's conduct in this case, I cannot deny that it is private conduct. Because there is no evidence that the child intended to show the photographs to third parties, they are as private as the act they depict...
The majority concludes that the child in this case did not have a reasonable expectation that the photographs would remain private. To support this conclusion, the majority speculates about the many ways in which the photographs might have been revealed to others. The e-mail transmission might have been intercepted. The relationship might have ended badly. The boyfriend might have wanted to show the photo to someone else to brag about his sexual conquest. With all due respect, I think these arguments are beside the point. Certainly there are circumstances in which the photos might have been revealed unintentionally to third parties, but that would always be the case.
That the Internet is easily hacked, as the majority says, is not material. The issue is whether the child intended to keep the photos private, not whether it would be possible for someone to obtain the photos against her will and thereby to invade her privacy. The majority states that the child "placed the photos on a computer and then, using the Internet, transferred them to another computer," as if to suggest that she left them out carelessly for anyone to find. That is not what happened. She sent the photos to her boyfriend at his personal e-mail address, intending to share them only with him.
The method the child used to transmit the photos to her boyfriend carries some danger of disclosure, but so do others. If the child had taken a printed photograph and placed it in her purse, it might have been disclosed to third parties if her purse had been lost or stolen. If she had mailed it to her boyfriend in an envelope, it might have been revealed if the envelope had been delivered to the wrong address and mistakenly opened. As these examples illustrate, there is always a possibility that something a person intends to keep private will eventually be disclosed to others. But we cannot gauge the reasonableness of a person's expectation of privacy merely by speculating about the many ways in which it might be violated.
The critical point in this case is that the child intended to keep the photographs private. She did not attempt to exploit anyone or to embarrass anyone. I think her expectation of privacy in the photographs was reasonable. Certainly, an argument could be made that she was foolish to expect that, but the expectation of a 16-year-old cannot be measured by the collective wisdom of appellate judges who have no emotional connection to the event. Perhaps if the child had as much time to reflect on these events, she would have eventually concluded, as the majority did, that there were ways in which these photos might have been unintentionally disclosed. That does not make her expectation of privacy unreasonable. ..News Source.. by Declan McCullagh
December 24, 2008
KS- Kansas State Hospital Loses Full Accreditation
5-24-2007 Kansas:
LARNED - Inspectors found a variety of “inhumane” conditions at Larned State Hospital, including filthy living areas, frigid showers and a lack of supervision that contributed to a patient’s death, a Kansas Department of Health and Environment report shows.
In addition, a private national agency that conducts oversight of thousands of hospitals has reduced Larned from full accreditation to conditional status until problems that its own inspectors found are corrected.
Larned, about 25 miles southwest of Great Bend, confines some of the state’s most mentally troubled people.
Some are committed because they are considered a danger to themselves or society.
Some sex offenders are sent there after serving prison time.
The KDHE report was based on November inspections triggered by numerous complaints from patients.
The report “indicates a number of issues, violations of both federal and state law,” said Joseph Kroll, director of KDHE’s Bureau of Child Care and Health Facilities. “I think the report speaks for itself.”
The report said, “Throughout the hospital, the governing body failed to assure that patients received care in a safe, clean and comfortable environment.”
Hospital superintendent Mark Schutter said he thinks the report overstates some of the problems.
However, he said, “Whatever has been cited, we have addressed or are in the process of addressing if it takes a longer period of time to do that.”
SRS responds
The Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, which runs Larned and other state mental hospitals, contends that KDHE overstated the problems.
“I think some of the terminology and things they use makes it a little more inflammatory than what you’ll see out at the institution,” said Ray Dalton, SRS deputy secretary for health care policy.
In a written response, SRS asked that KDHE tone down the description of Larned’s cleanliness and questioned whether regulations require providing hot water for showers and hand-washing.
KDHE refused to rewrite the report. The agencies are close to settling on a final plan to address the issues and prevent recurrence, officials said. KDHE expects the problems to be corrected within six months and will reinspect the facility, Kroll said.
A tour by an Eagle reporter and photographer Thursday found that many things cited in the KDHE report — such as grease-crusted dining tables, dust-clogged ventilators and 3- to 5-foot-long cobwebs in the pool area — are cleaner now.
Most showers and sinks checked during the tour dispensed warm water. In some sinks, however, the hot water button did not work or the pressure was so low that water trickled down the outside of the faucet instead of running into the sink.
Accreditation at stake
Before November, Larned hadn’t undergone a state inspection since 2000, Kroll said.
The hospital is accredited by the Joint Commission on Health Care Organizations. “Because of that, they’re not routinely scheduled for inspections by the state,” he said.
The report cites 10 ongoing complaint investigations.
The joint commission inspected Larned in August after it also received complaints. The facility had last been inspected and reaccredited in 2003, said Char Hill, a spokeswoman for the body.
The joint commission’s survey is not a public document. However, the commission published requirements for Larned to reattain full accreditation that include improvements in food preparation and distribution, better medication storage and administration and improved infection control.
Patient’s choking death
The most serious finding in the KDHE report outlines the case of a female patient who choked to death April 1.
The unidentified woman had a number of health problems, including a swallowing disorder called “Level III dysphagia.”
According to the report, the woman was to be placed on a special diet of soft foods in bite-size pieces that would not clump in the throat, eliminating sticky foods and most bread and cereal products.
The woman had a history of rummaging food from trash cans and hoarding food, the report said. The week before her death, she complained of something in her throat and coughed up “two medium-sized pieces of ham.”
On the morning of April 1, the staff found the woman in an unresponsive state with food lodged in her mouth.
“Staff identified the mass as pancakes,” the report said. “Breakfast that morning consisted of pancakes and syrup.” ..News Source.. by DION LEFLER, Eagle Topeka bureau
December 22, 2008
ND- Man found guilty in nursing home assault
8-17-2007 North Dakota:
Authorities say a Cando man has been found guilty of sexually assaulting an 86-year-old Nursing Home resident, court officials say.
James Torkelsen was convicted today following a bench trial before Northeast District Judge Lee Christofferson.
Torkelsen had pleaded not guilty to three counts of criminal sexual assault.
Torkelsen worked at the Towner County Living Center. Authorities say the assaults happened between February 2004 and last year.
A sentencing date has not been set.
Torkelsen faces up to 15 years in prison and a 15-thousand dollar fine. ..News Source.. by KZZY FM
December 7, 2008
OK- New sex-offender law faces opposition
10-28-2007 Oklahoma:
A three-tiered ranking system takes effect Thursday.
However, some of those who are on the front lines dealing with sex offenders believe that Oklahoma's law is having an adverse effect and needs further changes.
''Most people who know anything about this are frustrated. It is just not helpful -- the laws as they are now,'' said Randy Lopp, treatment subcommittee chairman of the Oklahoma Sex Offender Management Team.
Lopp is also a member of the review board established by the new law to categorize the sex offenders into three levels.
''I think if the general public understood the research, they would be willing to back the legislators to change the laws to make more sense and to protect children, because the laws as they are written are not protecting children," he said. "They are doing more harm than good.''
Categorizing offenders: Lawmakers changed the state law to comply with the federal Adam Walsh Act, said Jim Rabon, who oversees sex offender registration for the Oklahoma Department of Corrections.
What the federal law calls a ''tier system,'' the new state law calls a ''numeric risk level.'' The risk level is determined by the type and severity of crime for which the offender was convicted and the number of convictions that person has, he said.
Level One offenders will register for 15 years; Level Two offenders will register for 25 years; and Level Three offenders will register for life.
As in the previous version of the law, those who are categorized as ''aggravated'' or ''habitual'' sex offenders will also be required to register for life.
Rabon said the committee that set up the levels reviewed cases of people beginning prison and probation between July 2006 and June 2007 and determined that most sex offenders fall into the highest risk category.
The review revealed that 78 percent of the sex offenders fall in Level Three, 3 percent in Level Two and 19 percent in Level One.
Based on those numbers, Tulsa Police Sgt. Gary Stansill, who has spent more than 20 years investigating sex crimes in Tulsa, said he believes that the Oklahoma law is too broad.
Under the law, he said, an 18-year-old who is convicted of statutory rape for having sex with a 15-year-old and someone who is convicted of groping an officer during an undercover sting would both be registered sex offenders for life.
''The least number of people should be in the worst tier, but the most number of people are going to be in the worst tier under the new law,'' Stansill said.
Federal law mandates that any state that does not adapt to the Adam Walsh Act will receive up to a 10 percent reduction in federal grant money. Based on past funding, that might amount to a loss of about $200,000 to $300,000 for Oklahoma, Rabon said.
The loss in funding is part of the reason the state has moved to comply with the federal law, he said. Another reason is consistency.
''We do recognize that if all of the states' registration systems are similar, that does make it easier to track offenders when they move from state to state,'' Rabon said.
He said it is important that people realize that Oklahoma has what he believes is one of the best sex offender registration systems in the country.
By that, he means a lot of information is available on the Department of Corrections Web site that is easy for the public to access and local law enforcement agencies to update. He said Oklahoma has a low percentage of delinquent offenders compared to other states.
The residency debate: Lopp said he doesn't believe that the offense-based assessment is the the best way to categorize offenders. He thinks a tiered system is a step in the right direction but that it should be based on the risk of the individual.
Some states have refused federal funds so they can continue to develop risk-based assessments, he said.
A risk-based assessment could then correspond with the residency restrictions, which have created headaches for law enforcement agencies across the country.
Stansill said residency restrictions have driven sex offenders underground in Tulsa.
The controversial state law that went into effect last year has put 90 percent of the city off limits for sex offenders by prohibiting them from living within 2,000 feet of playgrounds, parks or child-care facilities. They were already prohibited from living within that distance of a school.
The new law does loosen the residency restrictions slightly by specifying that offenders are precluded from living near only child-care centers -- and not including day-care homes, which are numerous.
Before the residency laws, Tulsa had about 540 registered sex offenders at the peak. As of Sept. 20, 329 were registered here, Stansill said.
''If I really thought it would really do some good, then I would be all for it (the residency restrictions). Then we could focus on the people who don't want to register -- who have no good excuse for not registering -- because they are the people who are likely to be re-offending.''
The new law that takes effect Thursday requires police to register sex offenders even if the offenders intend to move into restricted areas. Previously, Tulsa police would tell an offender to look for another place to live and then come back to register.
''If I register those people, does that give them the right to live there?" Stansill questioned. "Or are we supposed to register them and turn about and work a case against them for violating the residency law?''
Stansill said sex crimes detectives are already overloaded with sex offender law violation cases.
From 2006 to 2007 Tulsa police have investigated 228 sex offender registration violation cases. During the same time period, they investigated 275 rape cases.
Forcing offenders to move from place to place because of residency laws could do more harm than good, Lopp said.
''When you keep making these people move, you are disrupting their stability; you are disrupting their jobs; you are causing an immense amount of stress on that population,'' Lopp said.
''What do we know about re-offense? Stress, job instability, living instability increase the chance of re-offense.''
Authorities say research shows that where sex offenders live is not a factor -- that most of them know their victims and that attacks often occur in the victims' own homes. But Rabon said there is more than one side to the argument about residency restrictions.
''The other side of that is that between the DOC and all of the local law enforcement agencies, . . . everybody works hard trying to locate them and keep the addresses current,'' he said.
That results in Oklahoma having a high rate of compliance, Rabon said. Of 5,462 registered sex offenders statewide, 870 are classified as delinquent, meaning their locations are unknown.
''When the residency restriction went into effect, we saw the delinquent number bump up a little bit, not a huge number,'' he said.
Meanwhile, Lopp hopes the committee works to encourage state and federal legislators to change the laws to make them more effective.
''What ultimately is going to have to happen to change this law is the community is going to have to get in touch with legislators and tell them, "This is not helping; this is making things worse,' " Lopp said.
..News Source.. by NICOLE MARSHALL World Staff Writer
November 22, 2008
The Net is a circuit of safety concerns
11-7-2007 National:
If you watch TV or read the news, you know sexual predators hang out on the Internet, looking for underage victims.
Dateline NBC's "To Catch a Predator" features men being lured by the promise of meeting underage girls. Several state attorneys general recently have called on social-networking sites MySpace and Facebook to ban registered sex offenders and make their sites safer. Newspapers have been filled with stories about the dangers children face when they post too much personal information. And victims have testified recently at congressional hearings.
Some worry that parents are falling victim to "predator panic" and overreacting to unlikely dangers, unintentionally turning children off to safety messages altogether.
"One of the misunderstandings that we think is widespread is that what sex offenders are doing is picking out kids (online) and stalking them and deceiving them and abducting them and raping them," says David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire.
"That's not what's going on."
Abductions by strangers are so rare that many experts can't name a single case in which a predator attacked after only seeing a child's profile online.
'Grooming' their victims
In most cases, predators seek out vulnerable teens — those who post sexually suggestive pictures of themselves, talk about sex online or frequent places where hook-ups are made, Finkelhor says. They spend weeks, even months, forging a relationship and gaining the teens' trust.
Usually, those who become victims eventually agree to meet the perpetrator face to face; often they know that the person they're meeting is older. But by the time they meet him (usually it's a man), they often think they are in love. It's a process called "grooming," Finkelhor says.
"It's the kids who respond to somebody and start talking about sex that puts them at risk — or kids who use sites to communicate with lots of people they don't know, or put very sexualized images online," he says.
The Internet allows predators "to form supportive relationships with emotionally vulnerable teens," says Nancy Willard, author of Cyber-Safe Kids, Cyber-Savvy Teens: Helping Young People Learn to Use the Internet Safely and Responsibly.
Though there are no comprehensive national annual figures on Internet crimes against children, Finkelhor says, overall sex crimes against children are down, with the notable exception of child pornography. Sexual abuse cases were down 51% from 1990 to 2005 — from 22.8 per 10,000 to 11.3 per 10,000 children, he says.
Feeling safe doesn't make it so
Studies show that most teens feel relatively safe online. A Pew Internet & American Life Project report last month showed that though children, especially girls, who posted pictures of themselves on social networks were more likely to be contacted by strangers, only 7% of online teens said they had ever had an interaction with a stranger that made them feel scared or uncomfortable.
And a report out last year by Finkelhor's center found that from 2000 through 2005, the number of children ages 10 to 17 who received unwanted solicitations online declined from 19% to 13%.
But calls to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children's hotline have been on the rise, says president Ernie Allen. In 2005, there were 2,660 reports of online enticement of children; in 2006, there were 6,374. In the first eight months of 2007, there were 9,533. Some of the increase can be attributed to greater Internet use and increased awareness of the hotline, Allen says.
He agrees that education is a key to Internet safety. But he says the Internet does make it easier to prey on children.
"Just like in the physical world, those people who seek to prey upon kids go to where the kids are," Allen says. "We don't think the sky is falling, but there (are) adults hiding behind the relative anonymity of the Internet to try to achieve what they either can't achieve or can only achieve with great risk in the physical world. America's moms and dads really need to catch up."
Though it's good to educate children and parents about dangers, some experts worry that the message may backfire.
"If you are petrified of predators but are not worrying about cyber-bullies, loss of reputation, spending too much time online and the other less frightening but more likely dangers of online use, then you are misplacing your energy," says Larry Magid, co-director of ConnectSafely.org. "You're petrified of something that's probably not going to happen and failing to pay attention to the dangers that are far more likely."
Allen says messages should be balanced, but parents do need to stay aware of the problems. "The good news is that the vast majority of America's kids are much smarter and much more aware. …
"But the bad news is, there are a lot of (predators) out there who are still seeking, overwhelmingly for grooming and seduction. This remains a significant problem." ..News Source.. by Janet Kornblum, USA TODAY
October 7, 2008
Civil Commitment of Sexually Violent Predators: Have We Gone Too Far?
2007:
Abstract:
Arguably, the most feared, despised, and punished offender in society today is the sex offender. The public is constantly bombarded with stories from the media of the heinous crimes and irreparable harm committed by these offenders. We are told that sex offenders cannot be cured, that they reoffend at a higher rate than other offenders, and that they must be punished severely. All of this has lead to a public outrage against sex offenders. This public outrage, in turn, has lead to increased sanctions and punishment directed toward sex offenders. An increasingly popular response to this public outrage is the instituting of statutes requiring the civil commitment of sexually violent offenders. This paper will examine the history and the constitutional issues associated with this practice. Additionally, the unique out-patient civil commitment statute of Texas will be discussed. ..Source.. by Paper presented at the annual meeting of the AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CRIMINOLOGY, Atlanta Marriott Marquis, Atlanta, Georgia, Nov 14, 2007
September 14, 2008
Sen. Biden's Speech Introducing S-1738
June 2007:
.By Mr. BIDEN (for himself and Mrs. BOXER)
S. 1738. A bill to establish a Special Counsel for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction within the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, to improve the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, to increase resources for regional computer forensic labs, and to make other improvements to increase the ability of law enforcement agencies to investigate and prosecute predators; to the Committee on the Judiciary.
Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Combating Child Exploitation Act of 2007. This legislation takes a bold step forward in addressing child exploitation.
And, Mr. President, let me assure you, we need bold action. We have taken some important steps here in the Senate, including passing the Jacob Weterling Act, the Pam Lyncher Act, the Amber Alert program, and last year's Adam Walsh Act.
But, this is a problem that keeps growing and growing, and we need bold action to address this problem. If we do not act, we will probably be back here naming a new bill after another unfortunate child victim.
The bottom line is that the Internet has facilitated an exploding, multi-billion dollar market for child pornography, with 20,000 new images posted every week. This is a market that can only be supplied by the continued sexual assault and exploitation of more children and the research shows that victims are getting younger and they are being exposed to more sadistic abuse.
The FBI and the Department of Justice have testified before Congress that there are hundreds of thousands of people trafficking child pornography in this country and millions around the world.
We are not making a dent in this problem.
Don't get me wrong, there are many Federal, State and local investigators and prosecutors out there working tirelessly, but need to do much more.
We have not dedicated enough Federal agents to this problem and we have not provided enough support for States and local government.
The most troubling aspect, one that led to the drafting of this legislation is that we know where many of these people are and if we set the right priorities we can go pick them up.
Let me repeat that, we have new investigative techniques that will allow us to identify many of the people who are trafficking child pornography and we can go pick them up.
A very conservative estimate is that there are more than 400,000 people who we know who are trafficking child pornography on the Internet in the U.S. right now.
We can, with minimal effort, take these people down. But, due to lack of resources we are investigating less than 2 percent of these cases. Again, we are only investigating 2 percent of the known child pornography traffickers.
We also know that when law enforcement agents do investigate these cases, there is a local abused child in 30 percent off the cases. And, research shows that at least 55 percent of child pornography possessors have previously sexually assaulted children or attempted to do so. So, by picking up these known offenders, we are saving children.
Finally, it is important to note that every time one of these images or videos are shared, the child is victimized again and again.
So, to help ensure that law enforcement has the capacity to get the job done, I am introducing the Combating Child Exploitation Act of 2007.
First, this legislation will establish a Special Counsel in the Deputy Attorney General's Office to coordinate all activities related to preventing child exploitation. This will be one person who will be held accountable for results.
We will also congressionally require that there be at least one Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, CAC, in each State. This program is poised to become the backbone for our investigative efforts here in the U.S. by forming a network of highly trained investigators to focus exclusively on combating child exploitation. Under this bill, we will triple the funding for the ICAC program to help with hiring, training, and investigative resources to form this Nation-wide network.
In addition, we will authorize over 250 new Federal agents to focus exclusively on this problem, including 125 new FBI agents, which will double the number of agents under the Innocent Images Program at the FBI, 95 new agents for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, ICE, and 31 new postal inspectors.
This bill will help us form a coordinated effort to go after child predators. As stated previously, we know where many of these people are and we need to go get them.
In my view, it is inexcusable that we are not putting the resources toward tracking the ones down who we know about and doing much more to find the others who are lurking in the shadows.
This legislation will get us on the right track and I urge my colleagues to support this effort.
July 21, 2008
WA- Six-Year Follow-Up of 135 Released Sex Offenders Recommended for Commitment Under Washington’s Sexually Violent Predator Law
7-20-2008 Washington:
Six-Year Follow-Up of 135 Released Sex Offenders Recommended for Commitment Under Washington’s Sexually Violent Predator Law, Where No Petition Was Filed
Washington’s Sexually Violent Predator (SVP) statute permits the involuntary commitment of persons found by a jury to meet the statutory definition of a sexually violent predator. In a previous report, the Institute examined the recidivism of 89 released sex offenders referred by the Department of Corrections (DOC) as meeting the filing standards for civil commitment petitions, but for whom no petitions were filed.
This report extends the results of the previous study by adding 46 individuals who were referred by sources other than the DOC. ..Source.. by Cheryl Milloy
July 11, 2008
Privacy at Risk: The New Government Surveillance and the Fourth Amendment
2007
Abstract:
This book focuses on a significant new development in the government's surveillance efforts: the use of sophisticated technology to observe our daily activities (physical surveillance) and to peruse records of those activities (transaction surveillance). Wiretapping, bugging, and other forms of communications surveillance are clearly regulated by the Constitution, more specifically the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures.
In contrast, many types of physical and transaction surveillance are not formally recognized as searches that implicate the Fourth Amendment. As a result, much of this surveillance, although a search in effect, is not seriously regulated by law. This book is meant to prod legislatures and courts into more meaningful constraints on physical and transaction surveillance.
The principal means of doing so is through a rejuvenation of the Fourth Amendment's reasonableness inquiry, which requires justification proportionate to the intrusion visited by the government's action and ex ante review of the contemplated intrusion in non-emergency situations.
The book makes use of Fourth Amendment doctrine, sociological literature on the effects of surveillance and original empirical research to make its case. The link is to an excerpt from Chapter One which provides a more detailed description of the book's chapters. ..The Rest of the Paper.. by CHRISTOPHER SLOBOGIN, University of Florida - Levin College of Law
July 3, 2008
The Only Thing We Have to Fear...
7-3-2008 National:
The other day, I had a discussion of the politics of fear with Doug Thomas (USC), Carrie James (Harvard), and Larry Johnson (The New Media Consortium) as part of a gathering of MacArthur foundation grantees working on their Youth and Digital Learning Initiative. I was pretty happy with some of the ideas that emerged from that conversation so I thought I would share them with my readers.
Let's start with an example of how the politics of fear works. Consider, for example, the case of a recently proposed piece of legislation here in Massachusetts which would regulate violent video games as in effect a form of pornography. Here's how GamePolitics describes the legislation:
The proposed legislation, which does not yet have a primary sponsor, would block underage buyers from purchasing any game which:
* depicts violence in a manner patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community, so as to appeal predominantly to the morbid interest in violence of minors
* is patently contrary to prevailing standards of adults in the county where the offense was committed as to suitable material for such minors
* and lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value for minors.
The bill in question was written by Jack Thompson, who has sought similarly legislation around the country and has consistently been overturned by court decisions. Interestingly enough, the most outspoken backer of this law is none other than Boston Mayor Thomas Menino -- who is, incidentally, the same local politician who is responsible for the city's gross over-reaction to the Aqua Hunger Force signs the other week. I find myself pondering why we can't just tell people that Menino is someone who has demonstrated already that he is so out of touch with popular culture that he can't tell the difference between a cartoon character and a bomb and that he is someone who is afraid of his own shadow (or more accurately, who understands the political advantages to be gained by fostering a climate of fear). Given the current logic of the way our fear-based politics functions, we might expect them to ban cartoon characters on airplanes and have our children line up to be searched for coloring books and stuffed toys before they can pass through security!
Or consider the case of the late and unlamented Deleting Online Predators Act which would have prohibited school and public libraries which receive federal funds from allowing patrons to access social network and blogging software. Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) has introduced a new piece of legislation, the so-called Protecting Children in the 21st Century act, which would incorporate and expand upon many of the more noxious features of the original DOPA. I am sure we will be talking about this more in the months ahead. It would seem to one of the clear hallmarks of the politics of fear is the use of the term, "protection" or "protecting" in the name of the legislation.
In both cases, these bills, which are based on a fundamentally wrong-headed understanding of the issues they are designed to address, attracted or are likely to attract significant levels of bipartisan support. Indeed, in a highly partisan political climate, these kind of bills may be the only pieces of legislation which pass with little or no debate and with overwhelming support.
Why? Well, consider what it would mean to be opposed to a bill which promised to protect young people from online predators. And indeed, even if you decided to oppose such a bill, you either would have to deny that the problem existed (which would leave you to be labeled as hopelessly out of touch with the darker side of reality since these bills usually feed on at least some high profile tragedies or some sensationalized news report) or you would have to suggest the problem is not as bad as has been claimed (in which case your acknowledgment of the problem will be used as evidence of how wide spread the concern being addressed really is.) So, the politics of fear works because the costs of opposing the child protection acts are simply too high, especially in an era where political leaders are permanently raising money and campaigning for re-election.
The politics of fear also works because the benefits of a fear-based politics are so high. Basically, such legislation enjoys bipartisan support because it allows culturally conservative Republicans to appeal to their base and liberal Democrats to show their independence from theirs. Why do Joseph Lieberman and Hillary Clinton line up behind pretty much any piece of legislation which would restrict free expression in the name of protecting young people? Because it allows them to adopt positions which make them see "moderate" and appeal to so-called "security moms" without really crossing any core constituency. There would be costs in, say, opposing abortion but there is no real cost in trying to regulate youth access to digital technology.
The politics of fear works because it serves the interest of the news media in two ways: First, the mass media are feeling the erosion of their consumer base to digital media. If they can convince parents that it is unsafe to allow their sons and daughters to go online or play video games, they may slow the erosion. They have little to fear from alienating those young viewers further since they are already defecting in great numbers and essentially mass media news speaks to an older consumer base. Second, fear-based coverage leaves us glued to the set, seeking out more information. We are doomed to go from one crisis to another, to have Anna Nicole Smith's death and custody battle push Barack Obama's announcement for the presidency off the lead slot on CNN, because fear and outrage trumps hope everytime.
Justine Cassell and I have been talking some recently about the gender dimensions of this fear based politics. Specifically, the ways that there have been recurring efforts throughout modern history to capitalized on the perceived sexual threat young women face from any new media and on the perceived threat of violence and aggression which surround young men's relations to any emerging technology. In other words, we are consistently being taught to fear for our daughters and to be afraid of our sons. This fear based politics plays an important role in normalizing and regulating gender relations.
So what do we do about it?
We need to stigmatize the politics of fear. We need to call it what it is -- not protection but fear mongering. We need to construct a counter-narrative in which fear-based politics is itself a threat to our families because it locks our young people out of access to knowledge, skills, and experience which they need to learn and grow and in many cases, because it prevents those kids who are most at risk from access to information that they need to pursue good jobs and educational opportunities in the future. Such bills are dangerous both because they undercut core constitutional rights and because they distract us from locating real solutions to the "problems" that they are allegedly designed to combat. DOPA and its sequel will do nothing about actual child molestation other than to leave children even more vulnerable because they have to access these social networking sites outside of schools and public libraries. The legislation that goes after violent video games will do nothing to address the actual causes of violence in the lives of American teens.
Right now, we are tending to go after the politics of fear with facts. Indeed, we do need facts, not to mention a more reasoned perspective (and that is going to be one of the real values of the work the MacArthur foundation is doing in the area of youth and digital learning) but as a range of recent progressive writers (George Lakov, Steve Duncombe, Tom Frank) have suggested, we also need to think about how we frame the issues, the kinds of stories we deploy to explain those facts, the kind of language we use to define the debate, and the kinds of fantasies we mobilize on the part of our supporters.
We need to define the issues in ways that appeal across party lines. The politics of fear is not an ideological issue -- at least not one which can be defined along Liberal/Conservative lines. Just as many "Liberal" Democrats line up to support attempts to regulate free expression and association or restrict privacy in the name of combating fear, there are libertarians on both the left and the right who would oppose those regulatory efforts and who would be willing to stand up against the moral blackmail which underlies them. In a context where some Liberal Democrats back such legislation, any campaign which assumes conservatives are the bad guys and progressives the righteous ones is doomed to fail, simply fracturing the Left without mobilizing potential supporters on the right.
We need to be able to translate our insights and information, our alternative perspective, into concrete advice which can help parents and teachers to address the concerns that are currently being addressed only by those who are advancing the moral panic. Right now, most writing about media for parents starts from assumption that media is a social problem and that the best form of parenting is to limit if not prohibit outright any and all access to media. We need to develop alternative approaches to parenting that translate our understanding of the value of digital media for children and youth into specific principles and actions which allow parents to maximize benefits and minimize risks and which address the kinds of fears that lead them open to regulatory solutions.
Might we see this anti-fear politics as something like the Take Back the Night movement on American college campuses? Yes and No. In some ways, Take Back the Night is an empowerment movement: participants refuse to live in fear; they seek to reclaim the streets by collectively confronting the risks and by learning skills that might allow them to feel greater control over their own situation. In some ways, the Take Back the Night movement depends on the cultivation of fear -- creating a sense of victimization which can fuel the protest in the first place. We need to learn the right lessons here.
A key element of the campaign against fear would be the need to create a space where young people could speak about their own experiences with digital media and be taken seriously on their own terms. This is going to be hard to pull off because even well meaning groups have a tendency to patronize or suppress aspects of youth expression. In Convergence Culture, I raised the question of whether free speech advocates in the Muggles for Harry Potter campaign may have promoted the right of young people to read J.K. Rowling's books at the expense of forcing them to recant their fantasy lives. Young person after young person posted messages explaining that they knew that the world of Hogwarts was purely fantasy and that it had no meaningful connection to their everyday lives. Something similar happens when gamers try to defend their relationship to violent video games: they end up arguing that Grand Theft Auto is "only a game" and that it doesn't have any influence on their everyday lives. Surely, there needs to be a space for meaningful fantasy in our discourse about the right of people to participate in their culture.
One of the ways that a politics of fear works is by convincing us that we have to act because everyone is afraid. Yet, many of us are not quite as frightened as the political leaders want us to believe. Perhaps one way forward would be to produce a fear index that functioned more or less in the opposite way that the terror index currently works. The terror index amplifies the perception of risk in order to justify government regulation. A fear index might demonstrate that there is less fear in our culture and thus allow us to rally behind the idea of less government regulation over our lives.
At the end of the day, we need to convince more Americans that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. ..News Source.. by Henry Jenkins
May 29, 2008
Costs of Incarceration and Supervised Release (Federal)
2007
In fiscal year 2007, it cost $24,922 to keep someone incarcerated in a Federal Bureau of Prisons facility for 12 months, and $22,871 to keep an inmate incarcerated in a community correction center.
For the same 12-month period ending September 30, 2007, it cost $3,621.64 for a federal offender to be supervised by probation officers.
Those figures translate in daily costs of $68.28 for a Bureau of Prisons facility, $62.66 for a community correction center, and $9.92 for supervised release.
For criminal defendants who had not yet been tried, the daily cost of pretrial detention services was $64.40 and the cost of supervision by pretrial services officers was $5.85.
Cost calculations were made by the Bureau of Prisons, the Department of Justice's Office of Federal Detention Trustee, and the Administrative Office of the United States Courts. ..Source.. US Courts
The Reintegration of Sex Offenders: Barriers and Opportunities for Employment
February 2007:
Abstract:
The process of reintegration of offenders after release from prison, or during a community sentence, is a key aim of criminal justice policy. This article provides details from recent research that investigated the barriers and opportunities to employment for sex offenders. The authors describe the barriers that are faced by sex offenders and the anxieties that employers experience when employing sex offenders. The authors conclude that the approach taken by the State is less than reintegrative and serves to increase the barriers and reduce the opportunities for employment for sex offenders. ..Full Paper.. by KEVIN BROWN, University of Manchester - School of Law; JONATHAN W. SPENCER, University of Manchester - School of Social Sciences; JO DEAKIN, University of Manchester - School of Social Sciences
May 20, 2008
Non-coital sexual activities among adolescents
December 2007
Abstract
Purpose. While prior research has demonstrated that many adolescents engage in non-coital sexual behavior, extant peer-reviewed studies have not used nationally representative data or multivariate methods to examine these behaviors. We used data from Cycle 6 of National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) to explore factors related to oral and anal sex among adolescents.
Methods. Data come from 2,271 females and males aged 15-19 in 2002. Computer-assisted self-administered interviews were used to collect sensitive information, including whether respondents had ever engaged in vaginal, oral or anal sex. We used t-tests and multivariate logistic regression to test for differences and identify independent characteristics associated with experience with oral or anal sex.
Results. 54% of adolescent females and 55% of adolescent males have ever had oral sex, and one in 10 has ever had anal sex. Both oral sex and anal sex were much more common among adolescents who had initiated vaginal sex as compared to virgins. The initiations of vaginal and oral sex appear to occur closely together; by 6 months after first vaginal intercourse, 82% of adolescents also engaged in oral sex. The strongest predictor of anal sex involvement was time since initiation of vaginal sex and the likelihood of anal sex increased with greater time since first vaginal intercourse. White and higher SES teens were more likely than their peers to have ever had oral or anal sex.
Conclusions. Health professionals and sexual health educators should address non-coital sexual behaviors and STI risk, understanding that non-coital behavior commonly co-occur with coital behaviors. ..more..
by Laura Duberstein Lindberg, Ph.D., Senior Research Associate, Guttmacher Institute.; and, Rachel Jones, Ph.D., Senior Research Associate, Guttmacher Institute.; and John S. Santelli, M.D., Professor and Chair, Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health, Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. Senior Fellow, Guttmacher Institute.
April 5, 2008
FL- Teens prosecuted for racy photos
2-9-2007 Florida:
What: Teenagers taking risque photos of themselves are prosecuted for violating child pornography laws.
When: Florida state appeals court rules on January 19.
Outcome: A 2-1 majority upholds conviction on grounds the girl produced a photograph featuring the sexual conduct of a child.
What happened, according to court documents:
Combine unsupervised teenagers, digital cameras and e-mail, and, given sufficient time, you'll end up with risque photographs on a computer somewhere.
There's a problem with that: Technically, those images constitute child pornography. That's what 16-year-old Amber and 17-year-old Jeremy, her boyfriend, both residents of the Tallahassee, Fla., area, learned firsthand. (Court documents include only their initials, A.H. and J.G.W., so we're using these pseudonyms to make this story a little easier to read.)
On March 25, 2004, Amber and Jeremy took digital photos of themselves naked and engaged in unspecified "sexual behavior." The two sent the photos from a computer at Amber's house to Jeremy's personal e-mail address. Neither teen showed the photographs to anyone else.
Court records don't say exactly what happened next--perhaps the parents wanted to end the relationship and raised the alarm--but somehow Florida police learned about the photos.
Amber and Jeremy were arrested. Each was charged with producing, directing or promoting a photograph featuring the sexual conduct of a child. Based on the contents of his e-mail account, Jeremy was charged with an extra count of possession of child pornography.
Some more background: Under a 1995 ruling in a case called B.B. v. State, the Florida Supreme Court said that a 16-year-old could not be found delinquent for having sex with another 16-year-old.
"The crux of the state's interest in an adult-minor situation is the prevention of exploitation of the minor by the adult," the majority said at the time. The court ruled that a Florida statute punishing sex between teens was "unconstitutional as applied to this 16-year-old as a basis for a delinquency proceeding."
The same applies to Amber and Jeremy. Even though he is a year older than her, he is still a minor in Florida.
In other words, under Florida law, Amber and Jeremy would be legally permitted to engage in carnal relations, but they're criminals if they document it.
Amber's attorney claimed that the right to privacy protected by the Florida Constitution shielded the teen from prosecution, an argument that a trial judge rejected. Amber pleaded no contest to the charges and was placed on probation, though she reserved her right to appeal her constitutional claim.
By a 2-1 vote, the appeals court didn't buy it. Judge James Wolf, a former prosecutor, wrote the majority opinion.
Wolf speculated that Amber and Jeremy could have ended up selling the photos to child pornographers ("one motive for revealing the photos is profit") or showing the images to their friends. He claimed that Amber had neither the "foresight or maturity" to make a reasonable estimation of the risks on her own. And he said that transferring the images from a digital camera to a PC created innumerable problems: "The two computers (can) be hacked."
Judge Philip Padovano dissented. He wrote that the law "was designed to protect children from abuse by others, but it was used in this case to punish a child for her own mistake. In my view, the application of this criminal statute to the conduct at issue violates the child's right to privacy under Article 1, Section 23 of the Florida Constitution."
Excerpt from Wolf's majority opinion:
As previously stated, the reasonable expectation that the material will ultimately be disseminated is by itself a compelling state interest for preventing the production of this material. In addition, the statute was intended to protect minors like appellant and her co-defendant from their own lack of judgment...
Appellant was simply too young to make an intelligent decision about engaging in sexual conduct and memorializing it. Mere production of these videos or pictures may also result in psychological trauma to the teenagers involved.
Further, if these pictures are ultimately released, future damage may be done to these minors' careers or personal lives. These children are not mature enough to make rational decisions concerning all the possible negative implications of producing these videos.
In addition, the two defendants placed the photos on a computer and then, using the Internet, transferred them to another computer. Not only can the two computers be hacked, but by transferring the photos using the Net, the photos may have been and perhaps still are accessible to the provider and/or other individuals. Computers also allow for long-term storage of information which may then be disseminated at some later date. The state has a compelling interest in seeing that material which will have such negative consequences is never produced.
Excerpt from Padovano's dissent:
If a minor cannot be criminally prosecuted for having sex with another minor, as the court held in B.B., it follows that a minor cannot be criminally prosecuted for taking a picture of herself having sex with another minor. Although I do not condone the child's conduct in this case, I cannot deny that it is private conduct. Because there is no evidence that the child intended to show the photographs to third parties, they are as private as the act they depict...
The majority concludes that the child in this case did not have a reasonable expectation that the photographs would remain private. To support this conclusion, the majority speculates about the many ways in which the photographs might have been revealed to others. The e-mail transmission might have been intercepted. The relationship might have ended badly. The boyfriend might have wanted to show the photo to someone else to brag about his sexual conquest. With all due respect, I think these arguments are beside the point. Certainly there are circumstances in which the photos might have been revealed unintentionally to third parties, but that would always be the case.
That the Internet is easily hacked, as the majority says, is not material. The issue is whether the child intended to keep the photos private, not whether it would be possible for someone to obtain the photos against her will and thereby to invade her privacy. The majority states that the child "placed the photos on a computer and then, using the Internet, transferred them to another computer," as if to suggest that she left them out carelessly for anyone to find. That is not what happened. She sent the photos to her boyfriend at his personal e-mail address, intending to share them only with him.
The method the child used to transmit the photos to her boyfriend carries some danger of disclosure, but so do others. If the child had taken a printed photograph and placed it in her purse, it might have been disclosed to third parties if her purse had been lost or stolen. If she had mailed it to her boyfriend in an envelope, it might have been revealed if the envelope had been delivered to the wrong address and mistakenly opened. As these examples illustrate, there is always a possibility that something a person intends to keep private will eventually be disclosed to others. But we cannot gauge the reasonableness of a person's expectation of privacy merely by speculating about the many ways in which it might be violated.
The critical point in this case is that the child intended to keep the photographs private. She did not attempt to exploit anyone or to embarrass anyone. I think her expectation of privacy in the photographs was reasonable. Certainly, an argument could be made that she was foolish to expect that, but the expectation of a 16-year-old cannot be measured by the collective wisdom of appellate judges who have no emotional connection to the event. Perhaps if the child had as much time to reflect on these events, she would have eventually concluded, as the majority did, that there were ways in which these photos might have been unintentionally disclosed. That does not make her expectation of privacy unreasonable. ..more.. by Declan McCullagh
March 16, 2008
Patty Wetterling: The harm in sex-offender laws
9-14-2007 Wisconsin:
ST. JOSEPH, Minn. -- My son Jacob was kidnapped on Oct. 22, 1989. Neither his brother nor his friend saw the man's face. He was masked, he had a gun and he ordered them to run to the woods. By the time they looked back, Jacob was gone and so was the man. Since that day, I have been on a journey to find him and to stop this from ever happening to another child, another family.
But I'm worried that we're focusing so much energy on naming and shaming convicted sex offenders that we're not doing as much as we should to protect our children from other real threats.
Many states make former offenders register for life, restrict where they can live, and make their details known to the public. And yet the evidence suggests these laws may do more harm than good.
Jacob's Law was the first federal attempt to prevent convicted sex offenders from repeating their crimes after release. It was the outcome of my unwanted education in sexual violence against children.
Soon after Jacob was taken, I learned that sexual motives are usually behind child kidnapping. That was a thought totally out of my realm of consciousness. Who would do that? Who would sexually harm a child? As the search for Jacob went on, I asked law enforcement, what do you need? An investigator told me: A ready list of potential suspects, a central database of offenders convicted of sexual violence against children.
The Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children Sex Offender Registration Act was part of the 1994 Crime Bill signed by President Bill Clinton. Our goal was to give law enforcement a tool to help build safer communities. Back in 1990, when we first recommended registering convicted sex offenders, we were met with resistance: "You can't do that. These people have rights!" How times have changed. Few people today are concerned about the rights of sex offenders. Most now complain our laws are not tough enough.
But they might be missing some basic facts. First, in most states "sex offender" covers anyone, including juveniles, convicted of any sexual offense, including consensual teenage sex, public urination and other non-violent crimes. Second, Jacob was the exception, not the rule: more than 90 percent of sexual violence is committed by someone the child knows. And third, most shocking to me, sex offenders are less likely to re-offend than commonly thought. A Department of Justice study suggested ex-offenders have a recidivism rate of 3 percent to 5 percent within the first three years after release.
Another study found that, after 15 years, three out of four do not re-offend.
Shortly before Jacob's Law was passed, Megan Kanka was kidnapped, raped and murdered. Her parents felt it wasn't enough for law enforcement to know where sex offenders were: they thought we should all know. Maybe, if they'd known that there was a convicted sex offender living next door, their child would be alive today. Megan's Law was created to let people know when a violent offender was released into their community, so they could talk to their children and perhaps save another child from sexual violence. But the law has been expanded so that now anyone with an Internet connection can download details about almost any offender, whether or not they pose a risk, and whether or not they live nearby.
Are these policies working? Are our "get tough on sex offenders" laws having the desired effect? Human Rights Watch has taken on the challenge of looking at sex offender policy to see what parts are working and what aren't.
This week it published a 143-page report, "No Easy Answers: Sex Offender Laws in the United States." The researchers examined whether we are building safer communities with these laws, and what issues policy-makers should consider. HRW found that many laws may not prevent sexual attacks on children, but do lead to harassment, ostracism and even violence against former offenders. That makes it nearly impossible to rehabilitate those people and reintegrate them safely into their communities -- and that may actually increase the risk that they'll repeat their crime.
We need to keep sight of the goal: no more victims. We need to be realistic. Not all sex offenders are the same. Not all sex offenses are the same. We need to ask tougher questions: What can we do to help those who have offended so that they will not do it again? What are the social factors contributing to sexual violence and how can we turn things around? None of us want our loved ones to be victims of sexual violence. None of us want to be the parent or sibling or child of a sex offender. But since the vast majority of sexual assaults are committed by someone known to the family, sexual violence becomes personal very quickly. It affects all of us.
We need better answers. We need to fund prevention programs that stop sexual violence before it happens. We need to look at what can help those released from prison to succeed so that they don't victimize again -- and that probably means housing and jobs and treatment and community support. Given that current laws are extremely popular, taking truly effective measures may exact a high political price. But that's surely not too much to pay to prevent the kidnap, rape or murder of another child. ..more.. Opinion by Patty Wetterling
March 9, 2008
Federal Prosecution of Child Sex Exploitation Offenders
December 2007 NCJ 219412
Abstract:
Presents Federal criminal case processing statistics on child sex offenses, including sex transportation, sexual abuse, and child pornography. The report includes data on case processing, such as the number of cases referred, prosecuted, and convicted. Defendant characteristics at initial hearing for the three types of offenses are provided. Data are also presented on changes in the number of defendants charged from 1994 to 2006.
Highlights include the following:
--A total of 2,039 suspects were prosecuted for Federal sex offenses in 2006, representing about 2.5% of the 83,148 suspects prosecuted in Federal courts.
--The main sex exploitation offense referred to U.S. attorneys shifted from sex abuse (73%) in 1994 to child pornography (69%) in 2006.
--Convicted sex offenders sentenced to prison increased from 81% in 1996 to 96% in 2006. ..Source DOJ..
February 20, 2008
GPS for state sex offenders gets split verdict
Does tracking system cut crime? Opinions differ
12-12-2007 Oregon:
The other day, Christopher Ervin wanted to check on a sex offender, a Seattle man who had preyed on two teens, and was homeless.
Normally, Ervin, a community corrections officer, would have made some calls and visits. But this time, he simply fired up his computer and looked for the green dot. It told him everything.
As it moved on a map, the dot told him that the offender had woken up around 5 a.m. and milled around downtown.
Most important, the dot told Ervin that the 23-year-old man was not at work, but had taken a bus to a skateboarding hangout and the Southcenter Mall.
"Part of his pattern is that he hangs out with his buddies, starts slacking off, stops working," said Ervin's supervisor, Theo Lewis.
Officers were concerned that the man, who had raped a teenage girl and had sexually groomed a troubled teenage boy, might have been hanging around young people again.
"He went to jail."
Outfitted with an ankle bracelet and a GPS tracker, the offender -- who declined to comment for the story -- is part of a booming national trend that has put thousands of sex offenders under the 24-hour, pinpoint-locating watch of satellite surveillance.
More than 40 states use the Global Positioning System to track offenders. At least 15 require some kind of lifetime monitoring. In California, voters passed a punitive law last year requiring all felony sex offenders -- about 4,000 people -- to wear a tracker for life.
"We have so much business that we can hardly keep up with manufacturing. We're exploding," said David Segal, vice president of software development for Florida-based Pro Tech Monitoring, the country's main provider of GPS correctional trackers.
In Washington, tracking was a largely unfunded, little-used program until September, when Gov. Chris Gregoire ordered immediate funding for it. She was prompted by the rape and killing of 12-year-old Tacoma girl Zina Linnik, allegedly by known sex offender Terapon Adhahn.
The program remains small, with 13 offenders as of last week. Most are watched retroactively. The 23-year-old offender is an exception, with an "active" device that sends data in real time.
As more states use GPS, some have found it to be a devil's bargain. Corrections officers praise the tool's helpfulness, but curse the immense amount of work it creates.
The technology appeases a fearful public, but is controversial on whether it truly reduces crime. Industry and corrections experts say it does, but researchers say little evidence supports that, because few studies exist.
Studies on electronic monitoring in general, which includes low-tech home detention, have not boded well, researchers say.
"Overall, we would say (electronic monitoring tools) are not effective at reducing recidivism," said Roxanne Lieb, executive director of the Washington State Institute of Public Policy.
But none of that has stopped the escalating number of offenders in the country forced to wear bracelets, estimated to be at least 10,000 to 15,000 on a given day.
With the surge has come struggle. In Florida, after lawmakers ordered trackers for sex offenders with convictions after 2005 and victims under 15, corrections officers buckled under the work.
Unlike Washington's mostly retroactive system, Florida's GPS devices send immediate alerts when an offender misses curfew, enters an exclusion zone such as a school, or commits other violations.
But with more than 1,100 offenders on trackers, officers were receiving so many alerts they had to hand over lesser breaches -- a lost signal or dead batteries -- to a private contractor.
"It does create a huge workload.... Somebody has to review all the location data and be on call," said Shawn Satterfield, chief of community-based programs for Florida's Department of Corrections.
In California, the new measure known as "Jessica's Law" has been mired in legal challenges and debates over funding and process. Of the 4,000 offenders required to carry a tracker, only roughly 2,000 have them, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Gregoire has said she wants tracking to expand to 150 sex offenders by 2009. Rep. Skip Priest, R-Federal Way, wants more.
He plans to introduce legislation to require GPS tracking of all offenders who are Level 3 or have failed to register, whose numbers he estimated at 2,800. Level 3 offenders are those with the highest risk of reoffending.
"I don't want to go to Zina Linnik's family and say there were ideas proven around the country that were available, but we failed to use," he said.
He questioned why the program is so small, given that Gregoire tapped $400,000 in emergency funds for it, and the usual daily cost per offender is only $10 for the equipment.
Anna Aylward, state Department of Corrections program administrator, said the program is small because initially only Level 3 offenders with convictions dating back to 2006 were eligible. That was a pool of 32 people.
State attorneys decided recently that convictions could date back as far as July 1, 2000, enlarging the pool to 200 offenders. Each will be scrutinized for compliance problems and risk factors, such as lack of housing.
Aylward said the program is so new that the department hasn't determined the total cost.
"We're still figuring how much time it takes to start, to hook them up," she said.
"We're really kind of shooting from the hip."
So far, the experience has been too short to assess. One offender cut off his bracelet, tossed it in some bushes and was quickly arrested. Another told his corrections officer he liked how the tracker eliminated him as a suspect in any nearby crimes.
Homeless offenders have been a challenge, with officers having to hunt down phone and electrical outlets. Most trackers need to be plugged in to recharge batteries and download data, usually once a night.
As tracking becomes more widespread, some people worry about a false sense of security, because most sexual-assault victims know the offender.
"When we think about child molesting, which is what the public is most worried about, it is taking advantage of relationships with kids -- through families, friends, neighborhoods, youth activities," said Lucy Berliner, director of the Harborview Center for Sexual Assault and Traumatic Stress.
"I don't think (GPS tracking) will have any impact on that."
Law-enforcement officials are the first to agree. "It's not a panacea. It won't prevent a crime," said Don Pierce, executive director of the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs.
"If I went into my front yard with GPS, I could be standing on the sidewalk, luring a victim to have a cookie."
But he believes GPS is useful in motivating offenders to behave and in detecting risk of recidivism.
"You start to slide into that behavior," Pierce said. "So instead of driving straight home, I drive by a school. The next day I drive slower. Then I park. If I'm not being tracked, nobody knows. But the first day I detour, it's going to know."
But he opposed any blanket tracking requirement, especially in crimes against relatives. "We would rather spend our resources counseling family members." ..more.. by VANESSA HO, P-I REPORTER
