General Comments August 2018

Has anyone thought about doing a mass emailing and flyer campaign to get out the truth to citizens. If the idiots that spread lies by doing this (I have received emails saying ” sex offender alert”), why can’t ACSOL and NARSOL and the action committees do the same. Send a packet to every assemblyperson with all the facts. Maybe a packet to school boards, and local city counsels.

I saw a RING commercial that networked communities via their doorbell/ camera devices to warn of “potential criminals”. How soon do you think that they will be able to use the registry to let their customers know who and where S.O.s live. The potential off the app industry to latch on to the felony scare could be devastating. They market it as community watch, but in reality it is creating potential vigilantism.

I am writing this post on behalf of my brother (with his consent), a registered citizen who lives in a small town in the Midwest. I am his sister living in the SF Bay Area.
After he completed his year and half probation, he was told by the detective in charge of registration that since my brother is on the lowest tier he should consider petitioning to be removed from the registry. He mentioned that several other RC’s in the county were successfully removed.
That was twenty months ago and my brother has not made any attempt to file a petition. During that time I have asked him repeatedly to please do this and if it was OK with him, I would contact the detective for more information on the petition process.
This past spring my brother was forced to quit his job of 20 years due to a health and safety issue. When he went to the sheriff’s office to re-register due to change in employment status, the detective again talked to him about petitioning for registry removal. He spent almost an hour with him discussing the registry and the petition process – this time the detective recommended using an attorney just to be certain that all paperwork and forms are filed properly. My brother sent me the detective’s contact information and the detective confirmed that it was OK for me to email him with any follow-up questions, which I did. The detective promptly replied and answered all of my questions: he confirmed that only the judge made the final decision for granting registry removal, not the prosecutor. (When my brother first registered his parole officer told him that this judge did something unprecedented: he allowed him to continue to live in his home, even though he lived too close to a church school.) Also, the detective gave me the name of a local attorney whose client was successfully removed from registry.
My brother fears that his chance of being removed from the registry is slim, that it would be a waste of money, plus he dreads going back to court as it provokes his anxiety. He thinks that he would be better off just waiting seven years until his time on the registry ends. He knows that his chances of finding employment in his community are slim, so he plans to live off of his 401k money (he’s 56 and can avoid early withdrawal penalties because of the “over 55 hardship rule”.)
I think it’s worth it to take a chance on the petition. I have told him that I would pay for the attorney fee. And, I would be with him when he goes to court. Continuing to live with his current situation for the next seven years can take a toll on his health: he’s afraid to leave the house for fear of running into someone who knows him. He drives to another town to do his shopping. He has had death threats. He is not allowed to be away from his home for more than 72 hours. He needs court approval to take a vacation and he would only be approved for seven days at most.
If removed from the registry, he can move to another state. I’ve told him that he can move to California and live in my home – he would have his own apartment with a separate entrance. I live in Silicon Valley where jobs are plentiful; service jobs go begging and he has experience as a bartender and waiter, so I think he would have a better chance of finding work in California. He would have the option to move back to the Midwest if he doesn’t like California.
So, we are both curious what other RCs think he should do: file the petition for removal or just wait seven years?

I am amazed at the number of articles that ACSOL finds pertaining to sex offenders. The constant introduction of bills, revision of laws, and ridiculous stories can only mean one thing. The U.S. has nothing better to do than think about the sex offender. We are an industry. From software designed to find us to a plank on some politician’s election platform, we are the glue holding the hate together in this country.

Ob a side note, a prospective employer loved my resume, but turned me down due to my registration, not my misdomeanor, but my status.
So I promptly went and wrote the most critical Yelp review of the business.