By Steve Gordon
Today was a special day. Last week I received a letter from the Pennsylvania State Police that I was to report for my yearly registration update for Megan's Law. To begin with the whole spirit of ML has been distorted and many people are being registered as sex offenders in the name of protecting society when their offenses had nothing to do with children or random sexual assaults that would have endangered the community in the first place.
OK, enough of the soap opera.
So...I went to the local State Police office in Trevose to turn in my form. I didn't expect to be welcomed warmly or with open arms but the receptionist (or whatever her title is) was very cold and impersonal, but stopped at the point of being rude. In this situation you learn to cope with these kind of closed minded people. For the entire time I was there I was never called or referred to by name by anyone.
I went in and announced why I was there and turned in the form completed that only needed my signature and the signature of a registering official. Then it was being called to the counter and being asked for a copy of the letter and told to go sit down; go to the counter to give them your drivers license and told to go sit down; go to the counter and asked if I had a job, if I owned a car, if I went to school and then told to go sit down. These were all questions on the form I did not fill in because I have or do none of those things.
It took about 1/2 hour in all and there was no one else there being attended to. Why would filing a simple form and having your picture taken with a hand held digital camera take so long? While sitting on the hard wooden bench in a cold lobby I could hear through the glass and I am pretty sure I heard some conversation that I showed up on their computer as unregistered. That is funny because someone clearly knew where to find me to send me the letter to report to re-register annually as required.
To tell the truth, the longer I sat there the more uneasy I got. Paranoia is a funny thing and I didn't know if I should expect Corporal C.P. Tavernier and/or some other trooper to come out and handcuff me believing I had been unregistered for a year or if a Bucks County Sheriff would appear to take me to the county prison for not being registered. For the record I was registered and even looked myself up once.
Upon completion of this process and signing three copies I was asked about treatment and if I was a sexually violent predator. If they looked my file up, which clearly they did, they would have known that so why ask?
This was a totally a humiliating experience, but I should come to expect that I suppose. We live in a world of people with so many (unfounded) paranoia's that it is the rule, not the exception. The good news is I only have to do this eight more times - unless they change the law again to make most everyone a lifetime registration. At least they don't have special license plates on the cars as I understand some places do. They tried a while back but it didn't get passed in the legislature. But...I don't own a car.
I think I will go sit down now, in a comfortable chair, and read my book, Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand about an American Olympic miler, Louis Zamperini, who was first stranded in the Pacific for 40 some days and then a POW in Japan until the end of WW II. It's a good story, and a good book will always divert your attention away from stressful situations.
