Chris - Keep Moving Forward - Season 4 - Episode 1

Amplified Voices is back!  In this episode, Amber and Jason met with Chris who shares the impact that a conviction, incarceration and registration has had on his plans to serve his country and to lead a good life.  Chris shares his challenges and successes as he works to overcome many of the obstacles he faces as a parent, caregiver, professional and community member forced to register in the state of Florida.

Chris advocates with Florida Action Committee, more information on their work can be found here: https://floridaactioncommittee.org/

Transcript

AV PODCAST TRANSCRIPT, Chris, Season 4, Episode 1, March 21, 2023

Announcer: [00:00:00] Support for Amplified Voices comes from the Restorative Action Foundation. Learn more at restorativeactionalliance. org. 

Jason: Hello and welcome to another episode of Amplified Voices. I'm your host, Jason, here with Amber. Hello, Amber. 

Amber: Good morning, Jason. 

Jason: And today, Amber, we have a guest. His name is Chris. Hi, Chris.

Chris: Good morning, Jason and Amber. 

Jason: And Chris, we are going to start the way we usually start. And that's by asking you to tell us a little bit about yourself. What was your life before you entered the criminal legal system and what brought you into it? And also where, where are you from? 

Chris: I'm from Florida. 

Jason: Ah, okay.

Jason: All right. So go ahead. 

Chris: I am in my thirties. I grew up and I would say a pretty, a pretty good household, but both parents was involved in a lot of sports and I was a boy scout for 10 years. Um, Went into ROTC and did four years at ROTC, [00:01:00] graduated high school and was really involved in my community. I went to church for a long time.

Chris: I was a youth leader. I'd really, I volunteered for the cub Scouts and I did Sunday school on Sunday. 

Jason: Did you grow up in Florida? 

Chris: Yes. 

Jason: Did you have brothers and sisters? Yes. Where are you in the, in the, I'm the oldest. Oh, how many what? El what? What else do you have? 

Chris: I have a sister and two brothers. 

Jason: Gotcha.

Jason: Okay. So you, you got a, you got this, uh, classic American family and you, and so in Florida you're doing all these great things, everything that your parents expect of you and just the happy family. 

Chris: Yes. Okay. I, uh, I graduated high school. I joined the National Guard. How come? I always wanted to be a military, hence the ROTC.

Chris: And I wanna do something different from my country. I wanted to be a firefighter, EMT. So I joined the military to be able to go to school to afford that. Nobody in my family had really been to college, and at that point I wanted to make a difference. So I joined the National Guard and was in the [00:02:00] process of enrolling in the University of Florida.

Chris: On a GI bill when my unfortunately life took an unexpected turn, which led me to the, you know, the criminal justice system, you know, I made a mistake one night as an 18 year old kid and, uh, everything spiraled from there. 

Amber: And so, first of all, I have to forgive you for wanting to go to the university of Florida because we are kind of a Florida state kind of family, but it's all good.

Amber: So. You, you were finding yourself just, you know, living, living your life, doing what you thought you needed to do. And something happens and brings you into the legal system. Was this an abrupt thing? Did you find yourself like immediately arrested? Tell us a little bit about that process. 

Chris: Yes, it was. It was pretty abrupt.

Chris: The police showed up on my doorstep one morning and just said, come down, we need to have a quick chat. We know you're in the national guard and blah, blah, blah. And it was kind of like. You know, you'll [00:03:00] be out by the end of the day. And so I went in there and 

Jason: did you know what it was about? 

Chris: Yes. Yes. Um, and so, and I was brutally honest always with the police.

Chris: I was brutally honest. I was from a family that I didn't know the criminal justice system. I didn't know the lawyer up. I just went in there thinking I was coming home that day. And instead I went to jail. 

Amber: I think it's, you know, really interesting. The perspective on, you know, police and. Why police are there and things like that.

Amber: And so your experience in your life with police and the system had, had been positive or none or 

Chris: been positive. I've always been pro law enforcement and even going through everything I've gone through and still pro law enforcement. 

Jason: Now I just, because, because of where we're going, I'm assuming this was a sex crime that you were brought in for.

Chris: Yes, it was with the due to an ex girlfriend. Yeah. Amber. 

Amber: And so you find [00:04:00] yourself immediately arrested at that time and and they incarcerated you immediately? 

Chris: Yes. Is 

Amber: that what happened? And then so when that happened, You know, everybody hears things and sees things in the media. What are you thinking?

Amber: What, what are, what are your next steps? What, what's going through your mind? Who are you calling? Are you trying to make bail? Are you, what are, how did all of that process happen for you? 

Chris: That the next morning I was kind of honestly ashamed and I didn't know how to go forward. I didn't know if I should call my parents.

Chris: I felt very lost. I'd never been in trouble, never been arrested. And so I went through that first night and finally got to a pod and I called my mom crying, of course, and just kind of explained what was going on. And they had set my bill at 50, 000, which Was not, it was too much money for my family. [00:05:00] I mean, we had a good upbringing, but we didn't have a lot of money.

Chris: And so I decided we were going to wait to try to get a bond reduction hearing. My grandmother went out and took a loan on her house and hired an attorney for me. And. about 30 days in, they decided they didn't want me to be in there anymore. So they came and bonded me out. 

Jason: So you spent 30 days with, without any type of, you're, you're innocent until proven guilty.

Jason: So there was not no adjudication. You're just in there for 30 days. 

Chris: Yes. 

Jason: Until your family could get the money together to get you out. 

Chris: Yes. And if they could not have put that money together, it would have been two years because I was arrested in 2007. I didn't go to prison till 2009. 

Jason: And who were you with when, when you were in, in that jail?

Chris: My county actually has a segregated pod for people with sex offenses. So it was everybody that I was surrounded by had sexual offenses. [00:06:00] 

Jason: But I mean, what was that like? I mean, how many people were in the same sleeping area, like all that? 

Chris: We had two man cells and there was quite a few of us, 40, 50 in that Pacific pod.

Jason: And, and you know, you, you, you kind of talked about like feeling like your life was over when you first went in there. You're, I mean, you're still, you were a really young person with your whole life ahead of you. And now you find yourself in this two person cell and jail in Florida for a sex offense. I mean, what's.

Jason: That like 

Chris: terrifying, you just kind of, in the beginning, I just kind of shut down and just was like, I just need to make it one day at a time. Cause everything's new. And in that specific pod, there was ranges of crimes from one end to the other. I'd never been involved with crime. I'd, like I said, I had pretty much stayed out of trouble.

Chris: So it was very different to be surrounded by people that [00:07:00] I would have called monsters at to fast forward to present day that they're human. It's just like me. Cause I'm now part of them. 

Jason: Yeah. We're going to get to your whole journey. How did you go from 18 to in your thirties where you are now? So, but in terms of, so you 30 days later, you find yourself outside, right?

Jason: And so tell us what happened at that point. 

Chris: So I was able to get bonded out. To be honest, my grandmother, God bless her soul. She passed last year. She could not stand for me to be behind bars one, you know, one more day. Cause I was trying to hold it out because I didn't want them to spend the money. I was hoping for a bond reduction.

Chris: I knew money was going to be tight. We had attorney fees and I didn't know what was going to happen here. You know, am I going to go to prison? I just spent 30 days talking to other people and, and there you were able to be a little more comfortable because everybody around you is. [00:08:00] You know, similar charges.

Chris: So I didn't know what the future was going to hold, but they bonded me out and I reported to the National Guard and my first sergeant, I had to go through kind of like a, I don't want to say a court hearing, but the National Guard had decided whether they were going to dishonorable discharge me or keep me till final deposition.

Chris: And they met and they actually kept me on. They actually wrote a letter to the court in my support. I still have it. It's framed on my wall. Wow. And yeah, it meant a lot to me. Because even though I had made a mistake, the military thought I was still redeemable. And so I actually still went to drill for the whole two years I was out.

Chris: I was released from the National Guard October of 2008 due to not meeting proper training requirements because I was not allowed to go any further in my training. Cause I had just joined when I caught my criminal [00:09:00] charge, I was able to stay on as recruits to statement. But once I hit that two year mark, they had no choice but to release me, but I got released due to not meeting proper training.

Chris: So it's not a disarmable on my record. 

Jason: Oh, that's good. Oh, so what, explain, explain to me why you couldn't continue if you, if they could stay on for two years, what is that training? I mean, what is that? What was that? 

Chris: So in the National Guard you have, it's called recruit sustainment. It's one week in a month like the regular guard, but it's a separate program where people get ready to go to basic and go to annual training in order to, you know, Become a full soldier.

Chris: And I was not allowed to leave the state to go to where my basic training was supposed to be. 

Jason: Gotcha. So it was a travel restriction. Do you think, and now let's just take a second here. Do you think that the country would be better off if you had been allowed to serve in the national guard? 

Chris: Yes. I would join today if they would let me.

Chris: Gotcha. [00:10:00] 

Jason: All right. 

Amber: And so do you feel that in the process, again, looking at this from a systems process and the harm that it caused causes full communities, when you think about your family and everything that they had to go through in order to, you know, have you home, what do you think about the process and, and how bail works and.

Amber: Cash bail. And do you think that you somehow became safer because your grandmother came up with the money to bond you out? 

Chris: No. In fact, I've had a complete one 80. Thanks to you, Amber. Cash bail does not make anybody safer. So one thing I remember about being in that pod when I was first arrested, as people that had been there for six months, eight months, a year, because their bonds were extravagant because they had a different charge than somebody else.

Chris: I was [00:11:00] one of the people that had the privilege to be bonded out because they were able to get the money from somewhere. That didn't make society any safer. That just mean I had money. And so I am a, I am an opponent now to the bail system because it does, it doesn't make sense that if I have money, I get to walk free.

Chris: But if you have no money or your family isn't as well off as mine is. Why do you have to stay behind bars? 

Amber: Right. And, and I think it's important for people to understand the level of sacrifice that goes into these things, because, you know, yes, there are people who do have large amounts of money that can, you know, bond people out, but by and large, when people find themselves in this situation.

Amber: It is their families and people that love them and care about them that end up coming up with this money so that they can move forward. And in addition to that, it really affects how you can fight your case. [00:12:00] So those are just some things to think about when we think about, you know, this in the context of your story.

Amber: So as you're, you know, you're out, And you're trying to figure out what your next steps with your case are. Where were you staying? Were you staying in your own home? Were you staying with fam? Did you have any restrictions on where you could be and what you could do when you were out on, and during that time period?

Chris: So in 07, there was no restrictions on bond. So I got out as a free man. Didn't have to report to anybody. And for two years, That's exactly what I did. I went back on with my life. My case was overly extended for, I mean, I, I believe there was months at a time I wasn't even in a courtroom and I just, you know, we, we being new to the system, we paid an attorney a quite, quite a sum of money and just expected that he was going to do his job.

Chris: And so there was months that life was just normal. I ended up [00:13:00] moving in with my grandmother and helping take care of her and started a new job and started life again and ended up. moving back to where I was from a while later and started a management job, got into management at 19 years old. They kind of, I was in that part where I didn't really wasn't a convicted felon.

Chris: So I had opportunities still. And so I kind of went through the ranks and I was a young manager. I met a new girl, got engaged, And 

Jason: wow. And so I'm sorry, where is it? Manager for what? 

Chris: I Dunkin Donuts. Okay. Yeah, that was, you got it. Everyone loves coffee now. 

Amber: Listen, 19 years old managing that's that's upward mobility right there.

Chris: Yes. And, and those skills actually, believe it or not, cause they have like their own university that you have to take all these classes to actually be in management. And those skills back when I was 19 [00:14:00] helped me become who I am today. Cause I've pretty much been in management majority of my life. 

Jason: So you're telling us though, that you became a manager and you also, you know, so you met a woman and you got engaged.

Jason: You, I mean, you had to tell her that what you were going through. 

Chris: She knew everything I was going through and even wanted to like get married before I went in. Cause she was with me when I went, when I was, when I took my plea deal. 

Jason: How, how soon in the, into the relationship, did you tell her that you were, you were waiting for this case?

Chris: After the first date, I've always had that mindset, even to this day. I'm not, you know, on probation anymore, but I am a registered citizen. So if I meet people, even if it's friends, they know about my story. Yeah. Because if they don't, if they cannot accept that I have a past, I don't want to become friends with them.

Chris: to be judged and hated 30 days later. So I have a very open policy. 

Jason: Did Dunkin Donuts know? 

Chris: Yes. 

Jason: And they hired you? 

Chris: Yes. 

Jason: Okay. [00:15:00] Does it make sense to talk about the two year mark and what happens when you're standing in front of a judge? 

Chris: So I got a phone call from my attorney saying, you need to come down to the office.

Chris: I'm like, can't we do it over the phone? I'm pretty busy at work. He goes, no, you need to come to the office. And I went in and he goes, we have a new state's attorney. We have a new DA. Or a new, a new DA and a new judge, and they want this off their docket. And they're not, they're not letting up on anything.

Chris: And they said, uh, they're offering a plea of eight years in the department of corrections and seven years probation. 

Jason: Well, I do think in 

Chris: eight 

Jason: years, 

Chris: eight years on the inside, seven on the outside. Okay. And he's like, you will have probation and then you will have to register afterwards. 

Jason: And that's a lifetime registration in Florida.

Chris: Yes. And that's not, I really explained to you. No one explained to me what the registry was going to be. And they explained to me that my probation conditions were going to be so draconian onerous that you could almost not get anywhere in [00:16:00] life. 

Jason: In 2009, do you think your attorney even knew what the registry was going to be like?

Chris: Oh, no. It's a completely different registry. Right. 

Jason: What do you mean by that? 

Chris: Everything from travel, so in the state of Florida now, if I travel three days or more to any other location, I have to register in that county. The problem with Florida is you have a lot of counties that have enacted city ordinances that are 2500 ft from any place where Children congregate.

Chris: So that can be a bus stop, it could be a park, it could be a school anywhere. So I'll give you an example. I'm going to a show for work on the east coast and I want to do it the right way. I needed to be there three nights. So I called the registers you know, office over there and said, Hey, where can I stay?

Chris: And there's nowhere. So basically I now will go for two nights and it's completely legal. I can stay wherever I want for two nights. It can be by a park, by a school, it doesn't matter. But if I say that third [00:17:00] night, it's a third degree felony. 

Jason: You're what you're basically describing though, is that for you being in Florida, you have to know the rules of every County and every town that you go into because it could be different.

Jason: And, and so it's like for the rest of the country worrying about going from someone like who's in your same situation might have to worry about going from state to state. You have to worry about going from county to county because it could, you could have a totally different rule 20 minutes from where you are, then yes in any direction.

Chris: And that's not just living, you know restrictions, there's counties in the state of Florida to have loitering zones. Where you can't just be in a thousand feet of that said place, including Brevard County, they're a county where has made it possible where places of business can become a playground or a park, or I'm not sure how they word it to keep registrants away from their business.

Chris: So it basically makes it a trap and a maze of, you never know if you're in the [00:18:00] right spot or the wrong spot. And we're just trying to do the right thing. Just, you know, move on with our lives and be productive citizens. 

Amber: It's important to understand, and Chris, I'm so thankful for you sharing, the differences between residency restrictions and travel restrictions and proximity restrictions, all of which are sanctions.

Amber: That people who are required to register have to keep up with. So whether you're in Florida or you're in anywhere across the country, there are just so many things to keep up with. And something that really resonated with me that I heard you say was, we're just trying to do the right thing. So a lot of times people like to say things like, well, you know, law abiding citizens, this, And, you know, you can't take away from law abiding citizens because you know of this, this new policy or clean slate or whatever it is not having a full understanding that an [00:19:00] individual who serves their time.

Amber: And those who are actually trying to comply with these laws, which is the majority are just that law abiding citizens. So, so thank you for sharing that. When you had the opportunity to be out in the world doing positive things, clearly managing and making new relationships, you get this phone call, you talk to your attorney who says, this is what they're offering us.

Amber: What is your initial reaction? And did you have a full understanding? It seems a little bit like you didn't as far as the registry. Did you have a full understanding of like, what were your alternatives than this plea? 

Chris: I was basically told that I was, should take this plea. Or we can go ahead and go to trial, but he wasn't prepared for it.

Chris: And it would cost quite a bit more money. And if we lose trial, I would face 30 years or more. So I [00:20:00] was pretty much put in a rock and a hard place. The money was already too short and I didn't want to go to trial. I didn't want to have to go through that either. So I went home to my parents. And I had a long talk with him and my dad who rest his soul to he passed last year, me and him went out to the garage.

Chris: I remember this conversation and he looked at me and he goes, son, you're a great man who made a mistake. He said, you have your whole life ahead of you. Eight years is just a short vision or part. I don't remember exactly. I'm paraphrasing a little bit, but he said, eight years is a short time and the whole life you have ahead of you.

Chris: He goes, take this, you know, make the best out of it like you've done with your whole life. And we'll be here. We have your back all the way. And so I decided to take the plea deal, not knowing what the hell I was getting into. 

Jason: And then you go and you go to, you go to prison and you're a boy scout. [00:21:00] Like how does that, how does a boy scout walk into prison?

Chris: Uh, I did, I ended up doing six years, 10 months in the department of corrections. And my first camp was all the way north, as far as possible can be. We were a stone throw from Georgia. So that was hard for my family to come up and see me, but they made, they did their best. My first year was probably the hardest because I was now adapting to a society.

Chris: I didn't know. And obviously I learned a lot of things while being in there. You know, you don't lie about your chart cause they're going to find out. So when I first started my sentence, I'm like, you know, I have a DUI with bodily harm. And of course it comes out and then you can't control the narrative anymore.

Chris: So I ended up showing them my paperwork. So I was able to use my charges, not necessarily to not have issues, but I didn't have the issue some of the other people with sex crimes in prison had. So I was able to kind of find myself and then learn how to control the narrative. To, to get through this maze of the prison system.

Chris: Some camps were better [00:22:00] than others. I was transferred to close to my home about a year and a half in, no, two and a half and. I was there two years and, uh, but it was the biggest war zone I've ever seen. I mean, it was nice to see my family around. But I seen things at that prison that I could never, I'll never forget.

Chris: I mean, I still have dreams about it because it was not your, your happy place. And I don't know, I ended up getting transferred out of there due to a roommate who decided to possess a cell phone. And my family, they're all straight and narrow. Let's put it that way. So I can't call them off the cell phone.

Chris: They're going to be like, what are you doing? You're going to get in trouble. So here I am still dumping my family's dumping 50 bucks a week on the blue phone so I can talk to them while my roommate has his phone while they did a shakedown. And he didn't own up to it. So we both went to close management.

Chris: I spent almost a year at Florida state prison in a single man. So 23 hours a day.[00:23:00] 

Jason: Wow. So what was, what was that like for you? 

Chris: Flecting. I use that time a lot. to continue to better myself. My whole time I was in the system, I was always trying to do something that would help me when I got home. I always told myself I was not going to be that person that came out and blamed the system because they couldn't succeed.

Chris: So while in there, I took lots of self betterment courses. I took college courses, graduated from Jacksonville Baptist Theological Seminary with theology, and, um, I learned Spanish. I mean, just anything I could plan small businesses. I mean, I have a whole box of small business ideas that I was doing in there and different ministries I would like to do when I get out and things that we could do to change the system.

Chris: And I just try to be productive the whole time I was there. 

Amber: So I think that Chris, it's really astounding that when you [00:24:00] think about the system and you think about, you know, what it's like to be kind of ripped out of the world and put into, seems like varying situations that you were in, not just, you know, people have this idea that you go away to this place that is like this one place.

Amber: It's not multiple prisons and the, you know, people there cease to exist. But what you're describing is a mindset that you created for yourself in terms of trying to move forward and make the best of seems like, you know, a horrendous situation inside. Am I characterizing that correctly? 

Chris: I would say so.

Chris: Yes. 

Amber: And so let's talk about the opportunities that were afforded to you. Talked about taking classes. How did you seek those out? Were they offered to you? Did you have to seek them out yourselves? Did people on the outside help you? 

Chris: There's definitely not much help on the inside, but a lot of it was by correspondence by mail.

Chris: So, which was nice because when I did that one year [00:25:00] on closed management, I had mail time. I was looking forward to my next course. There was many correspondence courses out there. whether it be religious or self betterment, lots of stuff that was all by mail. I didn't really get into a good, I guess you would say, correctional institution that had programs until I got to Graceville, and I did landscape management there, and about, for about 18 months, and I actually graduated with my degree in landscape management while I was in there, in fact.

Chris: So I 

Amber: have to say that Chris is actually holding up his certificate there. So state 

Jason: of Florida, vocational education, certificate of achievement. All right. Landscape management. So, but the other courses you took, did you have to pay for those? Was your family paying for those? 

Chris: No, they were all free. There was no good college program.

Chris: We looked into it and we really wanted to try it, but correspondence through the mail for college. It was so expensive that it's just something [00:26:00] my family could not afford. 

Jason: So you did, you did programs that you could, that were paid for, funded by the state. 

Chris: The correspondence programs were nonprofits of their own outside the state landscape management.

Chris: It was part of the state. I did. I, I did a hundred hours for my maximum achievement and this stayed on as a teacher's assistant until I. Okay. And in my sentence, 

Jason: so let me ask you something. If, if any course had been available to you from a college, would you have done something different? 

Chris: Yes. 

Jason: And what would that have been?

Chris: Well, me at the time I would have, I did not know that the registry probation was going to be what it is. You know, you kind of think you go to prison, you get out at some point, you'll get to start your life again. I never perceived, I don't know if I was just being naive to the situation or if I just didn't fully understand.

Chris: The direction I was going, but I thought I [00:27:00] was going to like be able to have my life back. Right. And which I, I have found my way to make, you know, have my own life, but not the way I perceived it back then. 

Jason: So how did you perceive it? So let's talk about that. And then let's talk to him about reality. 

Chris: Well, I, you know, I knew I had probation.

Chris: And, you know, I was going to early term, I was going to get off at halfway. I was determined to that way. I could, you know, I knew getting out my first four years, it was going to require me to be on probation, be good, do everything I had to do. And then at that point, I can start my life again. So in reality, I'd seen end of probation as starting my life again, and I could get a good job.

Chris: You know, I could get a professional license or, cause I've always wanted to be involved in sociology and things that help people to find out that I would have a very small job pool, whether I'd be on probation, whether I'd be on the registry. 

Jason: Right. So, so, but I just want to get to like, what was it that you, you were envisioning yourself doing before you found out that you had all these barriers?

Chris: In the beginning, I wanted to be a paralegal [00:28:00] because I knew I would never be able to be an attorney. I mean, I, I knew that was going to stop it. But we looked into Blackstone paralegal studies, which is a correspondence paralegal course that you can do on the inside. And then once again, funding is just too expensive.

Jason: Gotcha. Okay. So then you go through the whole experience of prison, you get out and now you're hit with probation and registering. So let's go through that a little bit. 

Chris: So right before I get out, I'm like three months before I'm trying to figure out where I'm going to go. You know, I'm now scared because.

Chris: The last 90 days was almost the worst part of my time because it's all about new beginnings at this point. It's time to get out of my comfort zone. I've been doing, you know, the prison thing for so long that I was kind of institutionalized. I, this is what I expected. This was my routine. So when I moved in with my grandmother before I went to prison, I had met the neighbor who was an elderly gentleman.

Chris: He was [00:29:00] in the military and a retired firefighter captain. And he had followed me throughout my whole prison time and came and see me and talk to me and wrote me. So when it was time for me to come home, he asked me, he's like, why don't you move in with me? And I'm like, well, you know, I guess I could, he goes, I need help.

Chris: My health is not all that well. I could really use your help. And he goes, you know, if you decide to start a family, my house is yours. 

Jason: And you're going to do the landscaping. 

Chris: Oh yeah. Okay. So I get out and he's actually in the hospital because he had open heart surgery. and had a bad infection. So he's in the hospital at the VA hospital and I come home and it's all new but I've got this whole, I've got a bedroom, I've got a whole half of a house that's got plenty of space and I'm just a little overwhelmed and a couple days later he comes home and he's got to have all these medicines, all this medical stuff.

Chris: So my first job getting out. [00:30:00] According to my PO was to take care of him. 

Jason: Is this 2015? 

Chris: Yes. 

Jason: So 2015. So you you 2000, let's just think for a second. 2009 to 2015. So many more things have moved online. And you're not, and I'm assuming that when you came out, you weren't allowed a computer or a cell phone? 

Chris: I was allowed a cell phone that could not access the internet 

Jason: dumps.

Jason: How did you have any trouble finding one? 

Chris: I went through Verizon and got one of those flip phones, and they were able to turn the internet, internet off on the backside. 

Jason: Okay. So, yep. So you had a, you had a dumb, basically a dumb phone. Yeah. 

Amber: Not a smart one. A dumb one. 

Jason: Yeah. You had a dumb phone. Yes. had no, had no internet.

Jason: And the guy you're living with, does he have to, you have to make sure that he's got password protection on his computer, all that stuff, go 

Chris: through all that and make sure 

Jason: there's no alcohol in the house or anything. 

Chris: I did not have an alcohol clause, so we did not [00:31:00] have to remove all the alcohol out of the house.

Chris: Okay. 

Jason: All right. But what else was it like for you to actually just to move in there? Were there any other changes? 

Chris: He had a, he had to buy a gun safe and move it into his bedroom behind a locked door because he has. A few firearms. He, he got, he, he did everything he needed to ahead of time. Talked to my probation officer, got everything approved.

Chris: Is there anything I need to do? So walking out, I was pretty, pretty set. He had bought me a Dodge Durango. So I already had a vehicle upon getting out. And so I really coming out, I kind of had that, that pathway that was created for me. So it wasn't that difficult between my family support and I now call him grandpa.

Chris: I still live with him. 

Jason: Have you seen other people that don't have grandpa to help? I've seen a lot of people and for them it turns into homelessness, right? 

Chris: Yes. And that's one of the things that I help advocate for is everybody should have a right to, to have a home. Everybody should have a right to have a roof over their head.

Chris: And a lot of these people, they're not [00:32:00] homeless because they have nowhere to go. They're homeless because the rules in the state of Florida don't allow them to live certain places. So sort of, you know, building stability in a home and rehabilitating people back to society and finding good jobs and, you know, making sure they get the therapy and all the stuff they need.

Chris: We shame them and throw them under a bridge and think that's the solution, which is obviously, if anybody has any humanity in them, somebody is sleeping under a bridge who's 70 years old. It's just downright cruel. 

Amber: Right, right. And so when you, when you started to, Go through that process in that last 90 days, you described it being, you know, kind of the fear of the unknown and there were.

Amber: You know, individuals in your life who really came alongside and supported you. And what you're saying is that everybody should be able to have that in their life. 

Chris: Yes, everybody should have a good path to success upon release. If not, what is the [00:33:00] system for? If it's truly about rehabilitation, then let's make sure everybody has what they need to go down that path.

Chris: The problem with sex offenses is that all the non profits out there. don't accept us. So there's very little remedy for somebody coming home with the past sexual offense to get any type of assistance. 

Jason: How about, how about any mental health assistance? Were you able to get a therapy therapist while you were in prison?

Jason: Were you able to get a therapist outside of prison? Do you feel like it's been effective and it's been helpful for you? 

Chris: Yes, I still see a therapist and yes, it is helpful navigating the system. I, I did and I've seen a therapist quite often and when I got out quite often and I still see them quite often, someone to help just everyone needs someone to talk to.

Chris: And with our situation, There's really not a lot of people to talk about, you know, you're, nobody really understands what you're going through until you've been walking in those shoes [00:34:00] and even whether you're successful or unsuccessful or things are going well, we always have this burden on our back when we walk through the streets.

Chris: Oh my God. Is he going to know I've been, you know, I'm a registered citizen. No, are they going to judge me? Are they going to hate me? So anytime you get into a place of publicness, You know, you do, you have that anxiety and that thing that never goes away. 

Amber: Right. And do you, can you talk a little bit about your own self sought therapy?

Amber: And how that may have interacted with court mandated therapy. Were you mandated to court therapy? Was there mandated programs in prison? Let's explore that just a little bit. 

Chris: I did not go to any mandated program inside. I don't know if I just got lucky cause I thought it was court ordered, but I did have mandated on the outside and.

Chris: I did, I went to therapy for, I'd say almost five years and I actually [00:35:00] graduated 18 months in, but I stayed on as a volunteer because that things through the court system, I was trying to accomplish and so I stayed on kind of as a voluntarily so I could have that support group, but also so I could continue the stuff I wanted to handle in the court system.

Amber: And so you are currently not under any sort of court mandated therapy, but you continue to seek therapy. Just like, listen, all of us. Yes. Okay. 

Chris: And, and, uh, and the therapy is for like everybody else, I have a stressful life, I have some anxiety. So talking to somebody about my issues and how to work through them is beneficial to me.

Jason: Right. And so when you're on probation, they hand you a list of restriction of, of restrictions. 

Chris: Yes. 

Jason: Does you want to walk through some of those also? 

Chris: So my restrictions for probation was no internet. No [00:36:00] contact with a minor. I don't wear a GPS monitor at all times the whole 

Jason: time. 

Chris: I cannot leave the County without permission for my probation officer.

Jason: The County. How big is, how big is the County? 

Chris: Not very big. So, I mean, there's a whole laundry list of rules that we had not to drink alcohol in excess. 

Amber: Did you have prohibitions against associating with certain people? 

Chris: No, I was not allowed to associate with anybody engaging in a criminal activity. 

Amber: Okay.

Amber: And so obviously you had the restrictions against associating with minors that went along with that, but you didn't have a common restriction is a blanket restriction against associating with anybody with a felony. So what you're saying is your restriction was worded in such a way as they had to be engaged in criminal activity at the time.

Chris: Yes. 

Amber: Okay, 

Chris: which was great because through probation, not having contact with minors, why didn't have kids my first three years and so holidays were at my house. So [00:37:00] Christmas, Thanksgiving, you know, 4th of July, I invite everybody in therapy group over to my house. To have a good meal, we'd cook and you know, that way they could still enjoy a family atmosphere because I couldn't go to my family stuff because there would be minors there.

Chris: They couldn't go to their family stuff, majority of 'em. So it was always at my house. So just try to get everybody together. 

Jason: I mean, is it, was there, was there a possibility to write a, like a plan that you get approved through probation as an exception to go visit family that had kids, or was it just, no, you cannot the whole time you're on supervision.

Chris: No, there's definitely remedies out there. So I, when I got out, I was talking about like ongoing court stuff. I went through the court system quite a bit, nine months into my probation term, I went back to court for internet and received it under internet safety plan, and also. Supervised contact with my little brother who was a minor and I won both of them.

Chris: So I was able to navigate that system. [00:38:00] But the problem is, is there's no blanket statement saying, okay, you can have contact with or you can be around minors had this family get together. It's individual, every person. So the amount of just the amount of time it would take to try to go back to court for.

Chris: all seven minors in my family was just not worth it. Right. And, but yeah, there's ways to go back further down the road. I went back for contact with a minor who's not my blood unsupervised. Cause I ended up meeting my wife and she has a stepdaughter or she has a daughter, which is now my stepdaughter and she's, uh, three at the time.

Chris: And I can't be around her daughter. We're starting to navigate each other and finding like, Oh crap, this might actually be something than just a fling. And now we're talking, she knows about my charges and we're like, you know, how do we navigate this? Well, boom, she gets pregnant. So now I have my first son on the way.

Chris: So I actually went back to court. [00:39:00] And to get contact with her daughter and the father showed up, made this big scene. The judge was actually, he listened and My therapist was there, you know, with a safety plan and they granted me 30 days of supervised visitation. And after that 30 days, we could go back well.

Chris: And those 30 days I met her dad, her dad and me and him became friends. And then 30 days, he went back and did not object. And so I got unsupervised contact with a minor. She was able to move in and. All that fun stuff, which has never happened in my area. You 

Jason: met your wife's dad, or you met the kid's dad 

Chris: because dad, 

Jason: you became friendly with the kid's dad with your stepdaughter's dad.

Jason: Yep. Good for you. So what you did was you're saying that's exceptional and rare that most people do not get that approved. 

Chris: Very rare. Very rare. In fact, my attorney had never seen it happen. Wow. So the day, the day we went to go get it approved, he's like, listen, We're going to [00:40:00] try to go for just full supervised without him being involved, because the dad at the court hearing was like, I want to supervise it.

Chris: Nobody else. And the judge said, well, can you be, you know, are you going to be fair? And he goes, yes, I'll be fair. So the judge allowed it. So for me to first meet my wife's daughter, I'll call her my daughter now. Cause there's been that amount of time, you know, I had to go through him. And we actually struck up a friendship over the next couple of weeks.

Chris: And he's like, dude, man, you're just, you're just a dude that made a mistake, man. And we actually, we've had family get togethers. We've gone camping together. I mean, we've had a lot of, you know, a lot of cool stuff that has happened throughout the last three, four years. But no, when I went back to court, my, my attorney said, you know, this, you're not going to win unsupervised.

Chris: He goes, this never happened. It's not going to happen. You need to just try to get supervised in general that way anybody can supervise. I said. No boss, we're going to go for the win. He goes, okay, but remember if they take it away from you, I mean, I knew the data wasn't going to object. [00:41:00] So I, I kinda, so we get up in front of there and you know, the judge granted it and I just couldn't believe it.

Chris: But we, you know, we had a goal, we were passionate about it and motivated and we got there. 

Jason: Wow. That must've been such a good day. So it was great 

Chris: because we were like three days from my son being born. So if this did not get approved, we would be living in two separate houses in three days. Oh, so it's a panic.

Chris: Like where do I live? Cause they're going to keep the house. You know, my kids need a safe place. So it was, it was interesting, but it was a, it was a relief. 

Jason: Nothing like putting extra stress on a, on a pregnant woman towards the other thing. 

Amber: So I really, I really want to explore this a little bit because I, I do find this to be an important part of the story.

Amber: Right. So when you talk about. People who are required to register and you move, you know, people move through their lives and the different phases and stages of starting a family, right, [00:42:00] and trying to go through these things. One of the things that we see is that people get very demotivated about, you know, I can't do this, I can't do that, because the system tells them that things are not possible.

Amber: So it's really exciting to hear that, you know, the things that you were able to accomplish, even within the system, that's clearly broken, but just by having the conversations, because I think sometimes what we do is we think that people don't want to talk to us because of the label or because of whatever, but you know, what you're saying is, you know, you got together, you were kind of forced into contact with the father, the father recognized you for who you were.

Amber: And that helped move things forward. 

Chris: Yes, it, it, it goes so much deeper. So the rules of probation. So I ended up needing to take my daughter and drop her off and pick her up from school. And so by law, I'm allowed to, well, school security decided that [00:43:00] they didn't care about the law wasn't going to happen.

Chris: So my attorney was like, well, you know what, ask the judge. So I went in front of the judge again to get clarification. And he's like, I have no issue with you dropping her and picking her up from school. So probation actually was a big help for me. So I bring it back to my probation officer. I go, Hey, the judge signed it.

Chris: He says, I can take her and pick her up from school. So he called the security officer for the, for the school district. And the school district was like, well, I need to make sure that things are safe. I don't know if I can allow him to do that. And my PO said, well, he's got a judge's order. If you want to violate that, go ahead, but I'm going to allow him.

Chris: To drop, you know, drop his daughter off at school and pick her up. It's written here in black and white. If you have any other questions, please call me. And the school security officer was like, that's fine. Don't have them call me click. Like they were so mad that I was just going to drop her off and pick her up.

Chris: I don't get out of my vehicle. I don't go inside. It's literally a parent pickup line, but it was [00:44:00] frustrating to have to go through so many steps, even though the law has been written, the law is there. It, it, it still is such a struggle. And now that I'm off probation, still have to get written permission from the principal to go to the school, which I am blessed.

Chris: I have been able to have a good relationship with the principal. Well, so he has approved me to go to like donuts for dads and different things. So I have been able to be involved, but there's all these steps that you have to take to get there. And then when I am there, it's hard to feel like I in my own skin, because I feel like everybody's watching me.

Chris: Well, 

Jason: you know what you're describing you've, you've, you paid your debt to society, you went. to, you know, if you believe that punishment is the right thing to do to, to address the crime that you committed, you paid your debt based on the rules that we have in society. You went to prison, you went through your supervision and, you know, but you, you did all of [00:45:00] that.

Jason: And so the fact that you can still be judged. by anybody at any time, and they can decide, and you don't know what they're doing, what crimes they're committing, but you're the one that's constantly out there who's being judged because of something that you did when you were 17, 18 years old, and you've, Gone through whatever you've gone through since to make sure to make amends to make it right, whatever And now you're still going to be judged as a 30 something year old man and a 40 something year old man and a 50 year old man and anybody can sit here at any time and say chris I don't want you here because of something you did when you were 18.

Jason: It's, it's a tough way to go. 

Chris: It is. And in some ways it was discouraging along this walk, but I I've always decided that only I can hold myself back, you know, within reason there's things I can't go be a doctor or something, but within reason I can control my own [00:46:00] destiny, I control my own happiness and I control my own path.

Chris: So after I got, you know, contact with my doctor, Or contact with my daughter. And then my son was born. I'm like, the next step is I need to get off this probation. So I decided I was going to go for early term. Well, once again, 

Amber: for those who don't understand the terminology early term is what 

Chris: that is when you ask to be released from probation early.

Amber: Okay. 

Chris: So, and most sex offenses. It does not happen often. And it's, you're, you're working a battle there and uphill battle at that. So I say, I'm attorney, I go to him and like, we're going to try for early term. And he goes, I'm going to tell you now, nobody gets it the first time I went and my, my attorneys literally said, you know, you don't get it the first time.

Chris: I'm lucky if I give him the second time, but we have our best shot at the third time. So I go in there expecting defeat, but I'm optimistic. You know, [00:47:00] I'm, I made, made pretty big waves so far. So I get up there and the state obviously objects, probation objects, but then the state objects because they actually had money that I owed.

Chris: And a clerk of court and never went to probation. I'm like, crap. I thought everything was paid up. So my attorney asked the judge, this same judge I've seen for everything else I've done and asked the judge. He goes, your Honor, if it's about money. We'll go ahead and, uh, get this taken care of and come right back.

Chris: If it's not about money, we'll just come back at a later date. Basically given the judge, like a question, you know, what do you approved it if the money was paid? He said, go take care of the money and come back and see me. I'm like, Ooh, that sounds pretty optimistic. So I walked out with my attorney goes, Holy crap.

Chris: You would've got it your first time. If your money was paid, he goes, you go take care of that money. I'm setting our court date for a week from now. So I did, I went, I paid the money, went back a week later. [00:48:00] And it was a bad day for the courtroom. The people in front of me, it was just ugliness. And so I finally get called and the judge looked at me and goes, I believe you are a young kid who made a bad mistake and learned from it.

Chris: He says, so today I have no issue with my ruling. He goes, today I'm going to grant you early term of probation. And he went on to say, like, it's very nice to see, and I'm paraphrasing and this is years ago, but he's like, with all the ugliness I see in the courtroom, I love these small moments. I get to see something good happen out of here.

Chris: I mean, it was motor. I cried. I cried right in this courtroom floor. I mean, I lost it, but I have a cry baby, but no, it was nice because that judge gave me a little bit of a motivation to walk out into my new life because after five years of probation. You know, pretty much seven years on the inside for the last 13 years.

Chris: I was not a free individual, so this [00:49:00] is my first taste of freedom in 13 years. And, and it was amazing, but it was, you know, a little crazy. 

Jason: And hang on, every time you go back to this attorney, you're opening your checkbook, right? 

Chris: Oh yeah. I've on probation itself. I've got roughly 12 grand in attorney fees.

Chris: So, cause I had a violation from the state in there as well. Where I was violated for a box violation, which is my monitor. I walked away from it three times over two and a half years for like a total of 10 minutes and 31 seconds. And they violated me, sent me back to jail. And, okay. 

Amber: So to be clear, a box violation is your GPS monitor.

Chris: Yes. 

Amber: And you know, things that people who are not familiar with it may not understand is that this is the thing that's attached to your body. You have to charge it. Sometimes it takes hours to charge. 

Chris: It's a two [00:50:00] piece. One is on your ankle, one you have to carry everywhere. So imagine like yourself on how often have you got in the car and started to get out the driveway and be like, Oh, I didn't grab my phone or be at a friend's house, leave your phone.

Chris: Can't find your keys. I mean, you have to live with this thing 24 seven. You have like a 15 foot rule that you can be within the realm. Cause once you get past it, it's going to beep. And it's going to ding and then they call you, where were you at? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so over two and a half years, I had three violations on it.

Chris: So they sent me to jail. And I did 30 days in jail on that hired the same attorney. I guess, you know, he loved me. He would fight for people like me in this realm. There's a lot of people that won't even take our cases. 

Jason: So, so the, so the, so the idea of, of, of the box violation is like somebody forgetting that they left their lights on in their car Somebody forget something like that.

Jason: And you're just going about your day and I'm, Oh shit. I [00:51:00] just forgot. And then, and, but, but you said you were never more, it was never longer than 10 minutes. It was 

Chris: never longer than six minutes. 

Amber: I would literally be violated on a daily basis because I would lose my head if it was not attached. So I can see how easy that would be to happen.

Chris: And think about people with ADHD like I have, where squirrel doo doo doo doo doo doo. Oh, where'd it go? And I did really well for two and a half years. The longest one was like six minutes and I was at work and that one there, my box was not charging. So their solution was to give me a car charger. So I can plug it in not only when I'm at home, but when I'm driving places, so it was dead, it wasn't working right.

Chris: So I had to plug it in my office at work, but I had to walk out on the floor. And I kind of knew my distance that I could go. Well, I just got a little bit too far and I really honest. My, my. Attorney was like, you need to stop being so honest. [00:52:00] Cause I told him, yeah, I have it plugged in on my desk and I walked away.

Chris: He goes, no, you were sitting right next to it, you know? So I was, I was always brutally honest with them. It's the boy scout. I mean, so I go for 30 days, but the 

Jason: reality is, but hang on a second. The reality here is that. There's no, there's no leeway. There's no, like I was, I was at work. I've got people at work who can vouch for me.

Jason: That was, I was right there. It was a few minutes, but for a few minutes, they've got to then whip you up into a technical violation and send you, send you back. to to incarceration and you have to fight it with an attorney and all this yada yada whatever stuff it's but there's the reason it's like are you kidding me like this is the way we want to handle things like anybody's talking to you for five seconds you know you they could have they could have saved a whole lot like the probation officer has to have some [00:53:00] discretion in this case right 

Chris: well he he honestly it was handed down it was above his head Because I had a good, I had a good relationship with my probation officer.

Chris: He had helped me like with my daughter, different things, you know, I mean, he had really helped and I never had an issue with him, so it was above his head. So I hired the attorney again. And, or this might be the first time I hired him because, you know, there's a timeline throughout this that we're kind of mixed back and forth.

Chris: We're just kind of, 

Amber: we're 

Chris: squirreling 

Amber: all over the place. 

Chris: But I, they're, they offer me because in Florida, when they, when you violate your probation, they basically revoke your probation. So, I was back to basically being originally sentenced again. So their offer was 12 years and like eight months or something.

Chris: So it's like another six years in prison. I mean, I've already been out for, um, for three years, never had an issue, never had a hiccup, nothing.[00:54:00] 

Chris: So I tell my attorney, I said, we're going to go to trial. I said, let the judge decide if this is a violation, I'm not accepting any plea deal, I didn't do anything wrong this, you know, and the day before we were going to go to trial, my attorney calls me down there, he goes, I just want to let you know, I got good news.

Chris: I go, what, because the state's attorney is dropping your violation. So, and that doesn't happen either. I mean, the DA does not drop that because they could easily just push their narrative. And somebody would have took a plea deal or somebody would have. No, I was not at this point. I learned I'm not, I'm not doing it.

Chris: So yeah, the state dropped it. I got released back, you know, out of jail after 30 days, but then my job was gone. Right. You know, I got fired, which was great. Don't get me wrong. I started at my new company that I'm at now, where I am a business operations manager and I make good money and things are great, 

Amber: optimistic.

Amber: My job was gone, which was great. 

Chris: Well, that job [00:55:00] honestly sucked. They were able to kind of utilize my past against me and get more out of me than what they probably could other people at a lower wage. Where my new job, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm over 10 people. I'm a second chance employer. I have multiple people on my payroll that do have a past that's trying to do good for themselves.

Jason: Awesome. And so two things, you got a couple of big things there, so I don't want to gloss over it. The first one is that it is so hard to get a job as somebody who has a criminal record, it's so hard to get a job if you're on the registry and the fact that there are employers that. Will promote themselves as we're so wonderful, but they take advantage.

Jason: They're taking advantage of people and you experience that. So, first of all, I'm sorry that you went through that. You had to, you had to experience that firsthand. The second thing is that there are a lot of companies out there now that are learning about. What you're calling second chance hiring. We've we, [00:56:00] Jeff Korzenich wrote a book called untapped talent.

Jason: I don't know if you've seen that, which talks about second chance hiring and makes a business case for it. And it sounds like your employer is one of those second chance employers. And so that's great. I mean, you can be your authentic self and you don't have to worry that they're going to try to take advantage of you being there.

Jason: So, 

Chris: yep. And they're, and they're well aware of how I advocate for criminal justice reform. You know, I don't have to hide anything. And that's amazing because I love my job. I mean, I truly do. I love my job. My, my employer is great. Just have the opportunity to give more people second chances. 

Jason: No, but I would just say that, you know, when people are coming out though, I mean, like you, you talked about your, you talked about the fact that you came out and you were given a stable home.

Jason: You were given a car, a stable 

Chris: job, 

Jason: right? Well, forget the job for a second. When you were given a home and you were given a car, right? And you had, and it sounds like you had a probation officer that was willing to work with you. Now, imagine you go to hire somebody who [00:57:00] doesn't have one of those things, who doesn't have a home, who doesn't have the car or the transportation, and they're trying to patch that work together.

Jason: They may not even have their ID anymore. You know, and they're trying to patch it together there. They have all these additional constraints that are piling up that they've got to deal with. And they mean it just not be. It might not just might not be the right time for them to be working with you, but they may get there.

Chris: And I think that brings up a bigger issue with our justice system is. It seems to be everything that gets passed or gets, gets done in Florida is everybody but people with sex offenses. Absolutely. There's, there's three or four transition homes within my area and I'm looking hard for an address for a guy that gets out August 22nd.

Chris: I can't find one because he has a sex offense. Now these programs are giving people shelter for a minimum of a year. They've got shuttles to take them to work. They've got all this stuff to help them with those barriers, but sex [00:58:00] offenses. There's nothing out there that really tries to help people with previous sex offenses get, we have the lowest recidivism rate.

Chris: And that's what plagues me because it's just punishment. It's not good policy. It's not good law. It's, we can punish them because they're the low, lowest hanging fruit. And nobody else cares. 

Jason: So now I know we've spent a lot of time on employment and we've talked a lot about this. Let me ask you this question.

Jason: Am I remembering correctly? Did Amber mentioned something about trying to visit a hospital or trying to deal with someone's illness? 

Chris: Was that part of 

Jason: your story? 

Chris: Oh, yes. I 

Jason: know nothing about it. So why don't you take us through that? 

Chris: Okay. So as part of being on the registry, private businesses can. Choose not to allow you access to their business.

Chris: So I, my little brother's special needs, he's got Denny Walker and he's diagnosed with autism and my mom. And my dad adopted him when he was six months old. My [00:59:00] cousin was hit by a car, tragically passed. So when my dad passed last year, it became just my mom taking care of him. You know, he's 15 now and he's a bigger boy.

Jason: And this is the, this is the brother you were given access to be able 

Chris: to go see him. Yes. Same brother. Okay. And so after my dad passed, I tried to step in and help my mom out the best I can. We only live like a hundred feet away, so it's kind of perfect. And he had to have surgery to replace his, I think, I don't know if I'm saying this right, venous nerve stimulator.

Chris: It's something that helps calm him that's in the back of his neck. And up in his chest, he had to replace a battery, but it was at a children's hospital. So I didn't think twice about it. I'm out here. I'm off probation. I'm working hard. My mom's like, can you go help me bring him to have the surgery done?

Chris: You know, he's going to freak out. And I go, yeah, mom, what's the time date? I'll take off. So I do all that. I meet her up there. Wait. So what year is this? This is a last year. 

Jason: This is a 2021 where, and [01:00:00] you're in Florida, so the COVID, you're not masking, you're doing it and you're not worried about like, can only one person come in the room at a time type of stuff in Florida.

Jason: Because we're kind of in 2021 timeframe. You're, how old were you last year? 30? 

Chris: I was 33. 

Jason: You're 33. You're married. You have two children. You're right. You have three children. Okay. You've done eight years in prison. You've done, or you've done six or whatever years in prison, you've done your probation.

Jason: You're off probation. And now, so the only thing you, and you have a stable job, the only thing you have at this point is that you are on the registry and your, and your brother needs you at the hospital. 

Chris: Yes. Okay. So I get to the hospital and I immediately notice the sign. We screen people, blah, blah, blah.

Chris: I'm like, mom, they're not gonna let me go in. She goes, just try. You're already here. I'm like, okay, I know what's going to happen, but I'm willing to be embarrassed just because I want my mom to feel comfortable. [01:01:00] So I go in there. My mom gets her visitor badge. They do mine. She goes, Oh, I got a screen error.

Chris: Hold on one second. Like that's a nice way of saying you're calling security but cool. So security comes down and lets me know that due to me being on the registry that I would not be allowed in this hospital or on its premises and escort me out the door. And I'm just, at this point I'm almost in tears.

Chris: I'm just, I'm out the door. And the guy goes, if you like, you can speak with my supervisor. I said, I would like to, and cause I, at this point I've learned to stand up for myself and as nice as I could, supervisor comes out and I said, Hey, and he goes, yes, since you have a registry, you know, you're on the registry and you have a sexual previous offense.

Chris: I can't allow you on the property. It's our whole, our policy, blah, blah, blah. I said, okay, thank you, sir. Can I just have your name and badge number? And he goes, yes, sir. And I write it down. And he goes, what do you want that for? I said, because the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to contact the Danny Walker Alliance and autism speaks and see if [01:02:00] there might be some remedy for this kind of policy that you have said, my little brother and their special needs, he outweighs my mom by 80 pounds.

Chris: When you go in there and you go and try to put that needle in, he's going to freak out. He's going to beat my mom up. He's going to beat your staff up and that's all on you. And I did as calm as I could. I said, there's no reason why I should not be able to assist with my little brother who has special needs and getting surgery.

Chris: And the guy said, wait a minute. He's special needs. I said, yes, sir. He goes, give me one minute. He walked back inside, made a phone call, came back out, said, you're approved to be on the premises. Security will escort you up to the third floor. That is a 

Jason: story. I mean, that is, yeah, 

Chris: but it scares me because how many people turn around and walk away.

Jason: Well, what I think is great is that, you know, we have people listening to the podcast and getting your story to other people so that they can hear that. So maybe that somebody will be inspired when they're in that [01:03:00] situation to speak up for themselves and to know that you actually had a, had a win. And to use your story as that 

Chris: and in my own opinion, too, it's about treating them with respect.

Chris: Also, they have a job to do. Yes, I was a little passionate, but it's not them making the rules. So, and, and I think by being passionate towards them and showing them respect, not just being a jerk. Gets you a long way because three months later, my son was in an accident and rushed to the same hospital and freaked out.

Chris: I can't go there. I can't be there. He's in the ICU. Well, I called that same security guy and I said, Hey, my son's in the ICU. I really need to see him. And I'm crying. I'm upset. I don't know what to do. I'm in panic mode. That was probably a really bad day of my life, but I call him up and he said, you asked for me personally, I'll walk you up there myself.

Chris: And just, but from that one incident, it changed my whole path [01:04:00] with that hospital. So I was able to go up there and see my son. I mean, he was, he's okay now, but back then it was scary. And just that fear of not knowing if I could go in and see him. I'm the one that originally brought him to the ER when they said he's being transferred to that children's hospital.

Chris: My wife's frantically trying to get there because I don't know if they'll let me in. And I know dang well, if I got on that ambulance, you know, to go there, Nothing was going to stop me from being near my kid. So luckily my wife got there and she's the one that went, but it's just, it's a scary thing to be a dad and be on the registry.

Amber: I Chris, thank you so much for sharing, because I think we can all agree, you know, as we're, we're parents ourselves, that when we have these conversations, it really is important to understand. That there is not this us and them. This is all of us [01:05:00] creating situations and policies that are harmful to children and families while trying to protect children and families.

Amber: Right. So I really appreciate you authentically sharing your experience and it is important to. Understand the way that we navigate those emotions that are caused by a system that are so broken is a reflection of the things that will come back to us. So, you know, keeping a cool head in a situation where you're being denied entry is really, really difficult and people who may handle it in a different way.

Amber: It's understandable. I, I think that having that support. You know, your mom saying to you, you know, you know, just try and you saying, I'm going to try [01:06:00] and keeping that cool head is really outstanding. And I hope it inspires others who are listening to the podcast to, to really think about those things. And then the last thing is really understanding when you can and cannot.

Amber: Stand up for yourself, right? Because there is this chilling effect that people don't talk about just backing down this chilling effect. I'm not going to go here, even if I'm allowed because of what people might say or do, or what I might experience. So, so thank you, Chris. I really, I really think it's a special story and it's inspiring for others.

Chris: I think to add one more thing to it is, you know, you bring up like collateral consequences of the registry and navigating it. And to me, my, my biggest fear of the registry is not necessarily even for me anymore. It's for my, my kids, for my wife. I'm scared [01:07:00] that in five years from now, when my son turns eight, One of his friends is going to find out that I have a criminal history and his dad's going to be a monster.

Chris: His dad's going to be a pervert. And that's just downright terrifying to me though, that my kids might have to go through being bullied or being picked on because of something that happened 18 years ago. I mean, I don't, that's terrifying. I mean, and I hope that it doesn't affect them, but. As laws get passed, you know, am I going to be allowed to go to their, to their school stuff?

Chris: You know, if they get involved in sports, can I go to their ball games? All the laws that are being passed as a registry law that affects me after my crime is over. It's not just punishing me. It's punishing my kids. Yes. 

Amber: Right. I think, and again, I think the more people that realize that, you know, it really is like setting an uncontrolled fire and wondering why we're all [01:08:00] burning.

Amber: So, again, I want to just kind of switch gears just a little bit because we've talked a lot about, you know, your experience from, you know, prior to what happened to you and then moving through the system and some things with, you know, navigating as a dad and a brother and an employer and an employee, let's talk a little bit about what you're doing now.

Amber: Clearly have a passion for being. A helper, right. And speaking up and sharing and being an advocate, which I know is fairly new for you, but you've kind of jumped in with two feet. Tell us a little bit about that. 

Chris: Yes, it's, it's, it's definitely very scary at first because you have to find a way to get out of your comfort zone.

Chris: And to me, I was in my comfort zone. Everything is good. And my life was kind of moving forward. I would say I'm a respected member of my community. And I've met a lot of people. [01:09:00] And one day I was going through NARSOL, which is the National Association of Racial and Sex Offense Laws. I was on their website and I, I seen somebody that was doing a study.

Chris: And I'm like, Oh, I wonder if they'd be interested because a lot of your studies I've noticed are, you know, about the people who can't make it where I feel like I'm a little bit different. I've made it, but there's barriers that are preventing me from being my full potential. So I, I wrote the study lady and we talked and had a good conversation and at the end of that conversation, she just kind of, I don't know, fired me up to like, Why am I not making a difference?

Chris: Why isn't my story being told? Why can't I encourage or motivate other people that we can make a difference in our own lives? We don't have to accept the status quo that we can't be anybody or, or anything because we have this scarlet letter on our record. And I started getting involved with NARSOL and Florida Action Committee [01:10:00] and just at this point, I want to make a difference.

Chris: I truly believe if we can bring humanity to the people that are on the registry. And society can see that we're not just scary guys hiding behind the bush, you know, we're, we're fathers, we're mothers, we're, we're brothers, sisters, friends, you know, business owners and employers. I mean, there's the registry is so dynamic and so unique that society doesn't even know who is really on there.

Amber: Yeah. I mean, I think that that's really important. So when you kind of had this aha moment talking to this researcher, did you know where to get started? Like, were you pointed in the right direction and what steps did you take to get involved? 

Chris: Well, I kind of knew where to go. I've been following both organizations for six years from the sidelines.

Chris: And so the first thing I did decided I was going to go to [01:11:00] NARSOL's annual conference. To meet with some other people, kind of see how it went from there. Cause I wasn't really sure I was kind of one foot in one foot out. Do I really want to expose myself? Do I really want to be a voice for the movement?

Chris: Do I want to out myself? Because essentially that's what we do when we start to speak publicly is at some point, we're telling the whole world that this is who we are. And so I, I started with Narsal and I met plenty of people, including you, that just did the motivation was, so you're there and you're, and you're fighting for some of our rights.

Chris: And the other people are there and I noticed that they weren't registered themselves, but I'd probably been impacted by somebody. And I think there was that moment. I kind of had that, you know, aha moment that if us as registered citizens cannot stand up and represent ourselves in some capacity and share our stories and help with the movement, how do we expect everybody else around us to do it for us?

Chris: And it just [01:12:00] kind of went from there. While I was up there, I got to meet with other FAC members and kind of see what their organization was about. And it was amazing for once I was at a location where I didn't have to feel like everybody was judging me. I was at a location where I met people that were like minded and all want the same thing.

Chris: And so my fight is not for people that commit crimes, but I do believe when you finish your sentence. You should have every same civil, civil, liberty that every other person has because I'm part of the majority. I'm a tax paying citizen. I have a job. I pay my taxes, yet I can't vote. I can't do hold certain licenses.

Chris: I can't do a lot of things just because I have a criminal back. I'm a law abiding citizen and pay my taxes like everybody else around me. So, 

Jason: right. And, and, and the, uh, you said you can't vote, you can't hold certain licenses. So some of [01:13:00] that is because you have a criminal record. And some of that is because you have a criminal record.

Jason: That's a sex conviction and you're on the registry. Right. 

Chris: Um, kind of, it's almost pretty much purely registry. Now, state of Florida passed a law where everybody besides sex offenses and murderers got their civil rights restored after their sentence. We're one of the few left in Florida that don't get it back automatically.

Chris: I have to wait seven years before I can apply to a board that could grant me them back. 

Amber: And so, yeah, so I think that speaks a little bit to something that you referenced before, that's pretty common in movements in terms of reform and civil liberties and trying to get rights back. There's often this sacrifice of people with violent crimes or people with crimes of a sexual nature that You know, we can't get this passed without sacrificing this population, [01:14:00] and there is an ongoing debate on whether that is, you know, truth, or whether we should be more purist about it, but definitely the situation in Florida, there were a lot of good people.

Amber: That we're working to get rights back and that doesn't make you know people that made those decisions bad people. It just makes it part of the process things happen behind closed doors legislation gets changed all of that, but it does make it very very difficult to go back on another day and add for advocate for the smaller population that is seen as less favored, I want to go back to the idea of.

Amber: very much. People feeling empowered to stand up for themselves because this is a phenomenon that we see not just with individuals who have been convicted of sexual offenses, other people who have, you know, criminal convictions. And when you were thinking about [01:15:00] advocating and you said you were kind of following the movement.

Amber: What were the things that you spoke a little bit about it, that kept you from getting involved. Helps. And they're all very valid, right? Like, but, but let's talk about like what they were, what kept you from taking those steps to be a little bit more vocal or get involved in advocacy? 

Chris: Well, at this point in my life, I was in a comfortable point.

Chris: I run a major business. I make decent money. My kids are taken care of. My wife is taken care of. I don't want that target on my back. I'm afraid by being too vocal or being too big of an advocate. That it might make me a target, especially when we start to make sense. They have this full registry scheme that they can attack us with.

Chris: So. Is the next step where they're like, okay, let's drive by and make sure every little 27, 000 page rules he's following. Did they start pulling me over? Did they [01:16:00] start doing address checks once a week? Like, do they start trying to find a way to embarrassing me? And that was a rational fear that I had.

Chris: But I also feel like the movement's a little more bigger than that. Yeah, if the wrong person gets ahold of it, I'll be posted on Facebook and they'll out me and they'll probably shame me. But that's not going to change the fact that I am still on the registry. So to me, the risk is, is worth the reward.

Chris: If we can all stand up and make a difference, maybe in five years from now, I don't have to worry about that registry. Right. Maybe in three years, maybe in 10 years, heck, it might not ever go away. But at least I know I personally. Did what I needed to do to help the cost 

Jason: from all of these stories you've shared with us today.

Jason: It sounds like you have a gift for being able to express. your remorse for what you did and put it into perspective, a much bigger, honorable life that you've led and to make it [01:17:00] so that it is an isolated moment in time, as opposed to something that defines you. And And so that's, that's terrific. I mean, it's in the fact that you've decided to now use that to not only advocate for yourself, but to become someone who organizes and helps other people as well, that's also admirable.

Jason: So you get to go back to your roots of being a boy scout. And doesn't help other people and I think it's been a pleasure to listen to you and get to know you a little bit and I hope we get to work together in the future on some projects. I think Amber for introducing us. Amber you can have some final thoughts.

Amber: Well, I would actually just like to pose a last question and the people who listen to our podcast probably have heard this question before, but I really, the curiosity always gets the best of me. What I would like to know, Chris, is [01:18:00] if you were able to speak to someone who was at the beginning of this journey and you could give them one piece of advice.

Amber: What would it be? 

Chris: You can make the best out of any situation. So by taking it one day at a time, finding better ways to understand your past, making your future better each day, you can do something different to have a brighter future because only you can control your destiny. There is road bumps and speed bumps and spike strips, but Every setback, you just have to find a reason to keep moving forward.

Amber: So Chris, thank you so much for joining us today. We really enjoyed our conversation and we're very excited for the upcoming work that you're going to be involved in. As Jason said, we're excited to collaborate with some of the things that you're doing. And we [01:19:00] typically will do follow ups maybe several years later.

Amber: So maybe we'll see you again on the podcast to see how things are going. 

Chris: That would be amazing. 

Jason: So thank you again, Chris. And until next time, Amber, 

Amber: we'll see you next time.