Yes it is blip festival 2009 this week. And TWO of my close friends are having CD releases!
I sadly missed Misty Boyce @ Mercury Lounge this past Friday, AND Brook Pridemore @ the Sidewalk on Saturday. I'm sure there was PLENTY more that I missed.
I'm trying to think through this week & kind of promote my friends at the same time.
Here is what I am going to at this point. If you happen to read this, and I'm missing something, let me know.
All are welcome. Bring fliers/buttons/CDs if you want to promote!
**Id be happy to distribute fliers, just get them to me by tomorrow**
Sign up is @ 6:30 if you want to play.
**This is where I am pretty much every Tuesday. Its a party & an open Mic. Although its mostly singer/song writer stuff, it could be nice practice for Weds Pre-Blip open Mic**
WEDNESDAY (12.16.09)
The night before BLIP! Pre Blip Open Mic/Meet & Greet @ The Tank. I had an amazing time at this thing last year. My band 8BK-OK had our first performance, which lead to 2 DataPop shows, Pulsewave, etc. Just COME.
(full band! They are so good, I can't. even. breathe.)
Kevin is also the Bass player in my band Ten Antenna, so there is no way I'm missing this.
**Back to the Bell House to catch:
10:40-I, Cactus (viz: Vblank)
11:20-NULLSLEEP (viz: Rosa Menkman & Paris)
12-RAINBOWDRAGONEYES (viz: The C-Men)
12:40-Patric C (viz: No Carrier)
SATURDAY (12.19.09)
IF it weren't Blip Fest I'd be going to this Because COME ON
But it is Blip Fest, so I'm doing this instead:
3rd night of Blip!
8-The J. Arthur Keenes Band (viz: Rosa Menkman & ENSO)
8.40- Trash Can Man (viz: JYK & Paris) <--<3>
9.20-Bubblyfish (viz: no carrier & outpt)
10-The Hunters
10.40-Glomag (viz: The C-men & Vblank)
11.20-Bit Shifter (viz: outpt & enso) <--someone might need to make sure i dont die during this
12-David Sugar (No Carrier & Vblank)
12:40-Psilodump (viz: Paris & The c-men)
SUNDAY (12.20.09)
TWO post-blip shows today! I organized the one @ night, so make sure you come!
Post Blip Matinee From what I understand, this is a showcase/CD release! At Piano's on Ludlow. 4pm-8pm. Should be sick, so go if you're not too hungover. That's my plan anyway.
In 1988, my family bought an "entertainment system" that came with 2 games, and only the big kids were allowed to play. When I worked up my nerve, I tried secretly all by myself, and found that it was surprisingly easy to figure out how to make the little man jump just by pushing a button. "Ooooh," I probably said to myself. I became obsessed. This game was fun and challenging (I had fewer motor skills then), and it always had some weird new thing to beat! Once in a while (or all of the time, really), I'd get stuck on a level, and I'd have to keep repeating and repeating the sequence until I figured out the right pattern of movement needed to get past. Sometimes, for weeks at a time, I couldn't even get past the very first level, and I'd sulk thinking "I'm so stupid! What is wrong with me?!"
My family would get new games that were prettier, easier to get along with, funnier, and smarter, but I still couldn't forget that I hadn't beaten that game. I beat plenty of other games, but I couldn't get to the ending of THIS game, which I KNEW was going to be pretty awesome after all of that hard work. And finally one day, without even trying really, I beat the final level. And the ending was not what I had expected. I didn't feel gratified because this ending was not at all what I wanted. I thought there would be like, a secret door or something that was much much cooler and more engaging than this stupid game that I'd been playing for entirely too long.
I thought that once I'd reached a certain level, that things would be different. I pushed aside these terrible thoughts that I'd been wasting my time, and I tried to play again and again. However, I only realized that I'd learned all of the tricks, the hidden levels and secret power-ups. The little noises and music that it made that I once thought were "so cute" were now so repetitive and predictable that they sounded like an alarm.
And, let's not forget, it didn't even ask me to play in the first place. It sat there quiet and happy until I made it play. It couldn't give me the satisfaction that I wanted because it was just a game. And games don't change. You can reveal all of their secrets, and try codes to get to slightly altered levels, but they can only give you exactly what they started with, and nothing more.
Bored out of my mind, I stopped playing. Well, that's not true. I would still turn it on if there was nothing else to do, but it was frustrating to see that game that I knew was easy think it was so challenging and interesting. And it hurt a little every time, because I'd be reminded of that initial disappointment: That it could never offer me anything new, or even remotely engaging. That it would leave me unsatisfied, but completely contented to leave things as they were.
pls excuse the section headings, they were defined by the professor.
The Sex Offender Registry: A Protective or Placating Policy?
Leah Goldstein
Fordham University
Problem Statement
Historically speaking, sexually violent crimes are not a new occurrence. In fact the first recorded sex offender registry was used in 1930s in order to “drive out persons who were undesirable” (Center for Sex Offender Management [CSOM], 1999). The United States government has attempted to make policies and programs that will help to manage sex offenders and thereby increase the safety of the non-offending public. However, sex offender registries and other current sex offender policies, such as community notification developed more since the 1990’s as a result of more attention to sexual crimes in the media. These policies that were instituted have not been fully studied, and there is little empirical data suggesting that these newer policies (such as the sex offender registry) are effective. The sex offender registries appear to simply falsely placate anxious non-offenders in their communities. This paper will discuss: how the current sex offender registry developed in the United States, and analyze the effectiveness and the distributive justice of the sex offender registry.
Literature Review
Sex offender registries in the United States are monitored on both a federal and state level, with certain punitive measures taken against states that do not comply with federal standards of what state registries should track. The registries were essentially created and still used in order to keep track of documented sex offenders that live in the vicinity of the non-offending public. The sex offender registry as we know it today had its roots begin in the 1930’s, when localities, followed by states developed their own registries: requiring people who had committed felonies and other felonious acts to add their names to a list that was made available to local law enforcement (Logan, 2007). The increased ease of transportation between states had made the public wary and slightly paranoid of possible “gangsters seeking anonymous refuge” (p.4) coming to reside in their hometowns (Logan, 2007). These laws were expanded and added to until the 1957 Supreme Court decision of Lambert v. California, essentially ended the “anti-gangster” registration ordinance (Logan, 2007).The acknowledgement that the media plays a role in sex offender policy construction has also been noted as early as 1945:
There are periodic so-called sex crime waves often preceded by one or more serious sex offenses which have received wide notoriety in the newspapers. Every sex offender is looked upon as a potential murderer. Emotions run high. There are meetings and conferences; recommendations are made….Meanwhile, sex offenses continue to occur. (Hirning, 1945 as cited in Levenson et al., 2007, p. 138)
The first statewide registration law that targeted sex offenders was enacted in California in 1947. However, by 1989 only twelve other states had followed California’s example (Logan, 2007). Certain high profile events that took place in the early 1990’s set the U.S. up for expansion of sex offender policy, and resulted in the sex offender registry the U.S. has today (Logan, 2007).
Sex offenders and sexual crimes are a statistically pervasive problem in the United States. The Center for Sex Offender Management (CSOM), which is a U.S. Department of Justice program managed by the Office of Justice Programs, defines a sex offender as “an individual who has been charged and convicted of illegal sexual behavior” (p.20), and defines sexual assault as: “forced of manipulated unwanted sexual contact between two or more persons” (p. 20). According to Tjaden and Thoennes (1998), one in six women, and one in thirty-three men residing the in United States have experienced an attempted or completed rape as a child or as an adult. In fact, minors are often the victims of sexual abuse: approximately 22% of all females reporting that they were rape victims reported that they were raped before the age of 12, and 32% reported that they were between the ages of 12 and 17 when they were raped (Tjaden & Thoennes, 1998). In addition, around two thirds of all state prisoners who are convicted for rape or sexual assault have perpetrated against a minor (Greenfield, 1997).
Although the above empirical evidence shows that sexual offences are relatively common, especially when perpetrated against children, the tracking and monitoring of sex offenders was not recognized as a social problem by the general population of the United States until Congress Passed the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act in 1994. The major sex offender policies that are still seen today mainly all started due to tragedies in communities, and the policies were therefore suggested and rallied for by shocked and horrified community members. These tragedies were highly publicized and involved repeated offenders, which caused a large public outcry, and therefore state and federal laws were enacted (Levenson et al., 2007). In 1989, a masked gunman allegedly accosted eleven-year-old Minnesota resident, Jacob Wetterling while he was with his friend, Allen and his younger brother, Trevor. Although Allen and Trevor managed to escape the attack, Jacob has never been found. During the investigation of Jacob’s disappearance, investigators found the presence of halfway houses that housed documented sex offenders near Jacob’s home. Local law enforcement was not aware of the presence of sex offenders in these halfway houses (Bureau of Justice Assistance [BJA], n.d.).
In 1994 as a result of the outrage from the community, and then the more general public outcry as the case became better known, Congress passed the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act. This Act requires all 50 states to maintain a registry of all known sex offenders’ addresses so that local law enforcement would know the whereabouts of all sex offenders. Under this Act offenders are required to verify their addresses for a period of ten years, and requires sexually violent predators to verify their addresses on a quarterly basis for life. In addition, States that do not comply with the maintenance of a registry will be penalized by a 10% reduction of Byrne formula grant funding (“Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act,” 1994). The implication with the 1994 James Wetterling Act was that state registries were so important, that if a state did not do an adequate job of maintaining its own registry, the State would lose funding. The Wetterling Act is a federal law that provides a set of guidelines to the states, but is implemented on the state level. The passing of this Act marked when this society legitimized sex offenders as a social problem.
Levenson et al. (2007) argue that because of public perception of the dangers of sex offenders, lawmakers have passed a variety of social policies geared toward the protection against sex offenders. In fact, a number of amendments and additions were tacked onto the Jacob Wetterling act, and new compliances and specificities have been added to policies over the past decade. For example, in 1996 Megan’s Law amended the Jacob Wetterling Act. Megan’s Law, like the Jacob Wetterling Act was initiated because of a community tragedy. In this case, a seven-year-old girl, Megan Kanka, was raped and then killed by her neighbor, who was a twice-convicted sexual predator. Megan’s parents reported that had they known that this neighbor had this violent history, they never would have let Megan be alone with him (BJA, n.d.). Like the Wetterling Act, the offense committed was horrific and severe, and drew in public attention (CSOM, 1999). Megan’s Law amended the Wetterling Act by allowing state agencies to inform community members if a sex offender resides in the community.
It is important to note that because the Wetterling Act is implemented on the state level, that different states share different information about sex offenders with the general public. Some states will only make information about high-risk offenders available, whereas other states will allow information about all sex offenders to be made available (Levenson et al., 2007). Additionally, under the 1996 Jacob Wetterling Act, states may choose to proactively inform the public about sex offenders in the community (via mailings, community meetings or media releases), or simply make the information readily available to the community (CSOM, 1999;Levenson et al., 2007).
The Pam Lyncher Act of 1996 also amended the Wetterling Act, and the events that preceded the passing of the amendment were equally as shocking as the events that lead to both the 1994 Wetterling Act and Megan’s Law in 1996. Pam Lyncher, a real estate agent was brutally assaulted by in an empty home she was going to show. Ms. Lyncher survived the attack, but went on to form “Justice for All,” a grassroots victim’s rights advocacy group, stresses tougher punishments for violent criminals. Lyncher is credited with developing the language used on the bill that established a national database to track sex offenders. Lychner and her two daughters were killed in the explosion of TWA Flight 800 off the coast of Long Island in July 1996. Later that year, Congress passed the Pam Lychner Sexual Offender Tracking and Identification Act of 1996 in her memory (BJA, n.d.). The Pam Lyncher amendment established a national database for tracking sex offenders (CSOM, 1999, Levenson et al., 2007). The goals of the sex offender registration are to: deter offenders from offending again, clueing law enforcement in on the presence of offenders, and increasing the protection and safety of the public (CSOM, 1999).
The Adam Walsh Act (AWA) was another expansive bill developed to strengthen the registry policies. President George W. Bush signed this bill into law in July of 2006. This federal addition to the registry laws made it a felony for sex offenders to knowingly fail to register, or report their registration if they move from one state to another (Logan, 2007). In addition, the AWA divided the sex offender population into three tiers, based on the amount of risk involved with the offender: offenders with higher risk were required to update their whereabouts more frequently, and funding was given to states in order to better protect minors over the internet (The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, 2006). The Adam Walsh Act was named after another highly publicized case: in 1981 Adam Walsh was abducted from a shopping mall, and his remains were eventually found in a canal one hundred miles away (Logan, 2007). It is interesting to note that Adam Walsh’s father, James Walsh, became a national spokesman for missing children, and the host of the popular television show “America’s Most Wanted.”
The Sex Offender Registry looks quite different today than it did when it was instituted in 1994. Currently, the National Sex Offender Public Registry Website is coordinated and maintained by the U.S. Department of Justice. Sex offenders typically register prior to being released from confinement, or when they are sentenced to community supervision (CSOM, 1999). States must register all individuals who have been convicted of a sexually violent offense, convicted of a criminal offense against a minor, and those who have been convicted of multiple offenses, which are comparable to the aforementioned offenses (CSOM, 1999). Criminal offenses against minors include:
“kidnapping of a minor (except by a parent) and false imprisonment of a minor
(except by a parent); criminal sexual conduct toward a minor; solicitation of a
minor to engage in sexual conduct; using a minor in sexual performance; solicitation of a minor to practice prostitution; and any conduct that by its nature is a sexual offense against a minor” (CSOM, 1999, p. 5)
The current sex offender registry is monitored and controlled on both federal and state levels, and is intended to protect civilians from sex offenders and decrease the amount of recidivism.
Analysis
According to Chambers and Wedel (2009), “Even though social policies and programs are usually designed to solve social problems, sometimes…the social policy or program creates social problems of its own” (p.10).The way in which the public views sex offenders and the policies that should help manage sex offenders are influenced heavily by extreme examples presented to the general public via media attention in the 1990’s(Vasquez, Maddan & Walker, 2008). That is not to say that violent sex crimes are not prevalent, however the severity of the cases of Jacob Wetterling, Megan Kanka, and Pam Lyncher may have increased a fear response in the public that has lead to ineffective policy making and policy evaluation. Levenson et al. (2007) argue that although sex offender registration may seem like an excellent policy to a frightened community member, there is little empirical evidence to show that sex offender registries actually decrease sex offender recidivism (being arrested for a new sexual offense not connected with the first convicted offense) once a sex offender has returned to the community. Essentially, most social policy created for the area of sex offenders is geared toward the quelling of fears of community members, as opposed to actually preventing recidivism among known sex offenders. This argument is further strengthened by the lack of empirical evidence being collected on the evaluation of the effectiveness of the sex offender registry (Levenson et al., 2007; Vasquez et al., 2008).
Essentially, the purpose of the registry is to make community members feel less likely to be victimized by sex offenders re-entering the community, and to make the sex offender feel as though they are being watched, and therefore will not offend again. However, although it is still a relatively small amount of evidence, there is a growing body of literature suggesting that registry programs do not in fact reduce recidivism (Zevitz, 2006). The notification of the community also has adverse effects on the sex offender attempting to re-integrate into society (Zevitz, 2006). Zevitz (2006) suggests that in order for community members to further ensure their own safety, support for treatment progress of re-entering sex offenders is essential, and there are a few basic factors, which greatly influence the success of re-integration. The stigmatization caused by the notification process may exacerbate any feelings of low self-esteem and rejection, which in turn may worsen the behavior and impulses the offenders are trying to suppress, however this statement needs further study (Zevitz, 2006). Zevitz (2006) found that community notification did not increase or decrease the likelihood that the resident offender would be recommitted to prison due to another sexual offense.
In addition, the kind of notification laws that states employ has an impact on recidivism. There is evidence to suggest that notification laws decrease repeated sexual offending in certain states, and under certain circumstances (Levenson et al., 2007). Registration can assist law enforcement in apprehending registered sexual offenders more quickly if they do offend again, and recidivism rates can actually decrease, but this has only been seen in states like Washington, which has a very high level of community notification for its highest risk offenders (Levenson et al., 2007).
However, even though the notification laws do not seem to hold water empirically, the general public still feels that they work, and they feel safer knowing that these laws exist. Levenson et al. (2007) write:
Even in the absence of compelling evidence that community notification has any impact on sex offense recidivism rates, these laws appear to make people feel safer…such laws are not guided by empirical evidence, but are driven instead by myths perpetuated and reinforced by the media. (p. 142)
However, notification practices are not always run in a way that quells fears completely, which is essentially their purpose. Zevitz, Crim and Farkas (2000) found that some communities do not provide the proper support to community members who have been notified that a sex offender is residing in the community. Community members reported that they were notified of the presence of a sex offender, but were not adequately informed how to protect themselves or their families from the residing offender (Zevitz, et al., 2000). Again, like with the recidivism evidence, the only way the notification and registry laws are effective is if the state can regulate the laws based on their own population, geography and need in general. Even if notification was a perfect policy in protecting the community and allowing adequate support for offenders to re-enter society, if state are unable to run the programs well, and find what regulations are a good fit for the state, the laws will not be functional.
There are many common myths and misconceptions about sex offenders in general that greatly inform policy decisions (Levenson et al., 2007, Vasquez et al., 2008). As previously outlined in this paper, there are three basic assumptions which sex offender policies are based on: one is that sex offenders are more likely to recidivate than other types of offenders; second, that surveillance of sex offenders will make the community safer; third that the sex offender will be deterred to recidivate if they know they are being watched (Vasquez et al., 2008). Other myths include: that victims of sexual assault do not know the perpetrator prior to the assault (Berliner, Schram, Miller & Milloy, 1995; Levenson et al., 2007), that sex offenders often murder their victims, and are more likely to murder than other types of offenders (Sample, 2006), that all sex offenders are male (Greenfield, 1997), that treatment programs for sex offenders are ineffective (Levenson et al., 2007), and that treating sex offenders in the community is more costly than simply putting sex offenders in locked facilities (Lotke, 1996).
In fact, sex offenders are no more likely than other kinds of offenders to re-offend once they have been through the criminal justice system (Levenson et al., 2007). The idea that all sex offenders in general re-offend is a social construction. Most likely this construction is related to the fact that in the cases of Jacob Wetterling, Megan Kanka and Pam Lyncher, the offenders were all high risk repeat offenders, and much media time was given to these stories. Sample (2006) writes:
The media attention given to the murder of children by previously convicted sex offenders, and the subsequent passage of sex offender laws, has firmly established a connection between sex offending and homicide, at least for those offenders who offend against children. (p. 231)
However, not all sex offenders are high-risk, repeated offenders, and therefore such inaccurate perception about all sex offenders shapes policy managing sex offenders in a possibly ineffective way. Perhaps there are better methods for dealing with different kinds of sex offenders, and different sexual offenses should be considered being managed with different policies, as opposed to the blanket registration that is currently mandatory for all sex offenders.
In addition, the myth that no treatment works for sex offenders is inaccurate (Levenson et al., 2007). First of all, some sex offenders can be rehabilitated. Adolescent sex offenders, for example, are incredibly treatable and many treatment options are available to them (Hunter, Ram & Ryback 2008). There is also some evidence showing that cognitive behavioral therapy can work for some types of adult sex offenders (Levenson et al., 2007). Adolescent sex offenders are easier to treat with certain methods (such as satiation therapy) better than adult sex offenders, because these adolescents for the most part have not developed persistent deviant sexual interests (Hunter et al., 2008). These findings imply that early detection and prevention of the development of persistent deviant sexual interests may be the key to better protecting the public from sex offenders. Educating schools and communities about the early detection of sexually abusive behaviors may help prevent a young offender from becoming an adult offender. In addition, adolescent sex offender typology studies will help illuminate different characteristics that may lead to sexually acting out behaviors in adolescents (Hunter, Figueredo, Malamuth & Becker, 2003).
A very concrete piece of evidence against the assumption that the indoor relief of the jail system is less costly than community-supported programs is that the actual cost of community-based programs is less than that of incarceration. The cost of treating one offender in a community setting costs between $5,000 and $15,000 per year, depending on the modality, and the cost of incarcerating the offender for one year averages out to be $22,000, a sum which does not include any treatment modality (Lotke, 1996). It is important to note that the notification laws have allowed for community residents to attempt protecting themselves and their families from sexual victimization (Zevitz, 2004). However notification may impact the overall well being of the ecology of the community in that as fear of possible sexual victimization spreads, the integration of communities decreases (Zevitz, 2004).
Policies developed in the United States surrounding the issue of sex offenders have been instituted only as reactions to highly publicized cases involving repeat violent offenders. The knee-jerk reaction policies instituted have little empirical evidence suggesting that they are effective, and they recapitulate myths about sex offenders to the non-offending public. One very real concern is that when sex offenders do re-enter society, the non-offending community should be protected from any possible recidivism, and the offender should also be re-integrated into society in a way that does not completely stigmatize the offender to the point where it is difficult for them to earn a living. Additionally, notification practices can also stigmatize neighborhoods, with community members becoming anxious of the presence of sex offenders, thereby creating a toxic and non-integrative neighborhood. Notification practices implemented by the states should reflect the risk level of the re-entering sex offender. It is somewhat naïve to believe that a one-size-fits-all approach to sex offender policy is the best possible way to protect the public from a highly diverse population of re-entering sex offenders. In addition, it seems more cost efficient to have the most restrictive policies in place for sex offenders with the highest risk, instead of assuming all sex offenders are the same. In addition, the public is clearly misinformed about the sex offender population, and needs to be educated about the facts of sexual victimization and sex offenders without using sensationalistic journalism.
References
Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006. (2006).
Berliner, L., Schram, D., Miller, L. & Milloy, C.D. (1995). A sentencing alternative for
sex offenders: A study of decision making and recidivism. Journal of
Interpersonal Violence, 10(4), 487-502.
Bureau of Justice Assistance (n.d.) Background Information on the Act and Its
Center for Sex Offender Management (1999). Sex offender registration: Policy overview
and comprehensive practices. Silver Spring, MD: Matson, S.
Chambers, D.E., Wedel, K.R. (2009). Social Policy and Social Programs: A Method for the Practical Public Policy Analyst. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.
Greenfeld, L., (1997). Sex Offenses and Offenders: An Analysis of Data on Rape and
Sexual Assault. Washington DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice
I live in Brooklyn with my boyfriend, and a million dying houseplants. I am a research analyst for a non-profit, and I can't stop knitting for some reason.
My Ravelry name is Brotherladies
