By Michael M . . . My decision to become a full-time advocate for criminal justice and registry reform wasn’t an easy one. When I was arrested, the news media took whatever they could find online about me and ran with it, exercising complete disregard for its source or validity. At one point, they published the photos of over a…
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By Mia Armstrong . . . ASU [Arizona State University] works with local law enforcement agencies to ensure that convicted sex offenders who work or study on campus comply with sex offender registration and community notification policies as mandated by state law. Those in favor of such requirements say they are important for public safety. But registered offenders and their advocates say…
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By Ken Abraham and Brenda Jones . . . Over the past 25 years, the U.S. has developed a pernicious system of sexual offense laws, including increased sentences and public registries of offenders. Based largely on unfounded hysteria surrounding a tiny fraction of high-profile cases, these laws today are a tangled mess and cause considerable injustice. The problems are caused in…
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This year, NARSOL has gone to greater lengths than ever before to re-focus the Halloween issue from the myth-based one regarding sex offenders to a fact and reality based one regarding the need for improved traffic monitoring during peak trick-or-treat hours. We are encouraged by the number of requests we have had from mainstream media and other sources asking for…
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By Sophie Culpepper . . . Last month, a bill that would cap the proportion of registered sex offenders in homeless shelter beds at 10 percent for shelters whose capacity exceeds 50 people passed in the Rhode Island State House. A coalition of activists are now asking via petition that Gov. Gina Raimondo veto the bill, arguing that the legislation…
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By Charles Wohlforth . . . The good news is that Alaska’s sex offender treatment program works. The bad news is that a shortage of providers creates a many-months-long waiting list that traps sex offenders from rural Alaska in Anchorage, sometimes homeless. With 250 sex offenders coming out of Alaska prisons annually, 45 percent of them Native, this is a public safety…
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By Christopher N. Osher . . . Colorado has spent more than $5 million to administer polygraphs on convicted sex offenders over the last seven years despite concerns that the tests are so unreliable they can’t be used as evidence during civil or criminal trials. Polygraphs help officials decide which prisoners convicted of sex offenses are suited for release from…
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By Emmanuel Felton . . . Bruce Armstrong says he’s a changed man. After spending 25 years in jail for killing a man during a home invasion, Armstrong is looking for a second chance: “I’m not in the lifestyle I used to be in. I don’t drink. I don’t do drugs. I’m just trying to build something up before it’s too…
Read MoreBy Don Thurber . . . Last month, a new chapter was written in one of America’s oldest real-life murder mysteries. The body of 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling was finally found, 27 years after his abduction. Jacob’s gun-point abduction shocked the nation and spawned a network of state sex-offender registries, South Carolina’s among them. But extensive research since then has raised…
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