The theme and location for the conference will not change, and we are excited about the line-up of speakers and presenters who have already committed to be with us in Houston, Texas this fall. More detailed information about our speakers will be forthcoming and made available to you on the conference website.

The national conference was originally scheduled for June 18-20, 2021. Please keep these dates on your calendar because the conference planning committee is already hard at work pulling together another NARSOL Live! webcasting event to fill the June time slot.

If you previously signed up for the national conference in Raleigh (cancelled in 2020 due to COVID), you will be automatically signed up for the rescheduled conference in Houston, October 8-10, 2021, provided that you did not previously opt for a refund of your conference registration fees.

It was a challenging decision to move the national conference from June to October, but we relied upon the best information available and feel hopeful that the trying circumstances of these past months will have subsided substantially enough to hold a successful and well-attended conference in Houston.

Conference registration will open soon and will be available on the conference website. Please keep in mind that booking rooms for lodging is separate from signing up for the conference, but you will have the option to do both once the link to the Houston Marriott South at Hobby Airport is re-established (suggest checking the conference website periodically to see).

NARSOL’s national conferences are exciting and rewarding for all who attend. There is simply no substitute for the opportunity to come together in fellowship and unity as we seek to strengthen ourselves and each other in our commitment to a society free from public shaming, dehumanizing registries, discrimination, and unconstitutional laws.

This year’s sessions were led by Executive Director Brenda Jones and board member Michael Shimkin. Major areas examined were communications, conferences, litigation, the Digest, affiliate development, and budgeting.

We examined our positives and scrutinized our negatives.

We discussed, analyzed, laughed, argued, and drank a lot of coffee.

The end result was total agreement on the priorities that NARSOL will focus on for 2021. Foremost are those that will work toward the accomplishment of our mission and goals and work toward the furtherance of our vision of a society free from public shaming, dehumanizing registries, discrimination, and unconstitutional laws.

“If he was not on the registry I have no doubt he would be alive,” NARSOL Vice Chair Robin Vander Wall said.

Vander Wall said the current system requiring sex offenders to register and make their address public is not effective in keeping the community safe.

“The statistical research and the data now that has been done over the last decade just demonstrates almost uniformly that they aren’t doing any good. They aren’t really accomplishing any useful policy purpose. They are kind of feel good laws, they make people feel safe, but at the end of the day they are not really safe,” Vander Wall said.

Local sheriff’s departments are responsible for doing compliance checks on people listed on the state sex offender registry. Fox 42 reached out to the Douglas County Sheriff’s Department, but no one returned the request for comment.

In Nebraska the online sex offenders registry lists an offender’s name, current address, the crime committed and a photo. According to Fairbank’s ex-wife, Fairbanks killed Condoluci after learning he was a sex offender.

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.

February 3, 2016

RSOL PLANNING TO CHALLENGE HR 515 WHICH MANDATES THE ADDITION OF “UNIQUE IDENTIFIERS” TO PASSPORTS OF AMERICAN CITIZENS

Albuquerque, N.M.— Reform Sex Offender Laws, Inc. is disappointed that the U.S.House of Representatives ​concurred with HR 515​ as amended by the Senate on February 1​. HR 515 will require, for the first time in the history of the United States, the addition of “unique​identifiers” to the passports of American citizens. ​ ​​The U.S. Senate added the historic requirement as a Floor Amendment offered by Senator Mitch McConnell on December 17, 2015​. ​

RSOL believes that the Senate amendment requiring the unique identifier ​may be in​ violation of Wooley v Maynard, 430 U.S. 705 (1997), which holds that the government cannot force someone to physically carry the government’s message. The passports with their identifying marks would be doing just that​.

“The citizens of this nation should be afraid, very afraid,that a unique identifier will soon be added to their passports,” stated Brenda Jones, RSOL’s E.D. “​Who will be the next targeted group​? ​” As passed by Congress, the Secretary of State is required to add a “unique identifier” to the passports of citizens convicted of a sex offense involving a minor. The list of offenses includes non-violent, non-contact offenses ​and even some that are non-sexual. “Passports today are used as a primary form of identification,not ​just to enter a foreign country,” stated Jones. “A passport symbol that identifies an individual as a registered sex offender places that person and others traveling with him or her at significant risk of physical harm.”

In addition, HR 515 establishes a center designed to notify foreign countries that the individual plans to visit that he has been convicted of a sex offense involving a minor. This notification will be sent regardless of whether the individual has been deemed to be rehabilitated by a state and therefore is no longer required to register as a sex offender.

RSOL is gravely concerned that the notification provisions of HR 515 have the potential to harm thousands of Americans who ​have completed their sentences and are no longer required to register as sex offenders. In such instances, the federal government ​will substitute​ its judgment,which will not be based upon an investigation of the individual, for the judgment of a state government that has conducted such an investigation. Furthermore, no evidence exists suggesting that the passage of this bill or its subsequent enforcement will address the issue for which it is intended.

National RSOL and many of its state organizations lobbied in opposition to the passage of HR 515. Before it becomes law, the President must approve the legislation​.

RSOL does not in any way condone sexual activity between adults and children, nor does it condone any sexual activity that would break laws in any state. We do not advocate lowering the age of consent, and we have no affiliation with any group that does condone such activities.

Copyright © 2016 National RSOL. All rights reserved.

Contact email: contact@reformsexoffenderlaws.org

A VOICE OF REFORM
RSOL Board of Directors: public notification, harsher laws not the answer
by sandy • December 18, 2015 • From National RSOL site.

On December 1, 2015, the Joint Committee on the Judiciary in Massachusetts held a hearing on a number of proposed sex offender bills. Every proposal is one that will increase the difficulty of registrants to live peacefully with their families in the community. None of the proposals give any indication of following facts, evidence, or research.

Paul Shannon, one of RSOL’s founders and a current co-chair, spoke to the committee and laid these issues before them. (Paul’s testimony 12-01-15) We wait to see if his appeal to logic, reason, and evidence will bear any fruit as they further debate and ultimately pass legislation.

Sandy Rozek, RSOL’s communications director, this week responded to a situation in a small town in Texas that is moving toward placing signs in the yards or on the homes of registrants, signs that identify them as registered sex offenders. After several articles about the ordinance being passed in the township of Gonzales, the publisher of the Gonzales Inquirer wrote an editorial whose headline proclaimed that signs weren’t the answer but whose text raised more questions than answers as to what the headline really meant.

Sandy’s rebuttal editorial was graciously printed, with the position of RSOL made clear: nothing about public notification, be it signs or the registry, benefits public safety or addresses the problem of child sexual abuse. The appeal to evidence based legislation and ordinances must continue; it must strengthen; it must prevail.

Educating Attorneys That they CAN WIN!

RSOL is excited to announce that Janice Bellucci will lead our exhibit at the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers’ (NACDL) Sex Crimes Training Seminar in Las Vegas. This exhibit is a fantastic opportunity for RSOL to network with and appeal to attorneys to join with us because the NACDL is the premier national organization of defense lawyers. We often hear that RSOL should clone Ms. Bellucci so that we can file challenges across the country. We agree, and believe that she is the best person to represent us at the NACDL Seminar. RSOL Board of Directors member Larry Neely will be with her.

Janice will discuss the many lawsuits she has settled in California regarding proximity restrictions and emphasizes that nearly all of those settlements have resulted in the defendants paying attorney’s fees. Those fees have enabled her to engage in additional litigation that otherwise would have been impossible without direct funding from the litigants themselves.

Very recently Ms. Belluci filed a lawsuit against the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) challenging their requirement that parolees post signs on Halloween. After being served the lawsuit, the CDCR announced that it would not enforce the sign requirement this year. Janice intends to continue that lawsuit until either the court rules against her or the CDCR agrees to never enforce the requirement again. Her most recent litigation involves California’s Megan’s Law website and demands that its legal violations be either immediately corrected or that it be taken down. This lawsuit is generating a stir in California, as well it should. 

This exhibition at the NACDL is possible because of the generous support of RSOL’s membership. Thank you, and we will update you as the event unfolds. 

CIVIL RIGHTS GROUP DEMANDS REPEAL OF RESIDENCY RESTRICTIONS; SUPPORTS LAWSUIT PROHIBITING ENFORCEMENT

  Cambridge, MA—RSOL, Inc.—a leading civil rights group advocating on behalf of registered citizens and their families—called today for the immediate repeal of Rhode Island’s newest law designed to segregate registrants, deprive them of their homes and property, and further erode the constitutional rights of American citizens.

Citing the poor effectiveness of residency restrictions to promote public safety as being well documented (See 1, below), and even more prolific research demonstrating the negative consequences of such legislation (See 2, below), RSOL, Inc. went a step further by offering to join any substantive litigation challenging the legitimacy of Rhode Island’s adoption of Jim Crow styled legislation displacing registrants and their families and stipulating where they may live and work.

“The people tasked with enforcing these laws do not even agree with them (See 3, below). And many journalists have written in opposition to them (See 4, below). More recently, the editorial board of The New York Times emphatically criticized such restrictions as useless (See 5, below),” stated Brenda V. Jones, RSOL’s Executive Director.

“Yet in June of this year, the General Assembly of Rhode Island, against all evidence to the contrary, chose to increase the existing 300-foot restriction as the distance that Level III registrants must live from a school to 1000 feet and to apply the restriction retroactively,” Jones said.

RSOL believes that the imminent enforcement of this new law will wreak havoc in the lives of registered citizens across the state but especially in the urban areas. In Providence, only a tiny fraction of the city remains available for registrants and their families to legally live.

Worth noting is that, according to the Providence Journal, the majority of those affected have “lived quietly in the neighborhoods for years, checked on by probation officers and PO Box 400838 • Cambridge, MA 02140 RSOL, Inc. is a 501(c)(4) tax-exempt advocacy organization with supporting members throughout the United States. police who knew them by name.” Some own their homes. Many are senior citizens who have lived offense free for many, many years (See 6, below).

This law is not supported by “law enforcers, civil-rights advocates, supporters of victims of sexual assault [or] experts who study sex-offender management; [they] say the expanded ban could actually decrease public safety by forcing offenders to move frequently or become homeless, destabilizing their lives.”

Jones condemned the law as misguided and noted, “Many states following the research have enacted no such general restrictions against those on the registry, and other jurisdictions that previously enacted them have repealed them, are reconsidering them, or have had their retroactive application struck down by the courts.” Jones concluded by saying, “RSOL will partner with civil rights attorneys in Rhode Island and seek to block enforcement of this unjust law.”

RSOL, Inc. (reformsexoffenderlaws.org) advocates for laws based on facts and evidence and for policies that support the successful rehabilitation and reintegration of law abiding, former sex offenders into society. We therefore call upon the legislature of Rhode Island—and indeed of all states—to take immediate action to repeal, neutralize, or otherwise make ineffective all blanket residency restrictions against registered citizens. When they are deemed appropriate and needed for a specific registrant, let them be enacted, with evidence of need, on a one-on-one, individualized basis.

“This is an action whose time is fully upon us. We must repeal blanket sex offender residency restrictions. They do not protect the public but instead do further damage to citizens who are already struggling to recover their lives,” Jones concluded.

1. http://citation.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/3/8/1/7/2/p381 725_index.html?phpsessid=k0121r724vks5t97lcis1mh5a1

2. http://cjp.sagepub.com/content/26/4/319

3. https://www.fdle.state.fl.us/Content/getdoc/bce869a7-6027-4166-bc80- 1766e78a1765/Datz-Amy-Research-paper-pdf.aspx

4. http://www.thecrimereport.org/news/inside-criminal-justice/2015-04-you-cant-livehere

5. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/08/opinion/the-pointless-banishment-of-sexoffenders.html?_r=0

6. http://www.providencejournal.com/article/20151003/NEWS/151009727 # # #

other must read stories on this subject:

http://nationalrsol.org/blog/2015/10/05/a-travesty-in-rhode-island/

http://nationalrsol.org/blog/2015/10/07/we-are-never-safe-but-we-can-control-our-destiny-a-cautionary-tale-from-rhode-island/

original stories:

http://www.providencejournal.com/article/20151003/NEWS/151009727/0

http://warwickonline.com/stories/Mother-fighting-to-change-sex-offender-residency-laws,101981

Everyone is invited to listen to interview of Barry Porter and Sheila Lewis, attorneys from New Mexico discuss reentry barriers and collateral consequences facing those with felony convictions. The show was aired today on public radio in Santa Fe and is available online at:

http://www.santaferadiocafe.org/uncategorized/2015/07/29/sheila-lewis-and-barry-porter/

The hour-long show covers many topics with an emphasis on:

• barriers to reentry;
• lack of housing/employment opportunities;
• excessive sentencing; and
• the need to enact legislation that would expunge some arrest records.

Both attorneys discuss Sex Offender Registration in detail and the need to move away from the “one size fits all approach” that is used in New Mexico and most other states. Mr. Porter attended our national conference and mentioned some of what he learned regarding practices in other states. Also, Mr. Porter regularly contributes to our monthly newsletter. In this month’s issue he will respond to a question regarding whether or not a person must admit their crime to be granted parole.

Also Please remember to renew your membership or Join if you haven’t

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