Friday, January 7, 2022

The OnceFallen.com Annual Report 2021

 OnceFallen.com Annual Report 2021

New Contact Statistics

Summary: This year, I had more new contacts than any other year. Many were prisoners, which is unsurprising since I respond to prisoner inquiries and print out some materials for them. Around March, I was added to the FairShake network’s list of resources, which caused a massive spike in new contacts in 2021. 

OnceFallen major accomplishments:

  • Your Life on The List: Edition 2 released: It took longer than expected by the 2nd Edition made many improvements over the 1st edition and is up for sale at Amazon.com
  • St. Paul MN, Rally Against the MSOP Civil Commitment Program: Helped organize and volunteered at the outdoor event at the Minnesota State Capitol in July
  • New, more mobile-friendly website: I had to raise money to pay someone to create the new website but now it is more user-friendly. 
  • Most ever new contacts: New contacts in 2021 shattered the previous records set in 2020. 
  • Media appearances: OnceFalen got three OpEds in The Crime Report, and was feaured in the Voloch Conspiracy (WaPost legal blog) in March (in regards to my victory over the evil Florida State Senator Lauren Book), as well as CBS4 in Denver (regarding the SOMB proposed rule change), the latter of which led to inclusion in numerous media outlets. 

INITIAL CONTACT STATS

Total New Contacts 2021 – 667 (476 in 2020, +191, 40%)

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 Leads (132): Requests for housing information
  • Sex offense Laws (96): Inquiries about many aspects of sex offense laws, from registration to residency restrictions to fees to GPS and related laws. 
  • Assorted questions (91): Various topics including resource sharing, website issues, harassment issues, and even contact from vigilantes
  • ICoN Inquiry (84): Requests for being added to the Informational Corrlinks Newsletter (ICoN or various questions about the ICoN)
  • General Info (73): This category is for people who have inquiries that are broad in nature (“what can I expect as a Registered Person?”) or those who were not sure what they needed when making initial contact. These are usually handled by phone calls. 
  • “Your Life on The List” Book (34): First contacts asking specifically about the book, including requests for a free copy.
  • State-Specific Laws & Resources (34): Requests specific to a specific state
  • Activism advice (31): General discussions on activism or specific discussions of activism projects 
  • Legal Advice/Lawyer referrals (26): I don’t provide either, (advice is only lawman advice and I make them aware of that), but I try to offer advice when I can find it. 
  • Supervision/Probation/Parole Issues (24): Issues related to being “on paper”
  • Prisoner Needs (15): I don’t offer certain services to prisoners; in some cases I can merely provide a list of prisoner-specific resources. 
  • Various 50 State Guides printouts (12): I have offered prinouts of the AtwoZee 50 state travel guide and the relief from registry spreadsheets from the CCRC to prisoners, but with the release of my registry survival guide, I receive fewer initial requests for these guides than in the past.
  • Employment issues (10): Various issues regarding finding and keeping a job 
  • Media contacts (4): Requests for interviews

Locations: 483 of the 667 inquiries gave a location. Six were outside the USA (3 UK, and one each from Ukraine, Germany, and another nation he did not specifically state for privacy reasons)

Because Fairshake added me to their prisoner resource list, there was a massive spike of new inquiries from a single state—Wisconsin. 42 US States, DC, and Puerto Rico had at least one contact each—I made no known contact with anyone from AK, HI, ME, NM, ND, RI, VT, and WY in 2021. 

States ranked from most to least inquiries: Wisconsin (129), Florida (41), Texas (38), Ohio (33)Illinois (20), California (19), Pennsylvania/Virginia (14 each), New York (13), Georgia (12), Minnesota (11), Louisiana (9), Alabama/Missouri/Washington State (8 each), Arkansas/Tennessee (7 each), Arizona/Colorado/Michigan (6 each), Indiana/Kansas/Kentucky/Oregon (5 each), Deleware/Iowa/North Carolina/New Jersey/Oklahoma/South Carolina (4 each), Connecticut/Massachusetts/Utah (3 each), Idaho/Nebraska/Nevada/Puerto Rico/West Virginia (2 each), DC/Mississippi/Montana/New Hampshire/South Dakota (1 each)

Initial Contact Type from most to least common: Corrlinks (265), email (211), letter/postal mail (114), phone (79), text (19), Facebook (6), LinkedIn (2), Support forum (1)

New contacts by month; January (66), February (73), March (87), April (50), May (65), June (69), July (39), August (54), September (48), October (34), November (48), December (43)

Corrlinks Informational Newsletter (ICoN) subscribers: Stats for this were complicated by a new development. At the end of 2021, I have 1196 total contacts in Corrlinks, but of those, 385 are state prisoners (nearly all from Wisconsin), and because it costs extra to send email to state prisoners, these 385 do not receive monthly newsletters. That leaves 811 federal and CCA prisoners receiving the newsletters. In 2020, there were 637 subscribers, so this is an increase of 174 subscribers, or 27.3%.

Letter Stats: OnceFallen received 337 total requests by mail (note than many were repeat requests), which is 52 (18.25%) more than last year. 

Financial Resources & Expenses

OnceFallen did conduct a fundraiser to pay for a new, more modern and mobile-friendly website in March 2021. The expense for this new website plus the cost of converting the website to a new server totaled about $1200. However, the new service costs just under half of the old Yahoo Small Business service I was using, so annual website fees are now only about $60 a year, a far more manageable amount than the $144 a year Yahoo was charging me. 

The only other major expense was the trip to St. Paul MN as part of the July rally against the MSOP civil commitment program, but since St. Paul is a relatively short distance from Nebraska and the hotels were reasonable, travel expenses were under $700 for two representatives. Other typical expenses for OnceFallen.com include stamps, envelopes, paper, and other office supplies. 

Financial support increased slightly over 2020 numbers, and OnceFallen.com ends the year with enough to cover any immediate needs in the coming months, and the website fees are paid through September, so there is no need to fundraise. Furthermore, with ACSOL planning a major event in 2023 in DC, OnceFallen.com is not currently planning any major event for 2022 unless something I feel is an emergency situation arises. 

Website Data: I can no longer accurately report website usage data. However, with the site now mobile friendly, usage likely went up as the site became more accessible.