My boyfriend accepted a plea deal for 18 months with work release to try to get this horror behind him. Turns out, you can't get work release if your a sex offender. It doesn't matter that your boss, friends, and myself were supportive. It doesn't matter if you have never been in trouble with the law or that you served your country. It doesn't matter that there was no contact with a child, no solicitation of a child, and a passed lye detector test. It doesn't matter that you have a diagnosis of bi polar and hadn't been taking your medicine and was spiraling into a breakdown. It doesn't matter that you were so distraught about how this would affect the lives of people you cared about, and that your friends with children would be afraid of you, that you attempted suicide. It doesn't matter that you were just a sad man with a porn problem, that was apathetic to what you were seeing because of your mental state. It doesn't matter that you weren't intentionally sharing images on the peer to peer website. Too bad, now your a felon. You're incarcerated long enough for your job to be terminated, your therapy that you had started discontinued, and your life to be harder and more depressing than it was.
Im so discouraged by our criminal justice system. I never thought I would feel this way, especially about this topic. I was molested by my stepfather when I was a child. I probably felt the way a lot of people feel about sex offenders. Now, I look at the registry and feel sad for the people on it. I wonder what got them in this predicament. I don't know what the answer is for these types of crimes, but I do know that if a person is not violent they should be able to support themselves and get treatment.
My boyfriend is a good man. A better man than a few I have had in my life. A kind man. A gentle man. A man that my daughter loves and feels safe around. A man that suppressed his problems and pain because men aren't supposed to be weak and need help. He needed help, not to be a felon that loses his job.
Try being convicted of a misdemeanor and receiving the max punishment allowed by law one year in county then still having to register how fair is that
Yes, the same with me...misdemeanor but on Lifetime Registration. But we must have hope and work hard to get rid of the Registry totally. In Missouri, we just got the Tier System and now people can petition the court to get off the Registry. Let's work together!
You should attend one of the Care Group Meetings.
He got the, "you're being fired " letter a few days before Thanksgiving. Whoever wrote it said he was immoral, and a disgrace to the Department of the Army. He self reported and his coworkers and direct supervisor were very supportive, but the organization doesn't care about that. We thought we were going to keep our heads above water while he was serving his sentence because he qualified for VA disability. The Va has been pretty great by supplying him with his therapy and health benefits, and I don't want to dismiss how they stepped in to help him after his suicide attempt, but if your're in jail your disability is cut. The financial nightmare is starting, and I'm just so angry at his employer for not sticking by him. He was one of their best employees.
Melanie,
Please join one of our CARE groups! I am involved in the one in St. Louis and in Columbia, MO but we have other locations. We are all in the same spot and can support you!
My husband went away for 10 years for viewing child pornography and now we have a son, a house, he’s doing well in treatment, and he has a full time job, and yet... he still pays for his crime almost every day. It’s unfair that after doing all that time and now being on supervised release for 25 years plus having to register for life he still pays so much more. We don’t even treat murderers this way and yet we treat sex offenders like they’re all ready to go out and do it again when the reality is that the recidivism rate is actually only roughly 3%... why is this continuing to go on? What do we tell our son when he grows old enough to know what is going on?
why is this continuing to go on? Exactly. Life sentence is wrong. there should be parole and supervision and be done with it. there are now 900,000 people on the registry. (thats what i read somewhere, i may be off a bit) it seems like a big money maker. im trying to learn every day how this is happening. i am so glad Vicki Henry has this group.
I don't want to hijack your post. This sounds so much like my situation. I came to this forum looking for support. My husband has a job but we were stuck living with his mother because we can't find a place to live because of the registry. His crime is possession of child pornography due to a pornography addiction. He doesn't even have an interest in underage people. He was bated by undercover police to meet up for the offer of sex with a minor and declined. We have been together for a year and a half, though I have known him nearly 3 decades since we were kids. His sisters hate him and harass us nonstop. One of them attacked me in front of the house a few weeks ago. I am now staying at my sister's house in another state. He is still stuck at his mother's house because of the registry. I want to kill myself all of the time. I'm sick of being homeless and scared because my husband is on the registry. How do you handle this? He isn't even on probation anymore, the polygraphs are over. He has had no criminal charges for anything before or since this and this just goes on forever.
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