Once Fallen Sex Offender Resource, Research and Advocacy



ICoN #8 - June 2016In this issue:Legal RoundupStudy: 1% of Black Men are on the registryOnce Fallen UpdateABOUT THE ONCE FALLEN INFO CORRLINKS NEWSLETTER (ICoN)The ICoN provides a variety of legal, treatment, activism news & practical info for incarcerated SOs via the CorrLinks email network. ICoN also accepts inmate letters & questions. Submissions, questions & requests to be added to the ICoN mailing list and previous editions of the ICoN can be sent via CorrLinks to iamthefallen1@ (provided there is no charge) or by mail to Once Fallen, c/o Derek Logue, 8258 Monon Ave. #3, Cincinnati, OH 45216. Questions may still be answered even if it is not published in the newsletter. We cannot provide legal aid for appeals nor handle certain requests like people-finding services.LEGAL ROUNDUPUS v Von Behren (10th Cir, May 11, 2016): This Ct ruled that requiring one to answer specific questions during a polygraph examination violates the 5th Amdt protection against self-incrimination. “The Fifth Amendment is triggered when a statement would provide a ‘lead’ or ‘a link in the chain of evidenceneeded to prosecute the’ speaker, see, e.g., United States v. Powe, 591 F.2d 833, 845 n.36 (D.C. Cir. 1978), and affirmative answers to these questions would do just that. If there were presently an investigation looking into the commission of a sex crime, and if Mr. Von Behren were a suspect, an affirmative answer to these questions would allow the police to focus the investigation on him. Moreover, investigators would certainly look at Mr. Von Behren differently if they were made aware that he had physically forced someone to engage in sexual relations with him.”STUDY: 1% OF BLACK MEN IN USA ARE ON THE REGISTRYALBANY, N.Y. (May 19, 2016) -- One percent of all black men in the U.S. are registered sex offenders, and black men enter the sex offender registry at nearly twice the rate of white men, a new University at Albany study finds. Researchers say these findings reveal how the uneven impact of America’s criminal justice system extends to sex crime policy, an area largely overlooked in the scientific literature."Our study reveals that a war on sex offenders appears to be gaining steam just as the war on drugs has lost its cultural legitimacy. The number of publicly registered sex offenders is on the rise and is disproportionately from the same group that is targeted by criminal justice authorities -- black men," UAlbany Assistant Professor of Sociology and study author Trevor Hoppe said.In the study "Punishing Sex: Sex Offenders and the Missing Punitive Turn in Sexuality Studies" (Law & Social Inquiry, May 2016) researchers used public data sets to examine sex offender registration rates between 2005 and 2013, and analyzed databases of currently registered offenders to evaluate registration by race. The analysis surveyed 49 states; Maine and Washington, D.C., which do not publish race data, were not included. An initial finding revealed the need for the study itself: despite the fact that more than 750,000 Americans are currently registered as sex offenders, very little social science research has examined how registration policies are enforced and which communities are impacted by them.Exploring the DataRates of sex offender registration increased more than 24 percent in the U.S. between 2005 and 2013. Yet, that jump does not reflect broader trends in corrections; correctional supervision rates (including those in jail and prison as well as those on parole and probation) declined more than 10 percent during the same time period. However, state and federal policies enacted in the 1990s and 2000s vastly expanded the scope of sex offender registries. The study’s findings suggest that these policy shifts caused rates of sex offender registration to continue to grow even as rates in correctional supervision declined.Embedded in those increased registration rates, researchers find that in every state but Michigan, a higher sex offender registration rate was found for blacks than for whites. In nine states, black Americans were registered as sex offenders at three times the rate of whites, including Connecticut, Florida, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wisconsin. In Florida, South Dakota, Texas, and Utah, more than 2 percent of black men were publicly registered sex offenders.Nationwide, the sex offender registration rate for black Americans (501 sex offenders per 100,000 adults) was more than twice that of whites (238 sex offenders per 100,000 adults). In addition, roughly one out of every 119 black men living in the 49 states analyzed were registered sex offenders, encompassing nearly 1 percent of all black men.Concluded Hoppe, "Sex offenses are the only kind of crime that requires public registration. People convicted of murder are not required to share that information with their neighbors and community members after they serve their time. The idea behind these policies is that sex offenders are more likely to commit the same crime again and thus we ought to supervise them more closely, but countless studies have shown this to be false. These findings reveal that this irrational panic around sex is having troubling effects that ought to be considered by policymakers."ONCE FALLEN UPDATE (LIVE FROM THE BATTLEFIELD)I have been writing this newsletter for over a year now, and in this time I have not taken the time to talk about myself. For those who wonder who I am and what I do, my name is Derek Logue, and I’m an RSO/ activist for other RSOs. In addition to writing the ICoN and hosting the info site , I am engaged in a number of activist projects, such as organizing efforts to stop bad legislation, writing research papers, and even staging public demonstrations. So far this year, I have written a research paper on International Megan’s Law (the law that will place marks of infamy on our passports), released the results of the Job & Welfare Survey (covered in Issue 6), visited the homeless SO camp in Miami, and even made an appearance on the Dr. Drew, where I got to tell a self-righteous “judge” to stick it. (Amazingly enough, I won more fans than haters for that TV appearance.) I have also engaged in a public demonstration against a group called “Parents For Megan’s Law” (PFML, now known as “Crime Victims Center, Inc.”), run by a woman named Laura Ahearn. For those of you who don’t know this, Ahearn’s organization is the ONLY private organization in the US who has been given the authority to conduct address verifications, aka compliance checks, a function that is solely the responsibility of the police. This only applies to Suffolk County, in Long Island, NY. This group is using their position to intimidate those on the registry, and because they are a private business, they think they are immune from the laws that real law enforcement officers are expected to live by, such as ethics or constitutional law. However, they’ve been sued for harassment. In one ongoing suit, U.S. District Judge Joanna Seyber ( in her 2/16/16 ruling) said Suffolk police “created the appearance of joint action” with PFML by sending letters to sex offenders requiring them to provide information, such as identification to the nonprofit. In other words, the court determined that because PFML is a “state actor,” they could be brought up on civil rights violations. After all, PFML is acting as a law enforcement agent, and per the terms of the Suffolk Co. Contract, only individuals with years of LEO experience can apply for the job. As a state actor, they can’t do things like sue me for slander. You’ve heard this right—PFML is suing me for “disparaging remarks” I made about their organization online. You see, back on April 20, I hosted a public protest at the PFML office in Ronkonkoma, NY. They tried multiple tactics to scare me away, including calling the cops, filming me, and slapping me with a frivolous lawsuit. I made an off-color remark on an online forum that I believe the extra $25,000 PFML received from Suffolk County in addition to their $900,000 annual contract was used to curry favor with politicians in their quest to expend their program from the county to the state, as well as increasing Tier 1 registration times from 20 years to 30 years. (It was recently reported, however, that the money went towards extra insurance because their program is such a liability, the insurance company increased their annual fee from $4500 to $25000. Well, the truth isn’t any less damaging to their reputation than my earlier comment.) Of course, the REAL reason they are suing is to try to silence the anti-registry movement. On June 1, as I was finishing this newsletter, Suffolk County extended the contract despite all of the controversies, but while it was a behind-the-closed-doors deal, it was not unanimous. Some legislators were concerned about the liability this organization creates. But now the county has placed itself in position to be sued because they “indemnified” Ahearn’s organization. The Suffolk Co. legislature should have read Newsday (Suffolk Co’s newspaper) on May 6, 2016. Here is an OpEd by a former NY Supreme Court justice:The story “Group sues sex offender” [News, April 24] refers to a private organization, Parents for Megan’s Law, founded by Laura Ahearn. The group has brought a defamation lawsuit against a registered sex offender, Derek W. Logue, who runs a civil rights organization for sex offenders, on account of his public and critical comments about Parents for Megan’s Law. Several revelations in the article are deeply disturbing.First is the fact that Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone is about to renew the contract with Ahearn’s organization. And for what? To carry out an exclusively public, governmental legal responsibility, which is seeing that New York’s Sex Offender Registration Act is obeyed. Parents for Megan’s Law is not the Suffolk County Police Department. As Newsday’s article points out, the group is already a defendant in a federal civil rights lawsuit for a home interrogation of another man, and now you report that it is hauling into court yet another of its critics. Is anybody minding the store?William M. Erlbaum, Forest Hills (Editor’s note: The writer is a retired justice of the New York State Supreme Court and an adjunct professor at Brooklyn Law School.)I will keep you informed of any further developments on the pending lawsuit. It is still in the introduction stage, but I expect such a frivolous suit to be tossed out. In the meantime, I’m working on a project in by residence state of Ohio to change the registry laws, as well as a plan to commemorate the upcoming 10 year anniversary of the federal Adam Walsh Act. Let’s just say I have something special planned for July 27. Derek W. Logue of ................
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