Source: theguardian.com 10/22/22
Jess and Annie Nichol want to undo the harsh criminal laws passed after their sister was abducted: ‘We don’t want our pain to be used to punish anyone else’.
Annie Nichol was seven years old on 19 March 1994 when she was brought to the White House to talk to Bill Clinton.
With a stuffed dolphin by her side, the girl spoke to the president about her 12-year-old sister, Polly Klaas, who had been abducted five months earlier from the family’s home in Petaluma, California, while Annie was sleeping nearby.
Annie and Clinton watched footage showing how she’d since booby-trapped her room with bells and ropes to stop intruders.
“Do you think I’m going to live to grow up?” television cameras captured her asking the president.
“You’re a brave girl,” Clinton responded, adding that he was working to make sure people with “serious problems” would remain in prison.
Today, Annie is tormented by the memory. Polly’s kidnapping and subsequent murder fueled a host of “tough on crime” laws and a powerful victims’ rights movement, which pushed America to have the highest reported incarceration rate in the world.
The meeting at the White House, Annie said, was a reminder of how her family’s story was exploited to expand mass incarceration and racial inequality in America.
Hmmmm…sounds like child exploitation to me!
Maybe the sisters should get in touch with Jacob Wetterling’s mother, Patty, to discuss a reform movement to repeal/modify the legal movements that were done in their family names since both are disenchanted with what has happened with the movements. A joint effort with the name recognition these two families have is pretty powerful, IMO. They sure would be a counter act to Mr. Walsh.
It’s to late for all that, the damage is done and yes their family was exploited by the federal government for mass incarceration.
America built this country off the blood sweat and tears of African-Americans, they became a super power off of free labor and mass incarceration/plantations.
The American government now plans on turning all sexual offenders into convict’s in order to keep the prison‘s full because the African-American population is starting to wake up, their getting smarter and wiser to the government’s oppression that has been placed on them all throughout this country.
All these SORNA LAWS that they’re proposing are and will be law by 2035/2040, don’t believe me just look at one of the laws their applying right now as we speak the 21 day notification before international travel, that was directly taken from the new SORNA proposal, As time goes on they’ll slowly start applying more SORNA LAWS off that daam list on PFR.
Y’all better start fighting back now wile ACSOL is here and willing to help you guys because this organization is 1 of a kind so take advantage while you can donate and participate and if your going to be petitioning for removal soon, I recommend going through Janice.
I’m am happy to hear that these women are able to reclaim their own story, and that of their Sister and her legacy. My hopes go with them as they continue to speak their own words, and help to undue the injustice their family’s tragic loss was used to create. I applaud their bravery, and commitment to actual justice for all. Perhaps they can inspire others who have experienced loss such as they have, to add their voices to these brave women’s.
It is my hope that other’s will listen to these women. Listen them speak the truth, that revenge is not justice. Revenge is the antithesis of justice. Our Nation used these poor girls, Polly and her Sisters, to justify terrible injustice in the name of “Safety”, and in the long run created only danger and destruction in the name of revenge. It is my hope that people will hear that and know it to be true.
These are my hopes, but I have become too used to having my hopes left unfulfilled to think any of this will change anything. America is far too committed to revenge as a substitute for justice. Too committed to destruction in the name of safety. Too committed to the creation of illusions of safety, to even attempt to do the work needed to create actual safety. But, I am a jaded pessimist, and I know it. As such, I am forced to admit that I could be wrong. So perhaps, the words of Sir Winston Churchill will once again be proven right?
“You can always count on Americans to do the right thing, after they’ve tried everything else.” – Churchill
So, let’s hope we’ve finally exhausted all other options, and the only thing left is what we should have done from the start! At bare minimum, I can at least know that these women are well, and that Polly finally has someone speaking for her in an attempt to create safety with justice. What better legacy could we hope for? What better way to remember and honor this girl, taken with such cruelty, than to help make a society where this loss will never happen again, through justice, reason, intelligently constructed plans to create this world?
It makes me wonder…we know what Polly’s Sisters think. We know what Jacob’s Mother has been saying for years. Do we really know what Meagan and Jessica’s family thinks, or do we just assume we do? We certainly know what Adam’s Father thinks, but he does not speak for all.
I hope they are left in peace, but I am curious what they truly think about the legacy their tragic losses help create. Perhaps they will speak for themselves, or perhaps they will not. Either way, we should allow them to choose for themselves.
Ok, off my soapbox, for now. 😉
We are repeating history. Indentured servitude has long been recognized for what it is under the 13th amendment. However the people have been convinced otherwise by the purveyors of big tech who benefit greatly by granting their properties special considerations not available to any other kind of properties use. The Klass, Wetterling and other families like them were all exploited by both the criminal elements and the political class each with their own self serving and maniacal agendas. Has the DDI factually reduced crime in any form or fashion? No! In fact, it has not only exacerbated many types of crime, but created whole new criminal opportunities.
“In 2019, Jess watched 13th, Ava DuVernay’s documentary on the history of racial inequality in the US, which featured Polly’s story: “When I saw the sequence from slavery to our current mass incarceration crisis, with Polly’s face right there as one of the major reasons incarceration took off in the 90s, I was stunned.”
Be careful Jess! With that kind of thinking, your going to be accused of being some WOKE leftist liberal from Sonoma County
Well if even his own daughters hate him, what does that say about Marc? I can tell by looking at him he’s not a good person. There’s evil in his eyes.
It’s a good article full of common sense, but I am wondering what these ladies feel about the registry. I wish they would have commented on that.
While Polly Klaas is often used as another justification for the registry in general, the fact of the matter is that it’s another case that would not have been prevented by the public registry had it been in effect at the time. Even the LE-only registry in California made no difference because Klaas’s assailant had no sex crimes in his rather long criminal history.
For that matter, it’s a pretty good counterclaim to LE arguments that the registry is a “useful law enforcement tool.” I’ve been asking for years to find one single crime apart from registry violations that the registry provided anything to investigating. And if there is one (which I seriously doubt), what the registry provided that wasn’t available anywhere else. I can’t even get anyone to even acknowledge the questions, let alone answer them.
I’m pretty sure the only use LE has for the registry is to solicit larger funds to maintain it. I’m equally sure that only a fraction of the grant money received is actually used for that purpose.
This story article shows a bit of remorse, confusion, and wrong doing…. Talk about tough on crime, racial justice and this all out bulletin of this Polly Class issue. One thing that struck my eyes is “sweeping the streets”. Guess sweeping the internet seems like a logical issue or is it a bait trap for quasi judicial type of justice.
Sure a three strikes and your out is a bit of a man-made issue. Guess its got to be a gunfight for justice at the justice level. How did they clean up the Old west, or how do they clean up War. Talk about white man speak with fork tongue. While kidnapping is one issue as Janice has said the punishment must or should fit the crime. Which only makes common sense.
The angle to all this is “Sex” and placing a stumbling block on others. Courts are like an in and out how do you plead or conned into a plea deal of some measure. Course I’m glad these gals are stepping up. I’m sure it was confusion at the time of the kidnapping.
I lived in Petaluma the year Polly Klass was murdered. Horrible act made worse by the inept sheriffs department and lack of communication with the Petaluma PD.
Being a PFR I was called in for an interview by the Petaluma PD.
“Round up the usual suspects” I had been working on a friends house a couple of blocks away from where Polly was abducted so naturally I was considered a suspect.
The cops allowed me to come in their back door to avoid the press that was assembled at the front. I was very appreciative of that since at that time there was no public disclosure and I had never been in the paper regarding my conviction. The interview was short and simple they didn’t really consider me a suspect and let me go.
What was stunning is the circus that was created around this tragedy. I watched as her father, who was underemployed, start this foundation and inserted himself as the head and was getting donations from every corner. There was someone else, his name escapes me, that was also trying to start a foundation “in her name”. That person was shut down as fraudulent. ………… and it goes on.