OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND: AN ANALYSIS OF KANSAS V . CRANE AND THE FINE LINE BETWEEN CIVIL AND CRIMINAL SANCTIONS

October 2012:

Abstract:
The social intolerance surrounding repeat sexual offenders has spawned numerous legal remedies through the years including sexual psychopath laws, Megan’s Law, chemical castration, and sexually violent predator (SVP) legislation.

In the past 12 years, several states have implemented what many consider to be the resurrection of the old sexual psychopath laws of the 1930s and 1940s. This newest legal remedy is most often referred to as SVP legislation and allows for the indefinite civil commitment of those offenders who have served their prison sentences but have been determined to be SVPs still.

Based on this legislation, this article analyzes the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court case of Kansas v. Crane , the latest in a series of cases that address an issue that many feel runs dangerously close to crossing the fine line between civil commitment and criminal sanctions. ..Source.. by FRANKLIN T. WILSON

Child Abduction Myths

NCMEC Host: What is the biggest myth about child abductions?

Nancy McBride; The biggest myth surrounding the issue of child safety is that the danger to children is greater from a stranger than from some body they know and this is an issue that we really need to retire, that whole stranger danger message.

It is not effective because kids do not get it, adults do not practice it and if the child is in a situation where they need help, they are surrounded by a sea of strangers, none of whom can help them, if they have been taught never talk to strangers.

The fourth reason why this is a myth is because the danger to children is far greater from somebody they or you as the parent or guardian know than from a random individual. So, we really need to take this safety message and put it in a museum and realize that it is not an effective way to teach kids about safety.

..Source.. by NCMEC

Does Volunteering for Sex Offender Treatment Matter? Using Propensity Score Analysis to Understand the Effects of Volunteerism and Treatment on Recidivism

September 2012:

Abstract:

A common critique of program evaluations of prison-based sex offender treatment holds that the samples inherently show selection bias because the participants typically volunteer for treatment. To address this critique, we used propensity score analysis to assess the influence of volunteerism on treatment effects. We examined recidivism outcomes for a sample of participants who volunteered for treatment, of whom some participated in treatment (n = 161) and some did not (n = 282) and compared these outcomes to the recidivism rate of a matched sample of nonvolunteers for treatment (n = 443).

The primary finding is that offenders who volunteered for treatment did not demonstrate any differences in recidivism rates when matched with and compared to inmates who did not volunteer to participate in treatment. Furthermore, our results revealed that there were a number of significant differences between unmatched volunteers and unmatched nonvolunteers, perhaps most importantly in their risk for future recidivism as measured by the STATIC-99 risk assessment. We discuss study strengths and limitations and present the implications of the findings for policy, practice, and research. ..Source.. by Melissa D. Grady, Daniel Edwards, Carrie Pettus-Davis and Jennifer Abramson

The Price of Prisons: What Incarceration Costs Taxpayers

February 2012:

Staff from Vera’s Center on Sentencing and Corrections and Cost-Benefit Analysis Unit developed a methodology to calculate the taxpayer cost of prisons, including costs outside states’ corrections budgets. Among the 40 states that participated in a survey, the cost of prisons was $39 billion in fiscal year 2010, $5.4 billion more than what their corrections budgets reflected. States’ costs outside their corrections departments ranged from less than 1 percent of total prison costs in Arizona to as much as 34 percent in Connecticut.

The full report provides the taxpayer cost of incarcerating a sentenced adult offender to state prison in 40 states, presents the methodology, and concludes with recommendations about steps policy makers can take to safely rein in these costs. Fact sheets provide details about each of the states that participated in Vera’s survey.

Important note: When calculating savings (or costs) that result from reductions (or increases) in a state’s inmate population, do not use the per-inmate average costs in this report. Instead, use the marginal cost per inmate. The marginal cost is the amount that total correctional costs change when the inmate population changes. Using the average costs in this report to calculate savings or costs because of changes in the prison population will result in overestimates. ..Continued.. by Vera Institute

Sex Offenders: Recidivism & Collateral Consequences

March 2012 New Jersey:

Abstract:

This report examines the efficacy of sex offender registration and notification (SORN) through its influence on sex offender recidivism and collateral consequences. The first study examines the recidivism rates of two samples of sex offenders, those released prior to SORN and a sample released under SORN in New Jersey. It asks whether or not there are distinct risk profiles among sex offenders with regard to their recidivism trajectories, and if these profiles are similar or different for sex offenders pre- and post- SORN. Additional analyses also include an examination of the influence of demographics, substance abuse, mental health issues, treatment history, sex offense incident characteristics, and criminal history on recidivism trajectories. The second study looks at whether the recidivism trajectories post-prison release for post-SORN sex offenders are similar to or different from the recidivism trajectories post-prison release for post-SORN non-sex offenders who are released from prison via parole. It also specifically focuses on whether or not a series of collateral consequences are experienced similarly or differently among these post-SORN sex and post-SORN non-sex offender parolees.

Recidivism data for both studies in this report were obtained through the New Jersey State Police Computerized Criminal History System and the National Crime Information Center’s Interstate Identification Unit. The first study utilizes two samples of sex offenders, and each was provided by the New Jersey Department of Corrections (NJDOC). The pre-SORN group included a random sample of 250 male sex offenders released from prison by the NJDOC during the years 1990-1994, while the post-implementation group utilized the same sampling procedure and size and matched according to relevant demographics (age, race, and criminal history), with the exception that they were released during the years 1995-1999. For the second study, random samples of 247 post-SORN sex offenders and 250 post-SORN non-sex offenders released from prison in New Jersey via parole during 1995-1999 were drawn from the New Jersey Department of Corrections’ databases. The samples in both studies were followed for approximately eight years post-release for assessing recidivism. For both studies, official records of re-arrest for new offenses were employed as the measure of recidivism. Semi-parametric trajectory modeling was also used in both studies to estimate the recidivism trajectories of the pre- and post-SORN releasees, and the recidivism trajectories of the post-SORN sex offender and the non-sex offender releasees.

The first study finds that there are limited observable benefits of SORN regarding sex offender recidivism and general recidivism. With an overall low rate of sex offense recidivism, SORN status (e.g. whether an offender is or is not subject to SORN) failed to predict whether sex offenders would reoffend sexually. The results are consistent with previous research which has argued that sex offenders have relatively low rates of recidivism, typically significantly lower than non-sex offenders. SORN status was also not a significant predictor of which sex offenders would reoffend in general, including non-sexual recidivism. Although sex offenders and non-sex offenders share the experience of collateral consequences, results from the second study reveal that several collateral consequences including not living with friends, living in group facilities, and residential relocation appear to differentially impact sex offenders.

Policy makers and treatment providers should focus their efforts on those sex offenders identified as belonging to the high-risk trajectory with a particular interest in targeting the risk factors related to a high-risk trajectory. A targeted rather than universal application of SORN seems a viable alternative. Ultimately, the two studies in this report suggest that SORN is not likely to be an effective deterrent for sex offender recidivism and may produce an environment with specific collateral consequences that inhibit reintegration efforts post-prison release for sex offenders. ..Source.. by Richard Tewksbury, Ph.D. University of Louisville and Wesley G. Jennings, Ph.D. University of South Florida and Kristen Zgoba, Ph.D. New Jersey Department of Corrections

FBI Releases Annual Crime Statistics from the National Incident-Based Reporting System

December 2012 Statistics:

Today (12-9-2013), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released its second compilation of annual data from the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). The report, NIBRS 2012, presents core tables about incident and offense data submitted by a third of the nation’s law enforcement agencies that participate in the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, as well as a new series of tables with agency-level data. The report also furnishes a series of tables about sex offenses and another new series of tables with data about arrestees.

Note: In 2012 there was 73,998 sex offense incidents (forcible and non forcible), 79,625 sex offenses and same number of victims, and 76,927 offenders identified (missing from table is Unknown Offender numbers). See FBI Table "Incidents, Offenses, Victims, and Known Offenders".

Although NIBRS data are not yet nationally representative and the UCR Program does not estimate offenses for agencies that did not submit NIBRS data, NIBRS 2012 shows the rich, diverse scope of incident-based reporting overall. The 32 core tables present data for 22 offense categories, victims, offenders, relationships, locations, time of day, weapon use, drug and alcohol involvement, and gang involvement. They also distinguish attempted versus completed offenses, as well as the number of clearances by incidents. The agency-level tables (presented by state) show the number of offenses reported by each agency that fully participated in the UCR Program via the NIBRS. The 24 tables about sex offenses provide details—e.g., victim, offender, and victim-to-offender relationship data—not collected elsewhere in the UCR Program for sex offenses.

New to the annual compilation, the arrestees table series covers the demographics of arrestees—e.g., age, sex, and race—as well as noteworthy facts such as the arrestees’ use of weapons, the disposition of juvenile arrestees, and the type of arrest (on-view, taken into custody, or summoned/cited) by arrest offense category.

NIBRS 2012 Highlights

In 2012, a total of 6,115 law enforcement agencies in the nation, representing coverage for over 90 million inhabitants, submitted NIBRS data. This coverage represents 33.4 percent of all law enforcement agencies that participate in the UCR Program. More than half of these reporting agencies (51.9 percent) were located in cities with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants.

Participating NIBRS agencies reported 5,001,060 incidents that involved 5,734,653 offenses, 6,050,049 victims, and 4,556,183 known offenders in 2012. Of the reported offenses, 64.9 percent involved crimes against property (i.e., those crimes in which the object is to obtain money, property, or some other benefit); 23.2 percent involved crimes against persons (i.e., crimes whose victims are always individuals); and 12.0 percent included crimes against society (i.e., typically “victimless crimes” that represent society’s prohibition against engaging in certain types of activity, such as prostitution or gambling).

Through the NIBRS, the UCR Program collects victim data for all reported offenses; the victim of an offense may be an individual, a business, an institution, or society as a whole. In 2012, the nation’s law enforcement agencies that submitted their data via the NIBRS reported 4,044,275 victims who were individuals. Of these, 48.3 percent were male, 50.9 percent were female, and sex was unknown for 0.8 percent. The majority (72.7 percent) were white, 21.0 percent were black, 1.2 percent were Asian/Pacific Islander, and 0.5 percent were American Indian/Alaskan Native. Race was unknown for 4.7 percent of victims. More than 24 percent (24.1) of victims were between the ages of 21 and 30 years of age. Age was unknown for 2.0 percent of victims.

In the NIBRS, the term "known offender" indicates that some aspect of the suspect—such as the age, sex, or race—was identified, not necessarily that the suspect’s identity is known. In addition, an offender can be counted more than once because he or she can be associated with each offense he or she perpetrates in an incident. In 2012, there were 3,971,642 known offenders of offenses reported via the NIBRS. Nearly 33 percent (32.9) of known offenders were between the ages of 16 and 25 years of age. Of all known offenders, 63.0 percent were male, 24.7 percent were female, and gender was unknown for 12.3 percent. The majority (55.4 percent) of known offenders reported in the NIBRS in 2012 were white; 28.1 percent were black, and 1.5 percent were of other races. The race was unknown for 15.1 percent of offenders.

NIBRS data also show the relationship of victims to their offenders for crimes against persons and robbery offenses. However, because the published data do not include persons who were not connected to any unknown offenders, other crimes against property, or crimes against society, the victim total for the relationship table will not add to the total of victims given in other tables. Even so, relationship is another valuable facet of the data collected via the NIBRS.

Agencies that submit NIBRS data can specify one of 44 location types where offenses occur. In 2012, the majority of crimes against persons offenses (63.0 percent) for which location was reported occurred in residences/homes, 11.9 percent happened on highways, roads, alleys, or streets, 4.3 percent happened in schools or colleges, 4.0 percent happened in parking lots or garages, and 2.1 percent took place at bars or nightclubs. The remaining 14.7 percent of crimes against persons offenses occurred at other specified or unknown location designations. ..Continued.. by FBI

Judge bars Static-99R risk tool from SVP trial

12-14-2012 National:

Developers staunchly refused requests to turn over data

For several years now, the developers of the most widely used sex offender risk assessment tool in the world have refused to share their data with independent researchers and statisticians seeking to cross-check the  instrument's methodology.

Now, a Wisconsin judge has ordered the influential Static-99R instrument excluded from a sexually violent predator (SVP) trial, on the grounds that failure to release the data violates a respondent's legal right to due process.

The ruling may be the first time that the Static-99R has been excluded altogether from court. At least one prior court, in New Hampshire, barred an experimental method that is currently popular among government evaluators, in which Static-99R risk estimates are artificially inflated by comparing sex offenders to a specially selected "high-risk" sub-group, a procedure that has not been empirically validated in any published research. 

In the Wisconsin case, the state is seeking to civilly commit Homer Perren Jr. as a sexually dangerous predator. Perren just completed a 10-year prison term for an attempted sexual assault on a child age 16 or under. ...continued... by Karen Franklin, In the News

FBI Releases 2012 Crime Statistics

September 2013:

The FBI estimated that in 2012, the number of violent crimes increased 0.7 percent, according to the figures released today. However, property crimes decreased 0.9 percent, marking the 10th straight year of declines for these offenses, collectively.

The 2012 statistics show that the estimated rate of violent crime was 386.9 offenses per 100,000 inhabitants, and the property crime rate was 2,859.2 offenses per 100,000 inhabitants. While the violent crime rate remained virtually unchanged when compared to the 2011 rate, the property crime rate declined 1.6 percent.

These and additional data are presented in the 2012 edition of the FBI’s annual report Crime in the United States. This publication is a statistical compilation of offense and arrest data reported by law enforcement agencies voluntarily participating in the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program.

The UCR program collects information on crimes reported by law enforcement agencies regarding the violent crimes of murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault as well as the property crimes of burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson. (Although the FBI classifies arson as a property crime, it does not estimate arson data because of variations in the level of participation by the reporting agencies. Consequently, arson is not included in the property crime estimate.) The program also collects arrest data for the offenses listed above, plus 20 offenses that include all other crimes except traffic violations.

A total of 18,290 city, county, state, university and college, tribal, and federal agencies participated in the UCR program in 2012. A summary of the statistics reported by these agencies, which are included in Crime in the United States, 2012, follows:

• In 2012, there were an estimated 1,214,462 violent crimes. The violent crimes of murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, and aggravated assault increased 1.1 percent, 0.2 percent, and 1.1 percent, respectively. However, the estimated number of robbery offenses declined 0.1 percent.
• Nationwide, there were an estimated 8,975,438 property crimes. The estimated number of burglaries declined 3.7 percent in 2012 when compared to the 2011 figure. The estimated number of larceny-thefts remained unchanged, and motor vehicle thefts increased 0.6 percent.
• Collectively, victims of property crimes (excluding arson) suffered losses calculated at $15.5 billion in 2012.
• The FBI estimated that agencies nationwide made about 12.2 million arrests, excluding traffic violations, in 2012. The arrest rate for violent crime was 166.3 per 100,000 inhabitants, and the rate for property crime was 528.1 per 100,000 inhabitants.
• By violent crime offense, the arrest rate for murder and non-negligent manslaughter was 3.5; forcible rape, 5.8; robbery, 33.1; and the aggravated assault, 123.9 per 100,000 inhabitants.
• By property crime offense, the arrest rate for burglary was 90.7; larceny-theft, 411.9; and motor vehicle theft, 21.9. The arrest rate for arson was 3.7 per 100,000 inhabitants.
• In 2012, there were 14,006 law enforcement agencies that reported their staffing levels to the FBI. These agencies reported that, as of October 31, 2012, they collectively employed 670,439 sworn officers and 285,883 civilians, a rate of 3.4 employees per 1,000 inhabitants.

- Full report: Crime in the United States, 2012

..Source..

Post-Conviction DNA Testing and Wrongful Conviction

June 2012:

Executive Summary
Forensic evidence, particularly fingerprints, has been used for more than a century to aid law enforcement investigations. However, only in the past decade has the use of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) testing to include or eliminate suspects and exonerate those convicted in serious crimes become relatively common. DNA evidence is said to be individualizing because of its power to link a person to a criminal incident. And unlike fingerprints, the probability that questioned evidence from a crime scene matches DNA from a known person can be calculated. In past decades, the investigation of serious crimes that led to a conviction typically did not use individualizing forensic biological evidence such as DNA. Thus, it is possible that some individuals convicted in serious person crimes (sexual assault and homicide) would have been eliminated by a forensic analysis more discriminating than what was available at the time. To estimate the rate of such possible wrongful convictions and to identify their predictors, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) in the U.S. Department of Justice funded retrospective DNA testing of physical evidence in cases where there was a conviction of a sexual assault or homicide and physical evidence was retained.

Two states participated in this research. In Arizona, every eligible prisoner was informed about the program and was given the opportunity to request DNA testing of physical evidence. Testing was performed when physical evidence could be located and if a review of the case deemed that evidence to be probative in the conviction. The Arizona site thus provides a case study that can be used to qualitatively evaluate how often a voluntary program leads to detection of wrongful conviction. The results of the Arizona experiment are described in a separate report.

In Virginia, a cohort of 634 cases of sexual assault and/or homicide dating from 1973 to 1987 was discovered to have retained physical evidence. Since most state legislation that requires evidence storage was enacted in the post-DNA era, it is likely that many states have not preserved physical evidence for cases from the pre-DNA era. Therefore, the evidence in the Virginia cases provides a unique opportunity to determine how often DNA testing can be used to identify wrongful convictions. The results can be generalized (with caveats) because the physical evidence was retained for reasons unrelated to the case outcome, and the cases were assigned to the serologist who retained the evidence in a way that did not introduce bias.

Once cases were found to meet the NIJ eligibility requirements (retained physical evidence, conviction of a sexual assault and/or homicide), the evidence was sent to a private lab for DNA analysis. The goal of this DNA testing was to develop a profile from questioned evidence, generally from the crime scene, and compare it to profiles of known persons developed from the original evidence or stored in a database.1 From these comparisons, a determination can be made whether that evidence is indeterminate,2 inculpatory, or exculpatory.3 The Virginia cases, all of which occurred before DNA evidence testing was readily available, can therefore be used to answer a critical policy question: “What proportion of convicted offenders in serious person crimes with retained forensic evidence could be exonerated if that evidence were DNA tested?”

To answer this question, the Urban Institute (UI) conducted a retrospective study using observational data from the Virginia post-conviction DNA analyses to estimate the rate at which defendants are wrongly convicted and to identify case attributes associated with such wrongful convictions. Toward this end, the Virginia data, which were contained in files maintained by the Virginia Department of Forensic Science (DFS), were made available to UI researchers. All files contained information about the pre- and post-conviction forensic facts of the case, including results of the original forensic testing on the physical evidence, as well as results of the contemporary DNA analysis. Additionally, most files contained information about other basic case attributes, such as the charge and jurisdiction of the crime and demographic information about the convicted offender and other known suspects and victims. These data will serve two purposes. ..continued.. by John Roman, Ph.D., Kelly Walsh, Ph.D., Pamela Lachman, Jennifer Yahner

FBI: Child sex offenders turn violent, suicidal

June 2012:

Gray Alan Combs Jr. was shot to death after he threatened Fairfax County police with a sword last month.

Willis E. Coley, 27, of Alexandria, hanged himself in August.

George N. Kiriacon, 50, committed suicide in a truck in New Carrollton.

The common thread among these three men is that all had been charged with child sex crimes shortly before their violent and/or self-destructive actions.

The FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service have documented a disturbing trend in which those confronted with charges of child abuse react by attacking others or harming themselves.

Law enforcement authorities say they are seeing more incidents as police have increased efforts to apprehend those who produce, distribute and view child porn. Over the past 20 years, federal child sex pornography cases have increased 330 percent -- from 481 in 1999 to 2,069 in 2009.

Ronald Hosko, special agent in charge of the FBI Washington Field Office's Criminal Division, said he noticed the phenomenon in 2008, as an inspector for the FBI's Inspection Division, where he reviewed deadly shooting incidents around the country. Subjects pulled a weapon as FBI agents knocked on their doors to ask questions or execute a search warrant, putting the lives of themselves, family members and the agents in danger.

"It's a life-changing event," Hosko said. "At that moment, their world is collapsed around them. And they think the only way out is at the point of a gun."

A new FBI study (pp 8-11) found that in 106 cases where an individual committed suicide after he became aware that he was being investigated, 54 killed themselves within 30 days of being contacted by law enforcement. About half of the sample did not have a prior criminal history.

Combs was wanted for producing child pornography. Coley was two weeks away from being indicted on federal child pornography charges. Kiriacon was found dead a day after the public disclosure that a 15-year-old boy had accused him of abuse.

"This is a different type of suicide. This is a suicide motivated not so much by depression but by desperation," said Dr. Michael Bourke, chief psychologist with the U.S. Marshals Service's Behavioral Analysis Unit. Bourke had been studying this issue after the passage of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act in 2006, which authorized the Marshals Service to track down sex offenders who are unregistered or have violated the terms of their registration.

Many of the suspects seemed to have led normal, responsible lives, experts said. Suddenly, they're facing the shame of being exposed, being ostracized by their family and friends, they're looking at spending a long time behind bars, where it's commonly held that the most reviled inmates are those serving time for child sex abuse.

A 2005 study in the United Kingdom found child sex offenders who had no other criminal records were 183 times more likely to commit suicide than the general population.

This is the actual source: "Suicide and murder in child murderers and child sexual abusers." Pritchard C.; Bagley C.. Source: Journal of Forensic Psychiatry, Volume 12, Number 2, 1 September 2001 , pp. 269-286(18)Found after many hours of searching.

The FBI and the U.S. marshals are refining their tactics for approaching subjects, such as determining if the target has a gun and using a force team to make arrests or serve warrants. ..Source.. by SCOTT MCCABE

Indicators of School Crime and Safety, 2012

June 2013: NCJ 241446

Presents data on crime and safety at school from the perspectives of students, teachers, and principals. This annual report, a joint effort by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), provides detailed statistical information on the nature of crime in schools. This report contains 21 indicators of crime at school from a number of sources, including the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), the School Crime Supplement to the NCVS, the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, the School Survey on Crime and Safety, and the School and Staffing Survey. Topics covered include victimization at school, teacher injury, bullying and cyber-bullying, school conditions, fights, weapons, availability and student use of drugs and alcohol, and student perceptions of personal safety at school.
Highlights:

• Of the 31 student, staff, and nonstudent school associated violent deaths occurring between July 1, 2010, and June 30, 2011, 25 were homicides and 6 were suicides. From July 1, 2010, through June 30, 2011, there were 11 homicides and 3 suicides of school-age youth (ages 5–18) at school.
• In 2011, students ages 12–18 were victims of about 1,246,000 nonfatal victimizations at school, including 648,600 thefts and 597,500 violent victimizations. This was more than the number of nonfatal victimizations that occurred at school in 2010.
• During the 2009–10 school year, 85% of public schools recorded that one or more crime incidents had taken place at school, amounting to an estimated 1.9 million crimes. This translates to a rate of 40 crimes per 1,000 public school students enrolled in 2009–10.
• During the same year, 60% of public schools reported a crime incident that occurred at school to the police, amounting to 689,000 crimes—or 15 crimes per 1,000 public school students enrolled.
• During the 2009–10 school year, 39% of public schools (about 32,300 schools) took at least one serious disciplinary action against a student for specific offenses. Of the 433,800 serious disciplinary actions taken during the 2009–10 school year, 74% were suspensions for 5 days or more, 20% were transfers to specialized schools, and 6% were removals with no services for the remainder of the school year.

..Source.. by Thomas Snyder, NCES, Jennifer Truman, Ph.D., BJS

The Price of Prisons: What Incarceration Costs Taxpayers

February 2012:

Staff from Vera’s Center on Sentencing and Corrections and Cost-Benefit Analysis Unit developed a methodology to calculate the taxpayer cost of prisons, including costs outside states’ corrections budgets. Among the 40 states that participated in a survey, the cost of prisons was $39 billion in fiscal year 2010, $5.4 billion more than what their corrections budgets reflected. States’ costs outside their corrections departments ranged from less than 1 percent of total prison costs in Arizona to as much as 34 percent in Connecticut. The full report provides the taxpayer cost of incarcerating a sentenced adult offender to state prison in 40 states, presents the methodology, and concludes with recommendations about steps policy makers can take to safely rein in these costs. Fact sheets provide details about each of the states that participated in Vera’s survey. ..Source.. by Vera Institute

Download(s)

The Price of Prisons report

The Price of Prisons: 40 state fact sheets

Report to Congress: Federal Child Pornography Offenses

December 2012:

This comprehensive report examines federal sentencing policy in child pornography cases. It focuses primarily on non-production offenses under USSG §2G2.2. One chapter also analyzes production of child pornography offenses under USSG §2G2.1. This report is the result of a multi-year study by the Commission and complements and expands upon the Commission's 2009 report, The History of the Child Pornography Guidelines.

FULL REPORT
TITLE PAGE
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...continued... by U.S. Sentencing Commission

Press Release: HERE

On Emotion, Juvenile Sex Offenders, and Mandatory Registration

2012:

Abstract:
It is both unremarkable and true that juveniles are different from adults. United States Supreme Court decisions over the past decade have highlighted the extent of the differences. Yet, played out against the backdrop of sex offender registration laws, the conversation takes an abrupt turn. Rather than differentiating between adult and juvenile offenders, federal sex offender registration laws require juveniles convicted of certain sex offenses to face the same onerous registration and notification burdens as their adult counterparts.

Tracking the shift in sex offender registration models from “likely to reoffend” to “conviction-based" assessment, this article argues that “conviction-based” assessment is an unstable proposition when applied to child offenders for two fundamental reasons. First, juvenile offenders lack intentionality and purpose that adult offenders possess, thereby diminishing the value that a conviction carries. Further, and more importantly, studies reveal that the commission of juvenile sex crimes does not portend future predatory behavior, raising the question of the purpose of registration for this class of offenders.

Ultimately, the legislative push to require juvenile sex offenders to suffer serious register and notification burdens demonstrates convincingly the pitfall that impacts the entire debate over sex offender registration. Emotional rhetoric controls the legislative agenda, even in the face of compelling arguments to the contrary. ..Source.. by Catherine L. Carpenter, Southwestern Law School

The Truth, The Half-Truth, and Nothing Like The Truth: Reconceptualizing False Allegations of Rape

July 2012:

Abstract:
There is a longstanding dispute between criminal justice professionals on the one hand and researchers and commentators on the other regarding the prevalence of false allegations of rape. Prevalence, however, is contingent upon definition. If the various protagonists’ definitions of a ‘false allegation’ do not coincide, it is virtually inevitable that their estimates will diverge. Drawing on original empirical data from in-depth research interviews conducted with police and Crown Prosecutors, this article explores the following important but much-neglected question: When criminal justice professionals tell us that false allegations of rape are common, what precisely are they talking about? What ‘counts’ as a false allegation? ..Source.. by Candida L. Saunders

Registered Sex Offenders in Florida Communities Increased to Over 23,000; Transient Offenders Present Challenges

12-21-2012 Florida:

at a glance
Since 2005, the number of registered sex offenders residing in Florida communities has increased by 28%, while the number of absconded offenders has continued to decline.

Florida is 1 of 15 states substantially compliant with federal requirements and county sheriffs’ offices report compliance with statutorily required registration and public notification activities. However, local practices vary and some sheriffs could better coordinate with the Department of Corrections so as to not duplicate address verification efforts.

Almost 25% of sex offenders are unable to obtain identification cards because they lack the needed documentation or money. State and local agencies have developed a stopgap measure, providing sex offenders with a letter that acknowledges that they attempted to obtain identification.

Monitoring homeless sex offenders is problematic as it is time-consuming to verify their location and provide required public notice. In addition, some offenders may claim a transient address to avoid legal requirements and restrictions.

Approximately 1,100 registered sex offenders were minors at the time of their offense. While many youthful offenders are subject to registration requirements, Florida law provides some exemptions for “Romeo and Juliet” cases and some other juvenile offenders. ..Source.. by The Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability (OPPAGA)

Violent Crime Against Youth, 1994–2010

December 2012, NCJ 240106:

Introduction
From 1994 to 2010, the overall rate of serious violent crime against youth declined by 77%, from 61.9 victimizations per 1,000 youth ages 12 to 17 in 1994 to 14.0 per 1,000 in 2010 (figure 1). Among serious violent crimes against youth, the rate of rape or sexual assault declined by 68%, robbery declined by 77%, and aggravated assault declined by 80% (table 2). The overall rate of simple assault declined by 83% during the same period, from 125.1 victimizations per 1,000 youth in 1994 to 21.6 per 1,000 in 2010. Declines in simple assault against youth were similar from 1994 to 2002 (down 61%) and from 2002 to 2010 (down 56%).

Declines in serious violent crime were greater from 1994 to 2002 (down 69%) than from 2002 to 2010 (down 27%). The data in this report were developed from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ (BJS) National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which annually collects information on nonfatal victimizations reported and not reported to the police against persons age 12 or older from a nationally representative sample of U.S. households. Homicide data in this report are from the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR). ..Source.. by Nicole White, Ph.D., and Janet L. Lauritsen, Ph.D., University of Missouri - St. Louis

Ten Percent of Underage Sex Crime Victims Meet Assailant Online

December 2012 South Korea:

One in 10 children and teens who suffered sexual assault last year was the victim of an offender they had met online.

A survey by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family of 2,180 underage victims and 1,682 sex offenders in 2011 shows that 51.7 percent of the victims were sexually abused by members of their immediate family, 14.5 percent by other relatives, and 9.1 percent by neighbors or acquaintances.

Some 9.5 percent of the victims met the offenders via Internet chat.

"As more youngsters have easy access to online chat, the risk of exposure to sexual assault and prostitution is increasing," said Ko Ui-soo from the ministry's sexual crimes division. "Parents and teachers should call their attention to the dangers of online chat with adults they don't know."

Many of the sex offenders were unemployed (30.7 percent) or blue-collar workers (25.5 percent), but some 10 percent were office workers (8.2 percent) and professionals (2.5 percent). ..Source.. by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family

APA rejects "hebephilia," last standing of three novel sexual disorders

12-3-2012 National:

To hear government experts on the witness stand in civil detention trials in recent months, the novel diagnosis of "hebephilia" was a fait accompli, just awaiting its formal acceptance into the upcoming fifth edition of the influential Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).

They were flat-out wrong.

In a stunning blow to psychology's burgeoning sex offender processing industry, the Board of Trustees of the American Psychiatric Association rejected the proposed diagnosis outright, not even relegating it to an appendix as meriting further study, its proponents' fall-back position.

The rejection follows the failure of two other sexual disorders proposed by the DSM-5's paraphilias subworkgroup. These were paraphilic coercive disorder (or a proclivity toward rape) and hypersexuality, an inherently hard-to-define construct that introduced the committee members' value judgments as to how much sex is within acceptable limits.

After abandoning those two disorders, the subworkgroup clung tenaciously to a whittled-down version of its proposed expansion of pedophilia to cover sexual attraction to early pubescent youngsters (generally in the age range of 11-14), ignoring widespread opposition from both within and outside of ....continued... by Karen Franklin, In the News

Do Sex Offender Registries Make Us Less Safe?

June 2012:

Abstract:
State legislatures enacted sex offender registration and notification (SORN) laws with the explicit and exclusive aim of reducing sex offender recidivism. The general idea that we ought to “regulate” released offenders — of any type — to reduce the likelihood of their returning to crime is an attractive one, at least in theory.

Criminal recidivism generates significant social harm. Nevertheless, despite their now-widespread use, SORN laws became the norm without any systematic study of their consequences. Admittedly, the logic underlying these laws seems at first difficult to gainsay: if a known sex offender poses even a small risk to a potential new victim, how can it hurt if the police are keeping better tabs on that offender or if the offender’s neighbors are made aware that he is a threat so they can take measures to reduce their own risk of victimization? But this question and its implied answer presume that SORN laws have no influence whatever on whether released sex offenders opt to pursue new victims in the first place.

If the enforcement of notification laws imposes significant financial, social, and psychological costs on released sex offenders, as an avalanche of evidence suggests it does, then notification may in fact be criminogenic. The result may well be many more attempted attacks by convicted sex offenders and therefore higher recidivism rates on the whole, even if every individual attack attempted becomes somewhat less likely to succeed. ..Source.. by J.J. Prescott, University of Michigan Law School