When it comes to America’s sex-offense registry regime, there’s a lot to get outraged about. Indignation over its everyday cruelties serves a function when it moves us to action.
But bad news isn’t everything. There’s a lot of good to point to among those living under the system. I learn that every time I meet a registrant or one of their family members who’s running a thriving business, started a support group, or spending every week visiting legislators.
Last month the first issue of a new magazine came out that’s designed to publicize all of those good-news stories in one place. It’s LifeTimes Magazine, a sharply written four-color quarterly, and you should check it out if you haven’t.
Great idea! I’m subscribing today. Given the nearly 900,000 registrants and their extended families, we are a community of three to five million. As we come together, our world can become more positive and our constitution restored to its former glory.
I know I’ll sound cheap, but $8.75 per online issue seems a bit pricey to me. Usually online magazines are cheaper than printed magazines. And so far the sample magazine is only 18 pages. For a magazine to have a good start, everyone should be able to see at least one free full edition. And the price should be as low as possible to jump start readership and to attract relevant advertisers. If (paid and free) subscription numbers were high enough, it would have the potential of being a good advertising location for advocacy groups and individuals wanting to advertise their goods or services to registrants.
I wouldn’t trust this. Besides the fact that the cost clearly targets only the affluent registrant (one has to wonder why), I suspect it is just a means concocted by someone who is probably not even a registrant to enrich himself at our expense. Someone has determined that we are a market that can be fleeced.
Whoever is behind it will learn who we are, and probably sell this information at a profit. Subscription records can be subpoenaed by government agencies also to learn who we are. Of course, government knows who all of us are, but they might be interested in who among us are not quietly subservient, who among us might be inclined to fight them in court.
Maybe that sounds paranoid, but I fell for a scam like this in the early 2000’s that promised to keep me abreast of “sex offender registration” requirements in all 50 states. It was expensive. The web site disappeared a couple of months after I forked over my money.
Wish they could just give out the first issue as a pdf. I tried reading the sample on my tablet and the text was too small and out of focus, and I couldn’t enlarge it to recognize any words.
No thanks. I want total and complete annihilation of the label, not indoctrination and “acceptance.”
Agreed, particularly about the likely content of this (proposed?) magazine – nothing more than a reprint of what we see here, SOSEN, etc. That info needs to be published to the general public and idiotic legislators, not the SO community.
Think the security angle is a bit unfounded. Personally, I flat out told my PO and treatment provider that I follow and comment on registry matters and wish I had the resources to contribute more to the effort. Neither indicated they had a problem with it, nor would I care if they did. I’d fall on that sword if they made an issue of it, and am confident I would prevail if it came down to that.
Bottom line, there’s not much value to this magazine, regardless of what it costs (negligible to some, significant to others). But I’m not quite willing to question the motivation of whoever wants to publish it. I think the effort would be better spent elsewhere.
I am able to read the sample fine with my computer and am curiously impressed with what I have viewed. Like another comment I will sign up for a year and see how this proceeds.