Across elementary schools nationwide, when the dismissal bell rings, kids tear out of the building like nobody's business.
It's so great to go home.
One particular afternoon, a couple of Florida kids wished the bell had never rung.
Moments before dismissal, the school administrator had come across a neighborhood mom distributing pictures of their dad to parents waiting for their kids.
The dad is a registered sex offender. His photo--and the family address--is listed for all to see on the Florida Sex Offender registry.
Although the pictures were confiscated, the damage was done.
These children face public hostility, fear, and loathing, parental unemployment, loss of their home, break-up of their families, threats, harassment, property damage and social exclusion every single day.
Friendships are hard to come by when parents won't allow their children over at that house.
The event described occurred in my local community--the Space Coast of Florida, home of NASA, a place where one would think most residents are fairly educated.
Are sex offender laws protecting all kids...or just some kids--and what about the kids of those forced to register? Are they dispensable?
I've made my decision.
The collateral damage--the toll of ostracism endured by family members as a consequence of over-expansive community notification laws--is governmental child abuse.
Get educated on just how these laws are destroying young lives across this country. But cold hard facts don't do it for some people, so let's make collateral damage personal.
Read the unedited letter below, written by an elementary school child who grew up to have a voice.
Will he be heard?
Will Governor Crist listen?
Dear Governor Crist:
I'd like to tell you a story; a story of a family composed of two sons, 9 and 5, and a mother, with a potentially fatal heart condition. For three long years, on every Saturday, this family visited Bill Pratt, a sex offender, in jail for an hour. It was a long trek to the jail, and almost every time we went, we were harassed by the guards. "Your not allowed to wear chachi pants," or "Stamp with your left hand not your right!" said the guards, as we were shoved in the the small, tight, and loud maximum security room, with armed guards at every few meters. Every week we would drive an hour there and an hour back in the cold New Jersey night, and if we were minutes late, then too bad, the guards didn't care; they didn't care that we were two innocent kids and a single mom with a heart of an 80 year old, working two jobs, and had more then enough stress for five people combined. But they didn't care, and treated us so.
Finally, after those long, strenuous years of legalized harassment and hours of crying in dark corners, his day had come, my dad was being let free. By that time, we had already moved to Florida. He jumped into his car, and drove down to Florida. Now it's expected that we lived happily every after as a good happy family, right? Well it has kind of turned out a bit differently then expected. Over the years after my fathers emancipation, I as an individual, as well as my mother, and especially my brother, because everyone knows kids can be real bastards, have faced ridicule, outcast, and have been denied friends and oppurtunities because my dad's a sex offender. Our entire family, me included, has had multiple serious mental breakdowns, where we have had serious problems such as overeating, heart related chest pains which signal grave things, and failing every subject in school along with being late every day. Along with that, my mother's stress is still through the roof, what with having to still work two jobs and overtime just to keep us out of debt, and the fact that my dad can't keep a job for more then a few months. All he can find work at is construction companies paying little above the minimum wage because he is a sex offender. Keep in mind that this man has a masters degree in Business, and was one of the top managers at Lockeed Martin at the time.
I am now 15, enduring worsening hardship with each passing year. I thought by now, as with all other ex-felon families, that all of this would be behind us and I could enjoy life as a normal teenager. But, my father was arrested while going to work because the police thought that he had not registered a temporary address. He was in fact registered at our home, but the police wouldn't listen. So to keep him out of jail for even more undeserved years in that overcrowded hellhole, my mother had to use the families last $2000 to bail him out of jail and are still paying for the attorney, to keep him out of prison.
And now, when things were starting to look up, what happens? 5 days before Christmas, he is arrested again while going to work, because of a suspiciously deliberate administrative screw up by the state of New Jersey and they are threatening to extradite him back to New Jersey, when they new all along my father was legally registered as a resident of Florida (for the past 3-1/2 years).
This means many things for my family. My mother will almost guaranteed- die- beauce of her heart condition, that non one seems to care about , my brother will fail 6th grade, and we will probably never, and if we do it will be in many, many years, see my father again. He will miss my mothers passing away, my brothers and my first girlfriend, our high school graduation, our college graduation, and maybe even our marriages.
I'm sure the father's of our Constitution (yes, I am an honor student at a school of choice- learning about this not-so great country) could not have envisioned the law's of today. Yet, please, uphold what they set forth and understand my mother, brother and I have lost our civil rights to privacy, etcetera, because of the out of control sex offender laws.
Governor, please do not allow my brother, mother and I to continue as collateral victims to a crime of my father's that was long ago and which he already paid for. We want and need him back in our life. Please, we have suffered so much already and you are the only one who can help us!! Please let my father out of jail- he didn't do anything, but go to work. We can't bear being without him again. He is all we have- we have no other family (no grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc.) and have passed too many holidays alone.
Thank you for your time and I hope, clemency, for my father. We need him back!!
Christopher William P. (for privacy sake- if there is such a thing in my life?)
It's so great to go home.
One particular afternoon, a couple of Florida kids wished the bell had never rung.
Moments before dismissal, the school administrator had come across a neighborhood mom distributing pictures of their dad to parents waiting for their kids.
The dad is a registered sex offender. His photo--and the family address--is listed for all to see on the Florida Sex Offender registry.
Although the pictures were confiscated, the damage was done.
These children face public hostility, fear, and loathing, parental unemployment, loss of their home, break-up of their families, threats, harassment, property damage and social exclusion every single day.
Friendships are hard to come by when parents won't allow their children over at that house.
The event described occurred in my local community--the Space Coast of Florida, home of NASA, a place where one would think most residents are fairly educated.
Are sex offender laws protecting all kids...or just some kids--and what about the kids of those forced to register? Are they dispensable?
I've made my decision.
The collateral damage--the toll of ostracism endured by family members as a consequence of over-expansive community notification laws--is governmental child abuse.
Get educated on just how these laws are destroying young lives across this country. But cold hard facts don't do it for some people, so let's make collateral damage personal.
Read the unedited letter below, written by an elementary school child who grew up to have a voice.
Will he be heard?
Will Governor Crist listen?
Dear Governor Crist:
Finally, after those long, strenuous years of legalized harassment and hours of crying in dark corners, his day had come, my dad was being let free. By that time, we had already moved to Florida. He jumped into his car, and drove down to Florida. Now it's expected that we lived happily every after as a good happy family, right? Well it has kind of turned out a bit differently then expected. Over the years after my fathers emancipation, I as an individual, as well as my mother, and especially my brother, because everyone knows kids can be real bastards, have faced ridicule, outcast, and have been denied friends and oppurtunities because my dad's a sex offender. Our entire family, me included, has had multiple serious mental breakdowns, where we have had serious problems such as overeating, heart related chest pains which signal grave things, and failing every subject in school along with being late every day. Along with that, my mother's stress is still through the roof, what with having to still work two jobs and overtime just to keep us out of debt, and the fact that my dad can't keep a job for more then a few months. All he can find work at is construction companies paying little above the minimum wage because he is a sex offender. Keep in mind that this man has a masters degree in Business, and was one of the top managers at Lockeed Martin at the time.
And now, when things were starting to look up, what happens? 5 days before Christmas, he is arrested again while going to work, because of a suspiciously deliberate administrative screw up by the state of New Jersey and they are threatening to extradite him back to New Jersey, when they new all along my father was legally registered as a resident of Florida (for the past 3-1/2 years).
This means many things for my family. My mother will almost guaranteed- die- beauce of her heart condition, that non one seems to care about , my brother will fail 6th grade, and we will probably never, and if we do it will be in many, many years, see my father again. He will miss my mothers passing away, my brothers and my first girlfriend, our high school graduation, our college graduation, and maybe even our marriages.
I'm sure the father's of our Constitution (yes, I am an honor student at a school of choice- learning about this not-so great country) could not have envisioned the law's of today. Yet, please, uphold what they set forth and understand my mother, brother and I have lost our civil rights to privacy, etcetera, because of the out of control sex offender laws.
Governor, please do not allow my brother, mother and I to continue as collateral victims to a crime of my father's that was long ago and which he already paid for. We want and need him back in our life. Please, we have suffered so much already and you are the only one who can help us!! Please let my father out of jail- he didn't do anything, but go to work. We can't bear being without him again. He is all we have- we have no other family (no grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc.) and have passed too many holidays alone.
Thank you for your time and I hope, clemency, for my father. We need him back!!
Christopher William P. (for privacy sake- if there is such a thing in my life?)
Protect children from sexual violence: Don't adopt the Adam Walsh Act
Salt Lake Tribune
1/17/2008
For Where's Waldo fans, Mark Foley is easy to spot in the photos pictured today.
Foley--as Co-Chair of the Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus--proved instrumental in the passage of the very laws he ultimately broke.
At this writing, Mark Foley remains a free man, protected by friends in high places, most recently and most notably by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
The Speaker refuses to provide the FDLE with access to the disgraced Congressman's House computers.
Ask yourself.
Could you refuse the FDLE access to your computer?
Could you pay your legal fees with campaign contributions?
If lawmakers will not enforce the law regarding their own colleagues, then why should they be permitted to enforce the same on the rest of us?
These guys are playing politics with your kids.
Tell your elected officials.
NO MORE.
Salt Lake Tribune
1/17/2008
For Where's Waldo fans, Mark Foley is easy to spot in the photos pictured today.
Foley--as Co-Chair of the Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus--proved instrumental in the passage of the very laws he ultimately broke.
At this writing, Mark Foley remains a free man, protected by friends in high places, most recently and most notably by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
The Speaker refuses to provide the FDLE with access to the disgraced Congressman's House computers.
Ask yourself.
Could you refuse the FDLE access to your computer?
Could you pay your legal fees with campaign contributions?
If lawmakers will not enforce the law regarding their own colleagues, then why should they be permitted to enforce the same on the rest of us?
These guys are playing politics with your kids.
Tell your elected officials.
NO MORE.
13 comments:
Sex offender registry laws are a sympton of a society that wants easy solutions to complex problems. In some cases, sex offender registry is necessary. Certain kinds of sexual predator behaviors are notoriously difficult to cure, but one size does not necessarily fit all. In SC, we have only recently enacted "Romeo Laws" to distinguish statutory rapes where a 17 year old in a long-term relationship with a 14 year old who maybe doesn't act or look like a 14 year old is not treated the same as a violent pedaphile, but if an individual has been already been convicted of consensual sex with a teenager who cannot legally consent, they still must register twice a year (at $150 a pop) for the rest of their lives. Harsh, and really not protective of anyone.
Thanks for posting this information. Did you know...
Sex offender laws are based on two popular myths about child abuse: that children have most to fear from strangers, and that sex offenders will repeat their crimes. In fact, more than 90 percent of child sexual abuse is committed by someone the child knows. And authoritative studies show that three out of four sex offenders do not reoffend within 15 years of release from prison. In fact, 87 percent of sex crimes are committed by people with no previous sex offense convictions... "
And many of those registered have never physically touched anyone.
:(
"While it may seem a good idea to place all convicted sex offenders on a registry, law enforcement officials and child safety advocates say that expanding the registry to include all offenders reduces its usefulness in helping law enforcement to identify and monitor individuals considered a real risk to the community."
This year, tate legislatures have a chance to stop this nonsense by refusing to comply with the Adam Walsh Act, which is disturbing in the fact that it does not tackle real dangers to children.
Sex offender laws have gotten out of hand. We have a neighbor who is registered, he and his girlfriend, now wife, had sex while she was 17 and he 18. Parents found out and reported him. Now they are a married couple and he has to register.
What a crock.
www.pafundi.com
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Number of Operations Iraq Freedom and Enduring Freedom casualties as confirmed by U.S. Central Command: 4387
Sunny, the thing that NEEDS to happen is for a civil rights OR ANY attorney to SUE over this shit. ALL OF THEM. Not just the SO's. But, ESPECIALLY the SO's. Too many men and women have been set up by this. I used to be a lil miffed at debs for shitting where she ate but ... the thing is how much does someone have to have IN FOR HER to rat her out for stuff like that?
Years ago that would have been a hot rumor passed around. Just like the guy above. I'm sorry for those who think this is a HUGE CRIME but when I was 15 my boyfriend was 20. He was the ONLY PERSON I could have a decent conversation with. Eventually, years later (catholic girls yeah some of us GO SLOW me I was set on VERY SLOW LOL !!) we finally errrrrrrrrr... yknow DID IT. BUT, my god my mother even though she initially objected to the relationship would never have called the police. MY GOD
The only thing that scarred that kid likely is the fact that his testimony was required.
They use the meanness in people to keep themselves gainfully employed.
I hate you today so I will call the cops, the health dept, the animal control, the sheriff, your probation officer and all that other bullshit.
AND, all of these service (in Tampa for sure) have their roots in the Masonic and Illuminati.
It's very obvious.
I meant to say in the previous post that their book (masons for dummie) was situated directly next to all the books on prisons and corrections. The next book was sociology.
It all fits together.
All these folks that some want to call conspiracy nuts are pointing this out and it looks like I am becoming one. Fine with me.
There's too much evidence which exists to prove where it all arose.
Thanks for posting a specific example for those reading this post, Ted.
Lawmakers paint the picture that everyone on the registry is a child molester.
Your friend's circumstance depicts the exact opposite.
Getting the word out--educating people regarding the truth of this situation--reveals the true slime factor of these laws.
Additionally--your friend will be haunted by these laws forever if your state chooses compliance with the Adam Walsh Act.
Never ever trust a Child Named Law, especially one Mark Foley has been involved with.
There is always an underlying agenda.
I urge everyone to read "No Easy Answers" and the recommendations made by the Human Rights Watch.
Please pass the word.
We've got to turn it around, Vox.
Spread the education. It's the only way we can get people to understand how politics are dividing us against ourselves.
It's Joe McCarthy all over again.
We already know the county comission there dosn't listen,the Florida legeslator's didn't hear Jill L.'s message when she spoke the same day as Ron Book, must be the money.
Sunny, whether these laws are based on myths or not, there is one fact that is not a myth. If sexually deviant behaviors should be punished, then local, state, and federal bodies need to come up with a system that tailors itself to the individual class of abuser, not these wide net laws that treat all as one.
In all other cases of criminal conduct, people are seen as having broken the laws, not groups. That is the key to the damage of the registry and residency laws. We are all treated badly, no matter what or who was offended against. The teen with teen crime is prosecuted in the same manner as the abduction. This is what has to change. I am all for punishment, but this punishment should be laid out at time of sentencing, NOT 5, 10, 25 years after the fact. Everyday, there are more and more people affected by the registry. Spouses, children, parents; all are affected by the registry. This is as you stated the Collateral Damage of bad practice of law, and passage of restrictions on people that have long since paid their debt to society. This must change. So, for anyone that reads this remember that as one voice, we are powerful. Let's use that voice in November. Vote these people out. Let all who see understand that it is not just us that are paying but also everyone around us. Get rid of the Republican lexicon, and begin again.
Think about the children? I think about mine everyday...
I honestly believe that politicians have become so full of themselves--so insulated--that they have forgotten the power of people as a collective group.
Let's remind them of that power in November.
Vote them out--throw them out--and let's begin again.
For your kids and for mine.
Thank you for your thoughts.
:)Sunny
http://stitches77.wordpress.com/
Thouht you might like to check out my blog.
Excellent blog...and you are so right...no one seems to think about the kids of RSOs...you know why....because if a politician or his/her family member gets caught in this trap, the charge is pled down to avoid the sex offender laws. Those who create the laws and find the same suddenly applicable, are never provided the opportunity to feel the lash of these laws.
Thanks for the link and keep on getting the word out!
My son is in prison for 8 years and is on the SOR.When he was 15 years old he sexually abused his sister,he realized what he was doing was wrong and stopped,2 years later my daughters school found out about it and call the cops.He was and charged as an adult,for something he did when he was 15.He was put on probation for 7 years. 5 years later his PO revoked him for having consensual sex with a girl that was 22 years old.Because he did not get her permission first, before they had sex. Now he seats in prison for 8 years.
Thank you for your story, anon. My initial thoughts upon reading your thought is that this is a family who could most likely afford about five minutes of legal representation....in this country, if a person can't match the State dollar to dollar, a person can't afford to plea down the charges (like ex-Miami Dade city attorney Barry Kutun, who actually slept and paid for sex with underage girls and was able to plea down to child abuse charges) or fight back the court for too long. I'm afraid that happened to your family. If you had the means, your son would most likely be on probation with no contact with his sister. So many people without power or status are sitting in prison.
My wish for you. When he is released, your son must live the best life he can--hold his head high and use what happened to him to help others--maybe even become a civil rights attorney. He will need your support. But living well is the best revenge one can get after going through something like this.
What you can do? Vote. Vote every incumbent out of office--local, state and federal. Fire them.
With a clean house, we can start over.
We can do it...together.
You and your family are in my thoughts.
Sunny :)
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