When I was in my twenties I was in an accident and suffered bad head trauma. This lead to some serious side effects and as a result, I made a very bad choice and was sent to prison. I did my time and am now on the registry for life. While incarcerated and after many years my brain has healed and I am back to “normal”. I have been living as positive and productive a life as possible. However, I will never get off the registry.
Here in Missouri, the only thing that matters in regards to ever getting off the registry is your “class” of offenses. However, this is all subjective and is influenced by things like how much money you had, the lawyer you were able to afford, the county you lived in, how quickly you plead guilty, etc. So there are offenders who have hundreds of victims and committed some of the worst crimes imaginable but who will be able to come off the registry because their crimes are not “class A” crimes.
I participated in the Missouri Sex Offender Program while incarcerated and they give a battery of tests to determine your risk to society. Offenders receive a risk assessment score from 1 to 26 (1-3= low risk, 4-13= medium risk, 14-26= high risk; as you can see the scores are weighted heavily toward high risk, to begin with). The tests are no joke either. They are very well constructed and seemingly highly accurate. I received a risk assessment score of 1. The lowest possible risk a human being can have. Everyone- whether convicted of a sex offense or not- is considered to be a risk so there is no such thing as a 0 score. I received the lowest possible risk score a person could receive, I have been a positive, productive member of society for years since my release, and yet I will never come off the registry. Shouldn’t the person’s actual risk to society be what is the number one determinate in deciding who comes off or not? Not an arbitrary thing like what the lawyers were able to plead an individual down to or how much money the person had to afford a good lawyer? As a parent myself, I am far more concerned with someone’s risk to my child than I am about what class their charges were. Maybe I am missing something but that’s my story…