The United States Attorney General, William Barr, on March 26th sent a memo to the Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), encouraging the BOP to explore the option of sending inmates home on home confinement rather than keeping them incarcerated in facilities where they have greater exposure to Coronavirus.
The memo contains a list of 6 bulleted items for the BOP to consider when weighing whether to keep an inmate housed in prison, vs sending them home. The last bullet says, “Some offenses, such as sex offenses, will render an inmate ineligible for home detention.”
We need to take action to correct the government’s perception on the risk and recidivism rates of people deemed “sex offenders”. It is entirely irrational for this class of person to be precluded from MOST programs because of an inaccurate perceived risk to public safety.
If FAC would also include a factual rebuttal that We could email to Mr Barr and adding our own thoughts…I would do that in a heartbeat…
I like ex offenders better then the term sex offender for life. Once a person has that toxic label… he deserves to come away from it if not re-offending!!!
Laurie Trybon
Yes ex offender is better but what other criminals have a label after they have done there time and paid there dues. None I can think of . Any label at all is simply to degrade and humiliate. This country was supposed to be based on a higher standard than that. This only puts the leaders of this country on the same level as power and money Hungry tyrants of lesser countries. No different than drug smugglers murderers, imprisoning opposition unjustifiedly , and living lavishly while starving the poor.
“Ex offender” is better but “Person Forced to Register” is best. For my specific case, that is the only term that fits actual reality. I expect that is true for most people.
The Registries have made it so I don’t have the first concern about anything that I did or didn’t do in the past. I can’t care. The Registries are great at killing empathy and compassion. So there is no “ex” there. There is certainly no “offender” there.
Plenty of people have offended against me with criminal actions, some quite recently. If those people paid for their crimes, I don’t care where they are right now. I have no right to know where they are living or force them to visit law enforcement offices or whatever. I don’t have a label for them.
Will Allen
I side with you on this. For one thing there are hundreds of thousands that ate on the so called SOR ( to me written out is a vulgar phrase and derogatory like the n word) that are no even sex offenders. If there was never any physical contact ,unless done with the threat of physical harm, there are no victims. With out victims there is no sex offender. just because someone reports something they saw or heard about does not make them a victim. You might be able to call it a social indiscretion but not a sex offense . A sex offense is a physical act. In case some hadn’t noticed. If law makers would just understand that simple thing probably 50% of those on the registry could be removed.
There are way to many people out there that want to consider themselves victims for a number of different reasons when there not. And law enforcement and politicians that want to cash in for money and prominence.
There are several words that got changed somehow but hope you get the point I was trying to make anyhow.
I see the ACLU is admittedly taking credit for this action that AG Barr has initiated. Where is the ACLUs loud voice of objections to the unjustness of this process. It being totally biased and discriminatory and based on false information . Has anyone confronted the ACLU on this. Or would that interfere with there donation base if they were to bring that up.
I just don’t get it. Sex offenders have an extremely low recidivism rate. There is all kinds of proof and yet no one listens. So here we go again with them acting like they are the worst people on the planet. I am tired of everyone thinking that every sex offender is a pedophile. This is ridiculous. Why do none of our lawmakers have a backbone anymore. It’s like they just go with the flow whether they are right or wrong. Why are sex offenders.treated differently than any other felon? Basically what is being said is lets let the sex offenders stay in the prisons and get corona virus because they are not worth saving. Seriously. How can they be more dangerous than murders? We give them probation sometimes. There is something really wrong with our society.
Some people got charged when they where as young as 18, dating an underage girl and still have to register x amount of years later. I feel in certain cases they should let them get of the registration and live a regular life. If you where charged at 18 and you are 45 now with no reoffending you should be left alone not tracked like an animal!
Chris
AND, if they would just give us a chance to prove ourselves. If we are right, we get to go on to become productive citizens. if we are wrong, then lock us up throw away the key. The reason is, they DO know we have a low rate of re-offending but the registry creates jobs, funding, and a false sense of security. Someone(s) way high on the todem pole is/are allowing our supression of freedom.
I use to not buy into conspiracy theories but lately my eyes are being opened to the darkness that is our government.
When I went to court ordered counseling back 25 years ago, I stayed afterwards and had a private conversation with the counselor. I wanted to discuss him speaking on behalf at my next court hearing to get an early termination of probation.
He told me stories of where he would testify on behalf of an accused and deem them no threat to be released from probation early. He said often times the judge would tell him “Once a sex offender, always a sex offender” or depending on the judge, something along those lines.
He said he no longer went to court anymore as it left him feeling like his opinion didn’t count even though the courts were the ones sending him clients.
It depends on the judge. not all are like that. Trust me!!!
I know. Over 20 appeals denied with previous judge. We waited 4 years and the new judge tossed the remainder of my probation. Otherwise I would have had to do 6 more years.
My point was in relation to the decision above how we get treated as the red headed step children most of the time and was just giving an example.
And even when a judge feels for our situations, in the bigger picture, none of them seem to want to make a career ending move and ruling that the registry is what it is. #1 punishment and #2 punishment after the fact . An add on to an existing sentence where we had no say.
If they are not going to accept that, they should at least let us Retro actively appeal our sentences and have a chance for a re-hearing. I would withdraw all of my forced confessions and go to trial. But none of that will happen.
I would rather live next door to a person with a sex offense than a drug dealer and definitely not one with a murder charge. Seeing that most people with a sex charge were young ones with a gf or bf.
Georgann,
What I do not understand is how they can pick and choose which laws, ordinances and rules to make retroactive. I can live 10 feet from a school and they cannot do anything about it but I was put on the registry for life years after my offense.
Also I went from registering 1 times a year to 2 to now 4. And yet I see others on here get monthly visits from law enforcement and I see my check in cop once a year at best .
RSO’S are the COVID-19 of crimes
What is odd is, no one is concerned about people with a past sex offense who made the cut off to not have to register. We forget, there are people who do no have to register. They do not seem to be committing any more or any less new crimes than us.
It has been 30 years since the incident that got me arrested. I never had so much as a traffic ticket before or since. But yet, that one mark on my record, that one moment of time is supposed to define who I am forever?
One place I lived for 13 years and the neighbor did not know about me but was friends with me. She adored me. Then one day all those years later she found out and boy I might as well have just been satan in disguise as far as she was concerned. I suddenly become a different person.
She accused me of lying. Not sure how not telling her my business is lying. I thought she was going to make trouble for me but instead, she let her insecurities affect her so much that, two days later she put her home up for sale. MY GOD what is wrong with people. 13 year living next to her without and incident and then she finds out my “Secret” and she moves? I kind of hoped she moved into a neighborhood with 30 registered people, she probably would have ended up in a mental hospital.
Cherokee Jack, it may be that she was already planning to move and in consulting with a realtor, she discovered your status. It’s a shame she let that one piece of information outweigh the 13 years of neighborly friendship. I’m so sorry!
Yeah what is also weird is, she did prison time for being in possession of prescription pain killers that she did not have prescriptions for. I do not mean one or two pills but boxes and boxes of bottles.
I would have never known nor cared either way but she shared that with me. I told her at the time, it is not what you did in the past, but what you are doing now that matters.
Apparently she did not apply that same mantra to me. Most of the time I talked to her she was drunk out of her mind. I felt sorry for her, she appeared to be 50% underweight and was really concerned about her.
Actually RSO are considered lower then Cannibals.
Everybody who works in the legal system, in any government position, and everybody who has ever dealt with legal system should listen to this podcast:
https://www.wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com/
Anybody who has ever dealt with corrupt people working in our legal system will find some of these stories to be very familiar, especially the episodes on false confessions. States that have private prisons tend to have a lot of corruption like this in the legal system because it’s driven by money.
AMEN!!!
AG Barr, et al., knows the recidivism facts as well as anyone. Like most politicians and bureaucrats, he is spineless and simply has no incentive to stick his neck out for registrants. Imagine the uproar if a single released SO were to commit another sex crime. The same is not true of any other genre of crime, with the possible exception of murder. It is much less risky to simply say “no” independent of facts.
If nothing else, quote this please:
https://www.womenagainstregistry.org/Resources/pdf/rsorp94.pdf
“Recidivism of Sex Offenders Released from Prison in 1994”, 2003 United States Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics – A Study of 9,691 sex offenders released from prisons in 15 states in 1994 and followed for 3 years.
Sex Crime Re-arrest Rate: 5.3%
Sex Crime Re-conviction Rate: 3.5%
This is MUCH lower than all other crime types (except murderers).
That is so true.
He is an idiot and no different than the others who use those they label as “sex offenders” as pawns.
The USA’s untouchables will continue to be the whipping boys for law enforcement and politicians with no regard that they/we are actually human beings with names, families, and we are most certainly NOT ALL ALIKE!
In the days of being so sensitive to groups such as transsexuals which just like sex offenders are an artificially created group YET they have protection as a protected class! How unfair!
We need to take action to correct the government’s perception on the risk and recidivism rates of people deemed “sex offenders”.
Trust that they already know this information. The real problem is that they’ve already spent years brainwashing the public into thinking the worst about everyone with a sexual offense. Even if it’s someone who did teenage sexting and is still carrying the scarlet letter for it.
The PUBLIC would be outraged because they’ve been made to believe every sex offense is the equivalent of what happened to Megan Kanka. I’m sorry to have to say this but it’s true; We will NEVER get the government agencies to stop shitting on people with sex offenses. I’m sad to say that everything FAC and NARSOL are doing is in vain. It’s not about educating the government when they are the ones who did the recidivism studies. It’s the general public who bought into the lies all these years. And now any official who dares to include sex offenders in anything will be committing political suicide. And they ain’t gonna let themselves do that.
Their website https://www.justice.gov/contact-us does not give an email address. But it does give a snail mail address:
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Also, here is the phone number:
Department Comment Line: 202-353-1555
Department of Justice Main Switchboard: 202-514-2000
TTY/ASCII/TDD: 800-877-8339 (or Federal IP Relay Service)
Please everyone, take a few minutes and call (have brief, written comments prepared. Speak calmly, clearly and at a normal pace).
Also, please print out some of these documents (or relevant pages – make sure to include the web addresses of the documents and their titles and their sources).
U.S. Department of Justice – Office of Justice Programs – Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending,Registering, and Tracking
https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21ALLsUNeOH00pbEY&cid=3C4773E7B2C5CFA2&id=3C4773E7B2C5CFA2%2124083&parId=3C4773E7B2C5CFA2%2124069&o=OneUp
Prison Policy.org
https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21AA%2DN0IBaxKIXUf0&cid=3C4773E7B2C5CFA2&id=3C4773E7B2C5CFA2%2124073&parId=3C4773E7B2C5CFA2%2124069&o=OneUp
Yale Law Journal
https://1drv.ms/b/s!AqLPxbLnc0c8gbwG3X2UJn6EeHhoYg?e=qGDOQG
The Washington Post
https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21AI%2DmNkZ9J87%2DUNY&cid=3C4773E7B2C5CFA2&id=3C4773E7B2C5CFA2%2124071&parId=3C4773E7B2C5CFA2%2124069&o=OneUp
Women Against the Registry (This is a collection of links to bona-fide research studies by US States Governments and Universities)
https://1drv.ms/b/s!AqLPxbLnc0c8gbwKNT4xnhTuImE-9A?e=COikCI
PLEASE EVERYONE TAKE ACTION!
“We need to take action to correct the government’s perception on the risk and recidivism rates of people deemed “sex offenders”. I”
What? Do you mean we are not already doing that?
We need to take MORE action or MORE OF US need to take action. There are people, such as myself and our fellow board members that invest 5 hours a day into our advocacy. There are others who don’t give it 5 hours a year. The post is not intended to insult anyone who has been investing time into advocacy, but to appeal to those who have not done as much as they can. While most of us are sitting at home, there’s little excuse to not react to one of our calls to action. It takes less than 5 minutes to make a call or send an email.
Stuff like this needs to continue to be added to the mounting pile of evidence for registration is “not a punishment”.
You know…I have supported AG Barr on most decisions. This one however is not going to be one of them. It is a poor decision for a man of quality and integrity but it shows just how ill informed he is in this matter. His reasoning is based on bias at best . Rethink this Mr.Barr. You can do better.
AG Barr I’m sure knows everything he needs to know. He also knows that the public are idiots and will throw a tantrum if he were to include sex offenders. The public doesn’t care WHAT your offense is/was, they only care about the label “sex offender”.
When you notify us about something like this….IT WOULD BE NICE if you would also include a fact driven rebuttal that we could forward to Mr Barr letting him know of his errors in his advisors…
Another member posted a very comprehensive comment including sources.
David Glorius, if we all give the same type of rebuttal, they are often ignored. That happened recently with Mark Inch, the head of the Florida Department of Corrections. As a result of prompting by a criminal justice reform group in Florida, many of us sent emails to Mr. Inch that were nothing more than clones of one another. Mr. Inch picked up on that fact quickly and said our request would therefore not be considered.
This FAC website gives out a lot of data that can be used. If nothing else, you can at least state that the re-offense rate is in the single digits for registrants, taken collectively. Just saying anything would help, and you can always pick up ideas from reading other people’s posts at this site.
Of course sex offenders are excluded, pffft why would we ever get such a break you know! It’s ridiculous to think we could ever benefit from any such ideas.
Whatever happened to the term “All men are created equal”? Oh right it’s from the Declaration of Independence a totally worthless document just like the Constitution. They are only meaningful to “normal” people. We are meant to die. No one cares. Hurricanes come but get you stay outside,but stay at least 1000ft. Oh your old and incapacitated but your a sex offender go die on the street not in our “normal” people nursing home or hospice.
You are SO right… Truly sad… Sad indeed… NO DIGNITY WHATSOEVER
If sex offenders have to register, then anyone with any type of crime should register. If sex offenders have to take polygraphs, then anyone with any type of crime should take polygraphs. Why should sex offenders be the only ones punished!!!
Plus, I blame the news media for false recidivism rates of sex offenders. The media is to blame for the mass hysteria of sex offenders being labeled the worst people. Any headline in our favor doesn’t exist. But headlines against us blare across the media night and day!!!!
Dustin,
Not sure why I am the only one who keeps getting corrected, but they are right when they correct me. We are NOT sex offenders unless we are still offending.
That would be like calling someone with a murder 40 years ago a Murdering offender.
If they want to call us ex-offenders that is ok I guess but they won’t do that because that doesn’t scare the public and makes us sound less scary.
So sex offenders minus the “S” becomes ex-offenders.
The government says we are – Sex offenders
We along with a whole lot of other people and ministries and even some lawyers see us as just People. Albeit, about 1/2 the rights that are afforded to non offenders.