Published 3/5/2020 at the Portsmouth Daily Times By Sandy Rozek Melissa Martin (2/28/20) makes an eloquent but often erroneous case in favor of sexual offense registries. These registries have been in place in every state for twenty to thirty years. Many studies have been done evaluating the effectiveness of them and their contribution to public safety. The results are overwhelmingly…
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By Hayley Fowler Three registered sex offenders in Georgia clutched a victory on the brink of Halloween when a federal judge ordered lawn signs deterring trick-or-treaters be removed from their homes. Butts County Sheriff Gary Long argued last week the signs should remain while the lawsuit — brought by the three named plaintiffs seeking to represent a class of sex offenders who…
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By Chiara Eisner . . . Carol Nesteikis, 66, has never committed a crime. But for two years, from six in the evening to six in the morning the next day, she lived under de facto house arrest with her 32-year-old son, Adam. It wasn’t because she wanted to. The home itself was a kind of punishment, she says. Adam…
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By Pat Pratt . . . A woman barred by her church from a marathon to fight hunger and a man who saw hatred spewed so often his daughter was forced to move and his wife took her own life — they and others are seeking removal from Missouri’s life-long sex offender registry, arguing it is unconstitutionally cruel. The children…
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By Sandy Rozek . . . “I’d like to talk to you about a situation involving a sex offender here in Georgia.” It was similar to dozens of calls I receive as communications director of NARSOL, and the soft voice explained what the situation was. A man in Cochran, Georgia, a man on that state’s sexual offense registry, was being…
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By Maggie Hall . . . Calls for public access to information about convicted child sex offenders occur often in Australia. It may seem like common sense that allowing the public to know the whereabouts of dangerous people should increase community safety. As in many areas of criminal justice, the real story is more complicated. . . . Child sex offenders are…
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By Michael M . . . Here in America, we like to think that people who are convicted of a crime will be punished by court decree and according to the laws of the land, not by roving bands of killers and arsonists. We also like to believe that it is only in tin-pot dictatorships like North Korea or in…
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By Sandy . . . “Hero punches pedophile.” That’s the name of a campaign on GoFundMe, a campaign designed to raise money for the defense and as a “thank you” for Kevin Smith, a man who, in best vigilante style, leapt across the courtroom at the sentencing of Donnie Briggs in Medford, Oregon, who was being sentenced on a conviction…
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By Jackie Mundry . . . In 2006, William Elliot was sought out and shot because he was a registered sex offender. On Sunday, he will be honored by the Maine chapter of Parents of Murdered Children. His mother, Shirley Turner, says he was on this list because he had consensual sex with an underage girlfriend. “But he was 19…
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By Michael M . . . It is easy for some people to feel that no matter how oppressive the hardships imposed upon former sex offenders may be, they probably deserved it. The most common refrain we see posted by unsympathetic social media commentators typically contains some variation of, “He (or she) should have thought of that before they committed…
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