Unnecessary Shaming: How Sex Offender Stigma Breaches the Irrelevant
Last night’s Florida Action Committee monthly member call was all about the family. Our guest, Shelley Kavanagh, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker currently working at the Centre for Offender Rehabilitation Education (CORE), is working on programs that aim to provide support for the families, and loved ones of registrants.
It’s important to acknowledge the victims of an underlying sexual offense, but there are other unintended victims that society has no problem trampling on; the family, friends and loved ones of registrants.
Like the person required to register, their family or anyone that lives with them suffer similar penalties. Their address is also a red dot on the sex offender map. Their vehicles are also registered and flagged in license plate scanners. Their associates and co-workers also shun them or question their judgment as if they’ve done something wrong.
The families, particularly the children of registrants, suffer. Their fathers (or mothers) can’t participate in their education, attend their sporting events or graduations. Visit them in hospitals. They cannot decorate for Halloween or Christmas. They cannot have parties or sleepovers.They grow up under a cloud of shame and isolation. It’s no wonder that children of registrants have such high rates of suicide.
Employers of sex offenders are also shamed. A few years ago, Miami’s ABC affiliate, Local10 news posted the employers of sex offenders. For what point? To hurt their business? To get them fired so that people who are trying to get their lives back on track are destabilized? All that does is hurt those willing to help someone reintegrate and take food out of the mouths of the families the registrant is working to support.
One hour ago, the New York Post posted an article about a man that sued Burger King. The article concludes, “[..] was convicted in 1994 of first-degree sexual abuse and first-degree sexual penetration and sentenced to about 6½ years in prison, according to Oregon Live. He was required to register as a sex offender for life. He told the site that the conviction is 25 years old and that he’s been a law-abiding citizen with no other convictions ever since.” The lawsuit that he brought has nothing to do with anything sexual. Why the NY Post and multiple other news outlets would even mention his conviction 25 years ago is completely irrelevant and unnecessary.
It’s one thing to impose the registry stigma where there’s a rational public safety interest – it’s completely different when the topic or target of the shame is irrelevant. When the line is crossed, you enter into the territory of intentionally causing emotional distress.
Let’s let 2019 be the year we start pushing back!
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In general through there own agendas,rhetoric,paranoia,they create there own mess. (ex:Miami)
Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it..
These people did the same thing with witches,blacks,Irish,Japanese,”communist”,gays,mentally handicapped, BABIES!!! ect……list doesnt end, just changes names..
yes, these same people pointing fingers have even electrocuted, water boarded and castrated people for no crime other then being handicapped..ripping baby’s apart limb from limb and slowly squishing their brains with pliers for no crime other then they are not wanted to live..
99.999% of the time it becomes increasingly more insane to the point of public human on a stake burning party’s UNTIL physical force is returned upon them..
**Same as their German ancestors who partied hard while burning, torturing,experimenting,gassing,raping Jewish people to death….American politicians are nothing but evil pond scum that make demons look like paradigms of virtue and morality. And the people that vote them are pathetic.
You want your life restored? Are you tired yet of criminals whom have committed atrocity’s that make your crime look imaginary pointing the fingers at you and whipping the crowds to burn you at the stake? Until you are ready to make an extreme stand prepare for the day you are castrated and placed for public tortures and turnings till death…its happened before and it will happen again.. Martin Luther King didnt stop black oppression Farakan and the black panthers that were preparing to return force to the corrupt politicians did..
Unnecessary shaming is used intentionally to diminish the registered citizen and bias against them anything that would be considered in their favor. Once wearing the SO badge, the individual is reduced to a pack animal, thus justifying any ill treatment against him/her. Nothing you can do or say will ever change public opinion as long as you are on the registry. All your pre-arrest accomplishments mean nothing now.
Try being convicted of a misdemeanor only because I couldn’t prove that I didn’t do it was sentenced to the max of one year in the county jail. My employer believes me but can’t put me on the payroll due to insurance because I’m on the registry so I have to work under 1099 without company truck . He could try to fight this but can’t afford the stigma that would follow . Some times it’s just too hard to continue…
Good article. Unfortunately, sex scandals sell, so in the absence of them, the media has to invent them. Perpetually defining someone based on their worst day and never letting them transcend the label adds to the moral panic and hysteria. More stress and anxiety in the communities contribute toward more offending and giving the media something else to write about. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, where the whole community loses.
It has been push back time for years.
Right – but only now we’ve accumulated the member base and donations to fund lawsuits. We’re bringing them as quickly as we can.
I agree with you Only if the hand has been put into the fire more offer others will act.