Shawna's story is just one more example of why sex offender registries are cruel and unjust. She struggles to explain to her kids why their mother faces so many restrictions, and she must deal with the pariah status afforded to people who have been branded with 'lewd or indecent proposals/acts to child' on a national online database. Employers have fired her when they learned about her status. This is a woman who made a mistake as a teenager-with another teenager-and will be paying for it the rest of her life. I challenge anyone to watch the interview (embedded below) and not feel heartbroken for Shawna. The Marshall Project recently released a short video interview with Shawna it's part of Untouchable, a documentary by David Feige* about sex offender laws. Now Shawna is spending the rest of her life on the sex offender registry, even though the mother of two is obviously no threat to children.
A teen boy expressed interest in her, and they slept together.
Years earlier, on her 19th birthday, Shawna and her friends were drinking and celebrating. Shawna is a 35-year-old woman who is legally prohibited from taking her kids to the park.
