Free Republic

Tucson Sector Border Patrol agents arrested two migrants in recent days with significant convictions for sex-related crimes in the United States. In one incident, agents arrested a man with a conviction from Utah for sexual abuse of a child. In the second, agents arrested a migrant with a conviction for attempted rape in Georgia. On August 8, Tucson Sector Chief Patrol Agent John Modlin tweeted a mugshot of a Mexican national arrested after crossing the border illegally on July 31. During a biometric background investigation, Tucson Station agents arrested Jose Roblero-Perez, a Mexican national, after learning he had a conviction...

WASHINGTON (AP) — America’s registered child sex offenders will now have to use passports identifying them for their past crimes when traveling overseas. The State Department said Wednesday it would begin revoking passports of registered child sex offenders and will require them to apply for a new one that carries a “unique identifier” of their status. Those applying for a passport for the first time will not be issued one without the identifier, which will be a notice printed inside the back cover of the passport book that reads: “The bearer was convicted of a sex offense against a minor,...

Head of Durham University Law School Professor Thom Brooks has told a Commons inquiry that people found guilty of committing ‘hate crimes’ should be put on an official register. A professor of law and government at the university, Brooks advised that a ‘Hate Crime Offenders Register’ would work in a similar fashion to the sex offenders register, putting restrictions on what jobs people who are listed are allowed to do. Such an approach would send a “clear signal” about the severity of such offences, the professor argued in a written submission to the Commons Home Affairs Committee, which is holding...

They were once prisoners, inmates or offenders. Now, the nearly 19,000 residents of Washington’s 12 state prisons will be referred to another way. Those serving time in prison will no longer be referred to as “offenders” or “convicts,” according to a memo from the leader of the Department of Corrections. If they’re in a class behind bars, they’ll be called “students.” If they’re in the prison infirmary, they’ll be called “patients.” And, spokesman Jeremy Barclay said, if no other moniker applies, they’ll be called “incarcerated persons.” “Secretary of Corrections Richard Morgan has put out a memo to staff requesting...

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Reddell Smith spent a decade roaming the streets of Syracuse with the 110 Gang, where he dealt drugs, shot at rivals and stole a car at gunpoint. When he was arrested, Smith possessed a 9mm handgun that had been used in 12 shootings. His life as a gangster ended in 2011, when he was sentenced to 8 years and 4 months in prison .... But now Smith and 46 other convicted Upstate New York drug dealers -- some of them members of violent gangs --have seen their sentences cut short as part of a federal initiative to...

By resisting almost any change aimed at improving our public schools, teachers unions have become a ripe target for reformers across the ideological spectrum. Even Hollywood, famously sympathetic to organized labor, has turned on unions with the documentary "Waiting for 'Superman'" (2010) and a feature film, "Won't Back Down," to be released later this year. But perhaps most damaging to the unions' credibility is their position on sexual misconduct involving teachers and students in New York schools, which is even causing union members to begin to lose faith. In the last five years in New York City, 97 tenured teachers...

The "countries of particular concern" (CPC) designation means the countries engaged in or tolerated "severe violations of religious freedom," including persecution, harassment, abuse, discrimination and detention of religious minorities or activists and the prohibition of practicing religions not sanctioned by the government. Unfortunately, the State Department stopped short and failed to add some of the world's worst offenders to the list. One specific example is Pakistan, where there is growing violence and persecution aimed at the Christian minority there. Our international affiliate recently secured an important victory for a Christian family who faced persecution in Pakistan because of their faith....

Thousands of US sex offenders, prisoners on parole and other convicts were left unmonitored after an electronic tagging system shut down because of data overload. BI Incorporated, which runs the system, reached its data threshold - more than two billion records - on Tuesday. This left authorities across 49 states unaware of offenders' movement for about 12 hours.

<p>SALISBURY, Md. — The body of a Maryland girl who authorities say was abducted by a registered sex offender was found Friday after thousands of volunteers fanned out to look for her.</p> <p>Wicomico County Sheriff Mike Lewis said that the body of 11-year-old Sarah H. Foxwell was discovered at about 4 p.m. near the Delaware state line. He offered few other details. Thomas J. Leggs Jr., 30, has been charged in her kidnapping.</p>

On Halloween night the state of Missouri will be enforcing its sex offender law requiring registered sex offenders to stay home with their porch lights off and a sign on the door saying they will not be giving out candy. But there is a challenge to the law.

TUCSON — From Friday to Monday, six illegal immigrants who crossed the border were found to have records for sexual offenses, and five of those were taken into custody in Cochise County. And, the Tucson Sector is seeing more individuals who are apprehended with criminal records of all types, U.S. Border Patrol spokesman Mike Scioli said Monday. Throughout the sector, “we are seeing in increase of illegals with criminal records, especially sex offenders,” he said. On Monday morning, Border Patrol agents from the Naco Station arrested a Mexican man who had a warrant out of California, Scioli said. According to...

NACO, Ariz. — An illegal immigrant convicted in the past of sexual offenses in Perry, Iowa, was apprehended Saturday by U.S. Border Patrol agents from the Naco Station as he tried to re-enter the United States, the agency said in a news release issued Monday. The unidentified 36-year-old Mexican man was apprehended, and when he was checked through the federal identification system it was revealed he had been convicted of third-degree sexual assault and abuse. The Mexican national was one of three convicted sex offenders apprehended from Saturday to early Monday morning. Two others were: • A 26-year-old Mexican man...

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...