By Terri . . .
As the mother of a registered sex offender, I am like all other Mom’s, worried about the effect of this registry on my Son’s well-being. I don’t understand how a one time offender can be required to register for life. Most every other felon is allowed to live their life after serving their time and probation.
Also, with my son, this case was not a violent event but is considered a tier III offense because the girl lied about her age. She created a fake My Space profile to hook up with men. My son went on what he thought was a date and ruined his life.
The SOR is necessary for predators of young children but there should be some type of scale as time goes by without additional offenses to allow a reduction in requirements and eventual removal from the registry.I understand as a violent offender he is not eligible for removal at this time. If he could get his tier reduced now at some point in the future, he could apply for removal from registry.If none of our efforts result in removal from the registry, we need to find out the process to move out of state or possibly out of the country.
My son is slowly slipping away and nobody really cares. It seems that if offenders take their own life or are re-incarcerated it’s just one less person you have to keep track of.
The communication in this program really needs to improve. At the beinning of Covid, he received notice that registry would be done online. Once they determined that in person registration would start again, they did not notify him. He is now being charged for non-registry. Trooper King said he came by the house and asked Greg if he knew how to register. He has been registering for over 10 years. Why did he just not say that registration was not completed correctly and he is in danger of being arrested? Why didnt the online process give an error if not allowed. They also said he completed some fields incorrectly so they could see he attempted.
I will say most visits are done first thing in the morning and I generally have to wake Greg up when they come by the house. He has given up on work, friends and any kind of social life as he is too tired of explaining his situation since every time things don’t work out he falls deeper into depression.
Anyone with common sense could tell that Greg did not intentionally miss his registration. He did not leave town or go on the run. He was at home and is always here when anyone stops by.
His next court date is in August and of course he is concerned but also very unmotivated to try and help himself get out of this mess by asking for a court appointed attorney.
He needs help to get his life back on track.
Terri,
I am grateful, for your son’s sake and yours, that you chose to reach out. It is rather unfortunate that we live in a culture which chooses shame over support and confrontation over concern. While I cannot fully imagine what this has done to him, from his point of view, I can, to the extent possible, empathize with some of what he’s going through. I am a one-time offender who is undergoing probation, due to end in mid-October. As a parent, it’s very difficult to watch your child struggle. As a recovering offender, it feels as if your whole life and personhood have been stripped away. I am fortunate to have a supportive partner while I become the best version of myself.
We live in a society where people who haven’t had these issues feel entitled to “moral superiority” that is unearned. For the record, I’ve behaved that way, too, at one point, before becoming aware of what led to my offense.
Emotionally, it feels that the entire world is against us. The inability to find a job that earns a living wage is only part of the struggle. There is almost no emotional support and people don’t engage constructively because of their discomfort. That being the case, it’s easy to fall through the cracks and not be seen for the full, complicated humans we all are. It would be inappropriate to speak to your son’s difficulties, but I have had many times, particularly recently, where I question whether I deserve to live and that, possibly, my partner and the world would be better off without me. It has become a daily struggle to get out of bed, much less be productive.
I hope he understands that you care about him and are supportive of his efforts to become whole again. He is fortunate to have you in his life.
It always alerts me when someone blames their situation on everyone but themselves.
The original poster (the Mom) and the person posting the first comment (Robert A) do not say how old they are/were. To most of us, that really matters.
Was the Mom’s son 18 when he was “fooled” into believing a girl who “lied” about her age? How about Robert A? How old were you when you were “catfished”? 🤔
I think that we as parents need to be teaching our sons about putting themselves in situations that may end up with them in prison. My nephew was 18 when he became infatuated with a 15 yr old girl that wasn’t allowed to date yet. My nephew and I had always been able to talk openly about things, that’s how I became aware of the situation and started talking about it with him. She had shared with him that she was a virgin and wanted her “first time” to be with a “good guy” like him. I took him out to dinner to have a blunt, honest conversation about statutory rape. Scared the crap out of him & he stopped talking to her. I advised him that with things in the world the way they are, he needed to be asking for a girls ID & if they got offended, be done with them.
At some point, men need to step up and take responsibility for their part in this stuff and stop blaming everyone else. And WE need to stop making excuses for them and enabling them.
But hey…that’s just my own 2 cents.
Laydee I see a few comments from you, they’re all confrontational towards the person who started an entry — why are you here? If you feel upset by reading what people have done in the past and cannot accept that people make mistakes and most never repeat them, what is the purpose of you challenging these people in replies?
John.
There is a maxim in journalism: Write what you know. Never try to speak from the perspective of what an offender ‘should’ do if you’ve never experienced what they have.
As a recovering addict, I can say, with absolute certainty, that anger or rage toward external influences on behavior or acting out, at least in the initial stages of recovery, is normal and part of grief over the loss of life as it once was. In fact, according to Maslow, anger is the first stage in the grieving process. When I began therapy, I had a lot of anger issues toward society, the police and, most importantly, myself. In my view and experience, it is the person who engages in treatment and recovery successfully who recognizes the anger and where it is directed, but also takes responsibility for their acting out, will have the best chance at becoming the best version of themselves.
To presume to ‘instruct’ an offender on the ‘correct’ course of action when one has not experienced being in that position is inappropriate and removes the humanity of the offender, especially when one has zero understanding of the offender’s life story. It also completely ignores those external forces at play. Pedophilia and sexual misconduct don’t exist in a vacuum. In addition, to assume that only men are offenders is ill-informed, as there also exist female offenders, but you don’t hear about that nearly as often.
When you say ‘we’, you automatically include yourself. While I agree that an offender does need to take responsibility as part of their recovery, we also must recognize that our culture regularly sexualizes minors in fashion and ‘beauty’ pageants geared towards children. Remember JonBenet Ramsey? During the warmer months, it’s common to see young girls dressed wholly inappropriately for their age by parents who seem to be perfectly fine with their clothing choices.
It is also unwise to disregard one’s own prejudices about offenders and that each person has a story to tell. We would do well to analyze our prejudices, but, occasionally, put those prejudices aside and spend more time listening to each other and, maybe, learn something about ourselves along the way. I find it hypocritical that we, as a society, insist that offenders take responsibility for their actions, but do next to nothing to support their recovery, yet do everything to demonize them and cast them out. No one is perfect.
While it is gratifying to hear that you have the kind of relationship with your nephew where he feels free to be honest with you, it wasn’t necessary to ‘scare the crap out of him’ in the process. I hope you spent time being present and actively listen to him because you didn’t make that clear. Supporting someone in avoiding doing something they shouldn’t isn’t about proselytizing. Ultimately, the choice is theirs. It might have been better to have a conversation about respecting girls and making sure he sees them as people, rather than objects of desire. It is worth noting that an 18-year-old brain is still eight years away from being fully mature.
Recognizing, and recovering from, an addiction or offense doesn’t have a one-and-done solution, nor should it. People have to engage in that process in a way that makes sense for them, not everyone else, and it is incumbent on the rest of us to support them through that process. Safety isn’t achieved by background checks (except, perhaps, in a small minority of cases), but group dynamics.
A lot of that seems to be happening more and more now. Similar thing happened to me. I was Catfished on an adult dating site by a under age girl posing as a 18 year old. I had a legitimate right to be on that site. She did not. In court my attorney chalked the whole thing up to a simple case of contributory negligence. (If she didn’t post that profile, no law would have been broken.) Needless to say, the judge threw the book at me anyway. This is what’s wrong with this country. They need to keep kids safe. That’s the goal. But when some kid goes playing games in a grown ups world, things like this can and will happen. Nobody wants to address that. I feel it should be treated as a form of juvinile delinquency. If you buy alcohol and your not 21, it’s illegal. If you vote, smoke, buy lottery tickets, illegal if under age. So should it be for kids going online to look for relationships where that relationship would be a violation of law no matter who is receptive of those advances. These kids must be saved from themselves. Your story as well as mine. It happens all the time every day and will continue until someone sees the problem and cares to do something about it.