Sex-offender registries: How the Wetterling abduction changed the country

Admin

After Jacob Wetterling was abducted in 1989, a pastor named Thomas Gillespie of the St. Joseph Parish offered support and comfort to the Wetterling family. He invited them to dinner, opened the church for a community prayer service and presented them with hot cross buns at Easter. What the Wetterlings did not know at the time was that Gillespie was a sex offender who admitted molesting a boy in the 1970s and was finally removed from the ministry in 1996. Full Article

Related posts

Subscribe
Notify of

If you are feeling extremely depressed and possibly even suicidal, please call or text 988 (suicide hotline) or any loved one who you believe is immediately available. If you feel depressed and in need of a friendly community and unbiased emotional support, you can email Alex and Marty at emotionalsupportgroup@all4consolaws.org

 

We welcome a lively discussion with all view points - keeping in mind...

  1. Submissions must be in English
  2. Your submission will be reviewed by one of our volunteer moderators. Moderating decisions may be subjective.
  3. Please keep the tone of your comment civil and courteous. This is a public forum.
  4. Swear words should be starred out such as f*k and s*t and a**
  5. Please avoid the use of derogatory labels.  Always use person-first language.
  6. Please stay on topic - both in terms of the organization in general and this post in particular.
  7. Please refrain from general political statements in (dis)favor of one of the major parties or their representatives.
  8. Please take personal conversations off this forum.
  9. We will not publish any comments advocating for violent or any illegal action.
  10. We cannot connect participants privately - feel free to leave your contact info here. You may want to create a new / free, readily available email address that are not personally identifiable.
  11. Please refrain from copying and pasting repetitive and lengthy amounts of text.
  12. Please do not post in all Caps.
  13. If you wish to link to a serious and relevant media article, legitimate advocacy group or other pertinent web site / document, please provide the full link. No abbreviated / obfuscated links. Posts that include a URL may take considerably longer to be approved.
  14. We suggest to compose lengthy comments in a desktop text editor and copy and paste them into the comment form
  15. We will not publish any posts containing any names not mentioned in the original article.
  16. Please choose a short user name that does not contain links to other web sites or identify real people.  Do not use your real name.
  17. Please do not solicit funds
  18. No discussions about weapons
  19. If you use any abbreviation such as Failure To Register (FTR), Person Forced to Register (PFR) or any others, the first time you use it in a thread, please expand it for new people to better understand.
  20. All commenters are required to provide a real email address where we can contact them.  It will not be displayed on the site.
  21. Please send any input regarding moderation or other website issues via email to moderator [at] all4consolaws [dot] org
  22. We no longer post articles about arrests or accusations, only selected convictions. If your comment contains a link to an arrest or accusation article we will not approve your comment.
  23. If addressing another commenter, please address them by exactly their full display name, do not modify or abbreviate their name. 
  24. Please check for typos, spelling, punctuation, and grammar errors before submitting.  Comments that have many errors will not be approved. 
ACSOL, including but not limited to its board members and agents, does not provide legal advice on this website.  In addition, ACSOL warns that those who provide comments on this website may or may not be legal professionals on whose advice one can reasonably rely.  
 

9 Comments

I continue reading stories, studies and statistics like this one. I only wish these kinds of stories and statistics would result in change. I really want my life back

0
Reply

The argument needs to be made that people whom are FORCED to register are not a confirmed or verified safety threat or a legitimate public safety concern. It’s too speculative, anticipatory and preemptive to suggest that being placed on the registry can be a deterrent for future criminal activity.

Can’t we all agree that there’s no such thing as a “safe neighborhood?”

The argument also needs to be made where the community notification simply does not minimize risk in any capacity.

The “I want to know” false entitlement argument from the registry proponents also needs to be attacked and dealt with.

Also, non-violent, non-contact offenses should not be required to register.

(No, I’m not new here).

0
Reply
View Replies (2)

I was thinking about the Lindberg baby kidnapping way back in the last century. No I was not there, but I remember seeing a documentary about Lindberg. That was a big media event of the time and a tragic event for the parents and the nation, but I can’t think of any big new laws that came out of that or a decades long histeria following it. What has become of us since then, that any shocking event is met with extreme reworking of our laws?

0
Reply
View Replies (4)