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’m getting a 404! website error, and am unable to see the article.
Keep trying – I’m also occasionally getting a 404
Congrats! As of this writing right, now (24 Aug 2025 at 1255p EDT), the article is 404…missing…gone…offline…unable to be accessed.
They either did not like the comments (because all four of them that were critical of Woodstock and their handling of the matter had a very large amount of “Likes” to one “Dislike”) or thought it made Woodstock look really bad overall with optics this did not think would be helpful to their little homey image.
I was eventually able to get back in but unable to post a comment
I, too, was able to get back into the article, but haven’t rebutted the last commenter I saw w/the misinformed stats posted. With so many studies of various statistical variations, finding one that truly is a good nugget to show as the best needs to be correct for rebutting with, especially the one which shows low single digits. If there is a reference to that one, then I’d be up for posting it in a rebuttal.
I think the link to the article is not working. I get an error message when I click on it.
Dear Mr. Yoder,
Thank you for your common sense approach to this subject. Those of us who have family members on the Sex Offender Registry see this injustice every day. Imagine being a teenager and put on the registry for mutually agreed upon sex. No rape, no force.
This happens in the state of Florida and it is for a lifetime. If it happened to your child, it’s impossible to stay silent, the rest of their life is affected. Family, friends, employment, housing are all in jeopardy. Freedom never exists for those on the registry in Florida.
I am grateful for your story. I am grateful for Mr. McKenna who had the nerve to stand up for something that is so wrong. Ms. Marino, for her support and to Mr. Inello, keep trying, we are working on positive change. We need to look closely at cases, instead of blanketing people with the registry. Teenage sex, really???? Lifetime of punishment
.
Thank you Mr. Yoder, your article will hopefully make people aware that it could be their kid.
Francine – can you post this on Mr. Yoder’s article? If you go to the source and scroll to the bottom of the article, you’ll see a space for comments.
I tried, it won’t let me post it. I’m gonna try from my phone. Maybe that will work. I did send him a message on X.
Got it! Thanks 😊
In other New York news https://www.wkbw.com/news/local-news/allegany-county-man-facing-murder-charge-in-deadly-stabbing-at-economy-inn
Can’t have a job, can’t even live your life in a motel room in peace without being killed.
I hope they find enough to make this first degree in the end. He had the mens rea to go there with a weapon to begin with to discuss this matter, there’s nothing to say this wasn’t premeditated to start with a discussion and end with a murder.
Eugene
How many more of us have to die to make a change on our safety. The authorities say the registry has to be public to protect citizens. Well, who is protecting us? As felons, we most likely will never again be able to own any type of self defense/protection devices for the rest of our lives.
And even if you are a decent fighter like myself, I cannot stop a gun, a knife or 3 big guys clobbering me.
Then there is the “lying” factor where someone in our neighborhoods make a false claim on us to get us back in prison and out of the neighborhood.
Well? I read the article.
Fair, unbiased and rational are not words I thought I’d ever use describing an article of this nature written by someone who does not belong to an advocacy group but Steven Yoder hits this one out of the ballpark.
I wish there would have been a breakdown of the 16% convictions but hey, you can’t get everything you want.
Well done Steven Yoder. 👍
As a reminder, if you have not done so already, PLEASE leave your comments at the bottom of the original article so the public sees it (not just readers of our blog).
Let’s take the conversation public!
I did without having to sign up for a subscription or membership. You can do so allegedly anonymously. Mr. Yoder did a great article. Woodstock and NY as a whole need to hear from a lot of people on this topic so they are held accountable with their lack of critical thinking on this and their fearmongering about it. The one person who lent a hand to a person trying to stand back up needs credit for doing so as well from the masses. The union needs support as well for supporting the gent in question.