OnceFallen 2023 Annual Report

Since 2016, OnceFallen has published an annual report summarizing the efforts of our anti-registry activism.  Most of the activism performed by OnceFallen is either the maintenance of the OnceFallen.com website, responding to inquiries, or through prisoner outreach. When needed, OnceFallen is willing to attend activist events, conduct media interviews, and legislative meetings addressing sex offense laws when necessary. OnceFallen runs on a shoestring budget BUT rarely needs donations unless that need involves traveling to events. 

OnceFallen major accomplishments in 2023:

1. Organized the DC Vigil in March 2023 to protest 20 years of the terrible Smith v. Doe ruling, and gave the eulogy at the event. 

2. Assisted a record number of individuals, averaging over 2 per day. 

3. Was featured in the book, “From Rage to Reason: Why We Need Sex Crime Laws Based on Facts, Not Fear” by Emily Horowitz (2023). No media contacts were made and no OpEds were published, however. 

4. Conducted 2 surveys, a larger 99-question survey of anti-registry activists, of which there were 695 participants (final paper still in progress), and a smaller 19-question survey on Insurance and Travel issues for Registered Persons (final report published in Dec. 2023)

INITIAL CONTACT STATS

Total New Contacts 2023 – 788 (710 in 2022, +78, an 11% increase over 2022)

Reasons for initial contact, in order of most to least common reasons for first contact. Please note, this is only for INITIAL contact, and in the case of prisoners, it may begin with a “general info” contact followed by a later resource request: Housing (202), “General Inquiries” (i.e., those with general questions or unclear about needs (167)), sex offense law questions (69), state law summaries (54), ICoN/Informational Corrlinks Newsletter (32), Your Life on The List book (30), Attorneys (28), Activism (22), jail/prison issues (21), Information Sharing (20), PO Issues (17), Thank You (13), and Treatment issues (10). There were many individual inquiries; also, some services people seek are not services I provide, like attorney lists or issues related to treatment while incarcerated, but people still send requests me way in hopes of getting their personal issues resolved. 

New contacts were spread across 46 US States, Puerto Rico, and the USVI, in addition to one contact each from Australia, Brazil, and Germany. I made no known contact with anyone from AK, ND, MA and ME in 2022. 

States ranked from most to least inquiries: Wisconsin (153); FloriDUH (45); Texas (33); Indiana (34); Missouri (29); California (28); Ohio (25); Illinois (21); Pennsylvania (20); North Carolina (17); Georgia (15); Virginia (13); Kansas (12); Alabama (11); New York (10); Kentucky/Michigan/Oregon/Washington State (9 each); Arizona/Louisiana/New Jersey (8 each); Nevada/South Carolina (7 each); Colorado/Tennessee (6 each); Arkansas/Iowa (5); Delaware/Mississippi/New Mexico/Oklahoma/Utah (4 each); Nebraska/New Hampshire/Wyoming (3 each); Connecticut/Hawaii/Maryland/Minnesota/South Dakota/Vermont/West Virginia (2 each); Idaho/Montana/Puerto Rico/US Virgin Islands (1 each)

Initial Contact Type from most to least common: Email (246), Corrlinks (233), letter/postal mail (159), phone (97), text (35), Facebook (17), LinkedIn (1)

New contacts by month; January (94), February (62), March (87), April (83), May (62), June (59), July (59), August (60), September (68), October (63), November (41), December (56)

Corrlinks Informational Newsletter (ICoN) subscribers: At the end of 2023, I had 1315 total Corrlinks subscribers (up from 1315 in 2022), but of those, 446 are state prisoners (up from 392 in 2022), and because it costs extra to send email to state prisoners, these 446 do not receive monthly newsletters. That leaves 1005 federal and CCA prisoners receiving the newsletters. In 2022, there were 923 subscribers, so this is an increase of 82 subscribers, or 8.9%.

Letter Stats: OnceFallen received 296 total requests by mail (note: many were repeat requests), which is 3.5 (%) more than last year. 

Financial Resources & Expenses

Financial support decreased over 2022 numbers by about 44.5%. Since OnceFallen typically operates on a shoestring budget, donations are generally not needed nor have they been solicited when not in immediate need, so even small donations significantly change the numbers. Typical expenses include supplies related to prisoner outreach, including envelopes, stamps, printer toner, phone expenses, the occasional free book to prisoners, etc. Largest expense was related to the DC event, but as costs were offset by a transportation sale and a fellow activist opening his home to OnceFallen reps, expenses were minimal for this trip.