Part III: It’s all up to me See also Part I Part II By Julie . . . I found solace in the times when my father was gone and in jail. My focus turned to my mother, for whom my heart broke time after time when he was taken away. Though he was convicted several times, he was…
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Part II: Flashback to the horror years See also Part I By Julie . . . The path of my life was set before I was born. My mother married a convicted rapist who was either unable or unwilling to stop his behavior. For the first twelve years of my life, all I knew was physical, sexual, and emotional abuse;…
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Part I: Two tortured childhoods By Julie . . . I’ve learned that our stories affect many. And we are affected by the stories of many others. The registry did not exist when I was sexually abused by my father for the first 12 years of my life. When my mother married my father, he had already been in prison…
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By Sandy . . . WFMJ21 has reported on how the Trumbull County Sheriff’s Department has conducted a random, county-wide check on its residents who are on Ohio’s sex offense registry. Perhaps inspired by the current political climate, I would like to respond to this piece in the way of fact-checking. “Hundreds of sex offenders live among us across the valley.”…
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By Sandy . . . Sometimes situations arise that leave me almost too speechless to write about them. This is one such case. Four years ago, in 2016, Brandon Hester was a middle school teacher in Clarksville, Tennessee. He was charged, convicted, and incarcerated for sexual contact with one of his young male students. He is now on probation and…
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By Mardi Link . . . Kristen Burgess used to think of herself as a homebody. She never imagined she’d need a MacPass, give public testimony to state lawmakers, or compile 12 years worth of data on sex crimes in Grand Traverse County. Her domestic life was irrevocably changed April 11, 2018. That was the day her husband, Victor “Scott”…
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By Sandy . . . North Port, Florida, must be having a really slow news week. In one day, no less than six media outlets printed and aired stories* about the outrage expressed by parents of school children upon discovering that a person on Florida’s sexual offense registry was living within viewing distance of a school bus pick-up location. After…
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Used with permission By Michael Hobbes . . . The first time Damian Winters got evicted was in 2015. He was living with his wife and two sons in suburban Nashville when his probation officer called his landlord and informed him that Winters was a registered sex offender. The previous year, when he was 24 years old, Winters had been…
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Used with permission By Michael Hobbes . . . The hotel industry has never liked Airbnb. Since the launch of the short-term rental company in 2008, the American Hotel & Lodging Association, the sector’s trade group and lobbying arm, has urged cities to tax, restrict and prohibit Airbnb’s activities. But now the industry may be encouraging a new tactic: inciting…
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By Sandy . . . The mandatory chemical castration law that has just passed in Alabama is being debated every way possible. Health professionals are weighing in on why, medically, it is not an effective prevention strategy. From a moral and human rights perspective, the general consensus is that it is barbaric and reminiscent of our nation’s earlier and darker forays…
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