Internet stings: Does the fantasy defense hold water?

http://forensicpsychologist.blogspot.com/2012/03/internet-stings-does-fantasy-defense.html

Monday, March 5, 2012

Internet stings: Does the fantasy defense hold water?

Scott Ritter, the former U.N. weapons inspector, was among the most vocal in insisting that the Bush administration fabricated its claims of “weapons of mass destruction” in order to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Ritter didn’t receive much public gratitude for his efforts to avert a costly and destructive war. Instead, he lost his career and his life gradually unraveled. Sinking deeper into depression, he fled into chat rooms, where he arranged rendezvous with adult women willing to watch him masturbate. At first, the meetings took place in cars or out-of-the-way places. Later, he switched to using a webcam, according to a profile by Matt Bai in the New York Times Magazine.

Then came that fateful day in February 2009 on which, in a Yahoo chat room for adults, he conversed with “Emily.” Although she told him she was 15, Emily was actually a small-town police officer, trolling for sexual predators online.

After doing his usual thing of masturbating in front of the webcam, Ritter announced he was signing off to take a shower.

Not so fast, retorted the officer:

"U know ur in a lot of trouble, don’t you? I’m a undercover police officer. U need to call me ASAP."

"Nah," Ritter typed back. "Your not 15. Yahoo is for 18 and over. It’s all fantasy. No crime."

"I have your phone number and I will be getting your IP address from Yahoo and your carrier," the officer responded. "We can do this 2 ways call me and you can turn yourself in at a latter date or I’ll get a warrant for you and come pick you up."

Ritter turned himself in. At his trial, he testified that he never for a moment believed he was talking to a minor; he assumed he was chatting with a bored housewife pretending to be 15.

Unfortunately for Ritter, jurors were told of his two prior arrests in similar cases, for which he was never prosecuted. In both cases, undercover police had lured him into meetings with fictional teenage girls. His claim that he knew that he was actually talking to undercover police in both cases likely strained the credulity of jurors, who convicted him in the case of “Emily.”

After hearing testimony from a government evaluator who called Ritter a sexually violent predator, the judge sentenced him late last year to a prison term of 18 months to five and a half years.

Fantasy defense succeeds in Queensland

Had it not been for his two earlier cases, Ritter’s defense might not have been all that far-fetched. After all, it worked for Darryl Plumridge of Queensland, Australia back in 2007.

Just like Ritter, Plumridge engaged in online chat with an undercover police officer posing as a teenage girl, in this case a 13-year-old with the screen name of “Erin Princess Baby.”

His defense was simple, according to a forthcoming article in Psychiatry, Psychology and Law: “He claimed that he knew the person with whom he was communicating was an older male and he was simply role playing.”

At trial, he testified that the covert police operative inadvertently supplied various content cues as to his true age and gender. For example, he signed off by saying "see ya later alligator," something no self-respecting 21st-century girl would say. Even more tellingly, he accidentally said he ("she") was at the office when "she" was supposed to be home from school, a glaring error that "she" immediately corrected.

Plumridge was acquitted. 

Study: Can people see through online deception?

Criminologist Robyn Lincoln of Bond University and forensic psychologist Ian R. Coyle, a Gold Coast practitioner and associate professor of law who testified in the case, decided to conduct a study to test the plausibility of Plumridge’s defense. Given the flat nature of internet communication, lacking in physical or tonal cues, can people actually deduce the true age and gender of someone who is pretending to be someone else?

Bottom line? Yes, they often can.

Lincoln and Coyle randomly assigned 46 students as either "deceivers" or "receivers." Each volunteer participant was met off-site and individually led to one of several private study locations, to avoid encounters with other participants. Deceivers were instructed to play the role of a 13-year-old girl. Receivers, in contrast, were misled to believe that they might be talking with individuals ranging in age from young children to the elderly. The pairs then chatted with each other for 30 minutes.

Despite the deceivers' best efforts, the majority of receivers were able to correctly identify the age and gender of the person with whom they were chatting, within a five-year bandwidth. None of the receivers believed they were talking to someone under the age of 16.

Thus, the claims of Plumridge and Ritter, that they knew they were chatting with adults but ignored that reality for purposes of fantasy role-playing, appear to have some scientific basis.

As law enforcement officers increasingly partake in trolling the internet for sexual predators in their spare time, it is probably only a matter of time before the Bond University study is introduced into court as evidence.

The study, "No one Knows you’re a Dog on the Internet: Implications for Proactive Police Investigation of Sexual Offenders," has been accepted for publication in Psychiatry, Psychology and Law. Correspondence may be directed to the first author, Robyn Lincoln.

The Question that So Desperately Needs to be Asked...

Are All Men Pedophiles? By Kendra Holliday | February 23, 2012

This girl is 14 years old.

Are All Men Pedophiles?, a documentary premiering next week at The Queens World Film Festival 2012 in New York City, is already creating a lot of furious discussion by people who have not yet seen it.
Good! This topic sorely needs discussion.

So often sensitive or taboo subjects are avoided, and it's better to be open and honest about them so we can gain a better understanding of ourselves and those around us.

Let's start with a simple question: Are we, as a society, sexually attracted to youth? Yes or no?

What is youth?
Youth: the appearance, freshness, vigor, spirit, etc., characteristic of one who is young.

the time of being young; early life: His youth was spent on the farm.

the period of life from puberty to the attainment of full growth; adolescence.

the first or early period of anything.
Have you ever been attracted to a woman, only to find out later she is 13 years old?

Therefore, this film asks: what is the difference between you and pedophiles?
From the film's synopsis:

We live in a society that condemns pedophiles, though biological instinct and world cultures throughout history suggest that an attraction to adolescents is as natural as it is unavoidable. The fashion industry on the one hand sexualizes ever-younger girls while those who act on these instincts are reviled. The apparent hypocrisy at the heart of society forces the question: What do we mean when we talk about Pedophilia? Are All Men Pedophiles?

Before we go any further, let's define pedophile. In clinical terms, a pedophile is a person at least 16 years of age and five years older than the pre-pubescent youth they are sexually attracted to. If a 10 year old is attracted to another 10 year old, does that make them a pedophile? According to this definition, no.
The legal definition varies widely - the age of consent around the world is anywhere from 9 years old to 20 years old. The Western standard is 18 years old.
If a person is 24 and is in a relationship with a 16 yr old, is that wrong? What about 30 and 16? 40 and 16?
The film argues that girls mature sooner than boys, and for thousands of years our life expectancy was 33 so it made sense to reproduce as soon as the woman came of age (began menses)

These days, girls are developing into women earlier (11-14 instead of 16), PLUS we are living longer are a species. This shift is significant.

What's more, we live in a society that is not conducive to emotional maturity, which is admittedly a serious issue. What's the reasoning behind the genital shaving fad? Many people say they do it because it feels more comfortable for them, but are they talking physical or mental?
Let's Talk Numbers
If sex with children is wrong, why does it figure prominently in so many religions? Mary was 12 or 15 when she was divinely fucked by God. Throughout history, the average age for a female's first birth was 13.

In 2012, the Jewish bar mitzvah still marks the age of 13 when a boy becomes a man - really?! They haven't thought to adjust this ceremony to take place at 16 or 18?

How old were you when you first started thinking about sex? I was 9 years old. How old were you when you started experimenting with sex? 16? 14? 12?
I was 9 years old. And it wasn't consensual. I was molested by my older adopted brother. He molested my younger siblings as well. According to the clinical definition, that makes him a pedophile. I told my parents, and they had to fight the courts to get him removed from the home. They had to prove to the legal system they were unfit parents in order to keep their younger children safe. It took months, and they locked him in the basement at night to keep him away from us. He moved away and I don't have contact with him, but I know he married a woman with daughters. I wonder if he chose to molest his stepdaughters.
Many argue that to use the word "pedophilia" is misleading, that technically most people are attracted to teeangers, which makes them a hebephiliac. Does that make it better? How come the word "hebephilia" is not widely used by the media? This film attempts to mirror society and analyze the truths behind the hateful, fear-inducing stories.
MOST people are technically a mix of hebephile and teleiophile (an attraction to adults). This is clearly evident in the fact that the average fashion model is 16 years old. The girl in the movie poster above is 14 years old.

We have priests and other positions of power who get away with molesting children for years. What about all the female teachers who have been busted for fucking their students?
In the film, they interview a female pedophile. Her graphic story was difficult for me to hear. Another shocking moment is when they interview a woman who was repeatedly raped as a child by her father and a neighbor (you can read a similar story here, featuring Quanitta Underwood and her sisters).
They also interview a man who is out about being a pedophilia. During that interview it is noted that pedophilia is an orientation, not an action. The man interviewed claims to be a non-exclusive, non-offending pedophile, meaning he admits he is sexually attracted to children, but is also attracted to adults and does not act on his attraction to children. He believes a lot of people are attracted to kids; they just won't dare to acknowledge it.

In this article "Who Is Hurting the Children? The Political Psychology of Pedophilia in American Society," by Dr. Michael Bader, he poses the question:

Why does the act of sexually molesting a child seem to command our collective outrage and desire for vengeance, while acts of ignoring, humiliating, or starving that same child do not? After all, no one goes to jail for the crime of "narcissistically using your child as an extension of yourself," or "demeaning your children because you feel demeaned," or "being so drunk and depressed that your children have to raise themselves."

I think that our defense of childhood virtue and innocence is so extreme because it bundles with it all of the ways that we, ourselves, feel--but cannot acknowledge feeling--afraid, rejected, unfairly taken advantage of, betrayed, subordinated to the self-interests of others, and helpless. At the deepest level of our psyches, we cannot compassionately face our own innocent victimization and, instead, project it onto the picture we create of the sexually virtuous and naive child.

What about the weird sexualization of girls in our society, such as making sweatpants for little girls with words like "JUICY" on the butt? Makeup for kids grooms them for future sexual advertising. And of course, there's the whole beauty pageants for little girls racket.

A friend of mine went to jail for a year because his friend sent him a topless pic of his girlfriend. Turns out the gf was 16 and he got busted for possession of child porn. When he got out of jail he found a job, but was fired two weeks later when the employer found out about his criminal record.

Chid porn is people under age 18 who are portrayed in sexual, lewd conduct erotic behavior. So wouldn't that mean that many magazine ads are child porn?
Hell, after doing research for this review, I hope no one digs into my Google search history and gets the wrong idea.

The film's world premiere is Friday, March 2, 9:30pm at the Queens World Film Festival, Jackson Heights Cinema, New York City. Buy tickets here.

How Much is Wisconsin Spending on Corrections??

The New Informational Papers are Out for 2011 -  These tell you how much our government is really spending.

http://legis.wisconsin.gov/lfb/publications/Informational-Papers/Pages/Info_2011.aspx

The Department of Corrections is Informational Paper 57

Check out this article too, it is about the Juvenile correctional department of Wisconsin.
http://www.620wtmj.com/news/local/140254903.html

Wisconsin AB209 - Not necessary AT ALL - CALL AND WRITE YOUR SENATORS!!!

Mandatory Minimums have done nothing to protect children.  What they have accomplished is make the United States the "Incarceration Nation" of the world, which isn't something we should be aspiring to. 

If we want to protect the children there are far more effective ways of doing so.

Everyone needs to call and write their Wisconsin Senators TODAY.  Let them know that this is a law that shouldn't be passed, that it does not protect children for which it was intended.

Find your senator

HISTORY OF AB209

TEXT OF AB209

2011 - 2012 LEGISLATURE 

 

2011 Assembly BILL 209

July 29, 2011 - Introduced by Representatives Honadel, Vos, Suder, Brooks,
Endsley, Jacque, Mursau, Nygren, Petersen, Petryk, Petrowski, Kapenga
and Spanbauer, cosponsored by Senators Darling, Lasee, Olsen and
Wanggaard. Referred to Committee on Criminal Justice and Corrections.

AB209,1,2 1        An Act to repeal 939.617 (2); and to amend 939.617 (1) of the statutes; 

2   relating to: mandatory minimum sentences for certain child sex offenses.

 

Analysis by the Legislative Reference Bureau

 

Under current law, if a person is convicted of sexual exploitation of a child, use
of a computer to facilitate a child sex crime, or possession of child pornography, the
court must impose a bifurcated sentence, which includes a term of confinement in
prison and a term of extended supervision in the community. Current law sets a
mandatory minimum term of confinement of five years if the conviction is for sexual
exploitation of child or use of a computer to facilitate a child sex crime, and a
mandatory minimum term of confinement of three years if the conviction is for
possession of child pornography. The mandatory minimum term of confinement does
not apply if the convicted person was under the age of 18 when he or she committed
the crime or if the court finds that, if it does not apply the mandatory minimum, the
best interests of the community will be served and the public will not be harmed.
Under this bill, the mandatory minimum term of confinement does not apply only if
the convicted person was under the age of 18 when he or she committed the crime.

The people of the state of Wisconsin, represented in senate and assembly, do
enact as follows:

AB209, s. 1 3        Section 1. 939.617 (1) of the statutes is amended to read:

AB209,2,6

---

1        939.617 (1) Except as provided in subs. (2) and sub. (3), if a person is convicted
2  of a violation of s. 948.05, 948.075, or 948.12, the court shall impose a bifurcated
3  sentence under s. 973.01. The term of confinement in prison portion of the bifurcated
4  sentence shall be at least 5 years for violations of s. 948.05 or 948.075 and 3 years
5  for violations of s. 948.12. Otherwise the penalties for the crime apply, subject to any
6  applicable penalty enhancement.

AB209, s. 2 7       Section 2. 939.617 (2) of the statutes is repealed.

AB209,2,88   (End)

 

 

New Recidivism Study... Pass on to your State Representatives

http://www.ct.gov/opm/lib/opm/cjppd/cjresearch/recidivismstudy/sex_offender_recidivism_2012_final.pdf

Executive Summary

Although the term “sex offender” is commonly used to describe anyone who has been convicted of sex-crimes, it is important to recognize that individuals who have committed sex offenses do not constitute a single, homogenous population. Together they exhibit a wide range of criminal behaviors that may or may not include violence or contact with other persons. As a consequence, the risk, or likelihood, of committing new sex crimes is not consistent across all sex offender types.

This study tracked 14,398 men for a five-year period following their 2005 release or discharge from a CT prison in 2005. Every subsequent arrest, criminal conviction or reincarceration event was captured and analyzed to produce the 5-year recidivism rates for the group.
In addition to analyzing recidivism among all offenders released or discharged during 2005, the study identified five subgroups from the total cohort who were either convicted for sex offenses or thought to have been involved in criminal sexual crimes but not convicted. The five subgroups were:

• 1,395 men who had had a prior arrest for a sex-related offense

• 896 men who had a prior conviction for a sex-related offense

• 746 men who had served a prison sentence for a sex-related offense before being released in 2005

• 423 men, a subset of the 746, whose last prison sentence before release was for a sex-related offense, and

• 1,229 men who were assigned Sex Treatment Scores of 2 or higher by the Department of Correction prior to their 2005 release or discharge.

In 2005, 746 offenders who had served a prison sentence for a least one sex-related offense were released or discharged from prison. Over the next five years:

• 27 (3.6%) of these men were arrested and charged with a new sex crime.

• 20 (2.7%) were convicted for new sex offense, and

• 13 (1.7%) were returned to prison to serve a sentence for a new sex crime.

The sexual recidivism rates for the 746 sex offenders released in 2005 are much lower than what many in the public have been led to expect or believe. These low re-offense rates appear to contradict a conventional wisdom that sex offenders have very high sexual re-offense rates. The real challenge for public agencies is to determine the level of risk which specific offenders pose the public.

Recidivism data for each sex-offenders subgroup is presented in the Appendix.

In 2005, 37% of non-sex offenders completed their sentences in prison. In contrast, 79% of the 746 sex offenders who had served a prison sentence for a new sex crime were discharged directly from a prison facility at the end of their sentences (EOS). The reason the EOS discharge rate was so high for sex offenders reflects two facts: 1) the DOC did not release TS-eligible sex offenders into the community and 2) sex offenders were not accepted in most of the DOC’s residential, halfway house network. Almost 50% of sex offenders were sentenced to probation at the completion of their sentences compared to 33% for non-sex offenders.

According to this analysis, arrest on a prior sex charge was the single best predictor of being sentenced to prison for a new sex crime in the five years following release from prison. Of the 1,395 offenders who had been arrested on sex charges before 2005, 2.4% were sentenced to prison for new sex offenses within 5 years. This compares with a 1.9% rate among offenders who had a prior conviction for a sex crime, and a 1.7% rate for offenders who had served a prison sentence for a prior sex crime. This finding warrants further study. It suggests that conviction and incarceration for a sex crime exerts a positive impact on reducing future sex crimes.

The DOC-Sex Treatment Score was the 2nd best predictor of sexual recidivism. Among the 1,229 offenders with Sex Treatment Scores of 2 or higher, 2.3% were sentenced to prison for new sex offenses.

Connecticut employs a unique collaborative approach in supervising and treating sex offenders in the community. The approach links parole officers and probation officers, victim advocates and a non-profit provider of sex offender treatment and programming. Together these organizations design oversight and supervision plans for every offender.

Some sex offenders have extensive, violent non-criminal histories. Among the 195 offenders who had been convicted for Sex Assault 1 prior to 2005, 29.2% had also served a prison sentence for a burglary related crime; 13.3% had served a sentence for robbery. The high incidence of burglaries and robberies among this group indicates both a heightened willingness to use force and overstep boundaries. Among the entire population of male prisoners released in 2005, only 16% had been convicted of burglary-related charges and less than 8% had been convicted for a robbery.