The Grimm Truth

Registry Laws Cause More Problems Than Homelessness

       Someone with an organization out of Virginia called Reform Sex Offenders Laws read about South Florida's struggle with the unintended consequences of the sex offender residency laws -- essentially consigning offenders into homelessness. RSOL's response raised a series of troubling questions about other problems with overreaching sex offender laws. The statement: 

       Are Americans aware that their teenagers are having consensual sex which could result in the older teen being convicted of sexual assault, battery or rape a prison sentence and being listed on a Sex Offender Registry for 15 years, 20 years or for a lifetime? 

 Are Americans aware that their teenagers are e-mailing and texting nude photos of themselves and others? This could result in both teens being charged with creating, distributing and possessing child pornography with time in prison and being listed on a Sex Offender Registry for a lifetime.

Are Americans aware that if they receive one unwanted e-mail or text of child pornography on their computer or phone and a service technician finds the old/deleted file they will be charged with possessing child pornography? Resulting in time in prison and being listed on the Sex Offender Registry for a lifetime.

Are Americans aware that if they have knowledge that their juvenile child is having consensual sex with someone of 18 years or older, they (the parent) can be convicted of indecent liberties by person of supervision and listed on a Sex Offender Registry for 15 years, 20 years or for a lifetime?

Are Americans aware that middle schoolers have been convicted and listed on Sex Offender Registries for pinching other middle schoolers on their rear-end?

Are Americans aware that because of the “Victim’s Rights Laws & Rape Shield Laws” an ACCUSATION ALONE is sufficient for a conviction, a prison term of 5 to 25 years or even life and then being listed on a Sex Offender Registry most likely for life?

Are Americans aware that NO evidence, NO witness, NO dates or times have to be given by an accuser?

Are Americans aware that they CAN NOT defend themselves by supplying evidence or witnesses that can prove an accuser is lying and had motive to lie?

Are Americans aware that some States (Virginia) allow an accuser only 21 DAYS to recant a lie? Any amount of time after 21 days the wrongful conviction, the prison term and remaining on a Sex Offender Registry stands. If a witness was found 15 years after a murder case that could convict the murderer or if DNA was discovered to free a wrongfully convicted person 25 years later why can’t an accuser recant and the conviction be stricken from the record?

Are Americans aware they are no longer innocent until proven guilty in America when there is a sexual claim. They are guilty and not allowed to prove their innocence?

There is a huge difference between stealing a newspaper and robbing a bank, both crimes are considered theft but both are differentiated by law and society. Are Americans aware that the current laws that label someone as a Sex Offender in the U.S do not differentiate?  Whether you are accused of teenage consensual sex, urinating in public, mooning or streaking, pinching or touching someone or being a serial rapist upon your return to society, conviction and sentence will be the same.

Are Americans aware that a VERY large number of Registered Sex Offenders have never touched or raped anyone, let alone a child?   But guilt by association on the Sex Offender Registry labels them all as a “pervert” a “pedophile” and a “predator” for life. 

Are Americans aware that  somes states' legislatures  (Virginia 2006 & 2008) broadly re-classified Non-Violent Offenders to Violent Offenders? This includes many offenses that had NO physical contact.  The situation that has been imposed upon the “Registered” is that, under the guise of protecting our children, the Legislators are in fact repeatedly trying, convicting and re-sentencing Citizens without even notifying them that this has occurred. To re-sentence a Citizen of  the United States without giving them the opportunity to testify on their own behalf is clearly a violation of their Constitutional Rights. 

Our Legislators have taken a group of people and used them as a platform to win elections and instill fear into the parents of our country so that they look like heroes. People that are not "child-molesters", "pedophile's" or  perverts" have all been bucketed into one massive Registry and must endure a lifetime of shame.  The Sex Offender Registries are extremely costly both financial and to the families of the registered. Contrary to popular belief among the Legislators there is indeed hardship related to being listed on a Sex Offender Registry. The lives being destroyed are not just the “registered” but their spouse, their children and every family member sharing their name and address. When you are a “Registered Sex Offender” you struggle to find and keep housing, employment and your family because of the stress and humiliation that the Registry creates within yourself, your neighbors, your co-workers and vigilantes looking for justice for a victim they don’t even know.  The Sex Offender Registries are not protecting anyone, they are a means to humiliate, degrade, re-prosecute and destroy the lives of thousands of innocent citizens.

The Studies below have proven that the current Sex Offender Laws, the Registries and the Residency Restrictions are ineffective and damaging. Our Legislators repeatedly state inaccurate recidivism rates (the rate to re-offend) of “sex offenders” to the public to gain support of voters and to push through flawed legislation. The recidivism rate for “sex offenders” is significantly lower than that of murders, drug dealers and users or armed robbers. An interesting fact since Sex Offender Legislation is based on the assumption that “sex offenders” will recidivate with new sexual offenses. 

There is also a study conducted by the Attorney General’s of numerous states that proves the Internet is not as dangerous as our Attorney Generals and Legislators have convinced you to believe that it is.

                  • No Easy Answers: Human Rights Watch Study, September 11, 2007

          • The Adam Walsh Act: Scarlet Letter by Lara Geer Farley, April 17, 2008

                 • Fact Sheets Examine Impact of Sex Offender Registries: Justice Policy Institute, September 22, 2008       • Collateral Damage: Family Members of Registered Sex Offenders by Jill Levenson Ph.D. January 2009           • Enhancing Child Safety and Online Technologies: Final Report of the Internet Safety Technical Task Force to the Multi-State Working Group on Social Networking of State Attorneys General of the United States. December 31, 2008

                • Residential Proximity to Schools and Daycare Centers: Influence on Sex Offense Recidivism, An empirical analysis by Jill Levenson Ph.D. December 23 2008

                • New Jersey DOC Study on the Effectiveness of Sex Offender Registration February 11, 2009

                • Registering Harm: How Sex Offender Registries Fail Youth and Communities, Justice Policy Institute November 21, 2008

                A new book written by Dr. Richard Wright titled Sex Offender Laws: Failed Polices, New Directions concludes that the proliferation of “Sex Offender”  legislation over the past 20 years in America that were meant to memorialize an assaulted, murdered or missing child have largely failed. They have NOT reduced Sex Offender recidivism rates (5.5%), provided safety, healing or support for victims, reflected the scientific research on sexual victimization, offending and risk or provided successful strategies for prevention. Dr. Wright interviews Patty Wetterling, the mother of an abducted child says twenty years later that there are many issues with current policy and “We have not built into the system any means for success”. If Jacob Wetterling’s mother can see that current laws and policies are failing why can’t our government?

                The fear and loathing against Registered Sex Offenders that is currently considered acceptable needs to stop before additional Citizens and communities are harmed. Our Legislators need to rectify this mess they have created by bucketing ALL sexual related acts into Sex Offender Crimes. The broad brush that the Legislators have been allowed to use across our population will continue to grow until it reaches into your home and labels you and your family.

The Registries need to be returned to their original intent, to list only the most dangerous, untreatable and repeat offenders.

      

A Drive Through Philadelphia, Mississippi, circa 1967

   In the summer of 1967, my reserve unit formed a convoy and headed out of the Mississippi Delta to Camp Shelby, amid the red-bug infested, piney forests in the southern reaches of the state. The company was headed for its annual two weeks of summer camp, a term that had suffered a severe devolution under the auspices of the United States Army.

      Donald Mitchell and I, a couple unenthused privates, were diverted, instead, 160 miles southeast into the hills, to the infamous town of Philadelphia, Mississippi.  We were ordered to find the local reserve unit in Philadelphia, pick up a large mess tent and delivery it, along with ourselves, to Camp Shelby.

      For me, it sounded like a lark – a day away from Sgt. Eddie Johnson who regarded the two of us as a couple of slackers in need of constant scrutiny and extra discipline.  But for Mitchell, a young black man, it was a grim and frightening designation.

      It was a startling revelation. Life, in 1967, in the  Mississippi Delta, seemed dismal enough for blacks. Plenty of remnants of segregation still abound. And the treatment of blacks by police, the courts, by county government, by employees, was starkly unfair. But the local white power structure let it be known that it would not abide the crudest expressions of racial hatred. There could be a White Citizens Council, an organization dedicated to prolonging segregation by legal and political means, but no Ku Klux Klan.

      It hadn’t occurred to me, until that trip, that racism in Mississippi would be measured by degrees and classified by regions. But Mitchell, and most black in the Delta knew, that no such prohibition against the Klan and impromptu racist violence existed in Philadelphia and environs. Three years before the meaner elements of the Mississippi hills manifested with the murder of three civil rights workers who had been registering voters in Philadelphia – James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner.  But on our drive, Mitchell explained that black folks in the Delta had wary of those nasty Philadelphia rednecks long before those particular murders. He said the famous civil rights murders only informed the nation what Mississippi blacks had known since Reconstruction times. The difference was, he said, that the national media had paid no attention to other victims humiliated, beaten, unfairly jailed and killed in Philadelphia.

      He was afraid, as we drove into town, that we would be seen as two friends, a white guy and a black guy, who were violating of the local racist social ethic. And they’d beat the hell out of us.

      I pointed out that we were in uniformed, in a U.S. Army truck. He suggested that the federal government was not exactly a respected entity thereabouts.  Mitchell worried figured that my naïve outsider liberal attitude would both arouse the locals and cause me to underestimate their ferocity.

      He stayed low in the cab of the truck. I drove carefully into town. He insisted that we make no unnecessary stops. Not even for beer. It sucked the fun out of the trip. There were no incidents but, once myth and paranoia trumps logic, it’s hard not to imagine threatening and murderous looks from the locals. Besides, it was Philadelphia, in Mitchell’s estimation the meanest town in Mississippi.

      We made it to Camp Shelby intact, though considerably more sober than I would have imagined. Sgt. Johnson was nearly shocked that we showed up with the mess tent in such a reasonable amount of time. But Mitchell had just wanted to get the hell out of the hills.

      Last week, I noticed that Philadelphia elected a local preacher named James Young mayor, ousting the incumbent. Young is black. The incumbent is white. Philadelphia, with 7,300 residents, is 56 percent white.

      Admittedly, by 2009, stories about racial milestones in the Old South have become a little tiresome. But this election had special resonance. As Donald Mitchell once told me: “Philadelphia is different.”

      Forty-two years later, Philadelphia finally shed that awful legacy.  

Two Decades Of Opinion From Amy Kaye

      Amy Kaye, who became a familiar names around the Miami Herald for her fiery and pointed opinions expressed in e-mails and letters the editor, took her own life May 4 just minutes after sending me a startling last message: “Amy Kaye, 75, put a bullet through her head today outside the converted condo where she lived . . . “

      Some 30 of her letters had been published in The Herald over the years. They’re worth remembering. Here’s a sampling:

 

      From April, 2009:

      In his April 12 entry under the headline A look ahead at the week in movies and TV, TV critic and conservative columnist Glenn Garvin refers to The Cougar, in which young men compete for the "creaky sexual favors of a 40ish woman."

For those who are in hiding from American television entertainment and who are fortunate enough to have something else to do of an evening, a cougar is a mature woman who owns a boy-toy. But how exactly does Garvin's sexism improve the situation? Does no one edit his work for lapses in taste?

And what in the world is wrong with The Miami Herald's female staffers that they don't object to this and other glaring examples of sexism in the paper -- like the soft porn "art" that periodically creeps onto Page 8A

     

      From September, 2004:

      How is Russian President Vladimir Putin's response to the Beslan school massacre - less democracy, more power in his hands - any different from President Bush's behavior since 9/11? 

     

      From January, 2004:

      Re the Jan. 12 story 40-year squatter is booted out: Kenny Bethel has made his life and a little money for 40 years, and nobody much minded. Now the army vet can't even use a toilet when no one's around to be "frightened" or make a few bucks picking up the golf balls. 
Tell me this didn't happen to him now because the snoots from the new elitist cities across the highway don't want their game clouded by the sight of a homeless black man and his wife

     

      From May, 2002:

      Boy, did you drop the ball in the response to the woman who argues with her boyfriend over politics and books. Don't you know how much a mature person's political views say about his value system? The kinds of books she reads, or whether he/she reads at all, provide a telling look at her idea of brain food and whether he has a heart for others.

 

      From November, 2001:

      How come I can figure out what Osama bin Laden wants from us, while pundits and academics like this columnist can't? 
Bin Laden wants to return to what we call the Dark Ages and to be caliph of a united Muslim empire. All he wants from the United States and the rest of Western civilization is for us to get out of his way. 
This endless prattle about hating us because of our political freedoms and economic excess only clouds the issue of why he would unleash terrorism upon our own shores.

 

      From August, 2000:

      Bravo to World War II serviceman Bob Reno, who doesn't need any cold stone memorial, especially on the Washington Mall. He writes that he has had his memorial for 55 years in our alive and vibrant United States of America. 
Why are Bob Dole and company not satisfied with the Iwo Jima U.S. Marines memorial in Arlington? It is far more powerful and moving than the bloodless one planned for the Mall, it's in a proper setting, and it's been there, serving the purpose, for a half-century. 

 

      From April, 2000:

      Re the videotape of Elian: Now do you get what this family really is all about and what its agenda is? Certainly not the little boy they've turned into a performing seal. 

 

      From  September, 1997:

      I have often wondered how a man who date-raped a woman many years ago, when they were both young, feels today as an older man when he reads this stuff, and it is or could be his own daughter, and he realizes, maybe, that essentially we are talking about him and a crime that he committed, except that he got away with it! 
A few years ago I even attended a few sessions of a rape-survivors' group, hoping to find a woman my age, to inquire how it affected our lives. But they were all young, recent victims. Most but not all had been treated far better than I was.

      I was a college sophomore, briefly living in the dorms while my parents were working out of town. The rapist was a student from one of my classes. It was a first date, we had gone to the movies and briefly to a college hangout for a beer. It happened on the way back to the dorms. I thought that he was insane and feared for my life.

      I didn't realize it for many, many years, until information became available in the media, but I was surely not his first victim, and probably not his last. I had reported him to university officials the morning after, when he approached me in the school cafeteria as though nothing had happened. And indeed for him, nothing had, in the sense that using brute force and intimidation was normal behavior for him. 
The university treated me unbelievably badly providing me zero emotional support, even though my family was away. I was dragged out of classes, interrogated repeatedly, and even given a Rorschach test, tape-recorded without my knowledge, asked for the names of previous dates, and they, too, were interrogated and tape-recorded without their permission. The intent was to label me a tease in my own eyes and to blame me for what occurred. 
To bring me to my knees and shut me up lest I say any more and embarrass the university, the administration took away my academic scholarship for the following year, illegally, I'm sure. But then, everything else that they had done was illegal also, at least by today's interpretation of civil rights.

      To save my education, knowing even at 18 that there was no sense losing my education along with my virginity, I chose to say that what happened did happen, but it didn't matter. The rapist had told me outside my dorm that if he was "going down, " he was taking me with him, and there was every indication he could make good his threat. By that time the rape itself seemed almost insignificant compared to the university's behavior (rather like Hurricane Andrew and the aftermath). That summer my family received a letter that I could return, on scholarship.

      I'm told that such an experience, particularly when there is no psychological counseling at the time, has a lifelong, negative impact on the victim. By the time I did speak about it in therapy, it wasn't high on my list of problems, traumas, etc., for which I was seeking help. Yet, who knows? 

 

      From July, 1997:

      Almost weekly since the trial of the flight attendants' second-hand-smoke suit against the tobacco companies began here, The Herald prints a letter slandering the flight attendants and lawyers for allegedly greedily suing "deep pockets."

      My father, a nonsmoker, died from emphysema and lung cancer because of a lifetime of secondhand-smoke exposure in hotel dining rooms, where he earned his living.

      I'm sure that the workers' compensation doctors never told my father that he got emphysema from his job, even if they suspected it. He was retired by the time the lung cancer showed up.

      The flight attendants don't just sue on behalf of their own occupation. They represent millions of sick or dead Americans -- waitresses, bartenders, musicians -- who serve us and are every bit as much victims of the tobacco companies' manipulation and deception.

 

      From January, 1997:

      Divorcing made easy It's no surprise the The Herald would editorialize against Representative Wise's campaign to do away with Florida's no-fault divorce laws.

      Being in bed with the Christian Coalition may not be the most comfortable of accommodations, but in this instance it is correct.

      Society must encourage laws that coincide with its best interests. Liberal, easy-to-get, inexpensive, no-fault divorce is a galloping plague that encourages selfish, irresponsible, and immoral behavior and the dissolution of the family.

 

      From June, 1995:

      The Herald is right to praise the new-found civility between President Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich. How about some support for Hillary Rodham Clinton? She remained civil in the background while her hubby made nice with the man who called her a bitch and the one who served divorce agreement papers on his previous wife while she was hospitalized for cancer surgery. 

      Maybe after public opinion and the media succeed in getting politicians to clean up their rhetoric, we can go on to getting them to clean up their personal lives and family relationships, or have them pay the price at the polling booth.

 

      From November, 1994:

      I read TV Critic Hal Boedeker's column Nov. 1 with amazement (No ifs, ands or butts left for Caruso). Simply put, why do you hate David Caruso? 

      Surely his being an idiot and giving up the role of his career is not sufficient provocation for such overwrought contempt. Wouldn't pity be more appropriate for such typically human stupidity?

      And anyway, a goodly portion of the blame for (Caruso's leaving the popular cop show NYPD Blue) would have to be awarded to (producer Steven) Bochco, who should have been willing to "pay" Caruso whatever his insecure ego needed to keep him. You can't possibly believe that (Jimmy) Smits, whatever his physical charms and previous successes, is going to fill the void. Or that (Dennis) Franz continuing to be wonderful will, either.

      Why is it that critics, male critics anyway, just can't wait for the first character flaw to appear in any really good- looking actor, especially if he is capable at his craft (Don Johnson, for example)? 

      In my youth, long ago and far away, "hunks" were usually no-talent bums with no visible manifestation of intelligence and, for that matter, very little sex appeal, to me anyway (Rock Hudson comes to mind). Perhaps that is why Burt Lancaster's death was an occasion for such sadness. He was one of the grander exceptions.

      I was so crazy about NYPD Blue (like Miami Vice, once upon a time) that I have almost boycotted it this year. I watch it with one eye, reading something with the other. I knew the first four episodes would have to be focused on Kelly's departure and would surely sacrifice loyalty to Kelly's character, as he was drawn so vividly in the previous season, in the process. I was right. Kelly would have never gone back with (Janice) Licalsi, though he would have stood by her as a friend and former lover (as he did as an ex-husband). 

      And by the way, what is your problem with Kelly frequently inquiring whether the other person in the dialogue is OK with that? Women LOVE that stuff and NEVER get it from the men in their lives because most men can't fathom the concept, let alone have the patience or commitment to learn to do it. Is that why you hate Caruso/Kelly?? Is there a significant other in your life who thinks he's great? 

      He's not really good-looking, you know, at least not to me, and I could care less about his naked behind. Women of my generation were not into buns. What Kelly's character was that was so appealing was low-key, intense and sexually passionate, tough as steel in his job but gentle with friends and tender with a woman, honorable and loyal, loyal, LOYAL. And when he talked to anyone, he was completely focused and he/she had Kelly's complete attention. 


I never once heard him mumble, but then, I was really focused on what he had to say. Maybe you couldn't hear him because you just don't get it? 

     

      From March, 1991:

      Re Herald staff writer Jacquee Petchel's March 11 article, "No health insurance, no hope, " about Carolyn Lamboley, who hanged herself at age 59 because she thought that Jackson Memorial Hospital collectors would take her house because she had too many unpaid medical bills after a mugging, which left her unable to work: This story gave considerable substance to a terror that many middle-aged -- or "aging, " as your story said -- women experience every day.

      In fact, several of my friends told me that they thought of me in particular when they read the story because I'm 57, I was mugged though unhurt, and if I lost my job I would lose my health insurance, and if I were disabled, I couldn't work.

      To my mind the operative word here is "divorced." Divorced women such as Ms. Lamboley make up what I call "the new poor." Stripped of any security, any health protection, anyone to care for us if we are hurt, we surely will constitute another tax burden for society by the end of this century. 
  

      From January, 1989:

      I lost a temporary job because I worked for someone who didn't like the way I smelled after lunch (and a smoke). So as you suggest, workers already are being denied jobs if they smoke. The young woman who caused my dismissal, securely married for the moment, has no idea what it is like to be divorced, middle-aged, unemployed, frightened of the future or addicted. And she doesn't care. If we give such people the power to prevent people like me from doing even menial secretarial work, we may succeed in clearing the air a bit but the cost to our freedoms and tolerance for others' failings will be immeasurable.

The Race To Save Greyhounds

    Proposed legislation that would allow video gambling terminals – low rent slot machines – at Florida pari-mutuels beyond Broward and Miami-Dade counties drew a pointed response from animal activists, particular those opposed to greyhound racing.  Kathy Pelton, an activist from Cooper City, sent me this:

      Once again the slot issue has surfaced and is being proposed as away to prop up the dying dog track industry around Florida. 

      Unfortunately, the slot machines are legally linked to dog racing and the dogs must race in order to have the slots.

      Before giving the O.K. to the slots, the public needs to be aware of a few facts:  many puppies are simply "culled" when they look like they will not be winners.

      If they make it to the tracks, many suffer severe injuries, such as, broken backs, crushed skulls, seizures, etc. and need to be euthanized as a result of their injuries.

      Finally, at the end of their short careers, if they are not lucky enough to be adopted, many are often
put down.  For these three reasons alone, and there are many more, people should be opposed to installing slots at dog tracks around Florida.