Upcoming New RSO Laws

AB 755 (Galgiani)
Sex offenders: CAL E-STOP.Existing law, the Sex Offender Registration Act, requires persons who have been convicted of specified sex offenses to register with local law enforcement. Existing law requires that the registration include the person’s address, fingerprints, current photograph, and license plate number. Existing law requires the registrant to update his or her registration annually, upon moving, or upon changing his or her name. Under existing law, failure to register is a crime. Existing law provides that a person who is required to register who willfully violates any requirement of the act is guilty of either a misdemeanor or a felony, as specified.
This bill would additionally require that the registration include a list of all Internet identifiers and service providers, as defined, used by the person. The bill would require the registrant to update this information, as specified. By increasing the scope of a crime, this bill would create a state-mandated local program.
The bill would require, by July 1, 2012, any person or entity that collects and makes available, in any format, the personal data of California minors, to certify with the Department of Justice a plan to obtain information and implement reasonable policies to restrict or block access to that information by persons required to register pursuant to the Sex Offender Registration Act. The bill would require the department to issue guidelines for the certification process by March 1, 2012.
Existing law establishes the Sex Offender Management Board, as specified, under the jurisdiction of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The purpose of the board is to address any issues, concerns, and problems related to the community management of the state’s adult sex offenders, with a goal of safer communities and reduced victimization.
This bill would require the board to conduct a study of sex offender evaluation tools for efficacy and further development. The bill would require that the study evaluate alternatives to the STATIC 99 sex offender evaluation tool and provide recommendations.
The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.
This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.

You may also be interested in the following bills:

AB 813 (Fletcher): Sex offenders: punishment: parole.

SB 54 (George Runner and Runner): Sex offenders: residency restrictions: petition for relief.

AB 543 (Torres): Sex offenders: social networking prohibition.

 AB 883 (Cook): Sex offenders: registration.

AB 1022 (Fletcher): Sex offenders: registration.

SB 57 (George Runner and Runner): Sex offenders: social networking prohibition: online address notification requirement.

AB 653 (Galgiani): Sex offenders: registration of Internet accounts and identifiers.

SB 622 (Corbett): Sex offenders: registration.

How to Survive prison as an Innocent SO

How To Survive in Prison as an Innocent Man Convicted of a Sex Crime 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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, The SAFAR Newsletter.  Currently, I'm working on my book, Falling on the Deaf Ear: False Accusations of Rape, Child Abuse Hoaxes, Innocent People in Prison and How to End the Sex Crime Witchhunt.  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. 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. Outside Contacts 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. 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. 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. Prison violence 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. 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. 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. 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. Standing Up for Yourself 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. 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. Inmates and Convicts 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. 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. 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. Talking About Your Conviction 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. 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. 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 witchhunt 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. Prison Guards 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? 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. 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. 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. Keeping Fit 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 antifeminist, pro-family men's groups in your area, as well as some of the national groups. Sex Offender Treatment 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. 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. 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. 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. You are an innocent man in prison.  Act like one, and good luck my friend.

Unintended Consequence

Wednesday, Sep 08, 2010

More on the 'unintended consequence'

A readers tells a story about the nightmarish reality of our sex-offender laws

Regarding your cover story about homeless sex offenders [“Unintended consequence,” Sept. 1]: Thank you for bringing some of these issues to the forefront.

Most families suffer right along with their loved ones who happen to get caught up in the nightmare of a sex offense. While some offenses do deserve punishment and the removal of those who are a risk to society, every situation differs from the next. Yet, our society clumps them all together in a similar net.

Back in 2002, our son had a brief relationship with a girl who claimed to be 19, in El Dorado County. They did not have sex. When he discovered that she had lied about her age, he refused her calls and told her to leave him alone. He changed his phone number.

A year later, on the day he was awarded full custody of his young son, he was arrested. I had been an educator for Poway School District for more than 20 years at the time. What followed is too long a story, a total nightmare, but it included such corruption on the part of the Sheriff ’s Department, the attorneys and the court system that we will never recover. I ended up leaving a career that I loved.

Our son spent three years in prison. Upon his release, he somehow managed to get a transfer to be able to live with us. However, my family was then threatened and harassed by our neighbors. And while living here, we were unable to see our grandchildren and some of our friends.

I would lie in bed at night and wonder, “Could my husband get shot while doing yard work?” “Would some nut try to hurt one of us?” Then, Chelsea King’s death occurred. The Kings lived only a few streets from our home. My heart was broken for her family, and yet, somehow I believe our system might have contributed to her death. Could it be that the homelessness, the ridicule, the constant stress might have pushed someone mentally unstable over the edge? Now, we are being punished yet again for a unimaginable senseless crime of another. And our son would have not been charged at the time if we happened to live in another state. So, in California, you are considered the worst of the worst, and in another state, your offense is not considered a crime and you are a free man. And, I cannot help but think that if these laws were in place 40 years ago, my own husband could have suffered the same fate. I met him on his return from Vietnam. I was 17, and he was 22.

Every single member of our family has been effected. Every single member is punished. We are outcasts and lepers. The children in these families suffer the most. While saying the state is protecting children, they are destroying thousands of innocent lives. Our grandson now lives with a man who got a 15year-old pregnant. Same time frame, same county, but was never charged. Our grandson lives with this man, yet is not allowed contact with his own father, the man who loves and cherishes him.

We have since moved our son to another location. The costs associated with this are ruining us financially. He cannot find a job, wears GPS, must attend classes at parole, (they schedule these classes in the middle of the day, so how do they expect them to even have a job?) and we, as a family, can never be together. And that, is the hardest thing of all.

Name withheld

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RSO's and Computers

Sex Offenders After Prison: Limits on Computer Use

By Kamika Dunlap on January 27, 2010 11:50 AM | No TrackBacks

The Internet is often prime recruiting grounds for sex offenders to recruit children or expose them to sexual exploitation.

In many cases, children have come into contact with sex offenders through chat rooms and social networking sites including MySpace and FaceBook.

So, what are the limits on computer and technology use for those convicted of sex offenses?

Although rules may vary, many state lawmakers have begun to advocate for ways tolimit sex offenders' use of technology to find more victims.

Many states now have laws on the books requiring sex offenders to hand over Internet passwords, screen names and e-mail addresses. For example, Georgia was one of the first to comply with guidelines in a 2006 federal law requiring authorities to track internet addresses of sex offenders.

According to the latest stats, one in four, between ages 10 and 17, had been exposed to unwanted photographs on the Web. One in five had been exposed to sexual exploitation; and one in 33 had an aggressive sexual solicitation.

In response to a subpoena last year, MySpace provided two New York state attorneys general the names of 90,000 registered sex offenders it had banned from its site.

Today, New York has the Electronic Securing and Targeting of Online Predators Act (E-STOP), the first program of its kind. E-STOP requires convicted sex offenders to register all their e-mail addresses and other Internet identifiers with the state. More than 3,500 registered New York sex offenders were kicked off of MySpace and Facebook and other social networking sites

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office sent letters to the social networking companies to purge sex offenders from their sites. Bebo, Classmates.com, Flickr and Tagged were among the other networking sites notified to adopt protections against sexual predators online.

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn took it a step further and signed a law making it a felony for registered sex offenders to even use social networking sites.

Field Search is a new investigation and management tool officers use as a way to monitor sex offenders' computer use. The software program quickly delivers information about sex offenders' Internet use.

Here are some of the features of the program:

• Scans specific folders as opposed to scanning the entire hard drive
• Reviews browser history and cookies search
• Analyzes an offender's surfing patterns including image search, finding all logical .jpg, .bmp, .png and .gif files, even if zipped, in a gallery view
• Performs a media search, which will locate and play video files
• Performs a text search, allowing officers to search for specific words and phrases

Related Resources:

• Children's Internet safety focus of forum (Santa Maria Times)
• Editorial: Bill to keep sex offenders off social Web sites no-brainer (Oanow.com)
• Asheville-area sex offender charged with having MySpace, Facebook pages (Citizen Times)
• Sex Offender Registry (provided by Law Office of John R. Fielding, Jr. & Associates)
• Finding a Job After a Criminal Conviction (provided by Maynard, Truland & Ware, L.L.C.)

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Here's the reason I've always hated all these Bullshit prison reality shows.

Prison Porn

MSNBC’s Lockup documentary series, about life behind bars, is exploitative and debasing, and as poignant a show as can be found on TV.

By JAMES PARKER

IMAGE CREDIT: JACOB HEKTER

A FEW TIPS FOR the newly incarcerated: tattoo ink can be mixed up from the soot of burned baby oil. Look out for the bacteria in the home brew (it is, after all, just rotted fruit). Should a guard confiscate your headphones during a cell shakedown, seek the earliest opportunity to throw a cup of urine on him. Something to read during heroin withdrawal? Try Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. And if, for your own safety, you desire to be placed in Administrative Segregation, you might consider ratting out the leader of a white-supremacist gang.

I should say that my observations are not derived from experience. Unless watching television counts as experience, which I don’t think it does. Yet. At any rate, I’ve never been to prison. These jewels of inmate savvy were gleaned, rather, during the many edifying hours I have spent in front of MSNBC’s Lockup, the documentary franchise that since 2000 has been sending its film crews scuttling through the penal facilities of America, and lately the world. Lockup was followed by Lockup: Raw, then by Lockup: Extended Stay and Lockup: World Tour—if you want to know about conjugal visits in San Quentin, racial politics at Wabash Valley, or what a Serbian execution chamber looks like, executive producer Rasha Drachkovitch and his team have got the goods.
“Due to mature subject matter,” the emphatic deep-sea voice warns at the start of each episode, “viewerdiscretion is advised.” And indeed the subject matter is very mature—has been maturing, one might say, since the book of Genesis. Discretion, on the other hand—well, we’re way past that. Drachkovitch’s cameras get everywhere, into everything, fully licensed by the Age of Access, and we go with them. Here are the convicts plotting their plots, flooding their cells, doing their chin-ups, chiseling away at their shivs and shanks; here is the dead-eyed felon, and here the tittering psychopath. Here is Fleece Johnson, a woolly-hatted veteran of Kentucky State Penitentiary, gravely recalling the good old days: “In this prison, booty was more important than food. Booty. A man’s butt. I’m serious! Booty, havin’ some booty, was more important than drinkin’ water, man.”
Sensational? Sort of exploitative? Intermittently debasing? Check, check, and check again. But Lockupkeeps going, into unexpected zones of sympathy and catharsis. Here too is Leon Benson, doing 60 years for murder and locked down 23 hours a day in the Secured Housing Unit (SHU) at Wabash Valley Correctional Facility, reciting through the meal slot, or “pieflap,” in his cell door his rewrite of Macbeth: “You read my eyes like parables … The sky has the residues of sunlight, but it’s fading away like butter on corn bread.” The words resound metallically. Down the hallway, through another pieflap, a fellow participant in Wabash’s “Shakespeare in the SHU” program voices his appreciation: “I really like the metaphor you use. ‘You read my eyes like parables.’ Right? Man, that’s almost something like Shakespeare himself would write.” Chris “Pain” Lashbrook (eight years at Limon Correctional Facility, in Colorado, for auto theft and burglary), a pale behemoth with injury in his eyes and tattoos spidering up from his neckline, sits across the table from his primary abuser, the chief architect of his ruin. “The slaps and kicks turned into punches and head butts, broken nose, cigarettes being put out on me … From the age of 7 to 11, I probably felt every piece of physical abuse a kid can feel.” But he loves his father, and the two men are talking, very softly, about playing guitar. “I’ve been getting into the Foo Fighters, stuff like that,” says Lashbrook Sr. “Still playing the Coldplay?” his son asks. “Yep, still doin’ some Coldplay.”
Hands up, who can tell me where reality TV first entered the universe? Was it with Buñuel’s Exterminating Angel (dinner-party guests trapped in a room), or the Stanford Prison Experiment? Lockup has its elements of reality-ness: no Big Brother housemate, after all, was ever so poked and prodded and surveilled as your average convict.

It is obvious that, in all these instances, the more constantly the persons to be inspected are under the eyes of the persons who should inspect them, the more perfectly will the purpose of the establishment have been attained.

So wrote Jeremy Bentham in 1787, about his planned “Panopticon”—a temple of correction, circular in design, whose inmates would be exposed to an unsleeping scrutiny. The thing was never built, thank God, but as the Lockup cameras sniff out the grimmest intimacies of prison life, and rush toward its flash points, it seems proper to ask ourselves what, in this case, “the purpose” might be.
Wherein lies the attraction of prison TV? Men in particular can watch it like the Home Shopping Network, with a bright and endless curiosity. With prison, there are always ultimate questions involved, of course, and ultimate destinations—the abyss of perdition, the great glass elevator of redemption—but more immediately thrilling to the couch potato, I think, is just the vastly bummed-out texture of prison life: the din of hard surfaces, hard voices, hard lights; the big dude hanging heavy forearms over the back of a chair as he tells his tale; the hellishly perfected torsos around the weights bench, where a scowling lifter struts like the creature in William Blake’s The Ghost of a Flea; the cafeteria slop; the dismal, travestied politics; the top dog on the tier, who in passing plucks a baseball hat from somebody’s head and sets it conclusively on his own. Tickled, scarified, the unincarcerated viewer thanks his lucky stars and solemnly wonders after what fashion he might, if it came to it, do his own time.
And beyond that, Lockup is educational. The most instructive parts of the franchise are generally to be found in the shows subtitled Extended Stay. Whereas Lockup: Raw and Lockup: World Tour bounce from prison to prison, hectic compendia of horrors and enlightenments, Extended Stay digs in for months at a time in one location. Prisons are tiny totalitarian states, each with its own kinks and caprices, and the long-haul format gives Drachkovitch’s crew time to tease out the idiosyncrasies of a given facility—to taste, as it were, the time that is being done there. At Limon, for example, under the regime of Warden Travis Trani, two facts are notable. First, sex offenders are obliged to take their chances in the general population. Second, in the wake of an attack on a staff member, that population’s freedom of movement and association has been severely curtailed. Violence is down overall, but the policy has received predictably mixed notices. “When you separate dogs like that,” grumbles one inmate over a game of cards, “then they bark. But if you got ’em all together, everyone knows their place in the pack. They don’t get out of line.” “You been watchingDog Whisperer too much,” somebody responds. The inmate is unabashed: “Just like Dog Whisperer. For real. It’s true.”
Perennially enthralling, too, are the prisoners with whom it appears that nothing can be done—the literally incorrigible, or those who have been bashed into a pure state of defiance, beyond the last straw, beyond everything. “I am getting fucking tired of fucking with you,” complains Kevin Blanco, serving 13 years for attempted murder, to a guard at the Penitentiary of New Mexico. In solitary confinement, Blanco is a one-man band of disobedience, tossing around his bodily fluids, refusing to “cuff up,” and “taking hostage” the small spaces that are available to him—his “rec pen,” for example, with its shining clouds of razor wire and its lonely basketball hoop. Simply by declining to vacate this cage when asked, Blanco can trigger “standard extraction protocol,” and a team of guards gruntingly straps itself into vests and helmets. “Go get your goon squad,” he says. “Go get your gas, and c’mon.” “There’s not much more that we can do to him, as far as disciplinary sanctions,” concedes Sergeant Arturo Suazo.
Jerry Weir, a former member of NAMBLA with a scrunched, hobbity face, doing time at Limon for sexual exploitation of a child, seems more cooperative. “I’m gonna do,” he explains to a stoically attentive corrections officer, “whatever I have to do to let you help myself get what I want to help myself. Does that make sense?” “No,” the officer says. And pictures of children will keep finding their way into Weir’s cell. Busted. Back in the hole. “He’s not never gonna catch on,” predicts a sergeant. Kevin Blanco, meanwhile, having taken his rec pen hostage, is perched on top of that basketball hoop with an air of eremitic remoteness. All measures, all efforts, have failed. The pepper spray didn’t bother him; the tear gas was dispersed by a friendly breeze; three nonlethal shotgun rounds have caromed ineffectually off his ribcage. “I’ll come down,” he announces, “if you shoot me one more time.” Clang! goes a round into the hoop’s metal frame. “All right,” says Blanco. And down he comes.

James Parker is an Atlantic contributing editor.

More Hate Mail

Name:	Michele
Email address:	Michelejaraentertainment@gmail.com
Subject:	No to Jessica's law
Message:	I think you position on Jessicas law is terrible and you should be ashamed of yourself. I am extremely tolerant of those who share different opinions of my own, but defending these evil bastards can only mean you empathize with them because you are a sick individual who actually feels what they do towards children. I hope you literally rot in hell for this website. Remember this, GOOD SHALL WIN, and us GOOD SOLDIERS WILL WIN THE FIGHT TO PROTECT OUR CHILDREN. THE DESERVE LIFE IN PRISON for the crimes they comitt against an innocent child. you are all pigs!

Prison Reality Shows

Prison Reality TV: When You Can't Avert Your Eyes

by Matt Kelley · March 03, 2010

Topics:

• Criminal Justice in the Media

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I've long felt conflicted about the spate of popular reality TV shows featuring prisons -- they're exploitative, they celebrate violence and they often thrive on chaos without offering solutions. But do some shows actually dig deeper and get us thinking about the waste and abuse of our sprawling prison state?
For starters, it's important to recognize that these shows offer much of the American public the only glimpse they'll ever get inside these buildings. And, after all, viewers have the ability to make their own decisions. For an inquisitive audience, prison-themed TV shows can spark debate and even bring change. Some viewers will look at MSNBC's Lockup and wonder: "Why do we lock someone up for 10 years for stealing a car?" or "Is a violent jail really the best place for non-violent people to wait for their trials?" Those questions help advance the conservation about criminal justice reform in America.
In "Prison Porn," a new article at the Atlantic, James Parker captures this tension of prison television beautifully. He writes: "Sensational? Sort of exploitative? Intermittently debasing? Check, check, and check again. But Lockup keeps going, into unexpected zones of sympathy and catharsis." I have to agree.

City Beat (San Diego, CA)

While "surfing" the internet this morning (4:00AM - I still have trouble sleeping) I came across a very cool alternative newspaper callled City Beat out of San Diego that has written some great articles on the nightmare know as Jessica's Law. Here's some of the articles.

Tuesday, March 9,2010
Editorial

The problem with sex offenders

Let's hope Nathan Fletcher's inquiry is genuine and not merely a grab for law-and-order glory

By CityBeat Staff

It was as predictable as the new reality of rainfall every weekend in San Diego: A state lawmaker was sure to make camp in the spotlight amid the grief and anger over the apparent murder of two teenage girls and vow to spearhead sweeping changes to current law.

Tuesday, April 15,2008
News

Sex offenders!!!

Do our laws really protect kids, or are they misdirected reactions based on myths, misperceptions and stereotypes?

By Kelly Davis

Most people reading this will remember when there were no public sex-offender registries—no online portals where you can type in your address and find out if a sex offender is living nearby or sign up to receive an e-mail alert when one moves into your neighborhood.

Wednesday, February 23,2011
Editor's Note

That's another story

It takes longer than a few minutes to explain why some sex offenders need defending

By David Rolland

I received a letter a couple of weeks ago from an anonymous correspondent who’d heard me talking about sex offenders on KPBS’s Feb. 4 Editors Roundtable radio show.

Wednesday, February 2,2011
News

Without a home...

Sex offenders press judge for relief from Jessica’s Law

By Kelly Davis

In 1989, Mike pleaded guilty to misdemeanor sexual assault. It was a he said / she said case: His girlfriend at the time accused him of touching her breasts after she’d told him to stop.

Wednesday, September 15,2010
Letters

A few corrections and our reader's feedback

Corrections, and our reader's takes on sex offenders, intolerance and Rancho Bernardo

Wednesday, September 8,2010
Letters

More on the 'unintended consequence'

A readers tells a story about the nightmarish reality of our sex-offender laws

Regarding your cover story about homeless sex offenders [“Unintended consequence,” Sept. 1]: Thank you for bringing some of these issues to the forefront.

Tuesday, April 6,2010
News

No quick fix

Emotion-driven debate over sex-offender laws rarely leads to progress

By Kelly Davis

At a March 30 town-hall meeting, someone in the audience asked state Assemblymember Nathan Fletcher whether the law he’s proposing, prompted by the murder of 17-year-old Chelsea King, would apply to all registered sex offenders.

Tuesday, December 8,2009
News

Who's watching the watchdog?

Despite error, the Union-Tribune's nonprofit news outfit stands by its story

By Kelly Davis

The Watchdog Institute’s findings are based on a flawed interpretation of Jessica’s Law, the 2006 referendum that, among other things, placed lifetime residence restrictions on California’s sex offenders.

CA RSO's Petition Jessica's Law (KPBS)

Convicted Sex Offenders Petition For Changes To Jessica’s Law

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By Hank Crook, Gloria Penner

Editors Roundtable transcript | Friday, February 4, 2011

The number of homeless sex offenders has increased dramatically since Jessica's Law passed in 2006. The law prevents convicted sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or a park. We discuss why the law's requirements are making it difficult for sex offenders to find places to live, and why some convicted sex offenders in San Diego are challenging the law's residence restrictions.
Guests

David Rolland, editor of San Diego CityBeat

Kent Davy, editor of the North County Times

JW August, managing editor for 10 News

Read Transcript

This is a rush transcript created by a contractor for KPBS to improve accessibility for the hearing impaired. Please refer to the media file as the formal record of this interview. Opinions expressed by guests during interviews reflect the guest’s individual views and do not necessarily represent those of KPBS staff, members or its sponsors.

PENNER: A few months ago, Editors Roundtable, featured a segment on the unintended consequences of the 2006 California proposition called Jessica's law. It requires that sex offenders who are paroled cannot live within 2000 feet of a school or a park. A group of San Diego parolees are arguing that the residential restrictions of Jessica's law have driven them into homelessness. So David, this week, hearings were held on that complaint. Who's holding the hearings for what purpose?

ROLLAND: Well, the hearings were basically compelled by the Public Defender's Office. And responsible Public Defender Laura Arnold, who has sort of been a Crusader on behalf of parolees, many of whom -- well, I think all of whom were paroled after -- their sex offenses happened years and years and years ago, but because they committed another offense, they were paroled after Jessica's law came into effect, and sort of got swept into its residence restrictions. And so four of them, she was representing four of them in court this week who were petitioning the Court for relief from the residence restrictions. Of.
PENNER: Okay. So the essence of this -- these complaints were what?

ROLLAND: That it's sort of cruel and unusual punishment to be driven into homelessness of it's like you said, we use the headliner, unintended consequences of and that's what this is. So they're being driven into homelessness because under Jessica's law, you can't live within 2000 feet of a school or a park. And that wipes out, actually, much of the land mass of the State of California. Particularly in urban areas. So what happened after Jessica's law? Before Jessica's law, there was I believe 88 sex offenders parolees state wide who were considered homeless. And afterward, or now, there are nearly -- over 5000 of them. So it has --
PENNER: Where? Where?

ROLLAND: All over the state.
PENNER: In California.
ROLLAND: In San Diego, there are well over a hundred of them that Laura Arnold knows about. And so what happened was last year in Los Angeles, they petitioned hundreds of them petitioned the Courts to -- for relief from Jessica's law's restrictions. The Supreme Court ultimately ruled that the law could be applied retroactively. However, they said -- the Court said we're not saying that these people cannot petition. So what was basically happening in this court this week in San Diego was the Public Defender's Office was creating sort of a record, basically establishing a record for this case to go forward. It'll probably eventually get back to the state Supreme Court, where it will have to rule again. And in the case of these four parolees, a local judge will rule on their specific petitions. But it's really -- these are sort of test cases for a larger group of people who have become homeless because of this of.
PENNER: JW, before I go to you on this, I want to ask our listeners, okay, now here you have it laid out, according to David Rolland and his reporting and the staff's reporting, Jessica's law pushes sense offenders into homelessness because they can't live within 2000 feet of a school or a park, and that makes it really tough in urban areas to find a place to live. Do you think Jessica's law should be changed? Do you think it should be amended or do you think it should be abolished? Our number is 1-888-895-5727. 895 KPBS. JW?

AUGUST: Yeah, I -- y'all sent me the CityBeat article to read before this -- we had the show today, and I read it, and when I was done, I was really conflicted. Because it -- you read this, and you feel for these guys, but it's, hey, they're human beings. But -- and then you wrestle with this, well, they're pedophiles. But were they -- were their victims children?

ROLLAND: But they're not, and their victims aren't children. The people that Laura Arnold is representing, their victims were never children. Which was the intent of Jessica's law.

AUGUST: It radio, right exactly.

PENNER: JW.
AUGUST: And I'm not disagreeing with that at all. Anyway, it got me thinking about a story we had done where we had found four pedophiles living -- not pedophiles, sense offenders, living in a hotel off of Rosecranz. And why were they in that particular place? First we were shocked because the hotel was trying to track tourism traffic for sea world. But there was four offenders in the hotel, and the hotel staff would not tell families coming in there who was there. That was our first story. Then we did our second story, and we went to the probation department and looked at the map for the city, you start seeing where are these guys gonna stay? Because it closes everything down, and it turned out, if you want to live in any part of the city in that area around Rosecrans, you had to live in that hotel or out in the parking lot because there's no other place for these guys to go. So when we're done with that story, reading the City Beat story brought that conflict up to me again, that, hey, well, what do you do here?

ROLLAND: I need to comment on that story, the first story was outrageously sensational. The second story was better. It provide provided a lot more context. It's important to note, we don't know what these four men did. Actually, I know what one of them kid. Nathan Moore was convicted in 1982, 29 years ago, of a sexual assault, I believe on an adult woman. So that was 29 years ago. Then subsequent to that, he -- there was a petty theft, which -- and that is why he is subject to Jessica's law's restrictions, because of a petty theft. Now he is diabetic and other he is an amputee in a wheel chair.
PENNER: Okay, well, with that, let's turn to our callers because we have some interesting comments and questions. From Kiera in Coronado. Kiera, you're on with the editors.

NEW SPEAKER: Hi, thanks for taking my call.
PENNER: Yes, go ahead. Of.
NEW SPEAKER: Okay, I have a question, why don't they just limit the 2000 feet law from parks and schools for sex offenders that only have cases against children and of the sort? Not people who are, you know, doing things to full-grown adults because obviously adults are not the ones that are in that law?

PENNER: Okay. Thank you very much, Kiera. Do you have a response for that Kent Davy?

DAVY: Yeah, I think part of the problem with this statement, this is true of many other states as well, the sexual offense laws are written almost always in reaction to horrific crimes. The public and the legislatures, because it's easy to campaign on the bases of anti crime, over react and create what amounts to irrational legislative schemes that in fact don't make anybody safer. One of the unintended consequences of Jessica's law is to drive sex offenders outside of urban course to rural areas where they're much harder to keep track of. And if you were really gonna be -- try and fix something about this, I think you'd sit down and try and go across the board and do a number of fixes at the same time.

PENNER: Let's take one more very brief call, and then we'll get final comments of James from Point Loma, James will you make it brief please?

NEW SPEAKER: Yes, good morning, I will be brief. I just wanted to say that as a father, I really believe that Jess's law was put there for I really good reason. It was to protect the innocent victims. I understand the humanity of the situation. People need to find a place to live. But the truth of the matter is, these laws are put in place there for a reason. To protect the innocent. I think priority definitely needs to be given to that.
PENNER: Okay, thank you very much, James, gentlemen, I'm gonna ask for your final comments on this, we'll start with you David.
ROLLAND: James is missing the point. Prior to Jessica's law, there were restrictions that really only -- that dealt with people who were victimizing children. What Jessica's law did, and Kent's right, it was a response to a horrific crime. What it did was it was overly broad, now it is impacting people that were never intended to be impacted by this law. And the thing about homelessness is it makes it harder to manage sex offenders. So it makes it harder to rehabilitate people who need it because they become unstable.

PENNER: JW?

AUGUST: I think the mood in the state is it, they are gonna do something about the law, because I knowledge law enforcement and even politicians are realizing it was a reaction to a terrible crime. And it's now -- and there's unintended consequences when you do knee jerk legislation.
PENNER: Okay. So you get the very last word, Kent.

DAVY: And take a look in the brown budget and see who got whacked in terms of state employees. It is the parole officers who got whacked. And those duties are turned back down to the county and there will be even less -- fewer people watching people that we may want watched.
PENNER: Thank you very much, Kent Davy New York Times, from Ten News we thank JW August, and David Rolland who came to us from San Diego City beat. Thanks to our listen uppers and our callers, I'm Gloria Penner, this has been the Editors Roundtable on KPBS.

• HANK CROOK, Producer
  CONTACT | FOLLOW @HankCrook ON TWITTER
• GLORIA PENNER, Host, Editors Roundtable
  CONTACT | FOLLOW @GloriaPenner ON TWITTER

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