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.

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. 

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

CFC Maine mentioned in article

State law set to change city's sex offender ordinance

http://www.keepmecurrent.com/american_journal/news/article_e2946838-9e46-11de-8b21-001cc4c002e0.html
Please feel free to leave comments

Posted: Thursday, September 10, 2009 3:20 pm | Updated: 5:16 pm, Thu Sep 10, 2009.

Leslie Bridgers

Westbrook police Detective Dan Violette says there's a reason the number of sex offenders living and working in the city hasn't changed much in the past two years.

Since the City Council adopted one of the strictest ordinances in the state prohibiting registered sex offenders from living or working in most of the city, Violette has had to force people out of their new apartments and make them quit their jobs.

According to the detective, who said he spends about 25 percent of his work week keeping track of sex offenders in the city, about 37 registered sex offenders live in Westbrook and an additional 16 work there.

"The number hasn't fluctuated very much," Violette said.

But that could change when a new state law goes into effect Saturday, nullifying Westbrook's ordinance.

The City Council will vote Monday on whether to adopt the state's new maximum allowable restrictions on where sex offenders can live. If passed, the 2,500-foot buffer zones around all places children frequent will be replaced with 750-foot restricted areas just around schools. And that only covers residency. The state law says that towns and cities cannot restrict where sex offenders can work.

In a gesture showing their disapproval of the state law, Gorham town councilors last week refused to change the town's restrictive ordinance in order to comply. However, it's still in question what the town's police department will be able to enforce once the law goes into effect.

Though Violette said he'll still spend the same amount of time monitoring sex offenders in the city and notifying neighbors and employers of their whereabouts, the state law takes away some of his authority over sex offenders and a safeguard for Westbrook children.

"It's given me more tools to help make sure sex offenders were in compliance," he said about the old law.

DRAWN TO WESTBROOK

There are no demographics that encompass all sex offenders, Violette said, but because a lot of employers don't want to hire registered sex offenders, many, regardless of their backgrounds and skills, don't have steady sources of income.

"You're a convicted felon. That makes you ineligible to work in a lot of places," Violette said.

Because of that, he believes the amount of low-income housing in Westbrook draws more sex offenders. Though Portland is probably the most attractive city in the area for jobless sex offenders because of its shelters and support services, he said, "we're ripe for the picking as far as increasing our numbers."

However, some say that keeping people out of jobs and homes because of their sex offender status is unconstitutional.

Jane Cantral, who runs Maine Citizens for Change - a local affiliate of the national group Reform Sex Offender Laws - said she and her boyfriend Calvin Shelton, a registered sex offender, didn't have an easy time finding a home in this area of the state.

"We're trying to buy a house and we're looking at maps," said Cantral, a Bridgton resident who was herself the victim of a sex offender.

"It sounds good as a knee-jerk reaction, but if you really thought about it, how much sense does it make?" Cantral said.

She pointed to the fact that students are not in school at night, when most sex offenders are in their homes. She also noted that kids are better looked after in schools and day cares than they are the rest of the day.

"I don't think residency restrictions are needed at all," she said.

Cantral hopes that more efforts will be made on educating parents and children and treating sex offenders rather than on making local or state laws that she believes are ineffective.

IS LESS MORE?

But success is measured in different ways when it comes to sex offender laws.

Violette said he scans the state's sex offender registry about once a week to see if there are any new registered sex offenders living or working in Westbrook. During the past two years, he said, he's had to ask about a dozen people to leave their jobs, usually because of their proximity to day cares. Though he's gotten mixed reactions from employers - some thank Violette for making them aware of the charges, others would rather to keep the workers regardless of them - the sex offenders themselves tend to comply quickly.

"Almost every time, they quit right way," he said.

Other than the case of one registered sex offender Violette had to repeatedly chase out of a Spring Street apartment, he said the same willingness to obey the ordinance was true of sex offenders trying to move to the city. He said he's had to turn down about five or six sex offenders who tried to move into restricted areas of the city from out of town and another half-dozen who wanted to move within Westbrook.

Overall, Violette estimated that about 20 additional sex offenders would be living or working in the city today if it weren't for the ordinance.

"It was working," he said.

PEACE OF MIND

One woman who was an outspoken advocate of the Westbrook ordinance when it was adopted said she plans to speak up again at the council meeting Monday.

Jen Wescott, who has two family members that were sex crime victims, said even with the ordinance in place, as a mother and a day care owner, she's on constant alert, keeping an eye on who's around. The city's law offered extra protection.

"It gives you a little more sense of security," Wescott said.

But creating a false sense of security is one of the arguments opponents have against residency restrictions.

"They have a tendency to drive offenders underground," Sen. Anne Haskell, D-Portland, who sponsored the bill, said in June, when the law was passed. "Then you don't know where they are, which is a more dangerous situation."

Those who support less-stringent residency resrictions say the vast majority of sex crimes are committed by people known to the victims - which was the case with Wescott's family members and with Cantral, as well.

While Cantral argues that over-reaching restrictions violate the rights of former criminals who have paid their debts to society, Wescott and Violette both believe that additional protection against sex offenders can only help to keep kids safer.

"Any buffer you put between a sex offender and our vulnerable children, I think that's a good thing," Violette said.

CFC Maine Meets

We are having our first planning session for CFC Maine next Saturday September 12th at 10:30am in Gorham. We will be discussing and setting forth our goals for the upcoming year. If I haven't contacted you about this meeting yet please consider attending. We want everyone interested in promoting change to RFSO laws to join us. RFSOs, family members and the general public are all invited. There are many jobs that can be done without being in the public eye. We need to plan the best way we can exploit the current climate asking how things should change to prevent more crimes like the recent one with Kaycee. Email me at ladyfurebear@yahoo.com if you want more information. Hope to see you there.

America's unjust sex laws

Second article
America's unjust sex laws

Aug 6th 2009
From The Economist print edition

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14165460

An ever harsher approach is doing more harm than good, but it is being copied around the world

iStockphoto

IT IS an oft-told story, but it does not get any less horrific on repetition. Fifteen years ago, a paedophile enticed seven-year-old Megan Kanka into his home in New Jersey by offering to show her a puppy. He then raped her, killed her and dumped her body in a nearby park. The murderer, who had recently moved into the house across the street from his victim, had twice before been convicted of sexually assaulting a child. Yet Megan’s parents had no idea of this. Had they known he was a sex offender, they would have told their daughter to stay away from him.

In their grief, the parents started a petition, demanding that families should be told if a sexual predator moves nearby. Hundreds of thousands signed it. In no time at all, lawmakers in New Jersey granted their wish. And before long, “Megan’s laws” had spread to every American state.

America’s sex-offender laws are the strictest of any rich democracy. Convicted rapists and child-molesters are given long prison sentences. When released, they are put on sex-offender registries. In most states this means that their names, photographs and addresses are published online, so that fearful parents can check whether a child-molester lives nearby. Under the Adam Walsh Act of 2006, another law named after a murdered child, all states will soon be obliged to make their sex-offender registries public. Such rules are extremely popular. Most parents will support any law that promises to keep their children safe. Other countries are following America’s example, either importing Megan’s laws or increasing penalties: after two little girls were murdered by a school caretaker, Britain has imposed multiple conditions on who can visit schools.

Which makes it all the more important to ask whether America’s approach is the right one. In fact its sex-offender laws have grown self-defeatingly harsh (see article). They have been driven by a ratchet effect. Individual American politicians have great latitude to propose new laws. Stricter curbs on paedophiles win votes. And to sound severe, such curbs must be stronger than the laws in place, which in turn were proposed by politicians who wished to appear tough themselves. Few politicians dare to vote against such laws, because if they do, the attack ads practically write themselves.

A whole Wyoming of offenders

In all, 674,000 Americans are on sex-offender registries—more than the population of Vermont, North Dakota or Wyoming. The number keeps growing partly because in several states registration is for life and partly because registries are not confined to the sort of murderer who ensnared Megan Kanka. According to Human Rights Watch, at least five states require registration for people who visit prostitutes, 29 require it for consensual sex between young teenagers and 32 require it for indecent exposure. Some prosecutors are now stretching the definition of “distributing child pornography” to include teens who text half-naked photos of themselves to their friends.

How dangerous are the people on the registries? A state review of one sample in Georgia found that two-thirds of them posed little risk. For example, Janet Allison was found guilty of being “party to the crime of child molestation” because she let her 15-year-old daughter have sex with a boyfriend. The young couple later married. But Ms Allison will spend the rest of her life publicly branded as a sex offender.

Several other countries have sex-offender registries, but these are typically held by the police and are hard to view. In America it takes only seconds to find out about a sex offender: some states have a “click to print” icon on their websites so that concerned citizens can put up posters with the offender’s mugshot on trees near his home. Small wonder most sex offenders report being harassed. A few have been murdered. Many are fired because someone at work has Googled them.

Registration is often just the start. Sometimes sex offenders are barred from living near places where children congregate. In Georgia no sex offender may live or work within 1,000 feet (300 metres) of a school, church, park, skating rink or swimming pool. In Miami an exclusion zone of 2,500 feet has helped create a camp of homeless offenders under a bridge.

Make the punishment fit the crime

There are three main arguments for reform. First, it is unfair to impose harsh penalties for small offences. Perhaps a third of American teenagers have sex before they are legally allowed to, and a staggering number have shared revealing photographs with each other. This is unwise, but hardly a reason for the law to ruin their lives. Second, America’s sex laws often punish not only the offender, but also his family. If a man who once slept with his 15-year-old girlfriend is barred for ever from taking his own children to a playground, those children suffer.

Third, harsh laws often do little to protect the innocent. The police complain that having so many petty sex offenders on registries makes it hard to keep track of the truly dangerous ones. Cash that might be spent on treating sex offenders—which sometimes works—is spent on huge indiscriminate registries. Public registers drive serious offenders underground, which makes them harder to track and more likely to reoffend. And registers give parents a false sense of security: most sex offenders are never even reported, let alone convicted.

It would not be hard to redesign America’s sex laws. Instead of lumping all sex offenders together on the same list for life, states should assess each person individually and include only real threats. Instead of posting everything on the internet, names could be held by the police, who would share them only with those, such as a school, who need to know. Laws that bar sex offenders from living in so many places should be repealed, because there is no evidence that they protect anyone: a predator can always travel. The money that a repeal saves could help pay for monitoring compulsive molesters more intrusively—through ankle bracelets and the like.

In America it may take years to unpick this. However practical and just the case for reform, it must overcome political cowardice, the tabloid media and parents’ understandable fears. Other countries, though, have no excuse for committing the same error. Sensible sex laws are better than vengeful ones.

Copyright © 2009 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.

Unjust and ineffective

Unjust and ineffective

Aug 6th 2009 | HARLEM, GEORGIA
From The Economist print edition

http://www.economist.com/opinion/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=14164614

America has pioneered the harsh punishment of sex offenders. Does it work?

Illustration by Noma Barr

ONE day in 1996 the lights went off in a classroom in Georgia so that the students could watch a video. Wendy Whitaker, a 17-year-old pupil at the time, was sitting near the back. The boy next to her suggested that, since it was dark, she could perform oral sex on him without anyone noticing. She obliged. And that single teenage fumble wrecked her life.

Her classmate was three weeks shy of his 16th birthday. That made Ms Whitaker a criminal. She was arrested and charged with sodomy, which in Georgia can refer to oral sex. She met her court-appointed lawyer five minutes before the hearing. He told her to plead guilty. She did not really understand what was going on, so she did as she was told.

She was sentenced to five years on probation. Not being the most organised of people, she failed to meet all the conditions, such as checking in regularly with her probation officer. For a series of technical violations, she was incarcerated for more than a year, in the county jail, the state women’s prison and a boot camp. “I was in there with people who killed people. It’s crazy,” she says.

She finished her probation in 2002. But her ordeal continues. Georgia puts sex offenders on a public registry. Ms Whitaker’s name, photograph and address are easily accessible online, along with the information that she was convicted of “sodomy”. The website does not explain what she actually did. But since it describes itself as a list of people who have “been convicted of a criminal offence against a victim who is a minor or any dangerous sexual offense”, it makes it sound as if she did something terrible to a helpless child. She sees people whispering, and parents pulling their children indoors when she walks by.

Punish first, think later

The registry is a gold mine for lazy journalists. A local television station featured Ms Whitaker in a spot on local sex offenders, broadcasting a helpful map showing where she lives but leaving the specifics of the crime to each viewer’s fearful imagination. “My husband’s family saw me on TV,” she says. “That’s embarrassing.”

What Ms Whitaker did is no longer a crime in Georgia. The state’s sodomy laws, which in 1996 barred oral sex even between willing spouses, were struck down by court rulings in 1998 and 2003. And since 2006, thanks to a “Romeo and Juliet” clause in a sex-crimes law, consensual sex between two teenagers has been a misdemeanour, not a crime, if one partner is underage but no more than four years younger than the other.

The Romeo and Juliet clause was not retroactive, however, so Ms Whitaker is stuck on the register, and subject to extraordinary restrictions. Registered sex offenders in Georgia are barred from living within 1,000 feet of anywhere children may congregate, such as a school, a park, a library, or a swimming pool. They are also banned from working within 1,000 feet of a school or a child-care centre. Since the church at the end of Ms Whitaker’s street houses a child-care centre, she was evicted from her home. Her husband, who worked for the county dog-catching department, moved with her, lost his job and with it their health insurance.

Thanks to a lawsuit filed by the Southern Centre for Human Rights, a group that campaigns against rough justice, Ms Whitaker won an injunction allowing her to return home. But her husband did not get his job back, and now works as a labourer. The two of them are struggling financially. And Ms Whitaker is still fighting to get her name removed from the registry. “When you’re a teenager, you do stuff,” she says. “You don’t think you’ll be paying for it when you’re nearly 30.”

Every American state keeps a register of sex offenders. California has had one since 1947, but most states started theirs in the 1990s. Many people assume that anyone listed on a sex-offender registry must be a rapist or a child molester. But most states spread the net much more widely. A report by Sarah Tofte of Human Rights Watch, a pressure group, found that at least five states required men to register if they were caught visiting prostitutes. At least 13 required it for urinating in public (in two of which, only if a child was present). No fewer than 29 states required registration for teenagers who had consensual sex with another teenager. And 32 states registered flashers and streakers.

Because so many offenses require registration, the number of registered sex offenders in America has exploded. As of December last year, there were 674,000 of them, according to the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children. If they were all crammed into a single state, it would be more populous than Wyoming, Vermont or North Dakota. As a share of its population, America registers more than four times as many people as Britain, which is unusually harsh on sex offenders. America’s registers keep swelling, not least because in 17 states, registration is for life.

Illustration by Noma Barr

Georgia has more than 17,000 registered sex offenders. Some are highly dangerous. But many are not. And it is fiendishly hard for anyone browsing the registry to tell the one from the other. The Georgia Sex Offender Registration Review Board, an official body, assessed a sample of offenders on the registry last year and concluded that 65% of them posed little threat. Another 30% were potentially threatening, and 5% were clearly dangerous. The board recommended that the first group be allowed to live and work wherever they liked. The second group could reasonably be barred from living or working in certain places, said the board, and the third group should be subject to tight restrictions and a lifetime of monitoring. A very small number “just over 100” are classified as “predators”, which means they have a compulsion to commit sex offenses. When not in jail, predators must wear ankle bracelets that track where they are.

Despite the board’s findings, non-violent offenders remain listed and subject to a giant cobweb of controls. One rule, championed by Georgia’s House majority leader, banned them from living within 1,000 feet of a school bus stop. This proved unworkable. Thomas Brown, the sheriff of DeKalb county near Atlanta, mapped the bus stops in his patch and realized that he would have to evict all 490 of the sex offenders living there. Other than the bottom of a lake or the middle of a forest, there was hardly anywhere in Georgia for them to live legally. In the end Georgia’s courts stepped in and suspended the bus-stop rule, along with another barring sex offenders from volunteering in churches. But most other restrictions remain.

Sex-offender registries are popular. Rape and child molestation are terrible crimes that can traumatize their victims for life. All parents want to protect their children from sexual predators, so politicians can nearly always win votes by promising curbs on them. Those who object can be called soft on child-molesters, a label most politicians would rather avoid. This creates a ratchet effect. Every lawmaker who wants to sound tough on sex offenders has to propose a law tougher than the one enacted by the last politician who wanted to sound tough on sex offenders.

A self-defeating pillory

So laws get harsher and harsher. But that does not necessarily mean they get better. If there are thousands of offenders on a registry, it is harder to keep track of the most dangerous ones. Budgets are tight. Georgia’s sheriffs complain that they have been given no extra money or manpower to help them keep the huge and swelling sex-offenders’ registry up to date or to police its confusing mass of rules. Terry Norris of the Georgia Sheriffs’ Association cites a man who was convicted of statutory rape two decades ago for having consensual sex with his high-school sweetheart, to whom he is now married. “It doesn’t make it right, but it doesn’t make him a threat to anybody,” says Mr Norris. “We spend the same amount of time on that guy as on someone who’s done something heinous.”

Money spent on evicting sex offenders cannot be spent on treating them. Does this matter? Politicians pushing the get-tough approach sometimes claim that sex offenders are mostly incorrigible: that three-quarters or even nine out of ten of them reoffend. It is not clear where they find such numbers. A study of nearly 10,000 male sex offenders in 15 American states found that 5% were rearrested for a sex crime within three years. A meta-analysis of 29,000 sex offenders in Canada, Britain and America found that 24% had reoffended after 15 years.

That is obviously still too high. Whether or not treatment can help is disputed. A Californian study of sex offenders who underwent “relapse prevention”, counselling of the sort that alcoholics get from Alcoholics Anonymous, found that it was useless. But a meta-analysis of 23 studies by Karl Hanson of Canada’s department of public safety found that psychological therapy was associated with a 43% drop in recidivism. Some offenders—particularly men who rape boys—are extremely hard to treat. Some will never change until they are too old to feel sexual urges. But some types of treatment appear to work for some people and further research could yield more breakthroughs.

Publicising sex offenders’ addresses makes them vulnerable to vigilantism. In April 2006, for example, a vigilante shot and killed two sex offenders in Maine after finding their addresses on the registry. One of the victims had been convicted of having consensual sex with his 15-year-old girlfriend when he was 19. In Washington state in 2005 a man posed as an FBI agent to enter the home of two sex offenders, warning them that they were on a “hit list” on the internet. Then he killed them.

Murders of sex offenders are rare, but harassment is common. Most of the offenders interviewed for this article said they had experienced it. “Bill”, who spent nine months in jail for having consensual sex with a 15-year-old when he was 27 and is now registered in North Carolina, says someone put up posters with his photograph on them around his district. (In at least four states, each offender’s profile on the online registry comes with a handy “click to print” function.) The local kids promptly stopped playing with Bill’s three children. And someone started leaving chopped-up sausages on his car, a possible reference to castration. Bill and his family moved house.

Jill Levenson, of Lynn University in Florida, says half of registered sex offenders have trouble finding jobs. From 20% to 40% say they have had to move house because a landlord or neighbour realised they were sex offenders. And most report feeling depressed, hopeless or afraid.

“Mike” spent a year and a half behind bars for statutory rape after having sex with a girl who said she was 17, but was two years younger. He was 22 at the time. Since his release, he has struggled to hold down a job. Once, he found work as a security guard, but his probation officer told him to quit, since the uniform lent him an air of authority, which would not do.

He is now unemployed, and lives in a flophouse in Atlanta between a jail and a strip club. The area is too desolate to have any schools or parks, so he is allowed to live there. His neighbours are mostly other sex offenders and mentally ill folk who talk to themselves. “It’s Bumville,” sighs Mike. His ambition is to get a job, keep it and move out. Any job will do, he says.

Several studies suggest that making it harder for sex offenders to find a home or a job makes them more likely to reoffend. Gwenda Willis and Randolph Grace of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, for example, found that the lack of a place to live was “significantly related to sexual recidivism”. Candace Kruttschnitt and Christopher Uggen of the University of Minnesota and Kelly Shelton of the Minnesota Department of Corrections tracked 556 sex offenders on probation and found less recidivism among those with a history of stable employment.

Some bosses do not mind hiring sex offenders, if they know the full story and the offender does not seem dangerous. But an accessible online registry makes it all but certain that a colleague or a customer will find out about a sexual conviction. Sex offenders often report being sacked for no apparent reason. Mike had a job at a cake shop. His boss knew about his record. But one day, without warning, he was fired.

Publicly accessible sex-offender registries are intended to keep people safe. But there is little evidence that they do. A study by Kristen Zgoba of the New Jersey Department of Corrections found that the state’s system for registering sex offenders and warning their neighbours cost millions of dollars and had no discernible effect on the number of sex crimes. Restricting where sex offenders can live is supposed to keep them away from potential victims, but it is doubtful that this works. A determined predator can always catch a bus.

Laws that make life hard for sex offenders also affect their families. A survey by Ms Levenson found that 86% of family members felt stressed because of registration and residence rules, and 49% feared for their own safety. “It’s very difficult,” says Bill. “Pretty much all the things that make you a good father are now illegal for me to do.” He cannot take his children to a park, a pool, or a museum. He cannot be at any of their school events. And his children are ostracised. “The parents find out I’m registered and that’s it,” he sighs.

The penalties for sex offenders who break the rules can be severe. In Georgia the first time you fail to provide an accurate address or register annually with the county sheriff to be photographed and fingerprinted, you face ten to 30 years in prison. The second time: life. Yet because living on a public sex-offender registry is so wretched, many abscond.

Some states have decided that harsher sex laws are not always better. Iowa has sharply reduced the number of sex offences for which residency restrictions apply. Previously, all Iowan sex offenders who had abused children were barred from living within 2,000 feet of a school or child-care centre. Since where offenders lived was defined as where they slept, many would spend the day at home with their families and sleep at night in their cars at a highway rest stop. “That made no sense,” says Corwin Ritchie of the Iowa County Attorneys Association. “We don’t try to monitor where possible bank robbers sleep.”

The Iowan politicians who relaxed the law gave themselves cover by adding a new rule against “loitering” near schools. Mr Ritchie thinks the new rules are better, but he would rather get rid of the residency restrictions entirely and let probation officers make recommendations for each individual offender.

No quarter

Nationwide, the trend is to keep getting stricter. In 1994 Congress ordered all states that had not yet done so to set up sex-offender registries or lose some funding. Two years later it ordered them to register the most serious offenders for life. In 2006 it passed the Adam Walsh Act, named for a six-year-old boy who was kidnapped and beheaded, broadening the categories of offence for which registration is required and obliging all states to upload their registries to a national database. States had until this summer to comply with that provision. Some objected. In May they were given another year’s breathing space.

Illustration by Noma Barr

Other countries now seem to be following America’s lead. Hottest on its heels is Britain, where the sex-offenders’ registry includes children as young as 11. The British list is not open to the public, but in some areas parents may ask for a check on anyone who has unsupervised access to their child. France, too, now has a closed national directory of sex-offenders, as does Austria, which brought in some American-style movement restrictions on sex offenders earlier this year. After the disappearance in Portugal in 2007 of Madeleine McCann, a British toddler, some European politicians have called for a pan-European registry.

Human Rights Watch urges America to scale back its sex-offender registries. Those convicted of minor, non-violent offences should not be required to register, says Ms Tofte. Nor should juveniles. Sex offenders should be individually assessed, and only those judged likely to rape someone or abuse a child should be registered. Such decisions should be regularly reviewed and offenders who are rehabilitated (or who grow too old to reoffend) should be removed from the registry. The information on sex-offender registries should be held by the police, not published online, says Ms Tofte, and released “on a need-to-know basis”. Blanket bans on all sex offenders living and working in certain areas should be abolished. Instead, it makes sense for the most dangerous offenders sometimes to face tailored restrictions as a condition of parole.

That package of reforms would bring America in line with the strictest laws in other rich countries. But few politicians would have the courage to back it. “Jane”, the mother of a sex offender in Georgia, says she sent a letter to her senator, Saxby Chambliss, urging such reforms. “They didn’t even read it,” she says. “They just sent me a form letter assuring me that they were in favour of every sex offender law, and that [Senator Chambliss] has grandchildren he wants to protect.”

Copyright © 2009 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.

Studies Show That Residency Restrictions Do Not Work

I came across this article tonight. I thought I would post and hope that maybe the closed minded residents of Westbrook might read it and learn something? Doubtful but one must hope that somehow some reason might finally get through to them.

Doubt cast on residency restrictions for sex offenders

Several studies have shown that laws restricting where convicted sex offenders can live don't make children safer.

Sunday, June 14, 2009
BY MONICA VON DOBENECK mdobeneck@patriot-news.com

http://www.pennlive.com/news/patriotnews/index.ssf?/base/news/1244935506313060.xml&coll=1

People fear sexual of fenders, especially any whose offense is directed at children.

So it's maybe understandable to see why Middletown has joined a list of Pennsylvania communities that restrict where convicted sex offenders can live. The problem is that several studies seem to show such laws don't make children safer.

Lauren Taylor is executive director of the Sexual Offenders Assessment Board, which evaluates everyone accused of a sex crime to determine their risk to society. Taylor is no apologist for sex offenders and would not dictate to municipalities . But she visits municipalities considering such laws at their invitation to arm them with the facts she has gathered.


"Research shows there is no correlation between residency restrictions and reducing sex offenses against children or improving the safety of children," Taylor said.

"If you're going to do it, make an informed decision instead of letting emotions lead you to a decision that is meaningless in the goal you are trying to reach," she said.

Rodney Horton, president of Middletown Borough Council, said he has read those studies and understands the argument. But he believes Middletown's law, which keeps offenders 500 feet from places children gather, sends a message. The borough passed its law on Tuesday. It's like the laws some cities pass requiring gun owners to report lost or stolen guns, even though those laws are unlikely to stop gun violence, he said.

"We're sending a message that sex crime, especially toward children, is a major issue," he said. "When a community has endured many offenses like Middletown has, you can't sit idly by."

He particularly referred to the case of Charles Koons, 39, who is charged with molesting 13 boys ages 4 to 14 between 2002 and 2008.

Some argue that residency restrictions make people less safe, not more.

A study by the Iowa Department of Public Safety showed that the number of offenders unaccounted for doubled after a residency restriction law went into effect. Studies in Colorado, California and Minnesota showed residency restrictions have no effect on the chance that someone convicted of a sex crime might be arrested again.

State Police Lt. Douglas Grimes, who is in charge of Pennsylvania's Megan's Law Web site, said police officers "strive to know where the threats are," which becomes harder if sex offenders are forced to move or become homeless.

Probation officers can restrict where sex offenders live, but they base decisions on individual circumstances, he said.

Offenders who are in psychological treatment are nearly half as likely to offend again, according to the Center for Sex Offender Management. Residency restrictions can keep them from the family, employment and treatment that makes them less likely to break the law.

A federal judge overturned an Allegheny County law, saying it interfered with the state's obligation to try to rehabilitate offenders. His decision is under appeal.

Lemoyne Borough Council has a law that makes it unlawful for sexual offenders to live within 500 feet of any school, child care facility, common open space, community center, public park or recreational facility.

Harrisburg officials have considered similar restrictions but have not enacted any ordinances.

It's important not to lump all sex offenders together, Taylor said. Those the assessment board calls sexually violent predators make up only about 2 percent of those on the Megan's Law Web site. Others might be men who had a consensual relationship with a teenager or a single instance of indecent assault with an adult while drunk.

"They run the gamut," she said. "And it's not the ones on the list you need to worry about" because most of the people arrested for sex crimes have no record. Authorities can keep a closer eye on those already on the list, she said.

ARC Announces anImportant Radio Show, Please listen

For those that don't know there is an internet Radio show called ARC ( America's Reality Check). They have a variety of guests ranging from authors, mother's of teen RFSOs, Lawyers, Professors etc. Well next Tuesday June 30th they have a special guest. Ron Book will be on live to speak and answer questions. If you are not familiar with who Ron Book is, he is the lawyer/lobbyist who has campaigned for the 2500 ft residency restrictions that have forced many RFSOs to have to live under a bridge in Miami. The other irony to this stituation is that he is also the head of Miami's Homeless Trust. Questions can be send to the e-mail below. Please be respectful when calling in. How he is treated will reflect on the whole RFSO community. But it should be interesting to hear him defend himself and these laws. Tune in Tuesday. For more information on Ron Book Click this LINK.

Hosted by: RealityUSA
Title: SPECIAL SHOW/SPECIAL NIGHT/SPECIAL TIME/RON BOOK FROM FLORIDA
Time: 06/30/2009 08:30 PM EDT
Episode Notes: Join us on TUESDAY NIGHT special show at 8:30pm est. Where are guest will be Ron Book who is a Miami attorney and lobbyist from Florida. In 2004, in one of Mr. Books proudest moments, he was awarded the Alvah Chapman Humanitarian of the Year Award for his 12 years of service to the homeless in Miami-Dade County. We at this time are excepting emails from all with questions that we will ask on the show that night. Please keep the questions decent/proper and please have respect to the guest as we hear his side of the issue. Email your questions to AMERICANSREALITYCHECK@GMAIL.COM

For all episodes you can call in or you can get on your Computer or laptop and Listen to the show and participate too.

http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/29521
Phone Number: (724) 444-7444
Call ID: 29521

Newspaper Article on LD 385, We Need to Be Ready to Fight

Even though the Governor signed LD 385 we need to be ready to fight new bills come September. The towns are not happy with the State telling them what to do. Funny thing is the town of Westbrook isn't even mentioned in this article though the reporter comes from there. Westbrook has such restrictive ordinances on the books that RFSOs living there are on virtual house arrest. They literally have to walk to their car and drive out of town to even go to the supermarket or risk getting arrested. Residency restrictions have not been shown to have prevented one child from being abused. Let's pass laws that prevent abuse not laws based on hysteria!
New state law trumps local sex offender rules
By Ann Fisher

Reporter – The Reporter
link to article

WATERBORO (June 24, 2009): A new state law that establishes boundaries for convicted sex offenders overturns stricter ordinances in Lyman and Waterboro, infuriating local officials.[0]

In the municipalities that choose to enact the new law, which will take effect in September, registered sex offenders will be prohibited from residing within 750 feet of a school or any municipally owned building generally used by children. Waterboro and Lyman both have local ordinances that prohibit registered sex offenders from living within 2,500 feet of a school.

The bill signed by Gov. John Baldacci this month gives towns and cities the option of enacting local ordinances to prohibit sex offenders from living within 750 feet of a school or other public property primarily used by children. The law is not mandatory and does not automatically apply to every municipality. However, it will supersede and town or city ordinances that are more restrictive, and municipalities will not be allowed to keep or enforce ordinances that are more restrictive.

Sen. Jon Courtney, R-Sanford, whose district includes Waterboro and Lyman, said he was “outraged that the state would pre-empt our local ordinances. The state has had multiple opportunities to address this issue before and hasn’t. In the face of the state’s failure to act, many towns and cities have enacted their own ordinances. Lyman and Waterboro are prime examples. Now, the state wants to step in and impose from on high a maximum safe zone of 750 feet? This is a matter for local people … to decide – and many of them have.”

The catalyst for the law was pressure from the federal government for uniform categories of sex offender laws at the state level, according to Rep. Joe Wagner, D-Lyman. Maine has a waiver that gives the state until July 2011 to hammer out those categories, and he fully expects the issue of restrictive boundaries to be revisited when the categories are debated by legislators during the next session. Wagner said he hopes legislators look at urban and rural areas separately and “they can be adjusted accordingly.”

As originally written, the bill, called An Act To Ensure a Uniform Comprehensive State Policy Regarding Residency Restrictions for Sex Offenders, sponsored by Sen. Anne Haskell, D-Portland, proposed no restrictions on where sex offenders could live. The bill that was eventually passed, Haskell said, was a compromise among the Maine Municipal Association, the Maine Coalition Against Sexual Assault and the Department of Corrections.

“We’re not really thrilled with the way it came out,” said Dennis Abbott, chairman of the Waterboro Board of Selectmen. “We’re looking at how we’re opting in to the new law.”

Former Waterboro Selectman Evan Grover, who was in the forefront of the effort to enact Waterboro's strict ordinance, said, "I'm very disappointed with any compromise or effort to reduce the boundaries we set and approved with Waterboro voters. Waterboro voters were very clear with their vote on this issue and 'home rule' should definitely apply with this ordinance. We need to be less concerned with the rights of sex offenders and more concerned with the rights of our children and other law-abiding residents."

Legislators in favor of the original law not to allow boundaries say statistics show that restricting where sex offenders live does not make children safer, but does the opposite.

“They have a tendency to drive offenders underground,” Haskell said about residency restrictions. “Then you don’t know where they are, which is a more dangerous situation.”

In addition to driving sex offenders off the radar, Haskell said, strict ordinances create a false sense of security.

Sen. Stan Gerzofsky, D-Brunswick, chairman of the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee, said he’s attended forums around the country on the subject and heard experts give the same testimony over and over again about the ineffectiveness of residency restrictions on sex offenders.

“It doesn’t give you what you want,” he said. “The argument for having restrictions is purely emotional.”

Gerzofsky said no matter where sex offenders live, they always have the option of driving to another town and parking in front of a school where no one knows who they are. When residents and parents are aware of who they are and where they live, there’s more pressure for them to stay in line, he said.

“I’d put them all downtown across the street from the police station,” Gerzofsky said. “The more people you have staring at you, the more likely you are to behave.”

“Unfortunately, when researching, 2,500 feet was the trip wire for court challenges in Pennsylvania and New Jersey,” said Wagner, who was part of a working group formed to reach the compromise by the Legislature’s Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee.

Because the large distance means there would be so many overlapping concentric circles around offenders in urban areas like Portland, the fear, said Wagner, is that offenders would not register or move to rural areas.

“Twenty-five hundred feet is a little bit short of a half mile,” said Wagner. “The working group said 1,000 feet is better than three footballs fields away. At this point it’s a victory in terms of getting the state to achieve the municipalities’ ability to adopt" compared to the original bill.

Abbott also said there is a big difference when dealing with urban and rural communities when essentially cordoning off an area to make it off limits.

“Seven-hundred and fifty feet barely gets you to Old Alfred Road,” he said, referring to the road that is a short distance from both the Waterboro Elementary School and the Massabesic Middle School. Both schools sit on land flanked by Old Alfred Road on one side and Sokokis Trail (Route 5) on the other. Because of the land area on both schools' grounds, there are not many houses within a 750-foot area, but there are beyond that boundary.

Massabesic High School on West Road is surrounded by even fewer houses. The town’s stringent sex offender ordinance was sparked in 2006 by the unannounced presence on West Road of a registered sex offender, Joseph Tellier, who has since died. Residents were up in arms when they learned Tellier lived within 1,000 feet of the schools. His victim, whom Tellier had beaten, raped and left for dead in 1990, lived in the next town.

"With the new boundries in place, Joseph Tellier could have lived in the same house without issue," said Grover. "Unacceptable."

According to Wagner, the new parameters would only apply to felony offenders whose victims are under the age of 14.

In a letter released before the amendment passed, the Waterboro Board of Selectmen said, “Our community officials were not notified or consulted when placing a potentially dangerous offender next to our district school. The victim was never warned that the man who had committed such heinous crimes against her would be living just minutes from her home just one town away. We were concerned for the safety of our residents and implemented an emergency ordinance to prevent a similar situation in the future.”

In the letter, the Waterboro board said, “Residents of Waterboro enacted a sex offender ordinance with well over 90 percent of our voters approving the measure. Our residents were very aware of what they voted for and were concerned for the safety of our children when the Department of Corrections placed an offender within sight of a district school.”

Courtney didn’t mince words about the situation: “Once again, Augusta is flouting local control.”

Said Grover, "Our lawmakers should be working on reducing the tax burden and leave decisions such as constitutionality of an ordinance up to the court system."

Reporter Leslie Bridgers also contributed to this story.

---

Based in Westbrook, Reporter – The Reporter Ann Fisher can be reached at 207-854-2577 or by e-mail at afisher@keepmecurrent.com.

SOSEN Video Using Stills, Announcing their Video Project

In this video SOSEN members announce their plans to make a documentary detailing the situation in Miami Florida. As soon as the video is released I will have a copy. I am not sure if I can post it or not but it will be available to groups and others to view. I will let everyone know as soon as it is finished.
This was posted on a forum I belong to by Anita, used with her permission. Thanks Anita!

Dear Julia Tuttle, The Mother of Miami, do you weep?

You, who gave so generously for the prosperity of millions of people by creating this Causeway to Miami, what has become of your endowment?

Did you ever envision that one day, those who became the leaders of this magnificent metropolis would create a city of such wretchedness that even God must be weeping. And they call it, Civil Law. And they call it, Home. Some even call it, Deserving.
What would YOU call it?

I call it a Disgrace to your honorable name. I call it Inhumane. I call it a slur against your Legacy. The city of Miami has created its own Misery City. They have forever tarnished the history of The Julia Tuttle Causeway. The poor souls who are forced to live underneath this now infamous Bridge, They weep. Their families weep. We weep. God weeps. Is this what the lawmakers call, "The Path to Redemption"?

You are called, The Mother of Miami. Surely you weep for what has become of your heritage. Who else will weep with us and recognize how valuable is the dignity of the Human spirit?

BBC Does Show About the Florida RFSOs

Wow! imagine this that scandal of the residents living under the Julia Tuttle Causeway Bridge has drawn the attention of the BBC. You'd think that Florida would get the message that what they are doing is violating these peoples human and civil rights. There is a long list of politicians, lobbyists and officals that all share the blame for this terrible situation.


Rough justice
21 June 2009
article here

A Miami law is forcing many of the city’s sex offenders to sleep rough under a bridge, reports Emilio San Pedro for the BBC’s Americana programme.

Tents set up by released sex offenders under a road bridge in Miami

The area under the Julia Tuttle Causeway in downtown Miami has in recent years become the unlikely home for a growing community of about 70 convicted sex offenders.

They have ended up living in a makeshift tent city under one of the causeway’s bridges because of a local law which prohibits those who have sexually abused minors from living within 2,500 ft (760m) of anywhere where children congregate, such as schools, libraries and parks.

After the local laws were enacted, Florida’s correctional authorities found there was virtually nowhere else for these people to live and began dropping them off at the bridge.

Some of them have even been issued driving licences with the bridge listed as their home address.

Angry

“Welcome to American justice,” said Dr Pedro Jose Greer, the Dean of Florida International University’s Department of Humanities, Health and Society, as he met me under the bridge to discuss the squalid conditions at the camp.

“We have people living together with mental and physical illnesses in an environment where people can’t possibly sleep because of the cars going by overhead - where you can smell the urine and see the trash mounting all around us.”

“This is the stupidest damn law I have ever seen and it’s purely mandated by revenge without any consideration for the well-being of these people“

Dr Pedro Greer
Campaigner

Dr Pedro Greer

Dr Greer has for decades been a leading advocate in Miami for homeless people and their right to receive adequate medical and social services.

He told me that he has become increasingly angry over the last few years at the existence of this camp and the lack of an alternative way to reintegrate these convicted sex offenders into society.

“What we’re doing is we’re saying ‘let’s take the people that we most despise, that did some of the most egregious things in society and let them all get together and not supervise them and let them wander around the community’,” he tells me with a clear sense of frustration in his voice.

“This is the stupidest damn law I have ever seen and it’s purely mandated by revenge without any consideration for the well-being of these people - who deserve better despite the severity of their crimes,” he says.

No money

As we walk around the camp, with its tents and makeshift huts, lack of running water, electricity or any form of sewage, I meet Isaias, a 35-year-old Latino and former US Marine, who has been living at the camp for over two years.

He tells me how the state authorities simply drop former offenders like him under the bridge and - as he puts it - let them fend for themselves.

“They don’t give us no water, no food, no portable toilets, no money - nothing,” he tells me.

“ I’ve only been here five days but I can’t believe these criminal conditions we live in“

Julio

Julio

Isaias - who served five years in prison for having sexual relations with a 16-year-old girl and is now out on parole - says that all that he and many of his neighbours under the bridge want is to be able to attempt to lead a normal life and move beyond their criminal past.

“I can’t live with my wife and my daughter. I would like to have a normal life and be able to become a productive member of society again, but society is not giving us that chance,” he tells me.

I then ask him if - as a father himself - if he can understand why society harbours such anger for people who have committed these sorts of crimes.

“I would understand it - yes - as a father but at the same time I cannot expect that a person who committed this kind of crime against my own child should then come out of jail and be forced to live like an animal - as we’re doing here,” he says.

A few metres away I meet Julio - a 62-year-old Cuban immigrant, who served 10 years in prison for abusing of a 12-year-old girl. He is a recent arrival at the camp and is finding it very difficult to adjust.

“The conditions here are terrible. I’ve only been here five days but I can’t believe these criminal conditions we live in. I have absolutely nothing and no-one to give me any form of assistance at all. I wonder if I’ll ever get out of here,” he concludes.

Too sensitive

The problem for people like Julio is that the serious nature of the crimes they committed makes it very difficult for them to get much sympathy from the local community or from local politicians - who for the most part have found the issue too sensitive and downright controversial to become involved.

However, earlier this month, one city of Miami commissioner, Marc Sarnoff, did just that.

With the backing of the city government, he wrote a letter to the state governor, Charlie Crist, asking him to shut the camp down.

He based that request on the fact that there is a small island that serves as a weekend park for boaters and their children that lies within the existing local boundaries.

“I’m not here to support or endorse anything with regard to sexual offenders… However, they are living in squalor“

Marc Sarnoff
City Commissioner

I met Mr Sarnoff on a recent sunny morning at a local park, where a group of boys were playing baseball with their coach.

He told me that his top priority remained protecting these children from sex offenders like the ones who lived at the camp.

“Let me be absolutely clear. I’m not here to support or endorse anything with regard to sexual offenders. They are my least bit of concern,” he tells me.

“However, they are living in squalor. I don’t think human beings will stay in that condition. They’re going to start leaving and what we thought was a good law of 2,500 ft to keep them away from our children will eventually push them back into the population.”

Mr Sarnoff hopes that the letter to Governor Crist will force the state either to find some alternative place to house the sex offenders or force some form of legal action that will get the state’s courts, which are not beholden to the desires of the electorate, involved.

For the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and others like Dr Greer - who believe the offenders have already served their time in prison and deserve the right to attempt to get on with their lives - the camp’s existence and the desperate conditions there serve as a troubling reflection of the values of modern-day Miami.

“The question is - have we become a society that doesn’t let you die but let’s you suffer Do we just say we’re living in the Middle Ages - an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” Dr Greer told me after we had finished touring the camp.

“I think we’ve gone beyond that.”

This article is an adaptation of a feature that was originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4’s Americana programme. Americana is broadcast at 1915 BST every Sunday on BBC Radio 4 FM.

ACLU Speaks Out In Florida, Threatens Legal Action

It's about time that the ACLU and other Human Rights Organizations spoke out in defense of the homeless RFSOs living under the Julia Tuttle Causeway Bridge, in Miami, Florida. Friends of mine spent several days down there interviewing the residents and filming them, last week. There is a documentary coming soon.

http://www.aclufl.org/news_events/?action=viewRelease&emailAlertID=3748
Homeless Sex Offenders Under Julia Tuttle Bridge Continue to Be Targeted by State, Local Law Enforcement

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
June 2, 2009

CONTACT:
ACLU of Florida Media Office: 786.363.2737 or media@aclufl.org

The following statement can be attributed to Jeanne Baker, ACLU of Florida Board President:

"State and local communities, including Miami and Miami Dade County and other local communities have enacted residency restrictions that impermissibly exceed state law. Governor Crist and the Florida Legislature have repeatedly ignored requests from the ACLU and others to address this growing crisis. Instead, the Governor and Legislature have turned a blind eye to the impact of this public health and safety threat to our community.

"Now, the State and local communities point their fingers at each other in an attempt to shift blame. This is a statewide problem, and the Julia Tuttle Causeway is only the most graphic example. We need a state-wide solution, and sadly, the Governor remains AWOL.

"While the best solution would be intervention by the Governor, the ACLU and other advocacy groups are prepared to seek a solution through the courts."

2009 Press Releases

Recording of a Live Radio Show, From the Julia Tuttle Causeway Bridge

This is a recording of a live radio show, in it you will here some of the men and the one woman who Florida/Miami have forced to live under the Julia Tuttle Causeway Bridge. The people live in squalid conditions that if we forced our animals to live in the SPCA would be called to investigate us for animal cruelty. This interview gives a voice to the Former Offenders. These are human beings! They deserve human treatment. Just think, you may wonder why should I care about them? They did something wrong and let them rot. Well how many of us have done things that we are not proud of? As Jesus said when the religious leaders wanted the prostitute stoned under Jewish Law... "He who is without sin cast the first stone" Let's stop casting stones and figure out how to solve the problem of child sexual abuse. Over 90% of child sexual abuse is done by someone not one the Registry and it is their first time offense. Laws that banish Former Offenders will not stop abuse from happening. 97% of abusers are people known to the family and the child, 80% are family members. No one wants to admit that the true danger is right in their own homes. It is much easier to look at Former Offenders and blame them. The myth that is being touted by those who sponsor these laws is that Former Offenders have high recidivism rates but the truth comes from the Department of Justices own studies, Former Offenders have a rate of 3.5% in a three year time from when they are released and that the rate falls off dramatically after that. That is not ignoring that there are some truly sick people who do re-offend. There can be laws that address such instances. laws that fit the crime and that don't lump every offender into the worst of the worst and allow those who want to live a law abiding life to rebuild their lives.
Please listen to the whole show, one of the last to speak is a 51 year old man who is a quadriplegic confined to a wheelchair. His story will make you cry. After you listen you can contact me and I will give you information on how to help these people. Thanks!

LD 385 was Signed on June 10th

From doing research I was able to find out that LD 385 has also been signed by the Governor on June 10th. It will become law 90 days after the Legislator is adjourned. So those living in towns that have passed extreme residency restrictions will get some relief. The law reads as follows.....

An Act To Ensure a Uniform Comprehensive State Policy Regarding Residency Restrictions for Sex Offenders
Be it enacted by the People of the State of Maine as follows:
Sec. 1. 30-A MRSA §3013 is enacted to read:
§ 3013. Ordinances regarding residency restrictions for sex offenders

1. Application and scope. The State intends to occupy and preempt the entire field of legislation concerning the regulation of persons convicted of a sex offense in this State or in another jurisdiction. Except as provided in this section, a municipality may not adopt or enforce any ordinance or bylaw addressing persons who have been convicted of a sex offense in this State or in another jurisdiction that would impose on them restrictions or requirements not imposed on other persons who have not been convicted of a sex offense in this State or in another jurisdiction. As used in this section, "convicted of a sex offense in this State or in another jurisdiction" means a conviction for any current or former Maine crime listed in former Title 17, sections 2922 to 2924 or Title 17-A, chapter 11 or 12 or Title 17-A, section 556; a conviction for an attempt or solicitation of those listed crimes; or any conviction for any former or current crime in any other jurisdiction in which the person engaged in substantially similar conduct to that of the earlier specified current or former Maine crimes.

2. Residency restriction ordinance. A municipality may adopt an ordinance regarding residency restrictions for persons convicted of Class A, B or C sex offenses committed against persons who had not attained 14 years of age at the time of the offense. Any such ordinance is limited as follows.

A. An ordinance may restrict only residence. It may not impose additional restrictions or requirements, including, but not limited to, registration and fees.

B. A municipality may prohibit residence by a sex offender up to a maximum distance of 750 feet surrounding the real property comprising a public or private elementary, middle or secondary school or up to a maximum distance of 750 feet surrounding the real property comprising a municipally owned property where children are the primary users.

C. An ordinance may not restrict the residence of a person who lived in an area restricted pursuant to paragraph B prior to the adoption or amendment of the ordinance.

D. An ordinance may not be premised on a person's obligation to register pursuant to Title 34-A, chapter 15.

Effective 90 days following adjournment of the 124th Legislature, First Regular Session, unless otherwise indicated.


Report to moderator 72.227.96.106

Speaking Out for the Voiceless

Speaking Out for the Voiceless
R.L. Gregory

“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out -because I was not a Socialist.Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out -because I was not a Trade Unionist.Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out -because I was not a Jew…”

They call themselves the Secondarily Sentenced. Having committed no crime, they suffer the same punishments as the criminal.Terrified of recognition, they limit communication to a few carefully monitored Web groups where they can safely share their stories of abuse, assault and constant harassment.Unrecognized by the media, politicians and the public, mute from fear of reprisal and vengeance, their daily lives are compounded of a mixture of helpless despair, oppression, and impotent anger.They are not abused spouses. They are the wives and husbands, children, families, neighbors and friends of registered sex offenders.In a singular twist of legislative objective, the sexual offender laws are destroying the lives of the very individuals they purport to defend: children and families. A single click on the registry, and the mapped home locations and e-mail addresses of innocent family members are open to world wide viewing. The results are harrowing, as even guiltless neighbors are put at risk. In February, 2008, in just one of a series of such events nationwide, vigilantes in Evansville,Indiana burnt down the wrong home, incinerating not the offender’s house but the neighbor’s.Survivors of such attacks learn to their dismay that innocent victims of sex offender vigilantism are not included in the terms of hate crime legislation. Beyond a worthless caveat on most registries—a single mouse click agreeing that the information will not be used for illegal or harassing purposes--there are absolutely no protections provided to innocent neighbors and family members.And so the Secondarily Sentenced turn to the Web to share their stories. In account after account posted to web and news groups, one reads the same stories playing out nationwide:Innocent children of offenders ostracized and threatened at school not just by classmates but even by their teachers. Vigilante murders of both former offenders and their innocent families;suicides from despair. Families turned away from churches they have long attended because the former offender is unwelcome, apparently, even to a forgiving God. Finding nowhere to live but a black-mold infested trailer because no landlord will accept them. Innocent spouses ousted from jobs when employers discover they are married to an offender. Residency restrictions of500, 1000, even 2500 feet from parks, nature trails, bus stops, daycare centers, malls and schools, until there is literally nowhere left to live except (as has happened in Miami, Florida,with the concurrence of state officials) underneath a bridge. Violent threats from neighbors.Hate mail. Harassing phone calls at all hours. E-mail addresses hacked and used for Spam—or worse, used to purvey porn, earning the innocent new charges. Viruses sent intentionally to the family PC. Neighborhood associations and local governments passing ex post facto regulations, forcing families to abandon property, mortgages and homes and to file bankruptcy.News teams barging into places of employment, cameras at ready, demanding, “Do you know you’re employing a sex offender?” yet never after wards examining the job loss and emotional and financial wreckage resulting from their coverage. The reports of anguish and hopelessness go on and on, without relief except in the sharing of a common thread of misery.The voices on these websites also bemoan ever more punitive measures ostensibly directed at the former offenders but which further disrupt the lives of those who interact with them. What damage will result to neighborhood property values from a judge’s order that an offender on house arrest install multiple lawn signs reading “A Sex Offender Lives Here”? How much humiliation, one wonders, will be felt by a teenager tooling about in the family car bearing a bright-green license plate reading “Registered Sex Offender”?So prevalent have these situations become that at least one major university published a study presenting statistics on the harassment, violence, suicides and losses endured by the families of sexual offenders. Other studies will no doubt follow, and the published statistics will, too late,garner public and legislative attention to the punitive results of the registry laws on the those who are in no way culpable.Many say the solution is simple: Leave the former offender and start over. Move, and let the neighborhood become a sex offender ghetto.But the families of Registered Sex Offenders dwell in a more complex reality. Their loved one isnot simply “the offender”. They are not their crime. The are beloved spouses, sons and daughters, good friends. They have paid for their crimes with prison, parole and probation, but society demands that they continue to pay with every step they take, every breath they draw, for the rest of their lives. Their loved ones will pay with them.The web groups also, with little hope, debate possible solutions. Lamenting the fact that legal aid groups cannot even begin to fund the class action lawsuits needed for all those affected,they still agree that such lawsuits would be the swiftest remedy to ensuring future protections for the innocent. But in general consensus, group members agree that a rational first step would be to require members of the public to provide identifying information, such as a full name and address, a partial social security number and a reason for the request before logging into the registry. Identifying information would simplify investigations for harassment or violence.Additionally, requiring a fee for accessing the registry could both lessen reckless and inappropriate use of the information and fund victims’ assistance for families and neighbors who have been assaulted or injured by vigilantism.A second and far more important step would be to extend the protection of hate crime legislation to the families, friends and neighbors of sexual offenders. Hate crime legislation could reduce violence against the innocent. Extending anti-discrimination housing and employment laws to former offender’s families would reduce the homelessness and lack of employment they experience as a result of the registries.The Web groups have other solutions, better suggestions, for more sane and reasonable offender laws; laws that would protect the public while still reflecting the Constitution.“,,,then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.”from the poem attributed to Pastor Martin NiemöllerIt is from a paralyzing terror of reprisals, not from shame or indifference, that the Secondarily Sentenced have had no voice. It is up to the media and legislators to speak out on their behalf and to protect the constitutional rights and safety of these innocent families and children.*For those interested in verifying the information supplied in this article, or on doing further research on the problems experience by the families, friends and neighbors of registered sex offenders, the following links may prove helpful:
http://union-of-sex-offender-registrants.blogspot.com
/http://www.newnameministries.org/
http://smashedfrog.blogspot.com/
http://www.roarforfreedom.com
http://www.soclear.org/
http://www.reformsexoffenderlaws.org/
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2007/us0907/9.htm
http://www.reformsexoffenderlaws.org/materials/10myths.php
Anti-OffenderLaws@groups.msn.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Offendersolutions : SOS - S*X Offender Solutions@yahoo groups.com

Speaking Out for the Voiceless

The Latest News on LD 1157 & LD 385

This just in! Both LD 1157 and LD385 have been passed and are waiting for the Governor's signature.
The report says he is "leaning" towards signing them. Small steps.... but steps in the right direction. A last minute amendment was defended that would have allowed some towns with existing Residency Restricts to be grandfathered.



Legislature Makes Changes to State's Sex Offender RegistryBack

June 8, 2009 Reported By: A.J. Higgins

Two bills that will change policies regarding convicted sex offenders have been enacted by the Legislature and are being supported by the governor. Under one measure, certain offenders would be able to have their names removed from Maine's online Sex Offender Registry if they can prove that they have not committed any crimes since their initial conviction. Another provides a uniform policy for municipalities seeking to impose residency restrictions for sex offenders living near schools.

From Gov. John Baldacci's perspective, LD 1157 balances public safety with the concerns of convicted sex offenders who were swept retroactively onto Maine's online Sex Offender Registry. Baldacci says the onus to get off the registry will fall squarely on the offenders. "Not to wipe their slate clean, but force them to come back and have the burden of proof on them," he says.

Problems with the Sex Offender Registry -- an online site maintained by the state that provides pictures and residency details on Maine's sex offenders -- arose after the Legislature voted four years ago to include registration requirements for offenders who committed their crimes between 1982 and 1992. Many of those offenders claimed they had led law-abiding lives for 20 years and shouldn't be subject to retroactive registration.

Baldacci says LD 1157 should address the concerns of the Maine Supreme Court, which is hearing appeals from offenders swept up in the retroactive inclusion on the basis that the registry amounts to an additional punishment. Baldacci says the new change should eliminate the potential for the court to throw out the entire retroactive provision of the law.



"We have agreed to make those people who were on the prior list and got caught in the change of law still have to petition the public safety department and the state and give us the credentialing that would give us the sense that they're meeting the points of law, so that they wouldn't have to be on the list," Baldacci says.

Under the bill, offenders that were placed on the registry as a result of the retroactive law can petition the commissioner of the Department of Public Safety to have their names removed if they have committed no crimes since finishing their sentences.

In addition to that revision, Baldacci is leaning toward signing another bill on its way to his desk that will establish a standard for municipalities that want to pass residency restrictions for convicted sex offenders. That standard, the Legislature has decided, would require that a convicted sex offender live at least 750 feet from a school. Some cities and towns have established sex offender buffer zones ranging from 500 to 1,000 feet, or more.

State Sen. Jonathan Courtney, a Republican from Springvale, asked the Senate to approve an amendment to give two of his communities an exemption. "What it would do, it would have preserved the local ordinance in two of my communities, Waterboro and Lyman -- they went through this process, and have a 2,500 foot setback requirement. The state has superceded it, to 750 feet, which is totally unacceptable to my communities."

State Sen. Debra Plowman supported Courtney's amendment, partially because she says the state needs to take a different approach to dealing with sex offenders. "If we had a civil committment in the state of Maine, we could civilly commit these people and make sure that our children don't need to have to kept 2,500 feet from a predator. They'd be put somewhere where a panel or a judge decides if they're safe enough to be on the street. In the meantime, when the young girl in the park, or the schoolyard, is within 750 feet of someone who just can't resist, I don't think 750 feet is enough."

"If you want to give your children protection, tell them where these people live, show them where these people live, tell them not to be around these people, but for God's sake, let's not send them under bridges to live and so that we lose track of them entirely," said Sen. Stan Gerzovsky, a Brunswick Democrat, who led the oppostion that defeated Courtney's amendment, arguing that differing community standards would send offenders underground. "Let's keep them on probation where they belong, let's keep an eye on them."

Both sex offender bills are now awaiting the governor's signature.

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Miami Mayor Tries to Evict Homeless RFSOs

A short time ago I wrote a blog about the homeless RFSOs living under the Julia Tuttle Causeway Bridge in Miami. They are being forced to live there because the cities Residency Restricts prohibit them from living anywhere else. Probation/Parole officers drop off their charges there when they are released to live in Miami. They have to be back under the bridge every night by 10pm they are free to go work if they can find it during the day. All of them are being monitored by GPS that they must find the money to pay for.
Now the Mayor has written a letter asking the state to remove them because a small island owned by the city is within the 2500 feet restriction, saying the park is considered a place that kids gather. By doing this he reveals the true intent of the law which is to banish all RFSOs from the city. I am sure when they developed the plan they never expected that there was anyplace for the RFSOs to go so they would have to leave.
In spite of the research that where someone lives has nothing to do with whether they re-offend and that these kind of laws may actually cause more harm because people being released from jail need stability to go straight. Being homeless does not allow people to have any source of stability.
I wish we lived closer I would advocate a protest march on Miami's city hall. What can we do? We can write to the ACLU both here in Maine and in Florida, urging them to fight for their human rights. We can write letters to the Miami papers, the Mayor, the Governor of Florida and even the President! I am collecting e-mail addresses, snail mail addresses and anything else we might need to wage a campaign against this inhumane treatment. Stray animals are treated better then this in the USA today! Also if you can contribute anything to help the people living under the bridge I have an address for you to send donations to. The money would go to buying tents, providing clothing, blankets and other needed items. They are often dropped off with only the clothing they wore out of jail. Send me an e-mail at ladyfurebear@yahoo.com for more information.
Link to the news article http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami-dade/story/1078655.html

Preditor Panic

Here's a very insightful article on what lies behind the whole move to pass more and harsher laws concerning RSFOs. Benjamin Bradford gives some of the history and refutes many of the oft cited statistics. This came out awhile ago but it is still relevant. The author has also published a book Media Mythmakers: How Journalists, Activists, and Advertisers Mislead Us is available at Amazon.


Predator Panic: A Closer Look

Benjamin Radford

“Protect the children.” Over the years that mantra has been applied to countless real and perceived threats. America has scrambled to protect its children from a wide variety of dangers including school shooters, cyberbullying, violent video games, snipers, Satanic Ritual Abuse, pornography, the Internet, and drugs.

Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars have been spent protecting children from one threat or other, often with little concern for how expensive or effective the remedies are—or how serious the threat actually is in the first place. So it is with America’s latest panic: sexual predators.

According to lawmakers and near-daily news reports, sexual predators lurk everywhere: in parks, at schools, in the malls—even in children’s bedrooms, through the Internet. A few rare (but high-profile) incidents have spawned an unprecedented deluge of new laws enacted in response to the public’s fear. Every state has notification laws to alert communities about former sex offenders. Many states have banned sex offenders from living in certain areas, and are tracking them using satellite technology. Other states have gone even further; state emergency leaders in Florida and Texas, for example, are developing plans to route convicted sex offenders away from public emergency shelters during hurricanes. “We don’t want them in the same shelters as others,” said Texas Homeland Security Director Steve McCraw. (How exactly thousands of desperate and homeless storm victims are to be identified, screened, and routed in an emergency is unclear.)
An Epidemic?

To many people, sex offenders pose a serious and growing threat—especially on the Internet. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has made them a top priority this year, launching raids and arrest sweeps. According to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, “the danger to teens is high.” On the April 18, 2005, CBS Evening News broadcast, correspondent Jim Acosta reported that “when a child is missing, chances are good it was a convicted sex offender.” (Acosta is incorrect: If a child goes missing, a convicted sex offender is among the least likely explanations, far behind runaways, family abductions, and the child being lost or injured.) On his NBC series “To Catch a Predator,” Dateline reporter Chris Hansen claimed that “the scope of the problem is immense,” and “seems to be getting worse.” Hansen claimed that Web predators are “a national epidemic,” while Alberto Gonzales stated that there are 50,000 potential child predators online.

Sex offenders are clearly a real threat, and commit horrific crimes. Those who prey on children are dangerous, but how common are they? How great is the danger? After all, there are many dangers in the world—from lightning to Mad Cow Disease to school shootings—that are genuine but very remote. Let’s examine some widely repeated claims about the threat posed by sex offenders.
the rest of the article is here. It was too long to print the whole thing.