My three kids should be able to play in our backyard without hearing neighbors yell obscenities about their dad. I’m their dad. What they’re hearing goes back to 1999, when I was 14 years old.
I served my sentence. Twenty-seven years later, I’m a husband and a father, and the word “predator” still follows me. What I wish people understood is how much of that punishment falls on my wife and our kids. I can’t go to Disney with them. I can’t coach their youth sports teams. I’d love to sit across from one of my kids at school lunch and hear how their morning went. I can’t do that either. These are ordinary parts of being a dad, and my kids only get one childhood.
I don’t believe keeping my name on Florida’s registry for life makes anyone safer. A website can tell people what I did at 14. It can’t prevent someone from committing a crime today. And I can’t see who is protected when my children have to hear abuse in their own backyard.
If Florida keeps the registry, there should be an automatic path off it for people who committed offenses as children, including those tried as adults. Once someone has completed their sentence and lived a defined number of years without another offense, removal should happen automatically. I’m responsible for what I did in 1999. My children deserve to grow up without being punished for it.