For the work shy...

...http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/Sex_offenders_try_to_erase_laws_marking_them_for_life.html

"AUSTIN Martin is tired of the dead-end jobs and unrelenting stigma that comes with being a registered sex offender.

Although he has a master's degree in liberal arts and wants to be a teacher, employers have been unable to see beyond his presence on the state's sex offender registry, which he is required to be on for the rest of his life.

It's true that a decade ago, he was convicted of sexually abusing a 16-year-old girl who was half his age. But the registry doesn't divulge that his victim was his girlfriend who now is his common-law wife, with whom he has three children.

Glancing at his profile, there's little to distinguish him from the repeat pedophiles and violent rapists who are among the 54,000-plus registered sex offenders in the state's database.

I just can't equate my offense with the guy who sat next to me in my therapy sessions who raped his 5-year-old stepson, said Martin, 42. He asked that his last name not be used for this article for fear that his children will be stigmatized.

[...]

Ray Allen, the former Texas House Corrections chairman who helped shepherd into law many of the past decade's toughest sex registration bills, said he and his colleagues went too far.

We cast the net widely to make sure we got all the sex offenders. Now, 15 years on, it turns out that really only a small percentage of people convicted of sex offenses pose a true danger to the public, he said.

Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, the powerful Senate Criminal Justice chairman, said: If we're not careful, we're going to have a sex offender registry that is so large and so encompassing, it's not much good.

Texas Voices members know their chances for success hinge on politicians risking their careers on a population with just about zero political clout.

Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, who has been a driving force behind the community notification laws, isn't ready to assume that risk or have victims assume it. She insists that if the registry is too large, it's because there are too many people out there committing sex crimes.

If one child is saved, then the laws will be worth what we've done, Shapiro said.

[...]

From her two-story suburban home north of Austin, Jan Fewell, 50, searches for sex abuse victims in order to help their perpetrators.

Do you know a man named Stephen Fisher? she asked into her cell phone. Do you still keep in touch with him? You do? Was it consensual sex or was it rape?

She had just phoned a now 23-year-old mother of two. Combing through court records, Fewell learned the woman, at age 13, had had sex with Fisher, a man five years her senior. Fewell knew the woman had refused to help prosecutors and now, a decade later, Fewell wanted to know if she considered herself a victim, and if not, if she would be willing to help her group.

The call from a stranger to a sex abuse victim could have easily ended badly, but the woman indeed had remained close to the man who's serving eight years in prison in connection with sexually assaulting her."

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