J and C and Me

After a fun morning out (shopping for bridesmaids dresses for my sister-in-law’s wedding….we found a beautiful dress that looks nice on all of us, yay!) I come home to find Chris pondering over some interesting mail.

I already blogged about the incident we had a few years ago where someone broke into our home.  It was our understanding at the time of his trial (more than 18 months after the break in, he was in jail the entire time) that he was released on time served.  Since he was also a convicted sex offender, we have been able to keep track of him through the state sex offender registry.

Then today we get a letter from the state Division of Corrections and it turns out he is up for parole.  Huh?  Apparently he is still in jail.  There goes my faith in the state sex offender registry.

They want us to give them a Victim Impact Statement to take into consideration during his parole hearing.  Basically, they just want us to tell them how we have been affected by the crime.

What in the world are we supposed to say?  It was almost four years ago.  Yes, it was very scary.  No, I would not like to ever have that happen again.  But the bottom line is that no one was hurt (in our family, he did break the arm of the police officer in trying to escape).  As far as we know, we weren’t even threatened.  He just wanted our stuff.

Not that I’m saying it’s okay, it’s not.  It’s a very, very bad thing.   But four years.  Geesh, people serve about that long for murder (in some cases).  Those are the people that ought to be in prison!  The rapist we have living down the street, he ought to be in prison.

But, well, our guy is also a registered sex offender.  I have no idea what his offense was.  In fact, (how scary is this) today he is no longer listed on the WV Sex Offender Registry.  Why?   Are they only listed on there for so many years following their crime?  I thought it was a forever thing.  If they are incarcerated, they still appear on the page, just lists their home as a correction center.  So why isn’t he on there?  Why was he on there (as of early this summer, we periodically check our area) as living in our town?  What exactly did he do to get on that list in the first place?

I mean, we don’t know this guy.  No, we weren’t hurt….but what if we had woken up when he was in our room?  Would he have hurt us then?  What is we hadn’t have woken up and called the police?  Would he have come back upstairs?

I’d like to hope that he’s just some guy who HAD a problem.  I mean, the one and only time I saw dude he was handcuffed on my porch making a puddle of drool, basically out of his mind on something.  I’d like to hope that after four years in prison he not longer has an addiction problem….therefore would never do anything so stupid as going around breaking into people’s houses or whatever it was that got him on the sex offender registry.

I’d hope that now they can let him out of prison and he can move on to do something even slightly productive (or at least not harmful) in society and free up his prison bed for someone who IS out there hurting people.  That he won’t become (or is he already) someone who hurts people.

Most of all, I really wish I had some sense of security on the local justice system.  I mean, we have a trial date that they forgot to bring the prisoner to, a trial that they forgot to notify us of.  A notice that he was released after the trial we missed.  An address on the sex offender registry where he supposedly lived for years.  Then a letter from the Department of Corrections (with our last name incorrect on all paperwork) to notify us of his upcoming parole.  Lastly, he has disappeared from the sex offender registry.

These people sound more confused than I am….and I’m supposed to trust that they gauge whether this guy has been rehabilitated and whether he should be set free?

I don’t know what we’re supposed to say in this Victim Impact Statement…..but I’m not sure it will make much difference either way.