ACTION NEEDED: NARSOL Press Release: National Center for Missing and Exploited Children issues press release attacking some of the American Law Institute’s recent recommendations for registries
Recently, the American Law Institute (ALI) proposed that the registry “be taken out of online accessibility and be, as they were originally intended, in only the domain of law enforcement.” ALI used research-based data along with experts in the field and clinicians to develop their recommendations.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), co-founded by John and Reve Walsh, claims that some of the recommendations could endanger children. “Children will be endangered by the Revised Code’s limitations on prosecuting sex trafficking and its removal of most protections provided by sex offender registries.” What protection is needed from the hundreds of thousands of registrants in this country who are now law-abiding citizens? NCMEC, how are you protecting children from the people who will be committing 90% or more of the future sex crimes? NCMEC, how are you protecting children from the perpetrators known to the child before the sex offense, which is at least 93% of the sex offenses against children?
NCMEC’s assumption is that registries help protect children.
Please read NCMEC’S press release and help to educate them at:
National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
333 John Carlyle Street, Suite #125
Alexandria, Virginia 22314-5950
703-224-2122
FAC Media has contacted NCMEC, but we need additional people to also contact them. Please consider in your communications with NCMEC that we are NOT saying that people with a past sex offense should be able to get jobs working with children; what we are saying is that keeping people on the registry who are law-abiding citizens is wrong. There are other ways to find out about a prospective employee’s background rather than having a registry. We do not want to get into an argument that could deflect from our mission: abolishing the registry.
Research can be found at floridaactioncommittee.org in the Media dropdown box: Articles and Studies Containing Research and at narsol.org.
The links on the NARSOL press release are broken. Also, why are you mentioning children? The issue is the registry.
The NARSOL links are fixed now per Sandy.
Vicki the way I see it is NARSOL is somehow trying to make a comparison that needs to be updated or that its our of measures as compared to say when I graduated in the early 70’s.
The information shocked me but. We didn’t have that many computers in those days we just had statistics. Today I’m sure much is different but one has to admit that even government tries but is a bit off in true values, laws, and comparisons and such.
Look at it as who can prevent forest fires same way with figures from the National register council. A lot of things are way off balance with a lot of government figures.
Thank you, Vicki. The link should be fixed now.
Children — That is what NCMEC is all about, and we all care about protecting children.
There are many different areas that could be discussed concerning the sex offenses that can land a person on the registry. The focus in this post is on the misinformation that NCMEC is putting out to the public, which is on children.
I have to agree with Derek L. instead and say what NCMEC is really “all about” is cash. As he said, they are the National Center for Missing and Exploited Cash.
NCMEC is a propaganda machine that functions as an arm of the federal government even though it is a private, non-profit, organization. They are apparently threatened with the factual and evidence.based approach taken by ALI.
What is the goal? To get NCMEC to issue a retraction?
What can we tell NCMEC that they haven’t already been told and responded to?
Have we considered why they cling to the positions they do, despite awareness of the studies? If not, how confident are we that we can get through to them?
Sorry to always be the contrarian lately.
No problem, Jacob.
If truth were to ever win out, NCMEC would be hurt financially. Many entities would be hurt financially.
No, NCMEC would probably never issue a retraction, but we see what happened to Patch.com after receiving pressure from different groups and individuals to follow the research. Patch is not perfect, but they have come a long way from where they once were. We cannot stand by and let groups feed these myths to the public.
I am not sure that NCMEC does know what all the research shows. Even if we cannot influence them to make some changes in what they put out for the public to see, they will never be able to say that they were not told the truth.
I have not seen any signs indicating that NCMEC is aware of the studies.
Am I confident that we can get through to them? Not at all. But if we sit back and do nothing, I am very confident that NCMEC will not make any changes for the better.
I have been watching groups that are “out there”, being quite vocal, and I am seeing them make some progress in their missions.
I participated in a webinar this past year where the two big take-aways for me were: (1) there is a lot of misinformation out there and (2) truth can prevail but you must continue to preach the truth over and over again in a civil manner.
(NOTICE: UNVERIFIED CLAIMS)
As long as we are talking about NCMEC and truth, maybe something that needs to be brought to our members’ attention is that NCMEC keeps their own records on people. You don’t even have to be accused or convicted of anything for NCMEc to have files on you. How do I know? When the feds investigated me for a CP offense, they feds checked with NCMEC to see their records on me. I had never been accused of any crime whatsoever at that point. So why would the feds want to search the files about a citizen when the files belonged to a private, nonprofit, organization? NcMECs response to the investigative request was “We don’t have any further information on Mr. ______.” Further information? What is NCMEC really doing? Who is really pulling their strings?
When did FAC start putting up notices stating “Unverified Claims”? Do you want to see the proof of what I posted? I can arrange that! Notice on my contributions ceasing until this matter is cleared up.
No need to get your dander up, Bob. I suspect FAC was just making that statement to be cautious as to accusatory information it can’t verify. I personally would be very interested in seeing the proof. It would be valuable ammunition to use in arguments against NCMEC. Perhaps FAC could arrange to post it in the resources section?
Veritas.
This is educational for me as I lack experience in media outreach.
It happens that NCMEC does both bad things and good things. For example, they maintain some sort of database that catalogues and codes a huge volume of known child exploitation pictures, helping to minimize the number of times those pictures need to be viewed during an investigation and tracking whether the victims have been identified yet. I think.
But at the same time, NCMEC regularly perpetuates harmful nonsense regarding who is doing the offending and their profile. This nonsense, I assume, helps NCMEC attract grant money, so it is the sources of that grant money, and THEIR respective constituents, that need to be educated before NCMEC will correct themselves and knock it off, and maybe this effort can be a part of that. A lot of the battle seems to be, getting the right message to the right place.
(NOTICE: UNVERIFIED CLAIM)
Also someone wrote in regarding the “unverified claim” label.
In the past, I recall FAC would reply to and question posts that appeared to provide poor advice on legal compliance (such as, the state requires you to do x, or, you’re not required to do y), or sometimes posts that made a false claim about FAC. I think that might have been done by the Legal Committee. Flagging an “unverified claim” about NCMEC is a little broader, I recognize, and I’m confident it’s not FAC’s intention to anger any members. Moderating a forum such as this, and keeping it safe, I imagine is tough for the volunteers that do so. It’s complicated because we here (myself included) make a number of unverified claims that are nevertheless harmless, so it’s a judgement call. As to the characterization of NCMEC “keeping files on people,” I’m inclined to believe there’s something to that— like maybe what it is, is that NCMEC tracks IP addresses from which known images are downloaded. Whether the claim about them keeping personal files is 100% or not I have no idea, but the observation strikes me as harmless, and I will defer to the individual’s personal experience with NCMEC, which is well worth sharing. In the meantime, I’ll try not to take it personally next time FAC flags my post with, “unverified claim!”
Yes, NCMEC maintains a database of hash codes for verified child porn. These are virtually unique like fingerprints. In these cases the photos don’t even need to be viewed. The files are run through the computer, a hash value is calculated for each and compared to the database. That is a useful function provided by NCMEC which really does minimize viewing.
I have started preparing letters for Phase 2 of the FAC Media Blitz. I will add NCMEC to my list to receive the letter series. We have a serious education problem in this nation among those of power and influence.
CAPT….To further Educate Ourselves…go to the NCMEC Website and look at the long list of Board of Directors (those on that ‘list’ are doing it for a variety of political and financial reasons-makes them look good)….Your Stomach will probably Turn
I know this certain fact, I will NOW LONGER BUY FROM the retail chain Kohls!…actually buy on line …never again!
make it a great day!
Thank you for adding NCMEC.
My question to the NCMEC is this: How are they protecting children from the 95% of offenses which are not committed by someone on a public registry?
I’ve always believed that the best way to protect children is to provide an environment where abuse cannot take place. There are best practices that can be followed that can eliminate potential opportunities for offenses and this should be the focus of the message for child safety advocates.
Why do you think NCMEC are interested in protecting children? There aren’t any informed people who are interested in protecting children who support the Oppression Lists and NCMEC does. So they are not informed?
No, I think they are informed and they are immoral. They are interested in money.
Big government continues to dump money on NCMEC. Let’s do everything that we can to stop that. Never vote for any politician that supports NCMEC. People must stop voting for bigger government.
Yes, it is all about prevention, but we live in a society that prefers incarceration over prevention.
I sent NCMEC the research on the 95% of future offenses that will be committed by people NOT on the registry.
I pray that the registration is taken away permanently. I was on probation for 5 years then didn’t have to register for many years then one day I was told I have to register again , now branded a lifetime registration. My offense happened in 1991 and I was 27 with a girl 16 , 2nd degree sexual misconduct was my charge now changed to sexual assault 2nd degree. I admitted to having sex with her from day one and have not had any more offense since then , 30 years and counting , I live in Missouri.
It is during these times that we need to stand together. Neither FAC or NARSOL can afford to put out unverified information and it is important that we back up the leadership in both organizations. When either organization mentions verification it is not to put down the originator of the input but to let all who may view the input know that correct information is important to our cause. Sex offenses can involve a range of actions and accusations so FAC and NARSOL must address all in order to be sure to not appear to be down on some and OK with others. Any sexual offense should be brought into the light and certainly not supported. Truth be known, all have at one time committed some sort of sexual offense…after all we are human…but our goal is to bring out the negative aspect of the offense, encourage true repentance and then restore an individual to a productive lifestyle. Life is too valuable to waste on a lifetime of punishment.