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Here is the schedule for the 2018 Conference. It promises to be packed with insightful Information.
Women Against Registry
Second Annual Conference
August 17, 1:00 PM through August 19, 12:00 PM 2018
Empowerment & Momentum ~ A March to Victory
Friday, August 17, 2018
Welcome by Master of Ceremonies - Jonathan Grund
Featured Presentation
Missouri Attorney Mike George
Keeney v. Fitch, 458 S.W.3d 838 (2015) Win & Sex Offender Litigation
Breakout Session A: Room A – Civil Commitment Group ‘A Just Future’ Strategy Session
Room B – Question and Answer Session on Sex Offense Litigation
Room C – L-RIDD Group Strategy and Sharing Session (registrant families with autistic
or intellectually disabled registered citizen)
(Morning Break)
Featured Speaker
California Attorney Janice Bellucci - Registration Is Punishment:
How and Why U.S. Supreme Court Got It Wrong
Happy Hour
Saturday, August 18, 2018
Keynote Speaker
Dr. Lisa Sample - University of Nebraska - Omaha
Identity and the Consequences of Living Under Sex Offense Laws for Children of Registered Citizens
Feature Speaker – University of Illinois Professor
Laurie Jo Reynolds
Reframing Our Message
(Chatter Time w/Refreshments)
Featured Speaker
Dr. Avon Hart-Johnson
Pathways to Empowerment
(Lunch On Your Own)
Featured Speaker via Skype
Colorado Attorney Alison Ruttenberg
MILLARD et al., v. Rankin 13-cv-02406-RPM
Breakout Session B: Room A - Missouri Attorney Matt Fry – What Does Missouri SB 655 Mean to You
Room B – Mitchell Hamline SOLP Fellow Guy Hamilton-Smith - Turning Adversity into Advantage
Room C – Dr. Dean Rosen - Breaking Out of the Cocoon – Becoming a Reluctant Activist
(Afternoon Break)
PANEL
(Attorney – Minister – Therapist - Re-Entry Researcher)
Sunday, August 19, 2018
Restorative Justice Podcast
with Dr. Alissa Ackerman-Acklin - California State University
Followed by Discussion Facilitated by Dr. Avon Hart-Johnson
Breakout Sessions C: Room A – How Do I Tell My Story – Attorney Janice Bellucci & Mitchell Hamline SOLP Fellow
Guy Hamilton-Smith
Room B - Ready…Set…Go - to - Testify – University of Illinois Professor Laurie Jo Reynolds
Room C – Dr. Dean Rosen - Breaking Out of the Cocoon – Becoming a Reluctant Activist
(Morning Break)
Words from the President of WAR
Followed by Q & A Session
Introduction of 2019 D.C. Conference Team
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We will post the biographical information below for our speakers and workshop leads as they become available.
 Dr. Lisa Sample
Lisa Sample, Ph.D is the President of Sexual Offense Policy Research (SOPR), and a Reynolds Professor of Criminology and Public Affairs at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice. She is one of the nation’s foremost experts on Sex Offenses. She has written briefs for the United States Supreme Court and has researched many facets of this complex subject.
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Prior positions: Associate Professor, University of Nebraska at Omaha; Assistant Professor, University of Nebraska at Omaha; Analyst, Illinois State Police; Assistant to the Editor at “Criminology: An Interdisciplinary Journal” University of Missouri- St. Louis.
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Professional Memberships: American Society of Criminology; Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences; International Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology; Sex Offender Policy Research Work Group; and the Association of the Treatment for Sexual Abusers.
Teaching experience includes undergraduate, graduate, chairman of dissertations committee and chairman of masters theses committee.
Michael T. George
The Law Firm of Michael T. George, P.C., located in St. Louis, MO represents clients internationally as well as locally, and is licensed to practice in Missouri, Illinois, and California. With an outstanding track record and a level of commitment unmatched by even the largest firms, The Law Firm of Michael T. George, P.C. will go far above and beyond our clients’ expectations in our pursuit of justice. Reference Keeney v. Fitch, 458 S.W.3d 838 (2015) Attorney George will present the federal lawsuits filed in the U.S. Eighth District
Janice M. Bellucci
Janice M. Bellucci has been an attorney for more than 30 years. She founded the Alliance for Constitutional Sex Offense Laws (ACSOL), a nationwide non-profit dedicated to protecting the Constitution by restoring the civil rights of sex offenders and currently serves as Executive Director of that organization. In that capacity, Janice is challenging residency restrictions adopted by cities and counties which virtually banish sex offenders. In the recent past, Janice filed a series of 31 lawsuits in federal court that led to the eradication of proximity restrictions for sex offenders.
Janice also successfully challenged laws passed by the City of Simi Valley, the City of Orange and the CA Department of Corrections that required sex offenders to post a sign on the front door of their home stating they were sex offenders on Halloween. The judge in the Simi Valley lawsuit granted a temporary restraining order (TRO) which prevented that city from enforcing that requirement.
Janice led the nation’s first sex offender protest in the City of Carson on March 7, 2015, the 50-year anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, to highlight a city law that prohibits sex offenders from visiting both public and private places. Janice obtained the first stay of enforcement from Jessica’s Law in the County of Santa Barbara for a sex offender suffering from terminal liver cancer who would otherwise be homeless.
Janice has helped to reunite families by negotiating revised parole conditions that allow registered citizens to live with their spouses and/or children. Janice has made presentations to numerous legal and government organizations, including the California Attorneys for Criminal Justice and California Sex Offender Management Board.
Previously, Janice served as an attorney for the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C., the U.S. Air Force at Los Angeles Air Force Base and in the Pentagon and NASA in Greenbelt, Maryland, and Washington, D.C.
Alison Ruttenberg
Alison Ruttenberg is a private practice attorney in Boulder Colorado; a solo practitioner with emphasis on complex criminal and civil litigation in the federal and state courts. She specializes in Criminal Felony Appeals and Post Conviction Relief, Civil Rights and Privacy Law. She is a volunteer board member for “Steps to Wholeness,” a nonprofit community organization dedicated to providing volunteer and pro bono services to indigent parolees so that they can more easily transition back into society.
A former active duty Air Force officer, Ms Ruttenberg also attained the rank of Major as a Judge Advocate in the Colorado Air National Guard. Ms. Ruttenberg was one of the first five women selected from Air Force ROTC in 1978 to be missile launch officers upon graduation and commissioning.
Major Ruttenberg co-authored an Amicus Brief in the US Supreme Court Case: United States of America v. Commonwealth of Virginia, Case No. 94-1941. This case challenged the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reliance on inaccurate and harmful stereotypes of women as weak, insecure and unable to withstand the rigors of military training when it permitted the Commonwealth of Virginia to continue to exclude women from Virginia Military Institute (VMI). In a 7-1 opinion, the US Supreme Court reversed the Fourth Circuit. In writing for the majority, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg made repeated reference to the authors of the Amicus Brief and their stories of military success and endurance.
Allison Ruttenberg has a long, impressive list of hard-fought legal victories. However, one of her cases that has already had significant findings, may yet be incredibly impactful and have historic significance. On August 31, 2017, in the the US District Court case of Millard v. Rankin, Judge Matsch ruled that the Colorado Sex Offender Registration Statute violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights to Due Process and to be free from Cruel and Unusual Punishment for sex offenders who have already completed their sentences. This landmark ruling will most likely be challenged and may be heard by the US Supreme Court.
Dr. Avon Hart-Johnson
Avon Hart-Johnson, PhD is the president and co-founder of DC Project Connect, a nonprofit 501 (c)(3) organization whose mission is to provide crisis support, advocacy, and psychoeducational services for families affected by incarceration. She is a human services board certified practitioner (HS-BCP) and grief recovery specialist (GRS) working in the field of reentry and advocacy. She chairs the International Advocacy in Action Coalition, Working Group for the International Prisoner Family Conference organization. She co-authored the Mass Incarceration Continuum white paper, cited as the Human Rights Issue of the 21st Century. Her recent book, African American Women with Incarcerated Mates: The Psychological and Social Guide to Mass Incarceration, just received rave reviews by the New York Journal of Books. Dr. Hart-Johnson is a part-time professor at University of Maryland University College and at Walden University School of Human and Social Services, College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. She is researcher and subject matter expert on the impacts of mass incarceration on women (spouses or mates of incarcerated men) and families. In her research, she discovered the groundbreaking, Symbolic Imprisonment, Grief, and Coping (SIG-C) theory ®. This grounded theory, SIG-C describes the vicarious imprisonment, psychological, social, symbolic, and physical outcomes on women when a mate is incarcerated and conveys how women cope. She is a peer reviewer for academic journals, author of journal articles and books on mass incarceration, and an advocate for social justice issues.
Dr. Hart-Johnson holds a master’s degree in Information Systems Management, a master’s degree in Forensic Psychology, and a PhD in Human Services, counseling specialization. Her alma maters are George Washington University and Walden University, respectively. Dr. Hart-Johnson’s volunteer work includes serving on the Community Relations Board at The Fairview Residential Reentry Center, Advisor to Strong Prison Wives, Inc., Juvenile Criminal and Legal System Working Group, and serves as volunteer for various Advocacy Groups in the District of Columbia and Maryland. Dr. Hart-Johnson is keynote speaker and conference presenter who travels domestically and internationally, disseminating research findings on the adverse impacts of mass incarceration. Of note, she has conducted international research as a principle investigator in England, Wales, and Scotland on prison visitation practices. As an author and co-author, her work this work is featured in a book entitled, “Contemporary Research and Analysis on the Children of Prisoners: Invisible Children.’ She has also served as panelist for the Congressional Black Caucus Annual Legislative Conference, provided the keynote addresses for the International Prisoner Family Conference [Texas], International Children with Incarcerated Parents [New Zealand]; Golden Key [Gold Coast Australia] conference, and other prestigious conferences.
Laurie Jo Reynolds
Laurie Jo Reynolds is a policy advocate whose work challenges the demonization, warehousing and social exclusion of people in the criminal legal system through community organizing and cultural change. She has focused on solitary confinement and public conviction registries, retributive extremes that expanded in the punitive turn of the 1990s. She was the organizer of Tamms Year Ten, the grassroots legislative campaign to close the notorious Illinois supermax, which Governor Pat Quinn shuttered in 2013. Currently a Soros Artist Fellow, she organizes against the harm of registries and related restrictions, and for policies that truly prevent victimization. She received fellowships and grants from Open Society Foundations, Creative Capital, Opportunity Agenda, and United States Artists, as well as Creative Time’s Leonore Annenberg Prize for Art and Social Change. Reynolds is an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Dr. Dean L. Rosen
Dr. Dean L Rosen specializes in clinical psychology in the Saint Louis area. Dr. Rosen has over 40 years of experience in his field. He graduated from the Universityof Illinois-Champaign Urbana in 1977 with a PhD in Psychology. Besides his busy practice in clinical psychology, he and his son Adam wrote a musical on Asperger's Syndrome, called “Asperger's, A High-Functioning Musical". It's a celebration of those geeks and weird kids who are entering adulthood. Dr. Rosen’s specializes in sexual addictions, sexual offenders, gender identity and sexual orientation as well as issues of trauma, grief, marital and family problems, depression, and substance abuse.
Guy Padraic Hamilton-Smith
Guy Padraic Hamilton-Smith is the Sex Offense Litigation and Policy fellow at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law. Hisexperiences with the criminal justice system and being on the registry inspired him to go to law school, where he excelled. He regularly engages in public education, lobbying, organizing, speaking, and writing on issues related to the registry. His writing has appeared in the Berkeley La Raza Law Journal, the American Bar Association’s State of Criminal Justice, Harvard Law’s Fair Punishment Project, and other outlets.
In addition to our wonderful speakers and workshops, there is sure to be plenty of socializing and networking as well. Our 2017 Conference was a big success and we expect no less for 2018.
Again this year, we are soliciting artwork donations from incarcerated loved ones, registrants, and family members. These gems will be sold at the conference to help defray costs. If you or your family members are creative, please consider putting your talents to work on a drawing, painting, sculpture or other type of artwork for this worthy cause. Note: donated pieces can not be returned, even if they are not sold.
Hope to Meet You in St. Louis (Maryland Heights area)
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