Playing Doctor Aguse?

Here's a great article about how to 'deal' with kids playing doctor that doesn't involve calling the police. As parents lwe feel the need to protect our kids from sexual abuse, but we also need to understand what constitutes abuse. Please read it and let me know what you think.
http://sexualintelligence.wordpress.com/2010/08/30/“catching”-your-kid-playing-doctor/

More on the Bangor situation

Well the first meeting was held in Bangor on Tuesday. I spoke with a reporter from channel 7 news and she played one quote from me asking how children would be protected when most Former SOs would be at jobs during the day when children where at school or the playground and not there a night where the RFSOs would be at home sleeping. Plus I was able to correct the reporters misinformation of a 60% recidivism rate.  She used the the 3-5% rate found in most studies conducted by the US Department of Justice's own studies. So I think I had a least a small bit of influence with the one reporter.
Tonight I decided to see what I could find out about the woman who is pushing for this ordinance. Her name is Angela Hoy and she is a writer. She also has a blog here: http://vbac.angelahoy.com/. She is sadly misinformed and is pushing her hatred of RFSOs because two members of her family were molested. She would like to hear from people who have questions and read her blog. She can be written to at angela@writersweekly.com. I am planning on sending her an e-mail with correct information in it, especially the part about why anyone would oppose herordinance. So I encourage everyone who reads this to also write to her, nicely but firmly. There are further meetings on this proposal on August 10th at the next city council meeting. I also encourage you to write e-mails to the city couselors and to follow the e-mails with a letter.

Sex offender restrictions spur debate

Here's an important alert to everyone living in around and near Bangor. And to the rest of us because if one town passes residency restrictions then others will follow suit. In many states these kinds of reaatrictions have forced people to live under bridges andin tent cities on the outskirts of communities.In one midwestern state a homeless man froze to death because both local shelters were too near schools and the were forced to turn him away. The Bangor Homeless Shelter is across the street from a park, will this new ordinance cause a simular event? If you live close enough it would be a good idea to plan on attending the city planning meetings and to get up and speak up! I know it won'tbe comfortable but keeping silent doesn't work either. I have attended several local town meetings in my area, things can get heated. But someone needs to spoke the truth not just hear the hate and emotions. If anyone plans to speak and wants or needs help planing what to say ahead of time please contact me @ ladyfurebear@yahoo.com and I can pass along facts and staticistics and even help edit.

Sex offender restrictions spur debateBangor residents propose 750-foot housing boundary

7/1/10
21 comments
By Eric Russell
BDN Staff

BANGOR, Maine — State legislators passed a law last year that allows municipalities to adopt reasonable residency restrictions for registered sex offenders. Bangor resident Angela Hoy was amazed to learn recently — after a sex offender moved into her neighborhood — that her city didn’t already have restrictions in place.

Hoy recently asked a lawyer to draft a proposed ordinance that would restrict sex offenders in Bangor from living within 750 feet of a park, school or any other place where children are the primary users. Her proposal mirrors the exact limit that was spelled out by LD 385 last year.

Members of the Bangor City Council’s government operations committee are expected to discuss Hoy’s proposal at a meeting on July 13, but officials said the matter is much more complicated than simply imposing restrictions.

“It would be problematic in a number of ways,” said Dennis Marble, executive director of the Bangor Area Homeless Shelter. His facility on Main Street houses sex offenders from time to time and sits directly across the street from Davenport Park. “We’ve always tried to be thoughtful of who we accept, but my concern is that local unilateral actions have unintended consequences.”

Denise Lord, associate commissioner of the Maine Department of Corrections, said there are no data that suggest enforcing residency restrictions on sex offenders is successful.

“The research is clear that restrictions don’t improve public safety,” she said. “In fact, areas that have imposed restrictions have had negative impacts … like pushing offenders underground.”Hoy lives near a park off Newbury Street in Bangor and discovered recently that a sex offender lived in an apartment overlooking the park. As the mother of a 3-year-old, an 8-year-old and a teenager, she was alarmed.

“We thought it was illegal for sex offenders to live near parks, schools, and other places where children congregate,” she said. “I'm sure other parents in Bangor naively believe that as well.” Hoy’s proposal would permit offenders to live in their current residences if they happen to fall within the 750-foot barrier. There are currently 209 registered sex offenders living in Bangor, according to the state’s online sex offender registry.

There is no statewide law regarding where sex offenders can live, although some offenders can have restrictions as part of their conditions of release. Until LD 385 passed, municipalities were free to impose virtually any restrictions they wanted. Some did, although several others were rejected by courts for being too restrictive, including a 2,500-foot ordinance in Westbrook that was struck down.

The 750-foot limit that was agreed upon was a compromise from the state’s initial proposal that sought to prevent municipalities from adopting any restrictions.

“We were concerned about the growing number of inconsistent ordinances,” Lord said. “Each town was getting a little more restrictive than the next, so we thought a standardized statewide [criterion] was a good compromise.”

Kate Dufour with the Maine Municipal Association, which worked to ensure the compromise, agreed. “The initial proposal was a complete preemption of local authority,” she said. “It was [the state] saying we know best. This is an important issue for municipalities, and we did give up some home rule authority.”

Dufour emphasized that she understands that sex offenders have rights and shouldn’t be driven underground where they cannot access resources they need. Hoy said she was concerned about the high number of sex offenders living in Bangor, but officials said service centers always have more offenders because of the rental housing stock, jobs, transportation and other services such as counseling.

Shawn Yardley, Bangor’s director of health and community services, predicted that the residency restriction debate will be interesting among city councilors, but he didn’t offer a strong recommendation.

“The devil would be in the details,” said Yardley, who worked for the state Department of Health and Human Services for 17 years. “Certainly, I would want to look at categories of sex offenders, rather than to put them all on the same level. It should be a thoughtful process of balancing rights and making them workable, but it’s a tough one.”

Yardley said one could draw concentric 750-foot circles around Bangor’s parks, schools and other areas where children congregate and it probably wouldn’t leave many housing options.

City Council Chairman Richard Stone said he hasn’t thought that much about restrictions on sex offenders but would go into the discussion with an open mind. Hoy has a more personal investment in the issue. She has two immediate family members who were molested as children and said that is why she feels so strongly about protecting children.

“We are determined to fight this and to force the Bangor City Council to pass an ordinance restricting residency of sex offenders in Bangor,” she said. Lord said she understands the concerns of parents like Hoy but also said those concerns don’t always match up with reality.

“Despite what people think, recidivism rates [for sex offenders] are low and when they do reoffend, the victim is known to the perpetrator,” she said. “So if the public wants to take precautions, family members can and should do that. But it’s much easier to manage when you know where offenders are, rather than forcing them underground, which is what happens when restrictions are imposed.”

Marble agreed and pointed to the very public case in Florida recently where dozens of sex offenders were forced to live under a bridge because they had nowhere else to go.

“The cycle we’re in right now is one of fear and anger, and we’re looking for people to blame,” he said. “They are an easy target.”

Evidence that the Media is twisting stories

I recieved notice of this amzing fact from serveral people but Mary from Virginia had the most research and presented the most evidence of this. It is sad enough that a young girl was killed and raped but now the mother is on a vendeta to chase Former Sex Offenders out of her community by falsly claiming the man arrested for this crime was a Former Sex Offender. Now the media is going out and claiming he was one also. The other day on a 20/20 repost even people within our movement thought that he was a former offender after watching it. They did such a good job presenting falsehoods as fact that every one believed them. Only some asstute watchers questioned their facts and did the research and learned the truth. Many people are writing to the media outlets and letting them know we don't appreciate being lied to. Read on for the full story.....

Every day we search for news articles from across the U.S. To post in the Articles section of our web-site, http://WWW.rsolvirginia.org/articles.HTML

In the last few days of reading articles to post we've noticed the U.S. Media is now saying Somer Thompson's accused killer is a Sex Offender by either claiming he’s “convicted” or if the Sex Offenders hadn’t been  allowed to live in Somer’s neighborhood her murder could have been prevented.

 

CBS- http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20002679-504083.html

 

ABC- http://blogs.abcnews.com/pressroom/2010/04/abc-news-chris-cuomo-investigates-the-disapearance-and-murder-of-sevenyearold-somer-thompson-in-an-h.html

 

Jarred Harrell moved out of Somer’s neighborhood after she disappeared. At that point he was NOT a Registered Sex Offender or charged with a Sex Offense..

 

Then child porn was found on his computer and while investigating those charges authorities realized he was once a neighbor of Somer’s and he became a suspect in her murder.

 

So why did last nights viewers of ABC’s 20/20 News Program walk away believing Harrell is a Sex Offender? Because ABC and Somer’s mother lead you to believe that. Why?

 

Because it hypes the fear of Registered Sex Offenders and it gives Somer’s mother a platform to kick all of the RSO’s out of her town and into the next.

 

Here’s an article from when Harrell was first arrested, he was not a Sex Offender so 20/20’s story about Somer’s murder and the local Registered Sex Offenders is highly misleading and poor journalism.

 

Arrest in Girl’s Murder Highlights Sex Offender Myth, March 26, 2010:
http://news.discovery.com/human/arrest-in-girls-murder-highlights-sex-offender-myth.html

 

We are extremely disappointed in 20/20 and CBS for knowingly misleading their viewers and readers.
It’s the media's responsibility to deliver facts even when a distraught mother wants to twist those facts.

 

RSOL of Virginia

 

News From Great Britian

I came across the link to this story on Free Range Kids, a must read if you haven't found this blog yet. They titled their story with "What will they think of next?" I wonder when we will hear this of a scheme like as the newest best way to monitor people who come into contact with our children? They've taken it from a list of Former Offenders online to one where everyone can be checked. Potentially even reporting false or unfounded accusations as facts. Read on.....


Wednesday 3 March 2010 The paedophile panic: a product of elite hysteria

The government’s sex offenders disclosure scheme should remind us that it isn’t ‘the mob’ who are obsessed with paedos (not a misspelling but the way they spell it in the UK).
Tim Black
And so the British authorities’ sick obsession with child sex abuse continues.
After a year-long pilot in Warwickshire, Stockton-on-Tees and parts of Cambridgeshire, the UK Home Office’s sex offender disclosure scheme is set to go nationwide. What this means is that parents will be able to get information from the police about anyone who has access to their children. In short, they can check whether that person is a threat to their child – that is, whether they are a paeodophile. A kindly neighbour offering sweets, the guy who plays football with the kids at the local park, the woman at the nearby newsagents… it’s official: all can now be legitimately viewed as potential threats to YOUR children.
For deathly-looking home secretary Alan Johnson the rolling out of the sex offender disclosure scheme was akin to the launch of a new fleet of luxury, ocean-going ships: ‘The UK already has one of the most robust systems in the world for the management of sex offenders’, he announced yesterday, with barely concealed pride. ‘We’ve already seen that children are better protected and sex offenders more effectively managed because of this scheme, which is why it is rolling out nationwide.’
Yet despite the rhetorical appeal to ‘protection’ or ‘safety’, these kinds of measures do not reassure people. In fact, they do precisely the opposite: they encourage fear and foster suspicion. They suggest that if people aren’t worried about the lolly-pop man, or the neighbour offering to run the kids to school, they ought to be. To not fear, to not suspect other adults, is subtly transformed from being a recognition of commonality and basic human solidarity into an abrogation of parental responsibility.
Not that we should be surprised by the Home Office’s willingness to inculcate and institutionalise fear and suspicion. The paedophile panic, right from its emergence in its current form during the 1980s, was always an elite panic, a hysteria endorsed and exacerbated by – in no particular order – government officials, police officers, social workers, left-wing activists, children’s charities and both the broadsheet and tabloid press. The obsession with child sex abuse was not, as we are sometimes led to believe, a popular phenomenon: it did not arise in the depths of the social world, it trickled down from the top.
After all, as Brendan O’Neill wrote four years ago, it wasn’t the mob who, in the 1980s, rounded up adults in Cleveland, believing them to be practising ritual Satanic abuse of children. That was the act of social workers. And it wasn’t a paedo-suspecting mass who spent time churning out verbiage on the supposed existence of Satanic and witchcraft sects. That was the work of Marxism Today.
During the 1990s the same pattern of elite-sponsored fear and the subsequent issuing of false accusations was all too apparent. And again, it wasn’t local communities coming together to unmask the paedophiles at nearby children’s homes, such as Bryn Estyn in North Wales – it was an unholy alliance of purpose-seekers, from the police to left-leaning journalists. Dave Jones, then the manager of Southampton Football Club, was only the most famous casualty of these witch-hunts; the lives of many more innocent, well-intentioned care workers were also tainted with the nasty, grubby suspicions of officials and journalists.
However, these wrong-headed, pernicious pursuits of fantasy child sex abusers did nothing to dampen the ardour of the paedophile-obsessed. In the UK, we now have that unwieldy testament to elite suspicion, the Sex Offenders Register, a document that defies both natural justice, inasmuch as punishment is lifelong, and common sense, given the sheer range of offenders listed. And since 2006, any adult who works with children, anywhere from schools to youth clubs, now has to be vetted. Thanks to the Home Office, and the army of campaign groups such as the NSPCC, suspecting another adult of being a paedophile is not exceptional – it is routine.
The fact that even the popular face of the campaign behind the sex offender disclosure scheme, Sara Payne (the mother of Sarah Payne, the young girl killed in 2001 by a convicted paedophile), was chosen by the government as its official Victim Champion, illustrates the elite origins of this sorry fascination with child sex abuse. It must be galling for the Home Office, then, that despite the formalisation of suspicion and fear, despite the almost-weekly press releases by those scaremongers-in-chief at the NSPCC, so few people actually bothered to take advantage of the sex offender disclosure scheme during its trial. In fact, there were only 315 applications over a whole year, a figure so low that even the Home Office wondered whether the scheme was worth it.
The Home Office, campaign groups, charities, tabloids and broadsheets seem oblivious to the fact that their attempts to ‘protect children’ not only have a limited effect – they also corrode adult relationships. One does not just suspect the dodgy-looking fella at the park; one is encouraged to suspect neighbours and even friends. These measures undermine trust. Trusting another adult, whether the neighbour with the sweets or the guy at the park, is not something that can be guaranteed by an official intermediary, police or otherwise. It relies, rather, on assuming that other adults are like oneself and will behave likewise. And given that almost all of us are not interested in sexually abusing children, why should we constantly suspect others?
Tim Black is senior writer at spiked.

A Maine Conference?

The group Georgian's For Reform just held their first ever statewide conference. I find this idea intriquing and am now wondering if Maine can pull off something simular? I'd need a lot of help not only in organizing the event but in deciding who to invite to speak to us. Then there is finding a venue and getting the word out. If any of you have any ideas please let me know by e-mailing me at ladyfurebear@yahoo.com or by sending a letter to Citizen's for Change-Maine, P.O. Box 611, Bridgton, Maine 04009.
Below is Georgia's report on their event.....

Georgians For Reform

Education, Awareness, and Treatment

To all State organizers,

Over the past years I have been challenged by various State Organizers to accomplish various things from letter and email campaigns to conference attendance and listening to radio programs.

We at Georgians For Reform have participated in these various challenges in our effort to accomplish the unified goal.

Yesterday, we took an additional step.

Yesterday, 6 March 2010, Georgians For Reform held a 12 hour conference in the State Capital.  Our attendance was over 180.

Our speakers included a District Attorney who participated in writing the original legislation that created the registry in Georgia, a Defense Attorney who addressed the ex post facto aspects of the registry, a Lobbyist, lawyer, and sociologist who spoke to the wrong directions taken by the registry and thus its detrimental effects on those registered and society as a whole and its consequent ineffectiveness, Religious Leaders who spoke to the Challenge presented by the registry to the faith community, Prison Counselors and Prison Chaplains who spoke to the reality of the registry for those incarcerated and released, and Paul Shannon who established the national presence of RSOL. 

Every speaker, including the attorney who participated in the original legislation, told us the registry is failed policy and is punishment.

In addition to those presented above, CNN sent a reporter to chronicle the event.

To put close to 190 people, the majority of who are not on the registry, in the state of Georgia, leaves no room for anyone to say it cannot be done, that the onerous nature of the registry presents too many hurdles to such an event, must now explain how Georgians For Reform accomplished this signature event.

Now, Georgians For Reform issues its own challenge.

Georgians For Reform challenges every State Affiliate and every partner of RSOL to hold a conference with equal visibility in their state.  We have moved the ball, we need each and every state and partner to keep it rolling until we gain the momentum to defeat this failed policy and create a policy that makes communities safer, protects children, and recognizes the rights of people to heal and move forward in their life.

Kelly R Piercy

Georgians For Reform

http://www.gasorr.org

Open Letter to John Walsh

One of  Virginia's RSOL members sent this letter to John Walsh through his America's Most Wanted website. I found his words so meaningful and powerful that I had to share it with you all. Please repost this everywhere, make it so he cannot ignore our message! Thank you....

  Mr. Walsh,

Your efforts to promote AWA are clearly contrary to seeking justice. Consider this definition - “Justice consists not in being neutral between right and wrong, but in finding out the right and upholding it, wherever found, against the wrong.” – Theodore Roosevelt.  If you actually understood justice rather than vengeance, you would use the role in which you have been placed to demand changes to AWA that are based on public safety.  AWA and attitudes expressed by uninformed media have created sex offender registries and residence requirements that research proves are simply "failed by choice" legislation.  Why would you choose to fail?  Read Dr. Richard G. Wright's book, "Sex Offender Laws: Failed Policies, New Directions."  Will you spend the rest of your life seeking vengeance or seeking justice.  God has given you that choice.

These are words we all need to remember, God has given us a choice... to stand up and speak out or hide and hope AWA simply goes away

Important, A Must Read!

Friday, March 5, 2010

Study: Actuarials fail to predict sexually violent recidivism

In a new prospective study out of Austria, none of the actuarial instruments commonly used to predict sex offender recidivism were able to predict sexually violent recidivism among a group of sex offenders released from prison after treatment.

The interesting study, just published in the International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, was designed to validate German versions of commonly used actuarial tools, including the Static-99, RRASOR, SORAG, and SVR-20. It followed about 400 Austrian prisoners for an average of three years in the community.

The main problem obtaining significant results was that recidivism was so rare. Obviously, the less likely an event is to occur, the harder it is to accurately predict. Only seven offenders in the entire sample committed a new hands-on offense during the followup period, and most of those were extrafamilial child molesters. Recidivism base rates were especially low for rapists and incest offenders.

The results echoed findings in two other recent studies in which the actuarials failed to demonstrate good predictive validity for predicting sexually violent reoffending.

Most of the instruments did better when recidivism was defined more broadly, to include all sexual reconviction, even hands-off offenses such as voyeurism or exhibitionism that is not typically defined as sexually violent under civil commitment laws. Even including these lesser offenses, the overall base rate for all sexual recidivism among this sample was still quite low, 4.3% (12% among extrafamilial child molesters, 1.7% among rapists, and about 1% among incest offenders).

When extrafamilial child molesters -- the group most likely to reoffend -- were examined separately, all of the instruments except the RRASOR had some predictive utility, with the SVR-20 doing the best. Still, neither the Static-99 (the most widely used actuarial tool) nor the RRASOR could significantly predict sexually violent reoffenses even for that relatively higher-risk group.

"From the results of these studies and of the present study, the actuarial prediction of some reoffence categories in at least some offender subtypes is less accurate than generally assumed,” the authors concluded. "One major aim of most criminal justice systems is to calculate risk by predicting the probability of severe sexual crimes. This goal obviously is not yet achieved satisfactorily by actuarial risk assessment, because results are far from ideal, especially when time-at-risk periods are relatively short."

An important implication of this study is that evaluators need to consider offender subgroups separately, rather than lumping all types of sex offenders together. Recidivism varies tremendously by type of offender (e.g., rapists versus child molesters) and by how recidivism is defined, with the various instruments doing better at some types of predictions than others. Furthermore, so little outcome research exists on certain groups (such as hands-off offenders, juveniles, the intellectually disabled, and offenders with only adult male victims) that the actuarials may be inappropriate to use at all.

The study is:

Rettenberger, M., Matthes, A., Boer, D.P., & Eher, R. (2010). Prospective Actuarial Risk Assessment: A Comparison of Five Risk Assessment Instruments in Different Sexual Offender Subtypes. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 54 , 169-186.

Hat tip: Jeffrey Singer

FURTHER READING: For those of you interested in the actuarials, I also recommend "More prejudicial than probative?," a stastical critique by David J. Cooke, a forensic psychology professor in Glasgow who is an expert scholar and trainer on violence risk assessment. Cooke argues that the actuarials are compelling because they are simple to use by paraprofessionals and have a scientific veneer, but "the scientific basis for actuarial scales, as applied to individuals, may be more illusory than real." The article, in the journal of the Law Society of Scotland, is available online. It also includes useful references to other sources.

One Family's Story

I am in the process of collecting people's stories. My plan is to collect as many as I can and make up a booklet that can be used when communitcating with Lawmakers and others. The other day I was sent this story. These kinds of unintended consequences are the very reason I am fighting for change. We need laws that actually do something to protect kids like educational programs, therapy and support. If you want to contribute to my project please send an e-mail to me at ladyfurebear@yahoo.com. Thanks

My husband was 18 when he had consensual sex with a 17 year old at a campus party that was at his dorm. The 17 year old said that she went to the college, but in fact she was in highschool. While at the campus party there was booze and the two had some drinks and eventually had sex. The party got raided because, one it was in a dorm and involved several rooms, and two there was alcohol present. When the police showed up, they were searching for the person responsible for providing alcohol for minors. All ID's were being checked. While my husband and the female were sleeping in one of the rooms, the police showed up and asked for their ID's. When it was discovered that the female was 17 and that they were having drinks, the state picked up the case for having sex with a minor. She did not want to press charges because she admitted to drinking and having sex. But, since it was against the law the case was picked up by the state and my husband got convicted for five years probation, commuinty service and 5 years registration. After three years, they passed the new sex offender laws ( The Adam Walsh Act) and he was grandfathered onto the registry for life. It has been almost 15 years later and he is still paying for his crime. We have been married for 14 years and have three children. He is not allowed to have lunch with them unless they are moved to a secluded room and monitored by administration. In some states where we have moved to, they required community notification and had residency restriction laws. These Laws cause humiliation and others then pass judgments on him and us as his family. He has had to turn down jobs because of theresidency restriction laws and we have had to "settle" for neighborhoods that are not near any school or daycare. I do not have the priviledge of choosing where I want to live, so that we live in a great neighborhood or one that allows my kids to go to a good school. These laws violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights put forth by the United Nations. They don't differentiate betwwen dangerous and non-dagerous former sex offenders. We deserve to be allowed the chance to provide the best lifestlye we can, like any other family is able to do. It is time to reform these laws so that it only reflects those who are dangerous, not to the many who have no earthly desire to rape or molest a child. I can assure you my husband is not looking for his next victim, he just wants to get on with his life with his family at his side. 

Why are People So Terrorized?

I was reading a short article tonight about a man who was accused of molesting a child. There weren't many details but in the comment section afterwards there were many hateful comments. This is not a new thing I do understand that but I got wondering why people responded this way? This is the link to the article and the responses  http://www.wcsh6.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=114928. Today the mere accusation of any sex offense heaps scorn and fury onto the person proported to have committed it. There was a time when you were innocent until PROVEN guilty. But today there exsists such terror and hysteria that anyone accused is got to be guilty even if they do "prove" they aren't. People will forever hold onto the accusation and always wonder if they really were guilty after all "Where there's smoke...." Forget that many are falsely accused by someone with an agenda, like an ex who wants custody or someone else who for whatever reason you got angry with you. If it wasn't such a serious thing I would feel sorry for the responders but it raises a spector of vigilantes. I wish the media would think before they issue statements about people caught in these deliemas. There are crazy people out there who take these situations as a license to kill. Like Herbert Jones who showed up with a gun last May to hunt down a man who served time for a sex offense. Luckily he was stopped before anyone got hurt by an alert school officer. Jones told reporters he had seen a documentary on "child molestors" and decided it was his life's mission to kill them. The question I ask is are we safer in knowing who has done time for sex offenses or even who is accused of them? If Jones had not been stopped before going in the AA meeting do you think he would have left without killing someone? The man he was hunting for was in jail for a probation violation and was not at the meeting. The orginal registry was intended as a tool for Law Enforcement only. As a way to rule out those who had sex offenses when a child went missing. I believe that until the registry is rolled back to it's orginal intent then all of us are less safe because of the crazy people out there who feel that they are the judge and jury, once that happens there will be less instances of this hatard and lunch mob mentality that this article and it's responses promote.

Interesting Constitutional Question Raised by Crimal Justice Committe

These past few weeks I have attended several work sessions and listened to many others. The Justice Committee has been working on trying to bring Maine SORNA Registry into compliance with Maine's Constitution. In a recent case Maine's Supreme Court ruled that certain aspects of the SORNA Registry are unconstitutional, That it is in fact not a civil scheme but one that is punitive in nature and that people convicted between 1992 & 1999, who had to register as part of their sentence who then had time added to their registration requirements; when the laws were later changed, were in fact having their sentence added to. This is called ex post facto which means after the fact which both the State and our Nation's Constitution have said cannot be done to anyone for any reason. Also the Court ruled that the every 90 days in person registration at the local police station is punitive and must be changed. Janet Mills Maine's Attorney General gave the committee several options for dealing the these issues. The simplist one would be what they called a rolling registry which would mean that each person would have to comply with the laws in place at the time the offense was committed. Admittedly a logistical nightmare for the state but simplest and fairest solution of all. Bit it also would mean that many people would simply no longer have to register. Instead,what has evolved during their discussions with various experts is they plan expand the waiver program they implimented last year to include those from 1992 to 1999, previously the only people who could take advantage of this were people convicted between 1982 to 1992, those who had the registry imposed on them when they changed the laws in 2005 and made them retroactive to include people all the way back to 1082. This is a simple plan that only allows people who quailify to apply and it is either granted or denied with no room to apeal the decision. They would then add a second step that is more involved, you would get a hearing in front of a judge and could present evidence showing that you are no longer a risk to society. At this stage they are debating the wording and what would be exceptible to show your risk level. This will they hope get them off the hook with the Court and keep the most people on the registry. Never mind the fact that the people we are talking about have served their time and been living in society trying to live an offense free life for 10 to 20 years.
The thing that has come up that bothers me the most is they have decided to exclude anyone who has an out of state conviction. In other words if you are a current resident of Maine no matter how long you have lived here you could not take advantage of either oppurtunity they are considering. Why is this? How can they have two different classes of people? Does the State's Constitution only apply to people who committed their offense here in Maine but not to those who made a mistake outside of Maine but is now a resident? Well I think I can answer why they are trying to do this whether or not it is Constitutional or not. From the very first work session the state was made " We don't want Maine to become a "HAVEN STATE". They are fearful that if word gets out that Maine has easier registry requirements that hoards of former offenders will flock to Maine looking to get off the registry. If they are so fearful of this happeneing why not place some kind of residence rerequirement. Such as former offenders must live in Maine for a certain length of time, for instance say after living here for at least 5 years and if you are eligable according to all other requirements before you could apply. Instead they are trying to interpet the Constituion two different ways.
I wonder how many people are even concerned with this or are even bothered in any way? Does anyone realize that one the Constitution can be twisted to suit different agendas that their rights are in danger as well. There is a reason the statue outside courts are shown as blind, it is that justice should be blind it must apply to those we dislike as well as those we like, or we all stand to lose in the long run. What will it take to get people to notice? Once we have lost our rights it is too late to get them back again.

Website Debute

I am pleased to announce that we now have a website. Please note it is still under construction. Check back often to watch us grow. www.http://mecfc.org

Schedule for the Upcoming Week

WEEKLY SCHEDULE Criminal Justice & Public Safety Committee Week of January 25th, 2010

Monday: 25th 10:00am PH L.D. 1703 Resolve, To Implement the Recommendations of the Juvenile Justice Task Force L.D. 1700 An Act Concerning Statewide Communications Interoperability 1:00pm WS L.D. 1522 An Act To Streamline the Renewal Process for a Permit To Carry a Firearm L.D. 1497 An Act To Amend the Law Pertaining to Smoke Detectors and Carbon Monoxide Detectors L.D. 1590 An Act To Update and Clarify Polygraph Examiner and Private Investigator Licensing Laws Administered by the Department of Public Safety L.D. 1610 An Act To Establish the Silver Alert Program

Tuesday: 26th House/Senate 10:00 AM 1:00 p.m. WS L.D. 568 An Act To Amend the Sex Offender Registration Laws (SORNA)

Wednesday: 27th House/Senate 10:00 am 1:00 p.m. WS SBOC report and budget discussion WS re MEMA, DPS and MEMA Supp. Budgets

Thursday: 28th House/Senate 10:00 am 1:00 p.m. WS L.D. 568 An Act To Amend the Sex Offender Registration Laws (SORNA)

Friday: 29th 10:00 a.m. WS L.D. 1583 An Act To Improve the Delivery of Community Corrections Services L.D. 1588 An Act To Change the Penalties for Writing Bad Checks L.D. 1609 An Act To Expand the Use of Ignition Interlock Devices L.D. 1612 An Act To Amend the Laws Regarding the Unlawful Use of License or Identification Card L.D. 1576 An Act To Improve the Ability of the Commissioner of Corrections To Respond in an Emergency L.D. 1700 An Act Concerning Statewide Communications Interoperability L.D. 1531 An Act To Update Laws Regulating the Maine Emergency Management Agency 2:30 p.m. Report back to AFA re MEMA, DPS and MEMA Supp. Budgets (Room 228 SH)

Note that the sessions we are concerned with are on Tuesday and Thursday @ 1pm. It is so important for us to show up at everyone of these public sessions. I will be there as oten as I can.

Good News Concerning Upcoming Legistative Bills

Well I meant to post this a couple of weeks ago. The review committee has rejected all 5 of the bills that were introduced for this session. There is some rumblings that there maybe a committee formed that is going to review all bills that weren't accepted, so we still may have to fight one or more bills this session. And we also need to keep an eye out for emergency bills being introduced that concern changes to Sex Offender laws. But for now things seem to be quiet.

Upcoming Bills effecting Maine RFSOs

Ok all this is what we are facing so far during the next Legislative Session that starts in January. Can anyone tell me what constitutes a Class D sex offense here in Maine? (see LR: 2383) Three of the proposed bills deal with changing the 750 foot residency restriction limit passed last session. Notice the first two would add Day Care Facilities to the places limiting where you can live as an RFSO . And the last one who is going to vote against little old ladies being raped in the nursing home? But my thought is why are they trying to add a new category, when I am pretty sure these are already sex offenses. It will be interesting to see the full bills and how they are worded.

Bills Being Requested as of yesterday.
LR: 2189: An act to Limit the Distance from a Day Care Facility within Which a Registered Sex Offender May Reside

LR: 2142: An Act to Increase the Maximum Distance from a School and a Day Care Center That May Be Set by Municipal Ordinance beyond Which a Sex Offender May Reside

LR: 2180: An Act To Provide to Certain Municipalities a Waiver of the Requirement To Adopt a Comprehensive Plan and Allow Those Municipalities To Enforce Their Ordinances

LR: 2383: An Act To Provide Full Accountability for Convicted Class D Sex Offenders

LR: 2105: An Act To Require Persons Who Commit Sex Offenses Against Dependent or Incapacitated Adults To Register under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act of 1999

Citizens for Change-Maine
Po Box 611
Bridgton, ME 04009

State Coordinator
Maine Citizens For Change
http://mecfc.blogspot.com

OK Will Force Women Who Get Abortions to Be On Internet Registry!

Too Much Information, Not Enough Common Sense

Link

A new Oklahoma law will require the details of every abortion to be posted on a public website.
Mothers -- or would-be mothers, rather -- will be prompted to answer 37 questions that range from her marital status and race to how many times she's ever been pregnant. One question asks for the woman's reason to abort, offering "relationship problems" as a possible check-off box, and it's difficult to ignore the judgmental and disapproving tone.

The website, which will cost $200,000 per year to implement, is intended to prevent or decrease the number of abortions in Oklahoma, but the bill has already raised considerable debate, attracting opposition from the Center For Reproductive Rights and former Oklahoma Representative Wanda Jo Stapleton, among others. This questionnaire not only forces doctors into an uncomfortable predicament -- failure to disclose this information would result in "criminal sanctions and loss of medical license," as Salon's Lynn Harris reports -- but, put simply, it shames women. "They're really just trying to frighten women out of having abortions," Kery Parks, director of external affairs at Planned Parenthood of Central Oklahoma, told Harris. Indeed, in a small town, probing details would easily identify the woman with a proverbial scarlet A.

Sensitivity issues aside, this possible law poses a question about the extent to which transparency works in today's information-saturated society, where the line between reasonable alerts and public shaming has increasingly blurred. The latter is nothing new, with historical roots in the mark of Cain, Jesus's crucifixion, Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and the Nazis' yellow stars during the Holocaust -- quite the range right there.

More contemporary examples include a theft defendant in Michigan who was ordered by
a judge to bear the words "Daddy, don't steal" on his arm, and convicted shoplifters who were sentenced to wear neon green t-shirt with the phrase "I'm a thief" while performing community service in Ohio.

Sometimes, transparency makes complete sense, like when a medical professor promotes a specific drug and simultaneously sits on the board of its distributor. Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig discusses transparency's merits in The New Republic:

In particular, management transparency, which is designed to make the performance of government agencies more measurable, will radically improve how government works. And making government data available for others to build upon has historically produced enormous value -- from weather data, which produces more than $800 billion in economic value to the United States, to GPS data, liberated originally by Ronald Reagan, which now allows cell phones to instantly report (among other essential facts) whether Peets or Starbucks is closer.

But Lessig's piece focuses more on the questionable uses of transparency, arguing that the good intentions do not always yield good results. Consider an editorial recently published in the New York Times about sex offender registries:

Meanwhile, an attempt to create a national registry -- part of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act passed in 2006 -- has faltered badly. States fretting about the costs and legal complications all missed the deadline to comply, which was then extended to July 2010. They worry that the registry would create an overwhelming monitoring burden and that it uses crude means of assessing the likelihood that offenders might repeat their crimes. The list of offenders is so large as to be almost useless. It is supposed to include not only rapists and kidnappers but also flashers and teenagers who had consensual sex.

The Offender Locator iPhone application is among Apple's top-selling features, but is it creating more harm than protection? In many ways, as these sorts of disclosures, literally available at our fingertips, spiral out of control, and everyone can find out everyone else's business in the virtual community created by the Internet, we seem to be returning to the dangerous age that Hawthrone described. Oklahoma legislators, take note: "Sunlight may well be a great disinfectant," Lessig says, "But as anyone who has ever waded through a swamp knows, it has other effects as well."

When Adults Fail Children—For Life

Brody's Scribbles... A Guest Editorial from Dr. Marty Klein

article link

When Adults Fail Children—For Life

By Dr. Marty Klein

The Iowa Supreme Court has affirmed the conviction of 18-year-old Jorge Canal, who complied with a 14-year-old friend’s request for a photo of his penis. The young man is now forced to register as a sex offender, meaning his chances of getting a college degree, job, or livable apartment are pretty much ended.

According to the court, the girl “generally hung out with teenagers older than herself;” was “only friends” with Canal; thought the picture was sent “only as a joke;” and was not “a means to excite any feelings.” Nevertheless, Canal was convicted of “knowingly disseminating obscene material to a minor.”

Canal was a foolish kid. But there are many ugly, stupid, irresponsible adults in this story. The girl’s mother, who checked her daughter’s e-mail and internet use, found the photo and forwarded it to her husband. The father then showed the photo to his friend, a police officer. The cop arranged to have Canal arrested. A prosecutor pursued the case, a judge tried it, a jury convicted. These adults failed Canal and his friend miserably. His ruined life will be a testament to their fear, insecurity, and hatred.

All these adults were supposedly attempting to protect Iowa’s young people–by punishing this kid who was fooling around with a pal.

So let’s spend a moment in the real world (which none of these adults seem to inhabit). Which is likely to hurt this 14-year-old girl more—seeing a 2-square-inch photo of a friend’s erect penis, or being the reason that this friend will spend time in jail and decades as a registered sex offender? Her life is now ruined (in addition, of course, to his), because of her criminally negligent parents, criminally ambitious prosecutor, and 12 jury members who failed to protect people who needed justice but received only wrath.

Americans should understand the horrors of our obscenity laws: a picture or word or object is obscene only after a jury decides that it is. And a jury can decide that ANY picture, word, or object is obscene. So no one can know for sure what’s obscene until it’s too late. This is exactly like laws against “hooliganism” in places like Russia that we rightly deride.

The judge in Canal’s case had rightly told the jury that “a depiction of a person’s genitals was not in and of itself obscene. In order for the depiction of a person’s genitals to be obscene, an average person applying contemporary community standards with respect to what is suitable material for minors must find the material is patently offensive, appeals to the prurient interest, and lacks serious literary, scientific, political, or artistic value.” At that point, the picture becomes illegal, and sharing it with someone else becomes a crime.

A jury of twelve Americans destroyed Jorge Canal’s life because they believed that a picture of his erect penis is “patently offensive.” I hope each of them never gets a good night’s sleep for the rest of their lives.

Dr. Marty Klein has been a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and Certified Sex Therapist for 29 years. As a clinician, he works each week with couples and individuals who have a variety of sexual and non-sexual difficulties--over 30,000 sessions since 1980.

Dr. Klein fights for the sexual rights of all Americans through his legal and courtroom work. He has been an expert witness, consultant, or invited defendant in many state and federal censorship, internet, and obscenity cases.

He has authored over 100 articles in publications such as Parents, New Woman, and Playboy, as well as San Francisco Medicine, the California Therapist, and the Journal of Homosexuality. He is also a former contributing editor to The New Physician, American Baby, and Modern Bride.

How many victims?

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0909/18/lkl.01.html

The other day Larry King was interviewing Dr. Phil and several other people about the Garrido case. And Dr Phil Said "The question on everybody's mind is Philip Garrido involved in some of the other disappearances that we've been talking about tonight. Dan Simon, you've been in Antioch. You've been all over this. Experts that follow these things with pedophiles and sexual offenders tell us that the average sexual offender can have anywhere 100 to 400 victims throughout their lifetime. So the fact that Philip Garrido has been tied to one that we know of and a violent rape before leaves an awful lot of concern that there are other victims out there. What does law enforcement think about this?" Dan Simon was a guest from law enforcement also on the show. Now I have heard others makes similar claims. That one reason we have to be so tough on Sex Offenders is they have so many victims. I haven't come across any studies that have supported this claim. Does anyone reading this know of a study that does support this claim of a high number of victims?
Let's take a minute and look at the numbers. There are over 650,000 registered former offenders. I've heard numbers putting the registry numbers at over 700,000. But for now lets just use the 650,000, figure, if each person on the registry each had 100 victims that would mean there are 65,000,000 victims of sexual abuse. And at 400 each that numbers come out to 260,000,000. Say the words two hundred and sixty MILLION potentional victims of sexual abuse! As of July 2006 the population of the United States is 304,059,724. If the numbers being quoted by the media and politicians are true then almost every person in the United States has been molested by someone already on the registry. And what about the new cases being reported? Over 86% of cases reported are new offenders, people not already on the sex offender registry. Lets look at another fact that is often touted out when you hear these 'experts' talking. Sexual abuse is very under reported. If so how do the numbers add up? On the ARC radio show, with Ron Book as the guest, one caller countered those very myths by saying "If at the rate the media is claiming, children are being victimized. We would be knee high deep in this country, in the bodies of dead & abused children."

Article mentions Shirley Turner whose son was slain by a vigilante

The mother of one of the people killed in the vigilante murders here in Maine in 2006 is profiled here. It's a sad and horrible story. Shirley Turner is one woman I would love to meet someday. I hope she knows that there are people who do care about what happened to her son and we are fighting to help make sure it never happens again.


From The Times

September 3, 2009

A sad lesson in ‘know thy neighbor’

Megan’s Law did not protect Jaycee Dugard. It helped create ghettos of abuse – and would do

Link here

Catherine Philp

Shirley Turner’s son was not a child rapist. He was a teenage boy madly in love with his girlfriend and three weeks before her 16th birthday they could wait no longer and made love in her bedroom while her parents were out at the movies. When her father returned and discovered them, he reported William to the police. He was charged with statutory rape, convicted, sent to jail and on his release his name was added to the sex offenders register under the version of Megan’s Law applied in his home state of Maine.

Shirley Turner’s stepfather, Brian, was a child rapist. He raped her at the age of 5. As Shirley approached her teens, her mother grew jealous of her husband’s apparent “preference” for her daughter. When she was 15, Brian took off, dragging Shirley with him and forcing her into marriage. William was her only child, fathered by her rapist.

When Stephen Marshall, a vigilante, started surfing Maine’s sex offenders register for child molesters to kill, it was William’s name he found, not Brian’s. Brian was never registered because Shirley never reported the crimes of the stepfather who became her husband. William is now dead, along with a more conventionally guilty paedophile in his town, both shot by Marshall. Brian is in jail, to Shirley’s relief, not for sex offences, but for attempting to murder her when she finally fled.

This was the tortured narrative I came across in Milo, northern Maine, in 2006, while looking for evidence of whether or not Megan’s Law worked. Shirley, a haunted shadow of a woman, wept warm tears on me as she told of the loss of her beloved son. She was one of the few people I connected with in this unsettling backwater where jaunty Stars and Stripes flying from clapboard houses disguised an underside of pure American Gothic.

BACKGROUND

I thought of Milo this week reading the latest soul-polluting details of the Jaycee Dugard case in Antioch, California, a place where the local Megan’s Law register recorded more than 100 registered sex offenders living in Phillip Garrido’s Zip code. In the small town of Milo, there were 42.

Jennifer Kale, the young mother who lived next door to Marshall’s second victim, had no idea she had a sex offender for a neighbour, despite having checked the register. She didn’t recognise the mug shot because she had never met him. “When I was little there was always some weird guy that your parents said to stay away from,” she said.

“You sort of knew. But it’s different now. Then you knew everyone but that’s all changed. You don’t know anyone anymore.”

Milo owes a number of its sex offenders to the introduction of Megan’s Law in neighbouring Massachusetts in 1999, three years before it was adopted in Maine. To escape registration there, many decamped north to Maine. Now Megan’s Law has been enacted across the United States, the migration has not stopped. Campaigners against the law argue it has driven many offenders underground or into hiding in plain sight; permanently transient to avoid registration or transplanting to neighbourhoods of the criminal underclasses where everyone minds their own business.

Garrido’s is such a neighbourhood, it is now emerging, where his neighbours built crack dens in their backyards and ignored the voices of children from the home of a man registered as a sex offender. Even there he was known as “Creepy Phil”. Megan’s Law did not exist when Jaycee was snatched but it would not have saved her. The Garridos travelled 150 miles to snatch her from her local bus stop. No internet search could have predicted that. Only one person ever reported the presence of children to the police, despite most neighbours admitting they knew that children lived there and that Garrido was on the register.

Every time a horrific child sex crime takes place in Britain, voices are raised in support of our own Megan’s Law. And yet there is no evidence that such a law has done anything to lower the level of child abuse. A 2008 federal-funded survey conducted in New Jersey, where Megan’s Law originated, concluded it had done nothing to deter the repeat offenders it is designed to target. It only made them easier to track down when they had reoffended.

Megan’s mother still defends the law named for her murdered daughter, saying she never intended it to deter offenders, only to “raise awareness”. But a register is a knee- jerk response to the cry of “something must be done,” and that done, we are all too happy to do nothing more. If a sex offender lives on our street, Megan’s Law gives us the means to hound them out to somewhere else — where they can prey on someone else’s kids.

If it corrals them into ghettos to escape us, so much the better. At least it keeps them off our street. Job done, there is no need for us to look out for the other children in our “community” or bother to check why someone else’s young girls are playing in the creepy man’s yard.

Meanwhile, most of the abuse goes on where it always has: in homes like Shirley Turner’s, where neighbours fear to tread. Megan’s Law satisfies our desire to do something, and fast. And it saves us from facing the awful truth that we don’t know who our neighbours are, and as long as they don’t bother us, most of us don’t care.

Catherine Philp is diplomatic correspondent of The Times

We have a mailing address now!

Today I set up CFC Maine's very own post office box. I can be reached by writing me at Citizen's For Change Maine or CFC ME, PO Box 611, Bridgton, Maine 04009. This means we can start our letter writing campaign and have a valid address to be reached at for those that do not have access to the internet. Thanks to those who gave so generously at our first meeting. Their donations allowed us to pay for the mailbox and we have purchased some stamps to get started. To anyone else who would like to assist us with the letter campaign donations of stamps would be greatly appreciated. Also I am looking for suggestions on how to write a letter, to be sent out to those on the registry and their families, that would gain their trust and that would motivate them to get involved. Has anyone else sent out letters in the past? What worked and what didn't? Looking forward to hearing from you all.