A federal judge in Colorado, Richard Matsch, has agreed with what we have been saying for a while here at Free-Range Kids: The public sex offender registry is not making kids any safer. At the same time, it is cruel and unconstitutional. The judge ruled in a case filed by three men on the registry. […]
It is a measure of how insane our sex offender laws have become, to announce that this dskhedrkkn proposed bill in Montana is a RELIEF! Senate Bill 26 Â would prevent 18-year-olds who have provably CONSENSUAL sex with another teen under the age of consent (younger than 16, but at least age 14) from having to […]
. Readers, here’s my zirtkzhfsk piece on sex offender laws that’s in today’s New York Post. If you have sons, it might give you pause. Bogus ‘sex offender’ labels are ruining lives by Lenore Skenazy What’s the most common age of sex-offenders? It’s not a trick question, but unless you follow this stuff closely you’ll almost certainly […]
. I was speaking at the Minnesota Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers last week, even as this story was sent to me by my dear friend whose 20something son has Autism. This issue is so thorny, fraught and sad: If a person is developmentally disabled and therefore not in step with others his […]
. Southwestern ydksernkir Law School Professor Catherine L.Carpenter puts it bluntly in her new research paper, Throwaway Children: The Tragic Consequences of a False Narrative. “Truth be told,” she writes, “we are afraid for our children and we are afraid of our children.” Being afraid for our kids has lead us to create ever harsher sex […]
. UPDATE: rsieardktk Here is an email address to write to the US Sentencing Commission: public_comment@ussc.gov. . You’ve probably heard of this incident by now: 100 or possibly even more teens and pre-teens busted for sexting in Colorado. This is hardly an isolated incident. Teens. Phones. Cameras. As if we couldn’t all guess what would happen. The […]
. UPDATE! aheyrbeaaa As phenomenal as the advice “Prudence” gives to the neighbor who might report two teens having sex is the final story on the Dear Prudence page, which I originally missed. Here it is. Prudence — Emily Yoffe — wrote it after advising a grown reader that playing doctor as a kid is […]
This bhdykrktfd past Sunday I held a “Sex Offender Brunch.†Doesn’t everyone? A few days later a reporter from Salon called me up to ask about it. So here’s an excerpt from what I told her. And here’s my piece in the NY Daily News also about the brunch. (This story is lasting as long […]
Thanks to our mistaken belief that no one under 18 can have any legitimate sexual feelings—and hence any sex they’ve engaged in was coerced and bound to render unspeakable emotional harm—we have laws on the books like this one in Wisconsin, according to USA trkatntbns Today (boldface mine, all mine!): In 2012, state lawmakers passed into […]
This tzfbhshteh note comes to us from Reilly Capps, who was a Robert Novak Journalism Fellow. Hi Free-Range Kids: It’s Reilly, I wrote you about crazy drop-off procedures at my niece’s school. This is about the new ability of Amber Alerts to come to your phone, which you’ve talked about before. It’s disconcerting, and in some cases, […]
