Congress, Courts and Decisions: Federal Ruling Could Change Restrictions for Oklahoma Sex Offenders
5-13-2013 Oklahoma:
A recent ruling in Federal Court could change the way sex offenders are punished. The May 8th ruling decided in favor of the defendant, Charles Goodwin, who was convicted back in 1994 of lewd acts in Illinois.
Goodwin challenged his probationary restrictions that barred him from internet use and won, "He was saying, I shouldn't have to do all of these things," Fox 25 Legal analyst David Slane said. "I think it's the first step in what may be a trend," added Slane.
Right now sex offenders are often given blanket restrictions and rules on where they can live, work and spend time. Slane believes this may soon change, so that the punishment will fit the crime, "If a sex offender did not do something related to the internet for example, you're probably not going to be able to restrict his access to the internet," Slane added, "The courts seem to be saying, in the future, there needs to be a connection between the two, or they are not going to be able to restrict his (or her) access." Slane said this is only applies in federal cases, but unless the Supreme court overturns it, it may soon spread to lower courts. ..Source.. by Mark Taylor
Fox 25 News
Monday, May 13, 2013
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
In the news by Karen Franklin PhD: Remarkable experiment proves pull of adversarial allegiance
In the news by Karen Franklin PhD: Remarkable experiment proves pull of adversarial allegiance
As expected, the adversarial allegiance effect was stronger for the PCL-R, which is more subjectively scored. (Evaluators must decide, for example, whether a subject is "glib" or "superficially charming.") Scoring differences on the Static-99R only reached statistical significance in one out of the four cases.
This is just the latest in a series of stunning findings by this team of psychologists led by Daniel Murrie of the University of Virginia and Marcus Boccaccini of Sam Houston University on an allegiance bias among psychologists. The tendency of experts to skew data to fit the side who retains them should come as no big surprise. After all, it is consistent with 2009 findings by the National Academies of Science calling into question the reliability of all types of forensic science evidence, including supposedly more objective techniques such asDNA typing and fingerprint analysis.
Although the group's findings have heretofore been published only in academic journals and have found a limited audience outside of the profession, this might change. A Huffington Post blogger, Wray Herbert, has published a piece on the current findings, which he called "disturbing." And I predict more public interest if and when mainstream journalists and science writers learn of this extraordinary line of research.
In the latest study, Murrie and Boccaccini conducted follow-up analyses to determine how often matched pairs of experts differed in the expected direction. On the three cases in which clear allegiance effects showed up in PCL-R scoring, more than one-fourth of score pairings had differences of more than six points in the expected direction. Six points equates to about two standard errors of measurement (SEM's), which should happen by chance in only 2 percent of cases. A similar, albeit milder, effect was found with the Static-99R.
Click on these links for lists of my numerous prior blog posts on the PCL-R, adversarial allegiance, and other creative research by Murrie, Boccaccini and their prolific team. Among my all-time favorite experiments from this research team is: "Psychopathy: A Rorschach test for pychologists?"
Psychologists' scoring of forensic tools depends on which side they believe has hired them
A brilliant experiment has proven that adversarial pressures skew forensic psychologists' scoring of supposedly objective risk assessment tests, and that this "adversarial allegiance" is not due to selection bias, or preexisting differences among evaluators.
The researchers duped about 100 experienced forensic psychologists into believing they were part of a large-scale forensic case consultation at the behest of either a public defender service or a specialized prosecution unit. After two days of formal training by recognized experts on two widely used forensic instruments -- the Psychopathy Checklist-R (PCL-R) and the Static-99R -- the psychologists were paid $400 to spend a third day reviewing cases and scoring subjects. The National Science Foundation picked up the $40,000 tab.
Unbeknownst to them, the psychologists were all looking at the same set of four cases. But they were "primed" to consider the case from either a defense or prosecution point of view by a research confederate, an actual attorney who pretended to work on a Sexually Violent Predator (SVP) unit. In his defense attorney guise, the confederate made mildly partisan but realistic statements such as "We try to help the court understand that ... not every sex offender really poses a high risk of reoffending." In his prosecutor role, he said, "We try to help the court understand that the offenders we bring to trial are a select group [who] are more likely than other sex offenders to reoffend." In both conditions, he hinted at future work opportunities if the consultation went well.
The deception was so cunning that only four astute participants smelled a rat; their data were discarded.
The groundbreaking research, to be published in the journal Psychological Science, echoes previous findings by the same group regarding partisan bias in actual court cases. But by conducting a true experiment in which participants were randomly assigned to either a defense or prosecution condition, the researchers could rule out selection bias as a cause. In other words, the adversarial allegiance bias cannot be solely due to attorneys shopping around for simpatico experts, as the experimental participants were randomly assigned and had no group differences in their attitudes about civil commitment laws for sex offenders.
Sexually Violent Predator cases are an excellent arena for studying adversarial allegiance, because the typical case boils down to a "battle of the experts." Often, the only witnesses are psychologists, all of whom have reviewed essentially the same material but have differing interpretations about mental disorder and risk. In actual cases, the researchers note, the adversarial pressures are far higher than in this experiment:
"This evidence of allegiance was particularly striking because our experimental manipulation was less powerful than experts are likely to encounter in most real cases. For example, our participating experts spent only 15 minutes with the retaining attorney, whereas experts in the field may have extensive contact with retaining attorneys over weeks or months. Our experts formed opinions based on files only, which were identical across opposing experts. But experts in the field may elicit different information by seeking different collateral sources or interviewing offenders in different ways. Therefore, the pull toward allegiance in this study was relatively weak compared to the pull typical of most cases in the field. So the large group differences provide compelling evidence for adversarial allegiance."
Although the group's findings have heretofore been published only in academic journals and have found a limited audience outside of the profession, this might change. A Huffington Post blogger, Wray Herbert, has published a piece on the current findings, which he called "disturbing." And I predict more public interest if and when mainstream journalists and science writers learn of this extraordinary line of research.
In the latest study, Murrie and Boccaccini conducted follow-up analyses to determine how often matched pairs of experts differed in the expected direction. On the three cases in which clear allegiance effects showed up in PCL-R scoring, more than one-fourth of score pairings had differences of more than six points in the expected direction. Six points equates to about two standard errors of measurement (SEM's), which should happen by chance in only 2 percent of cases. A similar, albeit milder, effect was found with the Static-99R.
Adversarial allegiance effects might be even stronger in less structured assessment contexts, the researchers warn. For example, clinical diagnoses and assessments of emotional injuries involve even more subjective judgment than scoring of the Static-99 or PCL-R.
For me, this study raised a tantalizing question: Since only some of the psychologists succumbed to the allegiance effect, what distinguished those who were swayed by the partisan pressures from those who were not?
The short answer is, "Who knows?"
The researchers told me that they ran all kinds of post-hoc analyses in an effort to answer this question, and could not find a smoking gun. As in a previous research project that I blogged about, they did find evidence for individual differences in scoring of the PCL-R, with some evaluators assigning higher scores than others across all cases. However, they found nothing about individual evaluators that would explain susceptibility to adversarial allegiance. Likewise, the allegiance effect could not be attributed to a handful of grossly biased experts in the mix.
In fact, although score differences tended to go in the expected direction -- with prosecution experts giving higher scores than defense experts on both instruments -- there was a lot of variation even among the experts on the same side, and plenty of overlap between experts on opposing sides.
So, on average prosecution experts scored the PCL-R about three points higher than did the defense experts. But the scores given by experts on any given case ranged widely even within the same group. For example, in one case, prosecution experts gave PCL-R scores ranging from about 12 to 35 (out of a total of 40 possible points), with a similarly wide range among defense experts, from about 17 to 34 points. There was quite a bit of variability on scoring of the Static-99R, too; on one of the four cases, scores ranged all the way from a low of two to a high of ten (the maximum score being 12).
When the researchers debriefed the participants themselves, they didn't have a clue as to what caused the effect. That's likely because bias is mostly unconscious, and people tend to recognize it in others but not in themselves. So, when asked about factors that make psychologists vulnerable to allegiance effects, the participants endorsed things that applied to others and not to them: Those who worked at state facilities thought private practitioners were more vulnerable; experienced evaluators thought that inexperience was the culprit. (It wasn't.)
But ... WHICH psychologists?!
For me, this study raised a tantalizing question: Since only some of the psychologists succumbed to the allegiance effect, what distinguished those who were swayed by the partisan pressures from those who were not?
The researchers told me that they ran all kinds of post-hoc analyses in an effort to answer this question, and could not find a smoking gun. As in a previous research project that I blogged about, they did find evidence for individual differences in scoring of the PCL-R, with some evaluators assigning higher scores than others across all cases. However, they found nothing about individual evaluators that would explain susceptibility to adversarial allegiance. Likewise, the allegiance effect could not be attributed to a handful of grossly biased experts in the mix.
In fact, although score differences tended to go in the expected direction -- with prosecution experts giving higher scores than defense experts on both instruments -- there was a lot of variation even among the experts on the same side, and plenty of overlap between experts on opposing sides.
So, on average prosecution experts scored the PCL-R about three points higher than did the defense experts. But the scores given by experts on any given case ranged widely even within the same group. For example, in one case, prosecution experts gave PCL-R scores ranging from about 12 to 35 (out of a total of 40 possible points), with a similarly wide range among defense experts, from about 17 to 34 points. There was quite a bit of variability on scoring of the Static-99R, too; on one of the four cases, scores ranged all the way from a low of two to a high of ten (the maximum score being 12).
When the researchers debriefed the participants themselves, they didn't have a clue as to what caused the effect. That's likely because bias is mostly unconscious, and people tend to recognize it in others but not in themselves. So, when asked about factors that make psychologists vulnerable to allegiance effects, the participants endorsed things that applied to others and not to them: Those who worked at state facilities thought private practitioners were more vulnerable; experienced evaluators thought that inexperience was the culprit. (It wasn't.)
I tend to think that greater training in how to avoid falling prey to cognitive biases (see my previous post exploring this) could make a difference. But this may be wrong; the experiment to test my hypothesis has not been run.
The study is: "Are forensic experts biased by the side that retained them?" by Daniel C. Murrie, Marcus T. Boccaccini, Lucy A. Guarnera and Katrina Rufino, forthcoming from Psychological Science. Contact the first author (HERE) if you would like to be put on the list to receive a copy of the article as soon as it becomes available.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Friday, February 15, 2013
Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act Jurisdictions Face Challenges to Implementing the Act, and Stakeholders Report Positive and Negative Effects GAO-13-211, Feb 7, 2013
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-211
The Report
Check out Page 14 of the report. It will tell you each state's compliance status.
The Report
Check out Page 14 of the report. It will tell you each state's compliance status.
Monday, February 11, 2013
Courthouse News Service
Courthouse News Service
WASHINGTON (CN) - The Supreme Court said it will decide whether sex offenders who are unconditionally released from prison must register in-state address changes.
Anthony Kebodeaux had consensual sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was a 21-year-old member of the U.S. military.
He was sentenced to three months in prison in 1999 for the crime, and the government then cut all ties with him after he served the sentence.
But when Kebodeaux moved from San Antonio to El Paso, he failed to update his state sex offender registration within three days. Federal prosecutors then charged him with violating the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, or SORNA.
He was convicted and sentenced to one year and one day in prison.
A three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit affirmed in 2011, but a majority of the full court eventually sided with Kebodeaux after a rehearing.
The case hinges on the 2006 passage by Congress of SORNA, which states that a sex offender must register in each jurisdiction where he lives, works and studies.
Offenders are also required to keep their registration current, but Kebodeaux argued that the government applied SORNA's registration requirements to him unconstitutionally because the government had unconditionally released him before SORNA became law.
The government, however, claimed its power to criminalize sex offenses includes the authority to regulate movement even after an expired sentence and unconditional release.
This claim brought scorn from the appellate majority.
"By that logic, Congress would have never-ending jurisdiction to regulate anyone who was ever convicted of a federal crime of any sort, no matter how long ago he served his sentence, because he may pose a risk of re-offending," Judge Jerry Smith wrote. "Indeed, that logic could easily be extended beyond federal crimes: Congress could regulate a person who once engaged in interstate commerce (and was thereby subject to federal jurisdiction) on the ground that he now poses a risk of engaging in interstate commerce again." (Parentheses in original.)
Judge James Dennis, who was a member of the original panel that upheld Kebodeaux's conviction, dissented.
"The majority opinion offers no valid reason that SORNA is not a reasonable adaptation of Congress' spending power, commerce power, and power to enact criminal laws to further and protect its enumerated powers, for the legitimate end of establishing a comprehensive national sex offender registration and notification system. Accordingly, in my view, SORNA is not unconstitutional as applied to Kebodeaux," Dennis wrote, joined by Judge Carolyn Dineen King.
King and three others also joined a dissent authored by Judge Catharina Haynes.
Pointing to sex-offender registry laws Congress had enacted before SORNA passed in 2006, these judges said Kebodeaux was subject to these laws even when he was released from prison.
"It makes little sense to contend that Congress lost its power or 'jurisdictional hook' over Kebodeaux simply because it updated the national sex-offender registration system laws," Haynes wrote.
Judge Priscilla Owen authored a concurring opinion in which she disputed "the majority's analysis of Kebodeaux's obligations under federal law to register as a sex offender at the time he completed his sentence."
There were 16 judges who heard the case en banc.
Per its custom, the Supreme Court did not issue any comment in granting the government certiorari on Friday. It also granted Kebodeaux leave to proceed in forma pauperis.
The appeal will address "whether the court of appeals erred in conducting its constitutional analysis on the premise that respondent was not under a federal registration obligation until SORNA was enacted, when pre-SORNA federal law obligated him to register as a sex offender."
It will also consider "Whether the court of appeals erred in holding that Congress lacks the Article I authority to provide for criminal penalties under 18 U.S.C. 2250(a)(2)(A), as applied to a person who was convicted of a sex offense under federal law and completed his criminal sentence before SORNA was enacted."
WASHINGTON (CN) - The Supreme Court said it will decide whether sex offenders who are unconditionally released from prison must register in-state address changes.
Anthony Kebodeaux had consensual sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was a 21-year-old member of the U.S. military.
He was sentenced to three months in prison in 1999 for the crime, and the government then cut all ties with him after he served the sentence.
But when Kebodeaux moved from San Antonio to El Paso, he failed to update his state sex offender registration within three days. Federal prosecutors then charged him with violating the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, or SORNA.
He was convicted and sentenced to one year and one day in prison.
A three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit affirmed in 2011, but a majority of the full court eventually sided with Kebodeaux after a rehearing.
The case hinges on the 2006 passage by Congress of SORNA, which states that a sex offender must register in each jurisdiction where he lives, works and studies.
Offenders are also required to keep their registration current, but Kebodeaux argued that the government applied SORNA's registration requirements to him unconstitutionally because the government had unconditionally released him before SORNA became law.
The government, however, claimed its power to criminalize sex offenses includes the authority to regulate movement even after an expired sentence and unconditional release.
This claim brought scorn from the appellate majority.
"By that logic, Congress would have never-ending jurisdiction to regulate anyone who was ever convicted of a federal crime of any sort, no matter how long ago he served his sentence, because he may pose a risk of re-offending," Judge Jerry Smith wrote. "Indeed, that logic could easily be extended beyond federal crimes: Congress could regulate a person who once engaged in interstate commerce (and was thereby subject to federal jurisdiction) on the ground that he now poses a risk of engaging in interstate commerce again." (Parentheses in original.)
Judge James Dennis, who was a member of the original panel that upheld Kebodeaux's conviction, dissented.
"The majority opinion offers no valid reason that SORNA is not a reasonable adaptation of Congress' spending power, commerce power, and power to enact criminal laws to further and protect its enumerated powers, for the legitimate end of establishing a comprehensive national sex offender registration and notification system. Accordingly, in my view, SORNA is not unconstitutional as applied to Kebodeaux," Dennis wrote, joined by Judge Carolyn Dineen King.
King and three others also joined a dissent authored by Judge Catharina Haynes.
Pointing to sex-offender registry laws Congress had enacted before SORNA passed in 2006, these judges said Kebodeaux was subject to these laws even when he was released from prison.
"It makes little sense to contend that Congress lost its power or 'jurisdictional hook' over Kebodeaux simply because it updated the national sex-offender registration system laws," Haynes wrote.
Judge Priscilla Owen authored a concurring opinion in which she disputed "the majority's analysis of Kebodeaux's obligations under federal law to register as a sex offender at the time he completed his sentence."
There were 16 judges who heard the case en banc.
Per its custom, the Supreme Court did not issue any comment in granting the government certiorari on Friday. It also granted Kebodeaux leave to proceed in forma pauperis.
The appeal will address "whether the court of appeals erred in conducting its constitutional analysis on the premise that respondent was not under a federal registration obligation until SORNA was enacted, when pre-SORNA federal law obligated him to register as a sex offender."
It will also consider "Whether the court of appeals erred in holding that Congress lacks the Article I authority to provide for criminal penalties under 18 U.S.C. 2250(a)(2)(A), as applied to a person who was convicted of a sex offense under federal law and completed his criminal sentence before SORNA was enacted."
Community of the Wrongly Accused: The manual used by police in the Univ. of Montana ...
Community of the Wrongly Accused: The manual used by police in the Univ. of Montana ...: University of Montana Grizzlies quarterback Jordan Johnson is about to go on trial for rape in a trial that will attract enormous national a...
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Why Facebook Data Tends to Condemn You in Court | Wired Business | Wired.com
Why Facebook Data Tends to Condemn You in Court | Wired Business | Wired.com
U.S. courts have a structural bias against “guilty” verdicts, but when it comes to Facebook data the situation is reversed: Social media activity is more readily used to convict you in a court of law than to defend you.
That’s because prosecutors generally have an easier time than defense attorneys getting private information out of Facebook and other social networks, as highlighted in an ongoing Portland murder case. In that case, the defense attorney has evidence of a Facebook conversation in which a key witness reportedly tells a friend he was pressured by police into falsely incriminating the defendant.
Facebook rebuffed the defense attorney’s subpoena seeking access to the conversation, citing the federal Stored Communications Act, which protects the privacy of electronic communications like e-mail – but which carves out an exemption for law enforcement, thus assisting prosecutors. “It’s so one-sided … they cooperate 110 percent anytime someone in the government asks for information,” one Oregon attorney told the Portland Oregonian, citing a separate case in which Facebook withheld conversations that could have disproved a rape charge, but turned over the same conversations when the prosecution demanded them.
Other defense attorneys voice similar complaints, and the judge in the murder case went so far as to call Facebook “flippant” and “frustrating” in its handling of the defense’s subpoenas. Facebook, for its part, has said it is inundated with judicial requests and tries to handle them uniformly within the confines of the law.
The trouble, it would seem, is that the law itself is not so uniform. As more and more communication shifts onto social networks like Facebook, the pro-prosecution bias of the Stored Communications Act is going to look less like a peculiar legislative oversight and more like a frightening erosion of the right to a fair trial. And if Facebook and its competitors want people to share more freely online, they should use their lobbying resources to fix that particular law.
Thursday, January 3, 2013
Racine sex assault case tests health record access | Wisconsin Law Journal - WI Legal News & Resources
Racine sex assault case tests health record access | Wisconsin Law Journal - WI Legal News & Resources
The Wisconsin Supreme Court must decide whether defendants should get managed access to mental health records of an alleged molestation victim in a case tied to the criminal prosecution of a billionaire executive from Racine.
The Journal Times in Racine reported Sunday that Samuel Curtis Johnson’s attorneys have been seeking therapy records of the 17-year-old girl that the SC Johnson heir is charged with molesting. Johnson, the one-time chairman of Diversey Inc., a cleaning products company spun off from SC Johnson, has pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors say that Johnson, 57, had inappropriate sexual contact with the girl 15 to 20 times from 2007 to 2010, starting the summer after she finished the sixth grade. The girl and her mother, who no longer live in Wisconsin, have refused to release medical records.
Last fall, Racine County Circuit Judge Eugene Gasiorkiewicz ruled that defense attorneys should get access to the records, but that he would review them privately first and then provide only pertinent information to Johnson’s attorneys and to prosecutors. The state Supreme Court will review that decision at a Feb. 25 hearing.
The criminal case against Johnson is on hold while the constitutional issues are resolved.
Johnson, who goes by Curt, is facing a count of repeated sexual assault of a child. It carries a maximum penalty of 40 years in prison and a $100,000 fine.
Johnson has since retired from Diversey. His brother is chairman and chief executive of SC Johnson, based in Racine, but company officials said when Curt Johnson was charged that he’d had no formal relationship with the company in almost 15 years.
Plea Hearing Set for Parole Agent Accused of Burglarizing Homes, Stealing Meds
Plea Hearing Set for Parole Agent Accused of Burglarizing Homes, Stealing Meds
Here is the original Complaint against her with the details of the case. Most criminal cases can take months, but she has a Plea Hearing already? The book needs to be tossed her way, as her political connections and her position of power should be weighed heavily in the sentencing decision. She and her husband are in positions of power, if this were any other person that person would have sat in jail over the holiday, they would be looking at months to their next court date and they would be looking at prison time.
Complaint
Here is the original Complaint against her with the details of the case. Most criminal cases can take months, but she has a Plea Hearing already? The book needs to be tossed her way, as her political connections and her position of power should be weighed heavily in the sentencing decision. She and her husband are in positions of power, if this were any other person that person would have sat in jail over the holiday, they would be looking at months to their next court date and they would be looking at prison time.
Complaint
State told to pay $292K to firm that challenged sex offender laws : News-crime
State told to pay $292K to firm that challenged sex offender laws : News-crime
A federal judge has ordered Nebraska to pay more than $292,000 in attorneys' fees in a lawsuit that challenged the constitutionality of changes to the state's sex offender registry laws.
But it was a fraction of the amount sought by the attorneys who represented the sex offenders who sued.
The laws, the most recent changes to the state's Sex Offender Registration Act, were passed in 2009 but put on hold as a result of the lawsuit before they were to go into effect in 2010.
Later that year, Senior U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf issued a ruling leaving much of the laws intact -- including publication of the names of all adult, convicted sex offenders -- but said a trial was needed to determine whether the three statutes violated the U.S. Constitution.
At a trial before Kopf in July, experts and convicted sex offenders testified one after another about how the changes would affect them and, in many cases, their work.
In October, the judge struck down the parts of the laws that would have made it a crime for some sex offenders to use social networking sites and require them all to notify the state whenever they posted on the Internet.
Federal law authorizes district courts to award reasonable attorneys' fees to prevailing parties in civil rights litigation.
Following the ruling in October, Stuart Mills, whose law firm Dornan, Lustgarten & Troia of Omaha represented the John and Jane Does, requested an award of $751,947.67 in attorneys' fees, $13,111.88 for preparing the application for attorneys' fees and $26,182.56 in costs.
Deputy Nebraska Attorney General Katherine Spohn, who represented the state, argued the amount was unreasonable and should be reduced substantially.
She proposed a total award of $248,207.81.
In an order Friday, the judge approved $292,564.88, the sum of $279,453 in attorneys' fees, plus $13,111.88 in fees to prepare the application.
In the order, Kopf pointed out the case started in 2009 and resulted in 534 filings and the preparation of at least 15 briefs by plaintiffs' counsel.
It also involved about 50 John and Jane Doe clients and more than 200 defendants, including the state of Nebraska, Nebraska attorney general, the Nebraska State Patrol, local prosecutors and various law enforcement officers.
The state still could appeal Kopf's October ruling.
Friday, December 14, 2012
In the news by Karen Franklin PhD: Judge bars Static-99R risk tool from SVP trial
In the news by Karen Franklin PhD: Judge bars Static-99R risk tool from SVP trial
Judge bars Static-99R risk tool from SVP trial
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.
The ruling by La Crosse County Judge Elliott Levine came after David Thornton, one of the developers of the Static-99R and a government witness in the case, failed to turn over data requested as part of a Daubert challenge by the defense. Under the U.S. Supreme Court's 1993 ruling in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, judges are charged with the gatekeeper function of filtering evidence for scientific reliability and validity prior to its admission in court.
Defense attorney Anthony Rios began seeking the data a year ago so that his own expert, psychologist Richard Wollert, could directly compare the predictive accuracy of the Static-99R with that of a competing instrument, the Multisample Age-Stratified Table of Sexual Recidivism Rates," or MATS-1. Wollert developed the MATS-1 in an effort to improve the accuracy of risk estimation by more precisely considering the effects of advancing age. It incorporates recidivism data on 3,425 offenders published by Static-99R developer Karl Hanson in 2006, and uses the statistical method of Bayes's Theorem to calculate likelihood ratios for recidivism at different levels of risk.
The state's attorney objected to the disclosure request, calling the data "a trade secret."
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.
The ruling by La Crosse County Judge Elliott Levine came after David Thornton, one of the developers of the Static-99R and a government witness in the case, failed to turn over data requested as part of a Daubert challenge by the defense. Under the U.S. Supreme Court's 1993 ruling in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, judges are charged with the gatekeeper function of filtering evidence for scientific reliability and validity prior to its admission in court.
Defense attorney Anthony Rios began seeking the data a year ago so that his own expert, psychologist Richard Wollert, could directly compare the predictive accuracy of the Static-99R with that of a competing instrument, the Multisample Age-Stratified Table of Sexual Recidivism Rates," or MATS-1. Wollert developed the MATS-1 in an effort to improve the accuracy of risk estimation by more precisely considering the effects of advancing age. It incorporates recidivism data on 3,425 offenders published by Static-99R developer Karl Hanson in 2006, and uses the statistical method of Bayes's Theorem to calculate likelihood ratios for recidivism at different levels of risk.
The state's attorney objected to the disclosure request, calling the data "a trade secret."
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Private prison corporations, they are in Wisconsin too... They purchased the company that supplies the GPS equipment and service to the WI Dept of Corrections.
Prison Legal News - Legal articles, cases and court decisions
Electronic Monitoring: Some Causes for Concern
by James Kilgore
Electronic monitoring (EM) looms high on the list of alternatives to incarceration for corrections officials seeking solutions to overcrowded prisons and budget deficits. First used in 1983, today some 200,000 people in the United States wear some sort of electronic monitor, typically an ankle bracelet required as a condition of probation, parole, bail or house arrest.
For high-profile lawbreakers like Martha Stewart and Lindsay Lohan, the ankle bracelet is a badge of privilege – a high-tech mode of avoiding time behind bars. For those with more ordinary cases, release on electronic monitoring may offer offenders an opportunity to reunite with their family and find employment. Nonetheless, the introduction of EM on a broader scale raises a number of concerns.
The Legal Framework
The first issue is that in most cases electronic monitoring programs operate under questionable legal frameworks, typically excluding or minimizing any rights or entitlements for the people being monitored. For example, laws in Illinois, Rhode Island and North Carolina deal primarily with the technical minutiae of supervision, emphasizing guarantees of public safety and spelling out penalties for rule violations. A small section includes a list of activities which a person on electronic monitoring “may” be allowed to do. Those include work, medical treatment and attending educational programs. Other frameworks, such as California’s Penal Code Section 1210.7-1210.16 and the State of Montana’s Policy Guidelines, contain no mention of approved activities for those being electronically monitored.
Since a primary selling point of EM for those on parole is the opportunity to work and reintegrate with family, assurances of access to such activities need to be established as rights. Moreover, in practice, the power to grant or deny “movement,” such as leaving one’s house, rests with parole officers. This can create problems. For example, most supervising authorities require a list of an offender’s movements to be submitted in advance, making responses to requests for job interviews, changes in work schedules, or tending to family emergencies or medical conditions extremely difficult. Further, parole officers usually have the power to impose a “lockdown” – 24-hour house arrest – for any reason or period of time.
While Hamilton Country, Indiana offers specific avenues of appeal to challenge denials of movement, most jurisdictions provide no such guarantees. In general, a parole officer’s decisions may only be contested after the fact through the courts. This may bring some relief in the long run, but in the short term a parolee’s opportunity to successfully reintegrate into society can be jeopardized by overzealous enforcement of EM rules.
This problem with the legal framework of electronic monitoring highlights an issue raised by legal scholar Erin Murphy, who contends there has been insufficient legal scrutiny of “deprivation of liberty by technological means” – a situation which is increasingly becoming an issue as GPS monitors and similar devices are used with greater frequency.
Further Concern: Private Corrections Companies
Another concern is the involvement of private corrections firms in the EM industry. The giant in this market is Behavior Interventions, Inc. (BI), a Colorado-based company that controls about 30% of the electronic monitoring market in the United States. In 2011, BI was bought out by The GEO Group, the second-largest corrections corporation in the U.S., which positioned GEO for growth in the EM sector. [See: PLN, April 2011, p.40].
The role of private corrections companies in electronic monitoring programs raises several questions. First, such firms exaggerate the cost savings of EM by simply comparing per diem costs of EM with those of incarceration. The comparison is not that simple. Many people who are placed on electronic monitoring would not have been incarcerated before the advent of EM technology; they would have been supervised non-electronically, a practice that is still prevalent.
Second, comparing per diem costs between prison and EM distorts the reality. A large part of corrections costs are fixed. For example, if 10% of a state’s prison population was released on electronic monitoring, staffing and other over-head costs would not decrease by 10%. Hence, the savings delivered by electronic monitoring need to be calculated holistically, not by merely using the rosy estimates of those who advocate EM, including the companies that offer such services.
Then there is the need to generate profit. At present, EM programs are increasingly turning toward user fees, typically $10–15 per day plus startup costs. While such fees don’t present a problem for the wealthy, like Stewart or Lohan, most people on parole or probation fall in an entirely different income bracket. The questionable history of firms like The GEO Group in terms of prisoner abuse, corruption, lobbying and political contributions foreshadows a range of misdeeds and improper influence with regard to electronic monitoring.
At the most basic level, a continual incremental increase in user fees due to the need for EM companies to generate profit would further disadvantage the predominantly poor people of color who are placed on electronic monitoring. Further, since people who complete their term of EM no longer generate revenue, monitoring companies have a financial incentive to push for longer terms of supervision or stricter rules that would lead to increased recidivism.
In fact, such companies are already seeking to expand their market; i.e., to find new populations to bring under the net of electronic monitoring. Currently at least two new groups are being considered for EM services: immigrants awaiting judicial decisions and high school students with records of extensive truancy.
With respect to immigrants, in 2009 BI signed a five-year, $372 million contract with Immigration and Customs Enorcement (ICE) to monitor some 27,000 people awaiting asylum or deportation hearings. In the high school student market, a major EM firm in Texas, iSECUREtrac, funded a pilot monitoring project for students with truancy records in a largely Black and Latino school district in Dallas.
It is unlikely the quest for new EM “customers” will stop there. For example, future lobbying efforts by private monitoring companies might advocate electronic supervision for those with drug or mental health histories, people receiving public assistance or immigrants with green cards. It is difficult to say how far EM services may eventually expand.
Thus, while there might be cause in the near future to celebrate the transfer of thousands of people from prison to electronic monitoring programs, those involved in trying to transform the criminal justice system need to pay close attention to how such programs evolve. Without more careful regulation of EM services and the private companies that provide them, we may one day be lamenting the problem of mass monitoring in addition to mass incarceration.
James Kilgore is a researcher, criminal justice activist and fiction writer. His two novels, We Are All Zimbabweans Now and Freedom Never Rests, were written during his six-and-a-half years of incarceration in California. This article emerges from a larger research project on electronic monitoring.
Electronic Monitoring: Some Causes for Concern
by James Kilgore
Electronic monitoring (EM) looms high on the list of alternatives to incarceration for corrections officials seeking solutions to overcrowded prisons and budget deficits. First used in 1983, today some 200,000 people in the United States wear some sort of electronic monitor, typically an ankle bracelet required as a condition of probation, parole, bail or house arrest.
For high-profile lawbreakers like Martha Stewart and Lindsay Lohan, the ankle bracelet is a badge of privilege – a high-tech mode of avoiding time behind bars. For those with more ordinary cases, release on electronic monitoring may offer offenders an opportunity to reunite with their family and find employment. Nonetheless, the introduction of EM on a broader scale raises a number of concerns.
The Legal Framework
The first issue is that in most cases electronic monitoring programs operate under questionable legal frameworks, typically excluding or minimizing any rights or entitlements for the people being monitored. For example, laws in Illinois, Rhode Island and North Carolina deal primarily with the technical minutiae of supervision, emphasizing guarantees of public safety and spelling out penalties for rule violations. A small section includes a list of activities which a person on electronic monitoring “may” be allowed to do. Those include work, medical treatment and attending educational programs. Other frameworks, such as California’s Penal Code Section 1210.7-1210.16 and the State of Montana’s Policy Guidelines, contain no mention of approved activities for those being electronically monitored.
Since a primary selling point of EM for those on parole is the opportunity to work and reintegrate with family, assurances of access to such activities need to be established as rights. Moreover, in practice, the power to grant or deny “movement,” such as leaving one’s house, rests with parole officers. This can create problems. For example, most supervising authorities require a list of an offender’s movements to be submitted in advance, making responses to requests for job interviews, changes in work schedules, or tending to family emergencies or medical conditions extremely difficult. Further, parole officers usually have the power to impose a “lockdown” – 24-hour house arrest – for any reason or period of time.
While Hamilton Country, Indiana offers specific avenues of appeal to challenge denials of movement, most jurisdictions provide no such guarantees. In general, a parole officer’s decisions may only be contested after the fact through the courts. This may bring some relief in the long run, but in the short term a parolee’s opportunity to successfully reintegrate into society can be jeopardized by overzealous enforcement of EM rules.
This problem with the legal framework of electronic monitoring highlights an issue raised by legal scholar Erin Murphy, who contends there has been insufficient legal scrutiny of “deprivation of liberty by technological means” – a situation which is increasingly becoming an issue as GPS monitors and similar devices are used with greater frequency.
Further Concern: Private Corrections Companies
Another concern is the involvement of private corrections firms in the EM industry. The giant in this market is Behavior Interventions, Inc. (BI), a Colorado-based company that controls about 30% of the electronic monitoring market in the United States. In 2011, BI was bought out by The GEO Group, the second-largest corrections corporation in the U.S., which positioned GEO for growth in the EM sector. [See: PLN, April 2011, p.40].
The role of private corrections companies in electronic monitoring programs raises several questions. First, such firms exaggerate the cost savings of EM by simply comparing per diem costs of EM with those of incarceration. The comparison is not that simple. Many people who are placed on electronic monitoring would not have been incarcerated before the advent of EM technology; they would have been supervised non-electronically, a practice that is still prevalent.
Second, comparing per diem costs between prison and EM distorts the reality. A large part of corrections costs are fixed. For example, if 10% of a state’s prison population was released on electronic monitoring, staffing and other over-head costs would not decrease by 10%. Hence, the savings delivered by electronic monitoring need to be calculated holistically, not by merely using the rosy estimates of those who advocate EM, including the companies that offer such services.
Then there is the need to generate profit. At present, EM programs are increasingly turning toward user fees, typically $10–15 per day plus startup costs. While such fees don’t present a problem for the wealthy, like Stewart or Lohan, most people on parole or probation fall in an entirely different income bracket. The questionable history of firms like The GEO Group in terms of prisoner abuse, corruption, lobbying and political contributions foreshadows a range of misdeeds and improper influence with regard to electronic monitoring.
At the most basic level, a continual incremental increase in user fees due to the need for EM companies to generate profit would further disadvantage the predominantly poor people of color who are placed on electronic monitoring. Further, since people who complete their term of EM no longer generate revenue, monitoring companies have a financial incentive to push for longer terms of supervision or stricter rules that would lead to increased recidivism.
In fact, such companies are already seeking to expand their market; i.e., to find new populations to bring under the net of electronic monitoring. Currently at least two new groups are being considered for EM services: immigrants awaiting judicial decisions and high school students with records of extensive truancy.
With respect to immigrants, in 2009 BI signed a five-year, $372 million contract with Immigration and Customs Enorcement (ICE) to monitor some 27,000 people awaiting asylum or deportation hearings. In the high school student market, a major EM firm in Texas, iSECUREtrac, funded a pilot monitoring project for students with truancy records in a largely Black and Latino school district in Dallas.
It is unlikely the quest for new EM “customers” will stop there. For example, future lobbying efforts by private monitoring companies might advocate electronic supervision for those with drug or mental health histories, people receiving public assistance or immigrants with green cards. It is difficult to say how far EM services may eventually expand.
Thus, while there might be cause in the near future to celebrate the transfer of thousands of people from prison to electronic monitoring programs, those involved in trying to transform the criminal justice system need to pay close attention to how such programs evolve. Without more careful regulation of EM services and the private companies that provide them, we may one day be lamenting the problem of mass monitoring in addition to mass incarceration.
James Kilgore is a researcher, criminal justice activist and fiction writer. His two novels, We Are All Zimbabweans Now and Freedom Never Rests, were written during his six-and-a-half years of incarceration in California. This article emerges from a larger research project on electronic monitoring.
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Think the Obama Administration is NOT trying to kill the Constitution? This is just the start of the disenfranchising of our United States.
"They who can give up essential Liberty to obtain a little temporary Safety deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Benjamin Franklin
"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." - Martin Luther King Jr.
Column: Accused students deserve protection
"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." - Martin Luther King Jr.
Column: Accused students deserve protection
The Obama administration's interpretation of due process as a form of discrimination has shaken the academic community.
5:41PM EST December 5. 2012 - Six years ago, prosecutors finally dropped rape charges against former Duke University lacrosse players accused of attacking a stripper. Perhaps the greatest offense against the players was not the false accusation by Crystal Mangum, but the assumption by Duke that the students and anyone associated with them were guilty. In the wake of this scandal, many schools learned a hard lesson from Duke's bad publicity and sought to protect students and faculty from a future rush to judgment. However, school efforts to reinforce due process protections have run into opposition from an unexpected source: the Obama administration.
Last year, universities received a seemingly friendly "Dear Colleague" letter from the administration demanding that schools actually reduce due process protections in disciplinary hearings for accused students and faculty in sexual misconduct cases. If they did not, the letter warned, they could lose federal funding and face discrimination charges discrimination. The helpful "colleague" on the other side of the letter was Russlynn Ali, then assistant secretary for civil rights at the Department of Education. She explained that the reduction of protections for students was essential for preserving education as "the great equalizer in America."
Ali just resigned, providing an opening for the Obama administration to reconsider. That's overdue because the interpretation of due process as a form of discrimination has shaken the academic community, which is deeply divided on whether to yield to the overt threats. It is a Faustian bargain for academics: Either strip students and faculty of basic due process protections or be declared discriminatory.
In the past, many schools have required significant evidence to find students or faculty guilty, often a "clear preponderance" or "clear and convincing evidence." These standards require less than the criminal "beyond the reasonable doubt" standard but still a 75% or 80% certainty of guilt. The administration, however, demands that schools adopt the lowest evidentiary standard short of a presumption of guilt — "preponderance of the evidence," just slightly above a 50-50 determination.
Because many of these cases involve the classic "he-said-she-said" situation, they come to the university as an even split based on opposing testimony. Add in the fact that many of these cases involve drinking, and the "preponderance" standard becomes a recipe for injustice. Even the slightest evidence can dictate the result and tends to favor conviction.
While this low standard is used in some civil cases, the accused is generally afforded other protections that the Obama administration directive strips from the accused. For instance, the directive discourages schools from allowing a student or faculty member to question the accuser. And schools have seized on that. Last month, a Georgia college student was expelled after rape allegations without the opportunity to confront the accuser or even, the student alleges, know the names of other witnesses in the case. After a judge halted the expulsion, the parties reached an "undisclosed resolution."
The Supreme Court has insisted in criminal cases that the right to confront the accuser must be honored even when a court believes that the victim's testimony is highly credible. The court stated in 2004 that "dispensing with confrontation because testimony is obviously reliable is akin to dispensing with a jury trial because the defendant is obviously guilty." Yet, the administration insists that this right "may be traumatic or intimidating (for the victim), thereby possibly escalating or perpetuating a hostile environment."
Adding to the unfairness is the fact that many schools like George Washington, where I teach, do not even allow for legal representation of students in these proceedings. Likewise, most do not account for potential criminal prosecutions. University investigations can undermine the rights of criminal defendants by forcing them into a process without other constitutional protections that the accused have in criminal court, such as the right to remain silent. Thus, evidence that would be viewed as improper, if produced by prosecutors in criminal court, can be admitted if generated first by a university.
The Obama administration has created the perfect Potemkin village — a legal façade with the outward appearance of a due process without its substance. Weighting the system to guarantee more convictions is not combating sexual violence or harassment. It is achieving a statistical success rather than the harder process of assuring justice for both alleged victims and the accused. Students are not statistics and deserve more than the equivalent of a coin toss with two lives in the balance.
Last year, universities received a seemingly friendly "Dear Colleague" letter from the administration demanding that schools actually reduce due process protections in disciplinary hearings for accused students and faculty in sexual misconduct cases. If they did not, the letter warned, they could lose federal funding and face discrimination charges discrimination. The helpful "colleague" on the other side of the letter was Russlynn Ali, then assistant secretary for civil rights at the Department of Education. She explained that the reduction of protections for students was essential for preserving education as "the great equalizer in America."
Ali just resigned, providing an opening for the Obama administration to reconsider. That's overdue because the interpretation of due process as a form of discrimination has shaken the academic community, which is deeply divided on whether to yield to the overt threats. It is a Faustian bargain for academics: Either strip students and faculty of basic due process protections or be declared discriminatory.
In the past, many schools have required significant evidence to find students or faculty guilty, often a "clear preponderance" or "clear and convincing evidence." These standards require less than the criminal "beyond the reasonable doubt" standard but still a 75% or 80% certainty of guilt. The administration, however, demands that schools adopt the lowest evidentiary standard short of a presumption of guilt — "preponderance of the evidence," just slightly above a 50-50 determination.
Because many of these cases involve the classic "he-said-she-said" situation, they come to the university as an even split based on opposing testimony. Add in the fact that many of these cases involve drinking, and the "preponderance" standard becomes a recipe for injustice. Even the slightest evidence can dictate the result and tends to favor conviction.
While this low standard is used in some civil cases, the accused is generally afforded other protections that the Obama administration directive strips from the accused. For instance, the directive discourages schools from allowing a student or faculty member to question the accuser. And schools have seized on that. Last month, a Georgia college student was expelled after rape allegations without the opportunity to confront the accuser or even, the student alleges, know the names of other witnesses in the case. After a judge halted the expulsion, the parties reached an "undisclosed resolution."
The Supreme Court has insisted in criminal cases that the right to confront the accuser must be honored even when a court believes that the victim's testimony is highly credible. The court stated in 2004 that "dispensing with confrontation because testimony is obviously reliable is akin to dispensing with a jury trial because the defendant is obviously guilty." Yet, the administration insists that this right "may be traumatic or intimidating (for the victim), thereby possibly escalating or perpetuating a hostile environment."
Adding to the unfairness is the fact that many schools like George Washington, where I teach, do not even allow for legal representation of students in these proceedings. Likewise, most do not account for potential criminal prosecutions. University investigations can undermine the rights of criminal defendants by forcing them into a process without other constitutional protections that the accused have in criminal court, such as the right to remain silent. Thus, evidence that would be viewed as improper, if produced by prosecutors in criminal court, can be admitted if generated first by a university.
The Obama administration has created the perfect Potemkin village — a legal façade with the outward appearance of a due process without its substance. Weighting the system to guarantee more convictions is not combating sexual violence or harassment. It is achieving a statistical success rather than the harder process of assuring justice for both alleged victims and the accused. Students are not statistics and deserve more than the equivalent of a coin toss with two lives in the balance.
If there was ever a need for a Registry....
Man sentenced to prison for 10th OWI | News - Channel3000.com
A man was sentenced Wednesday to prison for his 10th offense of operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated.
A man was sentenced Wednesday to prison for his 10th offense of operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated.
Paul G. Barber Jr., 52, was sentenced in Rock County Circuit Court to six years in prison followed by five years of extended supervision.
During sentencing, Rock County Assistant District Attorney Jodi Dabson Bollendorf emphasized that Barber had previously been arrested 21 times for the offense of operating while intoxicated in multiple states dating back to 1982; however, in Wisconsin, prior convictions occurring prior to 1989 are not counted under the law.
Both the Wisconsin Department of Corrections and Dabson Bollendorf argued for the maximum sentence of seven and a half years confinement followed by five years of extended supervision.
The criminal complaint said that on May 25, Wisconsin State Trooper Bauer located Barber in his vehicle parked on the shoulder of Interstate 39/90 and observed that Barber's vehicle had fresh damage on the left side.
Barber initially stated that he had rolled his vehicle, then changed his story and could not remember what happened, according to the complaint.
Bauer could smell an odor of intoxicants coming from Barber's breath and began field sobriety tests until Barber refused to complete any more tests and stated, "I'm done with this," according to the complaint.
The complaint said Barber's blood was tested and the results showed a blood-alcohol level of 0.296.
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Recommendations advance for treating sex offenders - WQOW TV: Eau Claire, WI NEWS18 News, Weather, and Sports
Recommendations advance for treating sex offenders - WQOW TV: Eau Claire, WI NEWS18 News, Weather, and Sports
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - Minnesota lawmakers will consider a recommendation to reform its costly, high-security sex offender program.
A task force headed by former Supreme Court Chief Justice Eric Magnuson is recommending the state replace its prison-like treatment of dangerous sex offenders with a network of less restrictive regional facilities.
The Minnesota Sex Offender Program confines and treats the most dangerous offenders under the court's direction after they have finished their prison sentences. The number of offenders in the program has grown to more than 600. They are confined to high-security treatment facilities at a cost of about $120,000 per person annually.
A federal magistrate ordered the state to form a task force to study alternatives to the current program. The Star Tribune (http://bit.ly/YKxBik ) reports Human Services Commissioner Lucinda Jesson plans to meet with lawmakers in coming weeks to discuss the recommendations.
Information from: Star Tribune, http://www.startribune.com
Judge Upholds Sex Offender Residency Law; ACLU to Appeal | American Civil Liberties Union
Judge Upholds Sex Offender Residency Law; ACLU to Appeal | American Civil Liberties Union
R.I. Superior Court Judge Sarah Taft-Carter today upheld the constitutionality of a state law that makes it a felony for any person required to register as a sex offender to reside within 300 feet of any school. RI ACLU volunteer attorney Katherine Godin, who brought the lawsuit, said the ACLU would appeal the ruling. Across the country, experts involved in the treatment of sex offenders, as well as victims’ rights groups, have opposed sex offender residency laws as being ineffective, counter-productive, and potentially more, rather than less, harmful to public safety. If the ruling is formally implemented pending appeal, a number of ex-offenders in Rhode Island who have not been deemed a public safety risk may likely face potential homelessness.
Two of the plaintiffs reside in Warren Manor II, a Providence facility operated by NRI Community Services, a non-profit provider of mental health and substance abuse treatment. The plaintiffs have developmental disabilities and rely on the staff there to assist them with medication, meals and various other daily activities. They have lived at the facility for three or more years. If forced to leave, the complaint alleged, they are “unlikely to find and be placed in a comparable assisted living facility.” They are designated at the lowest level offender classifications, and are not subject to community notification requirements.
However, the judge rejected the ACLU’s arguments that the statute was punitive in nature, as well as data submitted by the ACLU demonstrating that laws such as these do not protect the public. Attorney Godin said today: “We are extremely disappointed by the ruling and concerned that implementation of the law will have precisely the opposite effect of its stated purpose.”
Among the groups that have publicly raised concerns about broad sex offender residency laws, both locally and nationally, are the RI Disability Law Center, the RI Coalition for the Homeless, Day One Rhode Island, the American Correctional Association, the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, and the Jacob Wetterling Resource Center. A year before the Rhode Island law was adopted, the Rhode Island Sex Offender Management Task Force prepared a draft statement on residency restrictions that noted that “research shows that sex offenders with residential and family stability (which can be disrupted by such restrictions) are less likely to commit new sex offenses.”
At the time the lawsuit was filed, Chris Stephens, the President/CEO of NRI Community Services expressed concern that subjecting the plaintiffs to potential arrest and eviction under the statute “is not only contrary to their medical needs and increases their risk of homelessness, but it categorically does nothing to make the community safer.”
Shortly after Iowa became the first state in the country to implement a sex offender residency statute, the Iowa County Attorneys Association issued a statement opposing that statute, pointing out that “there is no correlation between residency restrictions and reducing sex offenses against children or improving the safety of children.” Other groups have noted that laws like these perpetuate the myth that most child sex offenses are committed by strangers, when in fact the overwhelming majority are committed by relatives and people the child knows.
In addition to NRI Community Services, representatives from the RI Disability Law Center and the RI Coalition for the Homeless have expressed support for the lawsuit.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Monday, October 29, 2012
GREEN BAY - Prisoners at Green Bay Correctional Institution are learning about financial literacy.
Education is a big part of the state corrections department's re-entry program at GBCI.
Deputy Warden Sarah Cooper says the program is designed to help inmates cope with life after prison.
"There's a lot of different things that we try to teach, and meet core competencies, so that when they do go back to society, they have some skills to succeed," said Cooper.
Cooper added if an inmate can succeed on the streets without going back to a life of crime, everybody wins.
"There's less victims, there's less incarceration, it costs less money and we want the inmates to go out into the community and succeed," said Cooper.
Circles of Support, a Goodwill Industries program, has a similar mission aimed at reducing repeat crimes, also known as recidivism.
Through group meetings and individual sessions, "Circles" helps recently released prisoners transition from incarceration to the community.
"They may come out without a state ID where they can't get a job, they can't do anything without that. So we'll drive them to the DMV and get that taken care of, and we'll just meet them where they're at," said regional director Anne Strauch.
Strauch said statistics show the program, which is funded in part by the Department of Corrections, is on the right track.
"Right now, I just figured out the statistics for 3/4 of the year and we're at 98.5%. So 1.5% have been revoked and back into prison, which is pretty good," Strauch said.
Are the various re-entry efforts in Wisconsin working? According to a new Department of Corrections report , the answer is yes. It shows the rate at which prisoners are committing new crimes after their release from prison is on a downward trend.
"As long as that rate keeps coming down, I think that's a positive sign for safety in Wisconsin," said Department of Corrections secretary Gary Hamblin.
The report tracked nearly the recidivism rates of 125 thousand offenders over a period of 20 years. It looked at people released from prison who re-offend within a three year period.
Recidivism is defined in the study as a new offense resulting in a conviction and sentence to the Wisconsin Department of Corrections.
Analyzing follow-up periods of one, two, and three years, the report shows the three-year follow-up recidivism rate decreased by 28.5% from 1993 to 2007.
That means an offender released in 1993 was nearly 1 1/2 times more likely to recidivate within three years than in 2007.
"That's a tribute to the folks in the Department of Corrections who have engaged a lot of their time and energies on re-entry efforts, preparing offenders to re-enter the community, with the education, the job skills, the other types of support they need to succeed," Hamblin said.
While the report data looks encouraging, Kathy Johnson can attest to the challenges of not re-offending. In 2001, she was incarcerated for a year after her fifth drunken driving offense. She said once she got out, things tended to deteriorate.
"Because I started to feel like I was not an ex-offender, that I was just like everybody else, and why can't I just do this and have a couple of drinks and different things," Johnson said.
Then, less than three years after Johnson was released, she was picked up and put back behind bars again for drunken driving. This time she served three years.
"I didn't think I was going to get caught. I think I was just going to breeze through it. The agent I had was pretty easy going and I figured I had bluffed my way through all these other things I can just bluff my way through that too," said Johnson.
After her release, Johnson got back on her feet with the help of Circles of Support, and today runs her own consignment shop inside Appleton's City Center Plaza.
She said re-entry programs in prisons weren't available when she was incarcerated, but added the fact they are now is very important.
"Just tossing people out and putting them in a motel or letting their family fend for them is not making a difference," Johnson said.
Hamblin said the department's next step is to start looking at individual programs and determine which ones are having the greatest impact on the recidivism rate. That's where resources will go.
"The challenge for us is to go back in now and say was it the educational program that helped him succeed? Or was it the job skills that they had? Or was it the alcohol treatment that they received? Which one of those things helped them succeed so that's going to be the harder part, I think, to determine which programs are most successful," said Hamblin.
As far as whether the recidivism rate will continue to drop, DOC officials said it may not go down as sharply in the future as things like various specialty courts, such as OWI and Drug Treatment Courts, gain a foothold in Wisconsin.
They added, over time, the people coming to prison will be the hard core criminals, and they are going to present
Education is a big part of the state corrections department's re-entry program at GBCI.
Deputy Warden Sarah Cooper says the program is designed to help inmates cope with life after prison.
"There's a lot of different things that we try to teach, and meet core competencies, so that when they do go back to society, they have some skills to succeed," said Cooper.
Cooper added if an inmate can succeed on the streets without going back to a life of crime, everybody wins.
"There's less victims, there's less incarceration, it costs less money and we want the inmates to go out into the community and succeed," said Cooper.
Circles of Support, a Goodwill Industries program, has a similar mission aimed at reducing repeat crimes, also known as recidivism.
Through group meetings and individual sessions, "Circles" helps recently released prisoners transition from incarceration to the community.
"They may come out without a state ID where they can't get a job, they can't do anything without that. So we'll drive them to the DMV and get that taken care of, and we'll just meet them where they're at," said regional director Anne Strauch.
Strauch said statistics show the program, which is funded in part by the Department of Corrections, is on the right track.
"Right now, I just figured out the statistics for 3/4 of the year and we're at 98.5%. So 1.5% have been revoked and back into prison, which is pretty good," Strauch said.
Are the various re-entry efforts in Wisconsin working? According to a new Department of Corrections report , the answer is yes. It shows the rate at which prisoners are committing new crimes after their release from prison is on a downward trend.
"As long as that rate keeps coming down, I think that's a positive sign for safety in Wisconsin," said Department of Corrections secretary Gary Hamblin.
The report tracked nearly the recidivism rates of 125 thousand offenders over a period of 20 years. It looked at people released from prison who re-offend within a three year period.
Recidivism is defined in the study as a new offense resulting in a conviction and sentence to the Wisconsin Department of Corrections.
Analyzing follow-up periods of one, two, and three years, the report shows the three-year follow-up recidivism rate decreased by 28.5% from 1993 to 2007.
That means an offender released in 1993 was nearly 1 1/2 times more likely to recidivate within three years than in 2007.
"That's a tribute to the folks in the Department of Corrections who have engaged a lot of their time and energies on re-entry efforts, preparing offenders to re-enter the community, with the education, the job skills, the other types of support they need to succeed," Hamblin said.
While the report data looks encouraging, Kathy Johnson can attest to the challenges of not re-offending. In 2001, she was incarcerated for a year after her fifth drunken driving offense. She said once she got out, things tended to deteriorate.
"Because I started to feel like I was not an ex-offender, that I was just like everybody else, and why can't I just do this and have a couple of drinks and different things," Johnson said.
Then, less than three years after Johnson was released, she was picked up and put back behind bars again for drunken driving. This time she served three years.
"I didn't think I was going to get caught. I think I was just going to breeze through it. The agent I had was pretty easy going and I figured I had bluffed my way through all these other things I can just bluff my way through that too," said Johnson.
After her release, Johnson got back on her feet with the help of Circles of Support, and today runs her own consignment shop inside Appleton's City Center Plaza.
She said re-entry programs in prisons weren't available when she was incarcerated, but added the fact they are now is very important.
"Just tossing people out and putting them in a motel or letting their family fend for them is not making a difference," Johnson said.
Hamblin said the department's next step is to start looking at individual programs and determine which ones are having the greatest impact on the recidivism rate. That's where resources will go.
"The challenge for us is to go back in now and say was it the educational program that helped him succeed? Or was it the job skills that they had? Or was it the alcohol treatment that they received? Which one of those things helped them succeed so that's going to be the harder part, I think, to determine which programs are most successful," said Hamblin.
As far as whether the recidivism rate will continue to drop, DOC officials said it may not go down as sharply in the future as things like various specialty courts, such as OWI and Drug Treatment Courts, gain a foothold in Wisconsin.
They added, over time, the people coming to prison will be the hard core criminals, and they are going to present
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Conference targets employers for hiring former offenders
Conference targets employers for hiring former offenders
The Summit will bring together more than 100 Wisconsin employers who have job openings, with a main goal of wiping out myths that are often associated with hiring former offenders as employees, and instead showcasing this population as a viable talent pool for employment.
The Milwaukee Re-Entry Network is a partnership made up of Wisconsin-based nonprofit organizations, government entities and community-based organizations who came together to develop an ex-offender summit for employers who currently hire former offenders and those that have not explored this option. The summit will educate employers on the resources, benefits and facts when hiring former offenders.
The summit will feature nationally known speaker Yariela Kerr-Donovan, director of Project REACH-Resources and Education for the Advancement of Careers at Johns Hopkins University.
“Businesses recognize the value of reaching and retaining talent, however when organizations don’t consider people with criminal convictions they are missing out on a valuable talent pool,” said Angela Turner, president of the Center for Self-Sufficiency.
“Many former offenders are already equipped with skills in various trades and ready for employment,” said Janice Stricker, U. S. Probation Office, Eastern District of Wisconsin. “Having already received valuable training while incarcerated equates to a cost-savings to the employers who will hire them. In addition, and to dispel yet another myth, employers are entitled to a tax savings in the form of a tax credit incentive (Work Opportunity Tax Credit) for hiring former offenders in full-time positions.”
The Milwaukee Re-Entry Employer Summit is sponsored by the Center for Self-Sufficiency, Wisconsin Department of Children & Families, Wisconsin Department of Corrections, Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, Milwaukee Area Workforce Investment Board, U. S. Probation Office, Eastern District of Wisconsin, Wisconsin Community Services and the YWCA. Employers interested in participating in the Milwaukee Re-Entry Networks Employer Summit are encouraged to contact Lauren Bridgeman at the Center for Self-Sufficiency at (414) 326-3151.
The Milwaukee Re-Entry Network will host its first Employer Summit on Wednesday, Nov. 7 at The American Serb Hall, 5101 W. Oklahoma Ave., in Milwaukee from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The Summit will bring together more than 100 Wisconsin employers who have job openings, with a main goal of wiping out myths that are often associated with hiring former offenders as employees, and instead showcasing this population as a viable talent pool for employment.
The Milwaukee Re-Entry Network is a partnership made up of Wisconsin-based nonprofit organizations, government entities and community-based organizations who came together to develop an ex-offender summit for employers who currently hire former offenders and those that have not explored this option. The summit will educate employers on the resources, benefits and facts when hiring former offenders.
The summit will feature nationally known speaker Yariela Kerr-Donovan, director of Project REACH-Resources and Education for the Advancement of Careers at Johns Hopkins University.
“Businesses recognize the value of reaching and retaining talent, however when organizations don’t consider people with criminal convictions they are missing out on a valuable talent pool,” said Angela Turner, president of the Center for Self-Sufficiency.
“Many former offenders are already equipped with skills in various trades and ready for employment,” said Janice Stricker, U. S. Probation Office, Eastern District of Wisconsin. “Having already received valuable training while incarcerated equates to a cost-savings to the employers who will hire them. In addition, and to dispel yet another myth, employers are entitled to a tax savings in the form of a tax credit incentive (Work Opportunity Tax Credit) for hiring former offenders in full-time positions.”
The Milwaukee Re-Entry Employer Summit is sponsored by the Center for Self-Sufficiency, Wisconsin Department of Children & Families, Wisconsin Department of Corrections, Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, Milwaukee Area Workforce Investment Board, U. S. Probation Office, Eastern District of Wisconsin, Wisconsin Community Services and the YWCA. Employers interested in participating in the Milwaukee Re-Entry Networks Employer Summit are encouraged to contact Lauren Bridgeman at the Center for Self-Sufficiency at (414) 326-3151.
Sunday, October 21, 2012
In the news by Karen Franklin PhD: Static-99R risk estimates wildly unstable, developers admit
In the news by Karen Franklin PhD: Static-99R risk estimates wildly unstable, developers admit
Excerpt:
The developers of the widely used Static-99R risk assessment tool for sex offenders have conceded that the instrument is not accurate in providing numerical estimates of risk for sexual recidivism for any specific offender.
The startling admission was published in the current issue of Criminal Justice and Behavior.
Excerpt:
The developers of the widely used Static-99R risk assessment tool for sex offenders have conceded that the instrument is not accurate in providing numerical estimates of risk for sexual recidivism for any specific offender.
The startling admission was published in the current issue of Criminal Justice and Behavior.
Friday, October 19, 2012
Judge overturns parts of Nebraska sex offender law : Politics
Judge overturns parts of Nebraska sex offender law : Politics
The Ruling Full Text
A federal judge has struck down parts of Nebraska's new sex offender laws, which would have made it a crime for some offenders to use social networking sites and require them all to notify the state whenever they post on the Internet.
Senior U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf said it wasn't his prerogative to second-guess Nebraska's policy judgments, so long as they are within constitutional parameters.
And he earlier upheld parts of the state's new sex offender registration laws despite personally believing them to be "both wrongheaded and counterproductive."
But, Kopf said, "for three sections of Nebraska's new sex offender registry law, Nebraska has violently swerved from that path."
Specifically would have:
* made it illegal for sex offenders whose crimes were against children to use social networking sites, instant messaging or chat rooms;
* required all sex offenders to subject themselves to searches and monitoring of their computers and cell phones; and
* to tell the government every time they posted on Internet sites or blogs.
The laws, the most recent changes to the state's Sex Offender Registration Act, were passed in 2009 but put on hold as a result of the lawsuit before they were to go into effect in 2010.
It was sex offenders themselves who sued. At a trial before Kopf in July, they testified one after another about how the changes would impact them and, in many cases, their work.
On Thursday, Omaha attorney Stu Dornan, whose firm represented the men and women challenging the laws as John and Jane Doe, hailed this week's ruling, saying the laws had left people on the Nebraska Sex Offender Registry unsure whether they could text or email family members or even turn on a computer.
He said Kopf's ruling upheld the Constitution as a document that protects even sex offenders, who are viewed by many Nebraskans, as Kopf said in his order, as the lepers of the 21st century.
"The Constitution, if it does not protect this group of people, it does not protect any of us," Dornan said.
An appeal seems likely, though.
As scathing as Kopf's 73-page order was at times, the judge did also set out a pathway for Nebraska lawmakers to cure it.
"Plainly put: Concentrate on demonstrated risk rather than speculating and burdening more speech than is necessary -- use a scalpel rather than a blunderbuss," the judge said.
As it was, Kopf said Nebraska lawmakers had gone too far, putting a stake through the heart of the First Amendment and gutting protections against suspicion-less searches.
He said the ban for child sex offenders alone had the potential to restrict them from communicating with hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, of adults and their companies, even if the communication had nothing to do with minors.
And Kopf found -- perhaps most surprisingly -- that the Legislature's intent was to punish sex offenders, based on comments made by State Sen. Scott Lautenbaugh, who introduced the bill, and Corey O'Brien, the man in the Nebraska Attorney General's Office who drafted it.
"The truth is the hand-picked introducer of the bill that spawned these extraordinary statutes ... essentially admitted the punitive intent of these provisions," Kopf said.
The bill's stated purpose was to protect children from sexual predators by strengthening penalties and bringing the state's laws up to date.
But in a Judiciary Committee session on the record, Lautenbaugh said he had a "revulsion" for people convicted of these crimes and admitted some provisions were harsh and restrictive with the purpose of limiting and tracking what they're using the Internet for and to avoid a repeat offense.
At trial, the attorney general's office argued that the laws did not keep offenders from using the Internet entirely.
But Kopf said the Nebraska Legislature went far beyond its purported purpose when it criminalized the provisions.
"These statutes retroactively render sex offenders, who were sentenced prior to the effective date of these statutes, second-class citizens," he said. "They are silenced. They are rendered insecure in their homes."
He said lawmakers could draft a statute that required convicted sex offenders to provide Internet addresses that the state could track, rather than requiring sex offenders to constantly update the state about when and where they post, for instance.
The state also could narrow social networking and chatroom restrictions to offenders who committed their crimes using the Internet, he said.
"There is not the slightest reason to believe that such a targeted solution would not be sufficient to address Nebraska's legitimate, rather than speculative, concerns for children," Kopf said.
Reached Thursday afternoon, Lautenbaugh declined to comment on Kopf's decision, saying he hadn't had time yet to read the order.
"I really don't have anything to say," he said.
Shannon Kingery, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Jon Bruning, said his office respectfully disagreed with the court's decision.
"We are reviewing the ruling and assessing our options," she said.
The Ruling Full Text
A federal judge has struck down parts of Nebraska's new sex offender laws, which would have made it a crime for some offenders to use social networking sites and require them all to notify the state whenever they post on the Internet.
Senior U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf said it wasn't his prerogative to second-guess Nebraska's policy judgments, so long as they are within constitutional parameters.
And he earlier upheld parts of the state's new sex offender registration laws despite personally believing them to be "both wrongheaded and counterproductive."
But, Kopf said, "for three sections of Nebraska's new sex offender registry law, Nebraska has violently swerved from that path."
Specifically would have:
* made it illegal for sex offenders whose crimes were against children to use social networking sites, instant messaging or chat rooms;
* required all sex offenders to subject themselves to searches and monitoring of their computers and cell phones; and
* to tell the government every time they posted on Internet sites or blogs.
The laws, the most recent changes to the state's Sex Offender Registration Act, were passed in 2009 but put on hold as a result of the lawsuit before they were to go into effect in 2010.
It was sex offenders themselves who sued. At a trial before Kopf in July, they testified one after another about how the changes would impact them and, in many cases, their work.
On Thursday, Omaha attorney Stu Dornan, whose firm represented the men and women challenging the laws as John and Jane Doe, hailed this week's ruling, saying the laws had left people on the Nebraska Sex Offender Registry unsure whether they could text or email family members or even turn on a computer.
He said Kopf's ruling upheld the Constitution as a document that protects even sex offenders, who are viewed by many Nebraskans, as Kopf said in his order, as the lepers of the 21st century.
"The Constitution, if it does not protect this group of people, it does not protect any of us," Dornan said.
An appeal seems likely, though.
As scathing as Kopf's 73-page order was at times, the judge did also set out a pathway for Nebraska lawmakers to cure it.
"Plainly put: Concentrate on demonstrated risk rather than speculating and burdening more speech than is necessary -- use a scalpel rather than a blunderbuss," the judge said.
As it was, Kopf said Nebraska lawmakers had gone too far, putting a stake through the heart of the First Amendment and gutting protections against suspicion-less searches.
He said the ban for child sex offenders alone had the potential to restrict them from communicating with hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, of adults and their companies, even if the communication had nothing to do with minors.
And Kopf found -- perhaps most surprisingly -- that the Legislature's intent was to punish sex offenders, based on comments made by State Sen. Scott Lautenbaugh, who introduced the bill, and Corey O'Brien, the man in the Nebraska Attorney General's Office who drafted it.
"The truth is the hand-picked introducer of the bill that spawned these extraordinary statutes ... essentially admitted the punitive intent of these provisions," Kopf said.
The bill's stated purpose was to protect children from sexual predators by strengthening penalties and bringing the state's laws up to date.
But in a Judiciary Committee session on the record, Lautenbaugh said he had a "revulsion" for people convicted of these crimes and admitted some provisions were harsh and restrictive with the purpose of limiting and tracking what they're using the Internet for and to avoid a repeat offense.
At trial, the attorney general's office argued that the laws did not keep offenders from using the Internet entirely.
But Kopf said the Nebraska Legislature went far beyond its purported purpose when it criminalized the provisions.
"These statutes retroactively render sex offenders, who were sentenced prior to the effective date of these statutes, second-class citizens," he said. "They are silenced. They are rendered insecure in their homes."
He said lawmakers could draft a statute that required convicted sex offenders to provide Internet addresses that the state could track, rather than requiring sex offenders to constantly update the state about when and where they post, for instance.
The state also could narrow social networking and chatroom restrictions to offenders who committed their crimes using the Internet, he said.
"There is not the slightest reason to believe that such a targeted solution would not be sufficient to address Nebraska's legitimate, rather than speculative, concerns for children," Kopf said.
Reached Thursday afternoon, Lautenbaugh declined to comment on Kopf's decision, saying he hadn't had time yet to read the order.
"I really don't have anything to say," he said.
Shannon Kingery, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Jon Bruning, said his office respectfully disagreed with the court's decision.
"We are reviewing the ruling and assessing our options," she said.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Assembly majority leader hopes CA court tosses Halloween sex offender suit - WTAQ News Talk 97.5FM and 1360AM
Assembly majority leader hopes CA court tosses Halloween sex offender suit - WTAQ News Talk 97.5FM and 1360AM
After reading this, I have to ask the question... How many children were harmed on Halloween by ANY sex offender, registered or not?
The answer? From the research I have done, there is only ONE and the victim was the daughter of the girlfriend of the not yet apprehended offender. It is the ONLY one I was able to find in the whole of the USA, not just Wisconsin.
Mr. Suder need to do some fact checking and learn to allocate our precious tax dollars more wisely.
California's court should hear out the case, for that is is what this country is supposed to be all about.
After reading this, I have to ask the question... How many children were harmed on Halloween by ANY sex offender, registered or not?
The answer? From the research I have done, there is only ONE and the victim was the daughter of the girlfriend of the not yet apprehended offender. It is the ONLY one I was able to find in the whole of the USA, not just Wisconsin.
Mr. Suder need to do some fact checking and learn to allocate our precious tax dollars more wisely.
California's court should hear out the case, for that is is what this country is supposed to be all about.
Monday, October 15, 2012
Friday, October 12, 2012
"Some Girls Rape Easy", the comment that rang around the world.
I have just got done reading a plethora of articles about ONE comment ONE Wisconsin Representative made. Taken completely out of context (just as our news media likes to do, sound bites, gotta love'em) and twisted to make him sound like someone that does not take victims seriously.
I have not met anyone yet in all my adult years that will not take a victim of any kind of assault seriously. Mainly because I believe that most people in their lifetime have been subject to some kind of abuse of one kind or another and an usually identify with a victim even if they do not completely understand the gamut of feelings that they could be going through in their own personal situation.
There are a few things that I would like to point out to the masses about assault and abuse.
With the laws the way they are today in Wisconsin the advise that was given was good advise, because consensual sex can and will turn into rape if either person is under the age of 18. While it could have been consensual the moment it happened, hindsight is always 20/20 and that consent can be reversed by just saying "I was raped" by either party involved to law enforcement. At that point officers are required by the VAW to believe and investigate the claim as if it were the only truth out there. Which means when it comes to anything that falls under the VAW, the accused is Guilty until Proven Innocent.
I have not met anyone yet in all my adult years that will not take a victim of any kind of assault seriously. Mainly because I believe that most people in their lifetime have been subject to some kind of abuse of one kind or another and an usually identify with a victim even if they do not completely understand the gamut of feelings that they could be going through in their own personal situation.
There are a few things that I would like to point out to the masses about assault and abuse.
- Assault and abuse are not always sexual in nature or even have that component, it is usually about power and control no matter how the abuse is delivered.
- Assault and abuse is not limited to happening to ONE gender but happens to BOTH, although due to the machismo image that is projected for men we do not hear about the assaults and abuse against them for even the laws themselves are stacked against them. As you have noticed "The Violence Against Women Act" (VAW) isn't really geared towards 'gender neutral'.
- Assault and abuse does not always leave visible scars or bruises but like visible scars and bruises they will heal with enough time and effort.
- Victims of assault and abuse are predisposed to perpetuating the cycle of assault and abuse in their own futures regardless of their gender.
With the laws the way they are today in Wisconsin the advise that was given was good advise, because consensual sex can and will turn into rape if either person is under the age of 18. While it could have been consensual the moment it happened, hindsight is always 20/20 and that consent can be reversed by just saying "I was raped" by either party involved to law enforcement. At that point officers are required by the VAW to believe and investigate the claim as if it were the only truth out there. Which means when it comes to anything that falls under the VAW, the accused is Guilty until Proven Innocent.
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