Featuring Senator Joe Morrissey, Delegate Patrick Hope, and Delegate Don Scott. Moderator Gin Carter of the Humanization Project. Just Future Project is one of the members of our coalition and they deal specifically… with VCBR. If people don’t know what that is and what that’s about, I know I personally was completely appalled last year when I learned what VCBR is.
The original sin of so-called “sex offender civil commitment” laws is that they were never meant to be “nonpunitive”. Legal scholars, civil libertarians, and human rights defenders, have challenged the prison-length nature of these carceral institutions. Many of these opponents to systems of pre-crime preventative detention focused on how these laws have been applied in practice to impose de facto life sentences on those who have already repaid their debt to society. The following quote comes from a state report published two years before the first so-called sex offender “civil commitment” law was passed in the United States and…
Part I Part II Part III BY EARL YARINGTON Whether we are addressing the war on drugs, violence, gun violence, child sex abuse, or civil commitment, our lawmakers don’t want to fix these problems. It is understandable and necessary to protect children and the vulnerable, but the data show that our lawmakers, our justice system is failing badly but still moving at lightning speed to permanently punish and lock up anyone whose sexual interest is determined to be abnormal. For many in law enforcement, the intention was to protect children, but our ignorance of sexuality and the serious study of it…
Part I Part II Part III BY EARL YARINGTON Part II will take a different turn, as I wait for sources to respond to me on court decisions. I ask the reader to take this long and troubling trip with me. I need to break with the fine form and clarity of journalism. There will be a Part III. My apologies, but sometimes journalism must be comprehensive at the cost of being concise. Here we will address the troubling myth-building those in power do for personal gain, and the danger mischaracterization and misunderstanding bring to jeopardizing our democratic republic. Such could…
Part I Part II Part III BY EARL YARINGTON · DECEMBER 30, 2019 A few years ago, I wrote an article on a blog. It was more an experiment, a testing ground. The website was “Criticl.” It was mainly a political site that supported the legalization of marijuana and of Bernie Sanders becoming president. I wrote that there are two ways our government (local, state, federal) is attempting to limit the Constitution: the fear of terrorism and child pornography law. It may be understandable to hate terrorists and sex offenders, but, you know, the devil is in the details. Who exactly is a…
The below came from “The Legal Pad” Volume 3, Issue 12, (December 10, 2019) pp. 7-8 published by Cyrus P. Gladden, II from the gulag in Moose Lake, Minnesota. I. The View in the U.S.: There is no scientific consensus or clear evidence that sex offender treatment has any significant impact on sex crime recidivism Anne R. Izzi, “Constitutional Law – The Cage a Fetish Can Build: Proposed Legislative Reform for Civil Commitment Procedures in Sexually Violent Predator Laws,” 39 Western New England Law Review 141, at pp. 145-46 (2017), states: …[T]he facilities that do offer treatment are not…
Data is important for advocacy. But shadow prisons are so shrouded in secrecy that no one actually knows how many people are locked away in these “treatment” facilities in the U.S. Here is a brief look at what we know (or don’t) and why the number that you often see cited is wrong.
Shadow prisoners held for “treatment” at CNYPC in Marcy, NY experience conditions of confinment more explicitly punitive and restrictive than those in the actual prison system in New York. A new letter to state elected officials from people living behind the walls describes the desperation that pervades systems of pre-crime preventative detention in the U.S. Ever wonder why we at Just Future use the term “shadow prisoners” to refer to people in so-called “sex offender civil commitment” facilities? Read this letter.
The shadow prisoners at the Gulag in Marcy, New York are formally demanding better treatment. The following letter was sent by a committee of men who are organizing themselves at the Central New York Psychiatric Center. Just Future applauds their concise articulation of concrete demands coupled with clear citations to the statutory language being violated. This letter might serve as an example for the people in the other 20 systems of pre-crime preventative detention on how to effectively stand up for their rights and demand change. To: Director DEBORAH McCULLOCH c/o JEFFERY NOWICKI August 1, 2019 From: SOTP RESIDENT LIAISON…
1. Abolish pre-crime preventative detention laws
2. Free our friends and loved ones from dehumanizing labels
3. Realign our justice system with the values of restoration and reintegration
Just Future Project is a new initiative focused on challenging pre-crime preventative detention laws. We are a people-driven grassroots advocacy campaign dedicated to building a movement of community members demanding an end to indefinite detention regimes.
Why Is This Important?
Pre-crime preventative detention systems are a dangerous departure from the traditional values of our legal system.
We believe in justice, that persons who have caused harm may be held accountable for their actions. But justice also demands proportionality and due process, elements essential to distinguish justice from mere vengeance. The goal of any true system of justice must be restoration and re-integration, not the perpetual containment and incapacitation that have come to define the U.S. criminal legal system.
