Working the Beat

Is that a nightstick in your pocket, or...

Nah, the joke is too easy. The reality is disturbing: a police officer in New Jersey was caught masturbating at a Starbucks restaurant. To protect and (self) serve, indeed.

Once again, in case you're keeping score: not on any registry. Meanwhile, let's harass people for not living where they're supposed to, and let's haul out tape measures to find out that someone was living 18 feet closer to a school than they allowed.

Someone please explain to me how being 18 feet closer than 1000 feet puts children at risk. You can't, because it doesn't make sense. Meanwhile, you've got cops distributing child porn and masturbating at restaurants. Tell me, where does the real risk lie?

Wake up.

"Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves.

What is equally true is that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists on."

— Robert Kennedy

A Joke

Stop me if you've heard this one before:

Two police officers, a rabbi, a registered nurse, a nanny and a Boy Scout den leader walk in to a bar get arrested for producing and distributing child porn.

Wait, what?

Yep. In what is being described as one of the largest roundups of its kind in New York City, 71 people were arrested and charged with child pornography. The punchline for this joke, though, is that of all those arrested only one - yes, one - has previously been convicted of raping a child. Another was on bail at the time of his arrest.

Remember, folks: sex offender laws keep children safe.

Many of those arrested are in positions that directly require their backgrounds be checked: A police chief and a police officer, a registered nurse, a nanny, a Boy Scout leader. All of them victimizing children. None of them on any registry.

(Edit: add a paramedic and a little league coach to the list.)

The distribution of previous offenders in this case bears out something that's been repeated often, both here and in countless blogs and studies on the topic: Sex offenders (as a whole) have the lowest recidivism rate of any class of criminal. In this case, 2 out of 71 arrested is 2.8%. But politicians and fear-mongers would have you believe otherwise, and call for even more laws that "get tough" on sex offenders. It's classic misdirection.

The joke here is that all of your tax dollars are going to fund a system of more laws, more restrictions, and more monitoring that does absolutely nothing to make children the slightest bit safer. Are you laughing, yet?

Thought Experiment

A woman is walking alone at night, heading home from an evening with friends. She is slightly drunk. Suddenly, near a dimly-lit area, a man jumps out and attacks her, knocking her to the ground.

Later, the woman goes to the hospital for her injuries, is questioned by police, and evidence is collected. Eventually, she is taken home. For weeks (maybe months) afterwards, she is afraid of the shadows and dimly lit places. At night, she turns on all the lights in the house, and sleeps fitfully, waking at every noise. She is withdrawn, often breaking down into tears and wondering why this happened to her. While most of her friends are sympathetic to what has happened, some people blame her for what happened, saying that she shouldn't have been where she was, or that it happened because she was drunk.

Memories of this encounter force a change in her daily routine, and as a result, she not as outgoing and carefree as she once was. She is always on alert, looking for the next person who might attack her, and has purchased defensive weapons that she either carries with her, or has in her home. Her personal relationships begin to suffer, and eventually, she breaks up with her boyfriend. She begins to have difficulty trusting men, and often feels nervous to the point of a panic attack when she is alone with a man that she doesn't know (for example, in an elevator).

Question 1: Is the woman "damaged for life" by her encounter? Why or why not?

Several months pass, and the police finally catch the man who attacked her. She picks him out of a police lineup, and physical evidence links him to the crime. A thorough investigation shows that the man has never had a history of criminal conduct, and that this assault was an aberration in an otherwise spotless and upstanding life. The man expresses remorse over his actions, and the judge, weighing the options, sentences the man to one year in prison.

Question 2: Was the sentence too "lenient"? Why or why not?

After serving his time in prison, the man is released. He goes on to live a peaceful, productive life, marrying and having children.

Question 3: Should the man be forced to register where he lives with the local police? Why or why not?

Question 4: Did you assume the crime described above was a sexual assault? Why?

Question 5: Do your answers to questions 1-3 change if the crime was a mugging/robbery? Why?

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Food for thought.

Always Believe The Victim

Because victims never make up stories about being raped.

It took a jury less than 30 minutes to decide Sara Ylen is guilty of filing a false felony report and tampering with evidence.

The 38-year-old Lexington woman told police two men broke into her Lexington home and sexually assaulted her Sept. 18, 2012.

Witnesses testified to prior acts of false accusations of sexual assault by Ylen, as well as bruises that appeared to be made out of makeup.

James Grissom served nearly 10 years in prison after being convicted in 2003 of raping Ylen in a Meijer parking lot in 2001.

He was released from prison in November 2012 after the Michigan Supreme Court granted him a new trial because investigators found Ylen had made other unsubstantiated claims of rape.

Given the new evidence and the length of time since the last trial, St. Clair County Prosecutor Mike Wendling asked the case be dismissed. Wendling also asked that Ylen’s current St. Clair County trial be handled by Wayne County because of his office’s relationship with Ylen during the Grissom trial.

http://www.freep.com/article/20131205/NEWS06/312050122/Sara-Ylen-false-report

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Part 2)

"A 12-year-old girl got a series of text messages this summer from her mother's boyfriend, Woodstock [Illinois] police Sgt. Charles "Chip" Amati, according to copies of the messages obtained by the [Chicago] Tribune. One message, punctuated with a text emoticon shaped like a heart, read, "Send me some sexy pictures!"" (Link)

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - the greatest danger to your children isn't a stranger on the Sex Offender registry.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

A lot of justification of the Sex Offender Registry centers around making the community feel safe by letting them know where the danger is. It is, of course, a false sense of security. Recidivism rates (under 10%, the lowest of any category of crime, including murder) have remained virtually unchanged since the 10 years before the sex offender laws came into effect.

Clearly, watching Sex Offenders has had little to no effect in reducing recidivism or preventing new sex crime, for the simple reason that the majority of new sex crime is committed by those who aren't on the Sex Offender Registry.

Which brings me to this interesting news story: Texas police officer accused of rape (link)

The public relies on the Sex Offender Registry and the police to watch Sex Offenders and keep them safe. But, who watches the watchers?

Anniversary

I've been absent from this site for a while, but I plan on posting more after the new year. However, I want to mark the passage of an anniversary today.

Twenty-five years ago this night, two lives intersected, and both were forever changed. Tonight, I sit in memory of that event, when selfish and uncaring actions by myself stole something that can never be returned.

I mark this anniversary this night, as I have every night for the past 24 years, in her memory. I pray that she has found her way back to the peace that I took from her. She forgave me - I cannot forgive myself.