By Sandy . . . Everyone loves a good protest. Most of us can look back to younger days, college or early job perhaps, and recall the excitement of being part of something we believed in. The right to protest is enshrined not only in our memories but also in the Constitution.

“Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble  . . .” – United States Constitution Amendment I

The wording in the Constitution explicitly requires that any assembling for the purpose of petitioning or protesting must be peaceful. When exercising the right to assemble and protest has the intent of destroying another’s right to assemble, peacefulness is lost. Today’s lightning-fast, mass communication system produces an environment where the intent to harm is weaponized a thousandfold.

NARSOL has recently experienced this.

A known hate-group, using lies, fear, and vigilantism, persuaded a hotel to cancel our June conference space just days before it was set to begin, leaving no options to relocate in time to hold the conference as planned. NARSOL and NARSOL’s Foundation teams planned that conference for more than a year. We lost it in a matter of days. We were, of course, shaken. Temporarily. Our supporters were also shaken, angry, worried.

To be clear – NARSOL did not choose to cancel this conference. The hotel venue called NARSOL staff and informed them they were “cancelling our event booking,” closing access to the hotel venue to our nearly 200 attendees, caving to pressure from an “American far-right, neo-fascist militant organization that promotes and engages in political violence.”

NARSOL has existed for 18 years. Through 2024, we have had 16 consecutive, peaceful conferences. Every day, we receive letters and emails from individuals on the conviction registry thanking us for giving them hope for a better tomorrow. It will take more than an online hate campaign to deter us. There are six months left in the year. There are many thousands of conference venues.

What we do is too important to stop. We fight the lies and myths surrounding registrants with facts and truth. We fight repressive, unconstitutional laws and restrictions with legal action. We publish the Digest, a newsletter for registrants, the incarcerated, their families, and their supporters.

We have conferences, educational, collegial, and enjoyable.

We daily strive toward our vision: NARSOL envisions a society free from public

shaming, dehumanizing registries, discrimination, and unconstitutional laws. We live up to our mission: NARSOL opposes dehumanizing registries by working to eliminate the laws, policies, and practices that propagate them.

We will move forward with greater care and doubled resolve, and we will continue to join together to fight for rational sex offense laws and against criminal registries.

What we do won’t be stopped or deterred. It will survive as long as it is needed.

The post As long as we are needed first appeared on NARSOL.

By Sandy . . . As NARSOL’s impact grows stronger, so do the efforts of those who wish to assign malevolent intent to our organization. Being a strong believer in freedom of speech, I advocate for the right to do that. However, I cannot help but be distraught when facts are twisted and presented so as to suggest falsehood.

That is what reporter Holly Hansen did in “reporting” about the NARSOL conference. She cherry-picked bits and pieces from our website; from information about our speakers, even those from past conferences; and from studies that we use to suggest, ever so gently, that our intent was contrary to public safety at best and evil at worst.

She reported very, very little about our conference, our distinguished speakers’ topics, or our many fact-based presentations and sessions.

This reporter was invited by NARSOL to talk with us. She ignored the invitation; her entire goal appears to be making us look like something we are not and making Houston’s mayor look bad. She used information to suggest, again ever so gently, that he and his office are inept at best and have nefarious motives at worst. If she is of the opinion and has evidence supporting Mayor Turner and his office being “shady,” even corrupt, she could have presented it, but innuendo and vague inferences need no support, do they?

She appears to have betrayed the principles and tenets of her publication also. The Texan claims that it “. . . is the alternative to the narratives and spin that are so pervasive in news media today.” Sadly, Ms. Hansen’s piece seems to be a mirror image of the spin about child sexual offending and the registry that is so pervasive in news media today.

Even with that as bad as it is, it is not the worst of what Holly Hansen’s article does.

The worst transgression is misleading her readers who are parents into beliefs that may actually put their children at greater risk of harm. It is the transgression of a lost opportunity.

One of her carefully selected quotes, one from an organization that offers zero evidence for its statement, is “. . . studies [It offers none that we could find] estimate a child is a victim of sexual assault every nine minutes in the United States.” If this estimate is anywhere near true, what further proof do we need that the registry system is ineffective? The system has been in effect close to 40 years. If it helped in decreasing child sexual abuse, shouldn’t it be working by now?

If children keep secrets about sexual abuse – and there is no doubt that they do – they aren’t keeping it a secret that some unknown or barely-known man living down the street – who may or may not be on the sex offense registry — hurt them. They are keeping it secret that Daddy or Uncle Earnest or Coach Mark at school is hurting them and has coerced them into silence.

Ms. Hansen, in her piece, could have pointed this out to her readers along with some concrete tools such as this page on the Stop It Now site or this one at Erin’s Law. This would provide more help to parents and safety to children than all the registries in the world.

She even managed to drag in the widely misunderstood topic of sex trafficking, conflating the very real issue of human trafficking/sex trafficking with the erroneous idea that your child will be snatched off the street the minute your back is turned and forced into the sex trade.

She writes, quoting from a source that offers no evidence nor cites any studies or even police reports, “[In Houston] You can literally dial up and order a child and have them delivered to your hotel room as easily as you can a pizza.”

This type of “reporting,” with its inflammatory language and imagery, focuses the issue away from the actual risk of child sexual abuse, that of “friends and family” being the molesters in all but the rarest of cases. What an opportunity Ms. Hansen had. Instead of misleading her readers and creating unwarranted fear in them, she could just as easily have shared information that would help them protect their children.

That would have encouraged honest examination of our website and our organization. That would have offered parents truths and reality about the risk of harm to their children and some resources to help them address it.

What she wrote encourages fear and hatred. It encourages remarks such as the ones on Twitter asking if anyone can get a list of the presenters and the attendees at our conference. Their purpose in getting such a list would almost assuredly be the same as the writer of a different comment who, after reading Ms. Hansen’s Tweet about our conference with a roomful in attendance, wrote, “Like shooting fish in a barrel.”

Unless, of course, their intent in having such a list is to invite them all to lunch.

The post The Texan piece: what was said and what could have been first appeared on NARSOL.

By Sandy . . . Even before the 2023 conference took place, plans had begun for 2024, which will be in Atlanta, Georgia.

Meanwhile, the 2023 conference drew to a close at noon on Sunday, June 25. Saturday afternoon’s sessions were a wide variety of break-out sessions and workshops with topics ranging from civil commitment to legal topics to a first-hand account by a mother and daughter about life with someone on the registry.

Saturday night’s awards banquet lived up to the standard of excellence set by previous years’ banquets. The food was delicious; the socializing was wonderful; the speaker, attorney Paul Dubbbeling, was inspirational; and the awards program, as usual, recognized a group of well-deserving advocates in a variety of fields.

NARSOL Advocate of the Year was awarded to Vicki Henry upon her retirement from public advocacy. The Braveheart award, which recognizes a person not associated with NARSOL who has worked to further our cause, went to Senator Gary Winfield of Connecticut. The Hawthorne Award, which recognizes the importance of the legal field in our advocacy, was awarded to Paul Dubbeling (photo above).

Susan Walker of Colorado was the recipient of our Lifetime Achievement Award upon her retirement from public advocacy. NARSOL’s Excellence in Leadership Award was bestowed on NARSOL’s chair Robin Vanderwall, and Fred D., our invaluable webmaster, received the Excellence in Service Award. (Robin’s photo is in the main pic above.)

Raffle and contest winners were announced, and the banquet ended on a joyous note.

Sunday morning’s opening presentation was an interactive exercise facilitated by Brenda Jones in learning and refining how to analyze a bill and prepare testimony to offer in legislative committee hearings.

The conference ended with Dr. Emily Horowitz, NARSOL’S 2021 Braveheart Award winner, reminding us of the reality of the sex offender registry for those on it and why we choose to engage with this advocacy and then encouraging and inspiring us to continue in our battle.

Our conference attendance was approximately 160 in person and 120 via the livestream.

The amount of behind-the-scenes work and activity, all by volunteers, required to hold a conference is staggering, and it starts more than a year prior. Until next year in Atlanta – super-early registration available at a discounted price – volunteers at NARSOL will be working behind-the-scenes and will then bring you NARSOL conference 2024.

The post NARSOL conference 2023: It’s a wrap first appeared on NARSOL.

By Sandy . . . As I write, we are a day and a half into our conference, NARSOL’s 15^th annual national conference and the third to be held in Houston, Texas. Day one started with warm welcomes from Robin, our board chair, and Brenda, our executive director. Brenda set the tone of success in recounting some of NARSOL’s legal victories in recent years.

The first plenary speaker, journalist Steve Yoder, focused on how advocates could be successful in dealing with the media and using the media to help get our message out.

I am attending the conference virtually, so I am only able to see one break-out session in each time slot. Bruce Hossfield (Atwo Zee, Registered Traveler) talked about how registrants could successfully travel in our nation, and Steve Yoder delved into the ways to successfully write op-eds and have them published.

The next plenary speaker, Alexa Sardina, brought what is for many a new perspective, that of restorative justice (RJ) practices as complete or partial alternatives to criminal justice results. Having been at one time a victim of sexual crime – in RJ terms, someone who was harmed – Alexa has a personal and refreshing approach to what it takes for healing to occur and be successful, healing for both the one harmed and the one who caused the harm.

In the afternoon break-out session, NARSOL advocate Pastor Jeremy Pierce told conference attendees about the virtual church he helped create where everyone, especially registrants, could successfully have their spiritual needs met.

That was day one.

Day two began with the next plenary speaker, attorney Adele Nicholas, sharing with the audience some of the cases she and her law partner, NARSOL board member Mark Weinberg, have worked on and brought a significant number to successful results. The cases where they have found the most success are those dealing with residency requirements and prohibitions for registrants.

The morning break-out session departed from the theme of success and delved into a dark and desperate reality for some who have been convicted of a sexual offense and even some, as I was shocked to learn, who have no criminal conviction at all. The civil commitment presentation was shocking, even for someone who has done somewhat extensive research into the topic.

The highlight of the session, at least for me, was when Daniel, a detainee at Moose Lake Civil Commitment Center in Wisconsin, joined by telephone. He spoke of the lack of any meaningful treatment, the inadequate food, the virtual lack of medical treatment, and the arbitrary and punitive administrative policies and decisions. In spite of it all, Daniel continues to fight by whatever means possible.

All of these sessions and presentations were taking place inside the hotel in our well air-conditioned, large conference room. Outside, around a partial perimeter of the hotel with temperature well over 90, a drama of a different sort was transpiring.

Unbeknownst to NARSOL at the time, over a month ago the fact of our conference caught the attention of a group called Proud Boys, and they took exception to what they erroneously believe NARSOL to be. They sent out a call for supporters to converge on the hotel and protest against our conference. Chatter on social media alerted us to this the first afternoon of the conference after it was well underway. This protest was set to take place the next day, day two, in the late morning.

Hotel security was advised, and they assured us that, along with help from the Houston Police Dept., precautions would be taken, and when the protest group arrived, somewhere between 25 and 50 in number, they were. The protesters gathered outside on the main road to the hotel chanting “Protect the children,” and attempted egress onto hotel property was met with police officers who made it clear that the protesters would stay on public property or be arrested.

They made the wiser choice. They obeyed the law and did what every American is guaranteed the right to do: make their opinions known in a lawful manner. They dispersed fairly soon.

An afternoon, the awards banquet, and a morning yet to go; and conference 2023 will be part of history. Preparations are already underway for conference 2024. The chances are strong that protesters will follow us into the future, and they can be certain that they will find NARSOL there for as long as we are needed.

The post Conference 2023 — a success story, inside and outside first appeared on NARSOL.

The post Houston has much to offer for the NARSOL National Conference Oct 8-10, 2021 first appeared on NARSOL.

The National Association for Rational Sexual Offense Laws (NARSOL) convened its 2017 conference in Atlanta, Georgia, on Friday, June 2 with Building a Foundation for Effective Advocacy as its theme.

The three-day conference was well attended with more than 140 advocates, presenters, and feature speakers present.

Conference guests enthusiastically received information and current legal perspectives from four leading attorneys who are currently engaged in litigations at the federal level that pose immediate or pending outcomes which will directly impact the status of registration requirements in all or many states in the nation.

Attorneys Phil Telfeyan and Miriam Aukerman teamed together on Friday morning to present Protecting Constitutional Rights in the Federal Courts. Drawing from their recent experiences with important Circuit-level cases (Telfeyan in McGuire v. Strange, Alabama; Aukerman in Does v. Snyder, Michigan), attendees were provided specific insight into the way these cases were developed from the start and how the current approach to sex offender registry challenges are evolving as a consequence.

On Friday afternoon the main speaker was Dr. Melissa Hamilton, an attorney and criminologist who shared how to handle the junk science that drives the concern about sex offender risk.

NARSOL’s annual awards banquet was held a day earlier for this conference where guests were entertained by special musical guest Lyric Lee while dining from their choice of Southern styled fish or chicken with more vegetables, bread, and sweet potato pie than it was possible for a crowd to consume.

NARSOL proudly presented its coveted Advocate of the Year award to Ken Roberts of Mississippi who has served as one of the organization’s primary gatekeepers and re-distributors for incoming emails and voice mails for several years. In addition, the annual Braveheart award was presented in absentia to attorney Mitch McGuire of Alabama. Several individuals were presented with the distinguished Pearl award, and founder and chair Paul Shannon was presented with NARSOL’s most rare, and least awarded, Lifetime Achievement award.

The conference felt as though it had moved to North Carolina on Saturday as guests were thrilled by two separate feature presentations from attorneys who have met with remarkable success representing clients in the Tarheel state challenging conditions of its sex offender registry.

Attorney and current Chief Appellate Defender for the state of North Carolina Glenn Gerding’s presentation entitled Beating Back Banishment and Big Brother was surprising in that it focused less on Packingham v. North Carolina (pending final resolution from the Supreme Court in the coming weeks) and more on his extensive involvement in registration issues going back to his days as a court-appointed attorney handling indigent cases in Superior courts. Gerding encouraged NARSOL’s members and supporters to continue organizing and expanding the growing network of associated attorneys and legal resources to press the fight against unconstitutional civil rights violations imposed by sex offender laws.

On Saturday afternoon, Attorney Paul Dubbeling captured his audience with a passionate, articulate plea for attacking the presumption of false facts that district attorneys and state attorneys general have relied upon for more than a decade by focusing on the more than twenty years of data already available in every state providing positive proof of low recidivist rates among their registered populations. Dubbeling presented A Matter of Fact: Recidivism Rates, Current Jurisprudence, and the Need for Fact-based Litigation which envisions a legal strategy of forcing states to rethink their reliance on dubious facts and pressing judges at the state and federal level to stop relying on studies from one party or another but to focus, instead, on the relevant data already available through a statistical assessment of a state’s very own sex offender registry–data that overwhelmingly represents rates of recidivism that are low and unremarkable. “These ARE the facts. Now let’s discuss what they mean,” repeated Dubbeling several times throughout.

Closing out the conference on Sunday morning was Mary Sue Molnar, president of NARSOL’s affiliate Texas Voices. Molnar’s presentation entitled Where I Began My Journey was a frank and candid assessment of her migration from erstwhile organizer to accomplished advocate with a rehearsal of the peaks and valleys that punctuated her journey. Sharing her experiences from the courthouse to the statehouse, Molnar encouraged guests not to be discouraged by what they may not know about the intricate processes of legislation, litigation and public policy, but to ask and learn as they gradually make their progression from novice to natural. And apparently it cannot hurt very much to use some Texas charm in just the right measure along the way.

Interspersed and inserted throughout the five feature presentations were 31 hours worth of nuts and bolts workshops on topics ranging from how to start an affiliate organization to how to keep from going completely insane while doing it. By Sunday evening the conference was over and attendees from states throughout the nation had embarked on their journeys back home.

The post NARSOL’s ninth conference and awards banquet first appeared on NARSOL.

The public tends to view sex offenders as monsters, and the law reflects that dehumanizing metaphor. At our 2016 conference in Atlanta, Mr. Douard explained how the monster metaphor points in the direction of Draconian recidivism prevention strategies, such as registration and civil commitment laws, rather than utilizing more humane and effective public health strategies that seek to protect society while also protecting the rights of sex offenders.

The post How Metaphors Kill / Douard first appeared on NARSOL.

FEARLESS groups are support groups aimed at providing a safe place for registrants and their loved ones to get together, build community, and learn ways to step out and take charge of their lives and overcome the stigma they face. At RSOL’s 2016 Atlanta conference, Brenda and a panel of those who have been involved in such groups encourage others to build their own FEARLESS groups and offer support to help them begin.

RSOL Conf 2016 Let’s Get Fearless! Jones/Panel

The post Jones and panel – Let’s Get Fearless! first appeared on NARSOL.

Janice Bellucci & Paul Rigney….
International travel for registered citizens and members of their families has changed significantly since the passage of the International Megan’s Law. This presentation at our 2016 Atlanta conference educated registered citizens and family members about current rules and regulations affecting their international travel.

RSOL Conf 2016 International Travel-Rules of the Road

The post International Travel-Rules of the Road first appeared on NARSOL.

At RSOL’s 2016 national conference in Atlanta, GA, Ms. Carpenter focused on children who are involved in sexual misconduct being forced to register as sex offenders, often for the remainder of their lives. This is contradictory to what research shows about best practice with juveniles. Additionally, she showed that not only is their registration an injustice that deserves greater national attention but also that proving the flaws in juvenile registration helps inform our fight against adult registration.

RSOL Conf 2016 The Child Scarlet Letter Carpenter

The post RSOL Conference 2016 “The Child Scarlet Letter” by Prof. Carpenter first appeared on NARSOL.