Saturday, August 29, 2015

Massachusetts High Court Strikes Down Residency Restrictions

The Massachusetts Supreme Court rules against laws restricting where Registered Citizens may live.

"The days are long since past when whole communities of persons, such (as) Native Americans and Japanese-Americans may be lawfully banished from our midst,” Justice Geraldine Hines wrote for the court. Read more.

Reasons for Hope and Courage

Almost everywhere you look, you will see news that inspires hope and courage. Three recent examples:

1. Registered citizens challenge Alabama law.

2. Registered citizens challenge Nevada law.

3. Research shows SO laws damage kids and families.

Sunday, August 23, 2015

Send This Information to Your State Senator

Read the essay at this link, and then send it to your state senator, as well as to anyone else who needs to have this information.

THE U.S. SUPREME COURT'S HUGE MISTAKE
 DAVID POST IN THE WASHINGTON POST ON THE SO LIE
This work proves that the U.S. Supreme Court used lies to justify our harsh former-sex-offender laws.

This brief essay reveals that the sources relied upon by the Supreme Court in Smith v. Doe, a heavily cited constitutional decision on sex offender registries, in fact provide no support at all for the facts about sex offender re-offense rates that the Court treats as central to its constitutional conclusions.

This misreading of the social science was abetted in part by the Solicitor General’s misrepresentations in the amicus brief it filed in this case. The false “facts” stated in the opinion have since been relied upon repeatedly by other courts in their own constitutional decisions, thus infecting an entire field of law as well as policy making by legislative bodies. Recent decisions by the Pennsylvania and California supreme courts establish principles that would support major judicial reforms of sex offender registries, if they were applied to the actual facts.

This paper is scheduled to appear in Constitutional Commentary during Fall 2015.  Revised 8/11/15

FIND YOUR STATE SENATOR

FIND YOUR CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATIVE


Friday, August 21, 2015

Word is Spreading About How the U.S. Supreme Court Used Faked Stats to Justify SO Laws

Worth noting: Vox: Policy & Politics now is aware that the two major U.S. Supreme Court decisions upholding our current sex-offender laws were based on fabricated statistics. Read the story here.

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Share This With People Who Are Frightened by Former Sex Offenders

The 5.3 percent number comes from a U.S. Department of Justice study. Individual state studies have found lower reoffense rates. In Nebraska, for instance, the University of Nebraska-Omaha found a year-to-year reoffense rate of less than 1 percent.

Monday, August 17, 2015

Happy Birthday, FEARLESS!

FEARLESS is one year old! Join us tonight to celebrate: 7 p.m. at Saint Michael Lutheran Church, 13232 Blondo Street, Omaha. Park in the east lot and come in the east entrance.

Here's more info.

Sunday, August 16, 2015

Wisconsin Proposal Would Roll Back Residency Restrictions

State lawmakers in Wisconsin are considering a bill that would eliminate most residency restrictions. Read more.

NY Times on Our Failed Sex-Offender Policy

The New York Times has a great editorial on the abject failure of current sex-offender policy.

Here is the concluding paragraph:
Public safety would be better served if resources were directed toward community supervision and other services for those leaving prison, rather than toward skirting the edges of the Constitution to keep them locked away.
Read the entire editorial here.

Friday, August 14, 2015

Join Us at FEARLESS

FEARLESS takes responsibility where our politicians will not. You don't have to live like a refugee. Join us Monday, August 17, at 7 p.m. in the lower level of Saint Michael Lutheran Church, 13232 Blondo Street, Omaha. Park in the east lot and come in through the east entrance.


Thursday, August 13, 2015

Sanity Makes a Slow Comeback

News from the courts:

Ruling in an Indiana case, a federal appeals court upholds the constitutional rights of a sex-offender. Slowly, slowly sanity is returning. Read about it here.

In Minnesota, a federal judge pushes hard on cowardly state lawmakers who are afraid to fix that state's unconstitutional system that results in sex offenders being locked up for life with no chance of getting out. Read more here.

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Law Professor: High Court Rulings Premised on a Study That Does Not Exist

All of our sex-offender laws are premised on a statistic that is wrong.

Professor Ira Ellman at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, Arizona State University, writes:
Proponents of criminal justice reform never talk about sex offenders. They’re political untouchables subject to lifelong restrictions that continue long past their confinement, restrictions justified as necessary to protect the public from their propensity to re-offend. Two Supreme Court decisions established that justification. But they rely on a scientific study that doesn’t exist.
Read more here.

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Abolish Registries

The headline in the Bronx Chronicle says it all: "Abolish the sex offender registry." Read the story.

Monday, August 10, 2015

National Work

The National Reform Sex Offender Laws organization was represented at the recent National Conference of State Legislatures convention in Seattle, Washington. Click here for more info.

Sunday, August 9, 2015

The Atlantic on Mandatory Reporting Laws

Mandatory reporting laws (Nebraska has one) require therapists to turn their clients in to police, just like the church used to require that unbelievers be turned over to the Inquisition.

Among the multitude of problems with such laws is the fact that they discourage people from seeking the help they need.

The Atlantic recently took a good long look at this ridiculous state of affairs. Read it here.

Saturday, August 8, 2015

Registries Guarantee That Children Will Continue to Be Harmed

All of the laws restricting the activities of former sex offenders are nothing more than distractions that guarantee continued victimization of children.

Focusing on Registered Citizens means that we are not focusing on the true threat to children: People in their own homes and people who have authority over them.

The blog With Justice for All recently published an open letter to people who advocate for tougher sex-offender laws. Here are a few significant exceprts:
Statistics and studies tell us that virtually all children who are sexually abused are not random victims of offenders already registered. They are overwhelmingly victims of those in their lives with whom they are comfortable: their family members, their peers—fully a third of those who molest children are themselves children and juveniles—and their authority figures.
* * * 
Every dollar spent registering, tracking, monitoring, and legislating against registered citizens is a dollar not spent educating and empowering parents and victims against the overwhelmingly greater threat.
* * *
Every minute focused on those on the registry is a minute not focused on those who are victims of sexual abuse in their own homes and other places in their everyday lives.
Read the post here

First They Scare You, Then They Take Your Money

The sex-offender industry works like this: They scare you and then take your money by pretending to protect you.

Slimy politicians enact laws that guarantee former offenders will somehow run afoul of the myriad complicated rules and regs put in place under the guise of protecting the public. This supplies our overcrowded prisons with an unending supply of inmates, who are maintained by public funds (your tax dollars).

Whether the prison system is run by the state or a private contractor, it's a neat way to siphon off the cash that you earned and paid to the government in taxes.

In many places there are systems that keep former offenders locked up long after they have completed their sentences. You can read about what they do in corrupt Kentucky by clicking here.

Thursday, August 6, 2015

FEARLESS Topic for August 17: All About Family

We all know that family support systems are key elements of successful reintegration into society for all former offenders.

Do you participate in your kids' lives in spite of misguided laws and policies? Is your family an important source of emotional support? Have you been rejected by your family? Has Nebraska law damaged your family?

Questions like these and others will be fodder for discussion at the next meeting of FEARLESS on Monday, August 17, at 7 p.m. in the lower level of Saint Michael Lutheran Church in Omaha. The church is located at 13232 Blondo Street. Park in the east lot and come in through the east entrance.

FEARLESS is a collaboration of Nebraskans Unafraid and the University of Nebraska-Omaha that counteracts dangerous Nebraska law. Research has shown that isolating Registered Citizens, depriving them of jobs and homes, increases the chances that they will reoffend. Current Nebraska law does exactly that. We live in a state where (research has shown that) sex-offender law makes communities more dangerous.

FEARLESS provides an opportunity for Registered Citizens and their loved ones to connect and learn from one another and support one another. Establishing such social networks reduces the likelihood of reoffense. Even though the reoffense rates for sex offenders are extremely low to start with, there is no excuse for grandstanding politicians who make the state more dangerous with their showboating laws.

FEARLESS takes responsibility where our politicians will not.

Please join us at 7 p.m. Monday, August 17, at Saint Michael Lutheran Church, 13232 Blondo Street, Omaha. Park in the east lot and come in through the east entrance. FEARLESS is exclusively for Registered Citizens and their invited guests.