D.C. Will not be AWA Compliant

http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/dc/2011/07/dc-wont-meet-federal-sex-offender-registry-mandate

The District will not meet a July 27 deadline to fall in line with a federal mandate designed to create a national sex offender registry, likely causing the city to lose $250,000 in grant money that it uses for crime prevention.

If the city continues not to act, it could stand to lose about $1 million from the feds over the next four years. Tuesday is the last chance before the deadline for the council to act on legislation introduced by the mayor in May that’s designed to bring the District into compliance with the five-year-old Adam Walsh Act. After Tuesday, the council won’t meet again to vote on legislation until mid-September.

At-large Councilman Phil Mendelson, who is handling the mayor’s bill as head of the public safety committee, told The Washington Examiner that he’s not rushing.

“We’ll continue to look at the legislation over the next couple of months,” Mendelson said. “We need to look beyond the deadline and at what’s the right policy.”

The District won’t likely be the only jurisdiction not to meet the deadline for the controversial federal requirements, which include tracking for at least 25 years on a nonpublic sex offender registry youths as young as 14 who are convicted of violent rapes. Only seven states are in compliance with the act, although many — including Virginia — are working closely with federal officials to meet the deadline. Some states, such as Maryland, aren’t interested in changing how they handle juvenile sex offenders.

There’s also the issue of cost.

Earlier this month, the District’s chief financial officer determined that implementing the legislation would cost more than $700,000 in the first year, and $78,000 for every year that follows.

The city’s “funds are not sufficient” to make the legislation a reality, the CFO wrote to the council. The CFO’s assessment also confirmed the city would lose the federal grant money, which in the past has been doled out to groups such as the gang-fighting nonprofit group Peaceoholics.

Beyond the cash, there’s also the potential cost of having sex offender laws that are less rigourous than other states, police union chief Kris Baumann said.

“It’s a small price to pay for us not to become a haven for sex offenders,” Baumann said.

Mendelson said that won’t happen.

“My impression is that our current law is pretty good and this is about closing a few details,” Mendelson said.

Sex offenders are more likely to reoffend than other criminals.

Myth 8: Sex offenders are more likely to reoffend than other criminals. by Radley Balko

Origenal Article here > http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/24/myths-of-criminal-justice-part-three_n_883935.html

There’s no set of crimes more plagued by misconceptions and hysteria than sex crimes. In some cities, laws restricting where convicted sex offenders can live once they’re released have become so restrictive, they’re forced to live under bridges or in patches of woods.

Are We Being Smart About Sex Offenders?

Are We Being Smart About Sex Offenders?

http://www.thecrimereport.org/news/inside-criminal-justice/2011-05-are-we-being-smart-about-sex-offenders

A John Jay College professor explores whether laws that severely restrict the lives of thousands of sex offenders actually keep us safer.

It’s been five years since the enactment of the Adam Walsh Act, a federal law named for the murdered son of America’s Most Wanted host John Walsh that compels all 50 states to comply with a set of strict regulations for the registration and monitoring of sex offenders. Since passage, the deadline for compliance has been extended several times as states balked at some of the act’s more controversial elements. So far, only four are in compliance, with yet another deadline looming in July.

Why are so many states dragging their feet? According to John Jay College of Criminal Justice Professor Karen J. Terry, author of “A ‘Megan’s Law’ Sourcebook,” the answer may have more to do with tight state budgets than any particular ideology. Terry, whose essay, “What is Smart Sex Offender Policy?,” appears in the May issue of Criminology & Public Policy, spoke with The Crime Report’s Julia Dahl about whether monitoring sex offenders for life is really the best way to keep our kids safe from sexual predators.

The Crime Report: In your essay for Criminology & Public Policy you write that sex offender registration laws are “not based on a sound theoretical framework of crime prevention and control.” What are they based on?

Life on the (Sex Offender) List

Does publicly posting names of convicted sex offenders actually reduce the number of sexual offenses?

http://prospect.org/cs/articles?article=life_on_the_list

You could say it started with three small-town Minnesota boys riding their bikes to a convenience store on an October night in 1989. As they were returning home on a dark stretch of road, a man stepped out of the darkness holding a gun. He told them to lie face down on the ground and then directed two of them — Trevor Wetterling, age 10, and Aaron Larson, 11, to run into the woods and not look back or he’d shoot them. That was the last that they, or anyone, would see of 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling.

Learning From History Part 1

“Germany, May 15, 1871 – First Version of Paragraph 175 – Unnatural fornication, whether between persons of the male sex or of humans with beasts, is to be punished by imprisonment; a sentence of loss of civil rights may also be passed.”
What was the outcome of this law that was passed so long ago?

When Hitler came to power he “broadened the law so that the courts could pursue any “lewd act” whatsoever, even one involving no physical contact… leading to the possibility of punishment for acts as mild as kissing…. Convictions multiplied by a factor of ten to about 8,000 per year…. Furthermore, the Gestapo could transport suspected offenders to concentration camps without any legal justification at all (even if they had been acquitted or already served their sentence in jail)….Thus, between 5,000 and 15,000 sex offenders were forced into concentration camps, where they were identified by the pink triangle. The majority of them died there. In contradistinction to normal police, the Gestapo were authorized to take sex offenders into preventive detention.”

Today in the U.S. we face similar circumstances. True, some refuse to see the similarities between the modern U.S. and Nazi Germany, nonetheless they are there.

Learning From History Part 2

“Stocks, Pillory, Pranger are devices used in the medieval times as a form of physical punishment involving public humiliation. The stocks partially immobilized its victims and they were often exposed in a public place such as the site of a market to the scorn of those who passed by. Since the purpose was to punish offenders against the standards of conduct of the time, anybody could assault, revile or throw filth at the victim.”

Today in America we have a similar device; it is called the Sex Offender Registry. The SOR is a widely debated form of punishment. Even the fact that it is punishment is debated by many. On the other hand politicians often use the term punish when speaking about the registry.