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Islamic terrorists may be targeting mentally disturbed or disabled people in Britain in a bid to form a new “brigade” of home-grown suicide bombers, security officials fear. MI5 and police say the case of Nicky Reilly, who is being held over a nailbomb attack last week in Exeter, may indicate a new strategy of targeting vulnerable people with mental health problems to carry out attacks. A counterterrorism official said MI5 was investigating the extent to which Reilly had been manipulated by a “charismatic” Al-Qaeda recruiter. “It is a grotesque concept but they are using people who are clearly mentally subnormal,”...

The Denver City Council planned to discuss changes to a limousine drivers ordinance that would keep sex offenders with drunken-driving records from getting licensed by the city. Witnesses said that Stanley D. Sample, of Lakewood, was driving the limo. He did not have a special license as required by the city and he is a registered sex offender, 7News reported. "As a parent, it just offended me to no end that he would disregard the court's order and the probation conditions and disregard the safety of these children," said Rosemary Rodriguez, the City Council president. Sample was arrested after the...

Minnesota's worst sex offenders are required to alert neighbors when they move in next door. But what if the sex offenders have no home? What if their homes are doorways, alleys and parks — and the neighbors have no idea they're there? St. Paul wants to be the first city in Minnesota to use satellite tracking to monitor Level 3 sex offenders long after they're released from custody. Police and policymakers say it would be a valuable tool to help deal with a difficult problem: keeping track of sexual predators who say they sleep on the streets. "Remember why we...

CUERO — Registered sex offenders in Cuero would be forced to post a sign at their residences declaring their status if some members of the Cuero City Council get their way. The City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to instruct a city attorney to draft an ordinance that would require the signs. The signs would be 2-foot square and read "a registered sex offender lives here," the Victoria Advocate reported for Thursday editions.

Michael Guirdy Allen was one of more than 400,000 people who fled the New Orleans area after Hurricane Katrina crippled the city's levees and flooded its streets. The 40-year-old man from Harvey, a suburb of New Orleans, still hasn't returned. But Allen left behind a string of warrants for charges as far back as 2000, including attempted murder, false imprisonment, three counts of child molestation and aggravated assault. Allen is one of more than 2,000 fugitives and sex offenders whom local, state and federal authorities are trying to locate and, in cases such as Allen's, arrest. Two months after Katrina...

Four Central Florida middle school students were arrested Monday for allegedly ripping off the clothes off classmates and then snapping photos with their cell phones, according to a Local 6 News report. Investigators said the boys, ages 12, 13 and 14 years old, attacked the girls Friday at Tavares Middle School in Lake County, Fla., in the back of a school bus. The boys then allegedly groped the girls and took pictures of them. Cell phone video allegedly showed one of the girls screaming for help while the boys touch her breasts, according to the report. Police said the attack...

WASHINGTON -- Nearly 800 convicted sex offenders in 14 states got Medicaid-funded prescriptions for Viagra and other impotence drugs, according to a survey by The Associated Press. The majority of the cases were in New York, Florida and Texas. Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor, is administered differently in every state. Thus, while some states allowed Medicaid payments for prescriptions for the drugs Viagra, Cialis and Levitra, other states did not. New York, acting on a tip, was the first to uncover that Medicaid had paid for Viagra prescriptions for sex offenders. Its report prompted the federal government,...

Minnesota leads the nation in the rise of its prison population, which has grown about 45 percent in the last five years, largely because of increases in methamphetamine and sex offender cases. The number of prisoners in the state rose 13.2 percent, from 7,612 prisoners to 8,613 prisoners, from the year ended June 30, 2003, to the year ended June 30, 2004. The nationwide increase was 2.3 percent, with a total of 2.1 million people incarcerated in the nation's prisons and jails as of June 30, 2004, according to figures released Sunday by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. Although...

One state law helps inform people when a predatory sex offender moves into the neighborhood. Another law of equal weight, however, prohibits the public from knowing when juveniles convicted of sex-related crimes attend school with unsuspecting classmates. Concern about the classroom presence of juvenile offenders has some parents watching the case of Rashade Coleman, 16, the former Highland Park High School quarterback and basketball standout accused of raping two women — one Oct. 18 and the other June 19 — in Ramsey and Dakota counties. Coleman returns to court today, when a Ramsey County judge is expected to decide if...

Sex offenders will be kept under surveillance by satellites and tested with lie detectors under new Government plans.The Home Secretary wants to use satellite-tracking for prisoners released on licence and offenders given community sentences.David Blunkett also wants to expand a new database which allows officers to share information on violent and sex offenders. And he plans to allow police and probation services them to use lie detectors to make sure sex offenders are keeping to the conditions of their release. Mr Blunkett told Sky News that satellite-tracking would be "a great safeguard, not just for sex offenders but for those...

TWIN FALLS -- "Carissa's Law" went into effect Tuesday, providing for broadcasters, newspapers and police agencies to make public the names, addresses and crimes of convicted sex offenders. The 2003 Idaho Legislature passed the law, which requires sheriffs to run advertisements in their local newspapers when a classified "violent sexual predator" moves into the county. One such advertisement is set to run in tomorrow's edition of The Times-News in Twin Falls. The advertisement will give details on three area violent sexual predators. Carrisa's Law is named for 14 year-old Carrisa Benway of Coeur d'Alene, who was raped and killed by...

<p>SACRAMENTO - As California's budget woes have escalated, state prison officials quietly have been studying a range of options to save hundreds of millions of dollars, including releasing non-violent inmates, delaying the opening of a maximum security lockup and early discharge from parole, according to internal documents obtained by the Mercury News.</p>

<p>LEWISTON, Maine (AP) The state is placing more registered sex offenders in Lewiston than any other city in the state, according to Maine Department of Corrections statistics.</p> <p>Lewiston had 48 registered sex offenders living in the city in September, the latest information available. Portland, with almost twice the population, had 39.</p>

(Lawmaker Wants To Ban Name Change For Convicted Offenders) MADISON, Wis. -- At least two registered Wisconsin sex offenders have changed their legal names. With new names, they wouldn't show up on the sex offender registry and their backgrounds would probably appear spotless. That's why Wisconsin state assemblyman Mark Gundrum said he wants to ban sex offenders from changing their names. The New Berlin, Wis., Republican said Waukesha, Wis., police told him about a registered sex offender who changed his name in May. That man didn't tell law enforcement or sex offender registry officials. Officials don't know how many convicted...