 We are more than aware that the film was actually really long and it's getting very late into the night, so the way we have our panel structured is each of the panelists got their question in advance and we asked them to try to keep their reply down to about six minutes each, and then if people want to stay after the question and answer, the panel will stay here, but some of the people might, you know, need to get home and take care of themselves. And hopefully you all got one of the handouts that introduced each of the panelists, and we didn't want to take up time by doing that, but they'll have them as they speak, saying who they are and what their current, you know, sort of role or function within the world of sex offender's case. So we'll start with Gary Marvel. Hi. Hi. Go ahead. Yeah, so Gary, can you give us more of the context of the sex offender registry in Vermont? What's currently done for treatment and what kind of risk do sex offenders pose to the community, which I actually think was answered pretty well within the documentary that I forgot. So you just focus on the sex offender registry in Vermont and the treatment program. You have to ask me what you want to know about the sex offender registry, and we do have one, as you know, for the community. It's not as restrictive as you'd find in all states. Well, maybe you can explain, like, how it works, and if you're aware and other people may have answers to, like, how it impacts people in a positive or negative way, you know, who saw some of the different perspectives on it from Florida. Sure. Does that work here? No. That's filming. Oh, yeah. So, well, the sex offender registry in Vermont, you get on after being convicted of sex offence, the court alerts the registry that you're going to need to register. You're not on the registry while you're incarcerated. If you get a sentence that you go directly to the community, then you'd have to register from there. If you go from incarceration, the Vermont Department of Corrections is responsible for sending notification that you've been released so that you would then have to follow up and give them your address. And every time that information changes, as far as your phone number or where you live, that information has to be passed on to the registry. We don't have restrictions like you would see in some of the more conservative states where, like, some states, for example, they'll, like, they have automatic limitations, like, where you can live. For example, like, out in Indiana, I believe they have one where you can't live with minors if you're on the registry. We don't have any of that. Yeah. That's determined by supervision. Our state is much, much, we're kind of the polar opposite in regards to what you would see in the film. So can you talk about the, a lot of the film talks about that there's no treatment offered? What Vermont Department of Corrections does for people who are convicted of these crimes? We have, yeah, we have the TIPSA program. That's the Vermont treatment program for sexual abusers. And we, that's incarcerated. You can be on the low end, moderate or high depending on your risk assessments. And that will, that will be determining a timeframe that you'll be going to treatment. Then when you get out of treatment, it's expected that folks that are continuing on supervision will be in some form of treatment community. That's simply done by contract providers that is, is different from each county. And you will typically stay on it in, in treatment. The average I would say is expected like about three years is if you're doing well. It can go longer, but it's typically at least three years that you're going to be in some form of community treatment after release. One of the things that I forgot to say before we started the panel is that Earl, the person who was going to come and talk about his experience, having been formally incarcerated in Nicosia at the last minute sort of deciding not to come. And I think you can probably tell why from the film. We weren't sure if the media was going to be here. We didn't know if they came, if they would guarantee that he wouldn't be exposed and he just had too much concern for his children and his community and the progress that he's made. So Earl is not here. And I also forgot to mention that the Department of Corrections funds community justice centers across the state of Vermont. And one of our functions is to provide a program called Circles of Support and Accountability called the COSA program. And we can do a training in the future where we go more in depth about what COSA is and how effective it is. So essentially it recognizes that in order for people to be successful when they get out of prison they need to be like integrated into their community. And we know that many of them are marginalized before they went in. So a COSA is a reentry coordinator who works for the CJC and a team of three to four trained community volunteers who commit to working with the person who is coming out of prison for a year and to meet with them for an hour or an hour and a half a week in a group to essentially support them in their success but also hold them accountable to what their goals and visions are. And you know there's a lot that happens in a COSA. There's a bunch of reentry coordinators in here who maybe can answer questions if people have them after the panel. But it's a group of people who aren't judging. It's a group of people who are community members. The hope is that they will then in turn help connect that person further with their community. And also it's a place to have sort of a coach or a role model for how do you develop relationships in a healthy way and how do you problem solve that kind of thing. So that's essentially what the COSA program is which is what happens on reentry for sex offenders are offered. Yeah I'd just like to speak really quickly to that. When I was a probation officer that was my last gig before this. All of them, not a good number of my guys that were on Supervision with me went through COSA. And it's really a great tool. One of the things I really enjoyed about it was that I can only spend maybe a half hour a week with any number of my offenders. I might be seeing them in their homes. I might be seeing them at work more often than I see them in the office. I don't really get to know them except from what I read and what I learn about them from their treatment providers. The volunteers spend a tremendous amount of time just sort of helping reintegrate them into a normal life. It's really a helpful tool for them but it's also a helpful tool for Supervision. Because you can observe how folks are doing and they can talk to me freely about it and we can have conversations. It doesn't have to be such a punitive approach or somebody struggling. We can work with them to, for example, if I think that they're really having a hard time developing pro-social activities to do. That would be observed maybe by their volunteers and we can talk about that. That's something I'm going to be able to observe on my own. I can just kind of extrapolate based on what I'm hearing. And that sort of mantra that underlies the program is no more secrets and no more victims. So the community, it's a role that community members can play as volunteers in contributing to the safety in their communities. So we're going to hold for questions and answers till after we go through the panel. So next we have Tony. What do you think the sex registry and related laws and how the animal issue is in Vermont? It's an interesting and probably challenging question for me to answer. So I'm going to share a bit about my story and then I'll loop around to it. But the reason I'm on the panel is because I am someone who was the victim of childhood sexual abuse and it was my father. And in 2009 I decided to, for a variety of reasons, to do some research on my grandfather because I knew very little about him. I knew that he had shot himself in the heart with a .35 caliber rifle at a gold mining camp outside of Chicken, Alaska. I knew he was a womanizer. I knew he was a bootlegger. And that he had committed his toward my grandmother to the Fergus Falls and St. Asylum in 1923 where she remained for 40 years. I knew those things. And I began, I went to Minnesota and I started at the St. Asylum. I went north to Fief River Falls where my grandparents had lived over to the Red Lake Indian Reservation where I have many relatives on the Ojibwa nation. And down through Nibish where my father grew up where my grandparents lived and down into Bemidji. And when I hit Bemidji I went to their historical society and I really love historical societies. I found this book. It's called Nibish Book of Memories. And in it I found some information about my grandparents. And I found the photo of a woman who I had recognized as a childhood name from growing up. And so I contacted Angie. Angie was 80 something at the time. I have little photos. There's me with Angie. She said she knew my grandmother and took, taken care of her when she got, was released from the Insane Asylum because my grandmother actually was not insane. But had spent 40 years there. She was out for three years and Angie helped care for her. But she said, go see my aunt who was 99. Her name is Anna. She knew both of your grandparents. No one had ever known both of my grandparents. I find this 99 year old woman and this is Anna. And when I walk into her assisted care home she hands me this photo. It's my aunt. It's from 1927. It's my paternal aunt. And on the back it says Mae Cook, daughter of the notorious Frank Cook of Nebish. I felt so sorry for her. I took care of her for a summer while her grandfather was in prison. And I asked Anna, my grandfather was in prison. And she said, yep. And she would not tell me the crime. So I am forever indebted to the Department of Corrections of Minnesota. I called them. They said, well try the Historical Society, which I did. They said they might have the records. I needed an indictment number. So I contacted a researcher, because I'm now back in Vermont, who had previously worked with the Historical Society. And we agreed upon five hours of work that she would do to search for information. She did her five hours. Thankfully knew the librarian from having worked there. And the librarian asked her, what are you looking for? And she said, well I'm trying to find out if this man spent time in prison at Stillwater State Penitentiary. And the woman said, oh come here. I have a secret card catalog behind the counter. And it lists all the inmates that have ever been in the penitentiary. And sure enough, under my family name, we found my grandfather. And she filled out the appropriate work. And the archivist went down into the bowels of the Minnesota Historical Society and came back with 350 pages documenting my grandfather's criminal history with the primary crime being, at the time it was called, Carnal Knowledge of Girls Under the Age of 18. So when I heard that truth, my whole central nervous system actually relaxed because my life made sense. And in that moment too, interestingly, my father was forgiven. Notice that I didn't forgive my father. My father was forgiven. It just happened. And then it was my grandfather. And I, because there was something, it was about him. I had to read through those documents. It is stunning what was in those documents. And I wish I had more time to share it because I love sharing it. And it took me quite a while to have to work through it. You know, the DNA I carry is that of a man who did Mabel, Maude, and there's other girls actually. And one of them was related to Anna, which is why she wouldn't tell me the crime. And he did commit my grandmother to silence her. So I needed to come to terms with that and have done that. And many some of you have heard this. But in 2014 I decided to attend the sentencing of a sex offender. About the time that I had started my search about my grandfather, a horrendous crime was committed in this state. Michael Jakes kidnapped, raped, and killed his 12-year-old niece. And I could never look at the paper during that crime. But in 2014 I saw this picture on the front of the paper and I actually read the article and didn't have a whole nervous breakdown or panic attack or anything else. I read the article and the sentencing was happening on Tuesday, that next Tuesday in Burlington, and I went. And I went because I wanted to see where I was in my healing process. Could I go there and keep my heart open to him? There is no doubt I keep my heart open to Brooke Bennett. In fact, I often speak because she gave her life for this cause. We owe it to her to end this today, you know, sexual abuse of children. And again, but I stayed. I went there to see, could I keep my heart open to him? It's tough to live in the world when you hate yourself because of your DNA. And during the sentencing, Brooke's grandmother spoke. And at one point she pointed her finger at Michael Jakes and said, look at me, look at me. And he did. And she said, there is nothing good about you. And in that moment for me, because she came right through into me and it was a moment of healing for me. One, I got for the first time in my entire life that yes, there is. There's something good about him because I am the daughter of one of him and my two kids are the grandkids. He was born like you and me, a vulnerable and innocent baby and something happened. And the other thing that happened in that courtroom is I had a vision. I'm a developmental psychologist. I play with consciousness as my art. It's what has healed me. And I saw how we can end this crime. We have what it takes to do it. We totally do. And so getting back to the question at hand, and I haven't gotten my warning yet. I'm doing pretty good. Okay, so, you know, we absolutely have to end this. We have to name the evil, the crime. We've got to stop it. But we can't do it if we only see the bad. We have to see the good. And I don't care if it's someone who has victimized or it's someone who's been a victim. You need to see our goodness and help us see that and pull that out so that we can see that there's more to us than the toxic shame that resides once you've been victimized or the toxic shame that can be there if you have victimized. Or, you know, so we need to know and see the goodness in all of us so that that is something that we can work on. We can build. I know for a fact my grandfather was a really good hunting and fishing guide. I know that he really cared about horses and cows. People called him to take care of their animals. And I know he's a really good shot. He could throw a quarter up and he could shoot it and hit it every time. There's good things about everybody. So if we draw those out, then the problems can become lesser and the good things can become bigger. So COSAs, what I think in Vermont is it's awesome that we have COSAs. We need them for victims too. We all need support. These crimes, these abuses happen in relationship. They can only be healed in relationship. There's no other way to do it. You isolate any human being. They're going to go into survival instincts and they're going to do something to survive. That's what we do. Any one of us would. We are them. Whoever the them is, we are them. So I totally applaud the COSAs that we have in this state. We need more of that. We need community. We need people who care enough to care enough about this world to get over our fear and our importance and everything else to see the goodness in each and every one of us and to draw that out so that the other crap that we do as humans, none of us is pure in here, so that that no longer makes sense, but the connection, the love, and the care does. So that's what I think about the state of Vermont's law, that we just need more of that. And we absolutely have to have prison. You know, there's people that may not have this. I mean, Jake's earned his right to stay in prison for life plus 70. Not a problem. But while he's there, he could be doing something to restore justice to those he harmed. I don't know if he is or not, but I believe he, I know he's got family. I believe he has a daughter. You know, there needs to be more done no matter what, where we are, whether they're in prison or out, and for the families of the victims that allow people to heal and to be restored and reintegrated into the community. So now I've really been kicked off. So thank you. Actually go to the FAST. There you go. I'll ask you more to Paul. You've chosen so many interesting topics for your films. How many challenges have you chosen for your current project? Well, I often joke because I've been making documentary films for 25 years and when you go down the list, it's like my first film I made on domestic violence, I've made a movie about a girl who was murdered, I've made movies on foster care, heroin addiction, opiate addiction, eating disorders, and now I'm doing the COSA program about people coming out of jail. So it's not exactly running to the fields with daisies in your hair. It's all, you know, challenging issues that Vermont deals with and of course the world deals with. You know, I mean, for me as a documentary filmmaker, this film that I'm making, I've finished, shooting the film, I'm now editing it. It's going to tour next fall through Vermont. It's about five people coming out of prison in Vermont. One of them is a sex offender. The other people are drug dealers, addicts, sexual assault, domestic violence folks. And so none of them are, you know, they all have challenges and they're all coming out of prison. They're all going into COSAs and so I follow five of them through this process and the film will be about that. And for me, I'm just really interested in the backstory. I'm really interested in looking behind the headlines, quote, unquote, that we often get as community members of just sort of the fear, the fear thing of, you know, there are all these people out there, whether they're a heroin addict or whether they're a sexual sex offender and that we have to be fearful of them and that they have to be punished. And that's fine at some level but for me as a documentary filmmaker I want to find out who these people are like you were saying. What is their background? What are the systemic reasons for making them be this way? And the idea that there is more to them than the worst thing that they've done. I mean as somebody says in the film I don't think any of us would want a scarlet letter on the back of our or the front of our head, you know, saying this is something I did really stupid when I was in college and you know everybody needs to know this 24 hours a day. We move on, we get through that, we learn from it, so on and so forth. I just would say that this sexual sex offender that I am following in Vermont if you met him you would never in a million years be scared of him. He's 32 he's smart, he's funny, he has a job at the Dunkin Donuts in a particular town in Vermont. His employers love him, he's the best worker there. He goes to a book group every week with two little old ladies who think he's the greatest thing since sliced bread. He's adorable, he's got so much potential. And A, I would just like to say that he's extremely brave to be in my movie. Extremely brave because he's going to be there on a big screen like that people who are in this movie, they were very brave to speak out and we're not going to fuss his face, we're not going to change his name and people are going to hear his story and you know the deal with him is that he actually had an obsession with form. He got connected got sucked into younger girls and connected with somebody online who he was going to meet. He was I think 23, she was 14 and he pulled into the parking lot and it was a sting and so the police came and they arrested him immediately took him to jail so he actually never did anything wrong. I mean he never hurt anybody. He was definitely going down that road, it was not a good thing but I think one of the big challenges in all of this is that it's not that far from concerned the word sex offender needs to be changed to a number of different categories of sex offender because I think when we think of sex offender, we think of the guy who has kidnapped two girls and put them in his basement and released them for 5 years or 10 years. That's bad. That's really really bad. That's one end of the spectrum. The other end of the spectrum is this kid who was going down the road got caught and now he's on a sex offender registry for 15 years and was trying to put his life together. So one of the first things I would like to talk about is different categories and names that we can try to get people in our society to start to recognize at different levels of sex offence so that not everybody is thrown into the same pot. So that's a long answer to your question. The film hopefully will spark conversation. We're going to tour the film with the people in the movie so that we Q&As afterwards with those people and we need more poses. They are incredibly important. Such a simple concept it's like instead of telling people come out of jail and throwing them onto the street and saying good luck we actually say hey why don't you come and sit in a circle with us and we'll help you integrate back into the community. And not only are we helping you but we've got eyes on you. It's like what you were saying. Throw them into this little corner and say go keep over to that side of the railroad track. We don't like you. You're alienating. Go over there. Do you think that when they go over there that we're safer? I don't. I want to know what these people are doing. I want to help them become better citizens. I don't want them overhearing some creepy little corner where they can easily do the same thing. I don't care if they're a heroin addict. I don't care if they're sex offenders. I don't care if there's somebody who's beating up their wife. We need to bring them towards us instead of pushing them away. Thank you. That's how they can see when the same room is Ron Booker. So you should talk to Tom Bell. Okay. So next we're going to go to Sharon and I served on a Cosa with Earl who is mine here tonight. Can you share with us what motivated you to volunteer with the Cosa specifically and what was your thoughts about it? So what motivated me to serve on a Cosa is actually something that hasn't really come up in the conversation yet tonight or in the movie directly which is that I believe that when we send people to prison we as a society are actually inflicting great harm on those people that are in prison. And while I have a lot of emotions and a lot of philosophical beliefs and a lot of reasons why I'm working with Cosa really when they sent the question ahead of time that is the core for me is that I believe that we are doing harm to people when we send them to prison. And I feel like as a member of society I want to do what I can to help alleviate or remediate some of that harm that's important to me. It's concise. That's what it's about. Some other things that are coming up just hearing the other people speak that Cosa is funded by the DOC Department of Corrections I don't like being part of the DOC and when I've been in two COSAs so far and it's been very important to me when I sit down with folks in the first or second visit to say just so you know I'm not the DOC please don't treat me like the DOC I'm not paid by the DOC I am beholden to agreements with the DOC just like you are and so let's figure this out together because as a Cosa volunteer we are technically volunteers of the DOC and have to sign on to a whole bunch of agreements about agreements about my behavior in the Cosa which I don't always agree with and I feel like that just gives me even more empathy for the person who's coming out of prison who has a list of agreements with the DOC their conditions of release that makes my little list look ridiculous ridiculously puny when we talk about people coming out imagine how hard it is to get a job so one of the things I'm learning about through Cosa is what people actually have to deal with when they come out of prison and part of it is the stigma that so many of us carry about whatever their crime was but there are also a lot of conditions which I personally would have a really hard time living with so every time Earl would go to get a job which he needs to get because he has to pay for housing which he needs to get because he has to pay for his own they call it programming so that the required therapies the conditions of his release he has to go to this certain programming he needs to pay for that he's got to pay for his own food there are all kinds of things he has to pay for so what's one of his first tasks find a job what's one of the requirements of his being released serving the end of his sentence in the community because that's technically what he's doing every time he has a job interview if he's offered a job so just think about the thing that you maybe feel most ashamed about in your life or the thing that's maybe the hardest for you to talk about and imagine having to share that every time you're offered a job and you know how many jobs are you going to get so I you know I could bask in the light of everybody talking about how great COSA is and oh thank you for the volunteers but I have to say that for me it's an invaluable learning experience and it gives me a window into lives and conditions and things that I'm actually a part of by being part of this society that my tax dollars go towards that I would not otherwise have access to I learn a lot about our criminal justice system I learn a lot about our department of corrections I learn a lot about the amazing fortitude and resiliency it takes to be able to come out of prison and function in society so thank you and lastly we'll go to Patty Foss who's got a lot of research on the program you can share with us what you've learned well let's see so I've been doing research on COSA for 10 years or so and a couple things one is that it really is a practice that's based on research evidence so for example sex offenders in particular one of their risk factors that makes them more likely to reoffend is isolation and so the social supports that are part of COSA are really essential the other thing in you know echoing what you said is that being in prison itself is criminogenic which means increases your likelihood of reoffending all other things being equal so they come out with a lot of barriers and obstacles and one of the reasons that COSA works is because it is not DOC the volunteers the fact that they're paid volunteers is what a lot of the core members the people who had a COSA have said is what was really powerful to them that ordinary citizens would spend their time trying to help them and you know in so far as the volunteers function quite differently than the DOC they're actually adding a different value you know because otherwise they might look like a pearl board or something but they actually manage to help people stay within those very stringent conditions by doing things like driving them if they're not allowed to drive spending time with them and when they're most effective it's when they help the core member to develop another self another person persona in the world or another narrative about themselves so the research also shows that sometimes and commit to that are people who can are allowed the space to see themselves as something other than a criminal so there's a lot of things in our system where we're reminding them that they're criminals and that they are offenders and that no matter what they're trying to do we're sort of waiting for them to re-offend or we are putting all these sorts of things in place it's very difficult for them to forget for a second and I'm not saying that we should ask them to forget we still need to hold them accountable but to the extent that we can help them develop other parts of themselves the more ordinary conventional parts so for example Koso sometimes will do things like okay well yeah you did this terrible thing, we've talked about it you've done your time what else are you besides that what did you used to like to do and you know or what have you always wanted to learn to do and somebody would say oh I used to like to go fishing okay let's go fishing and then your you can see yourself as someone who can hang around ordinary people doing ordinary things and you know have a place at the table basically also because a lot of times people have been in for a long time and they're really institutionalized they don't know how to function on the outside quite and so the team can actually help adjust to things like well here's how you use a cell phone they didn't have cell phones when you went in and let's just go buy groceries and you know whatever these sorts of things are but it also communicates really powerfully I think the community's willingness to say you know we are going to hold you to a standard but we're also going to let you be among us and basically welcome you back into the community and based on all the research that sort of approach is absolutely going to be the more effective one isolation the film talks a lot about the registry and notification has these very perverse effects they do at a minimum nothing but potentially have really negative effects and it's not hard to imagine why right so just from a policy standpoint I mean I understand we have to have the registries and I know that Vermont is actually much more humane and in fact Vermont the tips is famous all over the world for having pretty good results so there's all kinds of things Vermont does you know way better than a lot of other places and one of which is funding COSA and trying to create mechanisms for people to reintegrate back into communities and I assure you that other states are not doing that especially Florida yeah especially Florida I mean so so it's my experience is that it is simple but profound and the simplicity is just treating people as if they could be something other than just the worst thing that they ever did so thank you all very much for your amazing comments excuse me I don't want to I'm going to open it up to questions if you want to okay I would I'm going to speak I'm going to speak I'm going to speak everybody can hear me everybody can hear me right I'm going to speak to the film itself and some of the comments that have been made and let me preface that I am a person who has survived multiple instances of sexual abuse since childhood I also have a family member who at a very young age committed a sex offense and is on the registry I believe that there are multiple issues I mean I couldn't be a black woman in America without looking at our criminal justice system and seeing everything that is wrong with it not only in relation to sex offenders but to people who commit crimes in general there is no rehabilitation there is no forgiveness we said all of that I want to be a little bit less warm and fuzzy about sex offenders right and every adjective that you use in relation to sex offenders are things that people who have been victims of sexual assault feel the desolation the sort of isolation all of that what that felt for me was so every sex offender was a good person every sex offender might be a good person but there is something between here and here there was no middle ground and I am not hearing any middle ground all I want is to acknowledge that this is a reciprocal as crime is this is reciprocal and so for whatever level of empathy and sympathy and sort of move to recognize the humanity of the offender that for this particular kind of crime we need to do equal time to the people who have suffered at the hands of these offenders and this is not about forgiveness it's not about not healing this is reality right that people spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to get right from coming back from sexual assault there are people who never recover whose lives are ruined as a result of sexual assault that doesn't take away from anything that I have heard here but I need to say that I need to give equal time to the people who have suffered at the hands of these people however good they are not detracting from their humanity but I need to say that we need to think about though the other side of this as well yep absolutely very good Tony mentioned that there should be cases available for victims I appreciate you saying that Jim another question hi I'm here to talk about the movie about Cosa program I'm a sex offender I did 10 years in jail I wasn't a very good person growing up I didn't like myself I didn't like people I've been to every other program in jail but I moved to jail this wire house people and they pretty much shopped me to sleep in there one day I heard about Cosa these people come out and talk to me Chief of the police South Carolina team Cosa and I listened to them and they come back and begin to talk to me and I'm ready to get out and I had my doubts and all that like I said I didn't care about people I didn't care about getting out it is scary getting out it really is without the Cosa team South Carolina team and one person Cosa team I don't think I'd be here today I consider myself a good person right now my main objective is about to re-event ever begin I hurt two people not physically but mentally Cosa is people I really care they're beautiful people they give people another chance they're there to listen they're there to help you my Cosa team is awesome I could tell tell them anything anything at all anything that's going on I had no problem with that before I had I never told anybody anything the biggest thing is accountability I love it I hated it at first but I love it now it's just amazing since I've been in Cosa my life has turned around 100% I think every day I do well every day I do what I'm supposed to do since I've been in Cosa I've been in trouble one time when I first got out it is scary when you get out like I said I did 10 years it's scary and I laugh about the cell phone thing when I get out I had no idea about the cell phone and it's not working and that's why I was laughing I wasn't laughing at somebody I was laughing at because the experience with the cell phones was terrible for me I didn't know anything about it Cosa is giving me a chance to meet different people to sit down and talk with people honestly I can pick up the phone anytime I want if I have a problem and I know one of my Cosa people will be right there if I meet them 24 hours a day they're understanding people like I said they're beautiful my team is beautiful I don't ask for a better team they got to be more Cosa's in jail that's all they do is wirehouse people okay there's no programs here besides AA I know I did 10 years straight in the jails and that's all they talk about is robbing people where they're going to get your next drug we need more Cosa people we need more people to understand and give other people a second chance yes I am a sex fender today I'm a good person before I wasn't a Cosa that's where I am today and we do need more Cosa people because I believe Cosa works I see it works so many times I know so many people that are in Cosa right now clients that are happy today they have jobs when you get out of jail you go look for a job and you say well yeah I'm a sex fender 99% of the time there's got to be another way of telling people you're a sex fender different names, different categories they got to be because everybody there's a thing that everybody you're a sex fender our life means that you're a bad person that you're a piece of shit excuse my language you're a piece of shit and you're no good and there's so many good people I made a mistake a big mistake and I still think about my victims two boys 113, 114 I understand why you done it I did before I take full responsibility I don't blame around anybody that was on me my decision I take full responsibility but I just want to say we need a lot more closer because it's just amazing people are just understanding caring, passionate they're there to help they're there to give people another chance and God we need closer please help us, thank you thanks for the fun anybody else, somebody I just have a couple of questions one is every are all people in the correctional system offered an opportunity to participate in a possible program when they're released and I guess the second curiosity question how many people do then become part of the COSA then accept those services that's a moderate to high risk generally are the ones that are offered to us and I don't know the reasons people do accept the first bill I know that the ones that do tend to have a lower rate of re-offense and tend to go to jail as often that's why we support it Derek do you want to say anything we have the director from the Department of Corrections of all the restorative justice programs formally say that as I pointed out we have a target population of folks who have been classified as high risk under high need and within that we try to prioritize for sure folks who have committed sexual offenses anyone who has committed a sexual offense that's classified as high risk in high need is essentially afforded that opportunity if they're willing and then we kind of drop down if you will to a broad into pool however there's more folks that for their the capacity we would offer closest to and of those that are given the opportunity I'd say the vast majority take it and follow in part because they offer the opportunity based on the informed decision of their case worker too willingness to engage and have a group of folks along their life is a key part so that's what this is also a restorative approach predicated on the voluntary decision to join so how can you talk more about that I can say I've been in my position for over two years in Chittinac County and lots of people don't choose to ask to have a COSA and there's lots of reasons why I mean it's a trust and a lot of people don't have that trust it's a big commitment but in the two years that I've been here there hasn't been anyone who asked for a COSA they didn't get it so I think in our area lack of housing has actually kept people out of COSA and so I think that's an important reality check that it's not just what the volunteer pool is not just the DOC selection process is that we can't seem to offer people housing housing is a big issue and you have any other questions right just one second I served it was really enlightening for me I'm not a sex fit I do have a history of drugs which you know you don't need it you don't need to be on a registry for you still have a history that people can look up and hold against you but I do have a question about the woman in the movie who was on the registry for life and the situation where she had gotten a job in the newspaper after disclosing her from the background and someone decided that due to perception that it wouldn't be a good fit for her to be on that job now this might seem wild and crazy but I do wonder if there's a the damage is there is there a lawsuit there like to lose a job due to perception and something that would be able to do anything wrong but it was a great work it was a great work it's quite a hard to pursue the damage as far as I'm aware but I can tell you that I just want to just to dispel the negative and I apologize this is kind of your day experience that anyone here has had or seen but I'm actually continually impressed by a lot of employers most of my guys some of them are strong that's the majority of them and I think that's been a shift I think that's been a shift that's happened in the last few years but we would often find employers who would actually start calling the POS who handled sex offender cases asking if we had one if we had a jail because they found that folks who are on for sexual offenses had a hire will they tend to be good workers they're not necessarily as broad and homogenic as you might find with other offenders just to dispel that myth that there is employment out there and a lot of employers are willing to give people a chance and that might be unique to this day I don't know how that works across the country I imagine it's pretty unique any other questions looks like that anybody have anything else I want to say say your question is allowed to put out there woman who I don't know your name Margaret but I really appreciate what you said and I think that part of for me what it's all about is sort of what you were talking about is there needs to be healing on all ends of the spectrum and I don't think we do enough of that at all in this country and the voices of people who are victims of her, the voices of people who are coming out of jail and want a second chance and really want to turn their life around for me to be heard and if somehow we can raise those standards I think we would have a healthier society part of the you know alienation of being victimized you feel alienated feeling like you're you victimize somebody it hasn't worked for a really, really long time and so I really appreciate what you said and I think we all need to come together around this and forgive forgive this is really hard and stigma is really hard and you can have stigma as a victim and you can have stigma as a person who was a sex offender or a drug dealer or a drug addict and it's all bad because as long as you have stapling you're never going to heal man you're just never going to heal the rest of your life so you can get me on that I just wanted to also thank the gentleman who was on supervision for coming to it's a lot of courage I'm glad that we have somebody who's been through it here to talk about it thank you for sharing and I'll second what you said and to Margaret as a victim myself it is stunning what it takes for a victim to heal it is stunning and many just don't and it's I've been very fortunate I've got a good education and an opportunity to give a lot of good help but there's so many of us that do suffer from and I count myself among these in bad metastatic disorders, addictions all depression all kinds of things and so often when we see people who are addicted or I know I'll have other issues going on having some compassion and hearing the people's stories before we label them as important because we do need to be seen all the way through so that women can be seen in us and we can have a chance to clear ourselves of the shame that goes with it and all the other symptoms that come because of it so I absolutely appreciate and applaud and yes but you know also the women largely women incarcerated women are most of them are survivors of sexual violence so it's a cycle it's a system that just goes round and round and so I was in complete agreement that it begins with the way in which we deal with humans in general no matter what the situation is no matter what quote criminal it doesn't matter we have to figure out a way to work with humans in a more active way that isn't punishment so people can understand how their behaviors hurt other people how they somehow affect the humanity of another person whether it's from the point of incarceration whichever that from being is the key and the criminal justice system is not the answer and we connect center to center we can start there by connecting with our humanity called our origination point and we can connect from that place together we're connected and then we can work on the crap we have to work on and then we'll have an open affair so absolutely finding opening our hearts and finding humanity in every person that's in everyone of us so thank you for bringing that up so I want to thank all of our panelists if we could be different I want to thank all of you for