As I said there, the point of looking up her information wasn't to terrorize her or make her afraid, but to get her to understand just what it's like for families like mine and the 750,000+ registrants in the United States. It took me all of 15 minutes of slightly motivated searching to dig up all of that information, and it didn't cost me a dime. Every bit of what I gleaned was publicly shared, albeit over widely disconnected sources - nothing like the "one stop shopping" of the registry.
Ever since the murder of Gary Blanton, my wife has lived in fear of someone knocking on our door and killing me, or of a drive-by shooting of our house. Because I am forced to work for myself doing odd jobs and selling things on Craigslist, she worries every time I leave the house to meet a customer - is it legitimate, or is this the time that it turns out to be a trap designed to lure me so I can be killed?
This is not a way to live. This is not living. This is not being a productive member of society. And yet, this is the life we force registrants into, and when they fail and fall back on crime (theft, robbery, drug dealing) just to survive, they become the worst of the worst, the serial criminal who cannot be reformed. It is a system set up to fail.
After I brought all of Sabrina's information to light, she immediately locked down her Facebook and other profiles, and changed her cover photo on Facebook, most likely as a commentary on our exchange and the realization of just how exposed she really is.
I would disagree, Sabrina. You are not a bad example. You are human.
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