Building BLOCK (BB) is a grassroots organization, empowering citizens through education and providing support for survivors of violence. By prioritizing public health and safety over matters of personal morality, BB will motivate positive change and build better lives for our communities and kids -- one block at a time.
Justice focuses on drug abuse, ignores child predators
Neal R. Peirce
In 30 years and 1,600 columns, I never once wrote on the issue of sex crimes against children. Until today.
The man whose powerful pitch convinced me is Christopher Largen, a Texas-based freelance journalist and social activist who was a victim of repeated sexual assaults from age 5 through 14.
We're # 1!
Once again, we Americans have outdone ourselves. Not only have we retained our top ranking as the most incarcerated nation on Earth, we've broken our old record and created an even more glaring disparity. We've managed to incarcerate even more of our citizens per capita than ever before, surpassing South Africa, Cuba, and Russia.
Many judges are allowing violent criminals to serve no jail time before releasing them back into the community, even while many prisons are filled beyond capacity with people convicted of non-violent, consensual crimes. We currently incarcerate more of our citizens per capita than any other nation, but our streets are no safer.
According to the National Center for Sex Offender Management, nearly half of all convicted child molesters will be arrested for another violent crime within a 4-5 year period. http://www.sexoffender.com/sorecidivism_review.html
Although nonviolent drug offenders are disqualified from receiving Pell Grants and student loans to attend college, federal law allows child molesters, armed robbers, rapists and murderers to receive that same federal aid under the Higher Education Act of 1998. http://www.raiseyourvoice.com/
Approximately 5% of U.S. federal prisoners are serving sentences for violent crimes including homicide, aggrevated assault, kidnapping, and sex offenses combined, while nonviolent offenders constitute approximately 79% of all federal inmates (over 50% were convicted of nonviolent drug crimes). http://www.bop.gov/news/quick.jsp
"There are 400,000 registered sex offenders in the United States, and an estimated 80 to 100,000 of them are missing. They're supposed to be registered, but we don't know where they are and we don't know where they're living." - Ernie Allen, President of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and co-anchor to Hannah Storm on The Early Show
When Tennessee law enforcement officials showed up at the home of Lester Siler, a convicted drug dealer out on supervised release, they asked his wife and 8 year-old son to leave. They didn't know that Lester's wife had turned on a tape recorder in the kitchen.
When Lester exercised his constitutional right not to sign a consent to search his house, these officers spent the next two hours torturing him.
They beat him with bats and guns, held loaded guns to his head, threatened to shoot him, dunked his head in the toilet, burned him with lighters, attached his testicles to a battery charger, threatened to cut off his fingers, and threatened to "go git" his wife. Then they arrested him for "evading arrest." (Read more)
What are our goals?
Safer streets or moral righteousness?
Building BLOCK believes we must make safer streets our top priority.
Largen recently created a nonprofit to gather allies — fellow survivors, police officers, therapists and others — in the push against violence to children. It's called "Building BLOCK — Building Better Lives for Our Communities and Kids" (www.building-block.org).
The American criminal justice system needs radical, basic reform. (Read more)
Student Drug Testing: A Veritable Smorgasbord for Pedophiles
Erin Hildebrandt
21 Aug 2006 10:40 am
With all of the sincerity of a used car salesman trying to unload a lemon, U.S. “drug czar” John Walters recently tried to sell student drug testing to the United Kingdom. In the U.K.’s Guardian, Mr. Walters compared drug testing to tuberculosis testing. He said, "Some schools in the United States say a child needs to have a TB test. It's not considered to be an invasion of privacy.”
I will not argue with Mr. Walters about student TB testing. Where I take issue with his analogy is in his callous disregard, or ignorance, of the risks inherent to teaching kids to submit to adults who demand access to their most intimate and private moments.
Congress Votes to Legalize Child Molestation by "School Officials"
Erin Hildebrandt
23 Sep 2006 7:20 am
Congress voted this week to grant immunity to teachers and school administrators who molest students, provided they claim the molestation occurred during a search for drugs or weapons. Without a roll call vote, the bill called the “Student Teacher Safety Act of 2006 (HR 5295)” was rushed to the floor and passed on a voice vote. Surprisingly, it passed against the protestations of the PTA, the American Association of School Administrators, the American Federation of Teachers, and the National School Boards Association.
The good news is that there’s still time to prevent this bill from becoming law. Parents need to contact their senators immediately and demand that this bill either be deeply buried, so that it can never again see the light of day, or alternatively, to kill the bill if it reaches the Senate floor.
