Michigan Citizens for Justice

Michigan Citizens for Justice
Type Non-profit organization
Purpose Civil rights advocacy, Reforming sexual offense laws
Headquarters Michigan
Leader
 Francie Giordano
Website www.micitizensforjustice.com

Michigan Citizens for Justice is an advocacy and support group for Michigan sex offenders and their families. Michigan Citizens for Justice is an affiliate organization of Reform Sex Offender Laws, Inc., and one of the more than 50 organizations nationwide movement to reform sex offender laws in the United States.[1][2]

Purpose

Michigan Citizens for Justice seeks to educate law-makers and the public that sex offenders should not all be treated the same, as they are a diverse group of individuals, and that contrary to popular belief, their general recidivism rate of 5% over 5 years[3] is the second lowest of all offender groups;[4] thus making onerous restrictions and the stigmatizing effect of public sex offender lists unfair and counterproductive when applied to all offenders without considering the individual risk and underlying facts of individual cases.

The group aims to provide support, encouragement, and information for working towards reforming the current laws and policies so that they will be based on scientific facts and will promote public safety, honor human dignity, and offer holistic prevention, healing, and restoration.[5] The group holds that current state of sex offender registries in the United States are a nationwide problem which "destroys futures and makes it questionable as to who is a threat to society and who isn't", by pooling offenders together and automatically labeling them as monsters, regardless of what the true nature of their offense was.[6]

The group says that offenders should be treated differently according severity of their offenses and that "Romeo and Juliet" type of offenders should not be punished as harsh as those convicted of more serious sex crimes.[1][2]

History

Michigan Citizens for Justice was started by Royal Oak mother, Francie Baldino after her teenage son was imprisoned for having sex with his girlfriend, who was 14 years old at the time, and after she realized the stigmatizing effect and harsh restrictions imposed on those labelled as sex offenders.[7] In January 2012, Group leader Francie Giordano appeared in live TV interview on 'The Arena with Michael Coren', discussing issues of prosecuting consensual teen sex in US.[8]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "High School Sweethearts -- Or Sex Offenders?". The Huffington Post. 25 July 2011.
  2. 1 2 "Laws Gone Wild: As Teen Sweethearts Go to Prison for Sex, Mothers Rebel". The Daily Beast. 25 January 2011.
  3. ↑ Zgoba, Kristen; Miner, Michael; Knight, Raymond; Letourneau, Elizabeth; Levenson, Jill; Thorton, David. "A Multi - State Recidivism Study Using Static - 99R and Static - 2002 Risk Scores and Tier Guidelines from the Adam Walsh Act" (PDF). National Institute of Justice.
  4. ↑ Langan, Patrick A.; Schmitt, Erica L.; Durose, Matthew R. (2003). "Recidivism of Sex Offenders Released from Prison in 1994" (PDF). U.S. Department of Justice.
  5. ↑ "Mission Statement:". Michigan Citizens for Justice.
  6. ↑ "Romeo-Juliet law changing: Young lovers will no longer be listed as sex offenders". The Oakland Press. 30 March 2011.
  7. ↑ "Royal Oak Woman is a Force for Change in Sex Offender Laws". Royal Oak Patch. 4 October 2011.
  8. ↑ "Sex offence nonsense". OttawaSun.com. Retrieved 31 March 2015.
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