Banished: a family on the sexual offense registry
By Michael M . . . The holiday season will be brightened by an exciting project in New Jersey which will culminate on December 19th, 2019, with a live performance called Banished: A Family on the Sex Offender Registry. The live performance, co-written by Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg, a staff writer for The Appeal, and coLAB Arts producing director, Dan Swern, was produced with support from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities and co-sponsored by the New Jersey Office of the Public Defender. It is an oral history and storytelling project documenting the harms of the sex offender registry, told in three parts, as seen through the eyes of a family going through the process.
The play, which spotlights cast members Nancy Boykin, Robert Carr, Meridith C. Grundei, Jean Tafler, Dave Seamon, will also feature interviews with Elizabeth LeTourneau, Director of the Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse at Johns Hopkins University, and Patty Wetterling, national children’s safety advocate whose son’s disappearance led to the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act.
A panel discussion will be held following the play. Panelists include:
- Amos Caley, Associate Pastor at Reformed Church of Highland Park and lead organizer for the National Religious Campaign Against Torture in New Jersey;
- Stephanie Lutz, Assistant Deputy Public Defender, Special Hearings Unit, NJ Office of the Public Defender;
- Alexander Shalom, Senior Supervising Attorney and Director of Supreme Court Advocacy for ACLU-NJ;
The project’s scholar-in-residence is Laura Cohen, Distinguished Clinical Professor of Law, Justice Virginia Long Scholar, and Director, Criminal and Youth Justice Clinic at Rutgers Law School.
To RSVP or to get more information about this event, visit:
http://www.colab-arts.org/calendar/2019/12/19/banished-when-a-child-is-on-the-sex-offender-registry
