The Politics of Fraud

 

Letter to the Editor

 

Fraud

{The definition of fraud is – deceit, trickery, sharp practice, or breach of confidence, perpetrated for profit or to gain some unfair or dishonest advantage.}

As a member of the American public, what would you think if some of the political leaders you elected were committing fraud? How would you feel if the media promoted that fraud?  How would you feel if law enforcement allowed this fraud to continue, even gaining money from it? Betrayed, that is how you should feel!

You may be thinking of something that happened in the past in Chicago or New York when criminals ran those cities. Or, perhaps you may be thinking of the former Soviet Union. Both are good examples, however in this case, neither apply. This fraud is being committed right here and now in the United States of America.

To understand this fraud we first need to understand the benefits.

As with most cases of fraud, money is involved, lots of money. This fraud is so great that companies across the country are benefiting. Beyond that, law enforcement is cashing in. However there is more than money to be gained, this fraud almost insures that a politician will be elected. Elected means power. So this fraud grants the offender power and money.

In any case of fraud someone must be defrauded and take a loss. In this case that loss is freedom, respect, safety, and even the opportunity for prosperity. In effect, the rights granted in the constitution are removed from the victims because of this fraud.

How extensive is this fraud? It is nationwide, and spreading to other countries. This is a huge case of fraud being perpetrated in full view of the public.

How Many Victims?

Rosebud-Vigilantes

One after another the reports come in, another victim! How long will the public stand for it? Laws have been put in place to protect children and yet there are more and more victims.

 

From one part of the country to another it seems that these cases are not limited to one area. In the cities and in rural areas victims are beaten and a good number are murdered. This is occurring and law enforcement, legislators and the public are turning a blind eye.

Can we define the causes of these crimes? If we simply look at newspaper reports we can clearly see the cause; the cause is none other than the public sex offender registry.

The latest vigilante action to come across the internet is a case from Florida. A register Offender was walking his dog in his own front yard when he was attacked, beaten and his dog was killed. Those responsible had found his name and picture on the public hit list known as the Sex Offender Registry.

Was this an isolated case? Hardly. Here are a few interesting cases.

Michael Dodele had been free just 35 days when sheriff’s deputies found him dead from stab wounds last month in his mobile home. A neighbor was arrested for the murder. The neighbor had “told every house” that he had found Dodele’s name listed on the Sex Offender Registry. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/12/10/the_skinny/main3597422.shtml

Two released sex offenders who were on the Sex Offender Registry were murdered. A man is believed to have posed as an FBI officer, went to their apartment and shot them. Police said that the man spoke with three roommates and said he was as a member of the FBI and said he wanted to talk to them about their Level III sex offender status. http://www.talkleft.com/story/2005/08/29/340/52675

Dennis McCarthy was stabbed to death at his Holly Township home Sunday morning, just one week after release from prison. Police said, “We have strong suspicions that he was targeted” http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2009/08/murdered_sex_offender_released.html

Stephen A. Marshall shot and killed Joseph Gray. The victim had been dozing on a couch at his home in Milo, Maine. Five hours later, Marshall knocked on the door of William Elliot’s vinyl-sided mobile home in Corinth, 24 miles away. When Elliot appeared, the 20-year-old assassin fired at point-blank range. The murders were vigilante strikes against registered sex offenders who were strangers to Marshall and to each other. http://archive.guidemag.com/magcontent/invokemagcontent.cfm?ID=BF0FA813-7607-4666-B1F081D6A6C701CC

Registered Sex Offender Targeted – Investigators say two Scott County men took the law into their own hands. They admitted to setting a fire that killed an innocent woman. “It was vigilante justice,” said Scott County Sheriff Anthony Lay. “This is a prime example of how an innocent person has been fatally injured,” added Sheriff Lay. http://deaths-of-others.blogspot.com/2009/02/tn-reaction-to-vigilante-justice.html

These are but a minute sample of the vigilantly murders that are being carried out with the full knowledge of police departments across the country. I say full knowledge because any time you make it easy for vigilantes to target a group that they hate, the outcome is obvious. In this case murder. However beyond the murders of RFSO’s, there have been other vigilantly attacks such as these:

20/20 Kids Accuse Dad of Sexual Abuse

Ray Spencer, 62, says he is innocent of the crime that put him in prison for almost half his life — the rape of his own young children 25 years ago.

“If you did this to your own children, you know, you deserve to be locked away,” he said. But “I didn’t do it and I wasn’t going to admit it. You can either roll up in a ball and let life take you or you can just take what comes down the road and maintain integrity.”

For twenty years, he fought to prove his innocence, uncovering shocking secrets and a police investigation that may have been tainted from the start, that would reveal the truth, and ultimately exonerate Ray.

Watch the full story on “20/20”

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/cop-ray-spencer-accused-sexual-abuse/story?id=12058741

Exciting new sex offender treatment model

http://forensicpsychologist.blogspot.com/2010/10/exciting-new-sex-offender-treatment.html

Today, dear readers, is an exciting day. It marks the official release of a groundbreaking new book on sex offender treatment, one that may signal a pivotal turning point away from punitive practices toward a recognition of offenders’ essential human dignity and the universality of crime desistance.

Scholars D. Richard Laws and Tony Ward have taken on a huge task in Desistance from Sex Offending: Alternatives to Throwing Away the Keys. They hope to bring mainstream criminological theories about crime desistance to an insular, risk-obsessed fringe of forensic psychology that has remained remarkably uninterested in the fact that offenders desist from crime, or the process through which that occurs.

Desistance provides a superb, highly readable overview of the criminological literature on desistance, the age-crime curve, and offender reintegration research, focusing heavily on the seminal works of Sampson and Laub and Shadd Maruna. The authors propose the Good Lives Model as a theory that can bridge the looming chasm between desistance theory and forensic psychology practice with sex offenders.

The voices of dissent against the dominant, pathologizing discourse of deviance are growing louder. The publication of this trailblazing book is yet another in a series of signals that the reign of penal harm may be losing steam, creating opportunities for implementing progressive reforms.

Desistance is essential reading for clinicians, researchers, academicians, attorneys, and anyone interested in the application of contemporary social science theory on desistance to sex offender rehabilitation .

The timing is propitious, coinciding as it does with next week’s annual conference of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA) in Phoenix, Arizona. At least one conference seminar, by Pamela Yates, Ph.D., will focus on applying the Good Lives Model to sex offender treatment. If you are attending the conference, buy this book early before it sells out.

We can only hope that the spirit of reform embodied in Desistance truly catches on, rather than being coopted by the entrenched forces of risk management.

NOTE: I am writing more detailed and formal reviews of Desistance for publication, and will link to those as soon as they are available. Also see my online review at Amazon (and please, as always, remember to click on “yes” if you like the review).

The Principles of Bills of Attainder

Bills of Attainder, and their lesser version Bills of Pains and Penalties, are the one power by which governments have ruled through the ages.

To understand a Bill of Attainder, one needs to piece together definitions from a few cases from the Supreme Court of The United States.

Congress can only make laws in general applicability. Congress cannot chose whom the law shall apply to. Congress cannot give or remove any rights that are not equally shared by all. Congress cannot use a past action as a trigger for a law.

Bills of Attainder and Bills of Pains and Penalties are forbidden to Congress via the US Constitution.

“No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.” Article 1, Section 9 (excerpt)

“No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility.” Article 1, Section 10 (excerpt)

And each individual state has it as a part of their constitution as well.

Bills of Attainder (Bills of Pains and Penalties included) are such that they are targeted law against/for an easily definable group of individuals, or an individual.

They are not required to name the party they apply to.

The “punishment” may be inflicted absolutely, or conditionally.

It can come in a civil form, or a criminal form.

Their creation usually comes not from one overt act, but a series of subversive acts that accumulate over time. Statutory Schemes are used to implement such laws.

The simplest definition that I’ve been able to come up with is:

“Any targeted law that provides for unequal benefits, or attempts to remove a right otherwise enjoyed by everyone else.”

Bills of Attainder have been used throughout history to control the populace by the government.

Here is a list of groups that have been effected by Bills of Attainder.

Sex Offenders Jews in Germany African Americans in America and Europe Native Americans by Spaniards Muslims by Spaniards Native Americans by America Jews in Egypt

I think you get the idea.

Bills of Attainder are the one means by which governments have been able to set up hierarchy. Without this tool, we would not have had the “classes” all throughout Europe and into America.

One man would not be the master of another.

As mentioned before, Bills of Attainder can also give rights that are not shared by everyone else.

Easiest way to understand that comes from this statement:

“If Congress gives a group a right, everyone else is being punished for not being part of that group.”

Only when people understand how Congress does this will they be able to stop it.

Citations:

FindLaw.com
Cornell University
Cummings v Missouri (1866)
Ex Parte Garland (1866)
US v Brown (1965)
Yick Wo v Hopkins (1886)
US v Lovett (1946)

Sex Offender Treatment

From Sandy Utah, comes a sad story of a repeat Sex Offender who brazenly adduced and raped a 4 years old child in the same store her mother was shopping in. In fact the store was crowed. What motivates a person to do something like this? The answer seems to elude us. The closest thing we can look at for comparison is alcohol and drug addiction.

When a person is diagnosed as an alcoholic or a drug addict, everyone knows these are lifelong afflictions. Many people fight these afflictions on a daily basis. The desire for the substance is ever present, but those who successfully resist these addictions often do so by turning to groups like A.A. (Alcoholics Anonymous) and N.A. (Narcotics Anonymous)

A 12 step program.

Addiction to anything is difficult to fight. It takes courage and knowing what to avoid and doing so. The 12 step program for drug and alcohol addiction helps along both lines. It brings together people