By Adele Nicholas . . . We achieved a small but important victory in the Seventh Circuit this week. The Seventh Circuit found that a municipal ordinance enacted by the Village of Hartland, Wisconsin, that banned registrants from establishing a home in the Village is retroactive within the meaning of the ex post facto clause. The ruling opens an important avenue…
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By Sandy . . . The Joliet, IL City Council met the evening of August 2. One of the agenda items was the purchase by the city of a property on N. Center Street, one block from the NewDay Apartments on Cora Street. This is the property that Joliet mayor Bob O’Dekirk has announced would be bought in order to erect…
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Also published at the Joliet Patch Publication By Sandy . . . Much has been made recently of an apartment building in Joliet, Illinois, housing six individuals on the Illinois sex offense registry. Joliet’s mayor Bob O’Dekirk has consistently supported attempts to have the men removed. He has been very vocal about this. Frustrated by a federal ruling superseding the…
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Also posted on the Fort Bragg Patch and the Fayetteville Observer By Sandy . . . In Fayetteville, North Carolina, what could and should have been a warm, human-interest story was re-shaped by law enforcement into something entirely different. The real story is about those who take very literally the Biblical admonitions to serve the least of those in society, to…
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By Lenore Skenazy. . . In 2020, an ordinance in Brevard County, Florida, permitted a business to certify itself as a place where children congregate—the moral equivalent of a park—thereby making it a crime for anyone on the sex offense registry to venture inside, or loiter nearby. The idea, apparently, was to make kids even safer from danger. But, “proximity” laws prohibiting sex…
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By Sandy . . . “I’m worried for my family,” he wrote. “Today the DeSoto County Sheriff’s Office decided to put a picture of a map of all the houses where registered citizens live on its Facebook page. The comments that were allowed are absolutely disgusting.” As I read the email, I could feel the fear that the writer was expressing.…
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By Dave Altimari . . . The state Senate late Wednesday passed a bill to establish a task force to study the placement of registered sex offenders in long-term care facilities, following an incident last year in which a Massachusetts man allegedly sexually assaulted a nurse at an East Windsor facility. The task force is a compromise after the initial bill, proposed by State Sen. Saud…
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Republished in full with permission from NC Health News By Elizabeth Thompson . . . Chris Budnick is in an impossible position. As the leader of Healing Transitions, a peer-based recovery-oriented service for homeless and uninsured people located in Raleigh, Budnick is left scrambling if someone with a sex offense comes to him for housing. Some of society’s most vulnerable people come…
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By Sandy . . . Sexual crime has always been with us. In ancient Greek mythology, the god Zeus took the form of a swan and raped Leda, the queen of Sparta. The biblical King David saw Bathsheba, desired her, and ordered her to him, an act that today would have women’s advocates demanding his removal from office. Throughout history…
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By Dave Altimari . . . A bill that would require long-term care facilities to check if prospective residents have a criminal history or are on the sex offender registry before they are admitted drew some heated opposition Wednesday from organizations representing providers and an advocate for abolishing the sex offender registry. The bill is sponsored by State Sen. Saud…
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