Category: Tales from the Registry

originally posted 10/8/2010 I would like to discuss our SEX OFFENDER Registry with you.  Please hear me out.  I am a wife of a Sex Offender and I want to tell my story.  I married my husband in 2003, he came from a very good family, his dad and brother are ministers, his other brother is a lawyer and his sister is an engineer. My husband retired from the United States Navy in 1995. We had a good life.  I am not sure when this problem arose but in 2009, my son found a camera at the end of my in-home tanning bed and turned it over to the police.  That brings us to present day nightmare:  On the hard drive the investigation found six videos of two girls (at the time they would have been 15 years old ) the deleted videos from back in 2008 were all that was found on the hard drive. My husband was arrested…

originally posted 04.10.2010 I have never been in trouble with the law until now; I have had a clean record and now I will be labeled as a registered sex offender.   I make one mistake, the county of Hanover gives me probation and I am on some stupid list for the rest of my life unless someone can get it expunged. Plus I was diagnosed with Asberger’s.   The law needs to be changed so lowest class sex offenders do not go to jail or serve probation or be put on the stupid piece of garbage list.   They should be able to travel out of state without permission and leave the country as well.   I could see not letting violent offenders do that but I am not one of them; in fact I am not one at all…………………………..

originally posted 04.10.2010 Iowa is a state that has made some sense to registration after release realizing that no contact, computer offenses are not in the same class as contact offenses, but this wall will not stop anyone that is a predator from hurting a child or anyone else. My husband is awaiting sentencing for receipt of child porn from Limewire. He used keywords from legal porn, and the government had two days of downloads within a two week period and now want to lock him up for 13 years.  Nothing matters in the end except that it was on the computer.

originally posted 10/1/2010 I live in, for lack of better terminology, a sex offender refugee camp in Florida.   Unfortunately, I see little hope in the changing of sex offender laws in the US.   Politicians and law enforcement know the laws don’t work, but going against them doesn’t help with votes or popularity.   The fact that the large majority of sex offenders are first time offenders, or at least first time being charged with a sex offense, negates any benefit of current sex offender legislation.   Education is the only true form of prevention in any society, however, society must first put down their pitchforks and propaganda, and seek out truth over popularity.   I am grateful for your group and the uphill struggle that is before you.    At least it is a ray of hope in my dismal existence since becoming a sex offender at 19.

originally posted 9/26/2010 Interviews with four convicted sexual predators By lmmartin The rape of the innocents — child sex abuse For 30 years I worked in child protection.   It became a driving force of my life.   Today I share a small part of this experience. The Decision In all my years in child protection work, I never once had the opportunity  to question or even speak to a perpetrator.  My job was to connect with the victim, to gain trust, to listen, to report, to protect, and by the time I’d succeeded at that, my feelings for the offender were such … well, let’s just say I wouldn’t have been pleasant. Some years have passed since that chapter of my life, and I decided the time had come to look at the problem from the other side, from the offender’s side. I had a long list of questions overdue for answers. To do that, I had to meet some…

originally posted 9/26/2010 I am a 48 year old sex offender and it’s been 15 years since I offended.   I live in solitude because I don’t feel like I’m an equal; human like everyone else.   I raised three step children to be fine adults with good family values.   I don’t make friends because I know how people feel about sex offenders, I hear people make comments about sex offenders.  I know there are people who need to be monitored because they keep doing it, but I learned that I made a real bad decision.   I would like the chance to help and maybe prevent it from ever happening again to anyone.   I have to register every 90 days and every time I get the same feeling inside me, it takes away my dignity and self respect.

originally posted 9/14/2010 Again I find myself in litigation.   Getting visits from Child Protective Services and my ex trying to get juvenile records unsealed.   The truth is that it never ends.   If you associate with someone on a registry, you will find that you will be facing a constant struggle to live your life with peace.   Peace is so hard to come by, especially when you are posted on a computer age arena with your face plastered for everyone to see.   We are here to serve one purpose, to make everyone that has been lucky enough to not be on such a web site to feel better about themselves.   Some how I must be a bad parent because I have associated with a labeled “sex offender”. The truth is that he was a rape victim.   And the tables had turned with a minor telling her story………….a total story of events that nobody can…

originally 9/13/2010 My birthday just came up this month, do I celebrate…no!  NOW it only means I crawl with my tail between my legs to the county sheriff and the city police department to have a mug shot and be fingerprinted.   Then in six months I do it again or go to prison!  For the third time in a row the city police tell me I have to go to the state troopers’ office and have “SEX OFFENDER” put on my drivers’ license.  The state where I live requires that as of about two years ago.  Nice when you have to cash a check or rent a movie or a hundred other things.  A few years ago, the police came to notify me I had to register or go back to prison.  I stupidly told them MY eight and 1/2 years in prison , as well as my release from parole, was before that registry law was passed.   I knew they could not…

originally posted 9/11/2010 My father was very violent to me and my older brother.   We used sex with each other to cope with a bad situation.   We survived.   When I saw my younger brother being beaten I used the only coping skill I had, sex.   It was wrong, but it worked.   We are all alive.   I sought help and the counselor filed a report with CPS.   I spent five years in prison and have to register for life every 90 days.   I grew up in incest and continued that cycle.   I will never hurt anyone ever again.

originally posted 9/11/2010 At what point do we (sex offenders) get to be members of our society again?  As for me, I’m told, never!  I committed my crime.  I went to prison.  I spent three and a half years in therapy to figure out “How did I get here?” while in prison, then two more years while on parole.  (I found out).   It does not seem to matter to the government.  It does to me.   I have changed my way of thinking about myself, my family, my friends and people I don’t even know. The government has said that we (sex offenders) can’t be helped. That’s a lie! It’s up to each individual to want to change.   It’s up to the government to step up and take responsibility for the laws they have made about sex offenders.