We Are The Registry’s Collateral Damage

Tell us your family story or tell us how you are forced to live based on punitive and over-reaching and unconstitutional  laws.

4 thoughts on “We Are The Registry’s Collateral Damage

  • Meredith

    Next month, it will be 11 years ago that my guy was convicted as a sexual predator for dating and being sexually involved with a 17yo female he met at church. He did what he thought was right. He asked her parents if he could date her, they said yes. They dated openly. He was not her first sexual partner.

    A staff member of the church, as a mandated reporter, told her father if he didn’t call the police and have D arrested, they would call them and discuss child abuse and neglect charges against the parents.

    He got arrested, was on probation, had to go to mandated group therapy with sex offenders who had done really horrible things. He had to have supervised visits with his children. He got on the registry as a predator, not an offender, because he was a youth group leader in the church and she was in his group — he wasn’t employed by the church, he was volunteering as an interim until they replaced the one who left.

    I’ve been dating him for a few years now. He was very fortunate to keep his job, which he still has, but fears if he ever gets laid off that no one else would hire him. None of my coworkers or friends know, not because we’re ashamed, but just because it’s not necessary to say so and also because of where I work.

    We have to be careful going places because sometimes a building isn’t restricted but the property beneath it is, like the stadiums and museums and other attractions in Chicago. We can go to Ren Faires and festivals if they’re on private property, but we look every time. We never assume another state has different laws. We follow ours, even if another state says there isn’t a law prohibiting registrants from certain locations.

    We know we have it better than most. He’s been lucky. Sure, he couldn’t go see his kids do things at school. Sure, we couldn’t go to family parties held in parks. It’s still ridiculous.

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  • When my son was 19 years old he went on an underage website and downloaded 2 pictures. He sent one picture to another man in the chat room on the website. He engaged in this activity for 3 months. After 3 months he never went on an underage website again. Four & a half years later he was arrested. I stupidly raised him to tell the truth so when the police interviewed him he told them. A forensic analysis of his laptop & phone supported what my son told the police. It didn’t matter. My son was never in trouble with the law. All testing completed before going to court supported that he was not a pedophile and the multiple lie detector tests proved that he never solicited a minor for sex, he never attempted to touch a minor in approximately and that he has had one sexual partner, who had been his girlfriend since sophmore year in high school. We could not afford the cost to go to trial and for the sake of his twin brother who is a Quadraplegic my son agreed to a deal. He completed his time in prison and completed his parole without incident. He is 26 years old now and cannot obtain any type of job training or attend college because he is a registered sex offender. He and his Fiancee, his girlfriend since sophomore year in high school, are unable to rent an apartment due to rules stating that no sex offenders can live on the property. Everywhere he turns and everything he tries he is shut down because he is on the sex offender registry. The real kick in the ass is the DA made sure that my son will be on the registry lifetime. The DA would not agree to the 10 years.
    I have worked in social services with violent criminals who were deemed incompetent to stand trial however not one of them continue to be judged and held prisoner by society for the crime they committed because people don’t know. Their names and pictures are not on a list for everyone to see and judge. I have a brother who embezzled 3+ million dollars from his insurance agency. He did his time in Federal Prison. He was actually trained as a welder while in Federal prison. He spent a short stay at a half way house and has to make a small monthly restitution to the federal government. His time in prison made him eligible for Pell grants which paid for his bachelor’s degree in business. He can live where he wants, has no restrictions on his life and is currently making over $90,000 a year.
    My son made a huge mistake when he was 19 and now has no possibility to getting out of the community imprisonment imposed on him by the sex offender registry.
    I am truly disheartened with our justice system. It doesn’t matter that he completed his prison sentence & parole because in the eyes of the State of Texas he doesn’t deserve a lively hood, education, training, or a decent place to live because of an error he made when he was 19 years old. I am so upset and I can’t do anything to help him because I don’t have an abundance of money to fight. It’s hard to give him hope for his future when the State of Texas has ensured he has no opportunity for hope.

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  • Yup my hub asked about us being able to just take a walk along the green way trail for exercise as a family and they said nope it’s got a park; so we can’t take walks for exercise together as family. This is so wrong. We work out behinds off and can’t even take a walk together hand-in-hand just to enjoy the outside and the walkway, I can’t believe they use my hard earned money for this stupid registry to condemn families that just want to do as other families do. Who do we contact to voice this in Tennessee?

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    • Deborah Belknap

      I have been living this same nightmare for 20 years now, my husbands charge , sentencing and prison time were all before the Registry even existed, and yet, they have retroactively applied the registry to him. We had to move because we lived too close to a school. The voices of families that are affected by this need to be heard. It is against the constitution.

      Reply

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