The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/category/sex-crime/)
Starting in January, Texans will be able to donate money for testing sexual assault kits when they apply for driver’s licenses. The state still has a backlog of 3,000 untested kits after reducing it from 20,000.
Judges are issuing long prison terms to offenders who trick teenagers and children into sending them sexually explicit photos. Smartphones and social media apps are behind the rise in such crimes.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ announcement that she wants a “better” approach to campus sex assaults has stoked fears that the Trump administration will weaken existing federal legislation banning gender bias in education. TCR examines the reaction from both sides.
In asking that former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) be put on probation, his lawyers described his behavior as “inexcusable,” but cited his “remarkable progress” over the past year. Prosecutors have recommended a prison term of 21 to 27 months.
A bill pending in Congress to make websites liable for publishing information that facilitates sex trafficking doesn’t address the real issues at stake—and may do more harm than good, writes a trafficking expert.
Of the more than 2,000 kits from possible child victims, Wisconsin authorities have scheduled 62 percent for testing this year or next year at private labs. Law enforcement authorities hope the effort, funded by grants, will help identify and prosecute serial rapists.
State Sen. Scott Wiener pushes for a three-tiered system to prevent gay men to be stuck on a lifetime registry for decades for nonviolent offenses.
The Trump administration will rewrite the Obama administration’s directive on handling campus-based sexual assaults. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos says the system has failed both victims and the accused.
Some universities and colleges have come to rely on the work of a small band of self-styled experts in the neurobiology of trauma, who claim that sexual violations provoke a disabling, multifaceted physiological response. The Atlantic calls this “junk science.”
Federal judge finds that Colorado’s sex offender registry can impose what amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. Judges in six other states have issued similar decisions, but the Supreme Court is yet to revisit the issue.