St. Joseph or Saint Joseph is a city in Stearns County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 7,029 at the 2020 census. It is home to the College of Saint Benedict.
Megan's Law is the name for a federal law in the United States requiring law enforcement authorities to make information available to the public regarding registered sex offenders. Laws were created in response to the murder of Megan Kanka. Federal Megan's Law was enacted as a subsection of the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act of 1994, which merely required sex offenders to register with local law enforcement. Since only a few states required registration prior to Megan's death, the state-level legislation to bring states in compliance—with both the registration requirement of Jacob Wetterling Act and community notification required by federal Megan's Law—were crafted simultaneously and are often referred to as "Megan's Laws" of individual states. Thus, the federal Megan's Law refers to community notification, whereas state-level "Megan's Law" may refer to both sex offender registration and community notification.
Mark Raymond Kennedy is an American businessman, politician, and university administrator. Following a career as a business executive, he served as a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from Minnesota from 2001 to 2007. Kennedy did not seek reelection in 2006, instead running in the 2006 election for U.S. Senate, which he lost to Democratic–Farmer–Labor nominee Amy Klobuchar.
Jacob Erwin Wetterling was an American boy from St. Joseph, Minnesota, who was kidnapped from his hometown and murdered on October 22, 1989, at the age of 11. The identity of his abductor remained a mystery for nearly 27 years.
Michele Marie Bachmann is an American politician who was the U.S. representative for Minnesota's 6th congressional district from 2007 until 2015. A member of the Republican Party, she was a candidate for president of the United States in the 2012 election, but lost the Republican nomination to Mitt Romney.
The 2006 United States Senate election in Minnesota took place on November 7, 2006. Incumbent Senator Mark Dayton announced in February 2005 that he would retire instead of seeking a second term. Fellow Democrat Amy Klobuchar won the open seat by 20.2 percentage points. Primary elections took place on September 12, 2006.
The Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act, colloquially known as the Wetterling Act, is a United States law that requires states to implement a registry of sex offenders and crimes against children. It is named for Jacob Wetterling, a Minnesota eleven-year-old who was abducted by a stranger in 1989, and was missing for almost 27 years until his death was confirmed when his remains were found on September 1, 2016.
The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act is a federal statute that was signed into law by U.S. President George W. Bush on July 27, 2006. The Walsh Act organizes sex offenders into three tiers according to the crime committed, and mandates that Tier 3 offenders update their whereabouts every three months with lifetime registration requirements. Tier 2 offenders must update their whereabouts every six months with 25 years of registration, and Tier 1 offenders must update their whereabouts every year with 15 years of registration. Failure to register and update information is a felony under the law. States are required to publicly disclose information of Tier 2 and Tier 3 offenders, at minimum. It also contains civil commitment provisions for sexually dangerous people.
The International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC), headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, USA, with a regional presence in the United Kingdom, Europe, Turkey, Africa, Canada, Latin America, Caribbean, Southeast Asia, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Australasia, is a private 501(c)(3) non-governmental, nonprofit global organization. It combats child sexual exploitation, child pornography, child trafficking and child abduction.
The House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children (HCMEC) was formed in order to assist the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and coordinate United States federal legislation preventing child abduction and exploitation of children, including prosecution for possession of online pornography and solicitation of minors for sexual activity. According to statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice, of the estimated 24 million child Internet users, one in five children online is sexually solicited, yet only one in four of these tells a parent or guardian.
The 2006 Minnesota's 6th congressional district election was an election for the United States House of Representatives. State senator Michele Bachmann of the Republican Party defeated child safety advocate Patty Wetterling of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, and project co-ordinator John Binkowski of the Independence Party.
The 2008 Minnesota U.S. House of Representatives elections took place on November 4, 2008. All 8 congressional seats that make up the state's delegation were contested. Representatives were elected for two-year terms; those elected served in the 111th United States Congress from January 4, 2009, until January 3, 2011.
Elwyn "El" Tinklenberg has been an American government official and candidate for public office. He was Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Transportation, a city council member and mayor, and a two-time candidate for the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party nomination for U.S. Congress from Minnesota's 6th District.
Tarryl Lynn Clark is an American activist, attorney, politician and a former member of the Minnesota Senate. A Democrat, she represented District 15, including portions of Benton, Sherburne, and Stearns counties, from 2006 to 2011. She was a Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party nominee for United States Congress in 2010, unsuccessfully challenging incumbent Republican Michele Bachmann.
Child abduction or child theft is the unauthorized removal of a minor from the custody of the child's natural parents or legally appointed guardians.
The 2006 congressional elections in Minnesota were held on November 7, 2006, to determine who would represent the state of Minnesota in the United States House of Representatives.
The Hunt with John Walsh is an American investigation/documentary series that debuted on CNN on July 13, 2014. The series is hosted by John Walsh. The second season premiered on July 12, 2015, and the third season premiered on June 19, 2016. The fourth season premiered on CNN's sister station, HLN, on July 23, 2017. A successor to the show, In Pursuit with John Walsh was announced in early 2018. It premiered in January 2019 on Investigation Discovery.
The 2004 congressional elections in Minnesota were held on November 2, 2004, to determine who would represent the state of Minnesota in the United States House of Representatives.
In the United States, sex offender registries existed at both the federal and state levels. The federal registry is known as the National Sex Offender Public Website (NSOPW) and integrates data in all state, territorial, and tribal registries provided by offenders required to register. Registries contain information about persons convicted of sexual offenses for law enforcement and public notification purposes. All 50 states and the District of Columbia maintain sex offender registries that are open to the public via websites; most information on offenders is visible to the public. Public disclosure of offender information varies between the states depending on offenders' designated tier, which may also vary from state to state, or risk assessment result. According to NCMEC, as of 2016 there were 859,500 registered sex offenders in United States.
In the Dark is an investigative journalism podcast hosted by Madeleine Baran, and produced by Samara Freemark, The New Yorker, and Condé Nast Entertainment. The series launched in September 2016 at American Public Media (APM), featuring in-depth reportage from APM's investigative reporting and documentary unit, APM Reports. Two full seasons were produced, each focusing on a high-profile case and the actions and conduct in the policing or prosecuting of those cases—the kidnapping/murder of Jacob Wetterling and the quadruple homicide case for which Curtis Flowers was tried 6 times. A subsequent "Special Report" series, released in spring 2020, reported on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Mississippi Delta. The series was cancelled in May 2022 as part of APM's dissolving of APM Reports and "incorporating select programming elements" from the unit into its MPR News operation.
