Friends of Justice

“Making a mild criticism of sex offender registries looked like it could have hurt a Massachusetts judge in her bid to serve on the state’s Supreme Judicial Court. But on Wednesday the Governor’s Council, an eight-member elected body responsible for approving judicial nominees, voted unanimously in favor of Superior Court Judge Kimberly Budd’s nomination to serve as an associate justice.”

Read the article by Elizabeth Nolan Brown in Reason.

“Parents, it’s time to panic: Kids who venture outside to play Pokémon Go are going to end up in the clutches of sex offenders, unless we do something pointless, political and pathetic.

“We must fearmonger!”

Read the article by NCRJ Director Emily Horowitz in the New York Post.

What’s the most common age of sex-offenders?

It’s not a trick question, but unless you follow this stuff closely you’ll almost certainly answer wrong.

In fact, most people are shocked to learn that the most common age of people charged with a sex offense isn’t a creepy 39, or 51.

It’s 14.

Read the article by Lenore Skenazy in the New York Post.

“The Turner case exemplifies a problematic pattern in American policymaking. The case, similar to other sensationalized instances of leniency for sexual assault, has animated calls for harsher punishments, mandatory minimums and removing judicial discretion. All of these law-and-order responses, coming particularly from the left, continue a tradition in the United States of channeling efforts to address sexual violence into demands for punishment. Far from being progressive, however, this strategy contributes to the expansion of the carceral state, which is ineffective at reducing crime, incapable of healing victims, and devastating for those caught in its web. A more substantively progressive and feminist strategy for addressing these issues is needed in order to draw the connection between sexual violence and material inequality.”

Read the article by Sarah Cate in Common Dreams.

“So-called Romeo offenders, convicted of sex with an underage girlfriend or boyfriend, exist side by side with rapists. There is no consideration as to whether a molestation occurred within a family — and thus, experts say, is statistically unlikely to reoccur outside it — or was committed by a predator snatching an unknown child off the street.

“Across the country, even offenders whose risk approaches zero can remain on the list.”

Read the article by Eric Dexheimer in the Austin American-Statesman.

July 1997: State Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, a former schoolteacher and proponent of the state’s strict 1995 Ashley’s Laws for sex offenders, attends a conference in Bellevue, Wash., about sex offender registries. She begins her speech by noting that “putting the modern sex offender into the traditional criminal justice system is usually as successful as keeping a snake in a shoebox.”

Shapiro continues: “Sex offenders are a very unique type of criminal. I like to say they have three very unique characteristics: They are the least likely to be cured; they are the most likely to reoffend; and they prey on the most innocent members of our society.” She cites no evidence.

Read the article by Eric Dexheimer in the Austin-American Statesman.

Rick Meyer/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

“But I realize now that many of my clients would choose to take on more jail time, more fees — anything to avoid being labeled a sex offender for life. That’s because our current sex offender registration laws apply an unbending and inhumane one-size-fits-all approach that does not prevent future sex crimes and in fact makes us all less safe.”

Read the article by Rachel Marshall at vox.com.