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This journal is to document my experiences surrounding something I don’t think anybody talks about in public. Someone should. Though I know that I will not popular for saying this, the voices of victims are not the only voices that deserve to be heard.
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determinedWhen my probation officer asked if I had had any contact with minors or ‘potential victims’ recently, I said “No” and made a face. She asked what the face was for, and I told her that in my 20s I was the neighborhood baby sitter. The look of sick horror on her face was almost comical as she asked for more details. Then I told her about a little boy who went from being a complete pill to the sweetest little boy you could find after I started being a significant part of his life.
It’s sad that she thinks that way. I chose to stop. No outside intervention required. It wasn’t even because my half-sister learned how to stand up to me. She didn’t (and she shouldn’t have had to, that kind of responsibility is not one little kids should be expected to have). I chose to stop. I’m not doing it again. *sigh*
disappointedThe most powerful thing about a label is how people then become tempted to generalized based on it. IMHO, that is the real harm that Megan’s Laws have done. It has prompted people to think of a class of people as one group without making any sort of distinction among them, even though there are real and substantive distinctions to be made.
annoyedI’ve thought about this a lot. Even before I was in any sort of legal trouble at all, I felt there were some serious problems with how the US approached this issue. There are several changes I would make if I could.
There should be a reasonable statute of limitations on sex crimes. 5 years after turning 18 or 3 years after leaving the control of the perpetrator, whichever is later. If people need recourse against their parents, an uncle, a teacher, a priest or someone else later than this, it should be a matter for the civil courts, not the criminal courts. I do not think there is anything useful the criminal courts can accomplish so long after the fact, and I do not think that the standards of evidence required in criminal court can really be upheld so long after the fact either. Though one advantage of the criminal courts have is that they have the power to order people into therapy rather than simply assess monetary damages. Perhaps the civil courts should be given the power to permit participation in therapy in lieu of paying some portion of those damages in these kinds of cases.
Additionally, I think sex crimes committed by minors should be treated fairly differently by the court system, and for this purpose there should be a fuzzy definition of who a minor is that would allow some people to be classified as such as late as their early 20s. The assessment would look at what life skills the perpetrator possessed, mental state of the perpetrator at the time the crime was committed, and details of the crime committed. This is the thing I’m shakiest on. I think this is really hard to determine in any reasonable way. I’m convinced that I did what I did out of childish self-centered selfishness, a lack of a standard for ‘consensual’ to compare what I was doing with my sister to, and a lack of awareness of the potential long-term harm I could cause.
I think there should be a recognition in general that children are sexual. A 15 year old should not be prosecuted under child porn laws if she puts a nude picture of herself up on the Internet. If pays her to do it, or someone significantly older in any way encourages her to do it, perhaps they should be prosecuted, but she should not be. It’s ridiculous to consider her to have committed a crime against herself.
There should also be a fuzzy definition of ‘age of consent’. I think there should be two such fuzzy definitions. For cases involving porn, prostitution or the older of the pair having a position of power over the younger, I think there should be a definition that has a strong bias towards the younger person being older and more mature before being considered capable of consent. But for consensual acts between two people in more-or-less equal power relationships that definition should be a lot looser and the standard should be more whether or not the person would have had reason to feel coerced or pressured and not be equipped to deal with it.
Those are very fuzzy and need to be judged on a case-by-case basis, but that’s part of what judges and juries are for. I do think there should be a hard upper cutoff of 18 for a person being considered fully an adult and capable of consent. People have a responsibility to teach their children how to say “No” and the law should not punish others for a parent’s failure to do so.
The statute of limitations thing would cause me to no longer be able to be convicted. A recognition that minors who commit sex crimes may have a different mindset than adults would also cause the law to treat me differently. The other changes I think should be made would have no bearing on me or my case at all, though I think they should be made anyway.
contemplativeI found someone who decided to rent to me simply on the basis of meeting me and my blunt honest about what my previous landlord would say about me. I was quite relieved.
My probation officer changed though, and that brought up a number of other stressors that have made my life somewhat miserable for the past month. I hope though that it will get better soon.
One thing I’m required to do now is get pre-approval for every single location I ‘visit’. This does not include stores or restaurants, but does include friends houses. This is rather ridiculous on several fronts. First, it is impossible to enforce in any reasonable way. Second, it has a major chilling effect on my social interactions which is clearly counterproductive if the goal is to get me to participate in the community at large on a reasonable basis. Lastly, it’s applied in a blanket fashion to everybody who is convicted of a certain kind of crime with no allowance for any sort of variance based on the individual.
Frankly, the chances of me doing something sexual with a child may very well be less than the chances of the average person in the population doing it. I suppose that sounds kind of strange, but it’s a ‘been there, done that, NOT doing it again, ever!’ kind of thing. I have a 17 year track record with no supervision of any kind to prove it.
The second is drug testing. For no reason at all other than ‘we can’ they test me for drugs on a monthly basis. Never mind that I’ve never actually used any illegal drugs, and drugs are not mentioned in the sentence or the case in any way. Again, it’s applied broadly across the whole probation population regardless. I think this is silly, expensive and a waste of time. Additionally, urinating in front of a probation officer is humiliating bordering on abusive.
My previous probation officer consented to frisking me and then filling the cup in private. The current one is brand new so that is right out. Against policy, can’t do it.
I was so convinced I was going to jail when she demanded I pee in a cup in front of a different (male) probation officer. I knew she wouldn’t bend the rules at all. I was petrified and extremely anxious and nervous. But I am not going to let them humiliate me and dominate me in that fashion. They consented to let me do a blood-based drug test if I paid for it myself and got a note from my therapist saying I had a ‘psychological condition’ that prevented me from peeing in a cup. I was on my own to find the test.
It was really hard to do. Very few places do them at all. And all the ones that did wanted me to have an account set up as if I were a doctor or an employer ordering this done for someone else. After spending hours on the phone to various places being very panicked all the while I finally found someone inside someplace that was willing to make an arrangement with me to do it.
So, those are the changes in my life. And hopefully I can adjust to them and try to ignore being on probation as much as possible and just get on with my life.
This whole thing is such a waste of everybody’s time. It helps nobody.
relievedIt has been proving to be as difficult as I suspected to find a new place to live. One of the people showing me an apartment suggested I lie on the application form and hope it doesn’t show up on a check. *sigh*
worriedMy current landlord signed a lease with me before March, so I didn’t have to check the ‘felon’ box on the application.
An acquaintance who we were going to have live with us did because of a conviction he had over ten years ago when he was 18 for stealing coats with a bunch of friends from a store when it was closed. The prosecutor assigned all the value of the coats to him because his friends were all juveniles. This pushed the value high enough to be a felony.
The current landlord did not care at all. He did not care about how old the crime was. He did not care about the details. He only cared about the little check box.
Because I am generally absent minded I was late with one rent payment. I was late by a few days. And then a few months later I was late with one utility payment, again by a few days. Each time, the day after the payment became late the landlord tacked up a legal notice on the door demanding payment within X time or he would kick us out. He sent letters to each of the people on the lease as well.
The landlord decided it was ‘too much trouble’ to collect rent and utilities from us. Most of the trouble was trouble he created for himself. His notices had no impact on when he was paid. But regardless, it was too much trouble. So he refused to extend our lease.
So now I have to find a new place. I don’t have a job right now, which will make it hard. But I also now have to check that little box, and that will make it that much harder.
Luckily I get along well with my roommates, and they would like to move with me. It is possible I can do something to hide behind them so I don’t have to endure a background check. The only problem is that when I have a job I make more than both of them combined. I’m the major source of income for the group that would make it clear the place could be paid for. So that limits things.
anxiousI’ve had a job for several months. From February until August. They ran a background check on me in February before I was hired. I was convicted in March. I was quite happy I found the job before the conviction happened.
It was a contract position though, and it ended in August. The company wasn’t particularly interested in hiring me after they learned I was now a convicted felon, even though they were very pleased with the work I had done. They did offer to extend my contract, but I already had an offer for a different contract that seemed like a much better offer anyway, though I really liked the job I had.
The new contract wasn’t much of a better offer. They fired me after 3 weeks citing poor performance. And now I am jobless again. I think that will change soon though.
I have a different job though. That job is doing ‘community service’. But in this state they do not allow sex offenders to do community service. There is a blanket assumption that we are just too dangerous. Instead they must show up for something that’s basically a work release program that’s also used as a light punishment for minor drug offenses, bar fights and things like that.
One of the rules is that you are not allowed to bring a cell phone. You are also strongly discouraged from bringing anything of any significance. They don’t want you to have a cell phone while you’re out on the job. Partly because some people who’ve been out on the job have used their cell phones to arrange drug deals while they were there. And there is no place to store it and many of the people who show up there would happily steal anything of any value whatsoever.
I do not like those rules and restrictions at all. I don’t drive, and I feel like they’re getting more hours of my life by me not having a way to contact a cab, or call friends or have my laptop to work on, or do anything while I’m on the bus on the way to or from this place.
I had taken to a secret compromise. I carried my cell phone with me, but I turned it off until the day was over.
I made a mistake recently, not long after I lost my job. The work day was essentially over, but not ‘officially’ over. The supervisor/guard had left the vehicle in order to take care of some personal business and left us alone in the middle of the city. I was worried about making sure I followed up very quickly on any offers I might get. Also, many other people that day had cell phones and hauled them out during lunch, so I was lulled into a false sense of complacency.
So, I hauled out my cell phone to check my voice mail while she was gone. She came back and saw me. I was embarrassed and annoyed with myself and the whole situation. So I blurted out that I considered finding a job more important than my work assignment that day or the hours I was certain I’d get marked off for that day. I never swear (seriously) and I rarely call people names. So I know used almost exactly those words when I said something. But it was a mistake anyway. It was a challenge to her position and a sign that I wasn’t totally willing to give her complete authority over my behavior.
I was kicked off work crew temporarily. I have a really good CCO, and I knew she would ask them to let me back on. But I was yelled at a lot, and told that I should always follow the rules because they’re the rules, and various other like things. Things that I largely wholeheartedly disagree with. In fact, I have almost no respect for people who follow rules because they are rules. I am wiling to assign value judgments to people’s behavior, but I find that ‘the rules’ are often a very poor tool for doing so.
When I was let back on, I was treated to a very similar lecture. Additionally I was told that many of the supervisor/guard’s had said that they didn’t like me and had problems with me. This surprised me greatly because I do not set out purposely to be a problem in any way. I am not surly. I don’t ask questions merely to confuse or irritate the people I’m working with. I am not purposely obstinate or obtuse. I am not friendly. I am quiet and withdrawn most of the time as I do not really want to interact with most of the people around me. But I always try to work hard and never do anything purposely obstructive.
When I carefully asked what their problem was, it was apparently that I asked too many questions. This frightens me as I do not understand how any questions I’ve ever asked have been a problem, and these people have the power to put me in jail by no longer allowing me to finish my hours there. They are very fond of verbally brandishing this power as well. I wish to avoid this, but I’m not really completely sure how.
I also do not ever want to become like some people I’ve met who’ve found themselves on the wrong end of the legal system who become very averse to stirring up any sort of trouble at all. *sigh*
I feel fairly strongly that the goal here is to instill blind obedience and that independent thought of any sort by anybody is considered a problem that must be stomped on. I do not like that at all.
annoyedMy therapist wants to diagnose me as a sex addict. Most recently he’s asked me to consider if my conversations with a girlfriend who lives far away who I mostly talk to online are feeding my addiction when they turn sexual.
I feel now that any sexual behavior of any kind is going to be the subject of this kind of scrutiny.
I’ve thought a fair amount about his diagnosis of an addiction. And I don’t think it applies. There is no spiral. If anything the porn that I have a taste for has gotten tamer over the years, and my usage hasn’t increased over time either.
He wants to call me an opportunistic offender. But I stopped over 15 years ago. Maybe examining the situation and my drives then might be more productive if he wants to be able to figure out why I did it. I would like better answers to that question than I have too.
In truth I think the main way my past behavior affects my present behavior are my desire to shy away from anything that even hints at non-consensuality.
annoyedThe state seems to have a perverted interest in my bodily fluids. Despite never having had a history of drug use of any kind (and in truth not having ever used any drugs that were illegal (not even in the “I didn’t inhale” sense)) the state feels that as a convicted felon I must have my urine frequently tested.
But many convicted felons do have drug problems, and go to interesting lengths to defeat urine tests. This means that they want you to pee into a cup in front of someone.
I tend to go into a stall to avoid the urinal in the bathroom if there are other men there. I will go to great lengths to avoid the humiliation of having to whip it out to pee into a cup in front of some random guy. Having the state drink my urine to make sure I’m not taking drugs is humiliation enough.
Luckily my parole officer is willing to bend the rules slightly. So now all I have to do is empty my pockets and get patted down, and I get to fill the cup behind the closed door.
I still don’t like it. And I think the whole thing is silly. I think the drug laws should largely be abolished anyway, and I never have and never would ever want to use illegal drugs under relatively uncontrolled circumstances. But, in truth, all the restrictions they’re putting me under and their attempts to control my behavior (behavior nobody has had a problem enough of a problem with to inspire any kind of intervention by law enforcement in over 16 years) inspire a strong desire to rebel against the stupidity of it all.
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