SIALPEASIA

NOTIZIE DAL MONDO CHE RIGUARDANO LE MISURE CONTRO IL CRIMINE O EPISODI CRIMINALI

 SUDAFRICA

A 33-year-old Johannesburg schoolteacher was arrested at a primary school in Marlboro on Friday for allegedly extorting money from a grade-four pupil, police said.

Police spokesperson Inspector Moses Maphakela said the teacher allegedly extorted money and threatened to rape a 10-year-old girl if she did not give him money.

"The teacher was arrested at 11am and is here [in Bramley] behind bars," said Maphakela.

Earlier this year the teacher allegedly saw the girl drop a R100 note at school, called her aside and told her that he also need money.

He allegedly threatened to rape her if she refused to give him money.

In June the girl then allegedly stole R3 200 from her grandparents' burial scheme savings to give to the teacher. The case came to light when the grandmother counted the savings last week and questioned the girl about the missing sum.

The teacher is expected to appear in the Wynberg Magistrate's Court on Monday to face charges of extortion and intimidation. -- Sapa

NEWS ANALYSIS

Jessica's Law may not be hospitalizing more post-prison sex offenders

Under the law, more inmates who have completed their prison terms are being evaluated and recommended for indefinite hospitalization. But the number of commitments has not increased.

By Charles Piller and Lee Romney, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
August 11, 2008

When voters overwhelmingly approved Jessica's Law in fall 2006, many assumed it would lock away predatory child molesters and rapists who had slipped through the cracks of existing law.

But by key measures, Jessica's Law may be failing to deliver on its promise -- and in some respects producing the opposite of its intended effects.

·         State pays millions for contract psychologists to keep up with Jessica's Law

As a Times investigation reported Sunday, the law has led far more sexual offenders to be evaluated and recommended for indefinite hospitalization after their prison terms end. But the number of commitments has barely budged.

In the 18 months after Jessica's Law took effect, only 42 of 67 defendants in civil commitment trials -- 63% -- were sent to hospitals, compared with 41 of 51 -- 80% -- before the law.

The finding is only the latest sign that the law, named for a 9-year-old rape and murder victim, is not working as intended, despite carrying costs that are expected to reach several hundred million dollars annually within a few years.

Critics have cited problems with another key provision that banned registered sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park, in some cases ruling out entire cities.

The limits were meant to keep children safe. But the California Sex Offender Management Board suggested in a January oversight report that strict parolee residency requirements might tend to increase rather than reduce sex crimes. The panel said the number of offenders listing themselves as transient rose by 44% to nearly 2,900 in the first year after Jessica's Law passed.

"Current research concludes that suitable and stable housing for sex offenders is critical to reducing recidivism and increasing community safety," the panel said.

John La Fond, a retired law professor and author of "Preventing Sexual Violence," put it this way: "We're locking up a small number, then releasing the rest and saying 'Good luck, and you can't live anywhere.' "

State Sen. George Runner (R-Lancaster), who introduced Jessica's Law, said the concerns were strictly theoretical, unsupported by data showing an increase in sex crimes.

"We were prepared" for increased transience among sex offenders, he said. "That's why we require GPS."

He was referring to a provision of Jessica's Law that requires lifetime monitoring of many offenders using the global positioning system. But that part of the law has proved controversial as well, because local law enforcement agencies, which would eventually handle most of the monitoring, say they lack money for it.

"I'm not aware of any sheriff in the state doing GPS," said Jim Denney, director of the California Sheriffs Assn. "There is no local funding tied to Jessica's Law."

Jerry P. Dyer, Fresno's police chief and president of the California Police Chiefs Assn., said that most GPS monitoring of sex offenders, for now, was handled by the state.

"The concern under Jessica's Law is who has the responsibility for purchasing GPS units and monitoring offenders once the individuals are no longer on parole," he said. If it is a local responsibility, "that needs to be funded by the state."

Runner has argued that Jessica's Law, which was mandated by 70% of voters, is sound, even if it could benefit from small adjustments.

"Our job is to implement what the voters have asked us to do," he said.

To that end, Runner has sponsored Proposition 6 on the November ballot, which would move money from the state general fund to crime control, including $15 million annually for GPS monitoring by local law enforcement of gang offenders, violent offenders and sex offenders.

Both the police and sheriffs associations support the measure, but Dyer expressed doubts that the funding would prove adequate and suggested that it might be necessary "to focus on the most serious sex offenders."

The latest provision in Jessica's Law to come under question pertains to "sexually violent predators" -- a small minority of sex offenders believed to be committing crimes because of mental illness. They can be committed indefinitely to hospitals for treatment if a jury affirms the diagnosis of two psychologists or psychiatrists. A single sex crime can now lead to lifelong commitment.

Castagnetta L’ambasciata italiana contro Québec e Ottawa

Volpe continua la sua offensiva politica; dopo undici mesi forse qualche apertura

Di ANGELO PERSICHILLI

Mentre l’on. Joe Volpe ha ripreso la sua offensiva politica per fare luce sulla morte del giovane Claudio Castagnetta a Québec City lo scorso anno, l’ambasciatore d’Italia in Canada, Gabriele Sardo, ha duramente attaccato le autorità responsabili canadesi per i gravissimi ritardi nel fare luce sulle eventuali responsabilità e ciò «forse non potrà non lasciare una traccia nell’opinione pubblica del mio Paese».
In un’intervista al Corriere Canadese nel fine settimana, il capo della diplomazia italiana a Ottawa ha detto di avere constatato «con soddisfazione che, come ha riportato il Corriere Canadese, l’on. Volpe ha manifestato l’intenzione di attivarsi personalmente per accelerare una soluzione al caso Castagnetta. Per questo lo ringrazio in quanto dimostra una particolare sensibilità verso la tragedia che ha avuto per protagonista un giovane di origine italiana ormai inserito in Canada e che in questo Paese aveva trovato un nuovo futuro».
Ma ha subito aggiunto: «Non posso tuttavia non manifestare anche il mio più profondo sconcerto nei confronti del ritardo con cui le autorità hanno reagito a questo episodio». L’ambasciatore ricorda che «sono passati più di dieci mesi dal fatto e, malgrado ogni sollecito da parte dell’ambasciata e del Consolato Generale di Montréal, ma anche da parte dell’opinione pubblica e di alcuni interventi giornalistici, ancora non sappiamo, a tutt’oggi che cosa sia avvenuto esattamente al giovane né se ci siano eventuali responsabilità».
L’ambasciatore Sardo non ritiene sia una giustificazione valida la divisione di competenze tra il governo federale e quello provinciale del Québec: «Francamente – dice il diplomatico - mi interessano poco le differenze di competenza tra autorità della Provincia o autorità federali. Ci troviamo davanti ad un caso di morte non accidentale e non sappiamo praticamente niente sul perché e sul come. Io credo che una situazione del genere non sarebbe accettabile in nessuna società che si ritenga dotata di un normale sistema di accountability

NAPLENEWS DALLA FLORIDA USA

 Fort Myers officer killer’s criminal history began at 15

Even after Abel Arango was shot by Fort Myers police, it appears he’s still in Collier County jail, where his childhood friend remains under the alias Abel Arango

By AISLING SWIFT (Contact)
Originally published 9:19 p.m., Thursday, July 31, 2008
Updated 12:28 p.m., Friday, August 1, 2008

Javier Ricardo Perez Abel Arango

Officer Andrew Widman's funeral

Scenes from the Wednesday, July 23, funeral of Fort Myers Police Officer Andy .

The man who shot and killed a Fort Myers police officer was laid to rest in front of family and friends gathered at Naples Manor Funeral Home last week.

No music was played at the services, but everyone exchanged memories of 26-year-old Abel Arango, who some remembered as polite and respectful. He lay in a casket wearing pants and a dress shirt. He was cremated, but his family wouldn’t say what they planned to do with his ashes.

Buried with Arango are answers to what may have caused him to snap on the street in downtown Fort Myers, killing Officer Andrew Widman, a husband and father of three children.

Arango’s mother, Justa Garcia, died of cancer in 1998, when he was 16. By then, he’d already wracked up a few arrests, beginning with marijuana possession and assault and battery when he was 15. He never graduated from Lely High School and lived with his father, Lorenzo, who remarried eight years ago. Lorenzo Arango declined comment last week as he stood inside the bright blue home in Naples Manor where Arango grew up.

Family members said authorities didn’t notify them about the killing and many heard about it through the news because the officer’s death was broadcast statewide.

“I heard about it through Crystal,” Arango’s older sister, Raquel, 33, said referring to Crystal Turcotte, the woman her brother was fighting with moments before Widman interceded and Arango shot him in the face. Raquel Arango said, Turcotte told the media Widman was a hero because he’d saved her life.

The news left Arango’s family in shock.

“We don’t know why it happened,” Raquel Arango said. “We’re still in shock because he’s not the way the news is portraying him. When we heard the news, we didn’t want to believe it because that wasn’t him.”

Arango left behind a large family and two babies, possibly three.

Many came to pay their respects at his funeral, Raquel Arango said.

“It was so packed, not everybody could stay there,” she said. Her brother’s friends cut across all races — black, white, Hispanic, Asian and came from Naples and as far as Miami and Fort Lauderdale, she said.

His five sisters attended, even the two who remained in Santi Espiritu, Cuba, when the rest immigrated here in 1991, she said. Arango was the youngest in the family.

“The police officer didn’t deserve to die the way he did, but my brother didn’t deserve what happened to him, either,” Raquel Arango said. “We’re deeply sorry for the loss. ... I just want to tell the news to please let both rest in peace.”

A week after the shooting, State Attorney Stephen B. Russell wrote Fort Myers police Major Doug Baker to say the four officers who shot at Arango on July 18 in downtown Fort Myers were justified in their actions because they were defending themselves and others. Arango had been fighting with his girlfriend at the time. Fort Myers police have said that just before Arango shot 30-year-old Widman, he’d vowed to “go out Miami-style” — and to take an officer with him.

“I don’t know what happened,” Arango’s childhood friend Javier Ricardo Perez Tapia, 28 said as he sat in the Collier County jail, awaiting a probation violation hearing next month. “That was my best friend since middle school.”

The two went through East Naples Middle School and Lely High School in the 1990s.

Both got in trouble with the law. Both have lengthy criminal records and violent pasts. Perez and Arango became entangled in the criminal justice system after both used each other’s names as an alias.

Perez Tapia, 28, remains in Collier County jail, awaiting sentencing next month for violating probation on a drug charge. Records show he’d used Arango’s name when he was arrested last year. Both were drug dealers, and his last conviction also appears under Arango’s name.

“God bless him. I feel bad that it happened,” he said, putting his head in his hands after learning Arango also had used his name as an alias. “He was a good man with a good heart. I’m shocked.”

***

By age 16, as his mother was dying of cancer, Arango had a long criminal history — even before he was sent to prison for a violent robbery at The Pawn Shop on April 3, 1998, and the burglary of Rex TV and Appliance three months earlier.

The violent holdup, which he committed with three fellow gang members, prompted officials at the Department of Juvenile Justice to write a letter to Collier County officials, saying that with his prior history and the seriousness of the new offense, his needs would be better served in the adult prison system.

Records show he’d already compiled a series of arrests as a juvenile — grand theft, assault and battery, carrying a concealed firearm, grand theft-firearm, burglary, possessing marijuana, and driving while his license was suspended. He was deemed a juvenile delinquent — a conviction — when he violated probation by ignoring his curfew and was charged with resisting arrest. So he was prosecuted as an adult.

When Circuit Judge Thomas Reese sentenced him to six years in state prison for the pawn shop holdup, followed by 15 years of probation, Arango also was sentenced that day to concurrent five-year terms for the burglary and weapons charges.

In prison, Arango penned neatly handwritten letters to Circuit Clerk of Courts Dwight Brock, signing them Arango and Arrango, even though his family uses the former. His series of motions complained about everything from not being given credit for time served in a juvenile detention center and Collier County jail before being sent to prison, to the INS wanting to deport him before he’d served probation, to his need for a typewriter.

“The Dept. of Corrections has decided typewriters are a luxury inmates can do without for access to the courts,” he wrote in Dec. 2000.

Circuit Judge Daniel Monaco denied his motion, pointing out that sentencing papers gave him credit for time served, although the corrections system may not have applied it.

He later obtained a typewriter and suggested that the prosecutor could have duped the sentencing judge.

“If the state knew that the defendant would be subjected to INS deportation when they initiated the plea deal negotiations, then could this also not be considered as a fraudulent representation before the court?” he asked in a four-page typed letter, asking the judge to explain the legality of the “INS’s interference.”

He asked a judge to clarify or void the 15 years of probation because he was being deported, saying “subsequent appeals fell on deaf or ignorant ears.”

Monaco denied his motions, pointing out that when he signed his plea form, it clearly said he could be deported. But Arango persisted, filing appeals to the District Court of Appeal. He lost.

Although the INS detained Arango, he was released in March 2004. U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement officials said Arango was released based on a 2001 Supreme Court ruling known as the Zadvydas decision. That ruling established time limits on how long the government may detain an alien who has a final order of removal when ICE cannot readily remove the alien from the U.S. due to U.S.-Cuban relations. Cubans are not deported.

Arango stayed beneath police radar, although Perez’s 2007 arrest for allegedly dealing drugs while on probation for dealing made it appear Arango had been arrested. Perez used his name twice that year.

Even before he threatened Turcotte on the night Widman came to her aid, Collier County deputies were called to help Angela Quintana, 24, another of Arango’s girlfriends. On March 3, Quintana called 911 to report Arango grabbed her by the throat, tried to strangle her and pushed her down as he shoved away her 5-year-old son while a witness watched in the parking lot of an East Naples apartment complex. Quintana decided not to move in with him and left. Reports show she suffered cuts and bruises.

After the investigation, Quintana went to her mother's home, the report says, noting, "She received a call from the suspect, who told her he now had a gun and he was going to shoot her."

Deputies were alerted to be on the lookout for Arango’s Mercedes, but whether a warrant was issued was not mentioned in the report. The battery charge would have violated his probation.

Two months later, Arango was arrested by Lee County deputies on Fort Myers Beach after deputies said he’d sold them cocaine several times beginning in April. He posted bond the next day, May 17.

Six days later, a probation officer submitted a warrant for his arrest for violating probation, but because Arango’s old case files are on microfilm, the warrant wasn’t signed until May 30. Seventeen days later, however, Arango appeared for his arraignment in Lee County, pleaded no contest and walked out the door. The judge was unaware of the warrant and probation officers didn’t alert him.

Arango would have faced up to 30 years for the probation violation, and up to 30 years if convicted of the cocaine trafficking charge, with a minimum mandatory of three years in state prison.

The next time law enforcement spotted him, he was dead within minutes — just before 2 a.m. July 18.

GUATEMALA

Capturan a tres policías en el Preventivo 

Inspector Edvin Perén López —Izq.—.    Por Sandra Valdez

Un inspector y dos agentes fueron capturados en el reclusorio Preventivo para Hombres de la zona 18, por complicidad, luego de que permitieron el ingreso de licor en esa cárcel.

Guadalupe del Cid y Gabriel Guarchaj ingresaron sustancias y objetos no permitidos en el Preventivo.

Después de la investigación respectiva, fue capturado un inspector y dos agentes de la Policía.

Se trata del inspector Edvin Elí Perén López y de los agentes Israel Pineda y José Ernesto Acevedo, todos de la Comisaría 12.

Miembros de la Inspectoría General de la Policía informaron que hay pruebas de que los policías detenidos ayudaron a los particulares a ingresar licor y unas cápsulas.

Hasta anoche, los detectives aún no habían determinado a quién visitaron en esa cárcel Del Cid y Guarchaj, ya que los libros se encontraban en poder de Presidios.