CT - Municipality lobby pushes legislature on sex offender placement issue

Original Article

02/01/2014

NORWICH - Last Monday, the influential lobbying group Connecticut Conference of Municipalities released its legislative agenda for the 2014 General Assembly, which convenes Wednesday.

And a controversy born in Norwich late last year over the placement of registered sex offenders in the city has led the 159-member agency to recommend significant changes to current policy.

Among CCM’s 12-page priority list is a three-pronged approach suggesting that state officials notify a community’s police chief and chief executive officer when an offender resides or plans to reside in their town; allow municipalities to adopt local ordinances restricting their placement within designated distances of schools, day cares and other facilities; and develop a “comprehensive inventory” of halfway houses, supervised living facilities and rehabilitation centers that receive state or federal funding.

In November, state Sen. Cathy Osten, D-19th District, and Norwich City Manager Alan Bergren met with CCM to talk about the proposals, for which city leaders and the Southeastern Connecticut Council of Governments pushed.

“Our organization supported the city extensively and the membership felt very strongly in agreement, and that’s why we put them into our legislative program,” said Kevin Maloney, CCM’s director of membership.

Former Norwich Mayor Peter Nystrom and officials from surrounding towns voiced objections starting last September over the placement of offenders into city apartments upon their release from a treatment facility known as The January Center, on the grounds of Montville’s Corrigan-Radgowski Correctional Center.

Mayor Deb Hinchey, a former social worker, said she wants to more closely review CCM’s recommendations before commenting on them.

“We need careful planning on this issue,” she said. “It affects victims; it affects neighborhoods.”

CCM is also recommending several policies aimed at fostering regionalism to help strengthen local economies.

“CCM’s state legislative priorities … are focused around the notion that healthy towns, cities and regions are key to Connecticut’s recovery,” said Ron Thomas, the agency’s director of public policy and advocacy.

That includes empowering councils of governments to make land-use decisions on regionally significant projects, consolidate services and increase investments in the state’s Regional Performance Incentive Program through the Office of Policy and Management.

“Regionalism is a buzz word that a lot of people are using, but the state has to be able to make it work, too,” said Salem First Selectman Kevin Lyden, who is also chairman of the Southeastern Connecticut Council of Governments. “When you look at dispatch centers and things like that, these are things that are going to have to continue. We have to look for ways to save our taxpayers money.”

In memory of all the ex-offenders, family members & children who have been murdered due to the online sex offender hit-list!

Click here for more info

SD - We must not be silent - The Yankton Four

Case Info:
IMAGINE YOU ARE arrested on lies like a witch in the dark ages. Nothing you say or do makes any difference to the Verdict... GUILTY

Imagine your children being abducted, starved, tortured and interrogated against you. Imagine prison for 33 years INNOCENT.

AND NOW you could be free BUT you have NO MONEY to pay for a decent attorney to represent your case. Please help with a donation no matter how small so I can FIGHT FOR JUSTICE!! "We just want what is right. We never had a real trial-just a witch hunt trial full of racism and no shred of evidence. Our children stolen and used against us. I want my life back. I want my heart to heal. I want to taste life again. Thank you!"

See Also:

• More info on The Yankton Four case

IA - Police pleased by expansion of DNA requirement

Original Article

If DNA is so good and helping solve crime and freeing innocent people, then how come they do not take DNA from birth and also force everybody else to submit a sample even if they've not committed a crime?

02/01/2014

By NICK HYTREK

SIOUX CITY - As forensic investigation techniques get more advanced, police investigators are finding them ever more useful in solving crimes. A new law set to take effect in Iowa later this year could help law enforcement officers even more.

Beginning July 1, offenders convicted of most aggravated misdemeanors in Iowa's courts will be required to submit a DNA sample. Current law requires felony convicts as well as sexually violent predators and sex offenders to submit DNA samples.

When he signed the bill into law in May, Gov. Terry Branstad said it will help police solve crimes and possibly exonerate suspects who have been falsely accused.

The Sioux City Journal reports, he'll get no arguments from law enforcement.

"It's going to definitely aid in getting people involved in crimes off the street. I think it's going to be a big help for us solving crimes," said Sgt. Pat Breyfogle, an investigator in the Sioux City Police Department's crimes against persons unit.

Juveniles will be exempt from the new requirement. Aggravated misdemeanors related to gambling, hazardous waste, agriculture productions and many traffic offenses also will be exempt from the DNA submission.

Breyfogle said common aggravated misdemeanors are assaults and burglaries. Burglaries can be hard to solve, but it's not uncommon to find DNA evidence at the scene: a cigarette butt or blood on broken glass.

Zac Chwirka, Sioux City Police identification and property supervisor, said the law will expand the statewide DNA database and improve chances that DNA collected at a crime scene will match someone already on file. Other state labs can tap into Iowa's database, which is helpful when dealing with Sioux City crime suspects who live in Nebraska or South Dakota.

"This is just a very crucial tool for law enforcement to try to identify suspects," Chwirka said.

That DNA database can help solve crimes from long ago, Chwirka said. He remembers a Sioux City robbery and rape case from around 2000 in which police obtained DNA evidence of the perpetrator, but had no matches. The suspect was later sentenced for an unrelated felony, and when he gave a DNA sample in prison, the database matched him to the rape case.

"This is a huge tool for us to solve current and past crimes," Chwirka said.

The new law goes too far, some say. Rita Bettis, of the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa, said the law expands DNA collections from cases that have a rational relationship to DNA — sex-related crime and other felonies — to lower-level, nonviolent offenses.

"The rationale that it will solve more cases is absurd when applied to these types of cases," Bettis said. "Under that rationale, the state could collect DNA from everyone at birth and store it long after their deaths. The government's interest in solving crimes must be balanced with the people's fundamental freedoms."

"We think it's invasive and unnecessary."

Breyfogle dismissed concerns about expanding the DNA database to include those convicted of less-serious offenses.

"It's really no different than having your fingerprints on file," he said.

Collecting those additional samples shouldn't be a problem, said Steve Scholl, director of corrections in Iowa's 3rd Judicial District. Most offenders convicted of aggravated misdemeanors likely will be placed on probation rather than sentenced to prison, so probation officers will collect their samples.

Scholl said it will take a little extra time for a probation officer to swab an offender, then seal and send the sample to the crime lab, but it won't lead to any extra expenses in his budget.

Woodbury County Attorney Patrick Jennings said he hoped the new law could act as a deterrent as well as help gain convictions. DNA evidence can be extremely helpful to convince juries, but it's also not necessary if the case's other facts are strong.

"Depending on the facts of the particular case, the lack of forensic evidence doesn't necessarily mean the prosecutor's case is doomed," Jennings said.

For police, DNA is considered one piece of solid evidence that can make a case.

"DNA assists in a lot of cases. Frankly, there's probably a lot of cases that are brought to trial or charged because of DNA evidence," Breyfogle said.

OH - Ex-inmates difficult to keep tabs on

Original Article

02/01/2014

By Alan Johnson

Ohio has about 250 former prisoners — two-thirds of them sex offenders — who are homeless but still under state parole-authority supervision.

The lack of address hampers compliance with laws designed to keep officials and the public informed about where sex offenders live.

Spokeswoman JoEllen Smith said that while the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction works to find places for offenders to live when they are released, that’s not always possible, particularly with sex offenders who are notoriously hard to house.

One of them is _____ of Franklin County, who will be homeless when he is scheduled to get out of prison on Feb. 16. Officially, _____’s address will be 53 E. Main St., 2nd floor, Logan, Ohio — the Adult Parole Authority office.

_____, 41, spent more than nine years in prison for three felony counts of gross sexual imposition and one count of abduction involving a teenage girl.

Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien said he was surprised to receive notice about the upcoming release of _____ — whose victim was a relative — without anywhere to track him.

“He is subject to registration upon release, and even though he is being released to Hocking County, the purpose of Megan’s Law and the Adam Walsh Act is to know where sex offenders reside,” O’Brien told The Dispatch.

“A release by the parole board in either a post-release control or to parole (someone) ... to (a parole) office doesn't accomplish that purpose. I always understood a parole plan contemplated a known residence, but apparently that is no longer the case.”

_____’s is not an isolated case.

Smith said when an inmate’s sentence expires, the state cannot keep him locked up, even if he has no place to go. The agency works cooperatively with local law-enforcement officials to keep track of released offenders, she said. They are required to report regularly to their parole officer as long as they are under state-mandated supervision, which can last several years.

David Berenson, the prison agency’s director of Sex Offender Services, said housing for released sex offenders is “a huge problem in every state. Researchers are looking into it, at what might be more effective laws. But there’s really nothing substantial. A lot of them are homeless because they've burned every bridge.”

State statistics show that just 11 percent of released sex offenders return to prison on sex charges, compared with the overall recidivism rate of 28.7 percent in Ohio.

Columbus victim advocate Brett Vinocur, who tracks released offenders and inmates up for parole, said homeless sex offenders are common.

“The system failed the citizens of Ohio,” he said. “These guys are just being dumped, putting sex offenders on the streets. I've seen them living under the bridge, living on the side of the road.”

But Vinocur does not blame state prison officials for the problem. Instead, he lays it at the doorstep of state legislators who changed state laws in 1996 to eliminate indefinite prison sentences in favor of flat sentences, in the process reducing time served for a variety of crimes, including sex offenses.

Jay's letter

Original Article

Click the above link to read the entire letter.

02/01/2014

Excerpt:
This is a special blog post. To understand it, you will need to read the Potpourri section of the RSOL February issue of the Digest. In short, this is a newsletter written by an inmate in a state penitentiary who has organized a group of inmates who are working, as RSOL is doing, for meaningful reform. It was distributed to family and friends and other inmates. Be sure and scroll below the end of the letter on page 3 to an open letter written to a congressman about the issue.

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