Tuesday, December 24, 2019

"Sex offender expert" Kurt M. Bumby allegedly shows how he got his expertise

Guess we know now why he's an "expert" on sex offenses...

Wikipedia recently deleted this guy's Wikipedia entry. Here's how it once read:

Kurt Bumby is a forensic psychologist, creator of the Bumby scales of cognitive distortion, and Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry/Medical Psychology with the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Medicine. He has presented material to the U.S. Sentencing Commission on alternatives to incarceration and to the Justice Center of the Council of State Governments on sex offender reentry.

Bumby received his doctoral degree from the Law/Psychology and Clinical Psychology Training Program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

In 1994 Bumby received the Graduate Research Award for Research Excellence in the Field of Sex Offender Treatment from the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA), and was a co-recipient of the Hugo G. Beigel Research Award from the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality in 1996. Bumby is a Clinical Member of ATSA, serving as a State Public Policy Representative, and is a clinical member of the International Association for the Treatment of Sexual Offenders.

In December of 2019, Bumby was charged with sodomy with minors in both Boone and St. Louis Counties.

https://www.moberlymonitor.com/news/20191223/sex-offender-expert-arrested-on-child-abuse-charges

Sex offender expert arrested on child abuse charges

By Pat Pratt
Posted Dec 23, 2019 at 4:07 PM 

A Columbia forensic psychologist and national leader in the field of sex offender management has surrendered to St. Louis Metropolitan Police on warrants for child sex crimes in two Missouri counties.

Court filings show Kurt M. Bumby, 50, was arrested Friday by St. Louis Metropolitan Police on a Boone County warrant for two counts of statutory sodomy and a St. Louis warrant for two counts of sodomy. Bumby was booked into the St. Louis County Jail and posted a $200,000 cash-only bond — $100,000 each for the two sets of charges — to secure his release.

Defense attorney Joel Schwartz did not return calls or emails seeking comment.

Bumby for nearly two decades served as an advisor on sex offender management to governmental agencies across the nation. He is accused of molesting two children in incidents in both counties, the oldest of those charges stretching back to 1988.

In November, Bumby was paid $280,000 to present a report to the Arizona Supreme Court.

Court spokesman Aaron Nash on Monday said the court will conduct a review of the report, which was authored by Bumby and another, but many of the recommendations seem to be in line with what many experts say are current best practices.

“Most were not controversial, they were things like treatment should be specific to the individual,” Nash said. “But this is a big deal, so it’s something the Arizona Court is taking back to the National Center for State Courts, who provided the study, just to check back in and ask is there anything in here that reflects bias, is there anything that needs to be revisited.”

In the report, Bumby advocated for the elimination of polygraphs for juveniles, which Nash said has met with some controversy. In light of the recommendation, Nash said the court did agree to a judicial officer approval before the test could be administered.

“So it (a polygraph) is still an option, but a probation officer or somebody has to make the request to a judge, with the information why they think it’s appropriate for this child and this incident, and then the judge makes a decision,” Nash said.

Missouri Supreme Court spokeswoman Beth Riggert said on Friday she was unable to locate anything which showed Bumby had presented or made any recommendation to the courts in Missouri.

From 2003 until Jan. 1, during much of the time the alleged abuse was taking place, Bumby was a senior associate with the Center for Effective Public Policy, a position in which he discussed with and presented to judges, state officials and policymakers across the nation trends in the rehabilitation and recidivism of sex offenders.

As part of his duties, he has been the director of the Center for Sex Offender Management. He also served as principal assistant to the director of the Division of Youth Services in the period from about 1999 to 2003 and prior to that as a psychologist at Fulton State Hospital.

In the Boone County case, investigators with the Missouri State Highway Patrol wrote that Bumby sodomized a child who was a family friend multiple times between 2008 and 2015 at Bumby’s home in Columbia.

The case involving the St. Louis child dates 1988 to 1994, while Bumby was attending school at the University of Missouri, and again stemmed from a relationship he had with the victim’s family. He would visit the victim’s home on the weekends and began abusing them.

Monday, December 23, 2019

NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo decides violating the rights to anonymous free speech is important enough to promote in his State of the State address.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Nebraska ruled some time back forcing registrants to disclose Internet identifiers violated the Constitution. I'm sure NY can do the same.

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/cuomo-make-sex-offenders-disclose-dating-gaming-user-names/2247781/

Cuomo: Make Sex Offenders Disclose Dating, Gaming User Names

The Democrat's proposed legislation would also make it a crime for convicted sex offenders to misrepresent themselves online

Published December 22, 2019 • Updated at 7:48 pm on December 22, 2019

New York's governor says convicted sex offenders should be required to disclose their social media screen names to prevent them from using apps to exploit children.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Sunday that existing laws targeting online predation don't account for new technology. His proposal, unveiled as part of his State of the State agenda, would require sex offenders to hand over screen names for dating and gaming apps, as well.

The Democrat's proposed legislation would also make it a crime for convicted sex offenders to misrepresent themselves online.

Cuomo says sex offenders currently only have to provide the state with information for their social media accounts. The state compiles that information into a list and sends it to certain social networking companies which have used it to purge accounts.

Cuomo's office says the 2008 law with those requirements has resulted in the removal of the social media accounts of 22,000 registered sex offenders.

“This powerful new tool will protect children in important ways by significantly limiting one of the main vehicles used to identify and exploit vulnerable children and youth,” said Timothy Hathaway, the executive director of Prevent Child Abuse New York.

“The added value of making 'misrepresentation' a chargeable offense provides law enforcement, prosecutors and, ultimately, communities, leverage to act more aggressively on behalf of children.”