NCRSOL – NARSOL Updates – NCRSOL

NARSOL webcast event: Building Your Advocacy Toolkit

Robin Vander Wall — Fri, 11 Jun 2021 23:20:15 +0000

On Saturday, June 19, 2021, NARSOL will host a live day-long webcast entitled, “Building Your Advocacy Toolkit.” The one-day virtual event will feature speakers and panelists who will present viewpoints, strategies, and techniques that can assist anyone who is an advocate for criminal justice reform or may be contemplating it, whether at the local, regional, or national level.

The webcast, which will start at 11 A.M. (EST) and end at 6 P.M. (EST), will consist of three main sessions:

Session 1: A 360 Degree Look at Registrant Reentry

Moderator: David L. Garlock

David L. Garlock is a successful returning citizen, reentry professional, and criminal justice reform advocate. Granted parole after serving 13 years of a 25-year sentence for murdering his abuser in 2000, David obtained his bachelor’s degree from Eastern University and began his advocacy career. In addition to other advocacy roles, he is the co-chair of the Lancaster County Reentry Coalition, a member of the Pennsylvania Reentry Council, and is on the NARSOL Board of Directors.

Maddison Stallman

Madison Stallman is a legal extern with the Federal Defender Service of Wisconsin where she assists clients charged with violating SORNA in the Western District of Wisconsin. A 2L law student at the University of Wisconsin, she is currently working on two publications relevant to registration. She is a former volunteer with Minnesota’s Circles of Support and Accountability–an organization within MNDOC that works with incarcerated and recently paroled individuals with sexual offenses.

Tammy Johnson

Tammy Johnson has over twenty-five years of experience working in criminal justice, social services, and reentry. After graduating from North State College, her first position was at a treatment facility for adults convicted of sexual offenses in 1997, the same year that Ohio’s public registry was first introduced. Her subsequent positions were all working with registry-related issues; she has conducted hundreds of risk assessments and interviews of both incarcerated and returning citizens. She is a persuasive advocate, energetic volunteer, and a former member of the NARSOL Board of Directors.

Jeremy Burnworth

Jeremy Burnworth is the Executive Director of ReviveUP, a nonprofit organization that provides entrepreneurial training, resources, and advocacy for underserved communities, particularly returning citizens. He wrote and taught an extensive business curriculum to hundreds of men in Federal prison. He also consults for myriad organizations including the Revival Brand of Companies, a company which is notable for using an ‘open hiring’ model to employ and train people who are burdened with criminal records.

Randall Hayes

Randall Hayes is the legislative director for the Pennsylvania Association for Rational Sexual Offense Laws (PARSOL), a nonprofit organization that advocates for evidence-based approaches to sexual offense policy and sexual abuse prevention. A citizen-lobbyist, Randall also serves as a chapter leader for March on Harrisburg, a citizens’ group dedicated to eliminating the undue influence of money over the state legislature and advocating for pro-democracy reforms.

Session 2: Impactful Storytelling

Daniel Swern

Daniel Swern is the founder and producing director for coLAB Arts, which engages artists, social advocates, and communities to create transformative new works in theater, dance, and visual art. He is currently producing and directing three verbatim theater projects, including two collaborations with Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg. He is the owner of Smugbug Productions. Daniel also teaches graduate level Creative Engagement at both Rutgers University and the Mason Gross School of the Arts. His webcast session will include collaborators from coLAB Arts.

Session 3: Legislative Advocacy

Moderator: Cindy Prizio

Cindy Prizio is the cofounder of One Standard of Justice, a Connecticut civil rights advocacy group and NARSOL affiliate organization working for rational laws and public policies related to the sexual offense registry. She is an outspoken and effective citizen lobbyist who advocates for trauma-informed restorative justice and is working to bring a pilot program to her state as an alternative to the criminal legal system. Her other advocacy efforts include lobbying, aiding with litigation, and providing educational webinars. The latest in that series will be broadcast on June 22 and is entitled, “Politics v. Science and Public Safety; Is there Common Ground?”

Sen. Gary Winfield (CT)

Senator Gary Winfield is a five-term senator who has been serving in the Connecticut Senate since February 28, 2014. Prior to his time in the state senate, Senator Winfield served an unprecedented three terms in the Connecticut House of Representatives, terms which were marked by passage of the state’s repeal of the death penalty, a transgender civil rights bill, an education equity bill, and campaign finance reform legislation. As a state senator, Senator Winfield has been an outspoken and instrumental leader in helping to reshape conversations surrounding criminal justice, juvenile justice, and immigration policy.

Daniel Kagan

Daniel Kagan served eight years (2009-2017) in the Colorado House of Representatives, where he was either a member of or chair of the House Judiciary Committee and two years (2017-2019) in the Colorado State Senate, where he was Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The son of Lithuanian Jews who met in a Nazi concentration camp, Daniel emigrated to the US from England in the seventies and became a citizen in the eighties. Prior to his stint as an elected official, he worked in various blue-collar jobs, as a military flight instructor, criminal defense lawyer, and businessman. After retiring from public service, Daniel became a lobbyist for Colorado Advocates for Change, a NARSOL affiliate organization working to achieve positive change in the 2021 re-authorization bill for the Colorado Sex Offender Management Board.

Full access to the live webcast is $20 and you can sign up at:

https://secure.narsol.org/webcast-signup/

The Best $35 You’ve Ever Spent . . .

Mardy — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 12:04:16 +0000

Written by Phoebe . . . For starters, just know that I am a real person with real emotions. I work really hard to keep a positive attitude, despite my circumstances. However, I need to say this. I am sick and tired of whiners during this COVID-19 pandemic. “Oh, I am stuck at home. Oh, I can’t go to work. Oh, I can’t go to the movies. Oh, I can’t go to school. Oh, I can’t go to church. The park. The gym. The list goes on. This is like being in prison.”

And my reply? “Boo-hoo.” I am sick to death of hearing it. Come on, peeps. Life IS hard due to the virus. But you know what else is hard? Living ON or WITH someone on the registry. People are now getting a small taste of what it is like to live by the laws of the registry.

This little pandemic, not to disregard the severity of it, will pass. It will. The effects of the registry will not pass. Let’s compare – maybe you lost a job due to the virus outbreak. Many people on the registry are continually denied jobs, and not for lack of trying but simply because of their label. Maybe you say you have to watch church on Facebook because you can’t attend right now. Well, Registrants can’t use Facebook. Nor can they attend church in many states. Your park is closed and you can’t run your trail? Guess what? Neither can registrants. Your library is closed? Registrants can’t go anyway, and yes – they can read.

I honestly have self-diagnosed myself with PTSD after living through the effects this registry puts on families. Every step we take is calculated. It is much more than “should I wear a mask to the store and use my hand sanitizer.” Again, these things are critically important right now, but so is my life and my well-being. So is the life of my family. So is the life of every other registrant out there trying to stay sane despite laws that work extremely hard to tear you apart. Life on the registry is a 30 year or longer “quarantine sentence.” So pardon me if I don’t take kindly to the whining that Walmart closed early or you have to order your toilet paper from Amazon. Your life will soon be back to some kind of normal. Mine, not so much.

And you know what else? People seem scared to interact with a registrant, as if they will catch “the virus.” Yes, registrants are ostracized from the rest of the world and it is the very laws that set it up to be this way. This is why we need voices. We know that squeaky wheels get the oil. Why aren’t registrants and family and friends of registrants being squeaky right now? IT. IS. TIME.

We are in a day and age where the talks of equality are bubbling to the surface. I hope we all remember that humans are real people with flaws. No matter their age, gender, race, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, or registry status, we are all humans. Please don’t make this turmoil we are experiencing be about you. Don’t sing the “oh woe is me” song. Take this opportunity to value people. All people. Including those who are reformed registrants. Give second chances. Show compassion. Experience forgiveness. Resist making assumptions that all people are guilty.

I know, I know. I am not feeling quite so positive right now. This is actually why I write these blogs – to heal my wounds. I am whining now, but I’ll be over this soon. I am the very thing I am annoyed by – a whiner. Okay, whining is officially over.

It is time to be inspired for change. It is time to voice your concerns over the registry. It is time we work together. NARSOL is hosting a VIRTUAL webcast this weekend to replace the annual conference and we need you. Everything is different this year. We’ve never had a virtual webcast like this, and we still need people to register. Sit in the comfort and privacy of your home and listen to influential people with great knowledge educate us on how to be change agents against these laws. I challenge you. It will be the best $35 you’ve ever spent.

Law enforcement agencies are putting millions of families at risk of exposure

Dwayne Daughtry — Tue, 31 Mar 2020 19:52:46 +0000

March 30 NARSOL issued a second press release demanding that law enforcement immediately cease all in-person requirements of registrants. A month after the seriousness of this health crisis was recognized in the United States, state officials in only two states, Oregon and Pennsylvania, have issued directives for these types of required visits to be suspended state-wide. In virtually every other state, county after county is still requiring in-person verification and updates, putting everyone involved and their families at risk. What will it take for authorities to act responsibly?

NARSOL in Action Teleconference – March 29th @ 4PM

Dwayne Daughtry — Fri, 27 Mar 2020 00:00:55 +0000

Please join Larry Neely of NARSOL and Janice Bellucci of ACSOL for a special NARSOL in Action News Alert call on Sunday afternoon, March 29, 4 – 6 eastern time. A week ago, NARSOL put out a press release calling for all in-person verification checks of registrants to be suspended during the Coronavirus health crisis. The NARSOL blog are providing daily updates of where this is being done and where in-person visits are still required. Ms. Bellucci will be giving updates about lawsuits in California that ACSOL has filed against three specific cities for still insisting on in-person visits, putting registrants, law enforcement, and the families of all at risk. NARSOL hopes with this call to identify states where this is still a major problem and to encourage others to seek attorneys and file similar suits.

There will be an update on the status of the NARSOL conference held in June 2020.

As usual, even though not required, we ask that you register your intention to attend so we will have an idea of how many callers to expect.

The phone number is 605 313-5169, followed by 957605#. You may call in directly with a telephone or, if you have a speaker and microphone or a headset with a mic, you may access the call through your computer by going to https://www.freeconferencecallhd.com/dialer and following the on-screen directions for inputting the number and the code.

We also are going to live stream the call on You Tube. There won’t be any video, just an audio stream, so you can try this if you’d rather not call in. You can use your Roku, AppleTV or ChromeCast to have the call played over your TV.

Disclaimer

Keep in mind, responses provided on the program are merely intended to offer guidance and should not be construed as legal advice. We cannot cover the specifics of any individual’s situation sufficiently to know what the most prudent course of action is, so NARSOL advises all participants to consult with an attorney in their jurisdictions to determine the best course of action.

NARSOL In Action: National litigation update

Dwayne Daughtry — Sat, 22 Feb 2020 01:12:19 +0000

NARSOL will have a three-hour conference call on March 2nd beginning at 7:00 pm eastern time. We will be discussing what’s likely to happen next in three important cases pending in Michigan, Georgia and New Mexico.

Hour 1: We will be discussing the recent decision in Michigan which will soon bar that state from enforcing SORA on those whose conduct occurred prior to 2011. In addition, the court’s final order will severely limit enforcement of various provisions of SORA on the remaining registrants. Paul Reingold from the University of Michigan School of Law will be with us to explain the ramifications and potential legislative action.

Hour 2: Attorney Mark Yurachek will be with us to discuss the Butts County Sheriff’s appeal of the favorable ruling we won last October regarding the placement of signs at Halloween. As Sheriff Long had vowed, he appealed and the case is now pending in the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. NARSOL and the Alliance for Constitutional Sex Offense Laws (ACSOL) will be joining forces in support of Judge Treadwell’s decision. See press release.

Hour 3: Attorney Ashley Cloud from New Mexico’s Liberty & Justice Coalition will be discussing LJC’s pending lawsuit for those with out of state convictions and other challenges which will be initiated in 2020.

Although it is not mandatory, we ask that you sign up here so that we have an idea how many will be attending the call. The phone number is 605 313-5169, followed by 957605#. You may call in directly with a telephone or, if you have a speaker and microphone or a headset with a mic, you may access the call through your computer by going to https://www.freeconferencecallhd.com/dialer and following the on-screen directions for inputting the number and the code.

Live Stream Option

We also are going to live stream the call on You Tube. There won’t be any video, just an audio stream, so you can try this if you’d rather not call in. You can use your Roku or ChromeCast and have the call played over your TV.

Disclaimer

Where are the truly courageous women today? #MeTooNOT

Robin Vander Wall — Mon, 20 Jan 2020 15:57:10 +0000

By HALLIE LIEBERMAN . . . Sandy Rozek is the polar opposite of what comes to mind when you hear the word activist. A 78-year-old great-grandmother and retired high school English teacher who lives in Houston, Rozek is not woke, doesn’t post on Twitter, and is involved in a movement you’ve probably never heard of.

Rozek works with the National Association for Rational Sexual Offense Laws (NARSOL). She is one of several women who lead an effort to oppose the unjust, irrational, and ineffective laws that continue to punish sex offenders long after they have served their time.

All 50 states have sex offender registries, and the U.S. Justice Department combines them in a single national database. The information, which is available online to the general public, covers nearly 1 million people, whose crimes run the gamut from streaking to rape. In addition to the stigma imposed by that electronic pillory, registration comes with a panoply of restrictions that dictate where people can live and work, when and where they are allowed to travel, and even whether they’re allowed to pick up their own children from school or take them to the park.

Reform organizations cite four major reasons for scaling back or eliminating the registry. They say it’s unconstitutional, imposing ex post facto penalties that deprive registrants of rights everyone else enjoys; it’s unscientific, relying on discredited beliefs about the danger that registrants pose; it’s unforgiving, disrupting people’s lives decades after they’ve completed their sentences; and it’s undiscriminating, burdening not just the registrants themselves but their families and communities.

In this #MeToo moment, when everyone seems focused on holding men accountable for their sexual crimes, the civil rights of people who have committed such offenses tend to get short shrift. But both movements are spearheaded by women who are determined to change the national narrative about sex crimes.

Most of the registry reformers are in their 60s or 70s, with grown children and grandchildren. Unlike the founders of the #MeToo movement, they have not been featured in glossy magazine articles lauding their courage. But make no mistake: These women are brave. Many have been shunned by their friends and family because of their stances. Speaking out against the registry means aligning yourself with modern-day lepers, people who are viewed with fear and disgust by the vast majority of Americans.

Like many others in the movement, Rozek became a registry reformer because of a personal connection. About a decade ago, one of her friends was convicted of having an inappropriate sexual relationship. While it didn’t put her on the registry, she served a term of probation and had to complete a treatment program. “I really got started with it because of the treatment angle,” Rozek says. “In Texas, sex offender treatment is a joke. They don’t treat. They monitor. They intimidate.”

When Rozek started volunteering at NARSOL, she was 65. Her first task: scouring the internet for articles on sex offenders and using the comment sections to post corrections. She also penned the occasional op-ed. Eventually she became NARSOL’s communications director, writing for the website, spearheading the newsletter, and helping with committees and the conference. She spends up to eight hours a day on the work, all unpaid.

As a Christian, Rozek “just cannot accept that people cannot be forgiven.” If a sex offender has “served his time, and if he’s trying his best to be a decent human being now and wants to be a law-abiding citizen,” Rozek says, “we need to not throw roadblocks in his path….If it was 30 years ago, and the person did everything required, has fulfilled every legal obligation, has been free and clear of any involvement with law enforcement for 30 years, has established a family, has been living with this family for years now, and then all of a sudden he cannot live with them anymore [because of residence restrictions ], that is a horrible destruction to families.”

Although most of the people on the registry are men, most of the people running the reform movement are women. Nobody really knows why, but there are a few theories.

“Women, in our culture, pull together the families,” says Emily Horowitz, a professor of sociology at St. Francis College who is an expert on sex offender registries. “That’s a lot of the reason why women fight so hard. I think men are somewhat hesitant to weigh in on something that’s about sexual violence, because it could be viewed as like, ‘Oh, you’re defending men who hurt women.'”

NARSOL, which was founded in 2007 and has branches in 19 states, is the oldest and largest sex offender law reform organization. It is joined by three other national groups, all led by women, most of whom have a friend, son, or husband on the registry. . . .

The national sex offender registry was created in 1994 by a law named after Jacob Wetterling, an 11-year-old Minnesota boy who was kidnapped and murdered in 1989. That law required states to create registries listing people convicted of sexually violent offenses or crimes against children. Unlike today’s databases, this registry was visible only to law enforcement agencies.

Two years later, the law was expanded after 7-year-old Megan Kanka was brutally murdered by a sex offender in New Jersey. Megan’s Law, passed in 1996, made registries accessible to the general public as part of a community notification mandate. In the 2003 case Smith v. Doe, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld sex offender registration, deeming it a form of civil regulation rather than criminal punishment.

That decision encouraged the expansion and proliferation of laws targeting sex offenders. “I call them sex offense registration laws on steroids,” says Southwestern University law professor Catherine Carpenter. “We’re dealing with laws that have no bounds, because the Supreme Court said that they were civil regulations.” From 2003 to 2012, Carpenter says, the number of covered offenses increased “dramatically,” and so did the length of registration. Those changes, she notes, were accompanied by “egregious collateral consequences,” such as residence restrictions. . . . .

“The registry wasn’t developed out of research,” Horowitz says. “It was developed out of emotion and fear, which is a recipe for disaster in public policy.”

Rozek and other leaders of the registry reform movement want the laws to be grounded in science. “It’s the National Association for Rational Sexual Offense Laws,” Rozek says, “and the key word is rational. Something that is rational is based on science, based on fact, based on evidence. The registry isn’t, and certainly none of the laws coming out of the registry are based on any evidence or any science.”

While Rozek became a reformer after her friend was convicted of a sex crime, it was a chance encounter that led Janice Bellucci to the movement. One day in 2011, Bellucci, a 67-year-old California attorney who spent most of her career in aerospace law, was talking to Frank Lindsay, a water treatment specialist who was fixing her home’s reverse osmosis system, when he mentioned that he had written a book. “Quite frankly,” she says, “reading his book changed my life.”

Bellucci found out that in 1979 Lindsay had committed a sex crime against a child under the age of 14, a crime for which he spent a year in jail, nearly all of it on weekends, thanks to a work furlough program. More than three decades later, he had not reoffended, but he was still subject to legal restrictions and potentially deadly threats. “A stranger broke into his home and tried to murder him because he was on the Megan’s Law website,” Bellucci says. “He escaped from his own house after being hit a couple times with a hammer. I just couldn’t believe that any group of people in our country today [was] being treated that way.”

On a sabbatical from her work at a California nonprofit, Bellucci couldn’t get the sex registry out of her mind. “This issue kept popping up, kind of like a jack-in-the-box,” she says. “And finally I sat down with myself, and I said, ‘Why did I go to law school?’ It was the movie To Kill a Mockingbird, and the character Atticus Finch. I’m like, ‘What would Atticus do?'” The answer seemed obvious to her.

Bellucci initially tried to interest the American Civil Liberties Union of California in the issue. “They basically said [they couldn’t help] because they’re afraid that if they became known as sex offender attorneys, their funding would disappear, which I think is a very cowardly position,” she says.

Bellucci’s children were adults, she was unmarried, and she decided she could “do anything I want to do.” So she founded the Alliance for Constitutional Sex Offender Laws (ACSOL). To this day, a needlepoint of “What Would Atticus Do?” sits on her desk, next to a Ruth Bader Ginsburg action figure.

Like many in the movement, Bellucci believes sex offender restrictions are unconstitutional. As a lawyer, she could do something about that, but she did not have a lot of resources. So she and the few early members of ACSOL decided to go after “low-hanging fruit”: Halloween-related restrictions in California.

In Simi Valley, Bellucci learned, sex offenders were required to post signs on their front doors during Halloween, alerting neighbors that they were on the registry and warning trick-or-treaters to stay away. She sued the city, arguing that the requirement was a form of compelled speech prohibited by the First Amendment. She won.

The Halloween signs are a good example of sex offender policies that have no basis in fact. A 2009 analysis of 67,000 sex crimes against children committed by people other than their relatives, reported in the journal Sexual Abuse, found “no increased rate on or just before Halloween.” The researchers concluded that “these findings raise questions about the wisdom of diverting law enforcement resources to attend to a problem that does not appear to exist.” . . . .

Like Rozek, Bellucci wants the registry to be based on science and reason. But that’s hard to accomplish, she says, because when people “hear the term sex offenders, they just panic. They’re thinking of the worst sexual assault that you can ever think of.” It is therefore difficult for them “to absorb new information or to analyze the information that’s in their brain.”

To combat that emotional response, Bellucci assures people that “we believe all children should be safe. We’re not here to unleash a bunch of sexual predators on the public.” Her message, she says, is that “the registry gives people a false sense of security,” because “they’re looking in the wrong direction,” given that “more than 90 percent of the perpetrators are not on the registry.”

Bellucci is admired by other reformers because she didn’t join the movement to defend her brother or father or child; she did it because she saw an injustice. “The fact that she doesn’t have what we call ‘skin in the game’ [makes her] more amazing,” says Vicki Henry, president of Women Against the Registry (WAR). In contrast, Henry, 71, became an activist because her son is on the registry for downloading and distributing child pornography. He was in the Marines when he was caught in 2007. A military psychologist tied his use of child pornography to sexual abuse by his father.

“I thought I was losing my mind,” Henry says. “When I got my feet back under me a little bit, [I thought] there’s got to be other people that have gone through this. I know I’m not the only one.”

Henry found Daily Strength, an online support group that hosted a subgroup called Families of Registrants, and then found NARSOL. She joined Women Against the Registry, which was a part of NARSOL at the time, and became its president in 2011. Around that time, WAR broke off —it wanted to do more protesting than NARSOL was comfortable with. Now Henry says she volunteers about 12 hours a day, seven days a week.

“I was pretty much raised in church,” says Henry, a Southern Baptist. “My kids were raised in church. We were taught to help other people.” . . . .

Registries are all about ostracism, Henry argues, and GPS monitors are a prime example. “We’re not saying that people shouldn’t be adjudicated,” she says. “But once they’ve been adjudicated [and] paid their debt to society, let them live in peace with their families. Don’t put so many barriers in front of them.

Henry is not the only registry reformer who joined the movement because her son was caught with child pornography. Rita, who did not want her last name to be used, had a similar experience. Eleven years ago, Rita was having dinner with her husband and 26-year-old son, who was acting strangely. “I knew there was something wrong,” she says. “I just kept asking him and asking him, and then he finally said it.”

Rita’s son told her that a few weeks before, around 1 a.m., he had heard banging on his apartment door. When he opened the door, he was face to face with multiple FBI agents. “He didn’t know what they were looking for,” Rita says. They were serving a search warrant based on evidence that he had downloaded child pornography on a peer-to-peer network.

As he told his mother this story, “he was shaking,” she says. “I almost passed out….I couldn’t believe that you could go to prison for what you look at.” She and her husband sat there stunned. Their son said he had seen a lawyer, and he was facing time in federal prison. He ended up serving a little more than six years.

“It was just extremely difficult to get through those days,” Rita says. “I knew in my heart I had two choices: Do I lie down and die, or do I do something? And in my mind, something was better than nothing. We decided we would get involved, just to try and bring some reason to these laws.”

Rita’s husband searched online and discovered the organization that eventually became NARSOL. In 2009, they traveled from the small New York town where they live to Boston for their first meeting. “It was life-changing for me to meet other people who understood the overwhelming shame and punishment that we were looking at,” Rita says. “And those people are still my dearest friends.”

A few years later, Rita founded Caution Click, an organization that focuses on the legal treatment of people arrested for viewing child pornography. She strives to raise awareness among teenagers and their families so they don’t become sex offenders by sexting or looking at something they’re not supposed to.

Of all the reform organizations, ACSOL probably has had the most legislative impact. Through lawsuits and warning letters, Bellucci and her volunteers have managed to eliminate nearly all of California’s local ordinances making certain places, such as parks and schools, off-limits to sex offenders. They have also filed 31 lawsuits challenging local ordinances that limit where offenders can live. Nearly all of them have been successful. . . . .

NARSOL, Rozek’s group, has filed successful lawsuits against sex offender restrictions in Maryland and North Carolina. It recently won a victory in Butts County, Georgia, where it sued Sheriff Gary Long for requiring sex offenders to place warning signs in their front yards during Halloween. “Warning!” the signs said. “No Trick or Treat at This Address.” Last October, a federal judge ruled that Long’s signs were unconstitutional, based on the same First Amendment argument that Bellucci had deployed in Simi Valley. NARSOL also filed an amicus brief in Packingham v. North Carolina, the 2017 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overturned a state law barring sex offenders from social media.

WAR and Caution Click have fewer legislative goals and focus more on education, so their accomplishments are harder to quantify. But all of the organizations are trying to change the way we talk about sex offenses. When you speak to enough reformers, you notice how they’ve subtly changed the language used in such conversations: Sex offender registry is shortened to the registry; child pornography becomes illicit images or C.P.; sex offenders are registrants. Reformers want people to recognize that individuals on the registry encompass a wide range of offenses, many of which are nonviolent.

Read the full piece here at reason.com

NARSOL, NC suit given okay to move forward

Admin — Thu, 01 Aug 2019 16:54:38 +0000

By Sandy . . . On July 31, a district court in North Carolina ruled that a suit brought against the state, a suit challenging the constitutionality of certain aspects of North Carolina’s sexual offense registry, may proceed. In denying the state’s motion to dismiss, the court found that the action is based on a plausible constitutional claim.

Filed by NARSOL and by NCRSOL on behalf of “John Doe,” the suit alleges that changes in the law, as applied to Doe, constitute an ex post facto violation in regard to five amendments that affect only those with sexual crimes convictions.

You may read the decision here.

NARSOL conference 2019 is now a memory

Admin — Wed, 12 Jun 2019 18:15:37 +0000

By Sandy . . . As I write this, I have been home less than ten minutes after the conclusion of our Houston conference, our eleventh.

It has been a most incredible experience.

We have been honored to extend ten scholarship grants to persons who otherwise would not have been able to attend, persons who qualified under the requirements set by the board and were eligible to receive not only free conference registration but a cash allotment to help offset their travel and lodging expenses. This is the 3^rd year that NARSOL has offered this program. Additionally, a significant number of others received a waiver of registration fees.

Our overall attendance broke all previous conference records at just over 200, making Houston our largest conference to date.

Also making this conference special was the honor that the office of the mayor of the city, Sylvester Turner, extended to NARSOL in the way of an official letter welcoming us to Houston.

There were so many highlights worth noting that I’m almost reluctant to mention any, knowing that I will omit someone or something I should not have.

Certainly the bright starts were attorney Paul Dubbeling with his message of effective legal and advocacy strategy that emphasizes facts, truth, and persistence; Guy-Hamilton Smith and David Mensah with their messages of effective personal story-telling – without which the facts may never have an impact; and Lenore Skenazy with her absolute, unquenchable enthusiasm and ebullience and her message of living our lives based on the rational rather than the irrational.

The crowning highlight was our now traditional banquet and awards ceremony held Saturday evening. The service was flawless, the food delicious, and the master of ceremony, NARSOL’s vice-chair Robin Vanderwall, charming and witty. Lenore, in her speech, took us back to her beginning involvement with our advocacy and how she very early recognized the sexual offense registry and all that it has spawned as another example of what she calls “worst first thinking,” which is, in any situation, imagining the worst possible outcome there could be and then proceeding as though that thing were virtually sure to happen.

A significant number of Pearl awards were given to NARSOL members and volunteers who have made significant contributions through the year to the advocacy. Our yearly Braveheart Award went to Dana Nessel and was accepted by our advocates in Michigan. Connecticut affiliate leader Cindy Prizio was awarded the well-deserved Advocate of the Year Award for her unfailing and tireless fight on behalf of registered citizens.

What has been previously and unofficially called our Outstanding Achievement Award has been officially named the Paul E. Shannon Outstanding Achievement Award after the initial founder of RSOL, now NARSOL. Two board members were given this award: Paul himself and long-time board member Sandy Rozek.

The silent auction, quilt raffle, and 50-50 raffle were great fun.

Anticipation for this conference has been building for weeks, even months. Now it is over, leaving in its wake exhaustion, gratitude, and an overwhelming sense of pride and accomplishment. Those attendees who are willing, please take a few minutes to write a paragraph about your conference experience and impressions and send to communications@narsol.org. If you would like, include a head-shot of yourself. We have already started planning for next year’s conference in Raleigh, North Carolina, and these will be used as part of our promotional materials.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you to all who attended.

NARSOL honors Rozek, Prizio, Nessel, and Illinois legal team at annual awards banquet

Robin Vander Wall — Mon, 10 Jun 2019 15:26:26 +0000

By Robin and Sandy . . . One of the highlights among so many at NARSOL’s annual conference is the banquet and awards ceremony.

NARSOL initiated the awards in 2015 with two awards. The Braveheart Award recognizes a person outside of NARSOL who does something, normally in the course of his or her work, that is consistent with our mission and supports and furthers our advocacy. Lenore Skenazy was our very first recipient; her overall goal is to encourage us to live our lives based on the rational rather than the irrational, and she is very outspoken that the registry is based on the irrational.

The second initially created award recognizes someone within the NARSOL family who has performed in an outstanding way during the previous year toward advancing our advocacy, and our first recipient, Mary Sue Molnar, founder and president of our Texas affiliate organization Texas Voices for Reason and Justice, fits that definition to a “T” and was our choice for our first Advocate of the Year Award.

This year the Braveheart Award was awarded to the Attorney General of Michigan, Dana Nessel, for the contribution of her amicus briefs in Michigan v. Snyder and People v. Betts, cases arguing that Michigan’s sex offender registration and notification requirements are punishment because they are so burdensome and fail to distinguish between dangerous offenders and those who are not a threat to the community.

The 2019 Advocate of the Year Award went to Cindy Prizio, the founder and ED of our Connecticut affiliate organization One Standard of Justice. Cindy and the organization have, in a very few years, made remarkable strides in furthering the mission and goal of NARSOL both legislatively and educationally, even hosting their own successful conference in May of this year.

A third award, the Hawthorne, was established in 2018 and recognizes someone who has contributed ten thousand dollars either financially or in work and time toward advancing the mission and goals of NARSOL. This year’s Hawthorne was awarded to attorneys Adele Nicholas and Mark Weinberg for their litigation work in, primarily, Illinois in conjunction with Illinois Voices, our affiliate organization in that state.

Created in 2017, the Pearl award recognizes NARSOL members and volunteers who have gone above and beyond in their service on behalf of the organization and the people for whom we advocate. A significant number of Pearls were given this year.

The most prestigious award, created in 2016, is our Lifetime Achievement Award. This award is not automatically bestowed yearly but only in years in which a deserving candidate has emerged. The very first recipient was the man known to all of us for many, many years as E-Advocate. Robin Vanderwall, NARSOL’s vice-chair and 2019 master of ceremonies, announced this year that the Awards Committee has revised the name of the award to the Paul E. Shannon Lifetime Achievement Award in honor of our organization’s founder and current chair, who himself was a recipient of it in 2017.

The newly renamed Paul E. Shannon Lifetime Achievement Award was presented this year to Sandy Rozek, NARSOL’s secretary, communications director, and Digest editor, who has served on the NARSOL board for many years.

NCRSOL’s president attends AFP conference in San Antonio

Admin — Sat, 06 Apr 2019 02:56:38 +0000

By SANDY ROZEK . . . At NARSOL, each of us wears many hats. Robin Vander Wall is the organization’s vice-chair, president of its foundation (Vivante Espero), sits on several working committees, and is chair of the marketing and finance committees. It is in that last role that he left his home state of North Carolina, where he is also the president of our state affiliate organization there, and spent nearly a week in San Antonio, Texas, among the nation’s preeminent leaders of philanthropy and professional fundraisers.

Robin represented NARSOL and Vivante Espero at the AFP 2019 international conference. Founded in New York City by three charter members in 1960 as the National Society of Fundraisers (NSFR), the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) is the nation’s oldest and largest organization seeking to empower individuals and organizations to practice ethical fundraising through professional education, networking, research, and advocacy. The founders’ vision for the organization was outlined in its original Articles of Incorporation:

To aid fundraisers in the performance of their professional duties;
To unite those engaged in the profession of fundraising;
To formulate, promote, and interpret to organizations, agencies, and the public the objectives of fundraising and the role of those who practice it;
To promote and maintain high standards of public service and conduct;
To exchange ideas and experiences and to collect and disseminate information of value to fundraisers and the public;
To promote, sponsor, and encourage study, research, and instruction in the field of fundraising by means of courses in established institutions of learning and by other means; and
To encourage and sponsor the granting of awards and fellowships in recognized institutions of learning for study and research in the field of fundraising.

To these ends, AFP’s members are expected to adhere to a code of ethical standards and a Donor’s Bill of Rights that ensure the highest level of professional integrity in the performance of their fundraising activities. As a non-profit, all-volunteer organization, NARSOL depends on your membership and generous donations in support of the initiatives that enable it to continue the many services and projects undertaken in the pursuit of its vision and mission. And NARSOL’s board of directors is determined to assure the organization’s continued presence in the future of our important advocacy work, however long that may take.

NARSOL’s primary work is two-pronged: educational and legal. Because of your membership and generous support, NARSOL continues to grow into a formidable instrument for social change and the eradication of dehumanizing registries. Educationally, our staff and volunteers write and publish op-eds, research pieces, and issue press releases. We give interviews. We host a national conference each year (now in its eleventh year!). NARSOL publishes an expanding newsletter/magazine in several formats. And we maintain a comprehensive website.

Legally, and through its foundation Vivante Espero, NARSOL offers support by providing supporting briefs in critical appellate level cases, assists with legal strategy, and extends financial support to legal actions that have the potential to positively affect a significant number of those with sexual convictions who are required to register.

These things don’t just happen. They cost money. Lots of money. And every dollar we receive from you, our wonderful and generous donors, and from our fundraising efforts is expended in support of either educational or legal initiatives. We thank you for that, each and every one of you. And we encourage you to continue making your voices heard throughout the nation by continuing, or increasing, in your financial support of both NARSOL and Vivante Espero.

Still recovering from oral surgery that was scheduled for the day after his return, Robin was able to speak with me about his experience at AFP’s conference in San Antonio.

“From the very first workshop I attended about major gifts to the very last educational session on increasing board participation in the cultivation of donors, I was just amazed at the quality of content and experience of the presenters at this conference. There were more than 3,400 people there from all over the continent; the US, Canada, Mexico, and even a handful of attendees from China. Often I was asked why I was there and who I represented. I shared our story, our mission, and why we feel called to fill our space advocating on behalf of registered citizens and their families. Prepared for the worst kind of responses, I was really surprised. Everyone I spoke with about NARSOL and Vivante Espero fully appreciated the importance of our work and understood how critical our advocacy is under the broader umbrella of civil rights. At one point, a very nice young lady from Arizona made a point to share with me how much she appreciates what we’re trying to do because it directly impacts her family (she has an uncle and former law enforcement officer who’s doing time for a sexual offense),” Robin said.

Asked about some of the things he learned in San Antonio, Robin paused in reflection. “You know, I am still trying to soak it all in. There are a lot of things we’re doing right. But there are a substantial number of areas where we have to improve. I am compiling a report for the boards. And some of what I will share will call upon the directors to re-evaluate board level investment of time and devotion to donor cultivation. We have to make sure that the people who support us feel appreciated and acknowledged for the sacrifices they are making. We’re all in this together. This is, for many of us, our life’s work. And we have to get it right the first time. We can’t afford to rest on our laurels and imagine that we’ve got it all figured out. The strength of NARSOL, in my estimation, is the collegiality of its leadership model. Our advocacy is not built around anyone. When you think of NARSOL, no particular person comes to mind . . . and it shouldn’t. We’re building a movement. We’re building towards a future free from dehumanizing registries. We’re building something that can, I hope, sustain itself long after any particular individual involved has ceased to exist. Our members, our donors, our volunteers, our state and local affiliate leaders, these are the people who make all the difference for the thousands of registered citizens and families we advocate for. We can’t lose sight of that. Ever!”

The goal of our advocacy is that we are no longer needed in that future of which Robin speaks. But as long as we are, with the help and generosity of our members and donors, NARSOL will be there.