Thanks for the opportunity to express my thoughts regarding the issue of citizens’ rights, particularly addressing certain sex offenders’ crimes that do not fit the devastating, inequitable and endless punishment given.
As you know, many young men and women lives across the nation are being destroyed by incarceration, life-time registry and restrictive laws that do more harm than good. For those individuals, there is no second chance.
Below is a personal letter to President Obama:
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“Dear President Obama,
I truly agree with your sentiments that individuals, such as ex-felons, should be able to receive a second chance at life. Since we all know that one can veer off that path of life and travel along rough, rocky terrain, sometimes running off and ending up in some ditch. We all have made our fill of mistakes and sometimes those held a costly consequence that changed life forever. So we lived through it, trying harder to make things right with family, friends and those around us, but what about those who aren’t able to make things right even if they tried…because they’re labeled as too dirty, a leper, a person who is rejected from society and home.
But what if they’re a seventeen year old and had sex with a fifteen year old, consensual at that? Or they’re a teen that had gotten so enraged after a breakup that he sent out naked pictures of his girlfriend on his cell phone or email? Or an individual urinates where someone just happens to see them?
All are wrong and a travesty but do they deserve the life of no second chance with a registry that ends all. They are labeled, no jobs, no where to live…they have been deemed a menace to society, a plague. These certain circumstances, and many other situations similar to these, I believe still deserve a second change.
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
After my son’s early release and two years of prison, I thought I had handled that fact graciously knowing after serving his time he would be able to get that fresh start, that second chance. He was an exemplary inmate, GED, college courses and vocational classes. Little did I know that a second chance on the outside was the farthest from the truth? He now struggles and lives in a trailer park sharing a trailer with another and surrounded by others in the same rocking boat, one to float endlessly in shark infested waters. I see him little because of probation requirements (he couldn’t live with us because we were 800 feet near a school). My family is afraid of what would happen to them if he lived with them…vigilantism. My son has no other place to stay since others condemn him of his crime that is screamed from the highest rooftop. Sex offender, sex offender!
Not all sex offenders are pedophiles or predators but some are simply young kids that make one stupid and rash decision that eventually changes everything, and they have no idea what they’ve done until their life is never their own. Exactly, where is that second chance for those sex-offenders who are lumped together with pedophiles and predators? Now, it makes me sick to think of my son’s future and many like him that are on the registry and many with no second chance…ever. I am asking you as a mother and as another concerned citizen of the United States that these laws are looked at again and taken into serious consideration in what they are doing to the Constitution of the United States, not for sex offenders in general but the future rights of every citizen, before anymore are put into effect. They unjustly strip an offender of their rights and place them in a guillotine that can be easily set off by anyone and at anytime. Where is the second chance for ex-sex offenders in the present, pending and future laws?”
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What truly saddens me is the weakness and deterioration of what the sex offense issue is doing to our once, great nation. Across Europe, others are seeing the injustice and disregard of rights, but we ignore this problem and it makes me wonder where humanity is heading….
We have become a hysterical society in which our latest witch-hunt is a sex offender--no matter his/her crime.
Below is a email sent from a foreign advocate to a father of a sex offender:
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“The tragic story of your son's death is just so sad that it's difficult to explain how. It was very hard to read your letters. It seems almost unbelievable that this can take place in a democracy! From our point of view, there is no justice in this. Not in any way: not for you, your son, the former girl friend – or even the state.
It is an abusive legal system. It seems barbaric. And we are so very sorry that this takes place. That's why it's so important for us to try to neutralize the debate with this…, hopefully making some changes. ….. to show the every day life of the sex offenders, trying to show how they keep on being punished, even after served prison time…..But we will for sure tell the story of the injustice that your son has been exposed to.”
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I appreciate everyone's commitment and backing to protect everyone's civil rights, plainly as noted in the Constitution of the United States and is presupposed, giving ALL men are “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.”
As for the 'Lists' of offenders...please read this!
ReplyDeleteBefore the lists appeared, law enforcement knew the whereabouts of between 90 and 95% of all felons.
Due to the discrimination against offenders and their families...inability to find work, housing, care...many have had no choice but to go 'underground.'
The slaying of listed offenders highlights just a few of the dangers.
The highest level offenders suffer the greatest discriminations.
A community awareness person within law enforcement said that a person's ability to successfully re-enter society greatly decreases chances to re-offend.
The overwhelming majority of sex crimes against kids are from persons well known to the families.
Those on the lists are in compliance and have served their time and completed court ordered steps to become good citizens.
Right now, thanks to the repercussions of the registry, over 50% of the worst felons are underground in order to survive and stay out of harm's way.
Murderers, kidnappers, drug dealers are allowed to move through society and the internet freely without being published while sex offenders are treated as scum.
The acts of publicly showing certain body parts, acting inappropriately in an adult environment, unwanted touching...even accidental between adults, streaking, flashing or urinating in public are all reasons people can be on the list. By definition, Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson did far more in front of millions at The Superbowl than many on the list.
Mary Magdalene would have been classified as a sex offender.
The actual charges themselves never need to be proven at all!
A family member was confident when she heard the charges because she didn't do it. She has passed several polygraphs. This is not admissible whereas a failing result is.
The 'kid' has told everyone that it never happened BUT since he was made to be afraid of physically walking into the prosecutor's office in order to recant, he wouldn't do it.
Only the opportunity must have existed even if the facts do not.
Her children have disabilities that the registration kept them from getting help for.
The long story of all of this is that the many of the most dangerous felons are living under aliases and when they cannot get hired, they must find ways to make ends meet.
The tax payer burden of having all of these families and extended families in the system instead of working is astronomical.
Worst is that the community liaison said, "it is not the people on the list who are in compliance that we need to fear!" Law enforcement does it's job while ignorant and uninformed vigilante citizens have made a mess.
This list only is a very false sense of safety and the list keeping itself is another multi-million dollar tax payer burden,(and a personal income for many lazy people), YET “it is those who have not yet offended or have not yet been caught that actually pose the real danger.”
Combined with the fact that new offenders will most likely be persons close to the family...makes the list completely ludicrous.
She has a story like so many others but it seems they are still not heard and the facts remain hidden.
In so many ways ignorance is far more costly than intelligence.
It is people like you that care and are not in fear for yours or your children's lives and futures who speak and fight for so many.
We thank you with all our hearts.