about 4 years ago - 16 comments
Finally some good news on the criminal justice reform front. Mike Lawlor, co-chair of the Judiciary Committee, is also on the State Risk Assessment Board, which is charged with – you guessed it – assessing the risk of the state’s registered sex offenders. Lawlor wants to streamline the registry so as to provide more relevant…
about 4 years ago - 2 comments
In light of yesterday’s prison tour, Judiciary Committee co-chair Mike Lawlor has issued a statement asking Gov. Rell to provide more resources to the DOC. He renews his disbelief over Comm’r Lantz’s assertions before the judiciary committee that they have the prison population under control. Yesterday I toured the Willard-Cybulski Correctional Institution in Enfield at…
about 4 years ago - 4 comments
Colin McEnroe weighs in on the Pollitt case, with this entry on his blog, in which he dubs the governor the “American Idol” governor: Her entire involvement in this case appears to stem from her usual finger-in-the-wind desire to gratify the biggest, loudest, most obvious set of clamoring voices. If this woman possesses a set…
about 4 years ago - 13 comments
Connecticut was fast becoming a scary place to live. As yesterday’s post shows, residents of a small section of Southbury, a suburban town in Connecticut, were becoming increasingly concerned and paranoid with the news that one of their own was about to take in her brother – a convicted sexual offender – upon his release…
about 4 years ago - No comments
Columbus Day edition! From the Columbus Dispatch: Challenges to residency restrictions and “sex offender ghettos”. Mark Bennett has a copy of Phil Russell’s plea agreement. Robert Guest takes an in-depth look at written plea agreements and what you have to agree to give up. CDW discusses Catholics usually being disqualified from sitting on death juries…
about 4 years ago - 16 comments
(click on image for full size) In my post last night about Danbury’s desire to expel all sex offenders from its shelter, a helpful readers points to this NYT article about a homeless sex offender in Georgia who could be facing life in prison for failing to register. The offender, Larry W. Moore Jr. of…
about 4 years ago - 8 comments
Anyone who has been following sex offender issues across the country knows that it is an extremely difficult task balancing the safety of the community and the human rights of sex offenders. But this is just plain ridiculous. Danbury apparently has one of only three or four shelters throughout the state that do not have…
about 4 years ago - 4 comments
Here are some stories from last week to make this Monday morning more palatable: Southern Crim Law has compiled advice to new criminal defense attorneys from several bloggers in the form of responses to questions every newbie might have. In Florida, sex offender status will be listed on licenses. May it please the Court, Scott…
about 4 years ago - 5 comments
This [pdf] is a map of Tippecanoe County, IN, where “John Doe” is asking to be found not to be a sex offender anymore and also challenging the legality of residency restrictions [previous coverage here]. I know next to nothing about the geography of Indiana and even less about Tippecanoe County, but doesn’t it look…
about 4 years ago - 1 comment
A judge in Kentucky has ruled that residency restrictions cannot be applied to sex offenders that were convicted before the law went into effect. Jefferson District Judge Donald Armstrong Jr. dismissed the cases of three Louisville men charged with living too close to schools and a youth treatment center, ruling that the law is unconstitutional…
about 4 years ago
IIRC, the two studies cited were performed around 2004, but I’d have to look it up to be certain. There was another study out of Arkansas–deeply flawed–that often gets cited in favor of restrictions. But the Arkansas study found no connection between offenses committed and registrants’ homes. They basically concluded that since registrants lived within a certain radius of schools and such, it must be because children were present. The study made no effort to control for available housing and the like.
The most recent examination of Megan’s Law was done by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, out of the UK. The pdf is here:
Click here [.pdf] (Edited by admin for better appearance.)
It addresses the utter lack of US research on the matter of effectiveness, and cites research suggesting the current laws actually deter reporting.
There are a few pieces of research out there, most from before 2005, on the effectiveness of community notification. I’ll see what I can pull from my files later today.
about 4 years ago
The non-wrapping of URLs in the comments is bugging me. I’ll have to find a fix for it. In the meantime, I’m going to edit that, if you don’t mind, so it doesn’t run off into the sidebar like that.
As to your comment, I think the lack of readily available studies on this crucial matter is very telling. There is no scientific basis (as of yet) for this push in favor of residency restrictions. For all we know, they may be utterly useless or counter-productive. I think some defense organization needs to commission a study on this immediately, before it is too late.
about 4 years ago
Thanks for the edit. I haven’t a clue how to make the links shorter!
I have more links. Would you rather I email them to you?
about 4 years ago
If you’d like, sure! Alternatively, I think you can use HTML in the comments.
So the tag would be:
< a href="http://www.google.com" >Google< /a > (without the spaces before and after the < and >
and that would produce:
Google
about 4 years ago
I’ll email ‘em. Considering my level of competence with html matters, it’s probably the safer choice. But…I must be missing it, but can’t find your email on the blog!
about 4 years ago
You know what, you’re absolutely right! I don’t have my e-mail address anywhere! No wonder I haven’t received any spam e-mails lately.
threegenerations at gmail dot com
about 4 years ago
Another interesting piece of information:
Megan’s Law Research
Quote: “This is an ongoing initiative scheduled to last 18 months (3 phases). This project will culminate into the first study of its kind in the USA to assess the empirical efficacy of New Jersey’s Megan’s Law.”
According to the blurb, they’ll be examining arrest records before and after the law’s enactment. Good to see someone is going to look at the numbers but, as the UK study pointed out, it’s almost impossible to isolate the effects of Megan’s Law on recidivism.
(I hope I did the link correctly…)