The year 2012 was a remarkable year! The civil rights of registered citizens were recognized and protected by federal and state judges in a series of cases that (1) declared the Orange County park ban is preempted by state law, (2) stopped temporarily enforcement of Prop. 35’s requirements to disclose online identities, (3) prohibited the City of Simi Valley from requiring registrants to post a sign on the front door of their homes, and (4) blocked parole officers from applying residency restrictions to all parolees in San Diego County. In addition, the City of Lake Forest repealed their park ban after one lawsuit was filed and a second lawsuit was threatened.
And the year 2013 promises to be even more remarkable! Courts will make final decisions in the cases listed above as well as in lawsuits currently pending in three cities in Orange County (Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach, and Seal Beach) as well as one city in Los Angeles County (Lancaster) that challenge sex offender ordinances in those cities. In addition, California RSOL has asked all cities in southern California who have passed sex offender ordinances to repeal their ordinances or they, too, can expect to be sued.
In addition, we are working toward the reintroduction of a tiered registry bill in the state legislature. The goal of our efforts is to provide the automatic termination of the requirement to register for individuals after 10 or 20 years depending upon the current risk assessment and not the original offense for those who have not re-offended.
Further, we will expand education of registrants and family members by meeting in new areas of the state. The first meeting in Bakersfield is already scheduled for February 9 and will be followed by a meeting in Santa Maria on February 23. And we will expand the public’s education of issue, in part, by hosting the national RSOL conference in Los Angeles in September.
Come join the remarkable progress we are making. If you are ready, we ask that you Show Up, Stand Up and Speak Up in any way that you feel comfortable. You could let members of your family know that you are a registrant, you could join California RSOL the next time we testify at a City Council meeting or you could write a letter to your state legislators in Sacramento. And if you’re not yet comfortable doing taking these public actions, you can support this worthy cause privately by making a donation. Whether great or small, every donation helps California RSOL continue the uphill climb toward restoration of civil rights for all registrants.
Please know that California RSOL is here for YOU….whether you are a registrant or a family member of a registrant. We Shall Overcome!
Janice thank you for all you do. And great to hear about the new bill!
Tiering the registry is a good goal. Reforming California SORA (Sex Offender Registration ACT)to remove mandatory registration for all but the most serious/violent offenses is better, however.
Restrict the power to impose sex offender registration on a discretionary basis to the local courts on a case-by-case basis.
Why? Because triers of fact (judges, juries) are in a far better position to decide which cases should warrant the burden of lifetime sex offender registration by deciding each case on its merits.
Blanket mandatory registration demanded by a legislature far removed from individual circumstances does nothing but bloat the registry into a useless and, ultimately, costly waste of resources. Just ask Jaycee Lee Dugard.
Would Phillip Garrido have been able to get away with 18 years of abuse if he had been considered “dangerous?” He wasn’t, according to the local police who did nothing for all those years.
That is what’s wrong with the registry: too many people on it for all the wrong reasons, and no one watching the predators.
This should be the ultimate goal of RSOL everywhere.
..but scop, you miss the point.
They need a subclass of people that can be the “hate-magnet” to soak up all the heat. It has nothing to do with protecting children or inhibiting child and adolescent sexual abuse because if it did, they -never- would have designed such a stupid, useless, expensive, mean-spirited, abusive wasteful and just plainly wrong-headed approach.
If it gets “fixed”, they’ll need to design another “hate-sink” (see what I did there?) to soak up all the anxiety and fear run amok these days. Sometimes I think it’s better that those of us who are strong enough to endure this insanity do so as a public service. Otherwise they’d find some other group of saps to beat up. At least we can handle the heat, and think of all the lives we’re saving while you meditate on how you destroyed the life, pride, self-respect and self-worth of your victim…or something.
Hey Bill, you got it exactly right and I really like your attitude to the
whole joke that we find ourselves in. I have always compared us sex offenders as
this generations "Blacks" and just as they had to fight for their civil rights
to be recognized in society we will have to do the same.
We might have to go as far as
civil disobedience
to get this done. Rosa Parks decided not to take being a second class citizen
any longer and dared to site at the front of the bus…well, risking arrest we
might have to do the same. It would be best to do this in mass to make the point
and with the certainty of arrest we need numbers to endure the abuse that we
will suffer.
@Tired of Hiding:
I went on the registry in 1980, under the 290 as it existed in 1980. I left California in 2005, not because of 25-years of bullshit from the “Authorities”, but because I completed my career and retired to Mexico where I am happily living with a woman half my age.
It can be done.
In 2000, a crusader-cop came after me with a vengance because I committed a technical. Sure, I went to the “tank” for several hours, but when it got to court, the biggest danger I faced was wasting the judge’s time. The prosecutor bellowed and heaved, but the court just doesn’t take RSO issues seriously. They have bigger fish to fry.
We (my friend) IMHO..could enlist the judiciary in the RSOL issue. The judges know what is a problem and what is not! It’s the crusaders and obsessed, manic sex deviates that make it difficult to be well-adjusted humans.
And they hate us because they hate themselves. We have come to grips with whatever we know and have lived-through…THEY are still in denial and are likely to be dangerous.
Cheers!, brother. May you live long and prosper!