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Sex Offender at 12, Punished For Life

May 3, 2012 @ 3:38 pm (Updated: 5:36 am - 5/4/12 )

By Rachel Belle


When Kevin was 12 years old he was slapped with a felony. His school's principal caught him and his 10 year old friend sexually experimenting in the boy's bathroom. He says it was consensual, that he wasn't trying to hurt anyone, but Kevin was branded as a Level Two sex offender. His name and photo went up on Lewis County's sex offender website and his life became a living hell.

"When I go to school they would harass me, I got assaulted. They call me chi-mo [child molester], they would call me a baby raper, they would call me horrific names. 'I don't deserve to be alive,' I got told that so many times and that's pretty hard."

Kevin is now 18 years old and in his last year of high school. But during the last 6 years he's been spit on, beat up and harassed.

"I thought I had friends and most of them turned on me because I tell them, because you're required by law to tell the parents. You're supposed to disclose what you did. That's the law. I've had parents run me off their lawn, I've had parents threaten to call the cops, I had one parent saying that if I don't get off the lawn that I was going to get seriously hurt."

Brad Meryhew is a Seattle lawyer who focuses on defending juvenile sex offenders. He understands why parents react so strongly when they see a sex offender attending school with their child. But the term sex offender isn't so black and white. He says there is a difference between a 12 year old experimenting with a friend and rape.

"The research tells us that kids 12 years old, who act out sexually, except in rare circumstance, are unlikely to repeat that offense. They're responsive to treatment. These kids don't pose a future risk so long as they're not amongst that very rare population."

Kevin is now classified as a Level One offender, which means he's no longer on the website, but he thinks having his photo up in the first place was questionable.

"Kids at such a young age, if it's their first offence and if they're trying, I think they should be given another chance and not have the felony on them, not have to register online. We're trying to move on with our lives and it makes it really hard when people know about this. There should be a little bit more confidentiality when it comes to kids under the age of 18 unless they re-offend multiple times."

"There's a growing awareness that the collateral consequences of listing a kids that age as a Level Two, and putting them on the website, are so detrimental to the kid that it's just not worth it," Meryhew says. "It doesn't increase community safety and it destroys the kid's life. Barring some pretty exceptional circumstances, it's outrageous that a 12 year old was made a Level Two."

Besides the emotional damage and bullying kids in Kevin's situation are put through, what he did at 12 years old will affect his entire future. Kevin says he's given up his dream of being a law enforcement officer.

"They can't work in health care, they might have trouble becoming an attorney, they can't be a physician," Meryhew says. "They also can't do things like be a fireperson, EMT, go into the military, be in law enforcement. The doors are closed to them."

Brad says Washington is one of only two states in the country with no set guidelines on how to punish juvenile sex offenders. It's decided county by county, and they can choose to punish however they see fit. He would like to see this regulated, but he's happy to see that one law was changed.

"Washington law was changed recently to allow those convicted as juvenile sex offenders to seal their records in certain circumstances," Meryhew says.

Kevin was finally able to switch schools, so life is easier for him. But he can't forget the way he's been treated all of this time.

"People should be a little bit more forgiving and try to find out what really happened before they assume. That's all I want."

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Comments (20)


  • Add A Comment

  • Citizen of Krazy Town wrote...
    How does the charging work between a 12 and 10 year old?
    May 3, 2012 6:05 pm
    Shouldn't they both get charged?

    I'll admit, these boys (assuming they were both boys) are a bit older than the "show me yours I'll show you mine" crowd of 4-6 year olds, but sexual realization starts in pretty fierce at that 10-13 range.

    I'm not sure how the application of law here helped ANYONE. this sounds like a parenting issue to me.

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  • CH wrote...
    is this not the range everyone hits the . . . .
    May 3, 2012 9:25 pm
    sheets?
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  • dori monson fan wrote...
    why are we hiding the gender of the "victim?"
    May 3, 2012 9:35 pm
    From the eyes of the parent of a ten year old BOY I'd be pissed and want to label the 12 year old as a sex offender too. But if the 10 year old is a girl then it's just kids messing around. Maybe not the most pc, but true.
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  • Ted Bundi wrote...
    Wow
    May 3, 2012 10:43 pm
    When I was 12, I fooled around with the 12 year old next door neighbor girl. Glad I wasn't caught. We didn't know it was against the law.
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  • jumpshot03 wrote...
    This is Nuts
    May 4, 2012 3:05 am
    People need to think more clearly on this. Charging a 12 year old in the 6th or 7th grade with a sex crime for the rest of his life is obscene. Open up your eyes, bullying from this can make a child suicidal. Get your head checked if you disagree. A multiple child offender is one thing but a I show you mine and you show me yours situation at that age is not a child rape by any means.
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  • Rikki Doxx wrote...
    Welcome To The World Of Liberalism
    May 4, 2012 6:26 am
    Welcome to the world of liberalism where everything is a crime. Kids as young as four have been labeled sex offenders.
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  • BikeNazi wrote...
    Sorry Rikki Dicks, this is not liberalism, but nice try
    May 4, 2012 7:44 am
    Zero tolerance policies are a refuge for the weak minded. It removes all rational thinking and treats everyone as the lowest common denominator. Labeling a 12 year old a sex offender has been wrought by conservatives screaming for justice and prosecutors not wanting to lose their jobs by appearing "soft on child molesters". This is the world the conservatives have always wanted and now they live in it.
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  • kata wrote...
    BikeNazi is correct
    May 4, 2012 8:09 am
    both the Megan Act and the Weterling Act are products of (R) legislation however how they are implemented is a State issue. So if they're interpretation is being abused you need to look at the local system. Just look at the way the TSA's "mandate" has been mangled in the hands of both administrations.

    When you have a law that so thinly walks the line of constitutionality you're going to have nothing but problems and heartbreak cases like the one above.

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  • yellowroselady wrote...
    Byrne Fund Grant Money
    May 4, 2012 8:26 pm
    Title 1 of the Adam Walsh Act is SORNA (Sex Offender Registration & Notification Act) requires many things above and beyond what some states do and they two things that states who have openly opposed coming into compliance with SORNA is more juveniles on the registry AND ex-post facto offenses which means those folks that had an offense, say 20 years ago, paid their debt to society now are required to register. There are over 763,000 men, women and children across the nation required to register. The "crimes" range from urinating in public, sexting, exposure, false accusations by a soon-to-be ex-wife, angry girlfriend, or spiteful student, to looking at abusive or suggestive images of anyone up to 16 in some states and 18 years old in others, solicitation, prostitution, Romeo and Juliet consensual sexual dating relationships, playing doctor, rape and incest. Credible studies advise that 95% of sexual offenses come from within the family unit, friend or someone know to the family and NEVER gets reported. The registry is a way to make parents "feel good!" Now if you multiply the number above by 3 or 4 family members of the registrant there are almost 3,000,000 wives, children, mothers, girlfriends and others suffering the collateral damage caused by these registries by being harassed, beaten, shunned, threatened, have signs placed in their yards, wives lose their jobs when someone finds out they are married to and “live with” a registrant, have flyers distributed through the neighborhood, forced to leave their church,lose friends and family. How is the family supposed to survive and become functional again under these conditions? A more responsible approach would be to educate parents, children and teens about ways to stay safe. Please read; Mis-educating the Public, a study by Tamara Lave, Collateral Damage: Familiy Members of Registered Sex Offenders by Jill Levenson and Richard Tewksbury or Sexual Offender; Sorting out Myth from Truth by Dr. Eric Imhof. Let me close with information on the subject here. Per the Justice Department via the SMART office the states that do not come into compliance lose 10% of their Byrne Fund Grant money. Many states have studied the impact and decided it would cost them more to comply. Your government at its best....wouldn't you say? Vicki Henry Women Against Registry dot com
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  • Valigator wrote...
    This is insane
    May 4, 2012 8:00 am
    I find this story horrendous. No one is tougher on sex offenders than myself I have no tolerance for their crimes. But doing what was done to this child diminishes the spirit, the integrity and the intent of the registry. The school principle should be named in a civil suit for bad judgement and for the public humiliation this child has suffered. If people have issues or confusion with the registry, here is the example why.. I read stories as this and it makes my blood boil.
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  • circuitfr wrote...
    don't do stuff
    May 4, 2012 8:48 am
    I don't know about you. But 12 year olds knowadays are pretty much 1950's 20 year olds. Kids have no respect, no parents, and have no guidance. That IS the liberal agenda. It's ok to get it on, just wear a condom and get a vaccine. This is what you get. If this 12 year old was doing stuff to a 10 year, serves him right. 12 years old is old enough to rationalize. Heck, there are 7 8 year old gang bangers walking around talking crud to people. Parents need to carefully instruct their children and quit being hands off.
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  • ShanaRowan wrote...
    double standard
    May 4, 2012 10:44 am
    as someone who studies these laws and the impact they have on communities (victims, offenders, and the families of both) I can tell you that there is no one political leaning that is responsible for this insanity - both are equally guilty. Question: if you think being labeled a sex offender for life is fair for a 12-year-old... do you also support making it OK for 12 year olds to smoke, drink, drive, enroll in the army, vote, and drop out of school to work full time? If the 12-year-old were sexual with someone who was 13, somehow they would become the "victim". Sorry - there is no logic or sense in that whatsoever.
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  • ShanaRowan wrote...
    I'm living this life
    May 4, 2012 8:47 am
    My fiancee was charged as an adult for a crime committed at age 12. He is treated like a child molester or pedophile because of the way our laws and the registry have been governed by emotion and political pandering - even though he was a sexually abused child at the time of his crime. No one cared about that, just about getting a conviction. This is not nearly as uncommon as people think. According to the US Dept of Justice, over a quarter of all registrants are juveniles. That's almost 200,000 CHILDREN. So, which kids are important and which aren't?
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  • LAMarshall wrote...
    maturity
    May 4, 2012 9:40 am
    @circuitfr--Actually, I would say that a person's adulthood is being unnaturally delayed these days. You will find cases all over the place of people who expect their college-attending "children" to be protected as if they were 8 or 9, rather than as if they were what they are--young adults. "Keep sex offenders off college campuses," they cry. "You have to protect the children!" As though their "child" were not 18, 19 or even as old as 25! And the young adults buy right into it. This was obviously a case of consensual experimentation and the sex of the 10 year old is totally not relevant. Either 12 year olds can make the decision to have sex or they can't. If they can, then they should be able to decide whether to have it with ANYONE, and I doubt that anyone here wants that. If they can't make that decision, then they should not be held to adult responsibility for such actions. Period. This sort of double standard is unacceptable.
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  • KellieC wrote...
    Charging
    May 4, 2012 10:07 am
    The law in Washington says that it is illegal to behave sexually toward anyone more than 24 months younger for kids. This boy was 12, and the friend was 10 - in the eyes of the law that is NOT considered consensual, so that is why he was charged. It is a horrible stigma to place on a child, and a lot of kids that act out in this way have been sexually abused themselves. However, there are cases (and in my job I see them more than most) where kids even this young act out sexually on numerous occasions (including rape). I understand that the state wants to err on the side of caution, but I do think there should be some better way of differentiating between situations for children, and seeing how they respond to treatment before slapping a label on them.
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