JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Currently most people found guilty of committing a sex crime have to register on the sex offender registry for the rest of their life. Whether they were found guilty of public indecency or committed rape, sex offenders are lumped together.

Missouri lawmakers want to change that.

On Tuesday, the House passed a bill that would allow sex offenders to petition to get their name off the list after a certain number of years. Those convicted of lesser sex offenses like fondling, public indecency or possession of child pornography could petition to get off the list in five years.

Those convicted of moderate crimes like having sexual contact with minors could petition to get off the list in 10 years. And those convicted of rape and other violent sexual crimes could petition to get off the list in 25 years.

To get off the list, a mental health professional would have to decide that person is not likely to reoffend and those accused of the worst sex crimes with a high likelihood to reoffend would never get off the list.

Supporters say it would give those who commit minor sex crimes the chance to turn their life around and lessen the burden on Missouri deputies, who currently watch over more than 14,000 sex offenders.

“If we were able to make sure we could watch the people who are more apt to repeat, then it would be more man hours spent doing that rather than trying to make sure everybody’s registering just because,”  said Capt. Mark Brock, Buchanan County Sheriff’s Department.

Others disagree, saying parents have the right to know who is around their children.

“I think the public would be very upset because they want to know who is living in their neighborhood,” Joyce Estes, child advocate, said. “Are there sex offenders around here? Are there sex offenders around my child’s school? They need to know that.”

The new law would only list the most violent sex offenders on the online registry, and juveniles would no longer have to register.

The bill now goes to the Senate for consideration.

This video will not auto start allow 60 seconds or so before you press play.

This was an interesting piece, I was asked many general questions, and the piece was then tailored to fit what was needed for the pocket park story. My interview only covered a small amount of information on pocket parks.

Nevertheless I have faced some of the pitfalls of residency restrictions but not in the traditional sense. It’s not that I wasn’t allowed to live somewhere. It was discovery. Sometimes by management sometimes by neighbors in the end some horrific things took place. The truth is because of the age of the original case (23 years) many of the restrictions do not apply to me. To add to this I was never convicted of the charge. This is reflected by the fact that I have no felony on my record to this very day.

 It doesn’t make this piece any less positive I think the reporter did a fine job in getting her point across without damning those who are required to register and those who are unconstitutionally required to register. It is interesting, when you are involved in the full scope of an editorial how the context can be askew in the final rendering. After working in the video production field, take what you see on television with a grain of salt.

To hammer this point home there were a few misquotes. I never said I was in support of the registry as it stands today, even in the case of dangerous pedophiles. What I said was I had no love for people who would harm a child, having suffered an abuse in my own childhood. I think we can develop ways to monitor individuals who are truly a danger to children and a public registry is not one of them. I also never stated that the teenage girl was 16 in fact she was a few years younger.

I did like the fact that the end of the piece they quoted some very good statistics, especially that there had been no significant rise in sex crimes since 1983, though I believe the CG posted 1985. What is curious is, if there hasn’t been significant rise or decline in sexual assaults then what has our registry really done? Some might say it’s held the status quo I disagree I think without the registry we would have the same statistic. If our registry was effective we would see a decline in assaults. As I rethink it at the rate people are being placed on the registry it would have been a significant decline.

First let me comment on the above picture. This snapshot is from the Post-Star.com winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize (which makes it even funnier) the site which ran the story that follows. I don’t know when I’ve laughed harder it was one of those deep chuckles, as I realize the ramifications of the social faux pas. I hope you found it is funny as I did. Everybody makes mistakes this was certainly one of them.

Judge strikes down Warren County sex offender residence restrictions.

Raised On the Registry

(Washington, DC, May 1, 2013) – Harsh public registration laws often punish youth sex offenders for life and do little to protect public safety, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. A web of federal and state laws apply to people under 18 who have committed any of a wide range of sex offenses, from the very serious, like rape, to the relatively innocuous, such as public nudity.

The 111-page report, “Raised on the Registry: The Irreparable Harm of Placing Children on Sex Offender Registries in the US,” details the harm public registration laws cause for youth sex offenders. The laws, which can apply for decades or even a lifetime and are layered on top of time in prison or juvenile detention, require placing offenders’ personal information on online registries, often making them targets for harassment, humiliation, and even violence. The laws also severely restrict where, and with whom, youth sex offenders may live, work, attend school, or even spend time.

“Of course anyone responsible for a sexual assault should be held accountable,” said Nicole Pittman, Soros Senior Justice Advocacy Fellow at Human Rights Watch and author of the report. “But punishment should fit both the offense and the offender, and placing children who commit sex offenses on a public registry – often for life – can cause more harm than good.”

States and the federal government should exempt people who commit sex offenses when they are under age 18 from public registration laws because the laws violate youth offenders’ basic rights, Human Rights Watch said. Available research indicates that youth sex offenders are among the least likely to reoffend.

During 16 months of investigation, Human Rights Watch interviewed 281 youth sex offenders, whose median age at offense was 15, across 20 states, as well as hundreds of offenders’ family members, defense attorneys, prosecutors, judges, law enforcement officials, experts on the topic, and victims of child-on-child sexual assault.

“I’m a ghost,” said “Dominic G.,” of San Antonio, Texas, who was required to register for an offense he committed when he was 13. “I can’t put my name on a lease, I never receive mail. No one cares if I am alive. In fact, I think they would prefer me dead.”

Throughout the United States, youth sex offenders must comply with a complex array of legal requirements that permeate virtually every aspect of their lives. Under registration laws, they must register with law enforcement, providing their name, home address, place of employment, school address, a current photograph, and other personal information. Under community notification laws, the police make this information accessible to the public, typically via the Internet.

And under residency restriction laws, youth sex offenders are prohibited from living within a designated distance – typically 500 to 2,500 feet – of places where children gather, such as schools, playgrounds, parks, and even bus stops.

There are no comprehensive statistics for the number of people under 18 in the US who are subject to these registration laws, because the national statistics generally do not separate youth sex offenders from others. Each state, US territory, and federally recognized Indian Tribe has its own set of sex offender laws, which can vary considerably, and a number of federal laws also contain requirements affecting youth sex offenders.

In 2011, the last year for which there are complete statistics, the total number of sex offenders nationally was 747,000.

The majority of youth sex offenders interviewed by Human Rights Watch were placed on a registry between 2007 and 2011, but since some state registration laws have been in place for nearly two decades, large numbers of people in the US who began registering as children are now well into adulthood. Their offenses can range from heinous crimes like rape, to consensual sex between children, to relatively innocuous actions like public nudity.

“Many people assume that anyone listed on the sex offender registry must be a rapist or a pedophile,” Pittman said. “But most states spread the net much more widely.”

The report documents the numerous ways in which youth sex offenders are harmed by registration, community notification, and residency restriction laws. Youth sex offenders are stigmatized and publicly humiliated, often causing them to become depressed and even suicidal. They may become targets of harassment and vigilante violence.

Barred from spending time near a school, much less in one, they often struggle to continue their education. Many have a hard time finding – and keeping – a job, or a home. And if they miss a deadline to register, youth sex offenders can find themselves in prison, often for lengthy terms.

Sex offender laws are designed to protect communities from sex offenses by helping police monitor past offenders. But including youth sex offenders on registries assumes that they are highly likely to reoffend, which is not the case. Numerous studies estimate the recidivism rate among children who commit sexual offenses to be between 4 and 10 percent, compared with a 13 percent rate for adult sex offenders and a national rate of 45 percent for all crimes.

The laws further assume that children are essentially younger versions of adults. However, psychological and neuroscientific research confirms that children, including teenagers, act more irrationally and immaturely than adults and should not be held to the same standard of culpability. Likewise, research indicates that children are more likely to respond to rehabilitation and treatment.

Furthermore, requiring a wide range of sex offenders to register overburdens law enforcement with large numbers of people to monitor, undifferentiated by the public safety threat they pose.

States and the federal government should exempt youth sex offenders from both registration and community notification requirements, Human Rights Watch said. Short of a full exemption, states should remove all youth sex offenders from registration schemes that are not specifically tailored to take account of the nature of their offense, the risk they pose – if any – to public safety, their particular developmental and cognitive characteristics, their needs for treatment, and their potential for rehabilitation.

“Painting all sex offenders with the same broad brush stymies law enforcement’s attempts to focus on the most dangerous offenders and defeats what every parent knows about how children act and how they mature,” Pittman said. “Exempting youth from harsh registration laws would both respect their rights and ability to change and improve public safety.”

“Raised on the Registry: The Irreparable Harm of Placing Children on Sex Offender Registries in the US” is available at:
http://hrw.org/node/115179

For more Human Rights Watch reporting on US domestic policy, please visit:
http://www.hrw.org/en/united-states/us-program

For more information, please contact:
In Philadelphia, Nicole Pittman (English): +1-215-520-7092; or pittman@hrw.org

In Cleveland, Alison Parker (English): +1-917-535-9796 (mobile); or parkera@hrw.org
In New York, Maria McFarland (English, Spanish): +1-212-216-1846; or +1-917-535-2816 (mobile); or mcfarlm@hrw.org

The following are quotes from youth sex offenders and others interviewed by Human Rights Watch or contained in documents Human Rights Watch reviewed. Names of registered youth sex offenders and their family members have been abbreviated or replaced with pseudonyms to protect their privacy. 

“I live in a general sense of hopelessness, and combat suicidal thoughts almost daily due to the life sentence [registration] and punishment of being a registrant. The stigma and shame will never fully go away, people will always remember.”
– Christian W., who was required to register as a sex offender for an offense committed at age 14. Tulsa, Oklahoma.

“Under the law at the time, he was looking at being put on the public registry when he turned 18. His picture, address and information on the Web…. He just couldn’t bear it.”
– Julia L., mother of Nathan L., who was convicted of a sex offense at 12 and committed suicide at 17. Grand Rapids, Michigan.

“Everyone in the community knew he was on the sex offender registry, it didn’t matter to them that he was removed…. [T]he damage was already done. You can’t un-ring the bell.”
– Elizabeth M., mother of Noah M., who was convicted of a sex offense at 12 and committed suicide at 17, after being removed from the registry in Michigan. Flint, Michigan.

“Suicide [among children placed on sex offender registries] is a possibility … even predictable.”
– David S. Prescott, a social worker and expert on treatment strategies for youth sex offenders.

“A member of the community made flyers that said ‘Beware – Sex Offender in the Neighborhood.’ The flyers, with my grade school picture, offense, and address, were posted all over the place.”
– Nicholas T., placed on the registry at age 16. Portland, Oregon.

“A few months after [Max] went on the registry the local newspaper ran a Halloween story entitled ‘Know where the Monsters are Hiding,’ warning families to beware of the registered sex offenders in the neighborhood when taking their little ones out to go trick-or-treating. The article listed all the sex offenders in our town. Max’s name and address was listed.”
– Bruce, father of a youth sex offender who started registering at 10. Weatherford, Texas.

“The police always expect you are the worst of the worst sex offenders and so they treat you that way. Most of them look down on you as if you are the scum of the earth.”
– Elijah B., placed on the registry at age 16. Houston, Texas.

“My son’s life was ruined before he even turned 18 years old. Due to the burden of registration my son dropped out of school, he is afraid to leave the house, and he cannot get a job interview. He has not committed any new crimes yet this is holding him back from becoming a good member of society.”
– Tony K., father of a child placed on the registry at 17. Kansas City, Missouri.

“Once while attempting to register my address, a police officer refused to give me the paperwork and instead stated, ‘We’re just taking your kind out back and shooting them.’”
– Maya R., placed on the registry for an offense committed at age 10. Howell, Michigan.

“It makes people very angry. My brother, who looks like me, was once harassed and nearly beaten to death by a drunk neighbor who thought he was me.”
– Isaac E., who started registering at 12. Spokane, Washington.

“One time a man from one of those cars yelled ‘child molester’ at me.” A week later several bullets were fired from a car driving by. “The bullets went through the living room window as my family and me watched T.V.”
– Camilo F., registrant since age 14. Gainesville, Florida.

“I was in the [school] parking lot and this truck drove by and started throwing beer bottles at me. I had to run inside. They yelled, ‘Get out of our school, you child molester! I wish I could kill you!’”
– Joshua G., placed on the registry for an offense committed at age 12. Dallas, Texas.

“Neighbors harassed our family. We later found out that one of the neighbors shot our family dog.”
– Jasmine A., mother of Zachary S., who has been on the registry since age 11. Dallas, Texas.

“For sex offenders, our mistake is forever available to the world to see. There is no redemption, no forgiveness. You are never done serving your time. There is never a chance for a fresh start. You are finished. I wish I was executed, because my life is basically over.”
– Austin S., who started registering at age 14. Denham Springs, Louisiana.

“My ten years of registration was supposed to end on September 27, 2012. It is now 2013 and I am still on the state website and all those other registration sites. I feel like it will never end.”
– Diego G., placed on the registry at age 10. Houston, Texas.

“Because of sex offender restrictions my family had to be divided up. I could not live with children. My father stayed in our house with my younger brother. My mother and me moved in with my grandparents two hours away.”
– Sebastian S., youth sex offender who started registering at age 10. Laredo, Texas.

“I worry about my two little children, ages 4 and 2, having to live in a publicly identified house and having to pay this lifelong price for something that happened years before they were born. I want to be involved in their lives but I also want them to be able to live free to be who they are without having to carry such a burden.”
– Jerry M., who started registering at 11. Wilmington, Delaware.

“With parents often the targets of blame for the sins of their children, parents of sex offenders can experience just as much fear, shame, and paranoia as their children.”
– David Prescott, a social worker and expert on treatment strategies for youth sex offenders.

“I have found a few places to rent but as soon as we move in the police and neighbors harass us until we get evicted. They keep us homeless. I am banned from living in a homeless shelter.”
– Aaron I., Florida registrant since age 15. Palm Beach, Florida.

“I get hired and fired from so many jobs. I can usually keep a job for a few weeks until the employer’s name and address goes up on the sex offender registry [because registrants must provide this information]. Employers say it’s ‘bad for business’ to keep me on.”
– Elijah B., placed on the registry at 16. Houston, Texas.

“Employment is difficult. I have to support my wife and kids. I estimate that between January to April 2012 I have applied for 250 positions.”
– Joshua G., placed on the registry for an offense committed at age 12. Dallas, Texas.

“I have to look at a map before I walk anywhere. I can be arrested if I am walking anywhere near a school or park.”
– Blake G., a registrant for an offense committed at age 15. Citrus, Florida.

“These fees are associated with the registrant wherever he goes for the rest of his life. They are forever a tax on his life.”
– Ethan Ashley, attorney for James O., a youth sex offender.

“The most recent laws dilute the effectiveness of the registry as a public safety tool, by flooding it with thousands of low risk offenders like children, the vast majority of whom will never commit another sex offense.”
– Detective Bob Shilling, a former chief detective in charge of the Seattle Sex Crimes Unit responsible for making home visits to registered sex offenders.

“We cast the net widely to make sure we got all the sex offenders … it turns out that really only a small percentage of people convicted of sex offenses pose a true danger to the public.”
– Ray Allen, a former Texas legislator and former chairman of the Texas House Corrections Committee – who once helped push tougher sex offender registration bills into law – admitting that he and his colleagues went too far.

“[O]n many state sex-offender web sites, you can find juveniles’ photos, names and addresses, and in some cases their birth dates and maps to their homes, alongside those of pedophiles and adult rapists.”
– Brenda V. Smith, a law professor and the director of the National Institute of Corrections Project on Addressing Prison Rape at American University’s Washington College of Law.

Follow Up

CNN) — More than 20,000 confidential Boy Scout documents will be released Thursday identifying more than 1,000 leaders and volunteers banned from the group after being accused of sexual or inappropriate conduct with boys.

The public release of the Scouts’ 1,247 “ineligible volunteer files” from 1965 to 1985 will not contain the identities of the boy victims and witnesses. The national files are being distributed with the approval of the Oregon Supreme Court by a law firm that won an $18.5 million judgment in 2010 against the Boy Scouts in a case where a Scoutmaster sexually abused a boy.

Wayne Perry, president of Boy Scouts of America, said the group is deeply committed to youth protection, but he acknowledged that in some cases, the organization’s response to allegations of abuse by volunteers “were plainly insufficient, inappropriate or wrong.”

“Where those involved in Scouting failed to protect, or worse, inflicted harm on children, we extend our deepest and sincere apologies to victims and their families,” Perry said in a statement issued Wednesday evening. “While it is difficult to understand or explain individuals’ actions from many decades ago, today Scouting is a leader among youth-serving organizations in preventing child abuse.”

Police: Couple hosted strip club, abused kids

Scouts president: We’re sorry for abuse

Boy Scouts battle sex scandal

Some abuse of Boy Scouts never reported

The Boy Scouts opposed the release of the internal records and said their confidentiality has encouraged prompt reporting of questionable behavior and privacy for victimized boys and their families.

“While we respect the court, we are still concerned that the release of two decades’ worth of confidential files into public view, even with the redactions indicated, may still negatively impact victims’ privacy and have a chilling effect on the reporting of abuse,” the organization said.

The Scouts also released a September report from a University of Virginia psychiatry professor, Janet Warren, who concluded that the system “has functioned well in keeping many unfit adults out of Scouting.”

But the attorneys representing victims in several lawsuits against the Scouts say the group hid evidence from the public and police and that the so-called “perversion files” offer insight into what they deem a serious problem in the organization.

The secrecy protected more than 1,000 suspected child molesters, said the attorneys, who will publicly release the documents during a news conference in a downtown Portland hotel. The attorneys are also seeking the release of post-1985 files from the Boy Scouts.

Victim to Sandusky: ‘Because of you, I trust no one’

The files will show that the expelled Scout leaders and volunteers — all men — “are sociopathic geniuses,” said attorney Kelly Clark of Portland, who has reviewed the 20,000 pages and is among the attorneys releasing the papers Thursday.

“They fool everybody,” he said. “And then they are able to coerce, convince or threaten these kids to stay silent. And you see that play out over and over again in the files.”

Clark said he represents more than 100 men who as children were in the Boy Scouts, and he estimates that more than 50% of his clients have drug or alcohol problems. At least three of them have committed suicide, he said.

Tim Kosnoff, an attorney in Seattle, said the abuse allegedly inflicted on the men as boys “has a corrosive effect” in which trust, relationship and sexuality issues develop with adulthood.

One former Boy Scout represented by Kosnoff, Keith Early, joined the group at 12, recruited by an assistant Scoutmaster who was a married firefighter with three children and led Scout meetings in a church in Washington state.

Early, now 18, was sexually abused by the Scout leader while helping build a Boy Scout camp on his 42-acre ranch, he said in an interview with CNN. The assistant Scoutmaster was convicted of abusing Early and another boy and is now serving a prison sentence of 10 years to life.

“I felt like I was all alone,” Early said. “Just thinking about it makes me angry … because how could you do that to somebody? How could you bring yourself to do that to somebody who is so innocent and has done nothing wrong?”

Ex-Peace Corps volunteer gets 15 years for abuse

The number of files started each year ranged from 25 to 75 at a time when about 5 million Scouts and volunteers were active, according to Warren’s report. In most cases, “police, courts and public were aware of the information in the files,” and 58% “included information known to the public.”

There were “a small number of files where an alleged offender was allowed back into Scouting after offending,” often after psychiatric treatment, “those cases were extraordinarily rare,” wrote Warren, who was an expert witness for the Boy Scouts during the court case.

Tim Hale, a Santa Barbara, California, attorney who’s representing allegedly abused Scouts who are now adults, said the released documents could provide information about possible pedophiles.

“We’re talking about hundreds, if not thousands, of unidentified men who should be registered sex offenders who are roaming free in society, free to volunteer with other youth organizations, to work at schools and that sort of thing,” Hale said.

The Boy Scouts disputes that characterization of their files.

In a September 20 statement released by the Boy Scouts, Warren rebutted the characterization that the documents were “secret files of hidden abuse” by pedophiles.

“The files show a significant amount of public knowledge of the offenders and their unlawful acts. For example, over 60% of the files being made available to the public include some kind of public information. These public domain sources included newspaper articles, police reports, criminal justice records, and records of civil litigation. The majority of men in the files were arrested at some point in their lives for a sex crime,” Warren wrote.

Scouts study says kids safer with them than at home

The files are also “very limited in their ability to answer important research questions about sexual abuse,” she said.

“While some have attempted to categorize these files as a ‘treasure trove’ of information about pedophiles and their actions, that simply is not the case,” Warren said. “These files tell us precisely what researchers already knew, and have known for many years: some small number of men will use a position of trust and access to young people to pursue illegal sexual gratification. This is a sad reality that has been with us throughout human history.”

The Boy Scouts say they have improved their youth protection policies the past decade and have initiated such practices as third-party, computerized background checks on all new adult volunteers. Also, at least two adults are present at all scouting activities, the group said.

The Scouts, founded by congressional charter in 1910, instituted character reference checks for Scoutmasters in 1911 and, by the 1920s, began using an ineligible volunteers list deemed not having “the moral, emotional or character values for membership,” the group said.

Opinion: What Scout abuse scandal teaches us

In June, the Oregon Supreme Court upheld a lower-court decision to release the documents as requested by media outlets.

“The court had discretion to order, on good cause shown, the release of those documents subject to the redaction of names set out in the exhibits to protect victims of child sexual abuse and reporters of child sexual abuse from embarrassment, retaliation or other harm,” the state Supreme Court said in its order. “The court in this case properly exercised that authority.”

The media companies seeking the release of the files were the Associated Press, The Oregonian newspaper in Portland, Oregon Public Broadcasting, KGW (a CNN affiliate), The New York Times and Courthouse News Service.

Those media outlets intervened in a 2010 lawsuit in Oregon that resulted in the largest judgment against the Scouts in a molestation case.

That year, an Oregon jury found the Boy Scouts liable for the sexual abuse of a 12-year-old boy more than 25 years earlier, returning a verdict of $18.5 million in punitive damages.

Catholic bishop convicted of shielding abuser

The plaintiff, Kerry Lewis, then 38, allowed his name to be used publicly during the trial, according to his attorneys. He was among six men suing the Boy Scouts over allegations of sexual abuse.

Lewis’ attorney, Clark, produced documents during the six-week trial that he said were part of an archive of previously secret Boy Scout files chronicling decades of abuse of boys.

Clark said that when his clients were boys during the 1980s, the Boy Scouts knew that at least one of them had been abused by a former assistant Scoutmaster. At the time of the 2010 trial, that former assistant Scoutmaster was a 53-year-old convicted sex offender released from prison in 2005 and paroled until 2013.

Clark also alleged that though the Scout leader was removed, he was allowed to stay on as a volunteer and the abuse continued. In 1983, the assistant Scoutmaster told troop leaders he abused 17 Scouts, according to plaintiff’s attorneys.

In its verdict, the jury held the Boy Scouts of America 60% negligent; the Cascade Pacific Council, which oversees Scouting activities in the region, 15% negligent; and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 25% negligent.

The church has sponsored a number of Boy Scout troops, including the one to which the plaintiff belonged. A lawyer representing the church said then that the verdict had no impact on the church, because it settled the case out of court more than a year earlier.

(CNN) — A sex abuse support group called on the Boy Scouts of America to oust any official still with the organization who was involved in covering up child sex crimes.

The demand by the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests was in reaction to a Los Angeles Times story detailing previously sealed files that it said showed scouting officials “failed to report hundreds of alleged child molesters to police and often hid the allegations from parents and the public.”

Some abuse of Boy Scouts never reported

The 1,600 “ineligible volunteer” files from 1970 to 1991 reviewed by the Times were obtained through a 1992 lawsuit against the Boy Scouts, the newspaper reported Sunday. The “perversion files” were a blacklist of alleged sexual molesters, it said.

L.A. Times reporter on sexual abuse cover-up in Boy Scouts of America

Although the Scouts learned of most of the abuse allegations after they were reported to authorities, the organization learned about more than 500 instances from boys, parents, staff members or anonymous tips, the paper said.

“In about 400 of those cases — 80% — there is no record of Scouting officials reporting the allegations to police,” the Times reported. “In more than 100 of the cases, officials actively sought to conceal the alleged abuse or allowed the suspects to hide it.”

“Here’s the next step in the Boy Scouts child sex abuse and cover up scandal: Every Scout official who knew of or suspected or concealed these heinous crimes should be ousted and, if possible, prosecuted for failure to report possible child sex crimes to law enforcement,” SNAP Director David Clohessy said.

The files reviewed by the Times were “from approximately 40 years ago, when the BSA served approximately 5 million young people each year,” Boy Scouts spokesman Deron Smith said in a statement Monday.

“We have always cooperated fully (with) law enforcement, and now require our members to report even suspicion of abuse directly to local law enforcement,” Smith said.

Oregon Supreme Court orders release of once-secret Boy Scout files

The Boy Scouts “continuously enhanced its multi-tiered policies and procedures, which now include background checks, comprehensive training programs, and safety policies,” Smith said. The organization’s current education and training programs to protect children from abuse “are among the best in the youth-serving community,” he said.

“It’s not enough to say ‘we’re doing better these days,’ ” Clohessy said. “Scout officials deceived parents, police and the public about child molesters in the past. How can we believe them when they claim now that they’ve stopped?”

Prosecutors should look at the files “for men who might still be pursued criminally for committing, causing and concealing devastating child sex crimes,” Clohessy said.

“The Boy Scouts of America believes that one instance of abuse is far too many,” Smith said. “We regret there have been times when despite the BSA’s best efforts to protect children, Scouts were abused, and for that we are very sorry and extend our deepest sympathies to victims.”

The Turner Report: Internet sex stings are paying off.

(The following post is my column from last week’s Newton County News)

At first, when Diamond Police officer Jim Murray began his successful string of Internet sex stings, I wondered about the wisdom of this project. Why should Murray be bringing perverts from Michigan or Illinois into Diamond. Let them stay where they are and never darken our streets.

I have changed my mind since the arrests he has had in recent months, have included numerous offenders from this area.

If you are not familiar with Murray’s project, it works like this: Murray poses as a 13-year-old girl and has no trouble finding adults wanting to violate children. He never brings up the subject of sex, but it does not take long for these men to do so.

I wrote several weeks ago in this column about Gary Reed Blankenship of Neosho, the former O’Sullivan Industries official who is appealing his conviction (at taxpayer expense) for attempting to solicit someone he thought was a minor.

Last week, the Missouri Southern District Court of Appeals upheld the conviction of another of Murray’s targets, Billy Joe Ward of Joplin.

The court rejected Billy Joe Ward’s contention that he was entrapped by Murray. Ward was found guilty June 22, 2006, by a Newton County jury on charges of enticement of a child and attempted statutory sodomy and was sentenced to four years on each count to be served consecutively.

According to court records, during an internet conversation Ward attempted to set up a sexual encounter with a 13-year-old girl named Ashley. Ashley was actually Murray. When Ward arrived at the pre-arranged meeting place, he was arrested. The following account of Ward’s arrest was included in the court’s opinion:

In January 2006, Officer Murray was conducting an investigation. He was asked what precipitated the investigation. He answered that he had been advised there was the possibility “a subject” was trying to entice or meet young girls by way of the internet or in person; that the focal point of the investigation was defendant.
Detective Murray found an online profile for defendant under the screen name “Winterwolf772000.” The profile included defendant’s real name, address, telephone number, and picture. It stated his age as 30. Detective Murray established an online profile for a fictitious 13-year-old named Ashley. He established a Yahoo ID for her as “ashleyanne1938.” The profile did not give Ashley’s age. (Detective Murray, speaking as Ashley, explained, “It makes it more convenient for me to tell my age in the first chat.”) The profile stated that Ashley was a single female. It listed her occupation as “student.” Her hobby was “hanging out at the Joplin mall.”
After establishing Ashley’s profile, Detective Murray, as Ashley, requested that defendant add Ashley to his instant messaging and sent an instant message (“IM”) to defendant. The next day defendant and Ashley began exchanging messages. Defendant asked Ashley how old she was. Ashley told him she was 13.
After Ashley told defendant she was 13, defendant replied that he was 32; that she was “way too young” for him. Defendant asked, “Are you a cop?” He was told “no.” Defendant told Ashley that the minimum age for him was 18. Defendant nevertheless told Ashley to “IM me later or call me,” and again asked her name. He asked where she lived. Ashley answered, “Diamond.” Defendant continued the exchange. He asked if Ashley had a way to Joplin. Ashley answered that she might have a way to get there Friday after school; that she could ask a friend to take her.
Ashley contacted defendant later and told him a friend would take her to Joplin; that they went to the mall a lot and shopped. Defendant responded to Ashley’s message. He asked where she was. Ashley replied, “At home. I played hooky today. Shhh. Don’t tell.” Defendant asked Ashley to call him. He gave her his telephone number. Ashley told defendant her mother had just come in and asked if he would “be on in an hour.” Ashley told defendant her mother would be going to Neosho; that she could call then. Defendant told her, “Call me. I need to hear your voice.”(FN2)
Defendant continued the exchange with Ashley. He asked why she chose him. Ashley told him because he lived in Joplin and had a sexy picture on his profile; that it appeared he did not have clothes on in the picture. She concluded the statement with “LOL” which Detective Murray said meant “laughing out loud.” Defendant replied, “And you liked that. You know, I could get in real trouble if we got caught. And you don’t mind that I am older?” Ashley answered, “Don’t tell my mom. Okay?”
Defendant told Ashley that he got off work at one or two a.m. He asked if Ashley could come see him then. Ashley told him to let her think about how she could work that out. The meeting place was to be a truck stop in Joplin. Detective Murray contacted Jasper County law enforcement authorities who, along with a female decoy arranged by Murray, waited at the truck stop from about 1:30 a.m. until 2:30 a.m., but defendant never appeared.
The next evening, about 7:35 p.m., defendant contacted Ashley by e-mail. He told Ashley he had gotten off work late the night before and asked if they could meet right then at the truck stop. Defendant again asked, “You ain’t no cop, are you? If I smell police, I’m out of there.”

The talk became more graphic as it continued and eventually a rendezvous was arranged

Murray contacted a female police officer to act as decoy at the truck stop. He told her to wear a red ball cap. Murray had defendant’s photograph and defendant’s Yahoo profile. Murray told the court and jury:

I arrived at 9:30, right at 9:30, and saw [defendant] sitting at a table inside [the truck stop] on the south — on the west side of [the truck stop], that area, and he got up and went into the restaurant area and looked around, and came back and sat down at the table.

The decoy arrived. She walked from the east side of the truck stop and went to the door she had been told to use. About two minutes later, defendant got up and went to the door where the decoy had gone outside. Detective Murray followed defendant outside and intercepted him before he reached the woman decoy. Defendant acknowledged that Ashley told him she was 13 years old; that his e-mail address was the one Ashley had communicated with.

The appeals court ruled that Ward was not entrapped by Murray.

It is sad that society has a need for police officers to do such things, but fortunately this area has a policeman in Murray who has been able to get these perverts off the streets.

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Court rules state sex offender registry unconstitutional

By Maureen Hayden CNHI Statehouse Bureau

INDIANAPOLIS — A federal court appeals ruling may push state legislators into finding a fix for some long-standing problems with Indiana’s sex and violent offender registry.

On Tuesday, a federal appeals court ruled the state’s registry was unconstitutional because it violated the due process rights of ex-offenders in the registry who have no way to correct mistaken information.

The registry is a publicly accessible database that contains personal information, including the photographs and addresses of sex and violent offenders who live in Indiana.

The case was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana for David Lee Schepers, a 50-year-old Pike County man who was convicted of two sex offenses: rape in 1987 and two counts of child exploitation in 2006.

Schepers argued he was mistakenly classified as a “sexually violent predator” by the Indiana Department of Correction, which maintains the registry along with Indiana Sheriff’s Association. Schepers also argued that the registry erroneously lists two rape convictions for him, instead of one.

In its ruling, the appeals noted the DOC allows currently incarcerated sex offenders to challenge pending registry information, but does not give sex offenders who’d already been released from prison the same opportunity.

“The policy provides no process whatsoever to an entire class of registrants — those who are not incarcerated,” and is therefore “constitutionally insufficient,” Circuit Judge Diane Wood wrote for a unanimous three-judge panel.

Ken Falk, legal director of the ACLU of Indiana, told the Reuters news service that he was “very happy” with Tuesday’s decision.

Falk said the state’s sex offender registry is plagued with errors. “There are examples of people who are being labeled as sex offenders who are not, and cannot get their names off the registry,” Falk said. “That is a stigma that follows you forever.”

In making its ruling Tuesday, the appeals court said the state would benefit by developing procedures to correct registry errors: “Erroneously labeling an offender a sexually violent predator imposes unnecessary monitoring costs on state law enforcement and reduces the efficacy of the registry in providing accurate information to the public,” the ruling said.

A legislative summer study committee has already started to take a look at the state’s sex offender registry, prompted in part by concerns that Indiana is out of compliance with a federal law that requires states to adopt strict standards for registering sex offenders and monitoring their whereabouts.

State Rep. Greg Steuerwald, R-Avon, an attorney who chairs the study committee, said Tuesday’s court ruling illustrates the challenges involved in maintaining a registry that provides accurate information to the public about the whereabouts of sex offenders.

“It sounds simple, but it’s extremely complicated,” Steuerwald said.

Another state Rep. Scott Reske, D-Pendleton, who coauthored legislation that created the registry, said the efficiency of the registry is decreased if county sheriff departments, which are responsible for its oversight, aren’t given the proper funds.

“The (Madison County) Sheriff’s Department is strapped. They haven’t been given the adequate financial resources to enforce or ensure its accuracy,” Reske said, who also serves as a reserve sheriff’s deputy.

The state’s sex offender registry has been plagued by issues of inaccuracy and other problems.

In 2009, the state Supreme Court ruled in favor of a sex offender who argued that he shouldn’t be required to register as a sex offender because he committed his crime before the registry was created in 1994.

That ruling applied to hundreds of other offenders whose names were added to the registry retroactively, but county sheriffs have interpreted the ruling differently. Some of those offenders’ names were removed, while others remain on the registry but are no longer required to report where they live. That means old addresses remain on the registry, with no indication if the offender still lives there — or if someone else now lives at that address.

Maureen Hayden covers the Statehouse for the CNHI newspapers in Indiana. She can be reached at maureen.hayden@indianamediagroup.com.