MI - Congressional Testimony: Wendy Beal to Bill Windsor of Lawless America

Branded for Life! | Child Branding and County Prosecutors


Lawless America: YouTube, Facebook, Website

Longer Video:

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The predatory justice of juvenile sex-offender laws

Original Article

01/20/2013

By Michael Zoorob

When lawmakers crafted laws to combat sexual violence, they probably never expected that children as young as 10 would end up on public sex offender registries. Law enforcement probably never expected that they would have to notify neighbors that a 13-year-old sex offender lived nearby. Yet that is the reality of America’s sex offender registration laws: Though the judicial system tends to distinguish between youth and adult offenders, 35 states subject minors convicted of sex crimes to the same registration, notification and restrictions as adults. Seven states require juveniles to stay on the registry for life. These crimes aren't always violent, either: A recent Human Rights Watch report notes that teens have found their way onto sex offender registries for benign acts like sexting, public urination and consensual sex with other teens.

In fact, 36 percent of all sex offenders who victimize children are themselves juveniles — and more than half of these juvenile offenders are 14 years old or younger, according to a recent study commissioned by the Department of Justice. It is understandable that laws should be created to curb sexual violence — but imposing the stigma of longtime and sometimes lifelong sex offender registration on juvenile offenders creates unnecessary harm both to them and their families. Juvenile offenders often experience emotional problems, difficulty securing employment, social ostracization and difficulties at school. There are, incredibly, cases of teens being barred from attending school due to their presence on sex offender registries because they sexted, the act of which the law considers child pornography. As adults, these offenders can expect restrictions on their residency, employment and mobility, and a significant minority will be fired, harassed, assaulted or even murdered because of their sex offender status.

Registration may also hinder crime rehabilitation of youth offenders. Depriving juvenile offenders of access to education, employment, religious services and healthy relationships — all common consequences of sex offender registration — could actually raise the probability that these children become lifelong delinquents. Unfortunately, registration requirements may deter families from reporting sex crimes committed by their child against a sibling for fear of the legal consequences, thus denying access to rehabilitative services.

Registration of juveniles has also been shown not to reduce sex crime. Studies by Elizabeth Letourneau of the University of South Carolina have found that registering juvenile offenders neither reduced overall rates of offenses nor reduced recidivism. This makes sense. It’s hard to argue, for example, that public safety was enhanced by the eviction of a 26-year-old married woman from her home in Georgia because a daycare center opened nearby. Her crime was that she had oral sex with a 15-year-old when she was 17.
- The same applies to adults.  Sex laws do nothing to reduce recidivism.

Moreover, juvenile offenders are distinct from their adult counterparts. Children who commit sex crimes, even violent ones, usually do so as a way of “acting out,” not because they eroticize aggression. Consequently, psychologists have found that rehabilitation is very effective for juvenile sex offenders, and very few juvenile offenders re-offend as adults. Most studies find the recidivism rate of juvenile sex offenders to be less than 5 percent.
- Recidivism rates are the same for adults as well.

Sex offenders deserve special opprobrium in our society. But we shouldn't let our visceral disgust with sex crimes bar us from making sensible public policy. Children are not miniature adults, and the law should not treat them that way.

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WI - Shrink claims convicted offender was never pedophile

Original Article

09/12/2012

By KRISTEN ZAMBO

RACINE — A state psychologist testified Tuesday that a man who was ordered locked away almost two decades ago as too sexually violent to return to Racine County should never have been placed in the treatment center for sexually assaulting three little girls.

Richard Elwood, a psychologist evaluator with the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, said while [name withheld] was convicted of sexually assaulting three little girls between 1990 and 1994 — when [name withheld] was between 10 and 14 years old — he was not a pedophile at the time, and still isn’t today after about 18 years behind bars.

“With Mr. [name withheld], the sexual contact with children was when Mr. [name withheld] was a child himself,” Elwood testified Tuesday during the second day of [name withheld]’s bench trial to determine if he could be released from Sand Ridge Secure Treatment Center in Mauston.

“I concluded (in 2010) he was not a sexually violent person and met the criteria for discharge. Mr. [name withheld] clearly didn’t fit the criteria for pedophilia before the age of 16,” Elwood testified. “One could have deviant sexual interests and not be a pedophile.”

Racine County prosecutors are fighting [name withheld]’s bid to be released into the community, which is backed by the Department of Health Services.

[name withheld], now 31, was convicted July 26, 1994, of three counts of first-degree sexual assault of a child and one count of incest of a child. He was 13 years old when convicted of sexually assaulting the girls, who were 3, 4 and between 8 and 9 years old at the times of the attacks.

[name withheld] has been held in Sand Ridge since completing his sentence in the criminal cases because of a state law which allows a person to be confined in a prison-like setting for treatment after completing his or term sentence because of three factors. He must have been convicted of a sexually violent offense, have a diagnosed mental disorder, and have been deemed dangerous to others because a mental disorder makes it likely he will commit further acts of sexual violence.

According to state law, such involuntary civil commitments continue for an unspecified period of time until the person no longer is considered to be sexually violent — which is one reason why hearings such as [name withheld]’s occur.

Elwood said he evaluated [name withheld]’s case three times, in 2008, 2009 and 2010. Elwood testified he did not diagnose [name withheld] with having pedophilia, and opined that he didn’t fit the requisite treatment criteria to be placed in Sand Ridge in the first place.

Rattling off a list of seven doctors and the years they all issued reports on [name withheld], Assistant District Attorney Randy Schneider pointedly asked Elwood how he could be the only psychologist out of that slew to not only never diagnose [name withheld] as being a pedophile, but to maintain his opinion that [name withheld] never should have been committed to the sex offender treatment center in the first place.

“You’re aware that you’re probably the only doctor who did not diagnose him as a pedophile?” Schneider asked.

“I believe so,” Elwood responded.

Elwood said he used the medical definition of pedophilia used in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, also called the DSM. According to this definition — which Elwood said is considered the standard for mental health professionals — someone with pedophilia must have “intense, recurring sexual fantasies or urges” for “sexual activity with a prepubescent child.” And, he said, the person must be at least 16 years old, have these urges for at least six months and they must cause a marked impairment or dysfunction.

“I don’t believe Mr. [name withheld] ever met the criteria for a ... commitment,” Elwood testified.

When questioned by Racine County Circuit Judge Tim Boyle, Elwood explained if [name withheld] is released he might re-offend, but “certainly the likelihood is far less than 50 percent.”

But another psychologist who testified Tuesday disagreed.

The base rate of the likelihood that a convicted juvenile sex offender may victimize another person after being released from a treatment center falls somewhere between a 5 and 10 percent chance, said clinical neuropsychologist Debra Anderson. Elwood said the base rate is 7.1 to 8 percent.

“You have an individual who has jettisoned himself well above that base rate,” Anderson testified Tuesday. “Yes, he does have a mental disorder and yes, his risk remains high,” she said, explaining [name withheld] has pedophilia. “...I see him more likely than not to re-offend.”

More than a decade ago, [name withheld] was deemed a sexually violent person through a separate, civil proceeding in court.

Boyle could rule after the testimony ends Wednesday, or at a later date, whether [name withheld] should be released.

The trial, which began Monday, continues this morning.

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CO - 10 year old charged and convicted - 25 years on the sex offender registry

Sex offender laws do not work! They do not prevent or deter crime, nor do they protect anybody, they only ruin lives. The "system" is suppose to be about rehabilitation, not punishment! See more children ruined by the asinine laws.

Video Description:
April 16, 2012 - Presentation to parents at D'Evelyn High School, Jefferson County Colorado. JCSO School Resource Officer Deputy Greg Everhart explains how kids can destroy their lives so easily and what the Sheriff's Dept. along with the DA will do to ensure a life long criminalization process. He goes on to explain that once girls have lost their dignity - it is gone forever.

Video Link

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OH - Girl, 10, Arrested on Rape Charges Involving 3 Minors

Original Article

05/25/2012

A 10-year-old Canfield girl has been arrested in an alleged rape involving minors.

Canfield police and prosecutors are investigating after one of the alleged victims' fathers went to police in late April with concerns of a possible sexual assault that happened between his daughter and her friend.

There are three alleged female victims: one is 10, and two are 11.

Records show Canfield police arrested the 10-year-old girl. Charges of gross sexual imposition and multiple counts of rape are pending. The girl was taken to the Mahoning County Juvenile Justice Center.

A gag order has been placed on the case.

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NY - Exclusive: The Secret Behind The Xbox Sex Case

Original Article

See the related articles at the end of this one, and see the video below.

04/12/2012

By Sean Carroll

Greece - For more than a year the criminal case against [name withheld] has garnered local, state, and even some national headlines.[name withheld] ’s arrest last March stemmed from an investigation that revealed he had sexual encounters with a twelve year-old boy he met while playing Xbox Live online.

Now, [name withheld]’s mom reveals a secret that few people ever knew about her son. A secret that, for some, changes the conversation and debate that has surrounded this case since [name withheld] was arrested.

"Every case is not a cookie-cutter case,” [mothers name withheld], [name withheld]’s mom said in an exclusive interview with 13WHAM News. “Every case has a story."

For [mothers name withheld] her son’s story begins when he was first diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome at the age of five. The disorder specifically affects one’s social skills and puts [name withheld] on the autism spectrum. Most describe those with Asperger’s as being high-functioning autistic.

"Chronologically he's 19, academically he is way beyond his years, but socially and emotionally he's about ten, eleven years old," [name withheld]’s mom said about her son, who just turned 20 last week.

April is Autism Awareness month and later this month, on April 26th, [name withheld] will stand before a judge to be sentenced. Last month he pled guilty to one D-level felony charge. His plea agreement includes a six month jail sentence, ten years probation, and registration as a sex offender in New York State.

The original 19-count indictment accused [name withheld] of Sexual Abuse 2nd Degree (9-counts, misdemeanor), Criminal Sexual Act 1st Degree (9-counts, felony), and Endangering the Welfare of a Child (misdemeanor.) A conviction to any of the felony-level charges exposed [name withheld] to a possible 5-to-25 year prison sentence.

[name withheld]’s Asperger’s

The diagnosis came when he was five years old and it has remained a lifelong struggle for [name withheld] and his family, according to his mom. She says her son also suffers from Tourette’s syndrome and provided letters and documents dating back more than a decade to substantiate her claim.

In a rare circumstance, [name withheld] also waived patient privacy rights and allowed a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who has been counseling him for the last four months to speak publicly on his behalf.

"I certainly would never want a true predator to go free, I would want a true predator to be caught but that's not Ricky and that's what's disturbing to me," Kitty Moran Wolfsong said of [name withheld]. "Socially I would say that Ricky is somewhere between the age of ten and twelve."

Both [name withheld]’s mom and Wolfsong describe him as being very intelligent with a clear idea of what’s right and what’s wrong, but they also say he’s socially naïve and unable to comprehend various social interactions.[name withheld] ’s mom says that the encounter her son had with this 12 year-old victim was his first sexual experience.

"This invisible disability needs to be recognized by law enforcement, by government,” [name withheld]’s mother said.

[name withheld]’s Criminal Case

In March 2011, the victim’s parents reported the sexual abuse to Greece Police and a criminal investigation led right to [name withheld]’s front door. Court and police paperwork (attached) indicates the challenges police had in even convincing [name withheld] to open the door for officers.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” [name withheld] said over the phone to an officer standing outside his home trying to convince him to come to the door. “I’d rather not, I’m sorry, I don’t want to go to jail.”

[name withheld]’s mom returned home later that evening and says she immediately filed a missing person’s report on behalf of her son because she could not locate him and was unaware that he was at the police station speaking to investigators.

"He would never, ever leave the house without calling me or writing me a note or anything and I came home from work and he was gone,” Karen said of that day.

Police interviewed [name withheld] for some time and according to the police report he appeared to admit to multiple sexual encounters with the victim. While Miranda warnings were issued according to police, we asked [name withheld]’s mom if she thinks her son had a full understanding of his legal rights at the time of this questioning.

“No absolutely not, absolutely not; he was just doing as he was told, that is what he was doing,” according to [name withheld]’s mom. "I know that they had to interrogate him to the point where he just cracked, I mean there's no doubt in my mind that he just cried and gave up and was curled up in a ball in the fetal position.”

A Greece Police Spokesman confirmed for 13WHAM News prior to this report that investigators did include in their police report what information they could gather concerning [name withheld]’s autism.

Just last week, New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman specifically pointed to [name withheld]’s case as a reason why his office rushed to broker an agreement with the manufacturers of these online gaming systems.
- Without the facts, like usual, he reacts on emotion and knee-jerk fashion, passing a law that affects all New York ex-sex offenders based on what one person did, just to make himself "look tough" on crime.  No wonder this country is going to hell, politicians just pass laws without knowing the facts or what is even in the bill.  Remember what Nancy Pelosi said? "We have to pass the bill so you know what's in it!"

"Operation: Game Over in fact took on an added urgency after a recent event in Greece, New York…" A.G. Schneiderman said at a press conference in New York City last Thursday. The agreement involved the removal of all registered sex offenders in the State of New York from the online databases of these gaming systems.
- And guess what, someone from California, or another state, could do exactly the same thing, if they wanted to, but the fact is, it doesn't happen that often.

A spokeswoman for A.G. Schneiderman’s Office refused to comment for this report and when asked if the office was aware of [name withheld]’s Asperger’s.

"He's being vilified in the news as a predator who went out looking, trolling for some younger person (and) that's just not how it was,” Wolfsong said. “He was on a gaming site looking for friends because he doesn't have many friends, because he's not good at making friends.”

[name withheld]’s Punishment

By most accounts the plea deal [name withheld] received is a more than favorable one. Yet for those who know [name withheld] the best, there is passionate concern that his having to go to county jail will set him back years in his development.

“That is the piece that I'm most disturbed about because it truly is like putting an innocent ten or eleven-year-old in with adults who are street smart; it is absolutely not an appropriate punishment,” Wolfsong said. “Ricky will be destroyed in jail, it terrifies me what jail is going to do to him. Best case scenario he'll come out damaged and need years of therapy to deal with it, worst case scenario he will be turned into a predator…It is not going to correct anything."

[name withheld]’s mom said she understands her son must be punished for what he’s done.

"Rick broke the law, knowingly or unknowingly he broke the law, I'm not saying that he should not be punished for his crime,” she said. “But not as severely as this."

[name withheld]’s mom said the victim in this case was a large twelve year-old boy the size of her own son. She said she remembers him at her home on three occasions and never once does she recall any signs or signals that would suggest he was being victimized. [mothers name withheld] said the victim said certain things that suggested he was much older than twelve. She added that she was never introduced to the boy’s parents despite at least one attempt by her to invite them inside for coffee.

13WHAM News was unable to substantiate or corroborate those claims as the victim remains anonymous.

"I regret that I had to wait this long, and had to suffer this long, and my son had to suffer this long before I came forward,” [mothers name withheld] said through tears. “Because I'm glad I did and I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that I can keep my son home with me."

[name withheld] is due to be sentenced on April 26th in front of Monroe County Judge Victoria Argento.

Related Stories:

• More than 3,500 NY sex offenders have online video-gaming accounts yanked
• Want to friend a sex offender?

Video Link

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TX - Special-Needs Children Charged with Sexual Assaulting Fellow Student

Original Article

This is just insane!  The kids should be punished by their parents and school, not ruined for life by the injustice system!

01/06/2012

By ISIAH CAREY

HOUSTON - This is what you expect to see on the campus of an elementary school: children playing and learning.

But you never expect to hear the type of story this mom, who we are calling Pam, is about to tell you.

"My son told me that he was molested on the school bus."

What's even more shocking in this bizarre story at Thompson Elementary -- those who allegedly sexually assaulted Pam’s 8-year-old special-needs son are also special-needs students.

"He told me two kids, two 10-year-olds, molested him on the school bus, and the bus driver wasn't listening, and she wasn't paying attention to him," the mom, who we are calling Pam, said.

Those two boys have been arrested and charged with sexual assault, their parents said.

But what adds insult to injury – Pam said she didn't learn of her son's alleged victimization until a week after it happened.

And it gets worse.

"When they notified me, my son was already at home sick,” Pam said. “They sent a letter home saying he was being suspended from school for inappropriate behavior on the bus."

She turned to local community activist Quanell X for help because here is where this case takes another twist.

She said the detectives investigating the sexual assault turned their attention to her as a parent.

"Now law enforcement is investigating her and this mother to see if the children learned this behavior from them,” Quanell X said. “Her child is the victim in this case."

“This mother” refers to the mother of one of the suspects in the sexual assault. She refused to talk or address any questions about her son.

The Houston Independent School District released the following statement:

“On August 30, 2011, the Houston ISD transportation department was asked to review general conditions on a school bus that transports students with special needs from Thompson Elementary School. As part of this review, HISD officials viewed security videos from the bus. One of those videos, filmed on August 25, 2011, appeared to show three male students engaged in inappropriate activity. On August 30, the Thompson Elementary principal notified the parents of the students who were involved. In addition, the Houston Police Department and Child Protective Services also were notified and HPD took the lead on the criminal investigation.

On Wednesday, January 4, 2012, Houston police took two 10-year-old Thompson students into custody. Parents of the students who were involved in the incident are being offered counseling services for their children.”

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Perverted Justice - Sex offender laws represent the triumph of outrage over reason

Maureen Kanka

Original Article

06/2011

By Jacob Sullum

“If we had been aware of his record,” says Maureen Kanka, “my daughter would be alive today.” She is referring, in a statement on the website of an anti-crime group she founded, to Jesse Timmendequas, a neighbor in Hamilton Township, New Jersey, who raped and murdered her 7-year-old daughter, Megan, in 1994. Three months later, the state legislature enacted Megan’s Law, which created a publicly accessible registry of sex offenders.

“Without the registry,” says Shirley Turner, “he would still be alive today.” She is referring, in a 2006 interview with Human Rights Watch, to her 24-year-old son, William Elliot. He was murdered that year by a pedophile-hunting Canadian gunman who found his name and address in Maine’s online database of sex offenders. Elliot’s crime: When he was 19, he had sex with his girlfriend, who was three weeks shy of 16, the age of consent in Maine.
- And yet no law was made in his name to honor his death?

The panic that followed Megan Kanka’s murder produced an alarm system that often fails to distinguish between dangerous predators like Timmendequas, who had a record of assaulting little girls, and nonviolent lawbreakers like Elliot, who posed no discernible threat to the general public. They are all mixed together in the online registries of sex offenders that every state is required to maintain as a condition of receiving federal law enforcement funding—a mandate imposed by another Megan’s Law, enacted by Congress in 1996.

Registration only rarely leads to murder, but it routinely ruins relationships, triggers ostracism and harassment, and impedes education and employment. These burdens are compounded by state and local laws that ban sex offenders from living near schools, parks, day care centers, and other locations where children congregate. Such restrictions, which often apply even if an offender’s crime had nothing to do with children, can be so extensive that entire cities are effectively off limits. In Miami local residence restrictions have given rise to a colony of more than 70 sex offenders who live under the Julia Tuttle Causeway, a bridge that crosses Biscayne Bay.
- I disagree, see here, here and here.

Shirley Turner, Husband and son William Elliot

Some sex offenders, including nonviolent ones, will not live to see the underside of a bridge because they receive sentences that keep them behind bars until they die. Two decades of ever-more-punitive legislation have produced sentencing rules so bizarre and byzantine that the punishment for possessing images of sexually abused children can be more severe than the punishment for sexually abusing them. And even prisoners who complete their sentences may not go free, since the federal government and about half of the states have laws authorizing the indefinite civil commitment of sex offenders who would otherwise be released.

American policies regarding sex offenders mark them as a special category of criminals for whom no stigma is too crippling, no regulations are too restrictive, and no penalty is too severe. This attitude, driven by fear and outrage, is fundamentally irrational, and so are its results, which make little sense in terms of justice or public safety. Like the lustful predators of their nightmares, Americans pondering the right way to deal with sex offenders seem captive to their passions.

‘I Am on the Registry for Having Premarital Sex’

The public branding of sex offenders through online registries is a reaction to horrible, highly publicized crimes, such as Megan Kanka’s murder, in which strangers abduct, rape, and kill children. But this sort of crime is exceedingly rare. Data from the Justice Department’s National Crime Victimization Survey indicate that more than 90 percent of sexually abused minors are assaulted by relatives or acquaintances—people they trust. (According to the same survey, strangers commit just one in four sexual assaults on adults. They commit only 14 percent of sexual assaults reported to police.) Furthermore, according to a 1997 Justice Department study, nearly nine out of 10 people arrested for sex offenses have no prior convictions for this category of crime, so they would not show up in sex offender registries.

Meanwhile, the people on sex offender lists may pose little or no threat. A 2007 report by Human Rights Watch found that “at least 28 states require registration as a sex offender for someone convicted of having consensual sex with another teenager, if the offender was either age 17 or two years older than the other party.” Eleven states set no minimum age difference. “It’s one thing if you are a 40-year-old having sex with a 13-year-old,” says the report’s co-author and editor, Jamie Fellner, senior adviser to the U.S. Program of Human Rights Watch. “It’s another thing if you’re a 17-year-old boy having sex with your 16-year-old or 15-year-old girlfriend. Registration as a sex offender is just completely inappropriate there, does nothing to promote public safety, but ruins lives.”

A man who was convicted of statutory rape when he was 16 for having consensual sex with his 14-year-old girlfriend told Human Rights Watch: “We were in love. And now we are married. So it’s like I am on the registry for having premarital sex. Does having premarital sex make me a danger to society? My wife doesn’t think so.”

The Human Rights Watch report also found that at least five states required registration for offenses related to adult prostitution, at least 13 required registration for public urination, and at least 32 required registration for exposing one’s genitals in public. And from the information given in a registry, which typically is limited to a vague legal description of the offense, it is often hard to tell what someone did to end up there. “Without any further information, it is difficult to provide reasonable steps that people can take to help keep themselves safe,” says Maia Christopher, executive director of the Association for Treatment of Sexual Abusers. “Just knowing that there is someone living next door to you who’s committed a sexual offense doesn’t necessarily give you enough information to know what you’re supposed to do about it.” In fact, when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Connecticut’s sex offender registry in 2003, it did so partly because the state expressly disavowed any claims about the “current dangerousness” of the people in its electronic pillory, which meant they did not have a due process right to a hearing on that question.

Consider the case of Tony Washington, a promising college football player whose professional career was derailed by a conversation-stopping offense he committed almost a decade ago: At the age of 16, he had consensual sex with his 15-year-old sister. A 2010 profile of Washington in ESPN magazine explained the context of this forbidden liaison: a troubled, dispiriting childhood in the rougher sections of New Orleans, where Washington was constantly threatened by violence and had few sources of emotional support. Although he overcame a deprived background to become a star player at Abilene Christian University in Texas, his taboo-breaking transgression has deterred professional teams from drafting him and will mark him until the day he dies.

If you search for Washington’s name in the Texas sex offender registry or the U.S. Justice Department’s nationwide database, you will see photographs, a physical description, his date of birth, and his home address. His offense is listed as “prohibited sexual conduct,” which most people, given the context, will assume refers to some sort of predatory crime. Few people will bother to look up the Texas statute explaining that consensual sex with several different kinds of relatives, including adopted siblings and first cousins, qualifies for this label, triggering the same lifelong registration requirement that applies to rapists and child molesters. (On its face, the law even covers sex between first cousins who were legally married in one of the 25 states that allow such unions.) Whatever you may think of Washington’s crime, it hardly marks him as a public menace whom women and children should fear, let alone as someone who will be a danger to others even when he is old and infirm.

Washington’s case illustrates another way in which the legal treatment of sex offenders is unusual. Although the records of juvenile offenses typically are sealed, sex registration is public, and it applies even to people who, like Washington, committed their offenses as teenagers or children. According to The Dallas Morning News, the sex offender registry in Texas, where Washington lives, includes about 4,000 people who were minors when they committed their crimes, a quarter of whom were under 14. Human Rights Watch interviewed the father of a 10-year-old boy accused of touching his 5-year-old cousin’s genitals. “My son doesn’t really understand what sex is,” he told the group, “so it’s hard to help him understand why he has to register as a sex offender.” This policy of tarring minors as sex offenders undermines a central aim of the juvenile justice system by burdening people with the mistakes of their youth for the rest of their lives.

Read the rest of the article here

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Underage Kids on Facebook - Is the Internet safe for 8-year-olds?

Original Article

03/03/2011

By Jolee Cano

It hit me like a ton of bricks the other day when I noticed a friend of mine had been “friended” by an 8-year-old from my children’s school — yes, an 8-year-old. So, out of curiosity I started checking out how many kids were on any of my friends’ “friend” lists, and there were quite a few. Just a quick glance and I had tallied a couple of 8-year-olds, a dozen 10-year-olds and at least 20 seventh- and eighth-graders. These numbers were just people that I could personally identify from my children’s small private school, and there were quite a few more on the periphery of my “actual” friendship circle as well.

As responsible parents, we have heard the areas of concern with children and social media and the horror stories of predators and scam artists targeting our young kids. Why a parent would purposefully open that up to younger and younger kids is beyond me.

Facebook’s stated age mimimum is 13, and younger kids should not be there, period. But in each case that I looked at of an underage kid with a Facebook page, the parents were “friends” with their own child, which means they were complicit in getting them the account. So to see the level of security, I investigated every account. All but one of these kids’ accounts clearly allowed “friends of friends” access. I was able to view all these kids’ pictures and information.

But, parents, really, how well do you know all of your 300 Facebook friends? Remember, if you're not careful with the privacy settings (see below), you have just given them access to YOUR child. Perhaps that guy that you knew in kindergarten turned out to be a sex offender, or the woman you worked with two jobs ago now does identity theft. Either of these predators could pretty easily determine the age, school and location of your kids. Not only can they view and extract information off your child’s page, they can leave private messages for your child and have a direct line. Your child might not even recognize that he or she is being manipulated. After all, as far as a child is concerned, these people are friends with his or her parent. Even with a thorough conversation on the subject, you don't want to leave it to an 8-year-old to discern the level of risk.

So here is a news flash for parents that are getting these kids accounts: The safety, content and exposure do not counterbalance whatever social benefits the kids are receiving. Just because you are your child’s “friend,” it doesn’t mean you will see everything they do. If they are “friends” with their 20-something aunt that is still in college, does your 8-year-old kid really need all the information that she may be providing? Do you want him or her hitting a link because a family friend "likes" True Blood?

While you could possibly make it more safe for a child to participate by being vigilant about certain things such as privacy settings and whom they friend, it still is not a complete solution. How many times does Facebook change its platform that resets the privacy? And even if you help your child manage friendships, just how many Facebook profiles are truly appropriate for 8-year-olds? The ONLY way this type of access could be considered “safe” is if you are sitting on top of them and micro-managing every click. If you need to do that, then clearly they are not ready, so why would you even open the door?

The kids really do not belong there, and it is up to all of us parents to speak out, pay attention and perhaps exert a little parenting peer pressure to keep them off of Facebook. As a parenting community, we need to be aware and follow a few simple rules when dealing with this issue:

• Do not let your child get an account. Facebook has given you an easy out: It is not allowed for children under 13 years of age, so stick with that rule.
• Secondly, if a young child “friends” you, do not accept. Risks for young children are high, and if that doesn’t motivate you, then think about how saying yes opens you up to all sorts of trouble. What if you post something a parent of a young child finds offensive? I don’t need kids viewing my self-mockery of my parenting skills, telling tales of my own kids or to see photos of me with my friends drinking beers back in the day.
• If you have “friended” someone under 13, send a nice note that says you didn’t realize there were age restrictions and you are uncomfortable breaking those rules. Or, if you’re especially concerned, consider reporting underage children’s pages to Facebook.
• Post on the issue and talk about it. Make it clear to your friends why you don’t want to have young ones as your Facebook friends.
• Double check your own privacy settings to see if they reflect what you think they are. Don’t allow your material to be seen by non-friends if you’re concerned about what kids might find.

Using Facebook within these parameters can help put it back to what it's best for: finding and keeping in touch with friends, networking and having fun — as adults.

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SPAIN - 10-Year-Old Gives Birth in Southern Spain

Original Article

11/02/2010

Spanish official says 10-year-old has given birth, authorities weigh who should raise the baby

A 10-year-old girl has given birth in southern Spain and authorities are evaluating whether to let her and her family retain custody of the baby, an official said Tuesday.

The baby was born last week in the city of Jerez de la Frontera, said Micaela Navarro, the Andalusia region's social affairs minister.

Navarro told reporters the father of the baby is also a minor, and both the mother and the baby were in good health. Her department declined to give details, including the sex of the baby, but said authorities do not consider this a case of rape and that no criminal investigation is under way.

Under Spanish law, having consensual sex with someone under age 13 is classified as child abuse, an official with the Spanish Justice Ministry in Madrid said. But this particular case is complicated by the fact that the father of the baby is also a minor and it is not clear if he could be charged, the official said.

Spanish newspapers said the mother is of Romanian origin.

The daily Diario de Jerez reported the girl was already pregnant when she arrived in Spain, but did not say when she came to this country. It is not clear if the father is in Spain.

Medical experts warn that because young girls are still growing, they are at higher risk during pregnancy. Studies have shown that teenage girls are more likely to give birth to premature babies and their infants have a higher chance of dying by age one.

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UK - Two Boys Found Guilty Of attempted Rape

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UK - Boys branded criminals for attempted rape: what are we doing to our children?

Original Article (Listen)

05/25/2010

By Philip Johnston

The conviction of two boys for attempted rape was astonishing and depressing, says Philip Johnston.

The conviction of two boys aged 10 and 11 for the attempted rape of an eight-year-old girl must rank among the most depressing legal events of recent years. Not because it suggests – as some no doubt will – that sexual predators are getting younger, but because it confirms that as a nation we have lost our marbles.

Consider: the two boys must be pre-pubescent, so how could there have been any sexual motivation behind what happened? The cause, surely, was nothing more than the curiosity that young boys and girls have always shown towards each other's bodies. And even if there was what adults would consider to have been an unhealthy interest shown in the sexual organs, that is most likely due to the imagery that rains down on our children every day from television or the internet.

The evidence in this case is troubling. The boys were originally charged with rape, but during the trial the girl said she had not, in fact, been attacked. Prosecutors alleged that the boys had approached the girl when she was playing with a friend and had taken her to various places, including some flats and a field. The girl's mother found her when another child said the boys were hurting her. Lawyers for the boys said they had only been playing, and the girl told the court she had lied to her mother about what had happened because she had been "naughty" and was worried she would not get any sweets.

The first thing that strikes you about this case is how incredible it is that it even came to a trial at the Old Bailey – or anywhere else, for that matter. Which part of "they were children" does the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) not understand? Why, indeed, did the authorities respond to a story of rape from an eight-year-old, who cannot possibly know what it means?

The CPS – which was criticised in another rape case yesterday – said that the allegations made by the young girl were "very serious" and that "she had given a clear and compelling account to the police, and her account was consistent with the medical evidence and with the accounts given by other witnesses to the police". But it wasn't true, so how did all these things come about? Why, also, when the story was changed during the trial, did the judge not stop proceedings?

Clearly, there was concern among the jury, as the guilty verdict was a 10-2 majority. I find it astonishing that any jury would find children guilty in these circumstances, though, to be fair, I was not in court listening to the evidence. I suppose nothing surprises any more when it comes to the way this country treats its children.

No group in society has endured more legislative tinkering. Successive governments have made more than 400 major announcements relating to children and young people in the past 21 years. Teachers are now told that if a primary school child uses "homophobic" or racist words, even without knowing their meaning, it is not enough simply to teach them that such words are hurtful and inappropriate. Instead, the incident has to be recorded and behaviour monitored for future signs of "hate" bullying.

A similarly warped psychology appears to have been applied in this case. The boys were virtually under the legal age of criminal responsibility, and while children can of course act in a criminal way, when it comes to sexual behaviour we must surely be mindful of motive. Rape is carried out both to exert power and for sexual gratification. Since when has idle, child-like interest been a sex crime? If they had hurt the girl then they could have been charged with assault. Now, astonishingly, the boys are to have their names placed on the Sex Offender Register – though, as Mr Justice Saunders, the trial judge, said, it is not clear what that will mean for children of this age.

The two are the youngest boys ever charged with rape in this country (and possibly anywhere else). There must be an explanation for that: previous generations would not have put children on trial in this way. We seem to cosset our offspring more than ever, yet treat them as though they were grown-ups for merely behaving like children.

Even if the boys did act inappropriately, there were better ways of dealing with the situation than a major criminal trial. Their lives are now ruined, they will be subject to social work inquiries and, in all likelihood, detention. No doubt, the parents will be blamed for letting the boys go astray, yet they might come from perfectly good families and still have been subject to the constant bombardment of sexual imagery that has so undermined the concept of childhood innocence.

As a nation, we keep saying we want to stop children growing up too quickly; and yet, when they do childish things we attach adult guilt and morality to them, drag them into court and put them on sex offender registers and hate databases. We must be mad.

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TX - Sex-offender label on boys unravels family's lives

View the article here

07/19/2009

By DIANE JENNINGS / The Dallas Morning News

In 1998, 7-year-old Mary was sexually assaulted.

That's enough sorrow for a lifetime.

It gets worse: Her assailants were her brothers, Billy, 12, and Mark, 10.

Their mother, Carol, says watching her adolescent sons shuffle into court – in handcuffs and oversized orange jail jumpsuits rolled up to fit their scrawny frames – for assaulting their sister "just tore my heart out."

But the horror was only beginning.

Following the juvenile justice philosophy that children deserve a second chance, the boys received probation, and their delinquency records remained private. But ostensibly to protect the public, their names were added to the sex offender registry.

The Smith sons, now in their 20s, are due to be removed from the registry next year after the 10-year juvenile registration limitation expires. But Carol says the family will never recover from the boys being branded as sex offenders.

"Even though they were 10 and 12 when this happened ... they'll be sex offenders when they die," she says.

The Smith family – whose names have been changed to protect Mary's privacy – is not unique. According to a Dallas Morning News analysis, about 4,000 people are on the Texas sex offender registry for crimes committed as juveniles. About a thousand of them were younger than 14 at the time of their crimes.

It's her label, too

Mary is 19 years old now, thin, pale and soft-spoken. She forgave her brothers long ago.

But she's never been able to put the matter behind her, primarily because of her brothers' registration. "It's always in the back of my mind," she says. "You know, not so much what happened, but [it's] who we are now."

Though she was never identified publicly as the victim, she suspects people know. Her brothers' registration information includes their address and the victim's age and gender. Even if the people in her North Texas town don't know she was the victim, she's recognized as the sibling of sex offenders.

"They see the word 'sex offender' and they automatically see it as some horrible monster that took some little girl out somewhere and raped her," she says. "Nobody really cares what the story is."

The case file is sealed, and attorneys and others involved in the matter would not discuss it, but court papers provided by the brothers' father, Bob, describe the story clinically: Billy penetrated Mary and had her perform oral sex. No violence was involved, but because of her age the crime is aggravated sexual assault. Mark later touched her genitals and was charged with indecency with a child.

Sex offender treatment providers say penetration by young children is unusual, but looking and touching is fairly common, falling within the range of "normal development."

Their parents, while not playing down the seriousness of the offenses, say the boys learned the behavior from adults.

"A kid came over and spent the night with Billy and brought with him a porno tape from his dad," Carol says. "That's where they got these ideas from."

Billy declined to talk for this story, but Mark says they also witnessed sexual activity between a teenage baby sitter and her boyfriend. Both boys were diagnosed with learning disabilities from an early age, and Billy was treated for emotional problems in kindergarten.

The Smiths admit their family isn't suited for a Norman Rockwell painting. Bob's trucking job took him away for long stretches of time. Carol worked at the post office and made extra money cleaning houses. The kids were often left with the sitter.

"We may not have been the perfect people, but we both tried," Bob says.

Mark doesn't blame his parents. "They did the best they could," he says.

Both parents say they don't know how long the behavior went on, but after Carol walked in on Billy and Mary in the bathroom one day, she and Bob "told him this is not acceptable, this is not the way people conduct themselves."

They also told Mary not to let anyone touch her that way.

Carol sought help, unaware the therapist was required to report the incident. When authorities interviewed Mary, she told them about Billy and about when Mark touched her.

Mark says Billy encouraged him to touch their sister, and their parents say Billy did so because he didn't want to be in trouble by himself.

Billy and Mark pleaded guilty and received two years' probation. Mark went to live with a foster family from Carol's church; Billy was sent to a residential treatment center.

Carol expected the kids to get help "and we could go back to being the family we were," she says.

4 feet 7, 80 pounds

But to the Smiths' horror, the boys' names, descriptions and crime soon cropped up on the Internet. Bob shuffles through a stack of papers and pulls out a copy of Mark's early state sex offender registration: white male, 4 feet 7, 80 pounds, size 6 shoe.

The family knew the boys would be registered with law enforcement authorities – Mark's acknowledgement was printed with childlike letters, signed in careful cursive – but didn't realize the information would be listed on the public sex offender registry.

Juvenile registration was not mandatory at the time but was left to judicial discretion as it is today. Court records do not show whether a judge specifically ordered public registration, and the Smiths are puzzled about why their sons, who received light sentences and eventually were sent home to live with their victim, were listed.

The Smiths say they favor public registration for sexually violent criminals, and maybe for repeat juvenile offenders, but "you don't need to protect the community from an 11-year-old kid," Mark says.

Carol says: "This was a horrible thing that happened, but ... they are not these horrible animals."

Registration "ruined both their lives," she says softly. "It totally ruined them."

When they returned to school, the principal vowed to keep a close eye on the boys; teachers asked if they were dangerous; fellow students quickly learned about the crime.

Attending church camp was nixed. Sleepovers became a thing of the past. After an old friend's mother saw Mark on the Internet, "He was not allowed to associate with that child," Carol says.

Both boys gravitated toward young thieves and junkies, Bob says, "because they're the only people that would accept [them]."

Neither son dated much. When Carol asked Mark why he didn't ask a girl he liked to go out, he replied, "I can't ask her out, Mom, I'm a sex offender."

Mark says his life spiraled out of control after his arrest.

"Once I was in jail when I was 10, that made me accept that jail was OK," he says. "It exposed me to drugs. It made me accept a world I never would have accepted."

Mary also struggled. At school, she says, her teachers told her that they knew her brothers and warned her not to be a troublemaker like them.

And, she added, "it was hard making friends."

Mary "continued really to be a victim," Bob says. "She couldn't live a normal life."

"We were scared to death if some girl came to the house and they were here and their parents knew."

At a counselor's suggestion, alarms were installed on Mary's bedroom door when the boys returned home. "I was OK with that," Carol says, "because I want Mary to be safe, too."

Being the parents of both the victim and the perpetrators is like "being pulled apart," Carol says. "Because if you take up for your boys, then they're thinking, 'What about your daughter? Don't you care about her?' And if you take up for your daughter, it's, 'What about the boys?' "

Her dream of a normal family life vanished "as soon as I knew it was on the Internet," she says. "Our family was looked at as a family of degenerates."

Tremendous strain'

The Smiths' marriage was already on shaky ground, and the situation with their children made it worse.

"It caused tremendous strain," Carol says, and for a long time the couple blamed each other for what happened. "We don't feel that way now," she says.

Carol particularly had a difficult time dealing with the situation. She quit going to church after a deacon asked her, in crude terms, exactly what happened. And she began abusing methamphetamines.

"I can't deal with it," Carol says of her sons' status. "The way I've dealt with it is to not think about it."

She and Bob divorced in 2004.

All three kids dropped out of high school. Mary works at a fast-food restaurant, and Billy, who earned a GED certificate, recently landed a construction job. But employers willing to hire poorly educated teen sex offenders in a town of 25,000 are rare.

Bob considered sending his sons to live with relatives who were willing to give them jobs. But "nobody wanted their address" on the sex offender registry, he says.

Under one roof

Today, Billy, Mark and Mary call Bob's small rental house home. He's grateful his landlord has not objected to having sex offenders on the property, but others have not been so welcoming.

Bob points to a jagged hole in the siding where a passer-by shot a pellet gun, then ticks off the other incidents: two broken car windshields; a Molotov cocktail thrown in the driveway; a neighbor who complained about the boys visiting a nearby park; talk of forming a neighborhood group to keep an eye on the Smiths' sons.

Bob admits he has not always turned the other cheek. In 2002, he received deferred adjudication for a misdemeanor assault he says sprang from escalating tensions with a neighbor.

Ironically, Bob says, when irate people target his house, they're also victimizing his daughter again.

"I really didn't have much of a childhood at home," Mary says. "I kept to myself most of the time because I was afraid."

In and out of jail

Neither Smith boy has committed another sex offense. But they haven't stayed out of trouble either.

Both have been in and out of prison for crimes such as burglary. Billy also spent a year behind bars for failing to register as a sex offender.

"He didn't want to create problems for me and his sister," Bob says. "He didn't want his face in the newspaper. He had just made new friends – he was a teenager."

Even though juvenile registrations are capped at 10 years, the conviction for failing to register "is going to be on his record the rest of his life," Bob says.

What bothers Carol is that her boys accept prison life as normal.

"Billy's all but institutionalized," Carol says. "He sees no point in trying, because he's branded."

The last time Billy got in trouble, Bob asked him, "Why? Why did you do this?"

"What else do I got to do?" Billy replied. "At least if I'm in prison, I can crawl into my little hole. I don't have to deal with anybody on the outside."

Mark is currently in the local jail for using heroin in violation of his latest probation.

He doesn't seem particularly bothered by the prospect of spending a couple of years behind bars. "I don't have to deal with it in here," he says. "Nobody really knows."

By the time he is released, his registration period will have expired, and he hopes to find a job and a place to live without worrying about a sex crime appearing on his record.

"When I get out, it'll be a clean slate," he says hopefully.

He is less optimistic about his brother's chances.

"He may have taken it worse than anyone else," Mark says. "He's shy; he's never had friends."

"Me and my sister, we can get past this, but I don't think my brother ever will."

The rest of the family also continues to suffer. Bob recently applied for a part-time job as a security guard. After a background check, he was asked, "Who's the sex offender?" at his home. He explained the situation and never heard back from the company.

At 56, on disability because of two bouts with cancer and other health problems, he longs to leave Texas. But he's trapped, he says, because his sons would have no place to live.

"If I take off, if I bail out, then I'm stuffing it all on her," Bob says of his ex-wife. "I don't want to do that."

If Billy and Mark were simply thugs, "I would have said, 'Boys, I'm leaving. Y'all want to be crooks and thieves all your lives, fine,' " Bob says. "But because of the registration thing, that I feel deeply in my heart had such negative impact on their lives ... I don't have a choice."

The rest of the world may have given up on the Smith brothers, but their victim hasn't.

People can't understand "why we were still there for them if they were such awful people," Mary says. "But I'm not going to do that. I'm never going to abandon them."

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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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TX - Justice experts say sex offender registry ruins a juvenile's 2nd chance

View the article here

07/19/2009

By DIANE JENNINGS / The Dallas Morning News

The faces of child sex offenders are startling – chubby cheeks, big eyes, a mop of hair, or wispy strands held back with barrettes. The descriptions on Texas' public registry are equally jolting: 4 feet tall, 65 pounds; 4 feet, 2 inches, 70 pounds.

"Those are not the people that we're walking around terrified of," says Michele Deitch, a University of Texas law professor.

The inclusion of children as young as 10 on the state's public sex offender registry is a little-known policy – even to juvenile justice experts such as Deitch.

"I'm absolutely a little bit shocked that kids that young can be on the list," says Deitch, who teaches juvenile justice policy at the LBJ School of Public Affairs.

She's stunned because public registration contradicts the purpose of juvenile justice: to give kids a second chance. In the case of some juvenile sex offenders, their criminal records are off limits, but information about their crime is easily accessible on the Internet.

"It is a terrible situation," Deitch says. "The juvenile justice system is designed to rehabilitate kids and to make sure that they can change."

According to the Texas Department of Public Safety, there is no minimum age for inclusion on the state list. But a child must be at least 10 to be handled by the state juvenile justice system, so a judge may order an offender that young to register.

No child can be certified as an adult in Texas until age 14.

Shocked though Deitch and others may be, Texas is actually more liberal on juvenile sex offender registration than some states. After experimenting with mandatory registration from 1999 until 2001, registration was left to judicial discretion. Juvenile registration lasts for only 10 years, and those on the list may petition for removal.

In some states, children can be registered at age 7, though Nicole Pittman, a Philadelphia attorney who monitors juvenile sex offender registration laws nationwide, says adjudication of children younger than 10 is rare.

Judge Tim Menikos of Fort Worth, past chairman of the juvenile justice section of the State Bar of Texas, says that since mandatory registration ended, judges rarely require juvenile registration. But according to a Dallas Morning News analysis of the Texas sex offender registry, there are about 4,000 people on the registry who were younger than 18 at the time of their crime, including 1,004 younger than 14.

Only two children currently under 14 are on the registry, but the inclusion of any child that young bothers many, including some victim advocates.

"I don't think it necessarily supports community safety to put really young children on the registry," says Annette Burrhus-Clay, executive director of the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault.

Burrhus-Clay has been working with sexual assault victims for decades and was stunned to hear young children are included.

She worries that sexual abuse may go unreported as a result. "If I found my 10-year-old child with my 7-year-old child, I would be very tempted – even after 30 years in the field – not to report my child just to keep them off the registry."

But not everyone opposes registration of young teens.

Dianne Clements, president of Justice for All, a Houston-based victims' rights organization, says the state's current system of judicial discretion with juvenile offenders works.

"We don't want to believe that children can do the types of horrible things that they do," she says. "But they do. And whether they're 13 or 23 years old, they can be as dangerous."

Nationally, the Adam Walsh Act calls for mandatory registration of sex offenders ages 14 and older. Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, says, "Congress got it about right by setting that 14-year level." He does, however, favor judicial discretion over mandatory registration.

"It's important, in our interest in protecting ourselves, that we not throw out all the protections of the juvenile justice system," he says.

But, he adds, those calling for juvenile registration often speak from painful experience.

In Wisconsin, teenager Amie Zyla pushed for public registration of juveniles after the 14-year-old boy who molested her when she was 8 assaulted other children after his release from a juvenile facility.

Texas has also had its share of juvenile sex offender problems. In 2005, Jeremiah Sexton, who had a juvenile record for molesting several children in another state, assaulted a 9-year-old girl in Arlington. Because he was not required to register publicly, neighbors were unaware of his past.

But most juvenile offenders do not re-offend, says Liles Arnold, chairman of the Texas Council on Sex Offender Treatment.

"With adolescent offenders, the recidivism rate is very, very low," he says. "Adolescents are not simply younger versions of adult offenders. They're highly treatable. They're good candidates for rehabilitation."
- The recidivism for adults is also very, very low!  Some show 5.3% and others 3.5%.

Their chances for rehabilitation may be hampered, Arnold says, by public registration.

Publicizing their names and addresses often leads to social isolation because parents don't want their kids associating with sex offenders. School officials must be notified of the offender's history, and registration makes getting accepted to college or finding work difficult.

"We're stigmatizing children who have a much better chance of success completing sex offender treatment and never perpetrating again," Burrhus-Clay says.

Clements, of Justice for All, agrees registration is a "tremendous burden" but says, "it may be a burden that they should bear."

Frank Zimring doesn't think so. Zimring, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley, is the author of An American Travesty: Legal Responses to Adolescent Sexual Offending.

Zimring says the laws allowing juvenile registration are an accidental byproduct of adult policies.

"Nobody is making policy for 12-year-olds in American legislatures," the professor says. "What they're doing is they're making crime policy and then almost by accident extending those policies to 12-year-olds – with poisonous consequences."

Zimring thinks it's inappropriate to register anyone adjudicated as a juvenile – which would be anyone under 18 in Texas.

"We have a cure for youth crime," he says. "It's growing up."

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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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LA - 10-year-old child arrested on rape charge

View the article here

04/23/2009

BATON ROUGE (WAFB) - A ten-year-old boy has been arrested on an aggravated rape charge after a reported sexual attack on a six-year-old boy.

Police say the suspect threatened the six-year-old boy with a pocketknife and said if he didn't give him oral sex, he would kill him. The ten-year-old boy has been placed in the East Baton Rouge Juvenile Detention Center.

Because both of the children involved are juveniles, police are not releasing any more details in this case. It is known the alleged attack happened at a home in the Scotlandville area.

The alleged incident has parents in the Southern Heights subdivision on edge. Emotions are running high as they are simply wondering how this could have happened. With neighborhood watch signs posted throughout the subdivision, some people say they feel as if there's always someone watching.

Sitting in his living room, John Knighten, president of the Southern Heights Property Owners Association, said there's a phrase he likes to share with others. "Be nosey neighbors," he said. The self-proclaimed "old timer" has lived in the neighborhood for nearly four decades. He said he keeps a close eye on the streets and an open ear to what's going on, but this is probably the most shocking incident he has come across.

Knighten says the whole ordeal has left many parents nervous. "They are very concerned because something like this could happen to one of theirs." Many questions have popped up since hearing about what is being described as a horrific crime. "How could this happen? Why did this happen? Where were the adults?" Knighten asks.

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WA - WHO WILL PROTECT the children from their protectors?

View the article here

Old, I know, but still archiving it here.

01/02/2002

WHO WILL PROTECT the children from their protectors? That's among the questions lingering over the troubled Echo Glen Children's Center in Snoqualmie that the Legislature may answer this session. Home to 200 juvenile offenders, Echo Glen is where the state recently tried to hush up the second teen suicide in three years and then halfheartedly investigated the causes [See "Disturbing Echo," June 28, 2001]. It's where a supposedly supervised 10-year-old sex offender repeatedly had sex with other residents for two years, costing the state a $125,000 legal settlement a few weeks ago. It's also where a recently fired ex-con had been counseling—and sometimes "inappropriately" touching— children since 1995.

State Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles thinks it's way past time for new legislation—which she plans to introduce soon—dealing with the issue of offenders tending offenders. "We do need to be careful that people who have served their debt to society are not punished twice by being denied employment," says the Seattle Democrat. But she thinks a balance can be struck by tinkering with an existing law (which she also championed) that allows the state to run criminal background checks on some employees with unsupervised access to children and vulnerable adults (among the law's flaws: A review is allowed only if an applicant has lived in Washington for three or fewer years).

It's not just Echo Glen residents who may be in peril, the senator says. "DSHS estimates that 50 to 200 of its employees working with vulnerable populations have criminal convictions, some of which are very serious."

The catch to changing it all, as usual, is money. To review backgrounds of all 15,000 employees of the Department of Social and Health Services working with captive/care populations would cost $735,000, she estimates. On the other hand, Kohl-Welles says, the state has shelled out millions in damages and settlements and for the legal battles to fire employees who posed an abuse risk. "In comparison, $735,000 [to weed out abusers in advance] is a bargain," she says. "And the emotional costs to victims and their families simply can't be measured." The idea's only political drawback may be that it makes so much sense.

Rick Anderson -randerson@seattleweekly.com

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NJ - 10-Year-Old's Crime Tests Limits of Megan's Law

View the article here

Old article I know, but I do not have this here, so I am adding it.

06/16/2001

By LAURA MANSNERUS

J. G., as he is identified by New Jersey's courts, is 16, trying to finish high school and hoping to clear his record of something he did when he was 10. But that may be impossible, because J. G. committed a sex offense, and for sex offenders the rules are different.

In fact, the rules collectively known as Megan's Law, establishing a register of sex offenders and publicly identifying those considered most dangerous, are meant to keep the past in view. And as New Jersey legislators respond to a voter referendum allowing the posting of offenders' names and photographs on the Internet, J. G. has presented the State Supreme Court with the question: Can this law be applied to a 10-year-old?

The issue, being raised around the country at a time that all 50 states have passed some form of sex-offender-notification law, shows a tension between two deeply held goals. While sex-offender laws seek to give the widest possible publicity to sex crimes, the juvenile justice system seeks to give the widest possible protection to young offenders.

And while New Jersey's juvenile system ensures that no one enters adulthood with a criminal record, the state's sex-offender-registry law, depending on the offense, stigmatizes offenders for many years or for life.

''Too few people understand how broad these laws are in their reach,'' said Hunter Hurst Sr., the director of the National Center for Juvenile Justice.

''We've got all these ugly laws we passed when we were in a bad mood, and this is one of them.''

Of the 7,447 people registered under the sex-offender law in New Jersey, it is not clear how many were juvenile offenders, since the state does not systematically keep track of their ages.

Prosecutors and public defenders estimate that 10 percent to 25 percent of the offenders are under 18, with many fewer under 14 and only a handful as young as 10.

Offenders are ranked, regardless of age, according to the likelihood of committing another crime. Fewer than 200 of the 7,447 are deemed high-risk offenders, whose names are given to local residents, and the rest are identified to police agencies and sometimes to schools and child-care providers.

The case, called In the Matter of J. G., began with an incident that no one wants to talk about in detail and it continued in closed proceedings because he is a juvenile. The Supreme Court has even impounded the briefs filed in the case, which is to be decided soon.

But limited information from the boy's lawyers and other sources yields this account:

At 10, J. G., diagnosed as educable mentally retarded, was found rubbing himself against a girl, 8, in his mother's care at his home in Mercer County. Both children were wearing only underwear.

The boy, whose primary language was Spanish, had some trouble with investigators' questions; his lawyers say he equated the term sex with kissing, although prosecutors say that he understood what investigators were asking.

In juvenile court, J. G. pleaded guilty to second-degree sexual assault. A doctor's examination of the girl found no evidence of penetration, but it is not clear what other evidence was presented.

A year later, in a separate hearing, J. G. was assigned a risk classification. His probation was going well, but the judge was also told that the boy had been accused of similar behavior before he molested the 8-year-old girl. J. G. was placed in the moderate-risk category, requiring notification of local police, schools and child-care facilities. An appeals court limited the notice to J. G.'s own school.

But the boy's lawyers, Craig J. Hubert and James M. Graziano, contend that a 10-year-old should not be subject to the sex-offender law at all -- an argument that becomes especially important if the Legislature allows any Internet access to the names of moderate-risk offenders.

While the notification law in New Jersey clearly applies to juveniles, or those ''adjudicated delinquent'' for an offense that would be a crime if committed by an adult, the Supreme Court has never considered an offender as young as 10. J. G.'s lawyers would draw a line at 14, the minimum age for transfer to adult court.

The enforcement of New Jersey's Megan's Law, named for a 7-year-old who was murdered by a convicted child molester in Hamilton Township, not far from J. G.'s home, has been limited for years because of court challenges.

But as written, the New Jersey statute remains relatively strict for juveniles. Many states have age limits for their notification laws, typically 14 or 15, or apply them only to those convicted in adult court.

A few states identify juveniles on Web sites; the Kansas site, for example, pictures a few who registered as sex offenders at 12 or 13, and one boy who at 11 participated in the gang rape of two 6-year-old girls.

Mark Soler, president of the Youth Law Center in Washington, said the New Jersey case ''cries out for looking at individual circumstances.''

''This is not a 17-year-old who committed a forcible rape,'' he said. ''This is a young boy who apparently rubbed up against some girls in an inappropriate way, has done well since.''

But Cynthia Liccardo, the head of the Megan's Law unit in the Mercer County Prosecutor's Office, said that J. G. had molested more than two young girls and that ''this was not a scenario even close to two kids playing doctor.''

Ms. Liccardo said that ''that stuff clearly gets filtered out'' as prosecutors rely increasingly on psychologists and social workers to evaluate young offenders before charges are brought.

''I can also tell you I've had 15-year-olds who are pedophiles,'' she added, ''who have already had 25 victims.''

Lee Solomon, the Camden County prosecutor, said prosecutors had little latitude in bringing charges. ''If the offense qualifies as a Megan's Law offense, we believe they should be treated as adults until the Supreme Court tells us otherwise,'' he said.

''I don't think the exercise of prosecutorial discretion includes looking the other way when a crime has been committed.''

One woman in Burlington County, who spoke only on the condition that no names be used, said her family was devastated when her stepson, 13, was charged with sexually molesting his sister, 8, and then compelled to register under sex-offender law.

''His sister even wrote the judge a letter saying, 'I don't want my brother to be a criminal,' '' the woman said, even though ''she wasn't entirely sure she could forgive him.''

Now, she said, the family fears that if offenders' names are accessible on a Web site, the boy's chance of a normal life will be threatened and people will know his sister was the victim.

Concerns like this have given legislators pause. The State Assembly has approved a bill to post names and pictures of high- and moderate-risk offenders and set up a second site making the names of low-risk offenders available to some potential employers, like school districts.

But the State Senate has hesitated. At the request of Senator Peter A. Inverso, the bill's original sponsor, a task force is examining privacy issues, particularly in juvenile and incest cases.

''This Internet notification is scaring a lot of people,'' said Ken Singer, who works with sex offenders and set up a treatment program for adolescents for the State Corrections Department. Megan's Law, he added, is ''a very wide net that sweeps in everybody.''

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View the article here

07/18/2001

By ROBERT HANLEY

EXCEPTION RULED IN SEX CRIME LAW

New Jersey's highest court ruled today that children who are found guilty of sexual offenses before age 14 are not automatically subject to decades of public warnings about them and their crimes.

The State Supreme Court ruled in the case of a Mercer County youth, now 17, who admitted that when he was 10 he had sexually assaulted an 8-year-old cousin. The boy, identified in court documents only as J. G., was classified as a sex offender under Megan's Law. He was required to register with the police and have schools near his home notified of his presence. Similar sanctions would have continued into his adult years.

But in what it called an effort to reconcile the public safety provisions of the sex offender law and the privacy protections of the state's Code of Juvenile Justice, the court ruled unanimously today that offenders found guilty before their 14th birthday should have a chance to escape those sanctions at 18, by presenting evidence that they do not pose a risk of committing another sex crime.

New Jersey has been a pioneer in creation of laws providing public warnings about sex offenders. In 1994, it became the second state, after Washington, to enact a Megan's Law, named for a 7-year-old girl, Megan Kanka, who was murdered by a sex offender who lived across the street from her home in Hamilton Township.

All 50 states now have their own version of Megan's Law. Although the New Jersey Supreme Court does not have jurisdiction outside the state, lawyers familiar with the case said its ruling could provide guidance to courts in other states dealing with a legal challenge similar to J. G.'s. They knew of none, however.

The ruling noted that the state laws vary widely in their treatment of juvenile sex offenders. It said 13, including New York's, do not explicitly include or exclude juveniles. Twenty-four others apply rules to juvenile sex offenders to register with the police, the ruling said, but many are less severe than New Jersey's law.

Five others apply registration requirements only to juveniles who have been tried and convicted of sex crimes as adults. Alabama's excludes juveniles from its registration and notification laws altogether.

In New Jersey, earlier rulings by state and federal courts have prompted the state to set more restrictions than many others on community notification. But the decision today was the first creating age distinctions. Until now, the registration and community notification provisions of the law covered offenders of all ages.

Justice Gary S. Stein, who wrote the decision, said he found it ''implausible and anomalous'' that a 10-year-old faced the same sanctions as an adult under Megan's Law, even though the state's juvenile justice law requires that all juvenile records except jail terms be expunged when a delinquent turns 18. The court also accepted the arguments by J. G.'s lawyers that the sanctions should not apply to those under 14, the age at which juveniles can be tried as adults.

Still, the court rejected arguments that the classification of juveniles as sex offenders was unconstitutional.

It was not immediately clear how many juveniles were affected by the ruling, because the state attorney general's office does not track registered offenders by age. Of the nearly 7,500 sex offenders who have registered with New Jersey police departments under Megan's Law, prosecutors and public defenders estimate that 10 percent to 25 percent of them are under 18, with few under 14 and only a handful as young as 10.

J. G.'s lawyers, Craig J. Hubert and James M. Graziano, who took the case four years ago for no fee, said their client was ''very happy'' with the decision.

''He's a good kid and he's come a long way,'' Mr. Graziano said. ''For seven years, he hasn't had an offense even remotely like the one in this case.''

Mr. Hubert added: ''He's a kid and now he's going to be allowed to be a kid. Within one year, we'll have this weight off his shoulders.'' Both said they were confident that they could persuade a judge next year to remove him from the law's provisions.

The Associated Press quoted a spokeswoman for the attorney general's office, Emily Hornaday, as saying that the office was pleased that the court had affirmed the basic notion that sex offender laws could be applied to juveniles, and that officials did not object to the new standard giving offenders a chance to clear their records at 18. Megan's Law already gives all sex offenders a chance to clear their records after 15 years.

Part of today's ruling overturned a lower-court decision that upheld the state's classification of J. G. as posing a moderate risk of committing another sex crime. That classification had cleared the way for officials to give J. G.'s name and address to several schools in his neighborhood.

Today the Supreme Court reclassified him as low risk, meaning that he is now required only to register his name with the local police. The state will still be allowed to give information about J. G.'s case to the principal of the high school he now attends. Justice Stein said such a notification was permitted under the state's juvenile code.

Justice Stein also wrote that the court was troubled by the lack of evidence to support the charge that J. G., as a 10-year-old, had committed an act of sexual penetration on his cousin. Although J.G. admitted to the crime in 1996, when he was 11, the justice noted that a detective who investigated the case was not convinced that penetration had occurred.

In addition, a therapist for J. G. testified in a lower-court hearing that the boy had a learning disability and had difficulty reading and spelling simple words, and that she did not believe that he understood the terms ''sex,'' ''rape'' or ''penetration'' when he admitted the crime.

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This is a different case, in Pennsylvania, but it's also a 10 year old child!

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