NC sex offender registry makes re-entry a balancing act of restrictions without resources

Source: wunc.org 4/18/22

Chris Budnick is in an impossible position.

As the leader of Healing Transitions, a peer-based recovery-oriented service for homeless and uninsured people located in Raleigh, Budnick is left scrambling if someone with a sex offense comes to him for housing.

Some of society’s most vulnerable people come to Budnick, asking for help. He has to turn them away due to the location of Healing Transition’s men’s campus on the edge of the new Dorothea Dix Park.

“I’ve heard people say you have a better chance if you murdered somebody with like, moving on in your life after you’ve done your time,” Budnick said.

Some 98 percent of people currently incarcerated will eventually reenter society, according to the North Carolina Department of Public Safety, most of those people will face barriers upon reentry. Sometimes people who have been incarcerated for years don’t know how to use now-familiar technology such as computers and cell phones. Others have difficulty rebuilding relationships with family, or struggle to find work and housing.

For people exiting prison with sex crimes on their record, it can feel like a life sentence, said Coleman, who was formerly incarcerated for a sex crime and asked to go by a different name.

Some of society’s most vulnerable people come to Budnick, asking for help. He has to turn them away due to the location of Healing Transition’s men’s campus on the edge of the new Dorothea Dix Park.

People with sex offenses are set up to fail, Zack argued. Society wants them to fail, he said.

“We feel like as a society, that’s what they deserve,” Zack said. “But what society doesn’t understand is them failing is creating more victims.”

Research has indicated that sex offender registries have little impact on recidivism rates — including studies in New Jersey, South Carolina and North Carolina. Only two studies, from Washington and Minnesota, found a correlation between a state having a registry and reduced recidivism rates.

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The premise restrictions and Residency restrictions gotta go in NC. This state sucks. It’s where I live. As a dad it’s hard as hell. My daughter asking me why I can’t do certain things with her. Its a state that punishes the wives and children of registrants by trying to bar the registrant from being a parent as much as they can. I just wanna pick her up from daycare, I just want to take her to a park and teach her how to not be afraid and protect her. I want to be there to sign her up for soccer and dance and practice with her to help her and support her. I wanna take her to a pool and teach her how to swim. These laws dont punish me or protect children, they punish children by separating the family unit and we’ll being Why does she have to be punished? She’s an innocent child.

The registry is part of the database driven infrastructure! It’s the part that legitimized domestic surveillance under the guise of public safety, the commoditization of personal information data, and many other onerous aspects. Very soon the U.S. Dollar will not be standardized unit by which all other monetary exchanges are formulated. This will not be America’s choice, rather will come from a convention of other Nations acting in their own interests. You can only buy your friends for so long.

I guess sticking up ones finger up is database driven or would it be motor skills. …

I don’t know what you gossip is about on this internet or is it going into doors which are not suppose to be open. Balancing is one thing and Justice is another. So how is your mood swing when you leave the courtroom or we find you guilty or who is called out in court for suppressing the truth. So to avoid embarrassment many courtrooms just give out plea bargain deal or make other alternatives.

I really don’t know what this dude of this infrastracture is all about ir is he an atom bomb about to implode.. I’m sure many are about to implode. Do we all get angry, vent, cry like a baby .. I’m sure we all do. They say patient is a virture as at times one has to step up to the plate. Life is not always winninng game for the giants or cubs.