Woodstock Uproar Highlights Bigger Question: What Happens After Sex Offenders Leave Prison
Below is a link to an article written by Steven Yoder, an excellent journalist who has the courage to write the truth, no matter how unpopular the topic. His story is about the hiring (and firing) of a maintenance worker in the city of Woodstock, NY. FAC has written a lot about this story and several others, where people reenter the community with a sex offense on their criminal history and they are fired from menial jobs, removed from volunteer positions, kicked out of their churches, and basically shunned and ostracized the rest of their lives. I mean come on! People commit a crime, they get an appropriate sentence, they serve their time, repay their debt to society, reenter, and they can’t live anyplace, they cant get a job cleaning trash, they can’t volunteer for an Autism charity and they can’t improve spiritually. All the things people coming out of prison should be doing to foster successful reentry are cut off from them. WTF?!?!?
Anyhow, here’s the article:
https://www.chronogram.com/river-newsroom/woodstock-uproar-highlights-bigger-question-what-happens-after-sex-offenders-leave-prison-24209253
I am not posting an excerpt or a teaser to it here, because I want you to read the full article and PLEASE leave your comments at the bottom of the original article so the public sees it (not just readers of our blog). There are many of you with plenty of time to post comments on FAC all day, let’s take the conversation public this time!
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I tried to post but it was removed.
I knew a person who volunteered during Covid 19 crisis. Had medical experience and would have made a great asset. He managed to volunteer assisting staff but was let go due to his status even though he was not in contact with people. He was backbone, answering calls, paperwork, etc. He freed up important staff personal so they could do their work to save lives.
I posted his story a long time ago on one of the advocacy websites. People would rather see their house burned down to the ground than having someone who can assist to put out the fire who is on the registry.
I am hoping this guy takes this to the Human Rights Division in New York and take this matter to court. He is protected and I believe he could win. (Under Correction Law 23 A. New York’s Correction Law Article 23-A governs the licensure and employment of individuals previously convicted of one or more criminal offenses, aiming to prevent unfair discrimination based on criminal history.)