Source: filtermag.org 10/23/24
Law enforcement has done a good job of portraying recidivism as a kind of unfortunate tendency some people just can’t help. Rarely do media and pop culture indicate that a parole violation can mean the state equivalent of the FBI taking you into custody without warning because you were using an adult webcam site while inside your own home.
Christy paroled out of Georgia Department of Corrections custody in September 2023, after about 13 years of incarceration stemming from survival sex work. Being forced to register as a sex offender comes with an onslaught of fees—often hundreds of dollars per month—that are mandatory to pay as a condition of parole. At the same time, the registry disqualifies people from almost every job that isn’t remote or very rural, which makes livestreaming on an adult webcam site a logical option.
Sex work is often one of the few sources of income, if not the only one, that people on a sex offender registry are able to access. Anything prohibited by law, such as prostitution, is an automatic parole violation for anyone—on or off the registry—but there’s nothing illegal about livestreaming by consenting adults. However, parole, probation and sex offender registries go past the law to criminalize people for activity that is legal.
With less than five months left on parole, Christy is now in county jail—ostensibly because she’s not allowed to look at porn.
I’m also in Georgia. The no-porn restriction always struck me as ludicrous, primarily because I think it infringes on freedom of thought, of which I include where a person gets entertainment.
It was the first conflict (but certainly not the last) I had with the “treatment” provider, who was recommending we don’t watch YouTube because POs might consider it porn and me replying that it was a sword I was willing to fall on for obvious reasons. At the time I didn’t care if porn was restricted – I’ve probably watched more during my 5 years in prison than my 45 out of it; my problem was a PO considering everything porn.
Later research has shown that there was no increase in sex crime after the exponential growth of the porn industry on the internet. Indeed, at any given time, 4 or 5 of the most visited sites are porn sites. Yet the sex crime rates across the population remain the same, and very few of those are recidivists.
Nor have I ever run across a case where a person was binge watching porn and snapped into sexually assaulting someone. Not saying it has never happened, just that I haven’t come across one, indicating that it doesn’t happen very often, if at all.
Beyond that, porn use is often recommended for the treatment of actual, bona fide, competently diagnosed sexual disorders, according to the handful of licensed therapists and psychiatrists I’ve spoken with.
All in all, the parole/probation system in Georgia (and elsewhere, I’m sure) is simply absurd.
I think Christy’s main problem is this person has a tendency to break or bend rules (using contraband cellphone, getting jobs without permission from PO, etc.). It’s not the interpretation of rules that is probably getting this person into trouble, but their own determination to violate some of the clearly defined ones. Christy needs to realize that Christy is not in charge of their life yet. It’s tough, but we all had to humble ourselves to people who could care less about us and our successful reentry in order to get past that successfully.
In Arizona, there is a probation condition that says “do not view or possess any pornography or sexually oriented material deemed inappropriate by the probation officer “. I asked my PO at the time, (I am off paper now), what was sexually inappropriate and she said “whatever I say it is”. So very vague. They even forbid us to have the SI swimsuit magazine