Sunday, July 28, 2013
Saturday, July 27, 2013
NY Times When Charles Parker registered as a sex offender in the small upstate town of Jonesville, S.C., he became a prospect on another man’s kill list, the authorities say. [...]
Sheriff’s officials believe that the double murder in Jonesville, a one-square-mile town of about 900 residents, was not the byproduct of a botched drug deal or a home invasion. Rather, they suspect that Mr. Parker’s death was intended as the opening phase of a man’s quest to purge sex offenders from Union County.
“He went through our sex offender registry,” said Sheriff David H. Taylor, “and individually picked out targets.”[...]
[...] But the case in South Carolina is otherwise odd, he said.
“It’s very unusual that someone would set out to kill large numbers of sex offenders.”
Mr. Moody is not the first person accused of targeting sex offenders. As recently as last month, a California jury convicted a 36-year-old man of killing a neighbor who was a sex offender, and a Washington State man was sentenced in 2012 to life in prison for a pair of similar killings.
Friday, July 26, 2013
According to Chaim Levin, 24, a Crown Heights blogger and activist who won $3.5 millionjudgment against his cousin on June 12, claiming years of childhood sex abuse, gaining Seewald as an ally was a relief. “The day I got a call from Seewald asking me about my story was the first time I believed that our community was actually making some progress in combating abuse,” said Levin. “I had been talking about what happened to me to anyone who would listen since I was 14, but everyone told me to keep it to myself and move on.”
Seewald’s confrontational style is evident in his latest project, Project E.M.E.S., an acronym for Educating Mosdos (institutions) on Eradicating Sexual abuse, launched this month, which aims to prevent sex abuse in religious summer camps. The project’s accompanyingvideo, titled “A Friendly Message to Camp Counselors,” warns them: “I don’t care who you are, what family you come from. If you touch a child, we will find out about it.”
But is Seewald—whose apparent irreverence for the hierarchies of Jewish institutions sets him apart from other crusaders in the field—helping or doing more harm than good? Seewald said he hopes the blog’s “Wall of Shame” will warn parents and instill fear in local predators, preventing the victimization of more children. “The only thing molesters are afraid of is being exposed and caught. They are more afraid of the Wall of Shame, than going to jail,” he told me. But the Wall of Shame has also proved to be deeply problematic; used irresponsibly, it can easily undermine the organization’s objectives and destroy an innocent person’s life. According to Ben Hirsch, co-founder of Survivors for Justice, an organization that advocates and educates on issues of child safety, Seewald is on a dangerous track. “Setting up a separate registry [from the law enforcement agencies] can be perceived as condoning a separate justice system,” he told me, “Which, in a way, perpetuates the message of the rabbis that we can deal with this issue in-house. The message must instead be that the only way to deal with child sex abuse is to report it directly to the police, without any prior consultation with a rabbi or other communal figure.”[...]
NYTimes The prison population in the United States dropped in 2012 for the third consecutive year, according to federal statistics released on Thursday, in what criminal justice experts said was the biggest decline in the nation’s recent history, signaling a shift away from an almost four-decade policy of mass imprisonment. [...]
“This is the beginning of the end of mass incarceration,” said Natasha Frost, associate dean of Northeastern University’s school of criminology and criminal justice.[...]
Imprisonment rates in the United States have been on an upward march since the early 1970s. From 1978, when there were 307,276 inmates in state and federal prisons, the population increased annually, reaching a peak of 1,615,487 inmates in 2009.
But in recent years, tightened state budgets, plummeting crime rates, changes in sentencing laws and shifts in public opinion have combined to reverse the trend. Experts on prison policy said that the continuing decline appears to be more than a random fluctuation.[...]
But changing public attitudes are also a major driver behind the declining prison numbers. Dropping crime rates over the last 20 years have reduced public fears and diminished the interest of politicians in running tough-on-crime campaigns. And public polls consistently show that Americans are now more interested in spending money on education and health care than on building more prisons. [...]
Marc Levin, senior policy adviser for Right on Crime, described the change in conservatives’ position on parole violators: It used to be “Trail ’em, nail ’em and jail ’em,” he said, “but there’s been a move to say, ‘Yes, there’s a surveillance function, but we also want them to succeed.’ ” [...]
Joan Petersilia, a law professor at Stanford and a co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center, said in an interview last year that she thought Americans had “gotten the message that locking up a lot of people doesn’t necessarily bring public safety.” California’s example, she said, has also spurred other states to consider downsizing for fear of facing similar litigation. [...]
Tzedek When is an apology not an apology? When Yeshivah Centre seeks to separate itself from an apology issued by Yeshivah – Beth Rivkah Colleges Principal Rabbi Yehoshua Smukler.
Just two days ago, following the sentencing of former employee and confessed and convicted paedophile David Kramer, Yeshivah College Principal Rabbi Smukler put out a statement apologising for “any historical wrongs”, saying “we empathise with the victims and their families” and “we continue to offer support… to anyone who feels this will be of benefit to them”. (http://www.tzedek.org.au/tzedek-responds-to-sentencing-of-paedophile-david-kramer/#comment-25)
Tzedek welcomed the letter as an important first step by Yeshivah in terms of acknowledging its past wrongdoing but noted the real test will be the actions taken by the institution and its leaders from this day forward. (http://www.tzedek.org.au/media/media-releases/tzedek-responds-to-yeshivah-apology-letter/)
Sadly, it seems that the Yeshivah Centre’s actions have once again failed to live up to its rhetoric.
[...]
Rabbi Smukler’s response seems to suggest that the statement he released on Wednesday must have been only on behalf of Yeshivah College, NOT the entire Yeshivah Centre. Obviously the Yeshivah Centre is yet to issue its own public statement and unequivocal apology. The community and the general public must understand this distinction. [...]
Thursday, July 25, 2013
The Orthodox Jewish man was accused of sexually abusing his daughter from the age of 10. The now young woman also accused a family friend of raping her and joining her father in leading her gang rape, while she was drugged and bound, with a group of unknown men.
Following a month-long trial, both men were cleared of all charges after just five minutes of deliberation by the jury. [...]
His lawyer, Anthony Metzer, said: “The allegations against my client, a religious family man of exemplary character, were extraordinary and shocking and the jury must have found them to be fanciful and… without foundation.” [...]
Mr Goldberg said in court: “She is a feisty, confident young lady, who never once shed a tear, never once backed down,” and suggested she was “rather enjoying the battle of wits”. As for the girl’s psychologist and mentors, a US rabbi and his wife, Mr Goldberg said: “They’ve all been suckered by her.”
Three key pieces of evidence led to the acquittal in what their solicitor, David Sonn, called “record time”.
הרב פרופ' נריה גוטל
תחומין כו תשס"ו
עמו' 252-269
ז .סיכום :חרב פיפיות בידי המורה
החכם שעיניו בראשו חייב להכיר את מכלול המקורות, הן אלה שמדגישים את חובת כיבוד הרב את תלמידיו והן את אלה שמעניקים לגיטימציה לזרזים שונים, כולל להכלמה, מאידך גיסא, הוא חייב שבעתיים להכיר את נפש תלמידיו ,שכן חרב פיפיות מסורה בפיו ובלשונו, להשפיל או לרומם, יש להניח שבדורנו, בסתמא, אהבה ואחווה ושלום ורעות הם שיהיו הדרך הנכונה והמועילה, אם כי ייתכנו זעיר פה זעיר שם תלמידים, שלהם תהא נאה גם דרך ההכלמה, יהאפקטיביות' היא אמת-הבוחן 32 הראשית, 'מדד' זה, אסור לו שייתן חלילה הכשר לכל מה שהמורה הסובייקטיבי רואה כאפקטיבי, המבחן צריך לשלב מימד אובייקטיבי של נוהגים חברתיים-תרבותיים הרווחים אותה שעה באותו מקום, עם מימד סובייקטיבי של עולם תלמיד זה שלנגד עינינו, 'עולם ציפיות' התלמיד, שהוא חלק בלתי נפרד מן העולם החברתי-תרבותי הרווח, הוא גורם כבד-משקל, אפילו מכריע, מאחר וככל הנראה, בעידן הנוכחי אמצעי זה פוחת והולך מאפקטיביותו, לכן 'למיחש מיבעי', ומשקל האיסור והשלילה גובר על פי רוב, והוא המכריע.
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