It’s a phone message you don’t want.
Someone from the registry office calling. “This is Mr. ……, call me back, ASAP”.
Your mind goes into overdrive. What did I do? Did I go someplace I wasn’t supposed to? Did I cross some imaginary boundary line that I wasn’t aware of? Did someone file some false complaint against me? Your imagination runs amok.
Even though you know that you haven’t done anything wrong, that message has put you into panic mode, you’re scared to death to make the return call.
You manage to pull yourself together. You make the call. You get voicemail. “Leave a message.”
OK. You’ve done your part; you’ve returned the message. But you’re still left with the worry. What? What’s this about? What did I do?
You talk to your family and friends. “What do you make of this?” “Does it sound bad to you?” Now, not only you but your family and friends are on edge, all desperately want the assurance that you are not in some kind of registry-trouble.
Phone-tag ensues. Two long days of phone-tag. Two days of worry, sweating, freaking out.
The registry has a way of intimidating, even by the silence of the phone.
When you make actual contact with the registry guy, you’re told “We don’t have any record of you having registered this year!” “You need to come down to the office.”
WHAT? Now your hands are shaking, your heart is thumping out of your chest.
You know you registered. You remember the exact date. You remember every detail, their computers weren’t working that day, you paid your registry fee in cash, they don’t take checks, they don’t accept credit cards, they had to give you a hand written receipt, both you and the registry guy signed it. The registration procedure is intimidating, not something easily forgotten.
In a panic, you pull out the “Registration File” you keep.” Please be here, please be here”, you pray to the cosmic gods. Then, “Yes, thank you, thank you, thank you.” Your receipt. It’s here. You knew you had it. Over the years you’ve learned to keep your receipts, your notes of interactions with the registry, parole, law enforcement, etc. You can’t be “too safe”. (What happens to homeless registrants, where are they supposed to keep safe, their receipts and notes?)
The registry is intimidating, it forces you to constantly second guess yourself even when you know the answer.
You make a call. “I’ve got my signed receipt right here” you say to the registry guy. “Can I email you a copy?”
“No” he tells you. “You need to come to the office. Tomorrow. 11AM.”
Your brain kicks into over-drive again. For some reason all you can think about is the “sting operations” you’ve heard about. Registrants called to one location under a pretense and then rounded up and hauled back to prisons, like cattle, for violations or offenses they may not have even known they had.
Is that what this is, you wonder? Will there be deputies there, waiting to arrest me? What did I do? If I didn’t do anything, why can’t I just email a copy of my receipt? This can’t be good. This is bad.
Intimidation. Nerve-wracking. Frightening. Scary. Over-whelming. Terrifying. You don’t sleep that night.
11AM the following day. You show up, show the registry guy your receipt. “Yep, that’s what I needed” he says. “Let me just make a copy for my records.”
That’s it. It’s taken less than 2 minutes. Your record keeping is obviously better than that of the registry. They can’t find their copy of the receipt, so they rely on you to have your copy (or maybe they’re relying on you NOT to have your copy.)
The registry succeeded in doing what they do best, they’ve kept you in a state of over-whelming panic, intimidating you into believing you’d done something wrong, when the only thing wrong was the incompetence of their system. (In the 21st century who doesn’t have receipt books with copies, one for the customer, one for the vendor? Where was their copy, where’s their accountability?)
A word to the wise-
If it’s not on paper, it didn’t happen. Keep those registry receipts in a safe place.
“If it’s not on paper, it didn’t happen. Keep those registry receipts in a safe place.”
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…and take pictures of them and/or scan them for cloud archival.
Yup, happened to me this year. Now I keep hard copies and digital copies. And I maintained messages of confirmations that these were done.
In situations like this an electronic paper trail is a good thing because they are time stamped. Harder to disprove that I didn’t do my due diligence.
Great advice. I hear people so many times say when you talk to someone to “get the name of the person who you talk to”. That is worthless. If you have an important conversation, there must be an audio recording.
A person should also never underestimate the immorality of other people and how they will try to harm you. Always assume that LE is trying to frame you. It is just good practice.
But regarding phone calls or cards at my home requesting “call me back”. I never, ever allow that. I never allow LE to request that I do anything. I know the law. If they need something extra or are “missing” something, that’s their problem. They have to rectify it at my convenience. I never go to their offices until I am required by law. Never. So they don’t bother me.
All People Forced to Register should do that. It sends the correct message. We need to all stop helping pretend that any of this is acceptable or legitimate.
Another thing I should add is that the Registries should be changed to require nothing of the People Forced to Register (PFR). The criminal regimes should be responsible for collecting all of the information. It should not be possible to arrest a PFR for anything.
That would make the Registries less illegal and immoral. The criminal regimes also wouldn’t have to whine that their glorious Registries aren’t accurate enough because they have to depend on “sex offenders” to give them the information.
TODAY, I will ensure that the Registries are useless and that I bring harm to some people that support them. Today. It is a shame that America has to continue to be the hateful place it’s always been.
That happened to me last year. I showed up for my regular verification and the state trooper who is always there to handle it asked me if I was there to verify last time. I said “Yes, you were the one who did it.” She said she didn’t have a record of it. I told her I know I was there and she said “Maybe you told your probation officer and not us.” Umm I haven’t been on probation for 18 friggin years.
So I went home and dug out the stack of signed registry receipts I have collected over the years (20 years), and was very relieved that the one I needed was on the top. I mean I know I have the habit of saving them, but that fear that maybe I forgot this one time when I needed it the most was strong.
The mistake was she entered the wrong date into the computer. The signed date was correct, but the date PRINTED on the top of the paper was the previous year. So obviously it didn’t show the correct year in their database. I took that paper back and showed her HER mistake. I just pointed to it and said nothing and you know what she did? She scolded me and reminded me that it’s MY responsibility to check the paper carefully before I sign it. So this was MY fault. I could had faced 4 years in prison over this f-up and she has the nerve to scold me for it.
So from then on I slowly read my papers twice before I sign them. Usually I am anxious in there and can’t wait to get out. But, now I force myself to be calm and look over everything carefully. I try to reverse the roles. It’s usually them trying to make us stand there and sweat while they take their sweet time pretending to check something. They do that on purpose to make us nervous. Now I just stand there calmly with a little smile on my face and wait. Then when they turn the paper over to me to sign, I take my time reading it, knowing they are the ones getting impatient.
In 26 years of registering the only call I received about failure to register was the phony one from Sgt.. Douchebag. In fact, I always tear up those papers afterward to prevent them from falling into enemy hands, or accuse tal discovery by my kids. It feels good to tear that shit up, too. It fuels the denial that carries me through the year.
Had a similar experience a few days before Halloween. Some sergeant from the Sheriff’s Department came to the door and the first thing he said was for me to step onto the porch so he could talk. I just told him “I hear you just fine. What do you need?” He said I did nothing wrong, he was just doing a compliance check and asked if everything was current. He said I didn’t register my place of employment, to which I answered that I was sure I did. But even if not, my place of employment is in a different county and is registered there. He said it might be a problem. I answered if it was, get an arrest warrant and he knows where to find me.
Coincidentally, I had to go to the registry office a couple days later when I got the license plate for the car I just got a few weeks before and the same issue came up with the nazi lady that runs it (she makes everyone wait for hours on end, no matter why you’re there). She chewed me out a little and wanted me to wait while she confirmed with the county I work in that my employment is registered there. I told her I wouldn’t, that I had other things to do and told her the same thing – get an arrest warrant if you find that I hadn’t registered as required in both counties, and advised that I would have proof of both on my person as soon as I got home that day.
I haven’t heard from them since.