Long but worth the read

http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/issue/story?oid=oid:1080261
HOME: SEPTEMBER 10, 2010: NEWS

Sex Offenders Exposed
Sex offender laws are supposed to punish ‘predators’ and promote public safety. Critics argue that they increasingly produce precisely the opposite effects.
BY JORDAN SMITH



Henry met Sarah in the summer of 1994, when he was 19 years old. They lived in the same small New Jersey town but hadn't met until Henry was two years out of high school, living with a friend's family. "It was a transitional period," he recalled recently. "I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life." Henry (fearing retaliation, he asked that we not use his real name) met Sarah (also not her real name) through a friend at Sarah's family home, which Henry says was a "social center. A lot of kids hung out there." He met Sarah's siblings and parents, and before long the two were dating; Sarah was 16, he says he was told. Henry didn't think much of the age difference and neither did her parents. They saw each other regularly, and her family included Henry in their outings – including a trip to Six Flags Great Adventure. That summer day, they'd piled into the family van for the trip to the amusement park; on the ride Henry and Sarah held hands. They'd kissed and touched but never took their affections any further, he says.
Then Sarah ran away from home; it wasn't the first time. "There were domestic problems," Henry recalls, "and she ran away a lot." Looking for the girl, the local cops contacted Henry. They asked Henry's age and peppered him with questions about their relationship. "We didn't have a sexual relationship; that was my saving grace," he said. Yet in the end, that "didn't matter." As a result of that investigation, Henry was charged with "sexual contact" with a minor for "fondling outside of the clothes," he said. As it turned out, Sarah was just 14 – a fact that surprised Henry. He had no idea she was that young; he had no reason to think she was not as old as she'd said.
The charge was a fourth-degree misdemeanor in New Jersey, and as a result of a plea bargain – Henry took the deal because he'd been told if he didn't he would get jail time – he was given 18 months probation and was required to register with the police as a sex offender for 10 years. Notably, under New Jersey law he was registered on a database of offenders that was private and used only by police. Henry completed his probation and complied with the registry requirement – updating his personal information and address at designated intervals. His case didn't get through the system "until 1997, so I didn't start the list until 1997," he said. "In 2007, it would've been 10 years, and it would've been over."
And then, in 2004, he moved to Texas.
When he was preparing to move south to be closer to his new wife's family, he checked in with police. They told him that because his charge was so minor they weren't sure he'd have to be listed on Texas' sex offender registry, and that even if he did have to register, his information would remain on a list compiled for police eyes only. "The police told me that it would be private," he says. "They lied." Not only are Henry's name and addresses – including that of his employer – now listed on the wildly expanding Texas sex offender registry, but even though New Jersey considered his offense a low-level misdemeanor, under Texas law the charge is considered a felony offense of "indecency with a child." As a result, he would have to have his personal information listed, publicly, for life. When he balked about the arbitrary change in terms, he says he was told that if he didn't like it he should "feel free to leave Texas."
Who Is Dangerous?
Henry's story is not an uncommon one, says Mary Sue Molnar, founder of the nascent sex offender law reform group Texas Voices. Molnar's son is in prison for what she says was a consensual sexual relationship with a girl six years his junior. In the wake of her son's conviction, Molnar began doing research on sex offender laws, about which she then knew nothing; what she found she calls "un¬be¬lievable." Indeed, in Texas and across the nation in the late Eighties and early Nineties, lawmakers expanded the number of crimes considered sexual in nature, increased the consequent punishments, created onerous probation and parole restrictions and requirements for sex offender treatment, and vastly expanded the number of people who would also be required to register publicly as "sex offenders."
The original idea for increasing penalties and restrictions, and for creating the public registry, was that harsh punishment and the public branding of offenders would enhance public safety – saving children, especially, from falling victim to sexual predators. In practice, however, the rapid expansion of crime and punishment in this area of the law has created a clumsy system that has diluted those original intentions beyond recognition. As of March 1, there were nearly 63,000 persons on Texas' public database administered by the state's Department of Public Safety, which adds roughly 100 new names to the list each week. The database includes not only serial rapists and pedophiles but also thousands of offenders like Henry and like Molnar's son, whose conduct, while considered criminal because the girls involved were younger than the legal age of consent (in Texas, that's 17), is hardly as alarming as that of a middle-aged man with a demonstrable sexual penchant for prepubescent girls – the sort of predator that in theory the laws target.
The registry now includes not only these "Romeo and Juliet" cases – youthful, consensual relationships – but others caught in the criminal justice web for things such as indecent exposure (which also includes the "poor drunk" popped by police while urinating behind a 7-Eleven in the middle of the night, says attorney Bill Habern, a veteran Texas pardon and parole specialist); it has never been retooled to differentiate among offenders and their offenses. So the crimes of serial rapists and pedophiles have been conflated with much more minor offenses under the catch-all term "sex offender," leading many to believe that everyone listed on the registry is in fact worthy of continuing public scorn and fear. "The public in general only hears, 'He's a registered sex offender.' Through ignorance, they believe that is synonymous with 'sexual predator,'" says Austin Police Department Lt. Greg Moss. "Registered sex offenders are not only sexual predators."
An expert on the enforcement of the state's sex offender laws, Moss is the former supervisor over the APD's Sex Offender Apprehension and Registration Unit, a three-detective squad tasked with keeping track of more than 1,500 sexual offenders registered as living in the city of Austin – including Henry. Of those on Austin's list, Moss estimates that just 10% are "your sexually violent predators," those folks who "we should be proactively monitoring, to ensure they're abiding by probation and parole." But APD is responsible for monitoring everyone on the list – a task that is expensive and time-consuming and has very little, if any, positive impact on public safety.
Instead, a growing body of research on the effect of broad sex offender laws reflects that requiring thousands of individuals to register for increasingly long periods of time actually undermines public safety. "That's what the current science is telling us," says Liles Arnold, a sex offender treatment provider and chair of the state's Council on Sex Offender Treatment. Moreover, research also reflects that the restrictions placed on individuals by the municipalities in which they live – such as barring individuals from living near schools, parks, or in a home with young children, even if they're the offender's own children or siblings – create extensive collateral damage. "There are a growing number of registrants, not just in Texas but across the country," says Arnold. But there's no "delineation of who is dangerous or not."
While neither Molnar nor Henry, who is also a member of Texas Voices, argue that the state shouldn't be tracking individuals who are high-risk sexual predators, they do argue that current laws trap too many people and do much more harm than good. In short, the state should make sure that it stays true to the original intent of the registry and other sex-offense-related laws – such as by creating viable ways for some to earn a way off the registry. But the ability of the state to actually create a path to deregister people is currently stalled. At issue instead is whether the state will move in 2011 to implement the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, a federal law passed four years ago that would, in essence, require the state to again expand its registry while making it even more difficult for low-risk offenders, like Henry and hundreds of others who are among the ranks of Texas Voices, to earn a chance to escape the list.
The political tide may finally be turning. There were once very few voices at the Capitol decrying the extremely punitive consequences of sex offender laws, and even fewer were the voices of former offenders whose lives have been permanently damaged. That's now changing, says Huntsville attorney Hab¬ern, as advocacy groups established by former sex offenders are beginning to appear. One is Texas Voices, which Molnar started in 2007. What began with just a handful of participants has grown to include 600 active members and more than 1,800 who have signed on to a petition to support reforming Texas law. "This tells me that there are hundreds of families out there suffering," says Molnar. "There are hundreds that don't know what else to do to deal with the mess that's been created."
Invisible Sanctions


Members of Texas Voices started by San Antonio mother Mary Sue Molnar (c) at the Capitol
Photo by Jana Birchum
Seven-year-old Ashley Estell disappeared from a Plano playground on Sept. 4, 1993. The following day her body was found on the side of a road, six miles away; she had been strangled. Police quickly found and charged with the crime 23-year-old Michael Blair – he'd been seen driving past the site where Estell's body was dumped with several teddy bears in his car, and prosecutors later said that hair found at the crime scene was a match to his. Although Blair proclaimed his innocence, he was convicted of capital murder and, after a 90-minute jury deliberation, sentenced to death.
Estell's murder prompted Texas lawmakers to get tough on those who would harm children and, although there was no evidence that Estell was sexually abused, to focus that toughness on laws aimed at punishing "sex offenders." At the time of Estell's disappearance, Blair, who'd previously been convicted of burglary and indecency with a child, was on parole. The facts surrounding Estell's disappearance and death combined with the facts of Blair's criminal history prompted state Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, to call for swift and strong action against sexual predators. "So that we may never forget the life that was lost and certainly the tragedy that occurred in Plano, I plan to call these Ashley's Laws," Shapiro told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in 1994. "No community is safe while we have a broken criminal justice system. We always wait for the big tragedy before anything is done. Michael Blair should never have been free to roam that park."
In the years since Estell's death, Texas laws relating to sexual offenses and sexual offenders expanded dramatically. They now include more than 20 offenses considered sexual in nature, many of which will land a convicted person on the state's sex offender registry for life – indeed, one of Shapiro's successful bills made registration retroactive for individuals convicted of crimes dating as far back as 1970.
Have these laws made the public safer? The answer from a growing number of experts is a very firm "no." In fact, many researchers are now suggesting that these registration and public notification laws might actually harm public safety. In a recent study, Jill Levenson, a professor at Lynn University in Florida, and Richard Tewksbury, a professor at the University of Louis-ville, found that public disclosure also negatively impacts the families of sex offenders. "The public disclosure to which sex offenders are exposed is unprecedented, and therefore [registration and notification] is unique in the degree to which invisible sanctions are inadvertently imposed upon and experienced by the loved ones of offenders," they wrote. As such, these laws create "impacts that are broad, and ... deep and lasting. Family members, even those who do not live with [registered sex offenders], experience harassment, threats, violence, economic hardships, difficulties with housing, and psychological stresses simply because they are related to a sex offender," continues the study. "Whether intended or not, the criminal justice system, via [registration and notification] policies, extends punishments to a wide swath of society beyond sex offenders."
Many of these laws were rushed onto the books with little thought to their consequences and without the benefit of scientific research. What we thought might have been a good idea hasn't turned out that way – not unlike the way the Estell case turned out. Blair was exonerated in 2008 after new genetic testing proved that the hair from the crime scene was not his. Estell's real killer remains at large; the laws rushed onto the books in the wake of her murder remain – and, many argue, they pose a mounting problem for the state's criminal justice system.
Permanent Punishment
For the June 10 Texas Senate Committee on Criminal Jus¬tice meeting, the room was packed. On the agenda was the committee's first interim charge, to study the "efficiency and fairness" of the sex offender registry system and make recommendations for improving it "if necessary" and to consider whether Texas should implement the Adam Walsh Act. Among the more than 100 people in attendance were dozens from Texas Voices – so many that the committee had to open up an overflow room to accommodate the crowd. It was the best turnout so far for the fledgling group, which only started working Capitol halls during the 2009 session. Molnar, a gregarious 52-year-old mother of two from San Antonio, now spends her days fielding dozens of calls and letters and coordinating with Jan Fewell (a member from Williamson County, who joined after a friend of her daughter landed in prison for a "Romeo and Juliet" teen romance), who works tirelessly to investigate the veracity of the stories offenders share with the group.
Molnar recalls talking with attorney Habern when she was just beginning to get the group together. Don't be surprised, he told her, if this project never gets off the ground. It's a population of offenders so marginalized that they're unlikely to want to go public with their stories, he advised. Instead, the opposite occurred. "Once they find out that there are other people that understand, then they feel like it's OK and that people will understand what they're going through," Molnar said recently. "They start telling their stories, and they'll say, 'I've never told anyone this before.' And then they're inspired."
The ranks of Texas Voices have swelled in just two years to include some 600 active members – folks who come to meetings (now held in cities across the state), who call and write lawmakers to lobby for a more sober approach to sex offender laws, and who are willing to attend meetings at the Capitol and publicly share their stories. In a short period of time, Molnar says, she's learned a lot – including that many of these cases are not what they seem. "We know there are tons of falsely accused people out there," she says. And there are countless other cases "where it looks like one thing and then," when you hear the underlying facts of the case, "you find out it's something else."


Heather Kelley
Photo by Jana Birchum
That's certainly the case with Henry and with others just like him, including Heather Kelley's husband, who will also have to register for life, the result of a relationship he had with a 15-year-old girl when he was just 19. Peter (Kelley asked that we not use his real name) was still in high school when he met and began dating his "victim." He – like Henry and presumably thousands of other teens – had no idea that his youthful relationship could run afoul of criminal statutes. In Peter's case, a teacher turned him in after finding a note the girl had written, which included details of their relationship; the teacher told a counselor, who told police.
Peter took a plea bargain for five years probation and lifetime registration. He was doing fine to begin with, attending the weekly sex offender treatment sessions. But then, three years later, he got a DWI; he was sent to prison, where he spent four years and eight months. Since then, it's been tough for Kelley and Peter, who now have twin toddler sons. The onerous terms of probation – and the specter of being labeled for life as a sex offender – have really taken a toll on the family. Peter has a hard time finding any work; Kelley, who is disabled, cannot work. They've found few places where they can afford to live. And since getting out of prison, Peter has continued to struggle.
Peter completed his sentence on the original charge of sexual assault of a child but has since been popped for assault for defending his dad in a bar fight. Even though his latest trouble does not involve any sexual offense, as part of his current probation he must again attend sex offender treatment classes. He's now behind in paying for his treatment ($25 per week), and Kelley fears he's dancing dangerously close to having his probation revoked again. Although the U.S. Supreme Court has said that a person cannot be kicked back to prison strictly for falling behind in such payments, that doesn't seem to apply in Williamson County, say Molnar, Kelley, and others. All it takes, they note, is a single violation – including missing a treatment session – to trigger the revocation process. And some counties are more prone to take action. "When you're on sex offender probation they can always find a violation if they want to," says Molnar. Indeed, she says she was recently notified that one Harris County Texas Voices member is facing revocation for TV channel surfing and for sending an e-mail to a member of his Alcoholics Anonymous group; under the terms of his treatment contract he is only allowed to watch TV if he knows what channel he wants to watch, and he is banned from sending e-mails not work-related. "Come on; it's ridiculous," says Molnar.
The restrictions placed on many offenders take a toll. Kelley is convinced that Peter's subsequent troubles are a direct result of the burden of being branded a sexual offender. "Losing jobs, [offenders] can't pay for what they have to pay for, so they need welfare and they're filling up prisons," Kelley says of the plight of people in Peter's position. Peter has had to get "special permission to go to our church for the Easter egg hunt" because it is a place where children congregate, "and he can't go out on Halloween" with his kids. "He has to stay inside with the lights off." It's no wonder, she says, that he's depressed and has again found himself in trouble with the law. "If he had committed any other crime, he would have finished his sentence and they would've said, 'You're done,'" she notes. "Why is he suffering again for this same offense?"
A Broad Brush
The stated motivation for keeping such a tight leash on "sex offenders" is the belief that they are more prone to reoffend than other types of criminals. But that simply isn't true. First, there's the issue of who exactly commits sex offenses, especially those against children. Although a conceit of the law is that children are in danger of being assaulted by strangers, statistics show otherwise. According to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, 93% of assaults against children are perpetrated by people they know. Moreover, according to a 2003 report by the BJS, which tracked more than 272,000 individuals, including more than 9,600 convicted sex offenders, just 3.5% of sex offenders were rearrested and convicted of another sexual offense during the study period. The general recidivism rate for sexual offenders was 43% – meaning it was far more likely that these folks would be arrested for some other sort of crime, as happened with Peter. Notably, however, that's a lower rate than for non-sex offenders, 68% of whom were rearrested during the three years following their original release from prison. In other words, the notion that sex offenders are a special class of criminal, more prone to committing further acts of sexual violence, is by and large not true. "It's what B.F. Skinner and that crowd call 'one-trial learning,'" says Philip Taylor, a licensed sex offender treatment provider in Dallas. "The ritual of standing in front of the community and acknowledging an offense seems to be very effective treatment for the majority of folks."
Nonetheless, despite the research findings, no one seems especially eager to change the laws. "Any time there is a horrific case, there comes a law that is usually rushed into service with very little discussion or debate, and once it is passed it is impossible to delete it," notes Taylor. That's the case in Texas, he says, where thousands of names are added to the registry each year despite the growing body of research that demonstrates such laws to be ineffective. The Texas registry, says Taylor, is "ineffective at best and panic-mongering at worst."
State Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, chair of the Senate Committee on Criminal Justice, says that dealing with sex offenders "in general" is probably "our number one challenge." First, he says, there's the problem of public perception: "There is a fear factor," he notes. Second, there are the problems that current laws have created: "We're painting everybody with a broad brush." Third, there's the prospect of the Adam Walsh Act, and whether Texas will adopt the broad new federal requirements for registering and reporting sexual offenders. Whitmire is among a growing number of criminal justice professionals, including police, who believe that implementing the new federal law would likely make the current situation worse. "I don't think we do Adam Walsh," he said during a recent phone call from his Hous¬ton office. "Law enforcement says it's not necessary and might hurt their crime fighting."
The Adam Walsh Act, passed by Congress in 2006 with little debate or fanfare, is named for the 6-year-old boy whose 1981 Florida abduction and murder prompted the first modern wave of criminal statutes aimed at protecting children from predators – and simultaneously distorted the public perception of the number of stranger abductions and murders as well as the consequent legislation. The AWA requires states to add a host of new offenders to their sex offender registries – including juveniles as young as 14 – and requires the public reporting of additional information on those registries, including the name and address of a person's employer. (The idea behind the law was in part to standardize the registries kept by each state and federally recognized Indian tribe.)
The law also makes changes in the duration of registration for individuals within a tier system based on offense only, without consideration of empirical risk assessment. Although states and tribes were given until 2009 to "substantially" implement the law, to date just three states and two tribes have done so. Part of the issue is the cost of implementing the unfunded federal mandate; according to Washington, D.C.-based think tank the Justice Policy Institute, implementing the AWA could cost Texas nearly $39 million (conversely, not adopting the law would mean the loss of just $1.4 million in federal funding). Even bigger issues are what the tier system would do to the classification process and the pressure it would place on police agencies required to monitor registered offenders.
Since 2000, Texas' registration system has relied, in part, on one or more risk-assessment tools designed to determine the threat of reoffending. Under the new federal law that system would become obsolete, and police and treatment providers believe that would lead to a large number of offenders being tagged as high-risk, a designation that requires the most strict scrutiny by police. "There are a few areas of concern" with the AWA, says Council on Sex Offender Treatment Chair Arnold. One major concern is that there would be "lots of misclassification of offenders who are low-risk as high-risk" and vice versa. For example, said Lt. Moss, under the act, Henry would be considered a high-risk offender and would be required to check in with police in person, repeatedly, throughout the year, at a considerable cost to APD, which right now is running a ratio of about 400 offenders for each of the unit's detectives.
Henry's case "is probably the best example" of what the AWA would do. Technically, he says, Henry's offense was sexual indecency with a child, but realistically, he's a thirtysomething man with two children who had a youthful indiscretion. "What are the risks of [Henry] reoffending?" asks Moss. "Probably so low as to be unmeasurable." Under AWA, he would nonetheless be subject to a heightened level of scrutiny – and that comes with a big price tag for local cops. (Another offender, however, who might be a higher risk but who had pleaded his case down to a lower-level offense might receive a lower-risk designation and be able to escape much scrutiny at all.) To keep up with the current registration requirements, the APD has had to seek federal grant funding to train beat cops to do sex offender checks, and that money hasn't kept flowing, says Sgt. John Herring, the current supervisor of the sex offender unit. In 2010 alone, the city has had to fork over an additional $55,000 to help police do additional checks. Under AWA, that money would have to keep coming, notes Herring, or the department would have to shift more people to his small unit. "Either way, you're going to be spending more."
Under an extended federal deadline, the state has until July 2011 to decide whether to adopt the act. The ranks of experts and advocates lined up against adoption are swelling – they include not only Texas Voices' 600 active members, but key state lawmakers, including Whitmire; a growing number of lawyers; the Council on Sex Offender Treat¬ment (which has officially come out against implementation); and even some police officers, including Moss. But many lawmakers remain hesitant, at best, to take any steps that might make them appear "soft" on molesters – an always-handy campaign wedge issue. That axiom was clearly on display last year when conservative Euless Republican state Rep. Todd Smith drew a primary opponent who attacked him for having sponsored a bill that might allow certain "Romeo and Juliet" offenders to escape having to register altogether. (Although an overwhelming majority of lawmakers favored the modest measure, Gov. Rick Perry vetoed the bill.)
In the meantime, however, in anticipation of the possibility that the state might implement the act, the state has begun putting specifics about offenders' employers onto the online registry. The addition to the public domain was a decision made by Attorney General Greg Abbott in response to several official inquiries, says Tela Mange, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Public Safety. Molnar believes the addition of that information is now serving as a further barrier to re-entry for sexual offenders, because many employers simply don't want to deal with any potential public hassles. "It is an obstacle to re-entry. Do we want these people to be working, or do we want them homeless?" she asks. "Which makes us safer?"
The uncertainty about what will happen with the AWA has completely stalled efforts to find a way to let people like Henry apply for removal from the list. At issue, says Allison Taylor, executive director of the Council on Sex Offender Treatment, is a provision of statute that ties any deregistration plan to federal law. At the time the statute was revised, the controlling federal law was the Jacob Wet¬ter¬ling Act, which in 1994 essentially created the model for public registries in place across the country. It allowed for "early termination potential" from the registry for four main crimes, including sexual indecency with a child, says Taylor. The state has not moved to implement that deregistration mechanism, however, because of the federal adoption of the AWA, which changes the offenses that can be considered for deregistration and how long an offender has to wait to apply.


Martin Ezell is married to his “victim,” with whom he has three children.
Photo by Jana Birchum
Should the state decide against implementing AWA altogether, then lawmakers would have to revise existing law to untie the state and federal statutes, which would allow the state to develop its own unique deregistration procedures. "We've had hundreds of requests for early termination," says Taylor, but the council has been unable to process them. "We have taken lots of steps backwards because of the AWA. It is definitely a very flawed situation."
How Many Voices?
To Molnar and others in Texas Voices, the situation is more appropriately described as an ongoing disaster. "It is such a mess, and it's taken a lot of years and a lot of bills to get us into the mess we're in," says Molnar. "And I suppose it's going to take that again to get us out of it." First on the to-do list, says Molnar, should be a way to weed out people who are not dangerous and get them off the list. "It boils down to differentiation: whether someone poses a threat or whether they ever did [pose a threat] in the first place."
That is the only hope for potentially thousands of people who have wound up charged, convicted, and registered because of a youthful relationship, including those like Martin Ezell, who is married to the woman he is labeled as having assaulted as a child. He was much older than her when the two met in the late Nineties; he was already 32, and she was just 16. But they fell in love and have remained together for more than 12 years and now have three children. He has a master's degree from St. Edward's University and had hoped to teach high school; that can't happen now, and as a result his wife has to work more than one job to keep the family afloat. After a friend of their then-10-year-old daughter found Ezell's photo online, the couple had to sit their daughter down to try to explain what, exactly, a sex offender is and why her father is considered one. Not surprisingly, she didn't understand.
Ezell isn't sure he understands either – and he certainly doesn't understand why, all these years later, he's still being punished for something that the state has otherwise closed the book on. "If I had been convicted of drinking and driving I would've done my sentence, and I would be done. That doesn't mean that I'm still not drinking and driving," he says. But there's no online registry for DWI offenders. "So if you're my neighbor, you don't know that I'm a drunk, and if your kids are outside and playing and I've been drinking out at the lake, you're not going to know until I come wheeling around the corner." If public safety is a motivating factor for having him register, why doesn't the state seek to do the same for others? That's certainly not the solution, he says, but it does raise the question of what is fair and what is just. "If we don't start standing up and speaking for ourselves," he says, "nobody will."
That is exactly what Molnar hopes the members of Texas Voices will spend 2011 doing: speaking up and trying to change things inside the Capitol. Otherwise, she fears things will get far worse before they get even a little bit better. "What is going to happen when we get to 100,000 people on the list? To 200,000? Will we be safer?" she asks. "How much larger is our group going to have to grow?"
________________________________________
By the Thousands: 'Sex Offenders' by County
The following list includes the entire registered population in a selection of major and Central Texas counties, including all police agencies in each county, per Department of Public Safety registry, as of June 6.
Registered
offenders Offenders
per 1,000
population
Harris 5,922 1.48
Dallas 4,308 1.80
Tarrant 2,761 1.57
Bexar 2,588 1.58
El Paso 917 1.22
Travis 1,526 1.51
Williamson 356 0.88
Hays 211 1.39
Bastrop 203 2.75
Caldwell 122 3.31
Fayette 31 1.28

From one of my favorite bloggers

You can tell it's election season ...
You can tell it's election season when politicians begin launching demagogic proposals to get "tough" on sex offenders, as Gov. Rick Perry was doing in Houston this week in this speech. Commenters at the Texas Tribune following the story pretty universally viewed this as a transparent campaign ploy and counterproductive to actually managing sex offenders, but who know how such tactics resonate with the average voter?

It's not as though sex offender laws don't need revamping. Some lawmakers, with support from law enforcement, would like to pare back the sex offender registration list to focus supervision on serious, violent offenders so that there's some actual benefit from the expensive, time-consuming program which problematically soaks up local police and probation resources. Jordan Smith at the Austin Chronicle recently wrote an excellent story detailing the various ways the registration system has ballooned with less serious offenders until it's taxing law enforcement's ability to effectively oversee anyone. Perry's press hit, however, portrays everyone on the registration list as "predatory, high-risk sex offenders" and simply suggests spending more money for arrest and enforcement.

It's ironic that his complaint comes just as Stephen Brodie, the deaf man who was this week exonerated for a 1990 rape he didn't commit, was released from prison for violating the conditions of his sex-offender registration (because he never committed the underlying crime and so shouldn't have been registered).

Many more on the list committed much less serious offenses - often Romeo and Juliet style romances (I've met sex offenders who are married to their "victim") - which is a problem because a) many don't deserve the extra punishment and b) they divert scarce resources from more intensively supervising the most serious, violent offenders. In that sense, the public furor surrounding the registry, mostly promoted by self-interested politicians and lazy journalists, promotes false threats and ill-conceived hype that damage the community more than it protects it.

In political campaigns, the public expects politicians to debate the issues that concern them (even if Gov. Perry has decided it's not in his interest to debate at all), so it's regrettable that election season has become the one time when such important subjects are least likely to be discussed thoughtfully or productively.
» Read full article on[Grits for Breakfast]

Pew: Incarceration reduces employment, long-term economic growth

Pew: Incarceration reduces employment, long-term economic growth
A new study from the Pew Charitable Trusts quantifies a lamentable trend that's retarding the economy and employment for millions of Americans: Incarceration strongly correlates to reduced employment and long-term earnings. What's more, the economic harms from imprisonment extend to inmates' children. Here's a remarkable excerpt from Pew's press release:

Incarceration reduces former inmates’ earnings by 40 percent and limits their future economic mobility, according to a new Pew report,Collateral Costs: Incarceration’s Effect on Economic Mobility. This is a growing challenge now that 1 in every 28children in America has a parent behind bars, up from 1 in 125 just 25 years ago.

“People who break the law need to be held accountable and pay their debt to society,” said Adam Gelb, director of the Public Safety Performance Project of the Pew Center on the States. “At the same time, the collateral costs of locking up 2.3 million people are piling higher and higher. Corrections is the second fastest growing state budget category, and state leaders from both parties are now finding that there are research-based strategies for low-risk offenders that can reduce crime at far less cost than prison.”

The report authored by Pew’s Economic Policy Group and the Pew Center on the States shows that:

* Before being incarcerated, two-thirds of male inmates were employed and more than half were the primary source of financial support for their children.
* After release, former male inmates work nine fewer weeks annually and take home 40 percent less in annual earnings, making $23,500 instead of $39,100. That amounts to an expected earnings loss of nearly $179,000 through age 48 for men who have been incarcerated.
* Of former inmates who were in the bottom of the earnings distribution in 1986, two-thirds remained there in 2006, twice the number of non-incarcerated men.

“Pew’s past research shows a variety of factors influence economic mobility both within a person’s lifetime and across generations. This report finds that incarceration is a powerful determinant of mobility for both former inmates and their children,” said Scott Winship, research manager of the Economic Mobility Project of Pew’s Economic Policy Group.

Incarceration’s long-term economic repercussions are felt by increasing numbers of families and communities now that 2.3 million Americans are behind bars, equaling 1 in 100 adults. Up from 500,000 in 1980, this marks more than a 300 percent increase in the United States’ incarcerated population.

Collateral Costs details the concentration of incarceration among men, the young, the uneducated and African Americans. One in 87 working-aged white men is in prison or jail compared with 1 in 36 Hispanic men and 1 in 12 African American men. Today, more African American men aged 20 to 34 without a high school diploma or GED are behind bars (37 percent) than are employed (26 percent).

The report also shows more than 2.7 million minor children now have a parent behind bars, or 1 in every 28. For African American children the number is 1 in 9, a rate that has more than quadrupled in the past 25 years.

Mosque at Ground Zero

What are the thoughts on this? Our constitution allows us to worship any God we please. However, out constitution makes no determination as to where a house of worship can be built be it Muslim or Methodist.
We are now being told that Muslims worship daily near the Pentagon. Adding an additional place at Ground Zero has the feel of marking territory that has been has been ravaged.
Now I know there are moderate Muslims just as there are moderates in every religion. The people in charge of this project see it as a practice in tolerance. That is something I believe in as well. Except this time the tolerance should be on the side of the Muslims. Respect could be earned by moving this center to another location since it is clearly a dividing issue in America. We need to be united. Do Muslims believe in the Constitution? This is not something that Americans should be fighting over. Our American Muslim friends will hopefully have the sensibility to choose another location.

What happened to them?

Some months ago we heard a chilling story about a family of men that had abused children during their younger years. The accusation was based on repressed memories. The men were jailed and heavy equipment was dispatched to find jars with notes describing bad memories and remains of one baby or several. Does anyone have follow-up information? Are the men still jailed. Is the search continuing after all of this time? Did authorities flub up?
Stories like this get the attention of the nation. Apologies are not what the public wants to hear and no explanation is given on a national level. There are no apologies for the terror they have caused or the men that will always be viewed with suspicion. Of course nothing is done to the alleged victim for fear incidents will go unreported. It would be a real shame if liars learned not to take their lies to authorities . Someone down the road might get a plea bargain and innocence has never been a big concern.
In TX an 18 year old man was convicted of rape. 27 years later he as been proven innocent. Nobody can give back his lost adulthood. Over the weekend the family was still waiting for his release. This is more bull. Processing out could be done in the free world.

Adam Walsh: Blame It On The Dead Guy

( This is a rewrite of the op/ed posted earlier. New information surfaced that needed to be included)

Adam Walsh: Blame it on the Dead Guy

There is no proof that Jeffrey Dahmer was at a Hollywood, FL mall on July 27, 1981.
There is no proof that Ottis Toole was at this mall on July 27, 1981.
Most of all there is no proof that Adam Walsh was at the mall on the 27th of July, 1981. We do know that Adam was killed somewhere and by somebody.

A staged abduction at the mall would serve many purposes. Focus would be taken off the family. They would be viewed as victims. This public location offered a variety of scenarios and a wide assortment of possible suspects. In a private setting there are usually a small number of people directly tied to an incident. Let’s look at what we would have seen if public attention had been on the Walsh home.

John Walsh was a big man in a compact body. It appears that loving the females was proof of his masculinity as he made his way through college and went on to become a lifeguard on the beaches of Florida. He eventually decided his dangerous lifestyle would likely lead to an early death unless he got married. That is when he remembered Reve Drew from college.

Getting married does not always mean settling down. As he became a known figure he often made the tabloids with his choice of the day. It seems like morals have never been a requirement for being an expert on our kids. His own children were put through hell by sexual obsessions that have kept him captive for many years.

Being diagnosed as a sex addict was a revelation that he is the man he has spent years warning parents about. This is a condition that is very real and some of the symptoms are fantasy, masturbation, porn, seeking out multiple partners and an overwhelming feeling of regret once it was over. This tells us that we don’t know where he has been, where he is going next, the ages of those that have experienced the direct abuse. He is correct in saying it is an illness but this secret is also a betrayal of public trust. It is certainly possible to get the demons under control but his entire livelihood depends on sexual issues. It is not an environment in which to recover.

Now this is the same man who claimed to be a partner in a multi-million dollar hotel construction project in the Bahamas. It has an impressive sound and may be entirely true. However, the job he was reporting to and getting a paycheck from was in Bal Harbor where he arranged conventions for a hotel in the Bahamas. Salesman is a big step down from hotel magnate but it does help explain why his home went into foreclosure and his utilities had to be paid by others. Without a regular paycheck most of us would have the same experiences and there is no shame in needing help.

Let’s take another step back in time and look at Reve Walsh and her 4 year affair with James Campbell, friend of Walsh and godfather of Adam. After a 2 year stint as a house guest John kicked him out and there was an argument between the two men. But Campbell did not stay away. According to police reports he claims to have gone to the Walsh home on the very day that Adam was reported as missing. His visit took place after John had gone off to work at his sales job and James says he was closer to Adam than than his biological father. This appreciative guest wanted more than was offered.

This is the story that Campbell told more than once while attached to a lie detector. On the other side of the coin John Walsh has stated that Campbell was still living in the home when Adam disappeared. It can’t be that difficult to know who was living in the household. Either way there are still all of the ingredients of a dysfunctional family and disaster.

Police checked and rechecked this entire situation. It led nowhere. They checked and rechecked every lead concerning the mall. There was nothing to indicate that it was the scene of abduction. Over the years all sorts of speculation have been thrown into the mix but no concrete evidence has surfaced. It was a shock when a man that had been a rotting corpse for 10 years was named as the murderer and the case was closed. This has the makings of a cliffhanger and an opening is available for a sequel.

When Walsh dies he may find Toole waiting on the other side with a piece of lead pipe. In life this man did not have the opportunity to face his accusers or speak in his own defense so it was a slam-dunk for Walsh. Blaming a dead guy is a lot less messy and a timetable based on political expediency was possible.Toole had been silent for 10 years so the case was closed based on speculation.

Closing a 27 year old case would have been a great relief to those that were investigated and scrutinized over the years. A stumble by any of them could have swayed the whimsical public. A closed case would likely be reopened only with hard evidence such as a valid confession or an eye witness with inside information.

Losing a child does not make one an expert in saving them. In many cases it does not even make them better parents. Living with any kind of addict can be a huge burden. Living with one that has so much power must be a nightmare. But the dishonesty and sexual escapades speak for who we are as a nation. Morals are not a requirement for being a spokesman for our children.

Parents must show some common sense. Media teaches our children all of the details of illegal acts. We are all aware of the copycat incidents that give these actions momentum. Criminals our our creation.

Concrete answers concerning Adam would be a blessing for this entire nation. Papa John should take his rage and leave the world stage. Society should insist. The public view of an addict is someone who is weak, diseased, despised and disgraced so an inner turmoil is fierce and constant. Self-loathing is also a part of addiction. It must be very frustrating to want normal and find it is so elusive.
Angel McDade
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0307/15/lkl.00.html
http://www.wisn.com/news/10903529/detail.html
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB118782905698506010.html
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19960317&slug=2319536
All rights retained by Angel McDade and Associates

Child Safety by the numbers by Shirley Lowery

Some interesting statistics about dangers to children
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Labels:MythsAndFacts,UserSubmitted
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The laws enacted to monitor and control sex offenders are extraordinary. I think we can all agree to that. The general public believes these extraordinary laws are justified. The faces of murdered children, killed by sexual predators, are flashed on the TV urging us to "consider the children." And who could resist? Who would want to? Surely it is justified to face the threats to our children.

But what are those threats really? Is there a way to know?

Actually, yes...

- U.S. Department of Justice, National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Throwaway Children.

http://www.missingkids.com/en_US/documents/nismart2_overview.pdf

This report states that in 2002 an estimated 1,325,600 kids went missing. 797,500 were reported as missing.

628,900 of these children were identified as runaway/throwaway kids.

Of the other 528,100 children their parents didn't even bother to file a report.

Yet the we hear the constant scream of "if it saves one child". Oh, there are so many more than that who need to be saved so let’s look at where the danger lies.

Out of 1,315,600 missing kids 115 were snatched in the sense that everybody is worried about. And that includes kids that were snatched for ransom, and kids that were snatched by a disturbed or distraught person who wanted a child of their own, so how many are left that were snatched and killed by the sex offenders that are hiding behind every tree? That's what we're really worried about, right? Actually, the report tells us that number is 40 but let’s be generous and use the entire 115 who were snatched out of the 1.3 million who went missing.

You will find that less than 1/100th of 1% were snatched but the number that people care about and are willing to spend our resources on is much lower. To qualify for an outcry there must be a combination of sex, violence and death.

Page 11 of the report states that "…40 missing children who were stereotypicall y kidnapped and killed (an estimated 35) or were still missing (approximately 5) at the time of the study." Yes, that is too many. But are we going to ignore all the others to concentrate on less than 1/200th of 1%?

Now, it is a sad fact that there are more children who die each year than just these 40. Many more. How many more and how are they dying?

Center for Disease Control

http://webapp.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/leadcaus10.html

A quick look at Top Ten deaths in minors in 2002 shows that there were 17,759 kids who died (excluding infant mortality).

Of those:

1296 were shot to death by someone,

145 were stabbed to death,

89 were strangled,

37 were burned alive,

17 were poisoned,

603 shot themselves,

559 hung themselves, and

6132 were killed in traffic accidents.

This tells us that in 2002:

Your child was 1400% more likely to hang themselves than be snatched and killed by a sex offender.

Your child was 1500% more likely to shoot themselves than be snatched and killed by a sex offender

Your child was 3200% more likely to be murdered by firearm by someone besides a sex offender.

Your child was 4000% more likely to be shot, stabbed, strangled, burned alive or poisoned than snatched and killed by a sex offender.

Your child was 15300% more likely to be killed in a car crash than snatched and killed by a sex offender.

We find more information here.

The American Journal of Psychiatry

http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/162/9/1578

- Among children under age 5 years in the United States who were murdered in the last quarter of the 20th century, 61% were killed by their own parents: 30% were killed by their mothers, and 31% by their fathers

- Compared to other developed nations, the United States has the highest rate of child homicide

61% of murdered children under age 5 were murdered by their own parents. We are not speaking of accidents or carelessness that leads to death. Statistically speaking, parents are, by far, the greatest threat to a child’s life. So much for "protect the children!"

You may have noticed above that car accidents were the leading killer of children. Sadly, many of these are completely avoidable.

The American Journal of Psychiatry

Center for Disease Control

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5304a2.htm

- "Motor-vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death among children under 1 year old in the united states".

- "One in four crash-related deaths among child passengers aged under 14 years involves alcohol use."

-"…68% were riding with the drinking drivers; the majority of these children were not restrained."

- "The majority of children who died while riding with drinking drivers were not restrained at the time of the crash."

- "The majority of drivers in these crashes survived, suggesting that certain children killed in alcohol-related crashes might have survived had they been restrained properly."

This tells us that car crashes are killing our kids in great numbers. And that 25% of the time it’s because of drunk drivers. Where is the real rage? Where is the extraordinary response to an extraordinary threat?

It gets worse. It turns out those more than 50% of those drunk drivers was a parent of the dead child. Is this acceptable to Americans?

"The majority of drivers in these crashes survived, suggesting that certain children killed in alcohol-related crashes might have survived had they been restrained properly"

Your child is 2600% more likely to be killed by you because you couldn’t be bothered to put their seatbelt on when you felt like driving drunk with your kid in the car. Are these the same parents who scream for tougher laws to protect their children against sex offenders??

These are huge numbers of children being killed in brutal ways - it's like a war zone out there. Or is that an exaggeration?

We, as a nation, are so outraged by our causalities in Iraq. Cindy Sheehan let the world know of her personal outrage and why not? Losing a child is not easy.

The war in Iraq started in March 2003. As of 7/11/2007 we had lost 3610 fine men and women. That is an average of 902.5 lives per year. Let’s do some more comparisons of numbers using the numbers above.

More kids are shot to death each year in American than Soldiers are killed in Iraq. 1296 versus 902

More kids kill themselves each year in America than Soldiers are killed in Iraq. 1162 versus 902

More kids are killed by drunk drivers (usually their parents) than Soldiers are killed in Iraq. 1533 versus 902

Combine just those categories and you get 3991 kids who are either shot to death, kill themselves, or are killed by drunk driver versus 902.5 soldier killed in the Iraq war - that's four times as many.

Considering that one of the main points of contention of the Iraq war is the casualties, you’d think we’d be at least as concerned about our children.

Remember this?

The American Journal of Psychiatry

http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/162/9/1578

- Among children under age 5 years in the United States who were murdered in the last quarter of the 20th century, 61% were killed by their own parents

- Compared to other developed nations, the United States has the highest rate of child homicide

61% of murdered children under age 5 were murdered by their own parents. We are not speaking of accidents or carelessness that leads to death. Statistically speaking, parents are, by far, the greatest threat to a child’s life. So much for "protect the children!"

Some of our children manage to make it to adulthood in spite of the adults in their lives. I kept wondering why a nation would make a mockery of child safety by latching on to the least likely threat. The answer is not so difficult.

Hating sex offenders is easy. Screaming loudly shows your concern about your children. No action is required on the part of the parents except an opinion that is acceptable in society.

Dealing with a runaway or unruly child takes a lot of hard work. A suicidal or addicted child can tear your heart out. A drink now and then saves your sanity. And kids know how to push your buttons and make you mad enough to kill but, of course, you would never do such a thing.

Adults no longer have a vested interest in their children and everyone in the family goes their own direction. Ignoring is much simpler than arguing and disciplining. They are going to do what they want anyway so why bother with a ruckus. Right?

When next you rail against sex offenders ask yourself why you aren’t taking on the big risk issues? The reason, in many cases, is that it would draw negative attention to lifestyles that are counter-productive to a child’s safety. By trying to divert attention elsewhere you expose yourself as a phony and it will come full circle. Count on it.
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"The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of a civilization. We must have a desire to rehabilitate into the world of industry, all those who have paid their dues in the hard coinage of punishment." - Winston Churchill (United States Constitution)
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Posted On Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 7:38:00 PM by ZMan!
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A SO in Ga Amen! I don't think I've seen a better use of the government's own numbers. So Bravo to the author!
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Thursday, July 16, 2009 – Flag – Reply

Kirk Yes a very well writen article. I think a copy should be sent to all of Congress and lets not forget the Governers across the country.
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Thursday, July 16, 2009 – Flag – Reply

Guest just proves what i've said before. If society wants to "Protect the children!" Fine ROUND UP ALL THE PARENTS and lock them up for life.
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Friday, July 17, 2009 – Flag – Reply