Sex Offender Registry - NARSOL

Scams targeting people listed on sex offender registries are alive and well in the U.S.

Sandy Rozek — Thu, 07 May 2026 19:26:32 +0000

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/

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Let’s set the record straight — uninformed, unwarranted criticism

Sandy Rozek — Fri, 23 Aug 2024 14:18:58 +0000

By Sandy . . . Occasionally NARSOL will come across criticisms of our organization, its leadership, our work, and how it is done. These usually appear on one social media platform or another. Interested in all points of view and willing to hear constructive criticism, we have listened and have summarized what appear to be the major areas of contention and our response to each.

The board is lacking in female representation.

Yes, it is; there are two of us. Whenever board seats open, NARSOL appeals for anyone interested to contact us and begin the application process. Female applicants have been rarer than the proverbial hens’ teeth. We will continue. No one will be seated on the board simply because she is female, but we would definitely be interested in a female applicant who brought some of the skills and experiences on our “needed” list to the board.

In the organization and on the board, victim representation and viewpoints are missing or minimal.

This misrepresentation requires a two-part response. First, no one can know who among us was or was not a former victim of sexual abuse, but at the board level, it was multiple, not singular. Among our state-level advocates, there are a significant number who are past victims. Moreover, if those who have suffered collateral damage are counted, 100 percent of us would not be overstating the case. However, this is not something we choose to dwell on. It is not something we write about. We made the choice long ago not to be permanent victims. Continuing to think of ourselves as victims allows our abusers to continue having power over us, and we refuse to grant them that. We do not believe they should be treated as forever-perpetrators; this is the other side of the coin.

Some of us who are former victims are in this advocacy because we know first-hand that an overly-punitive system and the registry system that interferes with rehabilitation have nothing in them that bring us healing or work toward preventing future victims. We healed because we chose to—and some with the help of spiritual faith–despite a system that would keep us victims. The proven programs designed to significantly reduce future victims go begging for the tiniest fraction of government support.

Secondly, NARSOL’s mission statement does not establish a victims’ advocacy; victims have many advocates, starting with the court system. We are an advocate for the other side of the equation, the side that is in desperate need of advocacy. We are advocates for the system as it was initially designed, a system that extracted accountability from the legally-proven guilty, imposed a commensurate degree of punishment, and then expected a return to society with lesson learned. We advocate against distortions of that system, distortions that result in a type of forever punishment and make a mockery of rehabilitation by closing so many doors to it. We advocate for rational sexual offense laws.

We minimalize responsibility and accountability

This characterization is simply not accurate. As stated, NARSOL firmly believes in a fair system that appropriately punishes those who commit crimes; the more egregious the crime, the more thorough the punishment will be, but it must be punishment that is constitutional, in keeping with empirical data, and proportionate to the offense. Longer sentences do not aid in rehabilitation but undermine it. In almost all cases, constitutional punishment comes to an end. It does not continue for 15 or 25 years or even a lifetime after completed sentences end by marking the former transgressor as someone unfit for society.

NARSOL’S advocacy minimalizes rehabilitation

This misconception has already been addressed; it is categorically untrue. Our advocacy is for a system that fosters, allows, and encourages rehabilitation. We frequently reference the low reoffense rate of those who have previous sexual crime convictions; a low offense rate is the result of rehabilitation. Why would we not encourage it? Two sub-points must be made here: 1) Many of this population are self-rehabilitated despite a system that, at best, does little to nothing to aid rehabilitation and, at worst, hinders it mightily. 2) Some on the registry are truly innocent; they were wrongly prosecuted or maliciously and wrongly accused. There is no way of knowing how many; this is an extremely easy accusation. False accusations are effortlessly weaponized by partners wanting the upper hand in divorce or child custody situations. What rehabilitation do these innocent people need?

A last note about rehabilitation for registrants is taken from Joshua Hoe and a post on Twitter (X). He wrote, “Our best chance at public safety is someone returning from incarceration invested in the body politic, with pro-social dreams of contributing to their community . . . foreclosing this is a terrible reintegration strategy.”

If the criticism is primarily, “They don’t serve their full sentence anyway, so it’s only right that they keep on being punished when they are out in the community,” I’m sorry. There isn’t a piece of data anywhere that supports that line of thinking.

NARSOL welcomes and is responsive to constructive criticism. Please keep it coming. We cannot and will not do everything that everyone wants us to do, but if it helps us improve our effectiveness in advocating for fact-driven, data-driven, rehabilitative, and rational sexual offense laws—bring it on.

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Lessons learned? I believe I was the target of a police sting

a guest writer — Wed, 31 Jul 2024 17:34:39 +0000

An exception has been made to the length limit for this piece.

By Atwo Zee, Registered Traveler . . . Not long after I returned to Iowa after the 2024 NARSOL conference in Atlanta, I received an email forwarded by the national NARSOL office. This message came to them on their main “Contact Us” email address, and whoever sent it was looking specifically for me, “whose story “Unwanted Images” hit home when I was suicidal and wracked with fear …” The sender also complimented my travel blog and expressed a desire to have me participate in a podcast of some kind.

This message was a little odd because of the reference to “Unwelcome Images,” the actual name of my prison story which I never even talk to anybody in our movement about (because I won’t bore you with my prison story if you won’t bore me with yours). Nevertheless, seeing nothing suspicious, I contacted the sender with an “Okay, how can I help you?” reply.

I received a reply within a couple of days. I was sitting at the public computer at my local senior center (because, as some of you know, I don’t have home internet service). The sender said glowing things about me, re-stated his desire to have me participate in a podcast, and included a link to a “recent podcast” so I could see what it was all about.

I need to point out here that, like most senior center public computers, this one has only the most rudimentary software and certainly not much video software, so when I clicked on the link, I could hear the sound but the video only displayed some kind of error message. Knowing trying to fix the video was useless, I leaned in to see what I could hear–which was a man welcoming everyone to the podcast, “We’re here in beautiful Hawaii today, which is such a great place for …”

… and then he used an expression which I recognized all too well from my bad old days online. I won’t repeat that expression here except to say it’s an abbreviation, the letters of which refer favorably to a type of child pornography.

As soon as I heard this abbreviation, I immediately blurted out, “WTF!?” and clicked the video away. Then I replied to the message, telling the sender that if that’s what they are about, I wanted no part of it, and that they obviously have not learned the true lessons of my story (which of course is that no one should ever yield to the temptations of online CP). Good bye!

The next time I was at the senior center, I found a reply in my inbox. The sender apologized profusely, saying the beginning of the video was meant to be a parody, and it’s too bad I didn’t get the joke, and wouldn’t I please watch more of it before I made any decision …

Well, I couldn’t have done that anyway because of the software shortcomings of the computer, but also, now that this reply was trying to goad me into watching more of something I didn’t want in the first place, I started to become suspicious. I forwarded the entire email exchange back to the NARSOL person who’d originally sent it to me, expressed my growing suspicions and asked, “For one thing, how did this person know to contact you asking for me specifically by name? Nobody outside our group is supposed to know my real name – only Atwo Zee, Registered Traveler. And now they’re trying to get me to watch more of this video?”

As my brother later said, “Cops know that sh*t.” Exactly. The NARSOL contact person replied, expressing shared suspicion, and promised to scrub whoever it was from their contact list. Later I replied to the sender saying simply, “Go away. You’re a cop doing a sting,” and I have not heard anything back since.

What lessons can be learned from this experience? Well, the first lesson is that if you don’t want to get caught in a sting, be your genuine self when communicating with anyone online. If there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that anyone active enough in our movement to be reading this right now is part of the 95% of registrants who will never reoffend. Therefore, acting like your genuine self is always best.

I’m sure that every cop–and every Florida state legislator who voted this year to give every Florida sheriff’s department grant funding to carry out these disgusting stings–will laugh and say, “Yes that’s exactly how the system is supposed to work. You responded correctly, and you didn’t get arrested [well not yet anyway]. What are you bitching about?”

The answer, as all of us know, is that there were any number of places along the way where, if I had acted perfectly innocently but only a little differently than I did, I could have unknowingly put myself in legal jeopardy. As I thought about it, I realized that the cop’s first test had actually been to see what email account I might reply from. Would I reply from some secret, unregistered email account? If so, they could’ve arrested me on the spot for “failure to register an email account.” But hey cops – guess what? Nope! I really don’t have any secret email account! Just the one you already have in your records.

Then they must have been kind of confused about where my reply originated. Why some random public computer instead of my secret home account? But hey, cops–guess what? Nope! I really don’t have any secret home internet account! That’s why you don’t have one in your records.

But the part that could have gone differently that I can’t get out of my mind is– there I was, sitting at a public computer with other people around. What if, just as I was leaning in to hear what was on the video, another senior had stopped to talk about something and I just muted the video but left it running while we talked? What if it had run for enough time to get to the illegal part without my being aware of it? What if the video suddenly began to work, showing illegal images while that senior was standing there? Does anyone here believe that senior would not have immediately concluded they’d caught me searching the internet for those images?

Or what if I had been just a little bit less attentive to the sound track that day and not noticed that first ugly reference to a type of child pornography? What if I had been distracted by the video problems and had persisted in trying to get the video to work long enough for it to suddenly pop on at the point where illegal images were on screen? For me these are truly frightening counter narratives.

Or what if they had targeted this sting on someone else–and for that matter, what if they already HAVE targeted this sting on someone else–someone less active in our movement, someone less suspicious about the messages they’re receiving in their email account every day, someone who wasn’t listening carefully when the video came up, someone more naïve or just unlucky on that day. This may have already happened–arrests may have already been made and we won’t even know about it until the county sheriff makes his big announcement about how great he is for “cracking down on sex offenders.” By that time facts no longer matter.

I fear that law enforcement will draw the wrong conclusion from this attempt to sting me. The right conclusion of course would be that there’s nothing nefarious to find here, just me and my one email account and no home internet service to investigate; the wi-fi card has been removed from my home laptop; I have no data plan on my phone, and that wi-fi is permanently turned off. But I fear they will instead conclude that they’ll have to be sneakier about it if they want to catch me doing these things I’m not doing. If they do decide to get sneakier, I fear that I could get tripped up in any one of a thousand innocent scenarios like the examples above that could get me falsely arrested. And I hate law enforcement for forcing me to live in this paranoid state.

I also keep asking myself, why me specifically? Why did someone contact NARSOL looking for me by name? The only answer I can come up with is that this person thinks I’m some big deal activist, and it could discredit our movement to lure me onto a CP site. Of course I’m not some big deal activist; I’m just the travel guy. But it occurs to me that if they’re looking for me, they could be looking for other “big deal activists” too, especially those associated with Orange County or other Florida counties receiving sting grant money. So actual big deal activists should be extra careful.

Lastly, what if this incident has made me completely paranoid and it’s not a police sting? Who else could it have been? It has to be someone who (a) knows me by name and by my two online outlets and (b) thinks NARSOL is a good place to look for me. Could it be a vigilante or a scam artist? If so, they must have access to information about me only the cops should have. Or could this be a real online minor-attracted person delusional enough to think I want to be part of a CP-adjacent podcast? It’s hard for me to believe, but I’d be interested if someone can come up with a believable innocent explanation.

Meanwhile I’m trying to get this story posted on as many sites as possible, both as a warning to others and as a way of getting my side of this incident–which is to say the truth–out there before somebody else tries to twist this truth into a lie and an arrestable offense.

The post Lessons learned? I believe I was the target of a police sting first appeared on NARSOL.

The precipice

Sandy Rozek — Mon, 08 Apr 2024 16:54:10 +0000

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me. —Pastor Martin Niemöller

By Sandy . . . We either live in a civilized nation or we don’t. Our legal and judicial system, based on the time-honored premise that one is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law as drawn from the 5th amendment, either means something or it doesn’t. Either our rules of common decency and courtesy are in place to protect the guilty and the unlikable as well as the innocent and the beloved or they protect no one. Our laws and our Constitution either stand for all, or they stand for none.

Once before our country stood balanced on the precipice of injustice becoming the norm, at a time when, in a large portion of the nation, people of color were accorded few if any civil or human rights and were regarded as being, literally, worth less than one of Caucasian ancestry. We managed to draw back from that precipice, but today we stand at yet another, and this one may succeed in destroying us where the other did not.

We have created another monster to fear, another whose life is worth less than any other not in the same classification–the “sex offender.” It is in quotes not to make light of those sexual crimes that cause harm to others but to show that it has become a clearly defined, easily identifiable sub-category of Americans. Violations of civil and human rights visited upon people with historic convictions for any of a vast myriad of reasons are considered “okay” because those people are, after all, “sex offenders.”

Therefore, vigilantes have hunted down registered people, using public registries like roadmaps, and been called “heroes.” Other vigilantes, in tracking down and killing registrants, felt fully justified in also murdering totally innocent persons, in at least two separate incidents, who were present—a friend and a wife.

In March of 2023, a vigilante in Minnesota felt completely justified in violently murdering a man who had previously been on the registry because he “believed” that the former offender would molest his, the murderer’s, daughter and her friends. His actions created a literal storm of defense and praise for his actions, including his being called a “hero” and comments by a former F.B.I. agent that a jury would probably sympathize with him.

Persons simply accused of a sexual offense are vilified and condemned in the press and on social media well in advance of any trial or conviction, often in advance of even an arrest or charges being brought. Men in prison for convictions involving sexual offenses are often considered “fair game” for mistreatment and violence.

Those with past sexual crime convictions are routinely stripped of the rights otherwise their due. They are turned away from emergency shelters during hurricanes or extreme temperature conditions. Even after death the ignominy continues: Some veterans on the registry are denied the right to be buried in veterans’ cemeteries.

In varying parts of our nation, those on a sex offender registry, sometimes with certain offenses, are barred from:

Living/working/just being where they wish;
Participating in their children’s education and extra-curricular activities;
Participating in Halloween (and in Louisiana Christmas and Easter) activities;
Enjoying public parks;
Living with a minor in the home;
Living in long-term-care facilities.

Men have murdered entire families, sometimes their own, and been given a fair trial. Men have murdered heads of state and been accorded their rights under the law. Men have committed the most atrocious of war crimes, annihilating thousands upon thousands, and have been treated with basic decency as they faced their accusers in court.

But none of those men were “sex offenders.” None of those men lived in twenty-first century America bearing a label that marks them as one who is to be accorded no rights, no decency, no fairness, one who even has no right to the claim of innocence until guilt is proven.

The precipice gapes and widens, and its message is this: If our laws do not protect those judged to be the least deserving among us, then they do not protect any of us.

The post The precipice first appeared on NARSOL.

Wisconsin, what are you doing?

Sandy Rozek — Thu, 04 Apr 2024 17:51:58 +0000

By Sandy . . . It is a given that if one is convicted of a crime, some sort of punishment will follow. Why? It has been thus from the beginning of time. The hope is that the punishment will evoke a repulsion toward the criminal act and the unpleasantness that resulted from it and cause a turning away from it. If the lesson is learned as intended, society benefits.

This is a good thing. Less criminality, increased safety are very worthwhile goals in any society.

But what, then, what if the lesson is not learned? What if the miscreant, rather than turning away from the crime, turns back to it and reoffends? Then harsher punishment is meted out. Obviously, more is needed in this specific case to enable the offender’s realization that continued criminality will result in stronger and more stringent punishment. He had a chance, and he did not seize that opportunity. He must now suffer more severe consequences.

This is the purpose of first-time offenders being dealt with more leniently than repeat offenders. It is logical. It is effective. For the vast majority of those who have committed crimes of a sexual nature, it works; it works better than it does for those who commit every other category of crime with the exception of murder. On average, virtually all valid follow-up studies show that upward of 95% of first-time offenders did not receive a second conviction for another sexual offense.

Why then, why, would the Wisconsin legislature pass law that renders useless this process? A bill has just been signed by the governor of that state that applies the consequences of a repeat offense when only one conviction has occurred.

It is not uncommon practice for the state to prosecute separate charges flowing from one incident as one, thus resulting in one conviction. For example, someone is found to have three illegal images on his computer; he is charged with three counts of possession of illegal pornography, and they are tried together: one case, one conviction, one sentence, and a required sex offender registration period of 15 years.

Under this new law, he is now guilty of three offenses; he is a repeat offender and is given the enhanced requirement of lifetime sex offender registration and lifetime GPS monitoring.

What is missing in this grand new scheme? There was no time between offenses, no time to consider whether he wished to cease or continue his criminal behavior. He is suddenly a repeat offender when he never had the opportunity to choose not to be one.

As egregious as this sounds, it is not the most so. This legislative action, formalized and codified by the governor, is retroactive. It reaches back and grabs by the throat all those who had two or more charges tried as one case. These are individuals who did learn the lesson, who made the right choice, who have not reoffended and are now living law-abiding lives. These are people with families, with jobs, with careers, people who were counting down the years and months and days until their obligation to register would be finished. These are also people who have completed their 15 years of required registration and been released from the obligation. These are, for the most part, productive, contributing members of society.

Now they will be part of the financial strain this new law places on Wisconsin. Now instead of being individuals who messed up, got punished, learned their lesson, and came out of the end of the tunnel into the daylight, they will be forever registrants, forever burdened with the additional expenses, limitations, and restrictions that sex offender registration entails. Wisconsin will see the burden on the taxpayers increase more and more as years go by, not only that dictated by increased registry and GPS monitoring but that required to defend legal action against them.

And the saddest thing of all? Wisconsin citizens will not see a corresponding rise is public safety along with the rise in financial burden. They will not see any rise in public safety at all. Those who have been retroactively made lifetime registrants will continue as they have been, and those going forward will do so as they would have, with the few who haven’t learned the lesson getting reconvicted and the many who have learned it struggling to make a life under the shadow of a punitive, crippling “civil regulatory scheme” that, in 25 plus years of existence, has no evidence—none—to show that it is effective in lowering recidivism, protecting children, or improving safety.

The post Wisconsin, what are you doing? first appeared on NARSOL.

Is this what legislators in Mississippi really intended?

Sandy Rozek — Wed, 10 Jan 2024 02:27:51 +0000

By Sandy . . . I read about a case today that disturbs me; it raises some concerns and some questions that I am unable to find answers to.

A young man in Mississippi was arrested January 7 for “. . . possession of a firearm by a felon, possession of alcohol by a minor . . .”

He is a felon because he has a sexual crime conviction from March 27, 2023. He is a minor because he was born in the summer of 2005, making him 18; possession and conumption of alcoholic beverages in the United States is not legal, except for religious or prescribed medicinal purposes, until the age of 21.

While his sexual crime conviction was in early 2023, when he was still 17, it was for a crime of statutory rape committed in 2018 when he was 13, which raises the first question: Why was there a five-year gap between the commission of the offense and the sentencing? I can find very little information about this case, most likely due to his and the victim’s ages.

Possibly she did not come forward with information that led to his being charged for several years. If this was statutory—consensual but illegal due to a statute making it illegal, in this case their ages–why did she make a complaint? Was she pressured by someone to go to the police? Was he allowed to plea to this charge when her behavior was not, after all, reciprocal? These are questions that will probably never be answered.

Possibly there was legal wrangling back and forth for several years before he pled guilty to the charge. Five years between a crime being committed and a conviction being recorded is actually not very rare and therefore not a very serious concern after all.

My next question is more serious—much more serious. This young man is identified in local media as the youngest person on their local sex offender registry. Why? And by why, I mean why is he required to register?

In the definitions for the 97-3-65 sexual crime of statutory rape is this: “. . . conviction or adjudication under Section 97-3-65(1)(a) when the offender was eighteen (18) years of age or younger at the time of the alleged offense, shall not be a registrable sex offense . . .” The difference between 97-3-65 (1)(a) and (1)(b)—which is the sub-section of this young man’s conviction–is the age of the victim. (1)(a) encompasses victims aged 14 and 15 while (1)(b) delineates victims aged 13 and younger. (16 is the legal age of consent in Mississippi.) This boy’s victim was in his age group; he was thirteen—thirteen. Why is (1)(b), which allows charging “a person of any age,” a registerable offense when (1)(a) is not? The age differential between the perpetrator and the victim allowed in (1)(a) is actually greater, 36 months, than that of the 24 months allowed in (1)(b).

Is this what the crafters of the statutes governing sexual crime in Mississippi intended, that a person of 17 or 18 could be convicted of statutory rape with a person aged 14 or 15 and not be required to register, but a person of 11 or 12 or 13 could be convicted of the same exact offense committed with a person aged 10 or 11 or 12 and be required to be on the Mississippi sex offender registry for, as the judge in this case is reported as saying, “the rest of his natural-born life”?

This was a child who quite possibly engaged in sex-play with an age-appropriate peer, sex-play that may well have gone beyond being age-appropriate behavior. It may not even have been sex-play at all but aggressive behavior. Punish him. Counsel him. Help him. But don’t put him on a registry that will destroy “for the rest of his natural-born life” his ability to make that life a normal one.

The post Is this what legislators in Mississippi really intended? first appeared on NARSOL.

The unintended victims of sexual crime hysteria

Sandy Rozek — Wed, 29 Nov 2023 13:54:33 +0000

By Sandy . . . It is seldom that the morning newsfeed offers not two but three pieces dealing with the same topic, a topic that piques my interest and warrants some consideration.

Some states structure their sexual offender registry so that a technical violation is punishable by a jail or prison sentence and in some states is considered a new sexual offense. This may be tied in with a violation of sexual offense probation. Granted, when on probation or parole, restrictions are more rigid and expectations of autonomy are fewer, but the question remains: Is incarcerating a person for a year or longer the best solution for a technical violation that involves no new attempt at committing a crime against a person?

In Cumberland County, Tennessee, a 79-year-old man, John, was given a year’s sentence for “. . . technical violations of the sex offender registry law . . .” The media source does not identify what the technical violations were. They could be anything from accidentally being a digit off in a submitted telephone number to moving without registering the new address. But even if it were the later, he didn’t go far; law enforcement apparently had no trouble finding him. At the time of this sentencing, John had already been in jail for three months for a probation violation, which, as best as I can decipher the verbiage, was for the same offense. Tennessee imposes lifetime community supervision—probation– on a significant number of registrants, and failure to comply with registry requirements can be charged as a probation violation. Further investigation shows that John’s one sexual offense conviction was in 2015 for possession of illegal images.

A case in Albany, New York, raises even more concerns. Jason, age 43, the registrant in this case, has been sentenced to 28 months imprisonment for “. . . failing to update his sex offender registration information.” When released, he will serve five years of post-release supervision. His one prior conviction was in 2011 for receiving child pornography—different language meaning essentially the same as the Tennessee case, possession of illegal images consisting of child pornography. This new conviction is for failing to update his residency address on the sexual offender registry. According to the media source, in New York this conviction, for a registrant, is a new crime as it is in violation of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act.

Finally, a 43-year-old Coldwater, Michigan man has been sentenced to from 17 months to ten years for parole violations and from 17 months to four years for not complying with the sexual offender registry. Travis was given an additional sentence, to run concurrently, of 16 months to two years for not complying with reporting duties. His sexual offense conviction was in 2020 for 2^nd degree criminal sexual contact.

NARSOL has frequently said that we are not attorneys and we do not give legal advice. There is one bit of legal advice, however, that we have been known to give: If it’s the law, obey it. If you are on probation, your responsibility is to follow the terms of your probation. If you are on the registry, you are responsible for knowing the registry requirements for your state and following them. If you believe they are excessive—such as counter-productive residency restrictions—or illegal—such as sheriffs requiring Halloween yard signs without legal authority—beg or borrow if needed and find an attorney.

When individuals do not follow supervision requirements or registration stipulations, they must expect consequences. But shouldn’t the consequences fall to the person who is in violation rather than to the state, its taxpayers, and the innocent?

Jason and Travis are mid-forties in age. With any luck, they were working; they were earning, supporting at least themselves and quite possibly families. They were renting or buying, spending, contributing to the economy. They were paying taxes. And now? How much does it cost to incarcerate a man for a month? A year? Ten years? Will their families need public assistance now? Lose their homes? How much more is lost over and above their wages and all that a wage-earner contributes?

And what of John? He is 79 years old. In addition to the base cost of incarcerating him for a year, what are his medical needs? Is there an elderly wife at home who can manage—or not—without him?

Whatever lessons these incarceration terms are intended to teach, would it not be reasonable to try a few months instead of a year, two years, possibly ten years? John’s criminal record shows that this is his third conviction for registry and supervision infractions, and were it not for his age, a year’s sentence might be appropriate. Perhaps the question in his situation is will the cost of his incarceration be offset by what he learns in a year behind bars.

The criminal records of both Jason and Travis indicate that these convictions for parole/registration violations (Travis) and failing to update registration information (Jason) are the very first of the sort that either of them have accrued. Would not a few months in the county jail be a reasonable and much more cost-effective attempt at correction? A second, more subtle concern that must be raised in connection with registration violations is this: Failing to comply with registry requirements is an offense applicable to no category of crime except those that trigger an obligation to register. This is an often-overlooked fact among the plethora of discriminations that make up criminal registries.

Is it not time to give these issues some serious thought?

The post The unintended victims of sexual crime hysteria first appeared on NARSOL.

Righting a horrible wrong: children registered as sex offenders

NARSOL — Mon, 30 Oct 2023 12:27:37 +0000

Reprinted in full with permission; first published in the Delaware Daily State News Oc. 26, 2023

By Margaret . . . Kudos to our legislators for passing House Bill 186 during Delaware’s 2023 legislative session and to Gov. John Carney for signing the bill into law. HB 186 will provide pathways off the Delaware Sex Offender Central Registry for our children. It is important for Delawareans to know that the multitude of sexual offense laws in our state apply to every single person, regardless of age or gender. No one is exempt.

The most recent publicly available statistics, from 2011, show 639 children on the registry, 55 of whom were under age 12. Sadly, the growing body of overreaching, all-inclusive sexual offense laws meant to protect our children can potentially cause them great harm. A child of almost any age may be adjudicated as a sexual offender. Once on the registry, the anonymity of a child is often compromised, resulting in their being bullied, physically attacked by their peers, or worse. In some cases, the entire family may be harassed.

For some offenses, Delaware children are sent out of state to juvenile detention facilities, exposing them to “hardened” juveniles who often prey upon them. These children, often now traumatized themselves, are returned to Delaware at age 18 and placed on the publicly accessible registry as an adult and assigned as a Tier II registered sexual offender (for 25 years) or Tier III (for life) — this, for a “crime” committed as a child.

Delaware’s sexual offender registry is publicly available. In addition, registrants’ employers, landlords, neighbors and schools are notified by law enforcement. The ostracism toward those who “wear” the label “sexual offender” creates high levels of joblessness, homelessness, and exclusion from educational opportunities. It negates opportunities for rehabilitation, restoration, and redemption. Registrants’ families suffer collateral damage, as well, by being threatened, harassed, and having their property vandalized.

It is incumbent for everyone, especially parents, to acquaint themselves with the many sexual offense laws in our state. An act that may seem innocent, such as consensual touching, may be punishable as a sexual offense. Protect your children from the laws that are meant to protect them, as they may become victims of those very laws.

Margaret is executive director of DARSOL, NARSOL’s affiliated orgainzation in Delaware.

The post Righting a horrible wrong: children registered as sex offenders first appeared on NARSOL.

NARSOL’S CT affiliate: Let’s make Halloween fun again

Cindy Prizio — Mon, 23 Oct 2023 15:54:09 +0000

Reprinted in full with permission; first published Octobrt 23 at the CT Mirror.

By Cindy Prizio . . . When I was a kid, Halloween was a night of freedom, fun, and candy. Our parents never accompanied us. We were neighborhood kids, and this was our community.

Years later, when I had a child of my own, some aspects of the holiday had changed. A parent always accompanied each group of kids. Neighborhoods were more spaced out and the danger from cars increased.

What didn’t change is the excitement my son felt — his costume carefully thought out and prepared. He eagerly waited for dusk and the festivities to begin. I loved hearing the sound of my son squeal with unadulterated glee as we went door to door with our family, including our dog and many others. On Halloween we were ALL family no matter our race, politics, or socioeconomics.

The moms would dress up as witches to greet us with hot cider. At one house a mummy propped up on a bench came alive when we rang the doorbell. This wasn’t some machine, but rather a real person scaring the wits out of us! Cul-de-sacs became block parties. Other adults in our neighborhood stood around bonfires, some enjoying Devil’s Grog or maybe a stogie. The night was a celebration!

As a mother in her 60s who has lived in Connecticut nearly my entire life, I have experienced Halloween as a child, parent, and neighbor. Over that time, I have seen Halloween change from my favorite holiday to another sad example of community fear and division. In the past there were so many children we ran out of candy and had to resort to giving out quarters and apples. As the years went by, we began to have a lot of candy left over at the end of the night. Only a few older teens were trick-or-treating at our house. Eventually, we stopped needing candy altogether; children don’t come to our door anymore.

What’s changed? For one thing, I have! As executive director of a statewide non-profit that speaks out against the injustice of marginalized people, I see up close the societal and human cost of irrational fear and how it erodes the strength of our communities. Such fears lead to public policies that are destructive and ineffective, costing precious taxpayer resources and doing more harm than good.

Urban legends abound during Halloween. Some are harmless, but others cause extreme reactions from parents to imaginary dangers. In 1970, the New York Times published an article claiming Halloween goodies could bring “more horror than happiness.” It spread fears of candy-tampering that were fueled by the era’s social upheaval and the sense that neighbors could no longer be trusted. The resulting rumor panic ended homemade Halloween treats for children and led to “safe” spaces at trunk-or-treat events or the malls.

Yet researchers have found zero instances of a stranger killing or seriously injuring a child with Halloween candy, and the Times itself has admitted its mistake. However, other media outlets continue to spread this myth because it “sells papers,” (or drives clicks) which creates more fear, which leads to more mythical stories, which sells more papers.

For the past few decades, the media has focused on another boogeyman in our neighborhoods: the person who has been convicted of a sexual crime (more egregiously known as a “sex offender”). Journalists who create sensationalized stories direct parents to the online Sex Offense Registry. The product-research site Chamber of Commerce erroneously ranks towns on Halloween safety in part based on the number of individuals convicted of sexual offenses living there, despite the fact that the Registry website itself states that being on the Registry is not an indicator of dangerousness.

The research has shown that children are at no higher risk of being sexually harmed on Halloween than any other day. The vast majority of sexual offenses against children are by other children or trusted adults in their social proximity. Additionally, more than 95% of sexual crime is by people who are not on the registry.

For the fathers and mothers who are on the Sex Offense Registry, or have a loved one on the Registry living with them, Halloween is a time to be in your home with lights off and absolutely no exterior decorations. Parents and grandparents on the Registry often have children who would otherwise be trick-or-treating with them. Their children don’t get to participate with the entire family on Halloween. Why are these children being punished?

Much as with the persecution of witches, today’s myths cause suffering based on nothing more than feelings of fear and hate. The fear of strangers continues today in mythical poisoned candy, the boogeyman of the “sex offender,” and other false beliefs. Only time will tell who the next group to be feared (and hated) will be. We are all strangers to someone.

As news organizations face pressure to generate revenue, their journalistic integrity will continue to erode. The media can provide a real public service through insightful and well-researched reporting. Or it can also cause real harm through spreading imaginary dangers. The public must hold the media accountable for misinformation if it is to stay well-informed with accurate facts. Until certain media outlets stop their sensationalism and fear mongering, it’s up to the public to be critical about what they are being told. It is easy to give into fear; we create healthier and safer communities by seeking and understanding the truth.

The unvarnished truth is that the real and greatest threat to our children on Halloween is the automobile. Kids are three times more likely to be hit by a car on Halloween than on any other night of the year. By focusing on imagined dangers, communities are failing to take action that could actually protect children.

Our communities need to stop chasing the latest media ‘witch hunt’ and come together as neighbors. We can start by getting more involved in local government and other community organizations. Maybe we’ll even find a way to make Halloween fun again.

The post NARSOL’S CT affiliate: Let’s make Halloween fun again first appeared on NARSOL.

The nonsense of “sex offender” employment restrictions

someone outside of NARSOL — Sun, 22 Oct 2023 17:22:50 +0000

Reprinted in full with permission; first published October 19 at Filter.

By C. Dreams . . . In the month since I was released from Georgia Department of Corrections custody, I’ve been offered four different jobs. I could have been an account lead at a prominent insurance agency; a receptionist at the same agency, different location; an accountant at another insurance agency; and a paralegal assistant at a law firm. I submitted each offer to my local sheriff’s department, where each was promptly rejected. It appears there are only two available positions in the entire county I’d be allowed to work, one of them at Taco Bell and the other also at Taco Bell.

People who aren’t impacted by sex offender registry (SOR) restrictions typically think they ban you from schools. They do, but they also ban you from living or working within 1,000 feet (as the crow flies, no matter how long the actual route) of churches, gyms, community centers, parks—public parks, even. Pretty much any job in any moderately urban area is going to be within 1,000 feet of at least one of those.

The insurance company jobs were salaried positions in the $30,000s, with health insurance and dental and monthly bonuses. The paralegal assistant job paid $21 per hour, but in the field I’m actually passionate about and qualified to pursue, and even if that weren’t true it still would have been $6 more than Taco Bell.

The highest-paying offer, $38,000 with potential for advancement up to $80,000, would have had me working from home—that is, the partially constructed boarding house for people on SOR where I rent a room. I would have only had to physically go into the office for four hours on Mondays to do paperwork. Alas, a few hundred feet down the road from that office there is a church.

I’m allowed to go to church to attend Sunday services. I’m allowed to pay $45 to go to church when my weekly SOR classes are held in basement. But I’m not allowed to go once a week to a building that is not even a church, just in the vicinity of one, if the purpose of my being there is the gainful employment I desperately need. Not having enough money is a parole violation.

Within the next few weeks, my SOR fees will begin flooding in. The first is the mental health evaluation—best guess, it’ll cost around $300. My parole officer said there’s another county where I might be better off taking it instead, because it’d be a lot more expensive in this one. How much more expensive? I asked. To which she replied: “…Like, a lot.”

The evaluation is to clear me for the SO rehabilitation classes, which will probably be $45-$50 each week for at least a year.. Every couple of months I’ll have to pay $250 to take a polygraph. I have no idea how much the random drug tests will cost, but they will cost something. Not to mention the $800 for rent each month and another $125 for insurance—car, not health. I still haven’t been approved for Medicaid. Or food stamps.

The best job that people on SOR around here are geographically eligible to get is at the Kea manufacturing plant. The job that just about everyone actually gets is at the poultry processing plant. There are a few openings doing other kinds of manual labor, or scattered across the fast food industry. I’ll be alright because I intend to marry someone fabulously wealthy, but most people are stuck hauling chicken carcasses.

I’m frustrated. During the 13 years I lived in a cage, I put myself through college. I clerked at the prison law library, completed courses in paralegal studies and civil litigation, filed five lawsuits against the Georgia Department of Corrections and in three of them represented myself. I earned my Doctor of Theology, from a program where the rest of the students were not incarcerated and I had to complete the same coursework in the brief windows it was safe to take out my contraband Android. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think I’m too good for Taco Bell. But I do think it’s fair to say that I’ve driven myself into the ground for years out of determination to transcend my circumstances. And for what?

The SOR rhetoric purports to be about rehabilitation and second chances. I would like that second chance very much. What exactly am I supposed to be doing that I haven’t already done? Why do they even bother letting people out, when all roads lead right back in?

The post The nonsense of “sex offender” employment restrictions first appeared on NARSOL.