Jenny. Because she’s on the state's sex offender registry, Jenny’s photo, home address, and charge (as a teacher she had sex with a 16-year-old minor) are available to the public. What’s more, even her scars and tattoos are listed on the sheriff’s website for the public to see. Not to mention, some news reports about her conviction also list her address, Vice reports.
Female sex offenders. While the predicament of registered female sex offenders is real, it's hard to sell to most people— and reasonably so. "Like males who offend, they can and do cause extreme physical and emotional damage to their victims. In addition to prison time, they can also be subject to a long list of lifetime restrictions such as where they can live and work as well as being listed, often publicly, on their state's sex offender registry,” Vice reports. "The reason for these post-sentence restrictions come under the guise of public safety, but a growing number of critics are disputing the true benefits of what they call ‘draconian’ laws."
Laws. Prior to 1994, only a handful of states kept a sex offender registry. Today, more than 750,000 people are featured on the FBI’s National Sex Offender Registry, with women making up about 7 percent of that numbers, Vice reports. Over the years, there has been much debate on whether there are too many restrictions on sex offenders or too few. But that, well, that’s for another article.
Six female registrants. For the Vice piece, Vice reporter Serena Solomon spoke to six female registrants about their experiences. Solomon writes: "While it is difficult to gauge the experience of all female registrants, the half dozen I interviewed for this story detailed how they have become the objects of sexual assault and harassment because of their sex offender status. Furthermore, because of the stigma of their convictions, the women often feel powerless to stop or report incidences.”
Shawna Baldwin. Of course, Jenny isn’t the only female registrant who has received letters from strangers. Shawna Baldwin (pictured here), 34, has also opened her mailbox to an influx of grotesque messages. "Describing their male parts to me, asking if I have ever been gang banged, if I have rape fantasies," she tells Solomon. "They assume that I am a closet sex freak because I'm on the registry."
Shawna Baldwin. Baldwin — who’s a married mother of three — was convicted at 19 for having sex with a 14-year-old boy, Solomon explains. While her parole period finished earlier this summer, she will remain on the Oklahoma registry for life.
The letters. "In 2011, Shawna says the letters she received materialized into a stalker who would stare at her outside the salon where she worked as a hairstylist,” Solomon writes. "When he began approaching her and her children, Baldwin filed a protective order, according to court documents she supplied.” This, Solomon notes, has been the only time Baldwin has stood up for herself.
Sexual harassment. Baldwin went on to explain how she was the target of sexual harassment at her previous job. Of course, her boss — who was the one sexually harassing her — knew of her status because it is required of registrants to inform every employer. Nonetheless, Baldwin said she felt she couldn’t complain “because who was going to believe the sex offender,” she tells Solomon.
Reporting abuse. Like Baldwin, Jenny also refuses to report the abuse. She tells Solomon that she hasn’t reported the authors of the letters because she wants “to stay under the radar.” This is incredibly important to her because any violation of her parole could trigger a 15-year suspended sentence, Solomon explains.
Dating. But it’s not just at home and at work that female registrants experience sexual assault and harassment: it’s in their dating lives, too. In addition to Baldwin and Jenny, Solomon spoke to a woman named Tanya (not her real name) about her experiences in the dating scene.
Tanya. Tanya — who is a therapist in her 30s who had sex with a 17-year-old patient — is not listed on her state’s public registry. This is because she’s considered a “level one,” meaning she has been categorized as the least likely to re-offend. That said, her probation requires her to disclose her status before having sex with anyone. And when this occurs, she finds her dates are either “republished by it or begin to fetishize her,” Solomon writes.
Tanya. “It's harder to say, 'Well, I don't want to do this with you,' or 'I want to wait to have sex,'” Tanya explains to Solomon. "How do you assert a boundary when you have broken a law?” Tanya went on to say that had she not been carrying around the stigma attached to her status, she would have actually reported some encounters as sexual assaults. "It's a bit internalized for me, that I don't have a right to my own body anymore because of what I did and what happened,” she tells Solomon.
Why. So, why is this happening? Solomon reached out to Professor Franca Cortoni who studies sex offenders for some answers.
Why."How this would be interpreted by these men that are writing [the sexualized letters]—because it is not men in general, it is those certain men who are thinking, I'm looking, and I want to have this type of sex because this is what turns me on,” Cortoni explains. "And lo and behold it is publicly known that she has done deviant sex so clearly she is fair game [to him].”
Bottom line. Cortoni went on to explain how acknowledging the plight of female sex offenders should not translate to pitying them. "There is a reality without pitying the women—I think we have to be careful not to fall into that trap—but there is a reality that is different for women offenders compared to men offenders in general,” she tells Solomon. The fix? According to Cortoni, a major overhaul of how sex offenders — both men and women — are managed by the state.
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