August, 2006 News (continued)
Misconduct by military recruiters cited
ANNE PLUMMER FLAHERTY
14 Aug 2006 3:29 pm
Military recruiters have increasingly resorted to overly aggressive tactics and even criminal activity to attract young troops to the battlefield, congressional investigators say.
Grueling combat conditions in Iraq, a decent commercial job market and tough monthly recruiting goals have made recruiters' jobs more difficult, the Government Accountability Office said Monday. This has probably prompted more recruiters to resort to strong-arm tactics, including harassment or criminal means such as falsifying documents, to satisfy demands, GAO states.
The report was done at the behest of lawmakers who were concerned that not enough was being done to curb aggressive recruitment practices.
"Even one incident of recruiter wrongdoing can erode public confidence in the recruiting process," the GAO warned.
According to service data provided to the GAO, substantiated cases of wrongdoing jumped by more than a third, from about 400 cases in 2004 to almost 630 in 2005. Meanwhile, criminal cases — such as sexual harassment or falsifying medical records — more than doubled in those years, jumping from 30 incidents to 70.
Prison suspends 14 officers in corruption inquiry
James Sturcke and agencies
14 Aug 2006 12:00 am
Fourteen prison officers were suspended today in connection with allegations of corruption including trafficking and "inappropriate relationships" with inmates.
The governor of Pentonville prison in London, where the suspended officers worked, said the jail would "briefly reduce" its number of inmates while an investigation was being carried out.
More than 1,000 prison officers in England and Wales are believed to be corrupt, a confidential report revealed last month. The assessment, carried out by the prison service's own anti-corruption unit and the Metropolitan police and leaked to the BBC, revealed that prison staff were using their positions to smuggle mobile phones and drugs to inmates. It also found that officers were taking cash backhanders for transfers to less secure centres.
Malaysian parents targeted to curb crime
John Aglionby
14 Aug 2006 12:00 am
A tearjerker film, hard-hitting TV advertisements, coaching clinics and a national seminar are the prongs of a shock and therapy strategy planned by Malaysia to stem a sharp rise in juvenile crime, it was reported today.
The big difference between this strategy and traditional campaigns, according to the New Straits Times, is that the targets are not the young law-breakers but their parents.
Education ministry officials hope that by using dramatised real-life accounts to show parents how their children may succumb to breaking the law, people will take the problem seriously. The clinics and advertisements will then be used to explain how to stop behaviour spiralling out of control.
Group asks judge to block sex offender law in Georgia county
Associated Press
14 Aug 2006 12:00 am
Opponents of a new Georgia law cracking down on sex offenders filed suit in federal court Monday, asking a judge to bar a second county from evicting offenders who live too close to school bus stops.
Bulloch County's school board voted Thursday to officially designate about 1,700 bus stops. The move triggered a part of the law, passed by the Legislature earlier this year, that prevents people convicted of a sex crime from living within 1,000 feet of many places children gather.
Sex crimes: Vital help: Nurses aid police, victims
MATT ELLIOTT
14 Aug 2006 12:00 am
The Tulsa Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners have treated 4,643 victims in the 15 years since the SANE program began in July 1991 through July 31 of this year.
The local program was a "fly by the seat of your pants" operation until about seven years ago, but it is now kept abreast of national trends, [said Kathy Bell, Tulsa's SANE coordinator].
The program has branched out into forensic nursing, a field in which nurses, although primarily concerned with a patient's care, help collect evidence of a variety of crimes other than sexual assault.
Now they conduct examinations for crimes including domestic violence and also care for "drug-endangered" children who are removed from homes, she said.
Rogue trooper forced action in Pa. State Police
Craig R. McCoy
14 Aug 2006 12:00 am
After a state trooper admitted that he sexually assaulted six women, after the state paid $6 million to his victims, after news broke of sexual harassment by top commanders, the Pennsylvania State Police cleaned up its act.
The shake-up was triggered by the 1999 arrest of former Trooper Michael K. Evans, a serial sex abuser who worked out of the Skippack barracks in Montgomery County.
Another state trooper once accused Evans of being a "hormonal sex freak" who was going to cause the force "great embarrassment in the future." But the department deep-sixed numerous warnings about Evans before he was finally charged.
Evans, now 39, pleaded guilty in 2000 to six sexual assaults, three involving teenage girls. He is serving five to 10 years in state prison.
A lawsuit filed by his victims unearthed a much wider scandal involving dozens of sexual-misconduct allegations against other state troopers - including one major who reportedly tried to rape his assistant.
"We didn't have a few bad apples," said Thomas Sheridan, the lawyer who filed that suit. "It was a systemic problem from top to bottom."
Pa. Bill Would Make Self-Defense Claims Easier
KDKA/AP
13 Aug 2006 7:50 pm
State lawmakers are considering a bill that would permit people to stand their ground -- and even use deadly force -- to defend themselves when threatened or endangered.
Current Pennsylvania law says when people are attacked or threatened in public, their responsibility is to retreat.
But Representative Steven Cappelli says a person can be attacked while retreating.
The Lycoming County Republican has sponsored a bill that would allow people who are licensed to carry concealed guns to use those weapons if they are threatened with death, serious bodily injury, kidnapping or rape.
Prosecutors Seek Death Penalty Against Stanko
Jason Reynolds
13 Aug 2006 2:28 am
A jury has found Stephen Stanko guilty of killing his live-in girlfriend and raping a teenager last year.
Jurors deliberated just over two hours before finding the 38-year-old guilty on all counts, including murder, kidnapping and criminal sexual conduct.
The same jury will begin to hear testimony in the penalty phase on Monday.
Jail doesn't work, say crime victims
Jamie Doward
13 Aug 2006 12:00 am
The vast majority of crime victims do not believe that prison reduces levels of offending, according to a major new report to be published tomorrow. The surprising findings of the first survey of those whose lives have been affected by crime suggest the public is losing faith in the penal system.
The report's publication comes as prison numbers reach record levels with reformers warning of disastrous consequences unless the government expands the use of alternatives to custodial sentences.
Tomorrow's report, by SmartJustice, the campaign group that promotes community-based punishments, suggests the public no longer endorses a 'lock them up' policy when it comes to the majority of criminal offences.
Instead, most victims believe the government needs to spend more money tackling the causes of crime. Eight out of 10 victims interviewed said more constructive activities for young people in the community, and better supervision of children by parents, would be effective in stopping re-offending.
Seven out of 10 victims also wanted to see more treatment programmes for drug addicts and those suffering from mental health problems.
The innocent do get convicted
BARRY SMITH
13 Aug 2006 12:00 am
A joke often told by people who work with inmates is that everyone behind bars is innocent. If you don’t believe it, just ask them.
But it’s not a funny joke to Lesly Jean, a former Camp Lejeune Marine wrongly accused of rape by Jacksonville police in the 1980s. Or Leo Waters of Jacksonville who suffered the same fate. Both were later exonerated and freed from North Carolina prisons.
Their cases illustrate that sometimes innocent people do get convicted and serve time in prison.
Beginning Nov. 1, people who profess their innocence will have an additional tool in their effort to win freedom and get their record cleared. They’ll be able to ask for a review by the new North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission, which could lead to their exoneration.
EXTORTING SEX WITH A BADGE
Nancy Phillips and Craig R. McCoy
13 Aug 2006 12:00 am
Philadelphia Police Officer James Fallon spent many midnight shifts on patrol - not for crime, but for sex.
His partner, Timothy Carre, says he tried to warn their bosses, but nobody paid attention - not until the night Fallon and Carre stopped a stripper getting off her shift, forced her into their patrol car and, she says, took turns raping her in the darkness near I-95.
The officers are now off the force, convicted of sex crimes, but the city is still confronting the consequences of that 2002 attack.
Most police departments do little to identify the offenders, and even less to stop them. Unlike other types of police misconduct, the abuse of police power to coerce sex is little addressed in training, and rarely tracked by police disciplinary systems.
This official neglect makes it easier for predators to escape punishment and find new victims.
The Inquirer found nearly 400 reports of police sexual misconduct across the country in the last five years, including dozens in the Philadelphia region.
The abusive officers who are caught and charged are likely only a fraction of the real number, policing experts say.
Many victims, ashamed and intimidated, never report the crimes, The Inquirer review shows. As in the case of Fallon and Carre, victims often don't surface until the offenders are caught and taken off the street.
"The women are terrified," said Penny Harrington, the former police chief of Portland, Ore., and founder of the National Center for Women and Policing. "Who are they going to call? It's the police who are abusing them."
FAMILY JUSTICE CENTER
13 Aug 2006 12:00 am
Several agencies and organizations here in Southeast Idaho have teamed up to help make the process of reporting incidents of domestic violence easier for victims.
It was an evening to "celebrate justice for all" Saturday night at the Idaho Falls Shilo Inn.
A silent art auction was hosted by the Family Justice Center Committee.
Their goal was to raise enough money to build a facility that would house law enforcement officers, prosecutors and treatment providers all in one location -- that way victims of domestic violence would only have to tell their story once.
"Domestic violence is a problem in our community. We will file a criminal charge today, we filed one yesterday, we filed one the day before. If you look at the statistics, we're filing approximately 400 to 450 domestics every year in Bonneville County."
DA defends decision to drop burglary charges
Jason Auslander
13 Aug 2006 12:00 am
To his alleged latest victim, the fact that a man with a more than 20-year history of sexual violence could be let out of jail seems ``preposterous.''
But Santa Fe District Attorney Henry Valdez said he had no choice but to dismiss a charge of aggravated burglary against Mark Catanach, who allegedly walked into a next-door neighbor's house in the middle of the night in July and assaulted one of two women living there.
And Valdez took issue Saturday with a story about Catanach, 43, in that day's New Mexican that characterized Catanach's alleged actions toward two female neighbors as a break-in. Valdez said Catanach allegedly entered the women's home through an unlocked door and, therefore, broke nothing to get in.
Moreover, he said, in order to prove a felony charge against Catanach like aggravated burglary -- the charge against him that was dismissed Thursday -- prosecutors must determine he entered the home to commit a theft or another felony.
``It doesn't matter what I think. It's what we can prove,'' he said.
Class teaches women to take care of themselves
Patrice Kohl
13 Aug 2006 12:00 am
Impressed with what she saw while visiting her daughter at Brigham Young University in Utah, Kath Carlson recently asked a group of Utah officers to come to the Kenai Peninsula and offer Alaskan woman a few lessons on how to handle men.
O’Hara, an instructor for Rape Aggression Defense Systems, a program that teaches women’s self-defense, and six other RAD instructors donated their resources and time to fly to Alaska and spent four days this week teaching women how to protect themselves.
Between practicing knee strikes to the groin and hammer strikes to the nose of their imaginary attackers on Thursday, the RAD students also learned how to recognize risks and reduce vulnerability to attacks.
A major component of the RAD class is teaching students how to avoid a sexual assault by reducing a perpetrator’s opportunity to commit such an act.
For instance, instructors recommended that woman never leave their drinks unattended which, consequently, could allow potential perpetrators the chance to dope it with a date rape drug.
Insanity verdicts stir debate
ROD WALTON
13 Aug 2006 12:00 am
The recent decision in the Daniel Fears case brings this hot-button issue back to the forefront.
Not guilty by reason of insanity.
Few, if any, verdicts inspire as much passion and debate in the criminal justice system. Defenders hail it as a crucial protection for mentally ill people whose sickness propels them to misdeeds or even murder. Others see it as a judicial cop-out that allows offenders a way to avoid taking responsibility for their violent actions.
