Member Submission: Results of punitive, ineffective laws drafted out of unfounded fears
I was at the registration office and due to COVID was told to sit outdoors, a ways back from where the glass intake door is. You cannot hear what is going on there, but you can see as you sit and wait in line. As I waited, I saw that the man that was registering was escorted inside the glass door and placed in handcuffs. And I felt an overwhelming sense of sadness. I felt as if a brother in our cause was being imprisoned… again. So much so that I turned to the other person waiting and said, “Did you see that?”
He nodded and said it will probably happen to him, too. I asked why and he said he missed his registration by one day, that he does not have a car and so arrived late when the office was already closed. By then it was my turn and I went up and as I sat the detective asked that man what was he was here for, because it was close to lunch, and she needed to know. The man said he missed his registration day and asked was he going to be arrested? The detective answered not sure and told him to remain where he was and then turned to me and asked the reason I was there. I told her and then asked her, in a low voice so the other man would not hear, whether the prior person arrested was for missing registration day and whether this other man would be arrested as well. She nodded yes.
And tears came to my eyes. I could not understand why? I did not know either of these men. For all I knew they were willfully reckless for not registering on time. And then it hit me why. Years ago, I would buy a wall calendar for the next year in December and would write all the birthdays, anniversaries etc., including the reporting dates. As the months arrived I would glance at my calendar to see what needed to be done. As the year progressed and I got to month nine and saw I had written something, but because I had written it when the calendar was on the wall, the combination of the bad angle and my lousy handwriting resulted in gibberish I could not read. Further, since I had written it 9 months ago, I could not offhand remember what it was about. I thought to myself “it will come to me”. But it never did. I never remembered that it was my reminder to report.
Months passed and one night, around 11 PM, I hear very, very loud pounding on my door. Five officers in uniform were there and arrested me for not reporting. I still get anxiety every time there is a knock on my door.
But now I understood the source of my tears. They were for me. It was a PTSD reaction to my being arrested not for something I willfully did, but for something I inadvertently and with no malice mistakenly did not. I was arrested for my mistake. An event that planted a seed of anxiety in me that has me worried about inadvertently violating any one of the myriad of registered citizen laws that engulf us.
But I now see there was also another reason for my sadness. It is because two men and I have been arrested and we and our families had to relive the trauma of incarceration, to not be able to get off the registry having committed another “Sex Offense”. And why? Because of punitive, ineffective laws drafted out of fear, emotions, and political maneuvering. A truly sad commentary on our judicial and social construct.
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Justice is no longer the basis for treatment of citizens. Anything that can be conceived as a violation of something is a reason to justify someone else’s reason for being and that person’s paycheck. Minor human error is no longer acceptable as long as it can be applied to justifying someone else’s superiority. It does not take a ‘rocket scientist’ to see that many of today’s laws are established to create an ‘under-dog’ and ‘over-dog’ class of citizens. If only we could establish the same level of excellence as many of these LEO’s…or at least the level that they think they have attained, we could be perfect just as they are!
How could any of us not have PTSD???
We should all have an altered form of it
P roud
T o
S tay
D etermined
(No offense to anyone suffering from PTSD)
CHEROKEEJ….AWESOME DUDE
I AM GOING TO GET SOME T-SHIRTS PRINTED
GREAT HELP TO ME AS I SUFFER IT…BUT IT MAKES IT A POSITIVE WAY TO ACCEPT IT AND DEAL WITH IT
WHAT SIZE T-SHIRT DO YOU WEAR?
HA!
Truth
I am secretly Superman so shirts usually rip soon after putting them on HAHA
For me it was at the county jail where we register that I was arrested for failure to register. I didn’t even know what I failed to register. It was later that I find out that it was related my Facebook account. The same account I have always registered with the sheriff’s office in my home county, and when I moved to another county I provided it to them, but because the paperwork they provide didn’t show it due to only being able to list 4 at a time, they neglected to register it. So here I am facing 3 years, and when it came time to take it to trial, they offer me time served. Now here’s the real kicker, DOC agreed to 13 months time served in the county, but I actually spent 18 months + 2 days. So who owes me for the other 5 months 2 days? I could have proven my defense, but the dip shits who were supposed to help, instead stole my stuff, and never turned over my evidence which is lost now. I was ripe for a civil suit, and this is how people you are supposed to trust, stab you in the back. It wasn’t until my recent release, that they started providing the full paperwork I have asked for since I was first placed on the registry. The paperwork that shows every detail that the FDLE have. Funny how it could have all been prevented, if they simply provided accurate paperwork from day 1.
You should have gone to trial even if you had to represent yourself. The prosecutor in my case was so evil I knew I was well done on the grill when my attorney physically left the court room to vomit in a garbage can in the hallway. My Goose was cooked. It did not help that the female prosecutor and the female judge were good friends in college.
HOW did my lawyer not asked for a change of venue I will never understand. Talk about conflict of interest. When I got to prison I filed the appeal myself but she herself denied it saying it was “frivolous in nature and has no merit”.
I do something similar. I write the day I chose to register every ninety days on my calendar. Then I also add it to my phone calendar reminds. The night before I am going to register, I hang notes on my bedroom door, one wrapped around my wallet and keys. I also put one on the fridge door (you got to eat sometime) and another one on the inside front door.
I have had numerous nightmares that woke me up thinking in my sleep I had “Failed” to register. Luckily where I go, they give you the entire month to register. I try and get it out of the way as soon as possible, then keep a copy of my registration in my filing cabinet as proof I did register.