By Sandy . . . Is there anything more despicable than a scam? Schemes that use fear to extract money from those already living in fear go a step beyond despicable. Scams targeting people required to be listed on sex offender registries have worked their terror for longer than ten years, and they show no tendency of ending.

NARSOL warned registrants and the general public about this odious, illegal activity as soon as we became aware of it, and our efforts were eventually joined by those of law enforcement.

The scams have never stopped, but we have recently been notified of increasingly sophisticated efforts.

These scams can vary to some degree, but they will involve some variation of this: A person representing himself as someone in authority in law enforcement calls people on the registry and tells them that they are deficit in something regarding their registration, probation, or a new law; that a warrant has been or will be issued; and that he can take payment and stop the warrant.

This is what you need to know.

Law enforcement will not telephone you with notices that you are delinquent in some area of registry.

They will NEVER, NEVER, NEVER ask for money over the telephone.

The scammers will sound totally professional and knowledgeable and real, but they are NOT.

Here is what you should do: HANG UP.

However, if you don’t, if you, for whatever reason, think he might be legitimate, ask for his name and tell him that you will call him back at your registry office. Then HANG UP, call your registry office, and tell them you are calling to report a potential scam.

For more thorough information, including some law enforcement warnings, here are a few of the previously printed pieces. Some of the links within some of the pieces may no longer work.

https://www.narsol.org/2023/11/law-enforcement-paying-attention-to-sex-offender-scams/

https://www.narsol.org/2021/08/be-sure-you-know-about-sex-offender-scams/

https://www.narsol.org/2021/06/new-scam-warning-out-of-virginia/

https://www.narsol.org/2020/02/beware-of-scams-targeting-those-on-the-registry/

The post Scams targeting people listed on sex offender registries are alive and well in the U.S. first appeared on NARSOL.

Updated 4/23/2026; originally published 2/4/2025 at narsol.org as Sex offender residency restrictions: bad, bad public policy.”

By Sandy . . . Residency restrictions for persons required to register as sexual offenders are often enacted for no reason other than neighboring towns have implemented them. They spread like wildfire, and like that

destructive force, they wreak their own form of havoc, making it more and more difficult for registrants to find decent housing for themselves and their families. This, in turn, makes it more and more difficult for them to create the stability they need to become productive citizens, which, according to research, is what drives down recidivism.

What with adding more people to the registry and in some cases making the laws retroactive, the number of individuals caught up in this maelstrom of flame grows exponentially each year.

The spark that starts the blaze is one we all share, the drive to keep our children safe. Residency restrictions, however, are an inappropriate and contraindicated response to that desire. They are based on three assumptions that are contradicted by evidence:

Residency restrictions assume most child sexual abuse is committed by persons unknown or barely known to their random victims when in reality 93% or higher of cases involves someone well known to the children who have been specifically chosen.

The percentage of situations in which a prior relationship exists between an abuser and a child victim varies dependent on the age of the victim. A study done by the Office of Juvenile Justice found that for very young children, family members and very close acquaintances comprise close to 100% of their offenders while for teens, those categories make up 94.3%. The U.S. Department of Justice, in a mega study, found that overall, 93% of the offenders of children and teens were either family members or trusted acquaintances (p.10).

The policies presume offenders choose victims based on residential proximity, which is not supported by research.

Residency restrictions create zones around schools, daycare facilities, and often parks. These laws and policies, once begun, spread throughout a state with unstoppable ferocity. A two-state study, Michigan and Missouri, did not support the mistaken theory that living close to one of these was a factor in repeat sexual offenses against children. Another study examining several states found “. . . proximity to schools and daycares, with other risk factors being comparable, does not appear to contribute to sexual recidivism. These data do not support the widespread enactment of residential restrictions for sexual offenders” (introduction).

Residency restrictions assume that most sexual abuse is committed by repeat offenders, which research shows to be inaccurate.

On average, a significant majority of registered sex offenders are one-time, first-time-convicted offenders. A study in New York found that “. . . over 95% of all sexual offense arrests were committed by first-time sex offenders, casting doubt on the ability of laws that target repeat offenders to meaningfully reduce sexual offending” (abstract), and a study from the university of Tennessee had very similar findings. They report, “Another factor constraining [sex offender registries’] effectiveness is that past studies have shown that . . .‘94.1% of those arrested for child molestation were first-time sex offenders’ ” (conclusion of major findings).

Restrictions often force offenders away from support systems, treatment, stable housing, and employment opportunities, which are crucial for successful reintegration. These are the elements associated with remaining offense-free. Some areas are so encompassed by residency restrictions that homelessness has escalated, especially in states where residency restrictions are aggressively implemented, states as diverse as Wisconsin,  Florida, North Carolina, Illinois, and many more.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is the state of Kansas, which actually has a page on its DOC website about why residency restrictions do not work; the state passed legislation in 2006 prohibiting its  jurisdictions from implementing them.

What drives down reoffense? Housing and employment

stability, access to evidence-based treatment, amd family and community connectedness. What makes those things difficult, sometimes impossible? Residency restrictions.

Are there individuals for whom restrictions from a specific type of place is appropriate? Almost assuredly, and they should be handled on an individualized basis.

Creating “umbrella” laws that indiscriminately restrict everyone listed on a state’s registry, or everyone of a certain classification or tier, thus creating pockets of homeless registrants and acting as a barrier between registrant and rehabilitation, is more than just inappropriate and contraindicated.

It is unrestrained madness.

The post Sex offender residency restrictions–a harmful response first appeared on NARSOL.

By Sandy . . . His email was long, disjointed, confusing. I could tell he was angry with NARSOL (National Assoc. for Rational Sexual Offense Laws), but I couldn’t tell why. I emailed back asking if I could call him. “Yes,” and the phone number was the reply.

He was an elderly gentleman—we’ll call him William–and almost as agitated on the telephone as he had been in the email. He told me his story, which left me as bewildered as before. When I asked pointblank why he was displeased with NARSOL, he said, “It’s always men. You always make it about the men.”

I still wasn’t getting it. I explained that NARSOL’s focus wasn’t on who committed the offenses or what anyone’s offenses had been but on fighting unconstitutional laws and practices and legislation that was not grounded in solid evidence.

I must have been as confusing to him as he was to me. When I finished, he repeated that we “always make it about the men, but women do it too.”

Now we were getting somewhere. Parts of his story were starting to fit.

William had been sexually abused as a toddler and young child by a stepmother. He had vague memories that left him feeling confused and anxious, memories that still haunt him today over 80 years later. Just before she died, William’s older sister verified that the abuse had indeed occurred. Additionally, as an adult, William was a victim of an inappropriate physical assault by a woman in his church.

He was disturbed with NARSOL because we had not done anything to acknowledge that women commit sexual offenses. When I told him I could write a blog post about that, his reply was simple but powerful: “That’s all I want.”

Officially, the percentage of women identified as sex offenders is statistically insignificant. AI reports that women’s presence on sex offender registries ranges from 1% to 5%. The U.S. Sentencing Commission in its “Quick Facts” for 2024 reports that 93.5% of those sentenced for sexual crimes were men, leaving 6.5% women. However, research consistently shows women to be only a little over 1% of all who were incarcerated for a sexual offense.  The National Library of Medicine agrees with that figure. (The medical world tends to see much sexual offending as a health issue rather than a criminal one; NARSOL tends to agree with this position; health issues can often be prevented and treated.)

William and my commitment to write about this subject drove me to continue my research. And other things at the back of my consciousness were floating to the top. Things like Lauren Book, a child advocate and past Florida legislator who, as a child, was sexually abused for six years by her nanny. Things like “Joe” who is telling his story in serial form in the NARSOL Digest. In the first installment, “I am . . . , ” he lists all of the things he is and writes, “I’m the brother of a sister and a brother, both of whom were sexual abusers; I’m the child of an untreated, closeted, incestuous family with a taboo upbringing.”

A research study published in The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law has this in its abstract: “Although reports have shown that female sex offenders make up two percent of the whole sex offender population, the true rate is remarkably higher because the caretaking behavior of women masks their sexual offenses.”

Every year more and more is known about the ubiquity of sexual offenses committed by women. Evidence suggests that female sex offenders are significantly undercounted and underreported. Even though they constitute roughly 1%–5% of official sex crime records, surveys that have been completed by victims indicate the actual percentage is most likely higher, with some estimates suggesting up to 12%.

More and more literature is emerging on the subject. The title of this 2025 research paper encapsulates everything that William was trying to get me to understand: Female Sexual Offenders: An Underrecognized, Underreported, and Under-researched Population.

If anything ever cried out for prevention, it is sexual abuse of young children.

Options are available today that were not when William was a child. Information is so much more available. The taboo of speaking about being a victim has lessened—although not so much for male victims. Some good child sexual abuse prevention programs are:

The Moore Child Sex Abuse Prevention Center

Erin’s Law

Darkness to Light

Addendum: I have heard from the head of one of NARSOL’s state affiliates after he read this. He feels that the crime of a portion of women who are registered as sexual offenders was the passive one of not taking effective intervention. One of his members was a victim of her father, who was convicted. Her mother was also convicted of enabling child sexual abuse and registered for life. This is certainly a scenario where education about prevention would be extremely beneficial, and the prevention programs listed above, as well as many others, would address the situation.

The post Something you thought you knew about child sexual offense–but probably don’t first appeared on NARSOL.

By Sandy . . . As communications director of NARSOL, I receive many calls from reporters and journalists working on stories about persons in the community who are on a sex offender registry. Occasionally the presence of the registrant is being protested by the neighborhood. More often, the reporter has already decided on an “angle” and wants a comment from NARSOL.

I am always hopeful that the piece they write will open up the much needed, genuine discussion on the topics of those who are sexually harmed and those who have committed the harm. I am almost always disappointed.

I remember my first and most poignant disappointment.

The soft-spoken young reporter seemed genuinely sympathetic that a registrant was being harassed by neighbors who had put up signs on their properties with hateful words and arrows pointing to his house and/or his address.

I spoke to her at some length about the harassment and danger that persons on the registry suffered from vigilantes. I asked her if he or his family had been harmed. I asked her if law enforcement could help, and she said no, the people were exercising freedom of speech and using publicly available information.

She sounded as though she cared, and I couldn’t control a sense of personal betrayal when I read her published piece. The word choice and tone placed her clearly in the camp of the protesters. She reduced my carefully chosen words to a few “sound bites” that sounded as though I were excusing the behavior of the registrant and thought he shouldn’t have been held accountable for his crime.

What a disappointment. What a missed opportunity to do an actual community service.

The piece is certainly not the worst I have read, as these pieces go, pieces designed to do nothing of any actual value but only to agitate and raise the collective community’s level of fear, apprehension, and even hatred.

I know now that I asked the wrong question.

I should have asked her how the actions of the protesting neighbors would help make communities safer.

I should have told her that between roughly 95% and 98% of sexual crime against children is committed by persons who are in what is called the “circle of trust” of the family. This translates to the family members, peers, and authority figures of the victims. With this information, it’s an entirely different ballgame. Actions intended to “out” a registrant to the community or even drive hm from their midst will not arm families with protection when the risk, if it comes, is almost sure to come from within.

Clearly a focus on persons with a sexual offense conviction will meet with little to no success increasing public safety

I should have told her that over 95% of new sexual offenses are committed by persons with no previous conviction for a sexual offense. This figure jibes well with the fact that roughly 5% of people with sexual offense convictions reoffend. This is borne out by a huge number of reoffense studies, both federal and state. Random registrants with one conviction are statistically unlikely to reoffend; concentrating on them will have no discernable impact on public safety.

Focusing on one-time convicted registrants in hopes of making a difference in public safety is futile; it yields nothing but wasted taxpayer money and law-enforcement hours, not increased public safely.

Research shows that the safest communities are created when former offenders are given the opportunity to re-assimilate and show their ability to be law-abiding, productive community members. Public safety increases when vigilante activities are discouraged through peer pressure or law enforcement intervention. Behaviors and policies that isolate and ostracize former offenders only exacerbate conditions that lead to lessened community safety rather than greater.

Good prevention programs are shown effective in reducing the rate of sexual harm against children, community-wide initiatives and other evidence-informed programs. Indeed, prevention programs and targeted treatment  have a higher proven impact on reducing crime and making communities safer than do resources squandered on sex offender registries and lengthy incarcerations.

I now ask journalists who contact me this important question: What can you write about child sexual offending that will give parents legitimate information and useful tools with which to help protect their children?

In addition to links in the article, links to studies for much of the factual information and statistics are found here.

The post Public safety: What it is and what it isn’t first appeared on NARSOL.

By Sandy . . . Even though registrants are as different from one another as everyone else, they do have some commonalities. Almost all registrants report feelings of isolation and being disconnected from others. One way to help lessen these feelings is to find groups where you feel like you fit and can gain the support you need to help you with your way forward.

One of the frequently used pages on NARSOL’s resource site is the listing of organizations that might help you do this.

They are arranged alphabetically by state, so it’s easy to find what you are looking for. Each one contains the contact information, including a link to the website, so you can check it out before contacting them. There are also a number of organizations that are national; they are listed alphabetically with the states as “US.”

Another similar category is that of support groups. They are predominately Fearless group meetings. Every state is not represented, but we are working to change that.

Whether you’re looking for a place to volunteer your talents, a place that has group meetings where you can participate if you wish, or just a place where you feel you belong, check out the “Organizations” page under the “Orgs & People” menu item and “Support groups” under the “Life Support” menu.

And if you know of a good organization that isn’t listed, go to the bottom of the page to “Add an organization” and fill out the form.

The post How can the NARSOL resource site help you? first appeared on NARSOL.

By Sandy . . . In the many years that we have been tracking Halloween, this one fits the pattern of the past few years.

There were the semi-frequent media and sheriff’s offices who were warning—and scaring—parents about people on sex offender registries grabbing trick-or-treaters, a danger that research indicates has never existed. But the days of Patch “red-dot” maps from coast to coast are gone. A couple of Patch editors in Illinois are hanging on with their “Halloween Safety Maps,” but the dots are blue now, and the articles mitigate some of the fearmongering with the inclusion of a few of the actual facts, such as, “Law enforcement officials and researchers caution that the registries can play only a limited role in preventing child sexual abuse and stress that most perpetrators are known to the child.”

For as many as possible, we responded to media articles and Facebook posts with this message:

Are you aware that any connection between persons on the registry and increased sexual harm to children at Halloween has been totally debunked.? It was an invented construct to begin with. Such a connection has never existed.

You are in a unique position to help make a difference. Instead of writing about something that has never—as far as we are able to determine–harmed any children, write about something that harms, even kills, children every Halloween.

Write about the need for law enforcement to double–and triple–down their foot patrols and crossing guards in high traffic and trick-or-treat areas rather than checking if registered individuals have their lights on. Write about the need for increased sobriety-check traffic stops on Halloween. Write about something that is a real problem, that could save lives, that could make a real difference.

We sent over a dozen emails to reporters and comments on Facebook pages. We received back one reply from a supervising editor wanting more information about our organization.

All of that is the good news.

The bad news is that a more sinister pattern also played out. Trick-or-treating children are several times more likely to be involved in an altercation with an automobile Halloween evening and night. When this occurs, the child seldom emerges unscathed.

In San Antonio, Texas, a truck driver jumped the curb and crashed into a parked vehicle, then striking a group of trick-or-treaters. According to the law enforcement officer on the scene, “By the grace of God, you know, this wasn’t a whole lot worse.” Most of the pedestrians jumped out of the way. A young child received minor injuries and was taken to the hospital with her mother who had more serious but non-life-threatening injuries. The driver fled the scene but was soon apprehended and determined to be intoxicated.

A juvenile was hit while trick-or-treating in Colonial Heights, Virginia. The child was crossing the street, where candy was seen scattered after he was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. The driver stayed there.

Two young children were critically injured Halloween night while trick-or-treating in Tracey, California and remain critical Saturday morning. The driver remained at the scene.

Charlotte County, Florida, reports, “. . . a serious hit-and-run involving three people trick-or-treating on Friday night.” The injured pedestrians include a teenager and a child who were injured and taken to local hospitals. The driver fled the scene but was soon found and arrested. The area where this happened is described as a “. . . heavy trick-or-treat area.”

A trick-or-treating 13-year-old boy was struck by a car in Portland, Oregon. He sustained serious injuries, and as of the morning of November 1, his prognosis is unclear. The driver remained at the scene.

This is a mixed bag: The good news is that no children were killed outright. The bad news is that seven children were hit by automobiles while they were trick-or-treating and two or more remain in serious or critical condition.

Now the bad, bad news: Before Halloween, media and law enforcement  focus on persons required to register as the way to keep trick-or-treaters safe.

This is in spite of evidence showing zero trick-or-treating children harmed or killed by registrants. Ever. Anywhere.

Neither media nor law enforcement focus enough on a real, actual danger kids face Halloween evening and night across the nation: an increased risk of being hit by an automobile and injured or killed. Some media articles do. Fewer law enforcement offices do.

If this were an equation, in most states it would look like this:

Definite risk of children being harmed Halloween night = <10% allotment of resources; zero risk (based on past 40 years) of children being harmed Halloween night = >75% allotment of resources.

As an ironic sidenote, just as the message is everywhere that there is no connection between persons on sex offender registries and increased risk of sexual harm to children at Halloween, a legislator in Kentucky is proposing that persons on the state registry be forbidden from participating in Halloween activities. Whenever I hear nonsense like this, I remember a question I was asked a long time ago by a registrant. “Why is it that it is fine if I bob for apples with my grandchildren on October 30^th and on November 1^st,” he asked, “but if I do it on October 31^st, I am breaking the law and could go to prison?”

I could not answer his question then, and I cannot answer it now.

The post A good news, bad news Halloween first appeared on NARSOL.

By Sandy . . . A 71-year-old man was murdered on September 18 in Fremont, CA. His killer did not know him. He didn’t kill him during a robbery. He had never seen him before. Nevertheless, he set out to kill David Brimmer specifically, going to his house with a knife, attacking him when he opened the door, and chasing him as he tried to escape across the lawn and into a neighboring garage.

Why?

In 1995, Brimmer was convicted of a sexual crime. He served nine years in prison, was released, and was required to register on California’s sex offender registry. Like almost everyone who has served a sentence for the first conviction of a sexual crime, he has, from all evidence, not reoffended in 30 years.

Using the information readily available online, the murderer selected his victim. The killer said that he sought a registrant who was elderly, presumably because he would be easier to kill. However, Mr. Brimmer fought for his life. The attack lasted for what had to have been five minutes or more.

This would be horrific if it had never happened before. But it has, over and over and over again; in state after state, vigilantes have sought, found, and murdered individuals on sex offender registries. In some cases, killer knew victim prior to the murder and killed him after finding him listed on the state registry.

Horrific doesn’t even begin to be adequate. It has happened in Maine; in Washington

State (two separate incidents, four victims)*; in Nevada; in South Carolina; in Minnesota (with moose horns as the weapon); and, less than a year ago, in Pennsylvania.

It has happened before in California, four separate times, from 2007 to 2011. ** Mr. Brimmer’s murder makes five.

And those are just a few of the many that we know about, all senseless murders of individuals on registries. How many more do we not know about?

It is far past time for it to stop.

People will kill other people. But when they identify and locate their victims by means of a government-required online list, complete with address, it has gone too far.

NARSOL calls on state attorneys general to order the temporary removal of home addresses from their states’ online sex offender registries.

NARSOL further calls on state legislatures to enact legislation as soon as possible that will eliminate the online publication of home addresses of persons listed on their states’ sex offender registries.

We will never stop individuals from killing other individuals.

However, our government must stop providing roadmaps to murderous vigilantes by putting their potential victims on a list that tells the world they are dangerous—even though the vast majority are not—and providing their addresses to make the killers’ task as easy as possible.

Adocates, if you have any connection with legislators in your state, send them this or write something about it yourself.

If you know anyone with connections, tell them.

If you don’t know anyone, phone the legislative offices. Talk to the aides. Tell SOMEBODY! Tell anyone who will  listen.

SPEAK OUT; your voice may be the one that makes the difference.

* https://www.cbsnews.com/news/man-claims-child-rapist-murders/

https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/12/the-vigilante-of-clallam-county/281968/

** https://www.record-bee.com/2007/12/11/murder-and-megans-law/

https://kesq.com/news/2010/01/12/second-arrest-made-in-sex-offender-murder/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2319621/Charles-Gaskins-White-supremacist-sentenced-life-murder-child-molester.html

https://ktla.com/news/man-convicted-of-murdering-sex-offender-neighbor-in-vigilante-killing-2/

The post ACTION ALERT: Protect ALL citizens; remove addresses from sex offender registries first appeared on NARSOL.

By Ronald . . .  Like every other inmate being released at Missouri’s Farmington Correctional Center, I received a voter registration card and instructions on how to restore voting rights as a felon. The instructions said, “The right to vote is automatically restored upon release” unless convicted of a crime connected to the exercise of the right to vote.

Being released in June of 2024, I knew there was plenty of time to re-register to vote before the November presidential election. But when I began the process later in the summer, things took a decidedly different course.

I showed up to vote in the August primary with my ID and voter registration card

from before I was incarcerated, but the election clerk could not find my name on the voter rolls. A phone call to the election commission offices verified that my voting status was suspended because I had been incarcerated as a felon. I would need to come to the main election board with my discharge papers to renew my voting status.

When I appeared at the St. Louis County Board of Elections office, the clerk was courteous and efficient in reviewing my discharge papers and verifying my identity. But one thing caught her attention: the “lifetime supervision” notation on my discharge. She was hesitant to register me on the spot and said she would make copies of all my documentation and give it to her supervisor (who was out of the office at the time) to review. They would call me with their decision.

This was the first indication of a problem with registering to vote.

Two days later, Cindy, the election board office supervisor, called and told me I could not be registered to vote because I was disqualified since I was on lifetime supervision. (In Missouri, lifetime supervision is applicable only to those with sexual offense convictions.) I explained to her that Missouri law was quite clear in stating the only disqualifications in restoring the right to vote for felons was “probation, parole, or a crime connected with voting.” But she was firm in her decision: I could not register to vote.

The next day I called my attorney’s office and explained my dilemma. The receptionist assured me that one of the attorneys in the office would get back to me with an opinion.  Some time went by and I heard nothing from my attorney. Periodic follow-up calls and reminders—even a letter—did not engender a response.

When I re-read the paperwork on restoring voting rights, I noticed a paragraph at the bottom that said, “If you believe you are eligible to vote and encounter difficulty registering, please contact the Election Division of the Missouri Secretary of State” with the contact information included. I called.

In this day of “press one for …” I was surprised to be immediately connected to a live person. I explained my situation and received a sympathetic response. I was told definitively that I was in the right, and that “lifetime supervision” was not a disqualification for a felon to register to vote. They would call Cindy, the St. Louis Board of Elections supervisor, and instruct her to register me to vote.

The next day I received a call from Eric, the Election Board chair, who reviewed my situation with me and then cited RSMo 559.106 as the basis for his decision that I could not be registered to vote. When I questioned him further, he stated that, in the opinion of the board’s attorney, “lifetime supervision” was a form of probation—thereby a disqualification to being registered to vote. Even though he got a direct order from the office of the Secretary of State, he said, he was going to abide by the decision of their own attorney.

Not so automatic!

So, at the time of this writing, here I sit, four days from the registration deadline, caught between two interpretations of the law. What it shows is that restoration of

voting rights for a felon may not only vary state-by-state, but within a state like Missouri, may even vary from county to county.

The only way to resolve this problem is the hard way—through legal action—by suing the county election commission. And that is exactly what I will be doing, not only for my case, but for all those who come after me or who are currently facing the same challenge in Missouri.

Ronald is a registrant in the state of Missouri.  He has filed a petition with the Missouri Probation and Parole Board to be removed from lifetime supervision.

The post Restored voter’s rights in Missouri: not so automatic first appeared on NARSOL.

By Sandy . . . Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Post 12226 was opened in the fall of 2023. There were roughly 5,000 such posts in the United States at that time, but this was the first—and so far only–one established inside a prison, the Sterling Correctional Facility, a state institution in Sterling, Colorado. At its peak, the post had 28 members, 24 of whom were men serving sentences, some for sexual crimes and for murder; the other four (4) were staff members. The post had been recognized for being very active, especially in the areas of fundraising efforts and providing support for incarcerated veterans.  https://tinyurl.com/2n8wzbjh

Almost exactly a year later, by fall of 2024, Post 12226 was disbanded. Learning of its existence, various veterans and social media commenters campaigned very vocally against it, and they were heard. The VFW changed its bylaws to disallow membership to anyone with a felony conviction, and the membership dropped below ten, the minimum number required for a VFW post.  https://tinyurl.com/2n8wzbjh

(If this sounds familiar, think of a hotel in Grand Rapids being intimidated by loud and angry voices and cancelling NRSOL’S conference.)

What a poor decision the VFW made. What if other organizations followed this ill-chosen example?

What if some of the more prominent religions protested the time and money spent on faith-based prison programs, and they were no longer allowed in penal institutions? This would mean that the incarceration-impacted population of faith would no longer have access to something important for their spiritual needs, something that for at least some arguably makes the difference between their being model prisoners or troublemakers. Many a prisoner has come to faith and repentance behind bars, some due to attendance at prison worship services. They may not all be sincere, but without doubt some are.

What if state boards of education, universities, and the American Library Association decided that their “product” was wasted on “criminals”? How many of the incarceration-impacted who were trapped in a cycle of poverty due to being functionally illiterate no longer had access to the reading classes that would give them better choices when they were released? A countless number would lose the opportunity to earn a GED, while another huge number would be denied learning the skills that would offer them more employment options in the brave, new technical world into which they would be released. Many colleges and universities offer classes in a variety of subjects and even associate and bachelor degree pathways. These programs are traditionally offered through prison libraries, which also offer reading for pleasure and research capabilities for the institutional population as a whole.

What if special projects developed for incarceration-impacted persons, such as visual arts, drama, and writing were deemed to be inappropriate for “sex offenders”? Since these programs have a proven track record of increasing pro-social behavior and reducing recidivism, there is realistically little chance of that happening. However, moving from the hypothetical—and highly improbable–to the literal, what does happen is that some persons, based on their crime of conviction, are deemed inappropriate to participate in the program.

The exclusion of persons with convictions for crimes of a sexual nature is found in a variety of prison programs, including the visual and performing arts. Seldom presented as an outright exclusion, the language describes the allowed participants for many programs as members of the general population. This would not normally include those convicted for sexual offenses, thus cancelling their participation–and them–efficiantly.

This negation of different forms of art created or performed by someone with a historic sexual offense conviction is carried beyond prison walls to life in the real world. Some years back, a  museum in Maine removed a piece of art because it was created by someone on the sex offender registry. Actors in multiple situations have been “let go” because they had sexual crime convictions.

This bias against “sex offenders” is less seen in creative writing projects. To its credit, when faced with protests against inclusion of a poem by someone bearing the “sex offender” label several years ago, Poetry Magazine stood its ground and kept the poem as part of a special prison edition. However, one extremely talented writer was tempted to give up his writing—not due to discrimination but because he felt responsible for precipitating the events that caused VFW Post 12226 to be shut down.

We have come full cycle.

A dismantled VFW post; a canceled conference; hypothetically canceled prison faith-based services, education classes, library, and arts projects; excluded visual and performing art projects—in prison and in life; a disheartened writer.

The answer for them all is short, simple, and the same: “We will not give up; we will not go away.”

Or, in the words of that same temporarily disheartened writer:

Whether marred by the nature of our crimes or simply by the fact of our incarceration, our work means little to many. But we must try to reach those critics with our writing, demanding our voices be heard, no matter the consequences. For that piece, the result wasn’t what I’d intended. Far from it. But the next time, with the next piece, maybe I’ll change a mind or two.

The post A cancelled VFW post and a cancelled population first appeared on NARSOL.

By Sandy . . . Everyone loves a good protest. Most of us can look back to younger days, college or early job perhaps, and recall the excitement of being part of something we believed in. The right to protest is enshrined not only in our memories but also in the Constitution.

“Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble  . . .” – United States Constitution Amendment I

The wording in the Constitution explicitly requires that any assembling for the purpose of petitioning or protesting must be peaceful. When exercising the right to assemble and protest has the intent of destroying another’s right to assemble, peacefulness is lost. Today’s lightning-fast, mass communication system produces an environment where the intent to harm is weaponized a thousandfold.

NARSOL has recently experienced this.

A known hate-group, using lies, fear, and vigilantism, persuaded a hotel to cancel our June conference space just days before it was set to begin, leaving no options to relocate in time to hold the conference as planned. NARSOL and NARSOL’s Foundation teams planned that conference for more than a year. We lost it in a matter of days. We were, of course, shaken. Temporarily. Our supporters were also shaken, angry, worried.

To be clear – NARSOL did not choose to cancel this conference. The hotel venue called NARSOL staff and informed them they were “cancelling our event booking,” closing access to the hotel venue to our nearly 200 attendees, caving to pressure from an “American far-right, neo-fascist militant organization that promotes and engages in political violence.”

NARSOL has existed for 18 years. Through 2024, we have had 16 consecutive, peaceful conferences. Every day, we receive letters and emails from individuals on the conviction registry thanking us for giving them hope for a better tomorrow. It will take more than an online hate campaign to deter us. There are six months left in the year. There are many thousands of conference venues.

What we do is too important to stop. We fight the lies and myths surrounding registrants with facts and truth. We fight repressive, unconstitutional laws and restrictions with legal action. We publish the Digest, a newsletter for registrants, the incarcerated, their families, and their supporters.

We have conferences, educational, collegial, and enjoyable.

We daily strive toward our vision: NARSOL envisions a society free from public

shaming, dehumanizing registries, discrimination, and unconstitutional laws. We live up to our mission: NARSOL opposes dehumanizing registries by working to eliminate the laws, policies, and practices that propagate them.

We will move forward with greater care and doubled resolve, and we will continue to join together to fight for rational sex offense laws and against criminal registries.

What we do won’t be stopped or deterred. It will survive as long as it is needed.

The post As long as we are needed first appeared on NARSOL.