Tuesday, October 20, 2015

NEWS RELEASE: United States Sentencing Commission introduced a proposed amendment, "Crime of Violence"

On August 7, 2015, the United States Sentencing Commission introduced a proposed amendment, "crime of violence" to include non-contact CP offenders. The Commission is currently reviewing criminal research data and federal sentencing statistics. The proposed amendment would then be promulgated to amend Section 4B1.2(a)(2) of the sentencing guidelines, which would be submitted to Congress NO later than May 1, 2016.
 
WE MUST STOP THIS!!!
 
This would have the most detrimental effects on CP offenders, including exclusion from programming credits earned in prison, stiffer Supervised Release conditions and placement as a Tier 3 Violent Offender on the Registry. This proposal would be retroactive if it becomes law, regardless if you are incarcerated or on release.
 
The Sentencing Commission is accepting public comment on this issue until November 12, 2015. Our friends at Caution Click have launched a letter writing campaign to challenge this proposed amendment. WE ALL need to get involved on this and send in those letters. You can write your own, or use the formatted letter included from Caution Click, but send them snail mail as well as email to the address provided. As an insider, I have set a goal for us to get in a minimum of 100,000 letters. I won't back down and neither should you.
 
-->> SAMPLE LETTER BELOW
 
United States Sentencing Commission
One Columbus Circle, NE, Suite 2-500
Washington, DC 20002-8002
Attention Public Affairs
 
RE: Proposed Amendment to Section 4B1.2, Sentencing Guidelines
 
Dear Commission Members,
 
This letter is in response to the Commission's request for public comment. It is my personal belief that possession of child pornography should be excluded from the definition of a "forcible sex offense". Non-production possession, receipt, transportation or distribution of child pornography does not meet the criteria of being a sexual act or of having sexual contact. Therefore, it should be excluded as a violent Sexual Offense.
 
Using the classification of violent offender is placing the otherwise non-violent offender under the same label as someone who has had actual, physical contact with a child. This distorts the truth and is very misleading.
 
We are all very passionate about protecting our children, however, we have taken this passion to an unforgivable level of applying a definition to an offender that does not relate to the actual crime he/she committed, and using this term to perpetuate a life time punishment. Therefore, I would like this letter to be entered as public comment to item 4(D) in the "Issues for Comment" section of the United States Sentencing Commission proposal to Section 4B1.2(a)(2) of the Sentencing Guidelines. Thank you.
 
Sincerely (your name)
address
phone
 
________________________________________
at

1 comment:

  1. AnonymousOctober 20, 2015 at 8:35 PM

    What?? Where did that pop up? I look at the USSC site regularly and did not see that. Did you get that from the document at this link? -

    http://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/amendment-process/federal-register-notices/20150811_FR_Proposed.pdf

    If so, which section??? Thank you!!!

    ReplyDelete

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"When an American says that he loves his country, he means not only that he loves the New England hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains, and the sea. He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which a man can draw the breath of self-respect."
~Adlia Stevenson U.S. Vice President (1893–1897) and Congressman (1879–1881)

On a Personal Note

Thanks for the opportunity to express my thoughts regarding the issue of citizens’ rights, particularly addressing certain sex offenders’ crimes that do not fit the devastating, inequitable and endless punishment given.


As you know, many young men and women lives across the nation are being destroyed by incarceration, life-time registry and restrictive laws that do more harm than good. For those individuals, there is no second chance.

Below is a personal letter to President Obama:
* * * *
“Dear President Obama,

I truly agree with your sentiments that individuals, such as ex-felons, should be able to receive a second chance at life. Since we all know that one can veer off that path of life and travel along rough, rocky terrain, sometimes running off and ending up in some ditch. We all have made our fill of mistakes and sometimes those held a costly consequence that changed life forever. So we lived through it, trying harder to make things right with family, friends and those around us, but what about those who aren’t able to make things right even if they tried…because they’re labeled as too dirty, a leper, a person who is rejected from society and home.

But what if they’re a seventeen year old and had sex with a fifteen year old, consensual at that? Or they’re a teen that had gotten so enraged after a breakup that he sent out naked pictures of his girlfriend on his cell phone or email? Or an individual urinates where someone just happens to see them?

All are wrong and a travesty but do they deserve the life of no second chance with a registry that ends all. They are labeled, no jobs, no where to live…they have been deemed a menace to society, a plague. These certain circumstances, and many other situations similar to these, I believe still deserve a second change.

Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

After my son’s early release and two years of prison, I thought I had handled that fact graciously knowing after serving his time he would be able to get that fresh start, that second chance. He was an exemplary inmate, GED, college courses and vocational classes. Little did I know that a second chance on the outside was the farthest from the truth? He now struggles and lives in a trailer park sharing a trailer with another and surrounded by others in the same rocking boat, one to float endlessly in shark infested waters. I see him little because of probation requirements (he couldn’t live with us because we were 800 feet near a school). My family is afraid of what would happen to them if he lived with them…vigilantism. My son has no other place to stay since others condemn him of his crime that is screamed from the highest rooftop. Sex offender, sex offender!

Not all sex offenders are pedophiles or predators but some are simply young kids that make one stupid and rash decision that eventually changes everything, and they have no idea what they’ve done until their life is never their own. Exactly, where is that second chance for those sex-offenders who are lumped together with pedophiles and predators? Now, it makes me sick to think of my son’s future and many like him that are on the registry and many with no second chance…ever. I am asking you as a mother and as another concerned citizen of the United States that these laws are looked at again and taken into serious consideration in what they are doing to the Constitution of the United States, not for sex offenders in general but the future rights of every citizen, before anymore are put into effect. They unjustly strip an offender of their rights and place them in a guillotine that can be easily set off by anyone and at anytime. Where is the second chance for ex-sex offenders in the present, pending and future laws?”
* * * *
What truly saddens me is the weakness and deterioration of what the sex offense issue is doing to our once, great nation. Across Europe, others are seeing the injustice and disregard of rights, but we ignore this problem and it makes me wonder where humanity is heading….

We have become a hysterical society in which our latest witch-hunt is a sex offender--no matter his/her crime.

Below is a email sent from a foreign advocate to a father of a sex offender:
* * * *
“The tragic story of your son's death is just so sad that it's difficult to explain how. It was very hard to read your letters. It seems almost unbelievable that this can take place in a democracy! From our point of view, there is no justice in this. Not in any way: not for you, your son, the former girl friend – or even the state.

It is an abusive legal system. It seems barbaric. And we are so very sorry that this takes place. That's why it's so important for us to try to neutralize the debate with this…, hopefully making some changes. ….. to show the every day life of the sex offenders, trying to show how they keep on being punished, even after served prison time…..But we will for sure tell the story of the injustice that your son has been exposed to.”
* * * *
I appreciate everyone's commitment and backing to protect everyone's civil rights, plainly as noted in the Constitution of the United States and is presupposed, giving ALL men are “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.”