As the family members of registrants, it’s often hard to hear the stories of the disrespect that our loved ones endure on a daily basis. They are often disrespected by the public, media, law enforcement, city, state, government officials and others because of their status. Too often, there’s been little that registrants could do about the way they were treated. As advocates for our family members, at the very least, we want to confront those who disrespect our loved ones by jumping in, making phone calls, sending emails or letters…
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Kat’s Blog: Will Pennsylvania Ruling Begin the Domino Effect We Need?
Pennsylvania’s “Sex Offender” Registry is headed for what some are calling a life-or-death battle in the PA Supreme Court. The registry, in existence for nearly a quarter of a century, enacted as part of Megan’s Law, a law giving the public a false sense of security by allowing them access to know who and where “sex offenders” lived in their communities, is about to be challenged. A challenge that we can only hope will either begin putting the registry to death or at the very least, let it be picked…
Read MoreKat’s Blog: This Is How It Starts
“Beware of men in white vans traveling the country, abducting young women and children, using them for human sex trafficking or selling them for body parts.” According to a recent CNN report November saw an upswing in this unsubstantiated RUMOR, a rumor that went viral on Facebook and Instagram, a rumor that even had the Mayor of Baltimore warning his city to BEWARE of men in white vans abducting and selling women and children for sex and body parts. Unfounded RUMORS. This is how fear-mongering starts. This is what drives…
Read MoreKat’s blog: The Flaw in Meghan’s Law
Our hearts go out to the Pennsylvania father who happened to be a registrant and who missed the birth of his third child for no reason other than the fact that he was a registrant. We can all put ourselves in this guy’s shoes and imagine the sense of devastation and embarrassment he must have felt when told he couldn’t attend the birth of his child and then to be escorted out of the hospital by security when he hadn’t done anything. As I try to make some sense out…
Read MoreKat’s Blog: Registrants Left Out in the Cold, Again
Great News! Fremont, Ohio in Sandusky County has a homeless shelter. A homeless shelter that denies access to registrants, but a homeless shelter none the less. I can’t help but wonder what the “do-gooders” of this town were thinking when they set up what is basically an “emergency shelter” and then decided to be prejudiced against who they will take in. According to the local law enforcement of Fremont, there are approximately 6-8 homeless each night in the town. Coincidently, the new shelter can hold 8 people. But if one…
Read MoreKat’s Blog: Will Vagueness Take Down the Registry?
It’s well known, nothing is clear cut when it comes to the registry. The rules and regulations may vary slightly from state to state, but the vagueness with which these regulations were conceived and are enforced, is the same all over. Take Halloween for instance. In my neck of the woods, every year registrants were given letters by their P.O.’s or sent letters from the registry office outlining the do’s and don’ts of Halloween. Some years there were curfews and restrictions on outside Fall Decorations. There were warnings to keep…
Read MoreKat’s Blog: Prisoners Fighting California Fires
The California fires were raging across the CNN newscast, firefighters in yellow and orange turnout coats braving the hellish lines of fires that roared up and down hillsides, valleys and canyons. But wait, according to Bill Weir, reporter for CNN, those firefighters in the orange coats aren’t really firefighters, they’re prisoners from jails or prisons that have volunteered and been specifically trained to assist in fighting these kinds of catastrophic fires. You would think this was a good thing right, prisoners stepping up, willing to help out the state in…
Read MoreKat’s Blog: The “Public List” That Remains Private
In 1963 the Supreme Court/ Brady v. Maryland, ruled that prosecutors must inform those accused of a crime about any evidence that might help their defense at trial and that includes sharing the information on something known as the “Brady List.” Counties across the country are, by law, required to keep a detailed list of police officers who have committed crimes, who have lied on the job or whose honesty is deemed “questionable”. We’re not talking about officers who have been fired either, these are officers that are still on…
Read MoreKat’s Blog: Are We Collateral Damage?
Collateral Damage: Injury inflicted on someone other than an intended target. Specifically, civilian casualties of a military operation. The earliest known use of the term was in1947. Until I had a family member on the registry, I’d never been referred to as “collateral damage”, then all of a sudden, that’s what I was informed I had become. When I was a newbie to this registry nation, some of the more senior advocates suggested that family and friends of registrants are considered “collateral damage.” “We’re not ON the registry, but we…
Read MoreKat’s Blog: Time to Dispel the Halloween Myth
It’s that time again, Halloween, pumpkins, trick or treaters, candy, Stranger Danger news coverage and the registry police. It’s hard to imagine that between law enforcement and the news media, what was once an enjoyable festive holiday for young and old alike has by all accounts been turned into a fictitious, stranger-danger, panic event of epic proportions for registrants. All these years the public’s been led to believe that children are at an increased danger at Halloween because of registrants. (Somehow the fact that the highest risk to children at…
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