Both are being investigated for misconduct, and, as the Daily News notes, both of the "good-looking" language teachers were very popular with their students. • General Mills has announced plans to reduce the amount of sugar in cereals marketed to children. This means that munchie-favorites like Lucky Charms and Count Chocula could drop at least 25% of their sugar, until there are less than 10 grams per serving. Wonder if that will effect the taste. •  According to an Italian newspaper, Amanda Knox still has hope that she will be freed. She reportedly told Italian lawmaker Walter Verini that she "has faith in the Italian justice system," including her pending appeal. • New York State's oldest registered sex offender could be released from a halfway house soon. Prosecutor Frank Sedita has warned against the dangers of releasing the 100-year-old convicted child molester, who he calls the "personification of evil." •  A 10-year-old British girl has made the news after she wrote an angry letter to the man who broke into her house. Her letter, which describes her feelings of fear and sadness, will be sent out to known burglars with the hopes that it will deter them from robbing again. •  In the past few weeks, three top female newspaper editors have announced that they are leaving their jobs, and do not intend to continue careers in journalism. The timing of their resignations has lead some to worry about diversity in the newsroom. However, Sandra Mims Rowe, editor of the Oregonian says it is not always gender-specific issues that force editors to seek new opportunities, and that times are tough across the board. •  The New York Times helpfully reminds us of the number one rule of any affair: don't put anything in writing. Oddly, many otherwise intelligent-seeming people (Tiger Woods, Senator John Ensign) seem to think that this does not apply to text messaging, which has led the NYT to deem texts the "new lipstick on the collar." Professor Shirley Turkle rather poetically describes our cellphone-blindness: "Like Peter Pan, we do not see our electronic shadow until it is pointed out to us. We assume it is not there." • Kumari Fulbright, the former beauty queen and University of Arizona law student accused kidnapping of her ex-boyfriend, pled guilty to conspiracy to commit kidnapping and aggravated assault today. She'll spend the next two years in prison. • A Pennsylvania woman who drank herself unconscious at her 20th birthday party is suing a hospital for medical malpractice because she passed out while sitting on the floor in the emergency room and was left in that position for 12 hours. This cut off circulation to her legs, and they were later amputated at the knees • The International Olympic Committee has reallocated two of the three gold medals Marion Jones was stripped of in 2007 when she admitted to using steroids. But for the first time the IOC is leaving a gold medal spot vacant because 100-meter silver medalist Katerina Thanou of Greece is still facing charges for staging a motorcycle accident to avoid doping tests. "She disgraced herself and the Olympic movement by avoiding three doping tests. We are not legally bound to give medals," said an IOC spokesman. • Police arrested a Florida woman for allegedly throwing a raw steak at her disabled live-in boyfriend when he asked for a roll instead of sliced bread with his dinner. Authorities say she beat the man, who has terminal cancer and an injured left leg, in the face with the meat and threw a bag of clothing at his bad leg. She repeatedly told a deputy that she only slapped him "so that he can learn." •

Representatives from the City Council met with the N.Y.P.D. and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in order to address the issue of sexual harassment and assault, which James P. Hall, chief of the Police Department's Transit Bureau, describes as the "No. 1 quality of life offense on the subway." Hall reports that as of November 15th, there had already been 587 reports of sex offenses on the subway, but he believes this number does not accurately reflect the disturbingly commonplace nature of this type of public harassment. "we strongly suspect this is a highly under-reported crime," he said.

Earlier this year, Sadie delved deep into the complicated issue of Someone Masturbating Against Me In A Crowded Subway (or, to make things more simple, SMAMIACA). Judging from her experience, the hundreds of comments, and my own uncomfortable trolley ride a couple of weeks ago, I'm going to go ahead and agree with Hall: This happens way more often than police reports reflect. But the NYPD is trying to do something about it: Hall describes a campaign that has been in place since 2006, aptly titled Operation Exposure, in which cops go undercover to bust subway creepers. They've also developed a protocol for receiving cell phone pictures from victims, which sounds like it could be a very effective way of catching the men (because it is usually men) who do this.

Police also seem to have a pretty good idea of the kind of guy they're looking for, the City Room reports:

The police have arrested 412 people for sex offenses in the subway so far this year. Of the 412, 71 had committed prior sexual offenses and 14 were registered sex offenders. Five of the 14 were the most serious level of sex offender, Level 3.

The average perpetrator is a 39-year-old male, while the vast majority of victims are females over 17 years old. "It's a crime that goes more to a middle-aged individual," Chief Hall said. In contrast, other crimes in the subway generally involve younger men, from 17 to 25 years old, he said.

The fact that 17% of the men arrested for subway harassment were already known sex offenders is downright scary. And given the many, many cases that are never reported, much less result in arrest, the real number is no doubt much higher.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has decided to focus on PSAs that encourage women to speak up about inappropriate behavior on the subway. Unfortunately, they only run the poster campaigns for a few months at a time. And, as Sadie noted, one of the biggest problems with subway harassment is the ambiguity of the thing. It is difficult to muster up the courage to report something when you're not even sure if it really happened, which is why I'm standing in support of Councilman Peter F. Vallone's idea: posting a "wall of shame" for convicted offenders. Although it's by no means a perfect solution (and, it should be added, not one that authorities have decided to adopt) the emphasis is finally on the right person: the perpetrator. Because the question shouldn't just be how do we get more victims to report it but how can we get men to stop?

Sexual Harassment Is 'No. 1 Quality Of Life Offense On Subway,' Police Say [NYT City Room]

Earlier: When You're Not Sure If Someone Is Masturbating Against You In A Crowded Subway

Michael Rothfeld of the LA Times quotes from the report by Inspector General David R. Shaw, which details myriad oversights by parole agents, including the following:

— Federal parole records showed Garrido had a soundproof room in his yard, but the state never reviewed these records.
— Garrido's parole officer actually met one of his daughters with Dugard last year, but accepted the explanation that she was his niece.
— Garrido wore a satellite tracking device, but agents ignored alarms that indicated he had gone outside his allowed area or broken curfew. They also didn't investigate when the device stopped working for nine hours nearly every night for an entire month.
— Parole officers didn't make all of Garrido's required home visits or perform all required drug tests, and they didn't interview witnesses who saw children on his property.

And last, but not least:
— In 1999, a parole agent misclassified Garrido as needing "only low-level supervision," a classification that enabled him to avoid more serious scrutiny all the way up to his arrest this year.

According to the report, California failed to follow parole protocols for Garrido 90% of the time — which, for those of you keeping score at home, is an F. Interestingly, California proposes to prevent future lapses like that not by cracking down further on all criminals — like, say, Miami — but by adjusting their priorities. Rothfeld writes that the state is moving to "reduce supervision on lower-risk parolees," allowing parole officers to work with smaller caseloads and devote more time to people who may turn out to be truly dangerous. As long as California can avoid further misclassifications, this sounds like a good strategy. Americans tend to respond to horrific crimes with calls for increased toughness, but the results can be measures like putting public urinators on sex offender registries — treating minor criminals like major criminals and giving men like Garrido a place to hide.

It wasn't just force that kept Jaycee Dugard prisoner for 18 years, or that kept his wife silent all that time. Garrido clearly knew how to manipulate people — so much so that when Dugard and her daughters finally appeared together before a parole agent, she initially lied to protect her captor. The state of California — and the country — will need more than across-the-board "tough on crime" measures to protect citizens from men like him. They'll need to be smart, and to distinguish between real threats and false ones — hopefully, California's reforms will allow its parole agents to do just that.

Jaycee Dugard Case Elicits Strong Criticism From California Prison Watchdog [LA Times]
Official Describes Jaycee Dugard's First Meeting With Authorities [LA Times]
Reform Vowed After Garrido's Shoddy Parole [CBS]

Mark Bowden tells the story of J, a 42-year-old man who spent a year in jail for using a chat room to set up an assignation with a mother and her underage daughters — except that the "mother" was Detective Michele Deery, the daughters didn't exist, and J swears he was never interested in children in the first place. A lot of things about J make him seem untrustworthy — he was using steroids at the time, which gave him a runaway sex drive. He spent hours in cybersex chat rooms, playing out involved sexual fantasies with strangers while his wife slept. And he was willing to describe graphic sexual scenarios with children. But there's also a lot of evidence to suggest J was entrapped.

J says he had learned from experience that in order to interest women in chat rooms, you had to be willing to entertain their particular fantasies. Deery, masquerading as a user named "heatherscutiepies," seemed to want to talk about someone having sex with her daughters — so he indulged her. When the time came to set up a real-life meeting, he kept trying to make a date with just "Heather," but she kept bringing the girls back into it. She said things like,

-ur flip floppin its confusing me ... i mean it just seems like ur more into me then all of us..thats all

And:

-u say ur not really just into me, but it is still odd to me that you just wanna meet ME..

And:

-here is a tidbit of info ... i can do all that w out you here ... so clearly you are more into me then all of us whch is fine but u should be upfront about that from the get go

As Bowden mentions, these statements could be seen as Deery offering J an out, giving him a chance to say that he was really only interested in adult women so that she could leave them alone. And it was certainly stupid and reprehensible for J to respond as he did — repeatedly reassuring "Heather" that he was interested in her daughters after all. Even worse, he agreed to have sex with all of them — first with Heather alone, and then with the girls when they came home from school. J swears his plan was to flee after sleeping with Heather, but this claim didn't get him out of jail time, the dissolution of his marriage, or a lifetime on a sex offender registry.

It's hard to tell if J is telling the truth. He claims that everything he said about the girls was just an attempt to give Heather what she wanted so that she would sleep with him, but most right-thinking people would probably balk at offering to commit statutory rape just to get laid. On the other hand, unlike most child molesters, J didn't have any child porn on computer, and there's no evidence he ever hurt an actual child. J may be a bad guy, or least a sick one, but he also may have been a waste of a detective's time.

Bowden writes persuasively that the hysteria over online child predators is misguided. Some of it, he says, is based on faulty statistics — like the idea that one in five kids has been sexually solicited over the Internet. Bowden writes,

[H]alf the solicitations came from other teenagers. Not a single solicitation led to actual sexual contact. Violent sexual predators hunting children are out there, as they have always been, yet they remain blessedly rare, and most young people flee such strangeness instinctively. Only 3 percent of the contacts reported in the survey resembled the one most feared by parents, the adult stranger attempting to seduce a child.

And, somewhat disturbingly, Bowden reveals that people like J are "many times more likely to be locked up for approaching detectives than children." Would J have gone on to molest children if Deery hadn't "caught" him? It's possible, but it doesn't seem all that likely, and children face much more pressing dangers than J (Bowden also notes that missing children are more likely to have gotten lost or been kidnapped by a family member than abducted by a sex offender). The image of the online predator is a convenient one — a wholly evil person whose capture and punishment makes children safer. But protecting children is more complicated than that, the dangers they face more various and amorphous than a bad man lurking in a chat room. Unfortunately, nobody wants to stand up for men like J, and so the practice of creating false scenarios to catch sex offenders will probably continue — even if it means making sex offenders of some men who wouldn't be otherwise. But law enforcement energy might be better spent elsewhere, and perhaps we as a society should redirect our attention to problems that actually harm actual children — not men who solicit made-up girls.

Image via Vanity Fair.

A Crime Of Shadows [Vanity Fair]

• A Texas judge has ruled that a same-sex couple should be able to get a divorce in Texas, even though the state does not recognize gay marriage. Although it is too early to tell what this will mean for human rights in Texas, the couple is "ecstatic" at the news. •  Allergan Inc., makers of Botox, have filed a lawsuit against federal health officials, which alleges that the government violated their free-speech rights by barring them from distributing information about the antiwrinkle injections. •  Grab your babies, because Today is the Synchronized Worldwide Breastfeed. The event started in the Philippines, with breastfeeding advocate Elvira Henares-Esguerra. •  Lauren Book, a survivor of sexual abuse, once lobbied for stricter laws governing paroled sex offenders. However, she recently realized that the laws she worked so hard to have passed may have backfired, leaving hundreds of sex offenders in such deplorable living conditions that they might just get "desperate" enough to offend again. •  French PM Francois Fillon said today that he is considering enforced chemical castration for sex offenders. France currently allows the use of chemical castration, but only with the consent of the prisoner. •  Patriza D'Addario went on Italian television to tell her side of the whole Silvio Berlusconi sex scandal story. She says Berlusconi knew she was an escort when he slept with her, and that his Rome residence "seemed like a harem." • 

Police and sniffer dogs are looking for evidence that would connect Garrido to the murders of eight prostitutes and a 15-year-old girl in Pittsburg, CA in the 90s. They have expanded their search to include the house next door to Garrido's, for which he served as a caretaker before current owner Damon Robinson moved in. Robinson offered the creepy detail that after Garrido had taken care of the house, "all the locks on my home were backward," meaning "you could lock people in," but not out. Since Garrido's first arrest was for locking a woman in a storage unit and raping her, it seems possible that Garrido held women captive in the house next door as well.

Dugard, however, seems not to have been held under lock and key. Several customers of Garrido's printing business recall meeting Dugard, and one says, "She was the design person. She did the art work. She was the genius." She had apparently been in regular email contact with customers, and never mentioned being kidnapped. Garrido apparently treated Dugard like both a wife and a daughter, and her step-grandmother Wilma Probyn says Dugard has "a lot of guilt, that she bonded with this guy." As for her daughters, Dugard's stepfather Carl Probyn says, "They are upset about this because that's their father and he's in jail."

According to experts, guilt isn't the only difficulty Dugard and her daughters will face in readjusting to the outside world. Other long-term kidnap victims, like Elizabeth Fritzl, whose father Josef Fritzl held her in a basement in Austria for 24 years, have not fared well upon release. Dugard is at risk for posttraumatic stress disorder and depression, and according to the LA Times, her daughters "don't have any memory of a well-adjusted childhood to draw on." Pyschologist Naftali Berrill says that for Dugard, "The adjustment to the outside world is going to be very brutal/ How do you undo years of abuse, years of being held captive?"

The discovery of Garrido's secret life has also shed light on a larger problem: the concentration of sex offenders in Antioch, CA. Garrido's ZIP code is home to more than 100 — at least three live within walking distance of Garrido's house. Sex offenders often move to places like Antioch — rural areas with low property values — because they're legally barred from living near schools, parks, and other places where children gather. But Dugard's kidnapping may call into question the way California deals with these criminals. Clearly, Garrido was released too soon. But did forcing him and other sex offenders to congregate in an out-of-the-way, unincorporated area with a less-than-ideal police presence put women in that area at risk? And did a high concentration of criminals make residents blind to Garrido's bizarre behavior? If so, California and the country may have to consider whether barring sex offenders from living in certain places makes the places where they can live unacceptably dangerous.

Sex Offenders Move To Antioch Area 'Because They Can' [LA Times]
Police Expand Jaycee Kidnap Search [Mirror]
Jaycee Lee Dugard Police Bring In Sniffer Dogs And Start Digging [TimesOnline]
Jaycee Lee Dugard's Private Reunion With Family Goes Smoothly, But Fragile Days Are Ahead [NY Daily News]
Family Describes Jaycee Dugard's Condition After 18-Year Abduction [People]
For Kidnap Victims, Recovery Can Come Slowly, If At All [LA Times]

In 1991, Dugard was forced into a car while her stepfather, Carl Probyn, tried to give chase. Probyn says the kidnapping ended his marriage to Dugard's mother Terry, and that "It's like having your heart ripped out." Probyn was initially a suspect in the kidnapping, but the real culprits appear to be Philip Garrido and his wife Nancy. Garrido had apparently held Dugard in a network of tents, sheds, and tarps in a "hidden backyard-within-a-backyard" in Antioch, CA. In the 18 years he kept her there, he raped her and fathered two of her children, the first when Dugard was just 14. Her daughters Angel and Starlet are now 11 and 15. The children had never been to school, or to a doctor, according to authorities.

Garrido was caught when a police officer noticed him acting strangely toward the girls on the UC Berkeley campus. A background check revealed that Garrido was on parole, and was a registered sex offender previously convicted of rape and kidnapping. The day after the Berkeley incident, Garrido visited his parole officer — possibly voluntarily — with Dugard and the two girls, as well as his wife Nancy. He and Nancy Garrido were both arrested.

From a rambling radio interview, and from his blog titled "Voices Revealed," it seems clear that Garrido was delusional. On the radio, he said,

You're going to find the most powerful story coming from the witness, the victim - you wait. If you take this a step at a time, you're going to fall over backwards and in the end, you're going to find the most powerful heartwarming story.

He also claimed that although "It's a disgusting thing that took place from the end to the beginning," but that "I turned my life completely around." His blog includes an affidavit, supposedly signed by multiple people of Garrido's acquaintance, stating in part that,

This document is to affirm that I Phillip Garrido have clearly demonstrated the ability to control sound with my mind and have developed a device for others to witness this phenomena. by using a sound generator to provide the sound, and a headphone amplification system, ( a device to focuc your hearing so as to increase the sensitivity of what one is listening to) I have produced a set of voices by effectively controlling the sound to pronounce words through my own mental powers.

Somewhat creepily, the affidavit also says,

Concerning the state of Phillips' mindfulness and his freedom to conduct himself appropriately: I will confirm that out of the many years I have interacted with him, business or otherwise, he has always acted mature and intelligent. He has had a steady personality throughout the many years I have known him and is fully capable of handling himself respectfully regardless of the possible out come of any given event. He has never displayed an unsuitable, incoherent or improper cognitive behavior all the years I have known him, nor has he ever mentioned the subject of him hearing voices to my staff or me.

The blog post reproduces images of signed affidavits, but one alleged signatory, realtor Deepal Karunaratne, says he never actually signed. He tells the LA Times that Garrido said "he was talking to angels and all these weird things," and that,

One day I happened to be there at his place, and he told me to wear this device, like headphones. He asked me if I heard something. I said, 'Yeah, I heard some noises.' I didn't know he'd used my name. I did not know that he was a registered sex offender. I'm kind of stunned.

Most people who had contact with Garrido have had a similar reaction to his arrest. What's disturbing, though, is how much people around him seemed to know about both his delusions and his activities. One woman met Starlet and Angel, whom he called "his girls" rather than "his daughters" — they told her they were home-schooled and went to a church with only five people in it. Another woman describes being "freaked out" by Garrido and seeing his backyard compound. She says, "He had little girls and women living in that backyard, and they all looked kind of the same. They never talked, and they kept to themselves." The fact that various acquaintances thought Garrido was crazy and actually saw Dugard and her daughters reveals how willing we sometimes are to ignore the strange behavior of others, and how this willingness can sometimes allow criminals to operate with impunity for years.

Kidnapped Girl Had First Child At 14; Kept In Backyard Shed [Newser]
Jaycee Lee Dugard Kidnap: Suspect Phillip Garrido Appeals To Public From Prison [Guardian]
Woman Kidnapped As An 11-year-old In '91 Found [LA Times]
Kidnapped At 11, Woman Emerges After 18 Years [NYT]
Girl Grew Up Locked Away In Backyard Sheds [CNN]
Kidnapped Child Found 18 Years Later [MSNBC]

John schools, or First Offender Prostitution Programs, have been around for more than a decade now. The impetus was obvious: after years of targeting only the prostitutes themselves and letting johns off with a fine and a slap on the wrist, it was clear that the system was not only unjust but wholly ineffective. And, the thinking went, wouldn't it be more effective to speak directly to the men perpetuating the system than prostitutes frequently impelled to the streets by addiction, desperation or pimps?

Now, there are about 50 john schools in America, with more set to open this year. Available only to first-time offenders - and not to those soliciting underage prostitutes - the programs rely on a combination of education and shaming. The Nashville program profiled on CNN is, for starters, in a church. The men hear the stories of former prostitutes to help them, as one advisor puts it, "see that this is not a victimless crime, and they are contributing to the exploitation of women"; are told the risks by health experts, and are assured by cops that if they're caught again, they'll go to jail. In the Nashville program, too, the offenders' mug shots are displayed on a public web site. They pay $250 which goes to a prostitute-rehabilitation program called Magdalene House - meaning there's no cost to the taxpayer - and the charge can, if all goes well, be dismissed after a year.

Results are somewhat encouraging: the established San Francisco program has seen a 30% drop in re-arrest rates. But critics say this isn't enough. Some feel it's still too light, compared to the jail terms prostitutes are often given. Others, that it doesn't address the violent offenders who are a more serious problem. The program only addresses street prostitution, as pointed out by a Village Voice piece on New York's version, "The Respect Project," "Uhu Thukral, director of the Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center, says that johns who get caught just turn to escort services or Internet hookups. "John schools are part of an effort to address the demand side of the industry, but it's really just a revolving door," she says." And advocates of legalized prostitution, that it doesn't address the key issues. And, given that a recent study the article quotes finds that men would be far more deterred by being placed on a sex offender registry, some wonder why that's not the de facto punishment. Certainly, for programs that don't post an offender's picture, it seems a lot easier for a john to throw money at the problem and spend 8 hours in a classroom - which, after all, nobody needs to know about - than risk trial and jail time.

But if they learn something in that 8 hours, even just one guy, isn't that a lot better than the alternative? The CNN article quotes several men who are deeply shamed and affected by the presentation, however - at least, directly after seeing it - and it's hard not to want to support anything that can effect actual change on a human being. In a piece on a Canadian version of the program, one director observes that it's the presentation by a wife who's marriage was ruined by her husband's whoring - and subsequent STD - that's most compelling to the largely-married population. And, one hopes, that the existence of the classes themselves is a small step towards changing a long-standing double-standard. I'm not assuming the existence of 50 such programs in the country (really, very few - shouldn't this be standard?) is going to change the day-to-day treatment of prostitutes by cops - but at least it has the chance of changing one such interaction, which wasn't even a possibility before.

'John Schools' Try To Change Attitudes About Paid Sex [CNN]

John School Helps Break the Cycle of Prostitution [PERC]
John School Takes A Bite Out Of Prostitution [SFGate]
School for Johns [Village Voice]
Recidivism Among The Customers Of Female Street Prostitutes:Do Intervention Programs Help? [WCR]

As Lisa of Sociological Images explains, Miami sex offenders are prohibited from living within 2,500 feet of "schools, parks, churches, or any place where children might congregate." Which means everywhere, except "under a causeway in the middle of Biscayne Bay." This is an extreme example, but many states place harsh restrictions on where sex offenders can live. They're meant to protect children from rapists and pedophiles, but, according to an article in the new Economist, that's not who all sex offenders are.

The piece says 5 states brand people as sex offenders for visiting prostitutes, 29 register teens who have consensual sex with other teens, and 13 grant sex offender status to people convicted of public urination. The Economist tells the sad story of Wendy Whitaker of Georgia, who gave her 16-year-old boyfriend a blow job in a theater when she was 17, and ended up on a sex offender list for life. Oral sex isn't illegal anymore in Georgia, but that doesn't remove her from the registry — she was evicted from her home and her husband lost his job as a result of her status.

The Economist points out that filling sex offender registries with public urinaters or unlucky teens makes it hard for people browsing the lists to pick out dangerous offenders. What's not hard, often, is printing a picture of an offender from an online list and posting it all over town. One study found that 65% of registered sex offenders "pose little threat," but most of the ones the Economist interviewed report receiving harassment.

Yet there's little evidence that sex offender registries do anything. The Economist writes that, "a study by Kristen Zgoba of the New Jersey Department of Corrections found that the state's system for registering sex offenders and warning their neighbours cost millions of dollars and had no discernible effect on the number of sex crimes." Similarly, draconian restrictions on where sex offenders can live and work may do more harm than good. Another study found that lack of housing increased recidivism, while having a steady job decreased it.

CNN says the men under the bridge in Miami were in fact convicted of abusing children. But Lisa points out:

In addition to the human rights concerns, there is a concern that the living conditions may actually increase the chances of recidivism. Living under a bridge: (1) is arguably even less enjoyable than prison, (2) smothers hope of ever reintegrating into society, and (3) is not really conducive to self-improvement.

Of the Miami sex offenders, CNN's John Zarrella says, "few people have any sympathy for their plight." But you don't have to excuse their actions to recognize that forcing them into the middle of a bay isn't the best punishment. And you don't have to condone pedophilia to realize that lesser crimes, like urinating in public or having sex with a fellow teenager, shouldn't doom someone to a life of stigma.

Unintended Consequences: Where Can Sex Offenders Live? [Sociological Images]
Unjust And Ineffective [Economist]

Alex Hart has an IQ of 47, and is classified as mentally retarded. He can neither read nor write. Unable towork, he lived with his parents, did odd jobs and was, they say, courteous and gentle.

On the eve of his arrest, he was excited about a fair coming to town and asked a neighbor if he could mow her lawn to make a few dollars. She found him in the back shed fondling her 6-year-old stepson. When the police arrived, they read Hart his rights, and he confessed to what he'd done. As they transported him to jail, he asked repeatedly whether he'd get paid for mowing the lawn.

The sentence, which, as the Dallas News reports, is harsher than those typically meted out to repeat child molestors and rapists, has raised the larger question of how the state prosecutes the profoundly disabled.

The question is whether Hart was capable of understanding right from wrong; the court said yes, his parents say no. Many blame Hart's court-appointed lawyer for the severity of the sentence. Hart may not have understood his Miranda rights, and confessed to all five counts without an attorney present. Once appointed, the lawyer, assuming his client would get probation, apparently neither called witnesses on Hart's condition nor hired a liaison to help Hart understand what was going on. He also didn't challenge the finding that Hart was competent to stand trial, which his parents claim came after a cursory inspection. As a result, both judge and jury "say they would have preferred not to send Hart to prison," but they were presented with no option - no mental health facility or group home for disabled offenders. (Some jurors are saying the judge ignored their requests for alternatives, and that they were appalled that he chose to stack the sentences.) The District Attorney, however, stands by his decision to prosecute Hart on all counts, saying, "I hope people will remember he committed a violent sexual crime against a little boy."

Hart is currently in Texas' "Mentally Retarded Offender Program." He will appeal later this year; in the meantime, his father says the one upside is that his son has no idea of the severity of his situation. I use "upside" loosely, as the story is a tragedy. If Alex Hart is going to harm children, however unknowingly, he must obviously be kept away from them. One can only hope the child will sustain as little emotional damage as possible and receive counseling. But it's hard not to agree with the law professor quoted in the article who calls the sentence "not helpful to society or the offender."

Fairness Of 100-Year Prison Sentence For Mentally Disabled Offender Questioned [Dallas News]

Gibson claims she feels no remorse for attacking the 7'3" Baldwin, who police say did not molest her child. "I'd do it again if not better," Gibson says, "I don't care if it hurts me, I don't regret it. It got him away from my kids and all the other kids in the neighborhood." Baldwin is classified as a Level 3 sex offender; he was originally charged with first-degree child molestation for molesting a 5-year-old, and, once on parole, was re-arrested for molesting another 5 year old. Level 3 sex offenders are considered to have a high risk of re-offending, which most likely added to Gibson's concerns.

Gibson says her frustration sprung from the fact that even though Baldwin was required to announce his move to the neighborhood and post flyers alerting community members that a sex offender would be living nearby, he was still able to talk to children in the neighborhood—including Gibson's daughter. "For him to be right there, in front of my house and talking to my child — made me crazy," Gibson says, "And I told him I thought he was a piece of crap and I smacked him. I just didn't stop hitting him. I just told him that 'if it were up to me, I'd kill ya."'

Baldwin, who has since moved from the neighborhood (victory for Gibson, one supposes) says he was "scared. I was frightened. I didn't know what the hell to do," during the attack. But Gibson doesn't care about Baldwin's feelings, nor does she care that she had to break the law to make a larger point: "I would hope that me doing this and going to jail would change something, change some kind of law, change something where people like him can't be standing around little kids you know what I mean?" she says, "It's not right, it's not fair to the kids at all."

The issue this case will hopefully raise, as Gibson notes, is the difficulty in enforcing sex offender laws; only after Gibson beat Baldwin did the police arrive to arrest him for failing to register a new address, meaning he was under the radar and able to contact children without the police being aware of his whereabouts. It's a difficult situation for anyone to be in; Gibson has no right to beat anyone, regardless of their background, yet one can sympathize with the paranoia she must have felt having a high-risk offender living so close to her and her children. Regardless, Gibson, who has a history of assaults, will be spending her time in jail for the next three months.

"I think it's crap; that she was protecting her kids like she should have been," says her daughter, Rachael Porter, "They locked her up for way too long."

Fearful Mom Attacks 7-Foot Sex Offender [ABC News]
Mom Who Beat Sex Offender: "I'd Do It Again" [ABCNews]

• Millard Fuller, the co-founder of Habitat for Humanity, died Tuesday at the age of 74. • A new "Digital Mom" report has found that young moms (under the age of 35) use the internet much more frequently than mothers over the age of 45. • Newsday reports that there has been a recent spike the number of female robbers. Justice professor Robert McCrie calls bank robbery an "equal opportunity crime" because it "doesn't require a lot of muscle." • Dr. Karen Maples, leader of the team of doctors that delivered the Bellflower octuplets, was on Larry King Live last night to discuss mother Nadya Suleman, who she called an "amazing patient." • Thousands of men in India are supplementing their incomes by working as prostitutes, according to a new report. The men meet new clients primarily through social networking websites. • Three women and one man abducted a waiter from his place of work, held him hostage for four days, and repeatedly raped him. According to the police, the women believed to be involved in the assault "belonged to rich families of Karachi’s Clifton area." • A new book to be released this week in Germany claims to reveal the shocking truth about Nazi women. Propaganda of the time painted German women as the "fairer sex," but the book shows that the female Nazis were every bit as brutal as their male counterparts. • Archeologists have found traces of chocolate on ancient jars located north of the U.S.-Mexico border. This is the earliest evidence of chocolate being consumed- or used in religious rituals- in America. • Edgar Degas' famous bronze sculpture, "Petite danseuse de quatorze ans," (or "14-year-old dancer") is expected to sell for at least $12 million when it goes to auction in London. • According to a new report, boys may have greater psychological well-being than girls due to a better physical self-concept. Self-concept is defined as the "totality of perceptions each person has of themselves." •

• Former Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss and born-again goth writer Anne Rice are coming out to support Hillary Clinton for President. Heidi, who was turned away from a recent Clinton rally, says, "Any woman who's smart, how can you not be [a fan of Hillary]?" Something tells us that Rice, who has traded in writing vampire fiction for some Born Again crap, is not getting into any Hillary fundraisers either. [Las Vegas Review Journal]
  
• The immigration activist who sought refuge in a Chicago Church in order to remain with her son in the United States was arrested and deported back to Mexico this weekend. Apparently, family values don't apply to brown people. [NY Times]
  
• A British woman has claimed the record for oldest woman to give birth, at the age of 59. Funny thing is, she waited ten years to mention it. [Guardian]

• Scrawny models might not be the only thing to blame for anorexia. A recent survey found that 20% of eating disorder patients could be described as having a brain disorder on the autism spectrum. Like we needed a scientific study to tell us that Mary Kate Olsen is a little off — the whole "boho" thing confirmed that months ago. [Telegraph]
• Venice's first female gondolier is calling out her male counterparts for ripping off customers and destroying tradition. Actually, being rowed around Venice was ruined as a romantic activity the minute The Bachelor got it's dirty, grubby paws on it. [Telegraph]
• Proof that Minnesota is indeed a civilized place! The state just enacted a new law that would make it possible for family-planning organizations to purchase birth control in bulk through cooperative purchasing agreements, a move that will result in cutting the cost of birth control to the public by 50%. Convenient, considering the only thing to do in the middle of winter in Minnesota is fuck. [Feminist Daily News Wire]
• Non-stick cookware could result in low birth weights. So how are pregnant women expected to make the perfect pickle, goat cheese, and peanut butter omelet now? [Babble]
• Fuck the paranoia. Taking anti-depressants during pregnancy might not be so dangerous. [Babble]
• As we've pointed out a number of times, the anti-choice movement has been given too much power in spinning abortion research to support their wiggity-wack agenda. Women's Health News has a fabulous summary of some of their doozies. [Women's Health News]
• Sometimes we feel really pissed off about the country we live in, and rightfully so, but the story of this Kurdish woman makes us feel very grateful that we live in a place where at least you won't get stoned to death by a mob of men in front of police officers who sit back and do nothing and oh yeah someone films it and now it's on the fucking internet. [Feministe]
• Analyzing the analysis of Hillary Clinton's wardrobe in major news articles that, generally, have nothing to do with what she's wearing — fair, so long as we remember to mention how sexy John Edwards' $400 haircut is. [Star Tribune]

• Eddie Murphy is on crack if he thinks a little bling is enough to convince the world that he treats his girlfriends well. Um, remember that you fathered and denied, Eddie? [People.com]
  
• Oh come on people: There are enough real bombs in this world. Don't plant fake ones. [BBC]
  
• Memo to President Bush: We already know that your reasons for attacking Iraq were bullshit. So don't feed us any of your retroactive theories now. [CNN]
  
• Memo to Tony Blair: You lost your right to pontificate on the situation in the Middle East, too. [NYT]
  
• Does this guy have a t-shirt that says, "I Served In Iraq And All I Got Was This Lousy Bionic Hand"? [CNN]

• YouTube debates? Genius. Also — who else liked Biden alluding to Kucinich's hot wife? [USA Today]
• Interesting shoes, but where does all the nasty-ass toe jam go? [Boing Boing]
• What? MySpace? Rife with sex offenders? Shocking! [MSNBC]
• 2 U.S. casualties identified. [DoD]

• Because the continent of Africa is not enough, Bono has founded a nonprofit to ensure that our next president makes poverty a key item on his (or her!) agenda. Seriously, is there anything bigger than this guy's heart? Besides maybe his collection of "funky" sunglasses? [CNN]
  
• Female inmates in Florida reach out to fellow jailbird sister Paris, bearing beauty tips (that veer heavy on the Crystal Light reliance. Maybe because it has the word "crystal" in it.) [ABC News]
  
• Jaime Lee Curtis is thisclose to taking her beef with Kathy Hilton and her whiny daughter what's-her-name-the-one-in-jail outside. [HuffPo]
  
• And SPEAKING of incarcerated women, Gloria Allred has appeared on the scene with a client she claims was — holy itshay! — not treated so nice, compared to Paris. [TMZ]
  
• Since Karl Rove et al can't bust filmmaker Michael Moore on charges of, like, being a counter-revolutionary running dog, they instead hope to get him for that cigar run to Cuba. Uh, wasn't that guy supposed to be some shrewd genius of public manipulation? Does this really go down in the red states? Really, we're curious. [USA Today]

• Why we don't ride roller coasters. [CNN]
• Sex offenders: younger, more violent. This would affect us more if we ever left our houses, but for the rest of you, be safe, and maybe carry mace? [CNN]
• Two U.S. casaulties identified. [DoD]