Shelley

The respected rights group, Human Rights Watch, released this week a 146 page report two years in the making. Although there are numerous recommendations, the main ones are:

1. take the registries off the internet and only allow law enforcement or those who "need to know" access to information about high risk individuals

2. ban all housing restrictions

3. allow ex offenders reviews to prove they pose little or no risk to society

Much of the report detailed what is already public record such as that most (90% for children and 75% for women) sexual assaults are done by acquaintances,the vigilantism and harassment of ex offenders and families is common, and that there is little scientific or statistical evidence that the punitive measures by the national and state governments actually work to prevent sexual abuse.

Comments anyone? (If you are going to offer some ignorant, nilhistic remark, save it. We've all heard it before and it's old.)

Below is the lede to a story from the Washington Post regarding gang injunctions:

When it comes to fighting gangs, there's the New York City approach, and there's the Los Angeles approach, according to the Justice Policy Institute. And one statistic dramatizes the difference:

Two years ago, Los Angeles police reported 11,402 gang-related crimes; New York police, 520.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic...

Other stories written in the last two weeks have pointed out that Los Angeles and Chicago's gang injunctions are actually making the cities more dangerous. They contrast this with New York's approach which is social spending rather than police force.

What do you think? (And please no "thug-hugger" comments from police officers.)

In a case from Oregon, two 13 year old boys who engaged in slapping other students' butts are being charged with sex crimes which would require them to register as sex offenders.

Below is the link to the really long story, if you wish to read all or part of it.

My question: what kind of nonsense is this society engaging in that what was once a school matter now a criminal matter that can affect these young teens the rest of their lives? I just shake my head.

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf...

My boyfriend and I adopted a red bordie collie from a rescue place four months ago. I had a border collie before, so I knew what to expect as for level of exercise and stimulation. But what surprises me is his inability to be left alone in the house. He tears things up when we leave, and as a consequence, someone always has to be home with him. We love him to death and will not give him away, but sometimes, he drives us crazy.

The link below is to a news story from Pennsylvania printed late this week in which two criminal justice experts point to familiar adults committing the greatest number of sexual crimes, yet the public is all hysterical and paranoid about strangers.

Question #1: When will society get its collective head out of the sand and realize the TRUE threat?

Question #2: Does society prefer to blame "stranger danger" for child sexual abuse, because to contemplate that adults parents know could be the real predators is too awful to think about?

Here is the link to the news story:

http://www.heraldstandard.com/site/news.cfm?newsid...

http://www.whiotv.com/news/13392593/detail.html

This is a link to a television broadcast detailing Mark Lunsford's son (or stepson) being charged with a criminal sexual crime. Apparently Joshua Lunsford, 18, had sex with a 14 year old in March and pled not guilty on Friday in a Springfield, Ohio court where the family now lives.

Although Jessica's Law in Ohio doesn't give someone like Josh L a 25 mandatory minimum (the law states the offender violates someone 13 and younger. This girl is 14.) However, I can't help but see the ironies in this case. Mark L is pushing JL right and left and his own son (or stepson) gets nailed for a sex offense.

Paul Craig Roberts, a noted conservative, wrote this about the U.S. criminal justice system: The wrongful conviction rate is extremely high. Hardly any of the convicted have had a jury trial. More than 95% of all felony cases are settled with a plea bargain. Before jumping to the conclusion that an innocent person would not admit guilt, be aware of how the process works. Any defendant who stands trial faces more severe penalties if found guilty than if he agrees to a plea bargain. Prosecutors don’t like trials because they are time consuming and a lot of work. To discourage trials, prosecutors offer defendants reduced charges and lighter sentences than would result from a jury conviction. In the event a defendant insists upon his innocence, prosecutors pile on charges until defendant's lawyer & family convince him/her a jury is likely to give the prosecutor a conviction on at least one of the many charges and that the penalty will be greater than a negotiated plea.

Those who work with sex offenders note most child sexual abuse is committed by people the child already knows. Yet the media continues to perpetuate the myth stranger danger is the norm - that there are wierd, sick sex offenders waiting in parks, at schools, etc. waiting to grab young children. The stranger danger myth has been so extensively promoted many states passed laws requiring registered sex offenders live at least 2,000 feet from schools and parks. Iowa was the first, adopting it in '02 and putting it into effect in 2005. Only now the DA association, the cops and others are screaming for relief, saying it hasn't done a thing except cause RSOs to stop registering and the cops are spending time and money running down formerly compliant RSOs who stopped registering due to the restrictions. More states continue to adopt such laws, ignoring Iowa's experience. Why do we persist in this belief of stranger danger when it is so obviously a lie? What can be done to change beliefs?

In the past few months, I have become interested in the sex offender issue. What has struck me is all the studies and statistics point to adults in a child's life (parents, step parents, relatives, babysitters, coaches, ministers and priests, teachers, etc.) are overwhelmingly and statistically responsible for child sexual abuse and abduction in the US, rather than the rare "stranger danger" situation so hyped and promoted. Yet whenever the media covers this issue, especially the sensationalistic coverage, it focuses on the stranger cases and rarely if ever discusses the familial abuse. I've come to the conclusion this is done for two reasons: the media is seeking circulation and ratings and to hype familial abuse is not sexy; and two, people reject the idea of familial abuse, preferring to believe stranger danger is more prevalent because it's too horrible to believe most abuse is occurring within the family unit or closely related to the child.

Comments anyone?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061228/ap_on_re_mi_ea...

AP interviewed dozens of troops who are currently fighting and the consensus, outside of a few guys, is putting more troops in a religious war between Shiites and Sunnis is just going to create more mayhem. Yet Bush still believes more troops are the way to go to quell the violence. How can any of the public continue to support the president when the young men actually doing the fighting say otherwise?

If the US House of Representatives can vote to impeach a president for lying to a grand jury about an affair while in office (Bill Clinton), why is it that Republicans are against impeaching George Bush for a far greater impropriety - getting us into an offensive war with at least half a dozen varying justifications?

It's not that I support impeaching GWB, and I understand that Nancy Pelosi has said she won't push for impeachment. At the time of the Clinton impeachment, historians warned the Republicans against the impeachment on such flimsy wrongdoing.

Nonetheless, how do those who support GWB square the two presidents' actions in their heads?

On these boards I have seen many requests for registered sex offenders in locales parents have just moved to. The problem with this thinking (and one that has been perpetutated by politicians and the media employing scare tactics) is that your child's greatest risk is from offenders who haven't been identified. The US Department of Justice shows that of all the 15,000 or so cases of child sexual abuse annually, only four percent are committed by people listed on the registry; the other 96 percent are "newbies" to the sex offender status. Another statistic is that the number of stranger snatching child numbers about 50 a year, compared to the above mentioned 15,000. A third statistic is that sex offenders, contrary to reported media statistics, have a recidivism rate of as low as 3.5 to a high of 20 percent. Not anywhere the 80 to 90 percent recidivism rate spouted by laymen often.

Parents, any comments?

I ask this because some mainstream web sites which are advocates for men estimate that up to 40 percent of rape accusaitons are false. Feminist web sites say 2 percent. I tend to believe it somewhere in between. Should lie detector tests in which there is no DNA, no rape kit, accusation made way after the fact, or during a nasty divorce or child custody case be given? The idea is not to use the test results in court, but just to determine if the police should continue their investigation. This policy WOULD NOT apply to women who have DNA in their bodies, those who have been beaten up and those who make the reports and get the proper tests (rape kit, police report, rape crisis center, etc.)

I say this because I know there are women out there who will false claims for sympathy or because they had an affair or other similar motives. I also a news story where the police did administer a test to a woman they suspected of making up a rape. She failed the test.

Any comments?

I know someone who pled guilty to a sexual assault case two decades ago because the prosecutors were threatening lifetime imprisonment if found guilty at trial but a decade if he pled guilty without a trial and jury, thus saving the state time and money. Although the accusation was false, he was afraid of getting the maximum imprisonment, thus the plea agreement. How does one go about conducting an investigation to reverse such a case? Does the former defendant need to hire an attorney and investigator, or can they ask the state to conduct a DNA test? Or should he just live with his fate, because there's no hope?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061118/ts_nm/mideast_...

This is a link to a story regarding world condemnation of Israel for killing yet more civilians.

My question: how is it that the U.S. can continue to defend Israel carte blanche in killing civilians when Israel is going after militants but when Islamic states kill civilians to defend itself they're terrorists?

Sounds like a double standard to me. Human rights are human rights, Jew or Muslim. Agreed?

The reason why the U.S. Founding Fathers chose to write constitutional protections and rights into the Bill of Rights is to protect all people from an over-powering and over-reaching government. If it were not for the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments, a mere accusation against a person would become a conviction.

I am of the opinion that I would rather see a guilty man go free if the government has not proven its case than to see an innocent man unfairly accused, prosecuted, and sentenced by a government with too much power.

And, yes, I am been victimzed by criminals and none of them have ever been sent to jail for their crime against me.

I still feel very strongly that the government needs to be reined in, because once people are under the yoke of an all-powerful government, it is virtually impossible to throw it off without extreme bloodshed or civil war.

I am not a fan of pot, although I've known people who smoke. However, I am a fan of preventing Alzehimer's Disease. I read in a Newsweek medical column recently that mafijuana can prevent the tangling plaques that are a hallmark of AZ from developing in your brain. My interest perked up because my mother got it at age 52 and died at age 64. I am getting closer to her age of onset. Should I consider getting a medical marijuana card, or just wait to see if the symptoms appear?

Our family took care of her at home until the day she died; it was not a pretty death and I wouldn't want to go through that for anything.

Vanity Fair has just printed an interview with Ken Edelman and Richard Perle, two of the key neoconservative architects of the Iraq War. They're calling the Bush Administrative incompetent and saying that the U.S. is losing in Iraq. However, there's a whole bunch more. This can't be good, right before the election in which it appears that Bush is going to lose big time.

Here's the link: Please read, then comment. Thank you!

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2006/1...

Also, please keep it civil!

Bear in mind, I am not referring to child molesters, but the hundreds of thousands of others on the registries who are there for minor or moderate sex offenses. Why is society so willing to believe that the recidivism rate of sex offenders (not pedophiles) is sky high when there are dozens of web sites and experts who have published statistics showing the opposite is true?

Is it that easy to brainwash the public?

In my opinion, political moderates take the best of both the left and the right and mold them into a "real woirld" view.

Question #1: What does it mean to be a political moderate? Where do you stand on today's hot button issues?

Question #2: If you consider yourself a liberal or conservative, (meaning at the far ends of the political spectrum), how does your respective ideology solve today's somewhat intractable problems?