greetings from Public Enemy #1

Dear California voters,

In the November election, around 70% of you voted for
a California proposition to add extra punishments, ex post facto,
onto Registered Sex Offenders.

In some ways, I'm surprised that the winning majority was less than 95%.
After all, most citizens think that all RSO's are like the worst of the worst
(the monsters in the most unusual cases).
Few people understand that their neighor might be an RSO, perhaps convicted for "indecent exposure", perhaps many decades ago.
After all, almost all RSO's are very quiet about their past misdeeds.

But almost a third voted No. These must be the voters who bothered to read
the pro and con arguments in the voter info booklet. There they could see that the proposition
contains many new laws --- including one which has become a disaster in the state of Iowa.

I refer to the new law saying that RSO's (even the mildest offenders, and no matter how long ago they offended) cannot live with 2,000 feet (?) (approx. one-half mile?)
of any park or school.

That may sound reasonable -- until you draw a map of the forbidden areas.
Then you find that RSO's will be driven out of cities, and even suburbs, into remote rural areas.
Those areas lack rental housing, lack jobs, lack psychotherapists, et cetera.

In reality, RSO's won't be able to move into the boondocks, even if they try.
So how will they respond to the new residency law?

Many may "go underground", illegallly evading the law. Perhaps by buying phony I.D. (just as undocumented workers do); and moving to some city where nobody knows them; then failing to register.


Some may choose to become homeless. The wealthy ones could live in RV's, being careful to park in a different municipality each night.
The poor could sleep in a different shelter each night, or on various sidewalks.

A few, after they're evicted from their homes,
may decide that it's time to end their lives.
At 66, having offended in the 1970s, I'm NOT planning to actively kill myself.
But I'm hoping that my natural death will come before the state makes me homeless;
not afterwards.

I wish I had the courage to sign this.
But I don't want to attract vigilantes.

-- Public Enemy Number One ( a Registered Sex Offender)
somewhere in California