tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12895456487049813582024-03-13T08:54:40.695-07:00The Jessica's Law Nightmare in CaliforniaExposing the Unconstitutional, Unfair, Unjust, and Anti-American Jessica's Law in CaliforniaUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger416125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289545648704981358.post-12619795889466577272014-11-15T18:10:00.000-08:002014-11-15T18:12:24.810-08:00A God Sent<a href="http://forcedhomelessinsanjose.blogspot.com/2014/11/a-god-sent.html"><span style="color: #cc3300;">A God Sent</span></a> <br />
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<span style="font-size: medium;"> Man, I am so blessed. After 4 years of a brutal parole I have finally found something that will actually help me find <span style="background-color: white;">permanent housing.</span> This Home First program I am involved in is exactly what "290's" need in this state. I have gotten my ID after years of not having it and have gotten a Social Security card. Been staying here at Little Orchard Homeless Shelter ( It's called Home First now ) for 2 weeks now. It is so much better than the streets is where I was before this. Home First is also giving me a 3 month bus pass for free. I only have 10 more weeks of parole, but better late than never. Take care my friends. More later.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: large;">Don't forget to check out my new blog, </span><strong><em><span style="font-size: large;">Forced Homeless in San Jose, CA by Jessica's Law at: </span><a href="http://forcedhomelessinsanjose.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: #2187bb; font-size: large;">http://forcedhomelessinsanjose.blogspot.com/</span></a></em></strong> </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289545648704981358.post-15777736843226347992014-07-09T12:42:00.000-07:002014-07-09T12:42:50.179-07:00Forced Homeless in San Jose <span style="font-size: x-large;"> Don't forget to check out my new blog, <strong><em>Forced Homeless in San Jose, CA by Jessica's Law at: <a href="http://forcedhomelessinsanjose.blogspot.com/">http://forcedhomelessinsanjose.blogspot.com/</a></em></strong></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289545648704981358.post-83048337722493485802014-07-07T11:18:00.000-07:002014-07-09T12:30:26.960-07:00Consequences of CA's Realignment Initiative<span style="font-size: large;">From: Prison Legal News at: <a href="https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2014/jun/12/consequences-californias-realignment-initiative/">https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2014/jun/12/consequences-californias-realignment-initiative/</a></span><br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Consequences of California’s Realignment Initiative</span></strong> <br />
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Loaded on <span class="date">June 12, 2014</span> <span class="author">by <a href="https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/author/christopher-petrella/">Christopher Petrella</a></span> <span class="issue"> published in Prison Legal News <a href="https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/issue/25/6/">June, 2014</a>, page 1 </span> <br />
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Filed under: <a href="https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/search/?selected_facets=tags:Overcrowding">Overcrowding</a>, <a href="https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/search/?selected_facets=tags:Sentencing">Sentencing</a>, <a href="https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/search/?selected_facets=tags:Parole">Parole</a>, <a href="https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/search/?selected_facets=tags:Probation">Probation</a>. Location: <a href="https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/search/?selected_facets=locations:1476">California</a>. </div>
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Consequences of California’s Realignment Initiative<br />
by Christopher Petrella and Alex Friedmann<br />
David Harvey, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Geography at the City University of New York, writes that “capitalism never resolves its problems; it simply rearranges them geographically.” The same can be said of California’s almost three-year-old Public Safety Realignment initiative – legislation designed to reduce the Golden State’s prison population, in part, by transferring thousands of prisoners from state facilities to county jails.<br />
Sadly, Realignment has merely shifted the very forms of human suffering it was originally intended to relieve. This – the paradox of modern penal reform – adds a crucial dimension to discussions about who, why and how we punish offenders. Clearly, shifting a criminal justice crisis isn’t the same as solving one.<br />
The Realignment Initiative<br />
Since at least 2011, the State of California has been the epicenter of contemporary prison reform in the United States. The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics has noted that 70% of the total decrease in state prison populations from 2010 to 2011 was a direct result of California’s Public Safety Realignment initiative.<br />
On May 23, 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an order by a three-judge federal court requiring the state to reduce its prison population to 137.5% of design capacity within two years to alleviate overcrowding that resulted in unconstitutional medical and mental health care. [See: <em>PLN</em>, June 2011, p.1]. California Governor Jerry Brown had called the court’s order “a blunt instrument that does not recognize the imperatives of public safety, nor the challenges of incarcerating criminals, many of whom are deeply disturbed.”<br />
At the time, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) facilities were operating around 180% of capacity. In response to the Supreme Court’s ruling, the state legislature and Governor Brown enacted two laws – AB 109 and AB 117 – designed to reduce the number of prisoners housed in state facilities. The initiative was implemented on October 1, 2011.<br />
Realignment, as it’s commonly called, was intended to decrease California’s prison population by shifting “new non-violent, non-serious, and non-sexual offenders” from state prisons to county jails, while concurrently reforming the state’s parole system. Under the initiative, such prisoners released from local jails are placed on county-directed post-release community supervision instead of state parole. For their part, counties receive funding from the state to help with expanded jail and probation populations under Realignment.<br />
The Public Policy Institute of California has estimated that Realignment was directly responsible for an 11,116-prisoner drop in the CDCR’s population during the first three months the initiative was in effect. To date the state’s prison system has shed around 25,000 prisoners; however, this has failed to satisfy the federal courts, falling roughly 9,600 prisoners short of the target population cap. [See: <em>PLN</em>, Aug. 2013, p.20].<br />
In February 2014, following several postponements, the three-judge court over the <em>Plata v. Brown</em> litigation – the longstanding class-action suit that led to the Supreme Court ruling and ultimately to Realignment – gave California two more years to lower the CDCR’s population to 137.5% of design capacity. [See: <em>PLN</em>, June 2013, p.36].<br />
While the overall downward trend in California’s prison population appears auspicious at first blush, it’s impossible to fully evaluate the Realignment initiative without considering the impact it has had on local jails.<br />
As a result of Realignment, county jails now house prisoners sentenced to more than a year of incarceration – offenders who previously would have been sent to state prisons. Since the Realignment initiative was first implemented, California’s jail population has predictably grown; the average daily population in local jails has increased by at least 12% – roughly equivalent to 9,000 prisoners – following Realignment.<br />
That is, around one-third of the total state prison population reduction effectively has been shifted to county facilities. Three of the 10 largest jail systems in California have experienced increases of more than 15% in their average daily populations: Fresno (29.6%), Los Angeles (17.5%) and Riverside (18.6%). Further, as a result of Realignment, hundreds of offenders are serving lengthy sentences in jails instead of state prisons.<br />
A February 2013 survey conducted by the California State Sheriffs’ Association found that not only were 1,109 prisoners in county jails serving 5- to 10-year sentences, but 44 were serving terms of more than 10 years. San Diego County reported it had 145 prisoners serving between 5 and 10 years, while San Bernardino County said it had 105. The longest sentence reported was 43 years.<br />
California’s jail population is likely to continue to expand as prisoners with longer sentences accumulate in county jails due to Realignment. Longer sentences translate to lengthier stays, which in turn result in larger jail populations; in the short term this has generated a number of early releases due to lack of available bed space.<br />
California has spent billions of dollars and decades in federal court due to poor conditions in its state prisons, but the problems it has been desperately trying to ameliorate are now trickling down to local governments as county jails are forced to deal with thousands of additional prisoners.<br />
Counties Face Lawsuits<br />
Recently, California-based law firms advocating for prisoners’ rights have sued or threatened lawsuits against a number of counties due to Realignment. The suits allege that the egregious conditions that first led to legal intervention against the state’s prison system – overcrowding, poor medical and dental care, and inadequate mental health treatment – are now being repeated at the county level.<br />
Jails that were originally designed for short-term stays are now being flooded with thousands of new prisoners, many of whom are serving longer sentences and need robust rehabilitative services that counties currently do not have the capacity to provide. Fresno, Riverside, Alameda and Monterey counties have already been sued.<br />
In September 2013, the California State Auditor issued a warning about Realignment: “The State does not currently have access to reliable and meaningful data concerning the realignment. As a result, the impact of realignment cannot be fully evaluated at this time. Even so, initial data indicate that local jails may not have adequate capacity and services to handle the influx of inmates caused by realignment. Until enough time has passed to allow the effectiveness and efficiency of realignment to be evaluated, we will consider it a statewide high-risk issue.”<br />
Monterey County Sheriff Scott Miller described Realignment as “a masterful stroke by Governor Brown to shift all the state’s prison problems to county jails.” The Monterey County jail has become so crowded that he considered buying triple-stack bunk beds to handle the deluge of prisoners. Then a nearby state prison donated extra triple bunks it had used when prison overcrowding was at its peak.<br />
Ironically, filling CDCR facilities with such bunk beds, including in gyms and other areas not intended for housing prisoners, was one of the conditions that persuaded the three-judge federal court to order a reduction in the state’s prison population.<br />
Nick Warner, legislative director of the California State Sheriffs’ Association, said counties are concerned they will be exposed to the same liabilities under Realignment that the state has spent billions of dollars trying to resolve.<br />
“They had problems before, but realignment makes it worse because people are spending more time in jail,” said Don Specter, director of the Berkeley-based Prison Law Office, which represents state prisoners in the <em>Plata</em> litigation.<br />
According to the Associated Press, a lawsuit filed by the Prison Law Office against Riverside County in March 2013 claims that “medical care is so poor in its jails that some of its 4,000 inmates go months without seeing a doctor. When they do, the lawsuit contends they receive only cursory medical exams, inadequate follow-up and are rarely referred to specialists even when outside care is clearly needed.”<br />
For example, the class-action suit describes the case of a female prisoner held at the Riverside County Jail who had Stage IV colon cancer. “Nobody paid attention to her complaints that the cancer had returned,” said Prison Law Office attorney Sara Norman. The lawsuit also notes that prisoners at the county’s five jails “face cruel and inhumane deficits in medical and mental health care.”<br />
The suit asks the U.S. District Court to order the county “to make a laundry list of fixes, such as increased staffing, timely access to care, reliable screening and emergency-response procedures, and timely and adequate medication, supplies and mental health treatment,” the <em>Press-Enterprise</em> reported.<br />
The county responded by moving to dismiss the case, claiming that the prisoners who complained about inadequate health care had refused to take their medication and did not attend medical appointments. Further, the county argued that the plaintiffs “also provided inaccurate and incomplete information about their medical history and conditions” when they first arrived at the jail and during subsequent meetings with medical staff. The suit, which does not seek monetary damages, remains pending. See: <em>Gray v. County of Riverside</em>, U.S.D.C. (C.D. Cal.), Case No. 5:13-cv-00444-VAP-OP.<br />
The Prison Law Office has also filed a lawsuit against Fresno County, alleging that prisoners at the county jail are routinely denied treatment for physical or mental illnesses and dental problems, and are vulnerable to attacks from other prisoners as a result of the jail’s poor design and inadequate staffing. According to CBS-Sacramento, Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims said she could not discuss the suit due to settlement discussions. See: <em>Hall v. County of Fresno</em>, U.S.D.C. (C.D. Cal.), Case No. 1:11-cv-02047-LJO-BAM.<br />
“Since Fresno has radically cut back outpatient mental health services, the jail has become a costly dumping ground for people with mental illness who need care but cannot find it elsewhere,” noted Rachel Scherer, an attorney with Disability Rights California.<br />
In November 2012, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children sued Alameda County Sheriff Gregory J. Ahern over his jail’s treatment of prisoners with disabilities, with both sides blaming the increase in disabled prisoners entering the jail since Realignment. “Unfortunately, you can’t just knock down a wall and make handicapped-accessible cells. It takes time,” said sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. J.D. Nelson. See: <em>Legal Services for Prisoners with Children v. Ahern</em>, Superior Court for the County of Alameda (CA), Case No. RG12656266.<br />
The Monterey County Public Defender’s Office filed a lawsuit in May 2013 to remedy substandard healthcare at the county jail that it claimed was “broken in every way.” Calling the jail’s medical and mental health care “woefully inadequate,” the 72-page complaint includes a litany of allegations that, it says, combine with severe overcrowding to put the lives of both staff and prisoners at risk. The class-action suit alleges delays in medical treatment, deficient mental health care, inadequate suicide prevention measures, failure to provide reasonable accommodations for prisoners with disabilities and failure to protect prisoners from violence.<br />
“It seems that our in-custody medical cases have been exacerbated due to realignment,” said Monterey County Sheriff Scott Miller. “We haven’t quantified it yet, but that seems to be the trend. It used to be when you were in county jail for six or eight months, you didn’t need the full range of medical services.”<br />
“Monterey County has inadequate facilities and programs for inmates who use wheelchairs, are blind or have other disabilities, or are mentally ill,” stated attorney Michael Bien with the San Francisco law firm of Rosen, Bien, Galvan and Grunfeld, which also represents the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. The defendants include Monterey County, the sheriff’s office and California Forensic Medical Group, a company that provides medical and mental health services at the county jail. See: <em>Hernandez v. County of Monterey</em>, U.S.D.C. (N.D. Cal.), Case No. 5:13-cv-02354-PSG.<br />
Although Los Angeles County – the most populous county in the state – has not yet been sued, local officials are worried that federal authorities could “soon intervene in the operation of Los Angeles County’s outdated and [overcrowded] jail system.” Consequently, the county is in the process of replacing its aging Men’s Central Jail with a new facility.<br />
Violence Increases in Local Jails<br />
The Associated Press reported in November 2013 that several counties had experienced a rise in prisoner violence due to increased jail populations under Realignment, based on data obtained from the ten largest county jail systems. “Some jails have seen violence dip, but the trend is toward more assaults since the law took effect on Oct. 1, 2011,” the AP stated.<br />
The number of prisoner-on-prisoner assaults increased by 32% in the first year after Realignment compared with the previous year. Assaults on staff increased by 27%. The rise in violence outpaced the rate of growing jail populations, which rose 14% in 2012.<br />
“You’re seeing a little more gang influence inside the jails and a little more violence,” stated San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon. “Certainly, the sophistication level of these inmates is different.”<br />
This is despite the fact that more serious offenders, including those convicted of violent and sexual felony offenses, are sent to state prisons.<br />
“The violence is just being transferred to the local facilities from the state system,” said Fresno County Assistant Sheriff Tom Gattie, whose jail experienced a 48% increase in prisoner-on-prisoner assaults in the year after Realignment went into effect.<br />
Comparably, the CDCR reported a 15% drop in prisoner-on-prisoner assaults and a 24% reduction in prisoner-on-staff assaults following Realignment, as the overcrowded state prison population declined.<br />
Sacramento County’s jail system had the greatest increase in assaults on staff, which rose 164% in spite of a fairly stable jail population.<br />
In some cases, jails are unprepared for experienced prisoners serving longer sentences, including gang members. “We now have a hierarchy of inmates who have a prison culture,” stated Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko.<br />
“Jails were for 30-day stints, and the most you could do was a year. They weren’t built for people to exercise. They don’t have law libraries. They don’t have jobs,” said Don Specter with the Prison Law Office. “A lot of guys would rather go to prison just to have something to do.”<br />
In June 2013, acknowledging that certain prisoners serving lengthy sentences did not belong in county jails, Governor Brown offered to return such offenders to the state prison system if counties would agree to take other state prisoners instead. The deal failed to go through, though, in part due to concerns that counties would send their worst, most expensive prisoners to CDCR facilities.<br />
California Assemblyman Ken Cooley introduced legislation in February 2013 (AB 222) that would require prisoners who commit serious drug offenses – including those convicted of selling or transporting more than a kilo of cocaine, heroin or meth – to be sent to state prisons rather than local jails under Realignment.<br />
“These county jail facilities were not set up for long-term incarceration,” he said. The bill died in January 2014.<br />
Impact on Crime Rates<br />
The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) reported in December 2013 that in addition to reducing the state’s prison population, Realignment may also be having an impact on crime rates.<br />
From 2011 to 2012 – the first year after Realignment was implemented – the state’s violent crime rate increased by 3.4% while property crime rose by 7.6%. However, the report found “no evidence that realignment has had an effect on the most serious offenses, murder and rape.” Although “California’s overall increases in violent crime between 2011 and 2012 appear to be part of a broader upward trend also experienced in other states,” the study noted there was “robust evidence that realignment is related to increased property crime.”<br />
In the latter regard, an analysis by the PPIC indicated that further reductions in the state’s prison population under Realignment could cause property crime – which includes burglary, larceny and auto theft – to increase by an additional 7 to 12%. The most significant impact was with respect to auto theft; the study estimated that due to more prisoners being released, Realignment was responsible for an additional 24,000 stolen vehicles per year.<br />
“As realignment continues to unfold, California should consider safer, smarter, and more cost-effective approaches to corrections and crime prevention,” the report concluded.<br />
“This is really interesting work by the PPIC,” said Matt Cate, director of the California State Association of Counties. “We’ve known for a long time that incarceration is very expensive, and for a lot of offenders it doesn’t effectively prevent criminal behavior in the long run. Under [Realignment], counties are using evidence-based programs that help individual offenders with basic housing needs, drug or alcohol treatment, and employment services. We know these programs help offenders, but often the individuals’ needs are great – especially with respect to behavioral health issues – and it takes time to develop local service capacity.”<br />
Some critics have suggested using part of the money saved through Realignment to hire additional police officers to address increased crime rates. Of course, that would likely result in more arrests and thus more offenders returning to prison – offsetting the impact of the Realignment initiative vis-à-vis reducing the state’s prison population.<br />
According to a December 23, 2013 press release from the CDCR, a study of all prisoners who served their full sentences and were released during the 12-month period after Realignment went into effect found slightly lower re-arrest rates and static re-conviction rates. The rate of prisoners returning to prison was significantly lower post-Realignment due to new policies for offenders who violate the conditions of their supervised release.<br />
The CDCR noted that “prior to Realignment, more than 60,000 felon parole violators returned to state prison annually, with an average length of stay of 90 days. Beginning on October 1, 2011, most parole violations are now served in county jails. Also, offenders newly convicted of certain low-level offenses serve their time in county jail.”<br />
A report by the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, released in January 2014, concluded there was no clear connection between the state’s Realignment initiative and crime rates, as some counties experienced an increase in crime and others reported a decrease.<br />
More Prison and Jail Beds<br />
While Realignment has reduced California’s prison population, it has not led to the closure of state prisons. Although initially slated for closure in 2012, the California Rehabilitation Center in Norco, which houses over 2,800 prisoners, remained open under a proposal announced by Governor Brown in August 2013. The proposal also involved sending more prisoners to out-of-state privately-operated facilities, as well as housing them in in-state private prisons.<br />
“[W]orking with all the other stakeholders, I’ve come up with a plan that, in the short term, meets the capacity – not by letting thousands of people out but by finding additional places for incarceration, both in-state and out-of-state,” Governor Brown stated.<br />
However, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said the proposal was “a plan with no promise and no hope.” Indeed, instead of closing prisons as other states have done in recent years, the CDCR is opening new facilities – including a 1,722-bed prison hospital in Stockton. [See: <em>PLN</em>, March 2013, p.56]. Further, in early January 2014, the state indicated it planned to build three medium-security housing units to hold more than 2,300 prisoners.<br />
California officials have also contracted with Corrections Corporation of America to lease the company’s 2,304-bed California City Correctional Center. Under the three-year, $28.5 million-a-year lease agreement announced in October 2013, the facility will be operated by former CCA staff who have become state employees after an abbreviated six-week training course.<br />
“Upon completion of their training, they will have the same knowledge and skills as all newly hired CDCR correctional officers,” said CDCR spokeswoman Deborah Hoffman.<br />
The hiring arrangement was acceptable to the state’s powerful prison guards’ union, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA), because the former CCA employees will join the union, which has been losing members in recent years. The CDCR has also contracted with private prison firm GEO Group to house prisoners in-state, including at the company’s McFarland Female Community Reentry Facility, Central Valley MCCF, Golden State MCCF and Desert View MCCF.<br />
The extra bed space is needed because the state’s prison population continues to grow, stated Prison Law Office director Don Specter.<br />
“It’s continuing to increase, so any building would be spending billions of dollars for only a temporary fix,” he said. “It also shows that realignment was only a temporary fix, as well.”<br />
Additionally, the CDCR currently houses around 8,500 prisoners in out-of-state CCA-operated facilities in Arizona, Oklahoma and Mississippi. It was the governor’s threat to move up to 4,000 more prisoners to private prisons in other states that contributed to the federal court overseeing the <em>Plata</em> litigation to give the CDCR two more years to meet the court-ordered prison population reduction.<br />
“You really can’t build your way out of the problem,” Specter observed.<br />
Meanwhile, counties are seeking to expand their jails to accommodate the influx of prisoners under Realignment. Since 2012, state officials have given $1.2 billion to California counties for jail construction plus $500 million to renovate or expand existing facilities, which is expected to add almost 15,000 new jail beds statewide. The Realignment initiative provides funding to counties through vehicle license fees and a portion of the state’s sales tax.<br />
“People commit crimes in the local community and they are now, to a greater degree, being supervised, being rehabilitated or being incarcerated locally. We’re transferring billions of dollars to achieve that goal,” Governor Brown stated. “We want the community that spawns the crime to handle the crime.”<br />
A November 2013 Realignment Report Card by Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB) examined the Realignment plans of 13 “key” counties, with respect to “the balance between community-based programs that reduce imprisonment and plans to expand jail capacity or build new jail beds.”<br />
The CURB report noted that “Shifting people from State prison to County jail is not a solution to our prison and budget crises. Realignment can most safely and effectively be implemented by using alternative sentencing and community-based services instead of expanding imprisonment and policing, both of which [are] socially and economically costly.”<br />
However, only two of the 13 states examined in the report received a passing grade: Alameda and Santa Clara, which “have focused their resources on innovative strategies to reduce their jail population and providing programming and alternatives to incarceration.” All of the other counties intend to expand their jail capacity, including five – Kern, Riverside, San Mateo, Los Angeles and San Bernardino – that each plan to build two new jail facilities.<br />
Those plans are not always successful, though. In December 2013, requests by Riverside and San Bernardino counties for $80 million in grants for new jail construction were denied by state officials. Riverside County already has almost 4,000 jail beds and is in the process of adding a 1,250-bed, $267 million expansion at one of its facilities, while San Bernardino County has around 6,000 jail beds.<br />
On May 6, 2014, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to proceed with plans to demolish the Men’s Central Jail and renovate a facility for female detainees at a cost of approximately $1.8 billion. The Men’s Central Jail currently holds around 19,000 prisoners; it will be replaced with a treatment facility for offenders with substance abuse and mental health problems. The Board authorized initial architectural plans for the new jail and an environmental impact report.<br />
The $1.8 billion proposal to replace the Men’s Central Jail was the least costly of five plans submitted by a consultant hired by the county, Vanir Construction Management.<br />
Still, according to Board Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, replacing the jail is the “most expensive infrastructure project in the history of the county, without a doubt, not even close.” He objected to the proposal, stating, “I don’t believe there was a serious effort made at considering alternatives” to building a new detention facility.<br />
The ACLU lambasted the proposal because replacing the jail would leave bed space capacity unchanged – though overcrowding would be decreased while access to care for the mentally ill and prisoners with drug or alcohol addictions would increase. Esther Lim of the ACLU criticized the Board of Supervisors for hiring Vanir, which specializes in construction projects, including jail construction, as a consultant.<br />
“It was not surprising that a construction company in its report proposed five options, all involving construction of new buildings,” she said.<br />
Early Releases Criticized<br />
Technically, prisoners are not released early under Realignment; rather, those that are eligible serve their sentences in county jails rather than state prisons. Governor Brown emphasized that no prisoners would be released early, and the CDCR states on its website there will be no early releases for state prisoners.<br />
While it may be correct that offenders are not released early from state prisons, that isn’t true when it comes to former prisoners who violate the terms of their supervised release and are subsequently jailed.<br />
As part of Realignment, most prisoners are no longer released on parole under state supervision but instead are placed on community supervision under county probation officials. When they violate their supervision they can be sent to jail for up to six months. However, due to overcrowding caused by Realignment, community supervision violators typically serve only a small amount of their jail sanction – sometimes just a few days.<br />
According to a survey of county jails by the Board of State and Community Corrections, releases due to lack of bed space increased by 21% over the first nine months of Realignment. The most recent quarterly jail survey, from July to September 2013, reported 6,189 early releases statewide.<br />
In February 2013, Assembly members Ken Cooley and Susan Eggman introduced a bill, AB 601, that would have required offenders who violate their community supervision to be sent to prison for up to a year. The legislation failed to pass, in part because it would have led to an increase in the number of state prisoners at a time when California is trying to further reduce its prison population to comply with the court order in the <em>Plata</em> litigation.<br />
“Any attempts to change Realignment that would send more offenders to state prison must be reconciled with the federal court order to reduce prison crowding,” stated CDCR spokesperson Jeffrey Callison.<br />
High-profile crimes committed by some released prisoners have led to public outrage. For example, in June 2013, a few months after Dustin James Kinnear, 26, was released from prison and placed on community supervision under the Realignment initiative, he stabbed to death a 23-year-old woman on the Hollywood Walk of Fame because she refused to give him a dollar. Critics argued that Kinnear, who has mental health problems, would have been incarcerated at the time were it not for Realignment.<br />
Previously, on December 2, 2012, former prisoner Ka Pasasouk, who was on community supervision under Realignment, shot and killed four people in Los Angeles. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty while relatives of the victims have filed suit against the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office and Probation Department, claiming county officials had failed to properly supervise Pasasouk after he was released from prison.<br />
“This is an experiment with people’s lives,” stated Michael Rushford, president of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, referring to Realignment.<br />
Recent Developments<br />
The Associated Press reported in March 2014 that some counties were undermining the Realignment initiative by increasing the number of offenders sent to state prisons due to charging decisions by local prosecutors. In fiscal year 2013-2014, 5,500 prisoners charged with and convicted of second felonies were sent to the state prison system – a 33% increase compared with the previous fiscal year.<br />
“We’re not quite sure what’s behind the trend,” said Aaron Edwards, with California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office. “When you see such a drastic increase year-over-year ... that kind of suggests that there’s been some kind of behavior change at the county level, in terms of how they are charging, whether they are choosing to charge individuals as second-strikers or not.”<br />
Apparently, local prosecutors are exercising their discretion to file more serious charges against defendants, such as felonies rather than misdemeanors, in order to secure convictions that will send them to prison rather than jail under Realignment – thereby reducing the burden on county jails.<br />
The California District Attorneys Association denied that prosecutors had altered their charging practices, but San Joaquin Public Defender Peter Fox contended there has been “some attitudinal backlash against realignment” by district attorneys and judges.<br />
As of April 30, 2014, California’s prison population was around 134,800 – 2,243 more than a year earlier. This poses a problem in terms of meeting the federal court-ordered prison population cap by February 2016.<br />
Counties continue to seek additional money from the state for their own increasing jail populations, including funds for jail construction and expansion as well as for rehabilitative and treatment programs.<br />
Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson noted that “if you want to see success in realignment, then the counties and local governments need help with the resources to do that.”<br />
Lobbyists representing Los Angeles County have asked state officials for assistance in funding the county’s $1.8 billion overhaul of its jail system.<br />
“We have received approximately thirty percent of the realigned population – 6,000 county jail inmates that have been sentenced under realignment,” stated lobbyist Alan Fernandes. “But we’ve received about five percent of the available funding for jail construction.”<br />
Some lawmakers, however, have criticized the practice of pouring more money into building more jails. For example, state Senator Loni Hancock observed that the solution to California’s prison overcrowding problem is not to “replicate our prison system county jail-by-county jail.”<br />
In May 2014, a state Senate budget subcommittee opposed a proposal to grant an additional $500 million to counties for jail construction and expansion, instead voting to provide such funds for construction projects and programs “designed to provide rehabilitative services and housing for individuals convicted of crimes.” This would potentially include treatment programs, transitional housing, and substance abuse and mental health care facilities.<br />
“[The] vote was a small but important step in using realignment as an opportunity to find and fund real alternatives to the current disaster of mass incarceration,” said Diana Zuñiga, with Californians United for a Responsible Budget.<br />
Meanwhile, counties will likely continue to face lawsuits and other difficulties as they grapple with the fallout of the state’s Realignment initiative and attempt to cope with their overcrowded jails – which they will have to bring into compliance with standards for holding long-term prisoners that such facilities were never designed to accommodate. Realignment and its attendant impact on local jails further corroborate the notion that correctional overcrowding is a consequence – not a cause – of California’s ongoing practice of using incarceration as a catchall solution for complex socio-economic, political and cultural challenges facing the state and its citizens.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289545648704981358.post-35892591941239648602014-07-01T12:27:00.002-07:002014-07-01T12:28:53.109-07:00Forced Homeless in San Jose by Jessica's Law <span style="font-size: large;">Do not forget to checkout my other blog, Forced Homeless in San Jose by Jessica's Law at: </span><a href="http://forcedhomelessinsanjose.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-size: large;">http://forcedhomelessinsanjose.blogspot.com</span></a><span style="font-size: large;"> .</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289545648704981358.post-16445355392180758412014-06-30T12:31:00.000-07:002014-07-07T10:45:56.496-07:00CA to Purge Sex Offender Registry <span style="font-size: large;"> CA is finally going to do something about how many Californians are on this state's sex offender registry. Check out Sex Offenders Issues to learn more </span><a href="http://sexoffenderissues.blogspot.com/2014/06/ca-california-looking-at-purging-sex.html#.U7G6HbcU-ig"><span style="font-size: large;">http://sexoffenderissues.blogspot.com/2014/06/ca-california-looking-at-purging-sex.html#.U7G6HbcU-ig</span></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289545648704981358.post-831636590924272442014-06-27T11:20:00.002-07:002014-06-27T11:49:10.119-07:00Freed Once Again ! <span style="font-size: large;"> I was just released on yet another parole violation. Served 2 months. Good to be back. The State of California is still forcing me to be homeless. The nightmare never ends. More later. I got to figure out where I'm going to sleep tonight. Take care my friends !!!</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289545648704981358.post-2797037921919137172014-04-16T09:54:00.001-07:002014-06-27T11:48:48.372-07:00Free Again !<span style="font-size: large;"> Just got out again. Check out <a href="http://forcedhomelessinsanjose.blogspot.com/2014/04/uot-of-jail-again.html">http://forcedhomelessinsanjose.blogspot.com/2014/04/uot-of-jail-again.html</a> .</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289545648704981358.post-23289046318199228512014-02-10T08:20:00.002-08:002014-02-10T08:24:38.752-08:00Interment Camps Again ?<h1 class="post-title">
Supreme Court justice predicts internment camps in America’s future</h1>
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"You are kidding yourself if you think the same thing will not happen again," said Justice Scalia.</h2>
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Posted on February 5, 2014 by <a href="http://www.policestateusa.com/author/psusa/" rel="author" title="Posts by PSUSA">PSUSA</a> in <a href="http://www.policestateusa.com/category/history/" rel="category tag" title="View all posts in History">History</a> </div>
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<a href="http://www.policestateusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/InternmentCamps-DortheaLange.jpg" rel="prettyPhoto"><img alt="Americans exit train cars and are "evacuated" into the fenced compounds that would be their new homes. (Source: Dorthea Lange, 1944)" class="size-full wp-image-4677" src="http://www.policestateusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/InternmentCamps-DortheaLange.jpg" height="296" width="400" /></a> <br />
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Americans exit train cars and are “evacuated” into the fenced compounds that would be their new homes. (Source: Dorthea Lange, 1944)</div>
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A distinguished member of the U.S. Supreme Court gave a sobering reminder of how history can <em>and likely will</em> repeat itself when the conditions are right. Justice Antonin Scalia said that he would not be surprised if Americans were once again imprisoned in concentration camps by the federal government.<br />
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<a href="http://www.policestateusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/AntoninScalia.jpg" rel="prettyPhoto"><img alt="Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (Source: H. Darr Beiser / USA Today)" class="size-medium wp-image-4674 " src="http://www.policestateusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/AntoninScalia-300x220.jpg" height="220" width="300" /></a> <br />
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Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (Source: <a class="ext-link" href="http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/judicial/story/2012-01-23/supreme-court-GPS/52754354/1" rel="external nofollow" target="_blank" title=""><span style="color: #e64946;">H. Darr Beiser / USA Today</span></a>)</div>
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The 77-year-old justice was answering questions after giving a classroom lecture to a group of law students in Honolulu. One student asked about the deplorable 1944 <a class="ext-link" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korematsu_v._United_States" rel="external nofollow" target="_blank" title=""><span style="color: #e64946;">Korematsu v. United States</span></a> decision, in which the U.S. Supreme Court verified the constitutionality of the president ordering the mass-imprisonment of Americans in the name of national security.<br />
Scalia cited the wartime “panic” as a reason Americans accepted President Franklin Roosevelt’s hostile treatment of citizens of his own country.<br />
As the <a class="ext-link" href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/scalia-internment-ruling-happen-22353561" rel="external nofollow" target="_blank" title=""><span style="color: #e64946;">Associated Press reported</span></a>:<br />
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“Well of course Korematsu was wrong. And I think we have repudiated in a later case. But you are kidding yourself if you think the same thing will not happen again,” Scalia told students and faculty during a lunchtime Q-and-A session.<br />
Scalia cited a Latin expression meaning, “In times of war, the laws fall silent.”<br />
“That’s what was going on — the panic about the war and the invasion of the Pacific and whatnot. That’s what happens. It was wrong, but I would not be surprised to see it happen again, in time of war. It’s no justification, but it is the reality,” he said.</blockquote>
The Korematsu case stemmed from President Roosevelt’s <a class="ext-link" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_9066" rel="external nofollow" target="_blank" title=""><span style="color: #e64946;">Executive Order 9066,</span></a> which divided the country into “Military Areas” and in a real sense instituted martial law in the United States. Control of civilian territory was granted to to military commanders and the Secretary of War, who were authorized to take any freedom-restricting actions they deemed necessary to secure the homeland.<br />
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<a href="http://www.policestateusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Japanese-InternmentCamp-Tule-Lake-CA.jpg" rel="prettyPhoto"><img alt="A U.S. Soldier stands ready to shoot any who would try to escape FDR's concentration camps. (Tule Lake, California)" class="size-medium wp-image-4685" src="http://www.policestateusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Japanese-InternmentCamp-Tule-Lake-CA-300x204.jpg" height="204" width="300" /></a> <br />
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A U.S. Soldier stands ready to shoot any who would try to escape FDR’s concentration camps. (Tule Lake, California)</div>
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In enactment of the order, several segments of the U.S. population were labeled as “enemies” or “enemy aliens.” They were: (1) people suspected of “subversive activities” (which included speaking against the war); (2) Japanese aliens; (3) American-born Japanese; (4) German aliens; and (5) Italian aliens.<br />
These so-called enemy groups were ordered to report to military prison camps for an indefinite sentence — a process that was dubiously referred to as “relocation” or “evacuation.” The reality was that the targeted individuals were stripped from their homes, their lives, their jobs, their families, and their freedom and placed into cages surrounded by barbed wire and U.S. soldiers who were prepared to shoot them.<br />
Fred Korematsu was born in the United States, and as such was considered a naturally-born U.S. citizen who had two parents who were from Japan. Even though his loyalty to the USA was not questioned, the President had labeled him (and 120,000 others) as an enemy. Korematsu, who resided in Military Area No. 1 (California), was one of the few who did not report to the prison camp to which he was assigned. The government’s response was to have Korematsu hunted down, arrested and convicted of disobeying military authorities.<br />
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<em>“It was wrong… But you are kidding yourself if you think the same thing will not happen again.”</em>- Justice Scalia</div>
The Supreme Court upheld his conviction, ruling that the 5th Amendment guarantee of “due process” did not apply, and that his conviction was allowed to stand. The needs of homeland security were considered to be preeminent over individual rights. To date, the decision has never been explicitly overturned.<br />
Scalia’s statements would suggest that its legal precedence matters less than many would think. The Latin phrase he quoted, <em>“<a class="ext-link" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter_arma_enim_silent_leges" rel="external nofollow" target="_blank" title=""><span style="color: #e64946;">Inter arma enim silent leges,</span></a>“</em> dates back over 2,000 years and has been proven true in every culture since. During times of crisis — especially during great wars — people are naturally prone to embrace government efforts to empower itself in the name of security and order. Americans have proven this maxim to be true many times over, notably with the mass roundup of political prisoners during the American Civil War, World War 1, and World War 2.<br />
“The reality,” as Scalia pointed out, is that the next time Americans feel great fear of a foreign threat or a terrorist, they will not only accept the destruction of civil rights — they will demand it.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289545648704981358.post-15725158908577045942014-02-06T09:13:00.001-08:002014-02-06T09:24:49.134-08:00SNY Gangs Parts 1 <span style="font-size: large;"> California calls It's Protective Custody Yards, Sensitive Needs Yards (SNY). I went P.C. in 2008 after spending about 15 years on The Main Line (General Population). What shocked me was the presence of PC Gangs. Only in California. What kind of an idiot goes PC and then joins a gang? Here's a video on PC Gangs in the California prison system:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.myfoxla.com/story/18896032/prison-sny-gangs-part-1">http://www.myfoxla.com/story/18896032/prison-sny-gangs-part-1</a></span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289545648704981358.post-82079997204451476222014-02-05T10:48:00.001-08:002014-06-27T11:48:22.035-07:00New Blog - Forced Homeless in San Jose by Jessica's Law<span style="font-size: large;"> Be sure to check out my new blog, Forced Homeless in San Jose at <a href="http://forcedhomelessinsanjose.blogspot.com/">http://forcedhomelessinsanjose.blogspot.com/</a> .</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289545648704981358.post-32702946490090375872014-02-03T13:38:00.001-08:002014-06-27T11:47:48.893-07:00Free at Last !<span style="font-size: large;"> Free at Last ! Well, not exactly free, but at least I'm out of jail again. This makes it my 10th parole violation in the last 22 months. For RSO's on parole in California it's a revolving door. At $116 a day to incarcerate someone in Santa Clara Co. the burden to taxpayers is staggering. I've probably have spent 450 days in co. jail due to parole violations since April of 2012. That comes out to over $50,000 of totally wasted taxpayer monies. Due to Jessica's Law here in CA successful parole is impossible. It still amazes me that no one in the media is reporting on the absolute waste of Jessica's Law and how many millions are spent implicating this insane law. I'm forced to be homeless due to bullshit residential restrictions. Got to run and figure out where I'm going to sleep tonight. Take care my friends. I'm back in the fight !</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289545648704981358.post-88387555829175801032013-12-13T11:26:00.000-08:002013-12-13T11:36:04.017-08:00How to Survive in Prison as an Innocent Man Convicted of a Sex Offense (Revised 2013)<span style="font-size: large;">From:<strong> Issues in Child Abuse Accusations 1997 </strong></span><a href="http://www.ipt-forensics.com/journal/volume9/j9_3_6.htm"><strong><span style="font-size: large;">http://www.ipt-forensics.com/journal/volume9/j9_3_6.htm</span></strong></a><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I wrote the following way back in the 1997 while I was doing time in Oregon. A rather easy prison system to do time in. I was young, tough, and adamant about my innocence. When I did time in the notorious California prison system starting in 2001 I received a huge wake up call. These are real prisons here. I had never seen so much violence in my life. Every time a riot kicked off I was somehow right in the middle of it. I still walked the mainline, but was always concerned about my safety. If my status as a "convicted sex offender" would of came out I could of been killed. Would not have mattered to "my bros" I was innocent. They would of tried to kill me. In 2006, Jessica's Law was passed by CA voters and I went on the run again. I've lived "underground" off and on for the past 25 years trying to escape The Sex Crime Witch Hunters. I always knew I would be recaptured. I always am. Only this time I decided that when I was arrested I was going to put myself In Protective Custody (PC). That's exactly what I did in 2008. Should of done it years ago! What the hell did I have to prove. If your convicted of a sex crime, even if your innocent - go PC ! It could save your life. Another view of mine that has changed is my attitude on taking Psych. Meds in prison. If you're going nuts in there get on medication. The following is an old article of mine, but still has some useful information.</span><br />
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<i>Psychology Editor's Note: This article includes some strong views that may be surprising and challenging. We have chosen to publish it because we believe prisoners have a right to seek interaction with those outside the prison walls. We also believe there are many innocent men and women in prison who are wrongly convicted of sex offenses. They too, have a right to stand up for their innocence. One of the more poignant episodes in our lives was in June, 1985, when Lois Bentz, accused with her husband, Robert, of sexually abusing children in Jordan, Minnesota, was told by her attorney about a very attractive plea bargain. With tears running down her face, Lois said to us, "I did not do it and I will not say I did something I didn't do." The Bentzes rejected the plea bargain and went to trial. The Bentzes were acquitted and the Jordan case is often regarded as the beginning of the "backlash" that has led to increased awareness of false accusations and the reversals of several highly publicized convictions in recent years.</i><br />
<i>Still there are many many lesser known cases where Large numbers of innocent people remain behind bars. We receive letters every week from men and women in prison who assert their innocence. For years we have agonized about what we can do in response. The most we have been able to do is to try to stay in contact and provide information to assist those working on appeals. Based upon our experience with Ms. Bentz, we have also tried to say what Mr. Anderson repeats several times in this article — maintain your own personal integrity. Mr. Anderson tells us how he has done this for himself. It may not be a way that works for everyone, but this is what he tells us works for him. We believe Mr. Anderson is very likely to walk out of prison when his time is served and be standing up straight and tall.</i><br />
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Your only exposure to what prison is like has been through movies that sensationalize the violence, drug use, and sex in the big house. The prison bus you're on rounds a lonely highway corner and you get your first glimpse of what is to be your home for the next 10-odd years — a steel, razor wire, and concrete house of pain. You wonder how you'll ever make it out of this hate factory alive. You imagine your first day being gang-raped by six huge, tattooed lifers, by the end of the week you're being sold up and down the tier for cigarettes, and within a month, you're found dead in your cell with a twelve-inch "shank" protruding from your chest. Not only are you the new fish in the cell block, but you have been convicted of a sex crime, and you've heard how convicted sex criminals are abused in the joint.<br />
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You're one of the thousands of innocent men wrongly convicted of sex crimes in the U.S. every year. Won't it matter to your fellow prisoners that you are not a sex criminal and are completely innocent? Not in the least. It is possible, though, to make it through prison even though you were convicted of a skin beef. You can not only live through the prison experience, you can claim some degree of victory at the end of your unjust prison term. Life will be neither easy nor fun for the innocent man convicted of a sex crime and sent to prison. But, surviving prison is not impossible.<br />
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I have spent over seven years in maximum-, medium-, and minimum security prisons after being wrongly convicted of first degree rape — the result of my having been falsely accused of date rape by a mentally deranged woman with a history of falsely accusing men of sex crimes. I am writing this from the Oregon State Correctional Institution. Although life has not been easy for me in prison, I have managed to keep my self-respect, my dignity, and my integrity. I have spent months in solitary confinement for defending myself when necessary. I have allowed no prisoner, no prison guard, and no member of the parole board to disrespect me due to my wrongful conviction. I have consistently maintained my innocence, even when doing so has added years to my prison term.<br />
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I earned a college degree behind bars, and have even escaped from prison once. To help other innocent prisoners, I founded the Society Against False Accusations of Rape (SAFAR), and for five years have published the underground prison publication, <em>The SAFAR Newsletter</em>. Currently, I'm working on my book, <em>Falling on the Deaf Ear: False Accusations of Rape, Child Abuse Hoaxes, Innocent People in Prison and How to End the Sex Crime Witchhunt.</em> I know first-hand what it is to be an innocent man in prison, wrongly convicted of a sex crime, and I know how to survive the prison experience.<br />
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Now that you have been falsely accused of rape or child abuse, been convicted in record time, lost all your assets along with your reputation, and been sentenced to 10 years in prison by a judge who couldn't care less that you are innocent, you would think your troubles are over. Think again. You not only have to make it out of the prison with your life and sanity, but with your self-respect, honor, and integrity intact. Let's face it. After being wrongly convicted of a sex crime, your sanity, self-respect, honor, and integrity is all you have left. Prison will not break you if you are a man — or learn to become a man, even though the main goal of prison officials is to sap the soul from men, and spit out castrated, submissive males. With all the odds against you, it is even possible to walk out of prison a better man with your head held high. Again, it will be neither fun nor easy, but what battle ever is easy? You can either walk out of prison with your manhood intact knowing you beat the corrupt prison industry or you can crawl out on your belly as a hated sex offender.<br />
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<b>Outside Contacts</b><br />
Don't fool yourself that the community will be outraged that you were convicted and sent to prison for a crime you didn't commit or that may have never even occurred. You are now a convicted sex offender and your innocence means nothing. You're the lowest of the low, in and out of prison. There will be no mass protests at the prison gates demanding your release.<br />
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Most people believe the propaganda of the sex crime witch hunters and probably feel you should die in prison. Most of your friends will abandon you and even some members of your family will turn their backs on you. Only your very best friends and your immediate family will stick by your side at first and most of them will fall by the wayside in the coming years as you rot in prison.<br />
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One of the most important things for the innocent man in prison is to maintain contact with at least one person on the outside. This person can help you try to prove your innocence and keep you current on what's happening outside the prison walls. If you can maintain contact with at least one free worlder to help you, you'll be doing a lot better than some prisoners. Many prisoners lose their friends and their own families and are isolated in prison with no contact with the outside world. You are going to be walking into prison alone and will be alone while you do your time. You need at least one ally in the outside to help free yourself from the nightmare of being thrown in a cage and given the scarlet letter of a convicted sex offender for a crime you did not commit.<br />
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<b>Prison violence</b><br />
For the most part, prisons and correctional institutions are not the hell holes of years past. The "get tough on crime" craze has mutated into "get tough on prisoners." Although prisons are not for continued and endless punishment, politicians don't want to educate or rehabilitate prisoners. Prisoners are to be warehoused like the commodities they've become. College courses and vocational training in prison are a thing of the past. With all the new prisons being built in the U.S., doing time has become quite sterile — even safe — because all the new prisons are so controlled and high-tech that prisoners now spend most of their time in their cells.<br />
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The idea that prisoners really run the joint is a myth. Some of the older prisons are still dangerous, but these are slowly being phased out. It used to be that only the worst, most dangerous, and most hardened criminal was sent to prison. It was no wonder that penitentiaries were dangerous. But these days, with so many first-time offenders doing mandatory prison terms and so many people being sent to prison, the nation's lock-ups have become diluted with nonviolent prisoners. Today most prisons can even be considered safe.<br />
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In all my years behind bars, I've never seen a murder, a stabbing, or a rape. I believe some prisoners try to brag how tough prison is to make themselves look tough. They romanticize their prison experience by telling their friends and family how brutal prison was and how they had to fight for their lives every day. Prison, however, may be harder for the innocent man convicted of a sex crime because of the scorn. In the old days, a convicted sex offender — innocent or guilty — was sure to get physically attacked. Today, that is not the case. A man wrongly convicted of a sex crime can make it out of prison unharmed if he stays on his toes and keeps alert.<br />
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What about all the violence you read about what goes on in prison? Of course, violence does happen in U.S. penitentiaries, but with over 1.6 million Americans locked up these days, the chance of being one of the few hundred inmates who are killed or seriously injured is slim.<br />
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<b>Standing Up for Yourself</b><br />
Because you were convicted of a sex crime, you will not be winning any popularity contests with your fellow prisoners. At first, the other prisoners may mark you to be victimized and harassed. If you don't stand tall and fight back, you'll be victimized your entire prison term. You must stand up for yourself when you are tested by some idiot who thinks you're a rape-o, "Chester," "tree jumper," or "freak." In 1989, I was compelled to beat a man who attacked me with a folding chair. Besides a little blood, neither one of us was hurt badly. I did accidentally break a guard's hand in the melee and I've also had to fight a couple of other morons who disrespected me, but I haven't had any trouble in years. It is well worth it to spend a few months in solitary confinement for defending yourself when the option is being harassed continually in general population. Another option is hiding for years in Protective Custody (PC), totally separated from the rest of the prison, and locked in a cell for 24-hours a day. But only the weakest prisoners go PC, and I don't recommend it.<br />
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For the most part, even for the wrongly convicted sex offender, if you don't owe debts from gambling or drugs, and if you stay away from the homosexuals, keep your head down, don't bother anyone, and don't act like a wimp and whine about your wrongful conviction, you won't have to worry about prison violence. There is very little chance that you will be killed or even stabbed. But, if something does happen and you need to defend your good name, be a man and do it. In prison, your good name is all you have. If trouble comes your way in prison, you have to deal with it on the spot. Where are you going to run? You're in a cage.<br />
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<b>Inmates and Convicts</b><br />
During my years in prison I have found that there are two types of prisoners — inmates and convicts. Inmates will not fight if their lives depend on it and they will kiss any ass that comes their way. Inmates are the type of prisoners who go on national TV to praise prison officials and prison programs for straightening out their miserable lives. The inmate has no loyalty to anything or anyone except himself. Inmates will do anything to please their captors and cheerfully inform and rat on other prisoners for breaking prison rules. Inmates are not men.<br />
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Be aware that you can't always tell an inmate worm by his cover. The biggest, baddest killer on the tier can be the biggest, snitch rat in the joint. On the other hand, convicts used to be very common in U.S. prisons, but are now a dying breed. A true convict would never rat on anyone, would take no disrespect, would fight when necessary and would be loyal and live by a code of honor. Unlike an inmate, a convict is a man.<br />
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A convicted sex offender will never be considered a true convict by other prisoners, but you can live by your own code of honor in prison. Never whine or complain about your wrongful conviction; sniveling will only make you appear weak and make you a target. Other prisoners don't care about your innocence. The prison hierarchy has you at the bottom of the prison barrel. Your jacket is that of a sex offender but it's up to you if you wear this degrading jacket. You will find that the only prisoners who hang around the sex offender are other wide-eyed, scared, spineless sex offenders. Even though prison is going to be very lonely for the innocent man convicted of a sex crime, you don't want to befriend confessed sex offenders. Also, stay away from the prison chapel. For some strange reason, confessed sex offenders always find God in prison and carry their Bibles for all to see to show how repentant they are. In short, even though no one convicted of a sex beef can be a true convict, you must strive to be one.<br />
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<b>Talking About Your Conviction</b><br />
You may think that if you don't tell any of your fellow prisoners you were convicted of a sexual offense that no one will be the wiser and you won't be harassed. You may think that you can tell people you're a bank robber and even be a hero in prison. Nice try, but lying about what you were convicted of will not work. There are no secrets in prison, especially on why you are there. You're in prison now, and any possibility of privacy or keeping secrets is long gone. Be honest when talking about your wrongful conviction and get ready to defend yourself if it becomes necessary.<br />
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All of the convicted sex offenders (innocent or guilty) whom I've heard tell other prisoners that they were burglars or robbers in an effort to hide their convictions were eventually exposed. If you lie about your conviction, you will be exposed. Then, any attempts to claim innocence will not be believed and your prison time may get very tough. Don't advertise your wrongful conviction, or the facts of your supposed crime, but when asked why you're in prison, be honest.<br />
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Although a convicted sex offender can never gain full respect in prison, I've managed to gain some measure of respect by being truthful about why I am in prison, and fighting when necessary. Sure, some punk may call me a "rape-o" behind my back, but no prisoner ever disrespects me face to face. With so many innocent men being sent to prison these days on false accusations of rape and child abuse, the general prison population is starting to understand how widespread the sex crime witch hunt has become, and how many innocent men are now in prison due to false allegations. False reports of rape and other sex crimes are so common that an innocent man wrongfully convicted of a sex crime will not be alone.<br />
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<b>Prison Guards</b><br />
The men and women who hold the key to your freedom (the prison guards) should be considered your enemy. There is a reason that surveys on job status and job satisfaction often rate being a prison guard as the lowest job a person can hold. No one respects prison guards, and they know it. What kind of man or woman would want to examine body openings for contraband, turn keys, and stand around and do nothing for a living? Prison guards hate their jobs and blame prisoners for their unhappy and unfulfilled lives. It takes no ambition, no talent, no drive, or any creativity to be a corrections officer. Even police officers know this, and look down on the lowly prison guard. Think about it. Does any kid have dreams of being a corrections officer when he or she grows up?<br />
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The Golden Rule to remember not only about prison guards, but about anyone that works inside the prison in which you are held captive, is to stay as far away from them as possible and avoid even talking to them unnecessarily. Even if you happen to run across a prison guard who appears to be halfway human, don't befriend him. Every inmate whom I've seen develop any type of friendship with any prison employee was, in the end, betrayed and shunned by other prisoners. Don't collaborate with anyone other than fellow prisoners while in prison. Every prison official or staff member is your enemy. Never forget that. They will gladly shoot you in the back if they feel the need. Don't make eye contact with the people who work at the prison because if you avoid eye contact they will leave you alone. The less contact you have with prison employees, the better off you will be.<br />
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In all my years in prison, I've observed hundreds of prison guards and only a couple could be considered normal. The typical male guard I have encountered is not someone you would consider a winner. He is usually a skinny geek (or is extremely overweight), is undereducated, has no ambition and is sadistic. His idea of success is a monthly state paycheck, a trailer home, a 12-pack of beer, and nightly TV. The typical female prison guard is homosexual, physically unattractive, overweight, and more masculine than most male prison guards. She's mad at the world for not being born a man and she takes her penis envy out on prisoners.<br />
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I fully admit my dislike for prison guards because I am convinced that every prison guard in the U.S. has witnessed, encouraged, and/or participated in the torture or murder of prisoners. Prison guards are cowards with a badge who are protected by the state and prison guard unions. Your only allies in prison are other prisoners. Never forget it.<br />
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<b>Keeping Fit</b><br />
One of the most important things to do while doing your prison time is to keep in the very best physical shape possible. Every prison has a weight room, and I strongly suggest pumping iron. Being in top shape not only feels good, but it's good for your head and will help you think more clearly. By working out, running, exercising, and eating as well as possible, you will be physically able to defend yourself in case of any violent situations. You will also be able to think straight to combat your unjust conviction. All the guys whom I've seen go insane in prison did not care about their health. They rotted in front of a TV for years until they were just a shell of a man. At age thirty-five, I am now in the best shape of my life and feel great.<br />
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Another reason to stay healthy in prison is that medical services are notoriously horrid. One of my worst prison experiences was when our prison doctor told me that blood tests indicated that I had liver cancer. He smiled gleefully as he told me I had only a year to live. I tried to learn more, but he refused to answer my questions and ordered me out of his office. For months I thought I was going to leave this mad house on a slab. I learned later that my blood test indicated only that I had been exposed to hepatitis in the past. The good prison doctor told me I was dying for his own sick amusement.<br />
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Dental services are just as bad in prison. I'm currently waiting to have a back molar filled. I cracked my tooth on a rock in some chili in the chow hall. I've been on the waiting list to see the dentist for over six months now, and will probably lose the tooth due to neglect. There is nothing I can do about it.<br />
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While in prison, stay in shape, work out, run, and try to eat well — even though that's nearly impossible with the garbage that passes for food in prison. But, although you may get depressed, lonely, and frustrated in prison, never go to the prison psychologist. Prison shrinks only want to drug prisoners into submission. One of the newest fads in corrections is tranquilizers that are given out like candy to pacify and control inmates. What better way to turn prisoners into submissive zombies than by medicating them for depression and anxiety. Don't fall into the medication trap in prison. You need to be clear-headed while doing time, not in a drugged-out haze.<br />
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When you go to prison, settle down and find a positive routine. After the shock of prison wears off, and the other prisoners figure out you will defend yourself, you'll be left alone to do your time. Don't sit around vegetating in front of a TV, playing cards or reading westerns. Don't waste your time complaining about your wrongful conviction and what a poor victim you are. Don't turn into what I call a "prison zombie" who does his time like he's waiting to die. Your main mission in prison will be trying to get your unjust conviction overturned. Learn as much about the law and the corrupt legal system as you can. Get to know the prisoner law clerks in the law library, and spend as much time in the library as possible. Study every aspect of your case, and stay on top of your attorney. Your lawyer is not the one in prison, you are. The appeals process takes years. Prisoners rarely win a new trial because the criminal justice system is not about truth and justice, but you can't win if you don't try. Fighting the legal system will be frustrating and depressing, but try not to give up hope.<br />
Not only do we prisoners have to stick together, but we men must also join forces in our fight against feminism. Become a soldier in the Men's Rights Fight. Contact the anti feminist, pro-family men's groups in your area, as well as some of the national groups.<br />
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<b>Sex Offender Treatment</b><br />
One of the most profitable scams in the prison behavioral modification business is the sex-offender treatment industry. Because you were convicted of a sex offense, you are now fuel for the sex-offender treatment profiteers. You will be expected to confess to your crime, end all appeals for a fair trial, dismiss all delusions of innocence, and participate in sex-offender treatment along with admitted child molesters and serial rapists. Confession is the main tenet of sex-offender treatment. It does not matter to prison officials that you have always maintained your innocence and are in the process of appeal.<br />
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Thousands of people work in the sex-offender treatment industry and to justify their high-paying state jobs you must confess to your offense. You are the meal ticket not only of prison guards but also sex-offender treatment providers. As a wrongly convicted prisoner, you should have nothing to do with sex-offender treatment. Be a man, and stand up for what is right. There will be repercussions for you for not confessing and becoming another admitted sex offender. You will be denied any good-time off your prison term and early parole will be out of the question. I have always refused to even speak to sex-offender treatment counselors. Not only have I been denied any time off my sentence for good behavior, but the Oregon Parole Board has labeled me mentally unfit and dangerous to society because I refuse to confess, show remorse, and beg for forgiveness.<br />
Not only should you avoid sex-offender treatment, but I suggest you refuse to participate in any behavior modification programs in prison. Don't admit anything to prison officials or prison counselors. Those who work in the behavior modification industry behind prison walls will use anything you tell them against you. Tell them nothing about your past. Prison counselors are not your friends.<br />
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Never talk to any prison psychologist. There is no faster way to be labeled mentally and emotionally unfit than to trust a prison psychologist. As a convicted sex offender, innocent or not, you are the bread and butter of the sex-offender treatment industry, prison counselors/psychologists, and prison guards. The only way they can justify their jobs is to keep you in their prison programs as long as possible. Be aware of their true motives, don't trust them, tell them nothing, and never doubt yourself. You owe them nothing.<br />
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You are an innocent man in prison. Act like one, and good luck my friend.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289545648704981358.post-62835967646564887992013-12-13T10:48:00.002-08:002014-06-27T11:49:39.490-07:00Forced Homeless in San Jose <span style="font-size: large;"> I feel like a Leper. A man without a country. This is all so surreal. Being forced to live on the streets by The State? I still can not get over it and I've been dealing with this nightmare for over 25 years now. How in God's name can The State force someone to live outdoors like an animal? I have family I can live with! Due to Jessica's Law in CA and It's residential restrictions I'm homeless. I have never harmed a child in my life. The woman, Donna Jean Rowland, of Albany, Oregon who falsely accused me in 1985 was 24 years old at the time. She was a serial false accuser who made her false allegation against me for a million dollar lawsuit and I was not the first man this wacko had sent to prison. See <em>The J.A. Story at: </em> </span><a href="http://jessicaslawnightmare.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-ja-story.html"><span style="font-size: large;">http://jessicaslawnightmare.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-ja-story.html</span></a><span style="font-size: large;"><em> . </em>The homeless shelter I am forced to live in has a "lottery" every day at 3:30 pm where only 50 people get in and I hope I make it every night or I am forced to sleep outside in the freezing cold. Recently it was so cold here 4 homeless men died in one night due to exposure. Thank God I had a bed that night. Tonight? Who knows? I could be sleeping outside tonight. Why? When will this nightmare end? The Sex Crime Witch Hunt snared me in It's ever expanding web over 25 year ago. When will this madness stop? I wake up at 4am to charge my GPS Tracking Shackle that is locked onto my ankle because I do not know when I will have the opportunity to charge up again. I have to charge up twice a day for an hour each. It's all I do anymore. Try and figure out where the hell will I find an outlet to use, so The State will not send me back to jail for failure to charge. It is all so unreal. I've got about 10 more months on parole and can finally leave this Police State. Back to Alaska in 2014 !!!</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289545648704981358.post-25869807786439350902013-12-13T09:59:00.000-08:002013-12-13T09:59:58.154-08:00The Ticking Sex Offender Bomb<h1>
War on … the Fallout of Declaring War on Social Issues: Symposium Article: The Ticking Sex-Offender Bomb</h1>
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<span style="font-family: Myriad Roman, Arial, Helvetica, Sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /><a class="textlink" href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=411609" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank" title="View other papers by this author"><h2 style="display: inline; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Corey Rayburn Yung </span></h2>
</a><br /><span style="font-size: large;">University of Kansas School of Law</span></span> <br /><span style="font-family: Myriad Roman, Arial, Helvetica, Sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">December 12, 2013</span><br /><br /><i><span style="font-family: Myriad Roman, Arial, Helvetica, Sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><a class="textlink" href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2367010##"> <span style="font-size: large;">Journal of Gender, Race and Justice, Vol. 15, 2012</span></a></span></i> </center>
<br /><strong><span style="font-family: Myriad Roman, Arial, Helvetica, Sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Abstract: </span> </strong> <br /><span style="font-family: Myriad Roman, Arial, Helvetica, Sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><div id="abstract">
Much like the ticking-time-bomb scenario in the public debate about torture, the belief that sex offenders generally, and child molesters specifically, will inevitably commit new offenses has come to effectively frame societal understanding. The concept of the sex offender who is a ticking time bomb waiting to molest more children has served as the basis for sex-offender registration, residency restrictions, community notification, and civil commitment. Relying on strongly held myths about stranger danger, sex-offender recidivism, and sex-offender homogeneity, the criminal war against sex offenders shows little sign of abating. This Symposium Article explores the rhetoric and reality of the War on Sex Offenders and how the ticking-time-bomb metaphor reshaped the debates and policies surrounding sexual violence.</div>
</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289545648704981358.post-88328101835711343832013-12-11T10:53:00.000-08:002013-12-11T10:56:39.279-08:00CA RSOL Meeting on Jan. 11, 2014<h1 class="single-title">
<span style="font-size: small;">From: CA Reform Sex Offender Laws <a href="http://californiarsol.org/">http://californiarsol.org/</a></span></h1>
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CA RSOL Meeting – January 11 in San Diego</h1>
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The first regular CA RSOL meeting of 2014 will be held in <strong>San Diego on January 11 at 10 am</strong>.<br />
As always, the meeting will be open and free of charge to registrants, friends & family and supporters. Media and government officials are not invited in order to ensure all attendee’s privacy. The meeting will cover general topics of interest, as well as specific issues pertinent at meeting time, in addition to offering invaluable opportunities to network with others affected by this issue, as well as activists and professionals.<br />
Meeting location is at the California Western Law School on 350 Cedar Street, Room LH2. There is free parking on Second Avenue, one block away from the school, in addition to some free spots on Third Ave. above Elm. Plenty of metered parking is also available.<br />
Thanks to all who make these events possible.<br />
SHOW UP, STAND UP, SPEAK UP.<br />
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<strong>CA RSOL Meeting</strong> <br />
January 11, 10 am <br />
California Western Law School, Room LH2 <br />
350 Cedar Street, San Diego, CA 92101Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289545648704981358.post-85768304163988528412013-12-11T10:18:00.000-08:002013-12-11T10:20:23.700-08:00Children on Sex Offender Registries<br />
From: Center of Public Integrity <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/05/01/12594/report-details-lives-ruined-children-put-sex-offender-registries">http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/05/01/12594/report-details-lives-ruined-children-put-sex-offender-registries</a><br />
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Report details lives ruined for children put on sex-offender registries</span></h1>
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Nudity, streaking, petting, not just rape, have led to youths put on sex-offender registries</h2>
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Put on a sex registry for the offense of public nudity as a minor. Harassed by neighbors out of a home and banned from a homeless shelter because of an offense committed at age 15.<br />
The New York-based research group Human Rights Watch issued an extensive report today on the life-shattering consequences of putting minors on sex registries for offenses — sometimes shockingly mild offenses — for the rest of their lives.<br />
Filled with devastating stories of teens and young adults unable to put offenses behind them, the rights group's report is called “<a href="http://www.hrw.org/node/115179">Raised on the Register</a>: The Irreparable Harm of Placing Children on Sex Offender Registries in the U.S.”<br />
The report is the product of a 16-month investigation into 581 cases and interviews with 281 sex offenders — median age 15 — in 20 states. Prosecutors, defense attorneys, child sexuality experts and victims of “child on child” sexual assault were also interviewed. The investigation explores how a burgeoning national web of laws in various states requiring constant registration and public disclosure of offenders’ identities has affected the lives of young offenders long after time served or rehabilitation. Some on registries have killed themselves, even before reaching adulthood.<br />
The report begins with Jacob C., who was 11 years old when convicted of one count of sexual misconduct in Michigan for touching, not penetrating, his sister’s genitals. He was not allowed to live in a home with other children, was eventually put into foster care and was placed on a sex registry that was made public when he turned 18. He struggled to graduate from high school, and was shunned because of his registration status. And when he enrolled in college, he said, campus police followed him everywhere. He dropped out.<br />
Now 26, the report says, Jacob’s life continues to be defined and limited by a conviction at age 11.<br />
Another case in the report: “In 2004, in Western Pennsylvania, a 15-year-old girl was charged with manufacturing and disseminating child pornography for having taken nude photos of herself and (posting) them on the internet. She was charged as an adult, and as of 2012 was facing registration for life.”<br />
Sex offender laws, the report says, “that trigger registration requirements for children began proliferating in the United States during the late 1980s and early 1990s. They subject youth offenders to registration for crimes ranging from public nudity and touching another child’s genitalia over clothing to very serious violent crimes like rape.”<br />
Registries can also include “people who have committed offenses like public urination, indecent exposure (such as streaking across a college campus), and other more relatively innocuous offenses.”<br />
The Human Rights Watch report acknowledged that registration laws were designed to protect the public from offenders, and that they are based on assumptions that offenders are likely to violate again.<br />
“But including youth sex offenders on registries assumes that they are highly likely to reoffend, which is not the case,” the report says. “Numerous studies estimate the recidivism rate among children who commit sexual offenses to between 4 and 10 percent, compared with a 13 percent rate for adult sex offenders and a national rate of 45 percent for all crimes.”<br />
The report was prepared by Nicole Pittman, a national expert on the application of sex offender registration laws who was an attorney at the Defender Association of Philadelphia. She specialized in child sexual assault cases and registries, and has provided testimony to Congress and state legislatures on the subject.<br />
The report calls current registry laws “an overbroad policy of questionable effectiveness” that leaves the public often unable to discern who on a registry is actually dangerous.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289545648704981358.post-20960237695398266332013-12-11T10:11:00.002-08:002013-12-11T10:12:41.899-08:00Police Overkill<h1>
<span style="font-size: small;">From: Salon <a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/12/09/police_overkill_has_become_the_default_american_policy_partner/">http://www.salon.com/2013/12/09/police_overkill_has_become_the_default_american_policy_partner/</a></span></h1>
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Police overkill has become the default American policy </h1>
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The term "police state" used to be brushed off as paranoid hyperbole. Not anymore </h2>
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<a class="lightBox" href="http://media.salon.com/2013/07/riot_police2.jpg" title="Police overkill has become the default American policy"><img alt="Police overkill has become the default American policy" height="212" src="http://media.salon.com/2013/07/riot_police2-620x412.jpg" title="Police overkill has become the default American policy" width="320" /></a><span class="caption"> <span class="photoCredit">(Credit: Reuters/Anthony Bolante)</span></span></div>
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This piece originally appeared on <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/">TomDispatch</a>.</div>
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If all you’ve got is a hammer, then everything starts to look like a nail. And if police and prosecutors are your only tool, sooner or later everything and everyone will be treated as criminal. This is increasingly the American way of life, a path that involves “solving” social problems (and even some non-problems) by throwing cops at them, with generally<strong> </strong>disastrous results. Wall-to-wall criminal law encroaches ever more on everyday life as police power is applied in ways that would have been unthinkable just a generation ago.<br />
By now, the militarization of the police has advanced to the point where “the War on Crime” and “the War on Drugs” are no longer metaphors but bland understatements. There is the <a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/07/13/radley_balko_once_a_town_gets_a_swat_team_you_want_to_use_it/" target="_blank">proliferation</a> of heavily armed SWAT teams, even in small towns; the use of <a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/07/07/%E2%80%9Cwhy_did_you_shoot_me_i_was_reading_a_book_the_new_warrior_cop_is_out_of_control/" target="_blank">shock-and-awe</a> tactics to bust small-time bookies; the no-knock raids to recover trace amounts of drugs that often result in the killing of family dogs, if not family members; and in communities where drug treatment programs once were key, the waging of a drug version of counterinsurgency war. (All of this is ably reported on journalist Radley Balko’s <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/radley-balko/" target="_blank">blog</a> and in his book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1610392116/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" target="_blank"><em>The Rise of the Warrior Cop</em></a>.) But American over-policing involves far more than the widely reported up-armoring of your local precinct. It’s also the way police power has entered the DNA of social policy, turning just about every sphere of American life into a police matter.<br />
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<strong>The School-to-Prison Pipeline</strong><br />
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It starts in our schools, where discipline is increasingly outsourced to police personnel. What not long ago would have been seen as normal childhood misbehavior – <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/05/desk-doodling-arrest-alex_n_450859.html" target="_blank">doodling</a> on a desk, <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2008/11/25/2008-11-25_something_smells_funny_student_arrested_.html" target="_blank">farting</a> in class, a kindergartener’s <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/01/25/2008-01-25_5yearold_boy_handcuffed_in_school_taken_.html" target="_blank">tantrum</a> – can leave a kid in handcuffs, removed from school, or even booked at the local precinct. Such “criminals” can be as young as seven-year-old Wilson Reyes, a New Yorker who was <a href="http://gothamist.com/2013/01/30/cops_handcuffed_7-yr-old_interrogat.php" target="_blank">handcuffed</a> and interrogated under suspicion of stealing five dollars from a classmate. (Turned out he didn’t do it.)<br />
Though it’s a national phenomenon, Mississippi currently leads the way in turning school behavior into a police issue. The Hospitality State has <a href="http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/11/school_prison_pipeline_meridian.html" target="_blank">imposed</a> felony charges on schoolchildren for “crimes” like throwing peanuts on a bus. Wearing the wrong color belt to school got one child handcuffed to a railing for several hours. All of this goes under the rubric of “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/03/education/seeing-the-toll-schools-revisit-zero-tolerance.html?ref=education" target="_blank">zero-tolerance</a>” discipline, which turns out to be just another form of violence legally imported into schools.<br />
Despite a long-term drop in youth crime, the carceral style of education remains in style. Metal detectors — a horrible way for any child to start the day — are<a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15111439/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts//" target="_blank">installed</a> in ever more schools, even those with <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/18/nyregion/in-a-brooklyn-school-metal-detectors-inject-fear.html" target="_blank">sterling</a> disciplinary records, despite the demonstrable fact that such scanners provide no guarantee against <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Lake_massacre" target="_blank">shootings</a>and <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/teen-hunted-stabbing-brooklyn-high-school-article-1.291215" target="_blank">stabbings</a>.<br />
Every school shooting, whether in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, or Littleton, Colorado, only leads to more police in schools and more arms as well. It’s the one thing the National Rifle Association and Democratic senators can <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175654/" target="_blank">agree</a> on. There are <a href="http://dailynightly.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/01/18005192-principal-fires-security-guards-to-hire-art-teachers-and-transforms-elementary-school" target="_blank">plenty</a> of <a href="http://www.nyclu.org/content/safety-with-dignity-alternatives-over-policing-of-schools-2009" target="_blank">successful</a> <a href="http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2011-10-17/lifestyle/35280676_1_school-discipline-student-discipline-russell-skiba" target="_blank">ways</a> to run an orderly school without criminalizing the classroom, but politicians and much of the media don’t seem to want to know about them. The “school-to-prison pipeline,” a jargon term coined by activists, is<a href="http://www.ebony.com/news-views/the-school-to-prison-pipeline-is-targeting-your-child-405#axzz2lsQFZuQN" target="_blank">entering</a> the vernacular.<br />
<strong>Go to Jail, Do Not Pass Go</strong><br />
Even as simple a matter as getting yourself from point A to point B can quickly become a law enforcement matter as travel and public space are ever more aggressively policed. Waiting for a bus? Such loitering just got three Rochester youths <a href="http://gawker.com/three-teens-arrested-for-waiting-while-black-1474787941" target="_blank">arrested</a>. Driving without a seat belt can easily escalate into an <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-judge-ucla-20131126,0,3286857.story#axzz2lhF1Ae13" target="_blank">arrest</a>, even if the driver is a state judge. (Notably, all four of these men were black.) If the police think you might be carrying drugs, warrantless body cavity searches at the nearest hospital may be in the offing — you will be <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/11/anal-probes-and-the-drug-_n_4254600.html" target="_blank">sent the bill</a> later.<br />
Air travel entails increasingly intimate pat-downs and <a href="http://getawaytips.azcentral.com/cigarette-lighters-allowed-airplanes-2025.html" target="_blank">arbitrary</a> rules that many experts see as nothing more than “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/11/22/do-body-scanners-make-us-safer/a-waste-of-money-and-time" target="_blank">security theater</a>.” As for staying at home, it carries its own risks as Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates found out when a Cambridge police officer mistook him for a burglar and hauled him away — a case that is <a href="http://lufkindailynews.com/news/local/article_79700610-b30b-11e0-a4e5-001cc4c03286.html" target="_blank">hardly</a> unique.<br />
<strong>Overcriminalization at Work</strong><br />
Office and retail work might seem like an unpromising growth area for police and prosecutors, but criminal law has found its way into the white-collar workplace, too. Just ask Georgia Thompson, a Wisconsin state employee <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/16/opinion/16mon4.html" target="_blank">targeted</a>by a federal prosecutor for the “crime” of incorrectly processing a travel agency’s bid for state business. She spent four months in a federal prison before being sprung by a federal court. Or Judy Wilkinson, <a href="http://www.wjhg.com/news/regional/headlines/70280112.html" target="_blank">hauled away</a> in handcuffs by an undercover cop for serving mimosas without a license to the customers in her bridal shop. Or George Norris, <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/16636027" target="_blank">sentenced</a> to 17 months in prison for selling orchids without the proper paperwork to an undercover federal agent.<br />
Increasingly, basic economic transactions are being policed under the purview of criminal law. In Arkansas, for instance, Human Rights Watch reports that a new law <a href="http://www.hrw.org/reports/2013/02/04/pay-rent-or-face-arrest" target="_blank">funnels</a> delinquent (or allegedly delinquent) rental tenants directly to the criminal courts, where failure to pay up can result in quick arrest and incarceration, even though debtor’s prison as an institution was supposed to have ended in the nineteenth century.<br />
And the mood is spreading. Take the asset bubble collapse of 2008 and the rising cries of progressives for the criminal prosecution of Wall Street perpetrators, as if a fundamentally sound financial system had been abused by a small number of criminals who were running free after the debacle. Instead of pushing a debate about how to restructure our predatory financial system, liberals in their focus on individual prosecution are aping the punitive zeal of the authoritarians. A few high-profile prosecutions for insider trading (which had nothing to do with the last crash) have, of course, not changed Wall Street one bit.<br />
<strong>Criminalizing Immigration</strong><br />
The past decade has also seen immigration policy ingested by criminal law. According to another Human Rights Watch report — their U.S. division is increasingly busy — federal criminal prosecutions of immigrants for illegal entry have<a href="http://www.hrw.org/node/115554/section/2" target="_blank">surged</a> from 3,000 in 2002 to 48,000 last year. This novel application of police and prosecutors has broken up families and fueled the expansion of for-profit detention centers, even as it has failed to show any stronger deterrent effect on immigration than the civil law system that preceded it. Thanks to Arizona’s <a href="https://www.aclu.org/arizonas-sb-1070" target="_blank">SB 1070</a> bill, police in that state are now licensed to stop and check the papers of anyone suspected of being undocumented — that is, who looks Latino.<br />
Meanwhile, significant parts of the US-Mexico border are now <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175723/todd_miller_surveillance_surge" target="_blank">militarized</a> (as increasingly is the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175647/todd_miller_locking_down_the_borders" target="_blank">Canadian border</a>), including what seem to resemble <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/05/us/outrage-in-texas-after-airborne-police-sharpshooter-kills-2-immigrants.html" target="_blank">free-fire zones</a>. And if anyone were to leave bottled water for migrants illegally crossing the desert and in danger of death from dehydration, that good Samaritan should <a href="http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2010/09/yes-judge-jay-bybee-should-be-impeached-and-removed-from-office-reason-cxxvi.html" target="_blank">expect</a>to face criminal charges, too. Intensified policing with aggressive targets for arrests and deportations are guaranteed to be a part of any future bipartisan deal on immigration reform.<br />
<strong>Digital Over-Policing</strong><br />
As for the Internet, for a time it was <em>terra nova</em> and so relatively free of a steroidal law enforcement presence. Not anymore. The late Aaron Swartz, a young Internet genius and activist affiliated with Harvard University, was caught downloading masses of scholarly articles (all publicly subsidized) from an open network on the MIT campus. Swartz was federally prosecuted under the capacious <a href="https://www.eff.org/issues/cfaa" target="_blank">Computer Fraud and Abuse Act</a> for violating a “terms and services agreement” — a transgression that anyone who has ever disabled a cookie on his or her laptop has also, technically, committed. Swartz committed suicide earlier this year while facing a possible 50-year sentence and up to a million dollars in fines.<br />
Since the summer, thanks to whistleblowing contractor Edward Snowden, we have learned a great deal about the way the NSA stops and frisks our (and apparently<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175713/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_you_are_our_secret/" target="_blank">everyone else’s</a>) digital communications, both email and telephonic. The security benefits of such indiscriminate policing are <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/190787-senators-no-evidence-nsa-phone-sweeps-are-useful" target="_blank">far from clear</a>, despite the government’s emphatic but <a href="http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/06/15/the-inefficacy-of-big-brother-associations-and-the-terror-factory/" target="_blank">inconsistent</a> assurances otherwise. What comes into sharper focus with every volley of new revelations is the emerging digital infrastructure of what can only be called a police state.<br />
<strong>Sex</strong> <strong>Police</strong><br />
Sex is another zone of police overkill in our post-Puritan land. Getting put on a sex offender registry is alarmingly easy — as has been <a href="http://www.hrw.org/reports/2013/05/01/raised-registry-0" target="_blank">done</a> to children as young as 11 for “playing doctor” with a relative, again according to Human Rights Watch. But getting taken off the registry later is extraordinarily difficult. Across the nation, sex offender registries have expanded massively, especially in <a href="http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/no-justice-sex-offenses-no-matter-how-minor-or-understandable-can-ruin-you-life" target="_blank">California</a>, where one in every 380 adults is now a registered sex offender, creating a new pariah class with severe obstacles to employment, housing, or any kind of community life. The proper penalty for, say, an 18-year-old who has sex with a 14-year-old can be debated, but should that 18-year-old’s life really be ruined forever?<br />
<strong>Equality Before the Cops?</strong><br />
It will surprise no one that Americans are not all treated equally by the police. Law enforcement picks on kids more than adults, the queer more than straight, Muslims more than Methodists – <a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/tag/nypd-muslim-surveillance" target="_blank">Muslims</a> <a href="https://www.aclu.org/human-rights/report-blocking-faith-freezing-charity" target="_blank"><em>a lot</em></a> <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/08/fbi-terrorist-informants" target="_blank">more</a> <a href="http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/09/fbi-islam-qaida-irrelevant/" target="_blank">than</a> Methodists — antiwar activists more than the apolitical. Above all, our punitive state targets the poor more than the wealthy and Blacks and Latinos more than white people.<br />
A case in point: after the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School, a police presence, including surveillance cameras and metal detectors, was <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/184467407X/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" target="_blank">ratcheted up</a> at schools around the country, particularly in urban areas with largely working-class black and Latino student bodies. It was all to “protect” the kids, of course. At Columbine itself, however, no metal detector was installed and no heavy police presence intruded. The reason was simple. At that school in the Colorado suburb of Littleton, the mostly well-heeled white families did not want their kids treated like potential felons, and they had the status and political power to get their way. But communities without such clout are less able to push back against the encroachments of police power.<br />
<strong>Even Our Prisons Are Over-Policed</strong><br />
The over-criminalization of American life empties out into our vast, overcrowded prison system, which is itself over-policed. The ultimate form of punitive control (and torture) is long-term solitary confinement, in which 80,000 to 100,000 prisoners are encased at any given moment. Is this really necessary? Solitary is no longer reserved for the worst or the worst or most dangerous prisoners but can be<a href="http://solitarywatch.com/facts/faq/" target="_blank">inflicted</a> on ones who wear Rastafari dreadlocks, have a copy of Sun Tzu’s <em>Art of War</em> in their cell, or are in any way suspected, no matter how tenuous the grounds, of gang affiliations.<br />
Not every developed nation does things this way. Some 30<strong> </strong>years ago, Great Britain <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_gawande" target="_blank">shifted</a> from isolating prisoners to, whenever possible, giving them greater responsibility and autonomy — with less violent results. But don’t even bring the subject up here. It will fall on deaf ears.<br />
Extreme policing is exacerbated by extreme sentencing. For instance, more than 3,000 Americans have been <a href="https://www.aclu.org/criminal-law-reform/living-death-life-without-parole-nonviolent-offenses" target="_blank">sentenced</a> to life terms without chance of parole for nonviolent offenses. These are mostly but not exclusively drug offenses, including life for a pound of cocaine that a boyfriend stashed in the attic; selling LSD at a Grateful Dead concert; and shoplifting three belts from a department store.<br />
Our incarceration rate is the highest in the world, triple that of the now-defunct <a href="http://books.google.de/books?id=g8UNuNUIYNwC&pg=PA158&lpg=PA158&dq=Inhaftierungsrate+DDR%3F&source=bl&ots=C-KW5eRlfD&sig=mKmAVl7_PHAcCF9yn2NyOTv24Xg&hl=de&sa=X&ei=jm_dUancBdDIswaWpIHgDg&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Inhaftierungsrate%20DDR%3F&f=false" target="_blank">East Germany</a>. The incarceration rate for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States#Race" target="_blank">African American men</a> is about five times higher than <a href="http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2166597?uid=3739832&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21103124339313" target="_blank">that</a> of the Soviet Union at the peak of the gulag.<br />
<strong>The Destruction of Families</strong><br />
Prison may seem the logical finale for this litany of over-criminalization, but the story doesn’t actually end with those inmates. As prisons warehouse ever more Americans, often hundreds of miles from their local communities, family bonds weaken and disintegrate. In addition, once a parent goes into the criminal justice system, his or her family tends to end up on the radar screens of state agencies. “Being under surveillance by law enforcement makes a family much more vulnerable to Child Protective Services,” says <a href="https://www.law.upenn.edu/cf/faculty/roberts1/" target="_blank">Professor Dorothy Roberts</a> of the University of Pennsylvania Law school. An incarcerated parent, especially an incarcerated mother, means a much stronger likelihood that children will be sent into foster care, where, according to one recent study, they will be twice as likely as war veterans to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/25/books/review/cris-beams-to-the-end-of-june.html" target="_blank">suffer</a> from PTSD.<br />
In New York State, the Administration for Child Services and the juvenile justice system recently merged, effectively putting thousands of children in a heavily policed, penalty-based environment until they age out. “Being in foster care makes you much more vulnerable to being picked up by the juvenile justice system,” says Roberts. <strong>“</strong>If you’re in a group home and you get in a fight, that could easily become a police matter.” In every respect, the creeping over-criminalization of everyday life exerts a <a href="https://www.law.upenn.edu/cf/faculty/roberts1/workingpapers/59UCLALRev1474(2012).pdf" target="_blank">corrosive</a> <a href="https://www.law.upenn.edu/cf/faculty/roberts1/workingpapers/b56StanLRev1271(2004).pdf" target="_blank">effect</a> on American families.<br />
<strong>Do We Live in a Police State?</strong><br />
The term “police state” was once brushed off by mainstream intellectuals as the hyperbole of paranoids. Not so much anymore. Even in the tweediest precincts of the legal system, the over-criminalization of American life is remarked upon with greater frequency and intensity. “You’re probably a (federal) criminal” is the accusatory title of a widely read <a href="http://www.volokh.com/posts/1248668478.shtml" target="_blank">essay</a> co-authored by Judge Alex Kozinski of the 9th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals. A Republican appointee, Kozinski surveys the morass of criminal laws that make virtually every American an easy target for law enforcement. Veteran defense lawyer Harvey Silverglate has written an entire book about how an average American professional could easily <a href="http://www.threefeloniesaday.com/Youtoo/tabid/86/Default.aspx" target="_blank">commit</a>three felonies in a single day without knowing it.<br />
The daily overkill of police power in the U.S. goes a long way toward explaining why more Americans aren’t outraged by the “excesses” of the war on terror, which, as one law professor has <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1242154" target="_blank">argued</a>, are just our everyday domestic penal habits exported to more exotic venues. It is no less true that the growth of domestic police power is, in this positive feedback loop, the partial result of our distant foreign wars <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0299234142/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" target="_blank">seeping back</a> into the homeland (the “imperial boomerang” that Hannah Arendt warned against).<strong></strong><br />
Many who have long railed against our country’s everyday police overkill have reacted to the revelations of NSA surveillance with detectable <a href="https://medium.com/surveillance-state/dffadd265325" target="_blank">exasperation</a>: of course we are over-policed! Some have even responded with <a href="http://davidsimon.com/we-are-shocked-shocked/" target="_blank">peevish</a> <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/melissa-harris-perry/edward-snowden-come-home" target="_blank">resentment</a>: Why so much sympathy for this Snowden kid when the daily grind of our justice system destroys so many lives without comment or scandal? After all, in New York, the police department’s “stop and frisk” tactic, which targets African American and Latino working-class youth for routinized street searches, was until recently uncontroversial among the political and opinion-making class. If “the gloves came off” after September 11, 2001, many Americans were surprised to<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175316/tomgram%3A_chase_madar,_all-american_gitmo/" target="_blank">learn</a> they had ever been on to begin with.<br />
A hammer is necessary to any toolkit. But you don’t use a hammer to turn a screw, chop a tomato, or brush your teeth. And yet the hammer remains our instrument of choice, both in the conduct of our foreign policy and in our domestic order. The result is not peace, justice, or prosperity but rather a state that harasses and imprisons its own people while shouting ever less intelligibly about freedom.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289545648704981358.post-67334422343738657422013-12-07T10:13:00.001-08:002013-12-07T10:15:10.262-08:00The J.A. Story<div style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;">
<span style="color: #484f35; font-family: Bookman Old Style, Times New Roman, Times, serif; font-size: large;"> I'm still staying in a shelter and it is a nightmare. At least I don't have to live on the streets like an animal which The State of California would have me do. Below is a link to a "Sexual Predator Raid" I went through about 2 years ago. Also some of my earlier writings. Take care my friends. Good to be back in The Fight !!!</span></div>
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<b><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #484f35; font-family: 'Bookman Old Style', 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: large;">NBC Bay Area News</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #484f35; font-family: 'Bookman Old Style', 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #484f35; font-family: 'Bookman Old Style', 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: large;">April 22, 2011</span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent;"><a href="http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Sex_Predator_Bust_in_Santa_Clara_Bay_Area-120438359.html" style="background-color: transparent;">http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Sex_Predator_Bust_in_Santa_Clara_Bay_Area-120438359.html</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">* Californians Against Jessica's Law</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> </span><a href="http://nojessicaslaw.org/" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #2187bb;">http://nojessicaslaw.org/</span></span></a><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: small;"> * His life on the run</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> </span><a href="http://runjamesrun2007.homestead.com/" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #2187bb;">http://runjamesrun2007.homestead.com/</span></span></a><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: small;">* His 1995 extensive book on his wrongful conviction</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> </span><a href="http://fathersmanifesto.net/falling.htm" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #2187bb;">http://fathersmanifesto.net/falling.htm</span></span></a><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: small;">* How to survive in prison as an innocent man</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> </span><a href="http://www.ipt-forensics.com/journal/volume9/j9_3_6.htm" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #2187bb;">http://www.ipt-forensics.com/journal/volume9/j9_3_6.htm</span></span></a><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: small;">* Book review</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> </span><a href="http://www.backlash.com/content/gender/1996/4-apr96/book04.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #2187bb;">http://www.backlash.com/content/gender/1996/4-apr96/book04.html</span></span></a><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: small;">* Letter to parole board (1997)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> </span><a href="http://www.backlash.com/content/gender/1997/7-dec97/safar07.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #2187bb;">http://www.backlash.com/content/gender/1997/7-dec97/safar07.html</span></span></a><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: small;">* Falling on The Deaf Ear</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> </span><a href="http://oldcordovanpress.homestead.com/index.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #2187bb;">http://oldcordovanpress.homestead.com/index.html</span></span></a><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">* Excluded Evidence by Cathy Young</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> </span><a href="http://reason.com/archives/2002/02/01/excluded-evidence" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #2187bb;">http://reason.com/archives/2002/02/01/excluded-evidence</span></span></a><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">* Mad Dog Rapist in Prison</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> </span><a href="http://www.backlash.com/content/gender/1996/4-apr96/safar04.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #2187bb;">http://www.backlash.com/content/gender/1996/4-apr96/safar04.html</span></span></a><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: small;">* Victim of the Feminist State</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> </span><a href="http://www.backlash.com/content/gender/1996/7-jul96/safar07.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #2187bb;">http://www.backlash.com/content/gender/1996/7-jul96/safar07.html</span></span></a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289545648704981358.post-4359960205104865112013-12-07T09:55:00.007-08:002013-12-07T09:57:08.041-08:00CA Three-Strikes Reform<div class="segment" style="background-color: white; border-bottom-color: rgb(229, 229, 229); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; color: #111111; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 12px; margin: 0px 16px; outline: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 1em 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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From: ABA Journal </h1>
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<a href="http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/california_begins_to_release_prisoners_after_reforming_its_three-strikes_la/" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 12px;">http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/california_begins_to_release_prisoners_after_reforming_its_three-strikes_la/</a><a href="http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/california_begins_to_release_prisoners_after_reforming_its_three-strikes_la/" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 12px;"></a></h1>
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California begins to release prisoners after reforming its three-strikes law</h1>
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<em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/california_begins_to_release_prisoners_after_reforming_its_three-strikes_la/#correction" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003366; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">A correction has been made to this story.</a></em></div>
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Posted Dec 1, 2013 4:00 AM CST<br />
By Lorelei Laird</div>
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Mike Reynolds: "The full impact of Prop 36, either positive or negative, is really yet to be felt." Photo by Norbert Von der Groeben.</div>
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<b style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In 1992, 18-year-old student Kimber Reynolds</b> came home to Fresno, Calif., to be a bridesmaid. As she left a restaurant, two men rolled up on a motorcycle and tried to snatch her purse. When she resisted, one of them shot her. She died 26 hours later.</div>
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As the Reynolds family grieved, they learned that the shooter and his accomplice both had long rap sheets, largely for drugs and petty theft. Outraged that they had been freed, Mike Reynolds, Kimber’s father, wrote a proposed “three strikes and you’re out” law for repeat offenders.</div>
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Two years later, California passed that law, both as a ballot initiative and through the state legislature. Advertised as a way to keep violent recidivists off the streets, the three-strikes law doubled prison time for a second felony if there was a prior serious or violent felony, as defined by state law. Offenders with two serious or violent priors faced 25 years to life for the third “strike.”</div>
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But to qualify for the life sentence, that third felony didn’t have to be serious or violent. As a result, California began sentencing people to life for crimes like petty theft and drug possession. The law was challenged for 18 years, including two unsuccessful appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court.</div>
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In the meantime, second- and third-strikers made up roughly a quarter of California’s large prison population, straining the state budget. Advocates say 3,000 to 3,500 of California’s current third-strikers are serving 25 years to life for nonserious, nonviolent felonies. All of this may explain why 69 percent of Californians voted last year for Proposition 36, a ballot initiative that radically reformed the three-strikes law. Now, defendants may only be sentenced to 25 years to life if their crime was serious or violent, or they have disqualifying crimes—generally very violent crimes or sex offenses—among their priors. All other third felonies will be sentenced to double the time in prison, as if they were second strikes.</div>
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And more important, the law permits inmates who are already serving life sentences for nonviolent, nonserious crimes to petition for resentencing. As with new felonies, their new sentences would still be double the normal penalty for the underlying crime. But because such inmates have already served up to 19 years, resentencing usually means release from prison.</div>
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TRIAGE UNIT</h4>
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<b style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Los Angeles County, the most populous</b> county in the state and the nation, has by far the most prisoners eligible for resentencing. The Los Angeles Superior Court, the court of first jurisdiction, had received 1,389 petitions as of late October. To handle this flood, the county has set up a special system that consolidates all petitions under one judge, whose job is to handle nothing but resentencing of three-strikes prisoners until at least the end of this year.</div>
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The petitions are overwhelming all players in the county’s justice system. “Since Prop 36 passed, we get probably 150 calls a day,” says Harvey Sherman, a deputy public defender. (Though prisoners are not generally entitled to an attorney for post-conviction assistance, his office and many other California public defenders’ offices have agreed to represent three-strikes petitioners.)</div>
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“I would characterize it as an avalanche,” says Beth Widmark of the LA County district attorney’s Third-Strike Resentencing Unit.</div>
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Usually, petitions for resentencing would go to the judge who originally sentenced the defendant, or—because so many judges are retired—to one randomly selected. But the volume of Prop 36 petitions got to be too much for the leaders of the superior court, so they decided to consolidate the petitions under a single judge.</div>
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The job went to Judge William Ryan, who was already the go-to judge in the county for writs of habeas corpus. He says this isn’t the first one-judge system for handling special cases. After the 1990s Rampart scandal, in which corrupt Los Angeles police officers admitted to framing defendants, thousands of petitions for writs of habeas corpus were consolidated in front of one judge.</div>
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Sherman, whose Public Integrity Assurance Section was founded in response to the Rampart incidents, says 130 petitioners were ultimately freed in those cases. But under Proposition 36, there are already far more: As of late October, 263 prisoners had been resentenced in Los Angeles County alone. Furthermore, there’s a two-year deadline hurrying the petitions; eligible prisoners must show good cause if they file later.</div>
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Another reason the system is overwhelmed is the huge amount of paperwork each case generates. In addition to determining whether to disqualify prisoners with certain priors, Proposition 36 requires Ryan to decide whether the petitioner poses a threat to society. The average time served by the county’s petitioners is 14 years, Ryan says, leaving a backlog of more than a decade of records for each inmate. All must be carefully reviewed, particularly by prosecutors deciding whether to oppose a petition. Each petition requires a response within 45 days, so Widmark’s unit must respond to between 70 and 100 cases a week.</div>
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Because neither Proposition 36 nor state law provided a clear system for handling the petitions, Ryan says, the first thing he did after his November 2012 appointment was to agree with the prosecutor’s and public defender’s offices to treat them as if they were habeas corpus petitions.</div>
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Then, he says, the parties “triaged” the petitions: They moved those that were unopposed by prosecutors to the front of the line, with the goal of clearing those out quickly.</div>
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PATIENCE TESTED</h4>
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<b style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">It hasn’t gone as quickly as hoped.</b> At a morning of hearings in mid-August, the court was still hearing unopposed petitions. Ryan says the average time from petition to resentencing in Los Angeles County is 148 days. He will be working on the cases until all are completed, unless the hearings become overwhelming. In that case, the superior court has authorized adding additional judges to the project.</div>
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“Some inmates are getting impatient,” Ryan says. “They didn’t use violence when they committed their crime, so they thought the doors of the prison should swing open” the day after voters approved Prop 36.</div>
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Discussion at those August hearings focused mainly on the defendants’ re-entry plans. Ryan emphasizes that success after prison, particularly in the first 90 days, depends largely on access to food, housing, jobs and addiction treatment, if applicable. (It often is; Ryan says that 37 percent of his petitioners’ life crimes were tied to drug crimes, and 56 percent more were property crimes that were likely related to drugs.)</div>
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“Before resentencing, they have to lay that out for me,” says Ryan. “When they release them, they give them $200 and a bus ticket and say, ‘Good luck.’ And that’s not necessarily the most humane thing to do.”</div>
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Because other counties are already hearing opposed petitions, the California appeals courts have begun to consider some of the gray areas in the law. That includes two cases from San Diego that raise the question of whether possession of a firearm by a felon is the kind of serious, violent crime that disqualifies the defendant from resentencing.</div>
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THE NEXT STAGE</h4>
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<b style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Thus far, those who have been released</b> have largely stayed out of trouble. The county probation department is supervising only 28 of the 200 people released in the county, but a representative said in mid-August that only two had been arrested again. If that’s every new arrest, it’s a minuscule recidivism rate.</div>
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Statewide, a study by the <a href="http://www.law.stanford.edu/organizations/programs-and-centers/stanford-three-strikes-project" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003366; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="Stanford Three Strikes Project">Stanford Three Strikes Project</a>, a law school initiative advocating three-strikes sentence reductions, found a 2 percent recidivism rate in September, when prisoners had been out an average of 4.4 months. That study reported the average recidivism rate after 90 days—the crucial period during which people are most likely to re-offend—for non-Prop 36 prisoners was 16 percent.</div>
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But Reynolds, the father of the slain bridesmaid and a driving force behind the three-strikes law, says it’s too soon to determine if that reform has worked.</div>
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“The full impact of Prop 36, either positive or negative, is really yet to be felt,” he says. “Only a handful [of offenders] have really come out in comparison to the full number. Once they are fully released, the real question is: Now what happens?”</div>
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<i style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">This article originally appeared in the December 2013 issue of the ABA Journal with this headline: "After Third Strike, Many Now Walk: California begins to release prisoners after reforming its three-strikes law."</i></div>
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Correction</h5>
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Print and initial Web versions of "<a href="http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/california_begins_to_release_prisoners_after_reforming_its_three-strikes_la/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003366; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="After Third Strike, Many Now Walk">After Third Strike, Many Now Walk</a>," December, should have stated that Judge William Ryan was appointed to handle Proposition 36 petitions in November 2012. The article also mistakenly reports that Ryan's appointment ends Dec. 31. He is assigned the cases until all are completed. And if the hearings become overwhelming, the Los Angeles Superior Court has authorized adding additional judges to the project.<br />
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The <i style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">ABA Journal</i> regrets the errors.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289545648704981358.post-51895566083974622222013-12-07T09:46:00.000-08:002013-12-07T09:46:08.561-08:00Rapists With Badges<h1 class="in-article" style="font-family: Bitter, georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 15px;">
<span style="font-size: small;">From: Digital Journal </span><a href="http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/363443"><span style="font-size: small;">http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/363443</span></a></h1>
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Op-Ed: Rapists with badges: Sex crimes and cops</h1>
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By <a ach="" achh="" class="userlink" href="http://www.digitaljournal.com/user/208821" pg="5" style="color: #555555;">Justin King</a><div>
<abbr title="Dec 6, 2013 at 1:10AM EST">Dec 6, 2013</abbr> - yesterday in <a class="department" href="http://www.digitaljournal.com/world" style="color: #556699; text-decoration: none;">World</a></div>
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The recent release by the L.A. Times of hiring documents from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department highlighted a seemingly growing problem in U.S. law enforcement agencies: those that commit sex crimes are finding their way into police agencies.<div style="padding-bottom: 15px;">
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Studies repeatedly <a href="https://www.mnsu.edu/varp/assault/myths.html" style="color: #556699; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">confirm</a> that sex crimes are not committed out of an impulsive desire to have sex, but rather a need “to inflict pain, violence, and humiliation” and achieve domination and power over their victim. Police officers often use the unchecked power of their badge to intimidate and coerce their victims. The scale of the problem is <a href="http://www.policemisconduct.net/2010-q2-npmsrp-national-police-misconduct-statistical-report/" style="color: #556699; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">illustrated</a> in a study that shows an American is twice as likely to be raped by a law enforcement official as they are to be raped by an average member of society, to include convicted felons.<div style="padding-bottom: 15px;">
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Lt. John Pike just casually pepper spraying peaceful protesters.</div>
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In the Times <a href="http://graphics.latimes.com/badge-interactive/#mcdonald-david--f" style="color: #556699; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">article</a>, David McDonald is profiled. McDonald admitted to having a relationship with a 14-year-old girl when he was 28 and that he kissed and groped the child, but denies intercourse ever occurred. He claims to have initially believed she was 16, but did not terminate the relationship when he discovered her true age.<div style="padding-bottom: 15px;">
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In 1985, he was fired from the Santa Clara Sheriff’s Department after being found to use excessive force while dealing with inmates in the jail. He was asked how he thought inmates should be controlled and responded by saying<div style="padding-bottom: 15px;">
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With all of this information available to those making the hiring decisions, the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department hired him and placed him to work in their county jail. He has since been disciplined for a use of force decision made in the jail. He was quoted as saying<div style="padding-bottom: 15px;">
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<q style="border-left-color: black; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; display: block; line-height: 17px; margin: 10px 5px 5px 40px; padding: 0px 60px 0px 20px; quotes: none;">"How can you put me back in the jails when I already had a problem there?"</q><div style="padding-bottom: 15px;">
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<strong>Incident Profiles</strong><div style="padding-bottom: 15px;">
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<a href="http://www.turnto10.com/story/24128951/former-policeman-in-trouble-with-the-law-again" style="color: #556699; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">December 5, 2013</a>: Stephen Ricco, previously arrested on charges of domestic violence, is currently being held on new charges of first-degree sexual assault. In February, the Pawtucket was charged in a separate domestic violence case, which he plead no contest to.<div style="padding-bottom: 15px;">
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<a href="http://www.sacbee.com/2013/12/04/5970627/former-citrus-heights-officer.html" style="color: #556699; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">December 4, 2013</a>: Carl Bookamer, a former Citrus Heights police officer, was arrested on five counts related to an alleged sexual relationship with a 17-year-old volunteer. Bookamer was employed by the department when the incidents allegedly occurred.<div style="padding-bottom: 15px;">
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<a href="http://www.wjla.com/articles/2013/12/mark-washington-d-c-cop-charged-with-producing-child-pornography-97608.html" style="color: #556699; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">December 3, 2013</a>: A Washington, DC Metro Police Officer was charged with production of child pornography. Reportedly under the guise of just following procedures, he ordered a 15-year-old to remove articles of clothing and photographed her. A search of his camera reportedly turned up images of other young girls. After a brief investigation, Marc Washington was taken into custody.<div style="padding-bottom: 15px;">
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<a href="http://www.valleycentral.com/news/story.aspx?id=978599#.UqFHLMRDs_g" style="color: #556699; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">December 2, 2013</a>: A Police Sergeant with the Rio Grande City Police Department was arrested on two counts of sexual assault of a child. The officer, Rodolfo Hinojosa, is alleged to have had sexual contact with a teen enrolled in one of the department’s youth programs. Hinojosa had resigned from the department on November 21.<div style="padding-bottom: 15px;">
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<a href="http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/courier/news/retired-conroe-pd-sergeant-arrested-for-alleged-sex-assault-of/article_e88ac7ce-d6b7-5012-aaef-15b7ce7e12ac.html" style="color: #556699; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">December 2, 2013</a>: Retired Conroe Police Department Sergeant Will Ewing was charged with sexual assault of a child and compelling prostitution.<div style="padding-bottom: 15px;">
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<a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/san-antonio-cuffed-raped-19-year-old-traffic-stop-police-article-1.1527459" style="color: #556699; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">November 24, 2013</a>: A San Antonio officer was arrested for allegedly handcuffing, groping, and raping a 19-year-old after claiming her car was stolen. He reportedly groped her during a frisk, after she showed him documentation proving the car was not stolen. He then handcuffed her, took her back to his patrol car, and raped her. The Police Chief says this is the third accusation of sexual misconduct against Jackie Neal, an 11-year veteran of the force. The Chief has asked the FBI to join the investigation to pursue civil rights violations, a move that is applauded by many as most departments investigate internally.<div style="padding-bottom: 15px;">
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<a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-11-06/news/chi-chicago-cop-charged-with-sexual-assault-and-abuse-20131106_1_chicago-cop-separate-counts-assault" style="color: #556699; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">November 6, 2013</a>: A Chicago cop, Allen Hall, was charged with multiple counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse and assault, including some counts alleging the victim was a child.<div style="padding-bottom: 15px;">
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News of the above cases broke within the last 60 days, and profile officers assigned to lower level positions. However, cases of sexual misconduct are not isolated to street cops.<div style="padding-bottom: 15px;">
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<a href="http://thefacts.com/news/article_80c5b184-0d48-5518-bf37-4639b66de76a.html" style="color: #556699; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">August 28, 2013</a>: Police Chief of West Columbia, Michael Palmer, was indicted on ten counts, ranging from aggravated sexual assault of a child to indecency with a child - sexual contact. He had <a href="http://www.khou.com/news/crime/West-Columbia-police-chief-given-100000-bond-after-charged-with-evidence-tampering-192354241.html" style="color: #556699; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">previously</a> been accused of stealing drugs from the evidence room.<div style="padding-bottom: 15px;">
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The problem is such a common occurrence that pages of Facebook have sprung up, offering support to victims and raising awareness. “<a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tribute-to-survivors-of-child-sexual-assault-by-law-enforcement-officers/180584842010594" style="color: #556699; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Tribute to survivors of child sexual assault by law enforcement officers</a>,” a page that focuses only on crimes when the victim is a minor, has profiled nine separate stories in the last five days alone.<div style="padding-bottom: 15px;">
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A comment on the page reflects the growing distrust citizens have for police and their growing power.<div style="padding-bottom: 15px;">
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<q style="border-left-color: black; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; display: block; line-height: 17px; margin: 10px 5px 5px 40px; padding: 0px 60px 0px 20px; quotes: none;">“Not all cops abuse their power. It’s just a few bad apples. And that 90% of bad apples gives the other 10% a bad name.”</q><div style="padding-bottom: 15px;">
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In the second quarter of 2010, the Department of Justice <a href="http://www.policemisconduct.net/2010-q2-npmsrp-national-police-misconduct-statistical-report/" style="color: #556699; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">reported</a> that 63.7 per 100,000 officers were implicated in a sexual assault case. The rest of the U.S. population maintains a 29.3 per 100,000 implication rate.</div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', arial, helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br /><br />Read more: <a href="http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/363443#ixzz2moPTrQft" style="color: #003399; text-decoration: none;">http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/363443#ixzz2moPTrQft</a></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289545648704981358.post-45183982288311145782013-12-05T09:12:00.000-08:002013-12-05T09:12:35.872-08:00SF Parolees to get More Programs<span style="font-size: large;">Sex Offenders in San Francisco may soon have more programs offered to them. As it stands now, the entire city of San Francisco is "off-limits" to those on parole and are forced to live on the streets in that city. To read more about this programs go to:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> <a href="http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/sex-offenders-released-in-sf-may-soon-have-more-programs-offered-to-them/Content?oid=2641098">http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/sex-offenders-released-in-sf-may-soon-have-more-programs-offered-to-them/Content?oid=2641098</a></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289545648704981358.post-91670997068352038432013-12-05T09:02:00.000-08:002013-12-05T09:04:04.967-08:00Senate Bill 57<h1 class="title" style="background-color: #f5f5f7; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Looks like things are going to get tough for those of us that have the habit of going on the run trying to escape The Sex Crime Witch here in California. While a "victim" of Jessica's Law is on parole here in California they are not only forced into homelessness due to residential restrictions, they are also forced to wear a GPS Tracking Shackle locked onto their ankle. Alot of "victims" of Jessica's Law finding life virtually impossible while forced to live on the streets like an animal where their main concern is to where to charge up their GPS Tracking Shackle twice a day decide to cut off the GPS and go into hiding. Who can blame them? I know I've done it before. On October 12, 2013 Gov. Brown signed into law charging those who cut off this barbaric device will now be charged with a felony and given up to 3 years in prison. I swear The Sex Crime Witch Hunt just keeps getting worse and worse with no end in sight. Good time to leave the country if you're able. </span></h1>
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Lawmakers send Gov. Brown bill to ensure mandatory penalties, jail time for paroled sex offenders who remove GPS monitors</h1>
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From: <a href="http://sd28.senate.ca.gov/news/2013-09-11-lawmakers-send-gov-brown-bill-ensure-mandatory-penalties-jail-time-paroled-sex-offen">http://sd28.senate.ca.gov/news/2013-09-11-lawmakers-send-gov-brown-bill-ensure-mandatory-penalties-jail-time-paroled-sex-offen</a></div>
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<span class="date-display-single" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">September 11, 2013</span></div>
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<em><strong>Bill strengthens deterrent for sex offender absconders</strong></em><br />
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SACRAMENTO – California Lawmakers today on overwhelmingly bipartisan votes in both the Assembly and Senate sent Gov. Brown legislation to ensure convicted sex offenders who cut off their ankle-mounted GPS monitors serve the full and maximum parole sentence. </div>
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The proposed law, Senate Bill 57, by Sen. <strong>Ted W. Lieu</strong> of Torrance, would help ensure paroled sex offenders remain under GPS supervision instead of cutting them off without fear of punishment.<br />
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“When sex offenders know that there are little or no repercussions for cutting off their GPS monitoring devices, it’s time to strengthen the deterrent,” Lieu said after morning and late evening votes in the Assembly and Senate, respectively.<br />
“Real deterrents for sex offenders drastically reduce the likelihood they will commit another crime. SB 57 will give these sex offenders second thoughts about roaming free while on parole.”<br />
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Prior to the 2011 public safety realignment, sex offenders and other parolees who breached parole were returned to state prison for up to a year. However, realignment moved parole violators from state prison to county jails.<br />
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By changing where these parole violators are housed, an unintended consequence was created as it relates to GPS monitoring. Where previously these sex offenders would return to state prison, in some cases they now are being freed within days or even hours because of crowded county jails.<br />
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“By lowering the number of sex offenders who cut off their GPS device, we will lower the recidivism rate and less sex offenders will commit a new crime resulting in high prison time,” Lieu said.<br />
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As written, SB 57 would:<br />
• Require a sex offender GPS absconder to be sentenced to 180 days and mandate that the sex offender serve the entire parole revocation in county jail.<br />
• Allow county jails to keep track of GPS absconders separately from other parolees.<br />
Following the time served on this new felony, this sex offender will be released again on parole as a sex offender and once again monitored by GPS.<br />
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SB 57 is supported by law enforcement and victims’ rights groups, including the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs; the California District Attorneys Association; CA Narcotics Officers Association; the California Police Chiefs Association; the City of Los Angeles; the County of Los Angeles; Crime Victims United; Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office; the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department; the Los Angeles Police Protective League; the L.A. County Probation Officers Union; the Peace Officers Research Association; and the Riverside Sheriff’s Association.</div>
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<span style="background-color: #f5f5f7; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">- See more at: http://sd28.senate.ca.gov/news/2013-09-11-lawmakers-send-gov-brown-bill-ensure-mandatory-penalties-jail-time-paroled-sex-offen#sthash.zRIXSubS.dpuf</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289545648704981358.post-34298072205039381752013-12-04T11:17:00.000-08:002013-12-04T11:17:12.778-08:00Once Fallen Needs Our Help<span style="font-size: x-large;">Once Fallen</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://once-fallen.blogspot.com/">http://once-fallen.blogspot.com/</a></span><br />
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<a href="http://once-fallen.blogspot.com/2013/11/once-fallen-set-to-shut-down-on-march.html" style="color: #cc6600; text-decoration: none;">Once Fallen set to shut down on March 31, 2014</a></h3>
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Since December 2007, Once Fallen has become a valuable resource for helping the general public, our elected officials, advocacy groups, and registered citizens understand America's sex offender laws. I have offered a number of services, such as answering hundreds of phone calls and inmate letters, referral services, and public speaking arrangements free of charge without expectation of payment since this site's inception. I can no longer be expected to spend my own very limited resources while the majority of the thousands of those who use this site regularly never offer anything in return.<br /><br />Each year, I spend hundreds in stamps, travel expenses, internet/ website costs and other expenses associated with running a resource center such as this. This year, donations to Once Fallen are the lowest numbers ever. In fact, donations for the year 2013 barely covered the $120 annual website fee. I cannot continue like this. Thus, if donations to Once Fallen continue to fail to cover expenses, I WILL NOT renew the website and this site, as well as my affiliate sites, will close on March 31, 2014.<br /><br />That means our enemies, the TERRORISTS like <a href="http://sexoffenderissues-valigator.blogspot.com/2013/11/httponce-fallenblogspotcom201311once.html" style="color: #cc6600; text-decoration: none;">Valerie Parkhurst</a> and No Peace For Predators, win. That means thousands of people will lose access to a resource unparalleled anywhere on the internet. That means a reliable source of information will be lost, and will make the resources I have collected harder for those in need to find them.<br /><br />If you wish to keep this site up and running, then please send a donation to Once Fallen today. My paypal address is <a href="mailto:iamthefallen1@yahoo.com" style="color: #cc6600; text-decoration: none;">iamthefallen1@yahoo.com</a>, or if you prefer sending a check/ money order, see my <a href="http://www.oncefallen.com/ContactInfo.html" style="color: #cc6600; text-decoration: none;">CONTACT ME </a>page for my address.<br /><br />I don't have a set goal, but keep in mind the more resources available to me, the more laws I can fight, the more equipment I can buy for upcoming video projects, and the more outreach to inmates I can offer. It is not a matter of my desire to work. I've worked tirelessly for years. A Once Fallen article takes an average of 70 or so man hours to create, not counting updates. Somewhere in there, I'm taking calls of 30 minutes to an hour on average, writing letters to inmates or legislators, media interviews, and recruiting members. And I have performed these miracles, plus pay my bills, with a mere $730 a month income.<br /><br />I guess we shall see which side is hungrier to win this war.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289545648704981358.post-6001413288920052782013-12-04T11:07:00.000-08:002013-12-04T11:07:39.779-08:00Journalist Needs Your Help for Book on the The Sex Crime Witch Hunt<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;">If you are a family member of a registered "sex offender", here is a chance to speak out:</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;">Dear family member of a sex offender,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;">I’m a journalist who is working on a larger project,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;">I’m working on a book proposal whose working title is Families in the Cross-Hairs: Collateral Damage from America’s 20-Year War on Sex Offenders. It’s designed to tell the stories of sex offenders’ loved ones (wives, sons, daughters, parents)—the discrimination, abuse, and worse that many have suffered as a result of living with someone on the sex offender registry (documented in Levenson and Tewksbury’s study of this issue in 2009, which I’m sure you’re aware of). It also will share stories about how family members have become active in the fight to reform sex offender laws (through organizations like USAFAIR, RSOL, and WAR) and the small victories they’ve achieved to date.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;">I’m contacting you because I’m putting together the lead chapter for the book and am looking for family members willing to share their stories about what it’s like to live in a home with someone who’s on the registry. I well know the risks that these folks live with--so while it would be great to speak with people who are willing to use their real names, I understand and can include the stories of people who cannot do so.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;">Below this email, I’ve included sample questions of the type that I’d be seeking answers to in talking with people, though obviously my follow up questions would change depending on the specifics of each family’s circumstances.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;">And again about me: I'm a magazine reporter who has written stories on sex offender laws for The American Prospect (</span><a href="http://prospect.org/article/life-list" rel="nofollow nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">http://prospect.org/article/life-list</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;">), Good (</span><a href="http://www.good.is/post/a-new-way-to-treat-sex-offenders/" rel="nofollow nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">http://www.good.is/post/a-new-way-to-treat-sex-offenders/</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;">), and The Crime Report (</span><a href="http://www.thecrimereport.org/archive/standoff-over-sex-offenders/" rel="nofollow nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">http://www.thecrimereport.org/archive/standoff-over-sex-offenders/</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;">). More of my writing on criminal justice topics appears at</span><a href="http://www.stevenyoder.net/journalism/criminal-justice/" rel="nofollow nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">http://www.stevenyoder.net/journalism/criminal-justice/</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;">.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;">I was hoping that RSOL might be able to post an announcement asking prospective families to contact me in whatever way is comfortable for them. If so, just let me know how you’d like to proceed—I’m happy to write this up in the form of an announcement if that’s helpful.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;">Sample Questions</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;">What has it been like for you to live with someone who is listed on the sex offender registry?</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;">Have you or other immediate family members experienced any of the following as a result of your loved one’s being on the registry?</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;">Financial hardships?</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;">Changes in your housing, or difficulties obtaining housing?</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;">Teasing, ridicule, social isolation, or exclusion?</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;">Property damage?</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;">Harassment, verbal abuse, or assault?</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;">How have your experiences affected your views of current sex offender laws?</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;">Has that led you to be involved in efforts to change those laws, if at all?</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;">Thanks so much.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 15.454545021057129px;">Steven Yoder [mailto:steven@stevenyoder.net]</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289545648704981358.post-84896851135817787372013-12-04T11:01:00.000-08:002013-12-04T11:01:08.624-08:00SB 57 Gov. Brown Signs New Law for GPS Tracking Shackles<h1 class="title" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px;">
SB 57</h1>
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<a href="http://sd28.senate.ca.gov/news/2013-10-23-collegian-fresno-state-law-punishes-sex-offenders-who-cut-gps-devices" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" title="THE COLLEGIAN AT FRESNO STATE: Law punishes sex offenders who cut GPS devices">THE COLLEGIAN AT FRESNO STATE: Law punishes sex offenders who cut GPS devices</a></h2>
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<span class="date-display-single" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">October 23, 2013</span></div>
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By Crystal Deniz</div>
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Gov. Jerry Brown signed a new bill on Oct. 12 that requires sex offenders to spend 180 days in jail for tampering with the GPS device they are fitted with before they are released on parole.</div>
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<a href="http://sd28.senate.ca.gov/news/2013-10-12-gov-brown-signs-bill-mandating-penalties-jail-paroled-sex-offenders-who-remove-ankle" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Gov. Brown signs bill mandating penalties, jail for paroled sex offenders who remove ankle-mounted satellite monitors</a></div>
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<li class="node_read_more first last" style="display: inline; line-height: 18px; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://sd28.senate.ca.gov/news/2013-10-23-collegian-fresno-state-law-punishes-sex-offenders-who-cut-gps-devices" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" title="Read the rest of THE COLLEGIAN AT FRESNO STATE: Law punishes sex offenders who cut GPS devices.">Read more</a></li>
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<a href="http://sd28.senate.ca.gov/news/2013-10-13-torrance-daily-breeze-sex-offenders-law-sets-jail-time-ankle-bracelet-violators" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" title="TORRANCE DAILY BREEZE: SEX OFFENDERS - Law sets jail time for ankle bracelet violators">TORRANCE DAILY BREEZE: SEX OFFENDERS - Law sets jail time for ankle bracelet violators</a></h2>
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<span class="date-display-single" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">October 13, 2013</span></div>
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A bill signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown on Saturday will put convicted sex offenders back in jail for a minimum of 180 days if they cut off court-ordered GPS ankle bracelets.<br /><br />The new law requires that offenders who remove their monitoring devices to serve the additional felony sentence in county jail before returning to parole. </div>
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<a href="http://sd28.senate.ca.gov/news/2013-09-11-lawmakers-send-gov-brown-bill-ensure-mandatory-penalties-jail-time-paroled-sex-offen" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Lawmakers send Gov. Brown bill to ensure mandatory penalties, jail time for paroled sex offenders who remove GPS monitors</a></div>
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<li class="node_read_more first last" style="display: inline; line-height: 18px; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://sd28.senate.ca.gov/news/2013-10-13-torrance-daily-breeze-sex-offenders-law-sets-jail-time-ankle-bracelet-violators" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" title="Read the rest of TORRANCE DAILY BREEZE: SEX OFFENDERS - Law sets jail time for ankle bracelet violators.">Read more</a></li>
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<a href="http://sd28.senate.ca.gov/news/2013-10-14-los-angeles-times-gov-brown-targets-sex-offenders-who-remove-tracking-devices" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" title="LOS ANGELES TIMES: Gov. Brown targets sex offenders who remove tracking devices ">LOS ANGELES TIMES: Gov. Brown targets sex offenders who remove tracking devices</a></h2>
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<span class="date-display-single" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">October 14, 2013</span></div>
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By Patrick McGreevy and Paige St. John<br /><br />SACRAMENTO -- Sex offenders on parole who remove their electronic tracking bracelets will no longer be eligible for early release from county jail under legislation signed Saturday by Gov. Jerry Brown.</div>
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Early release has been common in some counties with their own severe jail crowding problems, but the legislation by state Sen. <strong>Ted Lieu</strong> (D-Torrance) will mandate that those who remove GPS devices be sentenced to 180 days and require that the sex offender serve the entire parole revocation in county jail.</div>
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<a href="http://sd28.senate.ca.gov/news/2013-09-11-lawmakers-send-gov-brown-bill-ensure-mandatory-penalties-jail-time-paroled-sex-offen" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Lawmakers send Gov. Brown bill to ensure mandatory penalties, jail time for paroled sex offenders who remove GPS monitors</a></div>
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<li class="node_read_more first last" style="display: inline; line-height: 18px; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://sd28.senate.ca.gov/news/2013-10-14-los-angeles-times-gov-brown-targets-sex-offenders-who-remove-tracking-devices" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" title="Read the rest of LOS ANGELES TIMES: Gov. Brown targets sex offenders who remove tracking devices .">Read more</a></li>
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<a href="http://sd28.senate.ca.gov/news/2013-10-12-los-angeles-times-new-law-targets-sex-offenders-who-disarm-tracking-devices-0" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" title="LOS ANGELES TIMES: New law targets sex offenders who disarm tracking devices ">LOS ANGELES TIMES: New law targets sex offenders who disarm tracking devices</a></h2>
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<span class="date-display-single" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">October 12, 2013</span></div>
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By Patrick McGreevy and Paige St. John</div>
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<strong>CALIFORNIA - Brown zeroes in on crime, justice - Governor signs 21 measures, including one that targets sex offenders who disarm electronic trackers, and vetoes 12</strong></div>
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Gov. Jerry Brown cracked down on sex offenders who disarm their electronic trackers while on parole, signing legislation Saturday requiring that they stay in jail once they are caught.</div>
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<a href="http://sd28.senate.ca.gov/news/2013-10-12-gov-brown-signs-bill-mandating-penalties-jail-paroled-sex-offenders-who-remove-ankle" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Gov. Brown signs bill mandating penalties, jail for paroled sex offenders who remove ankle-mounted satellite monitors</a></div>
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