The Child Protection eNewsletter
 Miami Beach's mayor is pushing new legislation that would essentially force sex offenders to move out of the city. http://www.cbsnews.com and http://abcnews.go.com The ordinance requires sex offenders to live 2,500 feet away from schools, parks, and other places where children gather. Miami Beach is 7 1/2 miles long and has 15 schools and 38 parks. The law is based on a Florida law banning sex shops and liquors stores from locating within 2500 feet of a school. With 533,000 registered sex offenders in the United States, http://www.childprotectionprogram.org/sor/index.php some are beginning to question whether existing statutes like Megan’s Laws go far enough in protecting children. http://www.foxnews.com Even if Miami Beach is successful, all they will accomplish is moving 38 sex offenders into someone else’s neighborhood. Fourteen states already have laws that permit the state to commit a sex offender to an additional period of incarceration beyond the sentence imposed at conviction. Called a civil commitment, it can be ordered when there is convincing evidence that a sex offender continues to pose a grave risk to the community. Such state action met Constitutional muster in the 1997 Kansas v. Hendricks decision. KansasvHendricks 117 S Ct 2072 _1997
 Internet diaries called “weblogs” or “blogs” for short, and their technology cousins, social networking sites, are all the rage among young Internet users. About half of all blogs are authored by teenagers, according to a 2003 study by Perseus Development Corp.; and according to comScore Media Metrix, a majority of the top 15 sites visited by teens 17 and under in January 2005 were either blogs or social networking sites. http://www.msnbc.msn.com Most of these teens are providing personal information like their name, contact information, pictures and location, all of which could make them fall prey to a child predator. For more information on keeping a child you love safe online, we suggest you visit www.wiredsafety.org/ or http://www.msnbc.msn.com.
Pope Benedict XVI continues to face criticism from his previous position, in which he oversaw the Catholic Church’s internal investigation into the pedophile priest scandal. Critics now claim the new Pope "obstructed justice" after it emerged he had issued an order ensuring the church's investigations into child sex-abuse claims be carried out in secret. http://www.mg.co.za The order was made in a confidential letter, obtained by The Observer, which was sent to every Catholic bishop in May, 2001 . It asserted the church's right to hold its inquiries behind closed doors and keep the evidence confidential for up to 10 years after the victims reached adulthood.
A convicted Florida sex offender apparently committed suicide in despair over signs posted in his neighborhood calling him a child rapist. http://www.wesh.com
State child protection agencies continue to struggle to keep up with caseloads caused by “an epidemic” of child abuse cases, despite increased funding from the federal government. Last year in Indiana alone, 19 children who were already known to social workers, died of abuse and neglect. http://abcnews.go.com We recently reported on high profile deaths in Washington state, vol3_iss25 Maryland, vol3_iss23, vol3_iss18 and vol3_iss16 and Florida. vol3_iss2 A new report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found an estimated 1,500 children in the United States died from abuse or neglect in 2003. The majority of them were under the age of 4.
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