Four different people stepped up and offered to let me stay at their place, for free, but all four of their addresses were rejected. Within 1,000 feet of a school, a church, a park. One was rejected because of an HOA.

Finally I found an “efficiency apartment” complex in Nashville that was known for renting to people on the registry. The address would be approved, if I could pay $1,600 up front and another $800 after I was released, for first and last month’s rent and the security deposit. That was two-and-a-half years of prison wages. But I was desperate to get out of the hellhole that is prison.

That apartment complex wasn’t a great place to live, but I was in the free world with a roof over my head. So I was truly thankful for that. In time I found a job and began to make friends with people who felt the same way about the system as I did.

“It’s not one issue, it’s everything stacked together—mental health, substance use, incarceration, low wages, rising costs. It builds until something breaks,” said my coworker Sabrina Westmoreland, who used to be an outreach worker in Los Angeles. “And when it does, we don’t respond with care—we respond with punishment. Laws. Tickets. Pushing people out of sight like that solves anything. It doesn’t.”

My friend Tom, who’s also on the registry, had been living on the street. I was able to help him get into the apartment complex. But he was struggling with drug use, and without the proper support he soon lost the apartment. The last time I saw Tom he was living on the street again, with a GPS monitor on his ankle. 

“We’re living in a time where housing is treated as a privilege instead of a right,” Westmoreland said. “And that belief that people deserve or don’t deserve a place to live based on how much money they make—that’s a moral failure.”

We’ve all seen people standing on street corners, holding cardboard signs that say: Anything helps. And we’ve all looked away, at least some of the time.

A nonprofit ministry called People Loving Nashville did outreach to the apartment complex, and through them I met so many wonderful people.

“Being seen is everything,” Lindsey Smith, People Loving Nashville’s community connections manager, told Filter. “That’s why I try—at the very least—to acknowledge people standing on corners. A wave. Eye contact. Something.”

One day I was sitting in my truck when an older woman walked up to me, trying to sell a worn-out bungee cord. It wasn’t worth anything, but I gave her two dollars for it. I had an unopened six-pack of Shiner Bock—the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation allows me to consume alcohol in moderation—so I asked if she wanted to drink one with me.

Her face changed instantly. She smiled—wide, real. I don’t think it was just about the beer. It was like she was smiling to be recognized as a human being, not as a problem to avoid, or as a quick transaction at a stop sign. Like she existed to someone, even if just for a moment. We sat on the tailgate and shared that beer. That moment stayed with me. 

We’ve all seen people standing on street corners, holding cardboard signs that say: Anything helps. And we’ve all looked away, at least some of the time. But now that I’m navigating life on the sex offender registry, I understand how important that wave or moment of eye contact really is. It’s why I looked forward to People Loving Nashville knocking on my door every Thursday. Even if it was just for the next few minutes, I knew I was going to be seen.

Image (cropped) via City of Wichita

The post The Sex Offender Registry Changed How I See Homelessness appeared first on Filter.

At the time I was working for TRICOR, the correctional industries job training program that brags about how they reduce recidivism, so I bugged their reentry staff too. They gave me basically the same list.

I’m a planner. Staff had made sure I had a driver’s license, birth certificate and social security card, but I’d already had those things taken care of, along with a resume. I just needed a place that would allow someone on the registry to work there so I didn’t end up back in this same hellhole. But by the time my release date arrived, I still didn’t have any real information. Most of the discharge paperwork I was sent off with didn’t even say anything.

I did get one job lead through TRICOR—a customer service relationship manager at a print plant. Between my seven years working at the TRICOR print plant and many more years of management experience before prison, maybe I had a chance. My nerves were so shot from the high stakes and the trauma of being away from society for so long that I was barely holding myself together during the interview, but somehow it went well. And then I still didn’t get the job.

I found a local group called Project Return that provided some mock interview classes where they advised telling potential employers about my record upfront, and were able to give me the names of a few places that were willing to hire people on the registry. They also showed me the Tennessee “exclusion zone” map where people on the registry can see the places we’re banned from—like schools, churches and parks—as well as the 1,000-foot buffer around them. And, at least Project Return acknowledged how difficult it was going to be to find employment.

I started applying to Goodwill stores that fell in the areas where I was allowed to work. They were on the list I’d been given, right? After I got two job offers that were revoked once the hiring managers got the results of the background check, I was offered a manager position at a third location. They knew about my record and I hoped to God that surely this one would work out, but I asked my Project Return contact whether I should accept and put myself through it all again just to have the offer revoked. My contact gave the store a call and told me: I’m sorry—don’t waste your time. I spoke with HR, and they’re going to turn you down after they do a background check.

So I shifted my focus to Kroger. I told myself that this time it would be different. But after the first offer didn’t work out, I decided to be direct. When a second Kroger offered me a job, I asked: Hey, so I don’t waste your time or mine—do you actually hire people with felony records or who are on the sex offender registry? They said they didn’t hire anyone with any kind of felony record. I broke down in tears in the parking lot.

So-called “second chance” jobs still have invisible barriers you won’t see until you hit them.

A friend who’s currently living in a halfway house recently heard from the guy in the bunk next to his about a temp agency that was one of those “felony-friendly” employers. So my friend trekked out there to apply, only to be told he’d gotten some bad info.

My wife, who also has a record, once worked at a Sally Beauty Supply for almost two months before they ran an additional background check and told her they had to let her go. She’d absolutely loved the job, but when I went to pick her up that day and they made her sign some release papers she told me she didn’t have the energy to fight it, and just wanted to sign the papers and go home.

If you’re on the registry, and often even if you’re not, so-called “second chance” jobs for people with felony records still have invisible barriers you won’t see until you hit them. We’re told to rebuild our lives and be productive members of society, but we’re locked out of the thing that actually makes that possible—employment. Often when people object to this we aren’t trying to fight back against the system, we’re just trying to work so we can survive like anyone else.

Eventually, a local grocery store did give me that second chance.

“Once you start to understand the hurdles people face when they are released, you want to be part of the solution,” said Jodi Nunes, my former boss. “In my experience, I’ve been rewarded with team members who are willing to work and show up with immense gratitude for the opportunity.”

I’ve been at that job for over four years now, and I’m truly thankful. But at times, I stay even when I’m thinking about what better opportunities might be out there—because I know that whatever they are, they most likely won’t hire me.

Top image (cropped) via Tennessee Department of Correction. Inset image via Jeff Noland.

The post The “Felony-Friendly” Job Lists Don’t Really Mean Anything appeared first on Filter.

The pod was crowded that morning; almost everyone knew it was my release day. As I stepped out of my cell, the whole pod started singing:

“Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye.”

Then my friend Tony Vick picked up one of my bags and walked me down the stairs—not because I needed help, but because it gave us a few more seconds together. Others from our prison community called out their goodbyes as we passed: “See you, brother Noland.” “God bless, Drummer Boy.” 

Tony and I stood at the gate and cried, trying to stretch those final moments. Then at 10:55 am we hugged and I saw his blue eyes for the last time. Unless I ended up back in prison, we knew we’d never see each other again.

“It hit me when I got back to the cell and all his stuff was gone,” Tony recalled. “A mental funeral. The loss [was] overwhelming, and I cried like a baby.”

To visit someone in prison you have to apply to get on their visit list, meaning staff will do a background check and decide whether to approve you. Like a lot of job or housing applications, you have to disclose whether you’ve ever been convicted of a felony. 

“No one comes to see me—many would, but are not allowed.”

Each corrections department has its own policies that determine who is or isn’t allowed to visit, and some of them are harsher than others. Though the wording is somewhat ambiguous, Tennessee Department of Correction policy basically states that no one formerly incarcerated can be approved to visit anyone currently incarcerated unless they are immediate family. And even if they are immediate family, the warden still might say no. TDOC did not respond to Filter’s request for comment.

This wasn’t always the case. TDOC used to allow visits from people with felony records after they’d been out of prison for at least a year, even if they weren’t immediate family. Then in 2015 the old visitation policy was replaced with the current one.

“My life drastically changed,” Tony told Filter. “After so many years in prison, the only family I had was the one I created inside. Many of those that got out came to visit me, after the mandated one-year waiting period. Our continued close friendships provided emotional strength to exist in this crazy place. Hearing their success stories provided hope and inspiration—to me and to those I would recount them to. Now, at 64 years old, 30 years incarcerated and never getting out, no one comes to see me—many would, but are not allowed. It’s isolating and devastating to know that I’ll never have any in-person outside contact again.”

Tony and I had lived together for years at South Central without a single disciplinary write-up. Inside those walls—despite constant surveillance, lockdowns, violence and stress—we built a real and lasting friendship. In the middle of chaos, we built our own sense of safety. In a place built to isolate people, we created community.

“The Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC) supports visitation as part of the overall rehabilitation process and encourages positive engagement with family, friends and other support contacts,” TDOC states on its website. “Visitation allows offenders to preserve valuable connections with loved ones, maintain a support system in the community, and has been proven to reduce the risk of recidivism.” 

But frequently, the strongest support systems for people who are currently incarcerated are people who were formerly incarcerated, and vice versa. These are the kind of valuable connections that visitation should be helping preserve.

Research shows that cutting off pro-social support systems can actually undermine successful reentry. We say we want people to succeed after prison. We say we want rehabilitation. But we add barriers to the relationships that make rehabilitation possible.

Even TRICOR, Tennessee’s correctional industries agency where I worked for years while incarcerated, wouldn’t allow me to visit in a peer mentor capacity to talk to prisoners preparing to re-enter the outside job market. I believe that my experience with that process could be useful to share with them, and I’d also like a chance to give back to the community that helped me survive my prison sentence—but it’s against policy. 

I can’t see their faces when I share good news or bad. I can’t sit next to them in a monitored visit room and offer comfort on a hard day. Everyday things that many people take for granted are all off-limits for us now.

The system justifies all this as a security precaution. But what good does it do to talk about rehabilitation and second chances, and then still treat people like permanent risks?

That gate didn’t just close behind me—it slammed shut between me and my community, the friends who had kept me alive for so many years. Knowing I’ll never see many of them again, never sit across from them or share a word in person, is a quiet, constant grief. The system calls it safety. I call it loss.

Images via Tennessee Department of Correction

The post When Prisons Ban Visitors With Felony Records, Everybody Loses appeared first on Filter.

“I’m so sorry, honey,” she said. “This is what I found by the street. I’ll send you a picture.”

For a split second before I got the picture she texted me I thought one of our cats had been hit by a car. I braced myself, but wasn’t at all prepared for what I saw instead. Someone had printed out my photo and profile page from the Tennessee sex offender registry, laminated it, stapled it to a wooden stake and planted it in my front yard. With slurs scrawled across in permanent marker. For everyone to see.

The first thing I felt wasn’t anger. It was shame. Not of who I am today but of who I was back then.

It felt like a home invasion, and they didn’t even enter my house. Or like a curse, like the past itself had come walking up our driveway; a version of me from 16 years ago that doesn’t exist anymore. Outwardly I brushed it off, telling my wife the person who did this didn’t deserve our energy. But the sight of my face on that sign cracked me open.

The first thing I felt wasn’t anger. It was shame. Not of who I am today but of who I was back then. Over the past 16 years, 10 of which I spent in prison, I’ve worked to repair what I can and rebuild my life on honesty and accountability. But the registry is designed to freeze you forever as a single moment in time—often your worst moment.

Later that night I did feel anger. I was thinking about how much malice someone must have in their heart to do something like this. But as I sat with that feeling, I realized something uncomfortable, but honest: Maybe whoever did this did it because they were a survivor of sexual abuse.

One way or another, they were probably hurting from something and hadn’t received the support they needed to heal.

In the six years since I completed my sentence and began life on the registry, I’ve learned that it fails everyone—survivors, perpetrators and the public. It does nothing to improve public safety. And though it follows us the rest of our lives, it’s not designed for survivors or perpetrators to receive long-term trauma-informed care. It doesn’t provide anyone with healthy outlets for difficult emotions. It doesn’t encourage healing and rebuilding. What it does encourage is public shaming, harassment and reliving the trauma at every turn. So people numb the pain and isolate, or they lash out.

Protecting the public from dangerous repeat predators is a fine goal, but that’s not what the sex offender registry does.

I reported the incident to my parole officer. They were sympathetic, but didn’t have much to say. They told me I could file a police report about the trespassing, but I wasn’t interested in doing that. When I talked to my treatment group, they suggested I could put up a “No Trespassing” sign, but that didn’t feel right either. I didn’t want to make myself or anyone else more involved in the criminal-legal system. I didn’t want more signs in my yard. So that was that.

Survivors deserve safe spaces to process the trauma inflicted on them. People who have caused harm deserve the chance to rehabilitate themselves and rejoin their communities. But fear never leads to healing.

If the information on the registry were only accessible to law enforcement and were proven useful to public safety in that context, I would support it. Protecting the public from dangerous repeat predators is a fine goal, but that’s not what the sex offender registry does. It’s bloated with people who are not high-risk for victimizing anyone, and it’s increasingly become a tool used to criminalize low-income, vulnerable communities. And it creates a culture of paranoia and vigilantism—one that offers the public a false sense of security, if any at all. Public shaming is not public safety.

After the sign of my past shame was staked in our yard, I realized you can’t control other people’s reactions. But you can control yours.

Top image via State of Ohio. Inset image via Jeff Noland.

The post The Sex Offender Registry Isn’t Meant for Public Safety. Just Public Shaming. appeared first on Filter.

Sex offender registries are designed so that society treats you like a leper; as if you should be sent away somewhere, so that “decent” people don’t have to worry about you. I’ve felt that shame deeply in the five years since I was released from prison. But not being able to go to church feels like shame on top of shame. Like I’m not even worthy of faith anymore. 

During the 10 years I spent in prison, it was the church community that sustained me. And still sustains me today, through correspondence. While incarcerated, a lot of people attend church not necessarily because of faith, but because they’re seeking a safe haven, or food. And in my experience, there was no judgment of those people—food, safety and comfort are things everyone needs, no matter where we are.

“Two life-changing components for those incarcerated are church and community,” Terrance Heard, currently incarcerated at South Central Correctional Facility where I served most of my sentence, told Filter. “The benefits reach far beyond what state-facilitated programs offer … the only alternative for empowering one another with accountability—and protecting each other from a prison culture filled with bad actors—is community. This is especially true for sex offenders, who not only bear the judgment of the state through the courts but must also find the grace to survive the court of public opinion.”

Heard worked as the chaplain’s clerk for many years, and is the de facto spiritual leader for the facility’s religious services. He was there for me multiple times during my sentence when my faith was being tested. But the compassion and acceptance I found in the prison church services have been much harder to find in the free world.

The pastor had never been in this position before either, so neither of us really knew what we were supposed to do.

When I was released in 2020, one of the first questions I asked my parole officer was whether I could join a church. There was one within walking distance of my home, and my PO said I could go there—if I got permission from the pastor to attend.

I reached out to the pastor, who agreed to meet with me to discuss my situation. I updated my PO. Like many people on the registry, in the early days of my parole I was wearing an ankle GPS monitor.

You’d think that a PO would be the person to ask about how these things work, and that they’d want to encourage healthy community reintegration efforts like seeking to join a church. But in my experience and that of other people I know on the registry, they don’t really provide any helpful information. I was told that if the pastor agreed to let me attend, then he’d have to contact my PO directly to confirm that I was approved, but I didn’t know what else was or wasn’t supposed to happen at the meeting.

The pastor had never been in this position before either, so neither of us really knew what we were supposed to do. He began asking me questions that made it feel more like an interrogation. Why had I been convicted? Who was the victim? How had my family and friends reacted? It went on. My anxiety was off the charts. Rather than being welcomed into a community of other people seeking grace, I was reliving the most shameful moments of my life. As if it had all just happened, and I couldn’t have spent the past decade learning and growing, in addition to serving my punishment.

But I also understand that he was doing his best to navigate an unfamiliar situation, the same way I was. He seemed to decide he’d done his due diligence, and approved me. My PO decided I could only attend the regular Sunday service, not special events like holidays or music services. I attended that church for the next year or so.

Eventually I asked my PO if I could try a different church. Once again he agreed, if I could get the pastor’s permission. I approached the pastor and asked if he had a moment to speak privately. This time, the experience was completely different. 

I told Reverend Jay Voorhees I was on the registry and that I was hoping to attend his church. Without hesitation he replied, Sure thing. Then he asked for my PO’s number, so he could call him to follow up. 

On my way out I saw him offer a bus pass and a few dollars to someone who was going through a rough time. I felt hopeful, welcomed, accepted and human again.

Holidays services, and other special events where we’re often not welcome, tend to be where deeper friendships are formed.

Unlike the first pastor, Voorhees had had many of these conversations before. He knew, as I did by that time, that there was no requirement to interrogate me, or to ban me from the holiday services. Voorhees would have allowed me to attend those if it was purely up to him. He had a few simple guidelines, but they were all straightforward things I knew to do anyway, like choose a seat away from families with children.

“Communication is important, with clear definitions about boundaries and procedures for participation,” Voorhees told Filter. “In my experience, those on the registry know what the limits are.”

This particular church had on-site transitional housing, and since families with children lived there, the church didn’t allow people on the registry to go into that area—but that would have been the case anyway, as it’s just common sense for people in our position to avoid situations like that.

A friend of mine who’s also on the registry, and also religious, always tells me he’s praying for me. But he himself doesn’t go to church anymore; he told me it’s just not worth everything you have to go through to be there. It broke my heart to hear him say that. But it’s difficult to keep putting yourself through so much shame and misery to be in a place that doesn’t seem to want you. 

Those holiday services and other special events where we’re not welcome tend to be where deeper friendships are formed. Even in prison, it was after I started playing music during the church services that I truly found myself belonging to a community. I don’t miss prison, but I do miss being part of a church in that way.

“Being in ministry with those on the sex offender registry is complicated,” Voorhees said. “On the one hand, we have a responsibility to offer grace, love and hospitality to all. On the other hand, there are legitimate concerns for the safety of the vulnerable in our church. [But] there are ways for the church to provide love and support for those who find very few places for experiencing grace and a sense of community.”

Image (cropped) via Mississippi Department of Corrections

The post The Sex Offender Registry Shouldn’t Mean We’re Unwelcome at Church appeared first on Filter.

I got there as quickly as I could. As the officer began asking her questions about the accident, we were fearful that saying the wrong thing would send her to jail. We prayed that the other driver involved wasn’t considering legal action. We were lucky; they couldn’t have been nicer, and their only concern seemed to be whether my wife had been hurt.

Back in 2008, Jamie had been in a minor accident—while driving in the rain she veered into a cow fence, just 300 yards from her home. Her children had been in the car and were unhurt, so after calling the police she took them home before returning alone just as the police got there. The police charged her with leaving the scene of an accident and issued a warrant.

She paid the court fees and assumed the matter was resolved. But she didn’t know about a separate $10 fine she had to pay at city hall, and as a result her license was suspended.

Getting it reinstated would have cost several hundred dollars. And there was always something or other that was a higher priority, so she just didn’t get around to it. A year later she was pulled over and given a warning about driving with a suspended license, and almost immediately after that she was pulled over again and arrested. But she kept driving, and didn’t have any problems until 2018, the beginning of a difficult few years when she was arrested several times for drug possession and theft.

By 2022 she’d served all her time and had no outstanding warrants—except now she had thousands of dollars in unpaid fines that had accompanied her charges, and couldn’t get her license back without paying them. It seemed like there was little chance of ever getting it back now.

But after her accident in 2024, both of us were shaken. We knew what a daunting task it would be to get her license reinstated. But we agreed that this was the time to face it and get it fixed, and finally leave the past in the past. 

Jamie’s car after the accident in September 2024

First she had to turn herself in. Not because of any new charges, but purely because of the unpaid fines. We were fortunate that she was able to go down to the police station on a Sunday night and be out the next morning, but it cost us over $2,000 in court fees and about $6,500 for the bail bondsman. If we hadn’t been able to pay him, who knows how long she might have had to wait in jail.

She got a judge’s order for a restricted license, and has now begun paying $123 each month—through a court fine website that takes a cut.

$4,369.50 for property theft. $1,413.00 for simple drug possession, and driving with a suspended license. $3,513.50 for drug paraphernalia and failure to appear in court. $2,214.50 for another theft charge. $2,474.00 for another possession charge. $814.50 for a parole violation plus court costs.

That’s nearly $15,000, all for things that were nonviolent or even just plain bureaucratic in nature, and for which she’d served her time. And on top of that, over $8,500 we had to pay up front just to be allowed to get the process started. All stemming from a $10 fine 16 years ago that she hadn’t known she’d had to pay. Yes, she kept driving with a suspended license even though she had been warned and knew it was illegal. But if you’re not in a position to easily pay a few hundred dollars the first time something happens, life doesn’t stop until you are. You still need to drive to work, or drive your kids to school. 

It’s much harder to get car insurance with a recent suspension on your record, and then if you can get it, it’s more expensive. Though my own driving record didn’t have any issues, I ended up being denied coverage just because Jamie and I live in the same household.

Here in Tennessee there are towns heavily populated by people with criminal records where it feels like almost no one has a valid license. And the local governments thrive financially because residents are trapped paying endless fines they can’t afford.

“It’s a shame and guilt cycle over and over again,” Jamie said. “Some people just say, ‘Forget it—come pick up a pack and flip it.’”

Top image via Connecticut Senate Democrats. Inset image via Jeff Noland.

The post A $10 Ticket Suspended Her Driver’s License. It Cost $23,000 to Get It Back. appeared first on Filter.

My mind raced. What did I do? I can’t go back to prison. I can’t ever go back to prison. I won’t make it out alive this time.

The person on the other end of the call said he needed my personal cell phone number. When I hesitated, he rattled off my home address, my parole officer’s name and my ID number from the decade I spent in Tennessee Department of Correction custody. My coworkers were watching. Shaking, I told him my number and said a silent prayer that I would not go back to prison.

Next he called me on my cell phone and said an officer had been dispatched to my work address. As the initial shock wore off and I began to regain my senses, I asked for his badge number. He said something fake-sounding and repeated that an officer was on his way to arrest me right now. I gathered my courage and replied that I’d be waiting out front with my lawyer. 

“Fuck you!” he screamed. “Child molester! Go to hell!” Then he hung up.

A few months later, I picked up a call on my work number from a Lieutenant Robert Morrison of the Davidson County Sheriff’s office, who informed me that I’d missed a DNA sample appointment that morning. This time I asked for his badge number right away. He hung up. I called him back and asked if this was a good number for my attorney to reach him at. He hung up again. 

If you’re one of the approximately 800,000 people in the United States on a sex offender registry (SOR) then information that’s normally private, like your address, is publicly searchable. Anyone can look you up and call you at work saying they have a warrant for your arrest.

I’ll always regret that I hurt the people I loved the most. I also want the chance to redefine myself. And I want some privacy.

In 2018 Tim Huff, who is also on Tennessee’s SOR, received a call similar to mine. But in his case, he was told that in order to clear the warrant and not go back to prison he needed to deposit $400 into a Bitcoin account.

Cryptocurrency scams, and other kind of scams threatening legal action, are fairly common. But they’re especially common for people on SOR. 

On December 11, 2024, Jerry Sherrill picked up the phone to someone saying this was a contact call, he was in SOR noncompliance for failing to update his DNA and photo, and there was a warrant out for his arrest.

“They were quite convincing,” he told Filter. “Kept me on the phone so I couldn’t call my parole officer to verify any of this. Before I knew it they had sent me a Green Dot receipt; then I knew.”

They got him for $1,700. When he filed a complaint, the investigator who met with him said scams like that happen a lot. They’ve even used my name before, Sherrill recalled the investigator saying. Last week they got someone for $2,000.

I’ve never been required to pay fees via Bitcoin, but it’s not that much of a stretch.

Stereotypes about people on SOR prompt plenty of strangers to make these kinds of calls in their spare time, but that’s not the only reason we’re obvious targets.

I’ve never been required to pay my SOR fees via Bitcoin, but it’s not that much of a stretch. I regularly pay fees in cash. Armed officers enter my home without warning whenever they want. I’ve picked up calls from unknown numbers at 9 pm to have someone I’ve never heard of tell me they want to do a video search of my home, and it was legit.

If you say No to something that looks like a scam, and it was an actual SOR requirement, then you’ve pissed off the people who control your entire life. So when strangers call telling you to pay up or you go back to prison, you have to take that seriously.

After Huff sent the $400, he drove to two different sheriffs’ offices looking for the officer who’d called him, to make sure there really wasn’t anything he was supposed to do.

“Both places said, Sorry, they don’t work here. It sounds like you got scammed.“

Top image via Ohio Department of Commerce. Inset image via Office of Sex Offender Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering and Tracking.

The post No One Prepares You for the Sex Offender Registry Phone Scams appeared first on Filter.

These shakedowns occur once a month without warning. The mug shot was to keep the Tennessee Sex Offender Registry (SOR) up to date. 

In 2009 I took a plea deal and spent the next 10 years in prison. I knew I had hurt people I loved, and accepted my punishment. During my decade behind bars, I held a steady job and had no disciplinary write-ups. I knew that upon release I’d have to register as a sex offender. But I thought my pound of flesh was paid, and that I could move forward with rebuilding my life.  

Once a week, I attend my community-based sex offender group treatment class: a program sort of like Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous. Participants are legally mandated to attend the classes, and your treatment provider can say the word and make your life miserable or possibly get you sent back to prison, so no one wants to upset them. So nobody asks the questions we’re all thinking, but are afraid to ask: Does anyone assigned to this treatment program ever complete it? Do the classes ever end?

Every week for nearly four years, I’ve walked into class and handed $50 cash to the treatment provider. This has cost about $10,000 to date, but in my experience there’s little to no feedback about how we’re progressing, or what we should work on if we’re not progressing. No one really knows if there’s an end in sight, or if we’re staying in the same place and will be doing this forever. Treatment varies from person to person and from state to state, but often these programs are expected to take a year or two.

If your treatment provider and parole officer agree, you can progress to Level 2.

“Sex offending cannot be cured and at best, can only be controlled,” states Tennessee Sex Offender Treatment Board (TSOB) policy. “Treatment is to be stressed as lifelong. Completion of a treatment program does not cure sexual deviance.”

But if there’s a way to complete treatment, it hasn’t been explained to us. The TSOB did not answer Filter’s inquiry about progression of treatment.

I’m in the Level 1 groups, which meet weekly. Treatment is supposed to restructure our thinking and eliminate any “deviant” sexual urges. When we walk in, the first thing that happens is always roll call and having our money collected.

We’re instructed to talk openly about any new stressors in our lives, but if anyone mentions anything that could be considered a high-risk situation—like drinking alcohol—their treatment provider will report it to their parole officer. Those two stay in close contact.

If your treatment provider and parole officer agree you’ve completed significant portions of the treatment, you can be moved to Level 2 and meet every other week. After an estimated two years at Level 2, you can be moved to Level 3, the maintenance program that just meets once per month. There’s no suggested time period for how long people stay at Level 1. 

Every six months, we pay $250 to take a polygraph test. The TSOB philosophy of sex offender treatment states that we are “master manipulators,” who are fundamentally “secretive.” So even if we’re open about our pasts and appear to be taking accountability, providers are told not to believe us, especially in this first phase of treatment. If we look like we’re making progress, providers are supposed to assume that we’re just trying to deceive them by “attempting to ‘act normal,’” or that we’re trying “to become the best client to avoid dealing with [our] problems.”

“As the saying goes,” the policy states, “‘You are only as sick as your secrets.’”

Without knowing whether or not we’re making progress, we’re unsure of what more we could be doing.

It doesn’t seem like the providers have any reason to advance us to Level 2 or 3. We pay more money the more frequently we attend the classes, and the process never gets questioned. No one wants to give anyone a reason to say we’re in denial about needing treatment.

“[C]onvicted offenders who deny should be considered high risk,” the policy states, “and eventually returned to the court authorities if denial persists beyond a reasonable limit.”

I do agree that when someone who has caused harm hasn’t accepted responsibility for it, they should be considered high-risk for causing harm again. But part of accepting that responsibility is doing the best job we can at the treatment. Without knowing whether or not we’re making progress, we’re unsure of what more we could be doing.

Parole for people on an SOR is very different from parole for everyone else. Instead of re-integrating into our communities, we’re kept apart from them. Many of us have accepted and worked hard at the treatment assigned to us because we want to once again be contributing members of society, as they say. We know that the public perception of everyone on SOR is that we’re predators who are sick and deserve to pay for our crimes, even though that stereotype is much narrower than what SOR look like in real life.

So no one really wants to hear us complain. But this isn’t about wanting to avoid treatment—it’s about wanting to be able to complete it successfully.

If we’ve been actively participating in treatment, without violating any of the restrictions placed on us and without any polygraph issues, after how many years is it reasonable to ask if we’re supposed to be doing something differently?

Photograph (cropped) via West Virginia Department of Human Services

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