By Anonymous:
The registry is punitive. I am the wife of a registered sex offender (RSO) We have two children ages three to seven. Due to my husbands offense twenty nine years ago with a teenager when he was 21, we have been harassed. I was evicted from an apartment in 2004 for having an RSO live with me. In 2005 we were evicted for living within 1000' of a school, although the measurements rated anywhere from 964 to 1064'. We were told to put up Halloween signs so our kids didn't get to celebrate for a couple years. My husband cannot pick up our children at school. We or he was barred from the park so now our kids cry why we cant stop at the park when daddy is driving. My husband cannot be listed as an emergency contact for winter emergencies for school. If our kids get stranded, and I can't get there, they are stranded. My husband was friends with a family where a teenage girl liked him and he got involved. He admits he shouldn't have. The 30th anniversary of that offense will soon come up. The sentence has been dismissed over 14 years ago. He has to register. People harass us, he has been evicted five times and I was party to two of those times. Most of the harassment comes in the form of law enforcement, who we support, who have to come out to verify an address, or make sure he is in compliance. They have apologized to us and said they have to do this. In other words, the police seem to be tired of it and apologetic. The real attacks are really not the police. They are managers of apartments, or housing units, or schools who see an RSO lives there. They use the courts to attack us and make us move. They used excuses like only my husband had to move, not I, but in the meantime that insinuates separation and in one case while I was due to give birth to our first child. Please make sure this gets to attorneys and the supreme court of the US. I have proof the SOR is punitive. I as a non-offender and my children are victims of this mismanaged law.
