However, regardless of guilty or innocent the registry is a travesty of justice - once and person has served their court adjudicated sentence they should be F REE

@Janet,

Most of the injustices are fueled by an out of control prosecutor. You are exactly correct in your post.

@Advocate,

Yes, anyone on the registry for any length of time for any crime has suffered an injustice. There should be no registry. The registry problem is greatly compounded by the fact that many are mandated to be on the registry for life with no possibility of an early removal.

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Advocate2, I agree "once a person has served their court adjudicated sentence they should be F REE" as long as you don't mean FREE to go back to repeating past mistakes. The basic problem with LE and the proponents of the AWA and registry is that they absolutely do not believe anyone can change / once an :offender" and once the family of an "offender always an "Offender."...
Innocent or guilty Trauma changes us and we shouldn't just be programing our way through this whole mess. This has all really been tragic if we learned nothing from it except that we were " right" and they were "wrong" and "so there!" .After this experience, nobody can just go back to being who they once thought they were. Somehow we have to find the strength to create a "better" normal for ourselves and hopefully for others. If we don't make the effort who will? Years will have been lost and will will just think it all was pointless. To agree that our lives were rendered pointless (because of them) is the very definition of letting them destroy who we were, who we are and even who we might still become.in spite of everything.

But that is just it = FREE means FREE - there is no but .... Free means free to live but also free to repeat past mistakes if that is one's choice. Then you punish accordingly if that happens - in the case of sex offenses the recidivism rate is so low that is not likely to be an issue anyway. There is no but to free - when you serve your time and sentence you should be done with that! Remember everyone has the freedom to commit whatever crime they want ... they just have to be willing to accept the consequences ...

I was guilty. As an 18 year old I possessed a tape of a 16 year old. 20 years ago I didn't know what CP was (naive, I know)

He sent it to me when I was 15. He said it was him. Why would I not believe it? I went away to college at 17. Tape was in my room. Police came knocking while I was on winter break. I handed them the tape literally thinking I was helping when they told me he wasn't 15 but an adult.

I was guilty. But I'm not a monster. I don't deserve to miss every aspect of my children's lives 20 years later because I was naive and trying to help.

Guilty of these crimes does not make any of us deserving of living in a virtual prison. Worse than being in jail often - knowing your child is throwing up and burning with fever but you can't pick him up at school because you need written permission from the district to touch school ground and they can/do deny.

Or knowing you are depriving your son of sports because there is no one to take him.

Avoiding holiday celebrations because the law forbids you to celebrate and your kids are begging to see Santa.

@Advocate-----Great post. When a court ordered sentence is completed, it should be over---PERIOD. Being on the registry and having more and more restrictions passed year after year----and many of them being retroactively applied----is an injustice. Once a person completes his court ordered sentence, and is on the registry, every year they "move the goalposts" and he is forced to deal with more restrictions which have been enacted from the previous year. This places a registrant in a state of anguish every year as he wonders what new restrictions he may have to face.

@Ivy-----The registry itself, with the restrictions----even for minor crimes----that you so eloquently described just creates a horrible injustice.

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IvyDog: "Once Tarred and feathered always tarred feathered" at least in the eyes of others BECAUSE they do not believed in change or mistakes or innocence but that does not mean you cannot be a good father, or a good person. You (and your son) are hurting because they are all stuck back there in their own prejudice that does not mean you can't manage to be a loving and much loved father to your children That's what FREE really means. in spite of hindrance, in spite of in-justice. Only you can throw in the towel and stop being there for your son in every way that matters.
The AWA belief that "Once a SO always a SO" is going to come back around to bite them (alas only in the pocket book, not in the conscience) in the meantime your life and your son's life need not be placed on hold even thought you can't participate with him in some activities. You are his dad the only real dad he will ever have and that's what matters most to him.

Mom. I'm his mom. :-)

My kids suffer. Not to be sexist but I feel like I lose out more from the parenting loss as a mom than a dad who misses out on events or can't attend his kids concert or play. Sexist I know.

And thank you, Janet. I try to do the best I can to give my kids all the advantages I can despite the situation.