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RSOL FIRST NATIONAL CONFERENCE BOSTON: Preparation for the first National Conference started months ago and was a continual effort right through to the end of the Conference. The Admin team discussed the conference details on numerous conference calls, trying to make sure we had covered all of the bases. Inevitably, there is always something that could be improved next time and our first National Conference was no exception! Though we had some technology and coordination difficulties, we have learned by experience how and where to improve. Onsite at the Boston Location we experienced a truly cathartic moment: seeing so many people from some many genre's come together to express their distaste with the current state of affairs. We didn't just have affected families and registered persons; we had many professionals and community members that are not connected personally to the umbrella of injustice that envelops every registered person. Everyone in attendance KNOWS what we hope the public at large will know someday: OUR APPROACH TO SEX OFFENDER MANAGEMENT IS WRONG. To illustrate this belief, we called upon keynote speakers who have personally experienced the declining approach to the treatment and management of those labeled as sex offenders. We engaged panel respondents who were professionals in the arena of sex offender issues, as well as those personally affected by the laws. There was a focus on how we had arrived at this point that shifted by the 2nd day of the Conference to what we must do to change the future. To that end, RSOL presented various State Groups who are actively working on reform in their home states and followed these discussions by techniques on how to effectively lobby our legislatures. We then broke for small group discussions that allowed us to generate ideas and movement toward our future goals. It is clear that our first National Conference is exactly that: A FIRST! We are working now on our next conference sometime in 2010 to motivate our signatories and State groups to gather and develop our lobbying skills. We must take this struggle to our legislatures in an effective and expedient fashion. Those of us involved in this plight must become great speakers, knowledgeable adversaries and skilled lobbyists if we are to right these wrongs. And we will, eventually, right these wrongs. Time is on our side. It is our job now to make the best use of that time and our energy to educate America about the ill effects of the Registry and how and why it should change.

Dr. Richard Pillard Opened the Conference and Introduced Dr. Jerome Miller and Dr. Fred Berlin. Dr. Pillard

Alain Levesque, Kelly Piercy, and Paul Shannon taking a break

July, 2009, Vol. 1, #1
Guest Editor: Mary Sue Molnar

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Reform Sex Offender Laws

RSOL is the central focus of the national effort to reform the circumstance and conditions under which persons on the registry and their families and friends find themselves. If you are not a signatory to this important movement, become one.

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