Banished is an oral history and storytelling project documenting the harms of the sex offender registry. The contained works are co-written by Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg, a staff writer for The Appeal, and coLAB Arts producing director, Dan Swern.

The stories contained in Banished are told in three parts:

Part 1 — Banished: Voices from the sex offender registry - Includes testimony from different individuals who are living on the sex offender registry, balanced with voices of survivors and those who have become their partners.

Part 2 — Banished: A family on the sex offender registry - It follows the story of one family as they take us through the criminal proceedings and the changes they must go through when dealing with fallout from the registry. This piece creates space for all of the emotional experiences a family may go through in the moment, and contextualizes them. The play also features interviews with Elizabeth LeTourneau, Director of the Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse at Johns Hopkins University, and Patty Wetterling, national children’s safety advocate whose son’s disappearance led to the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act.

Part 3 — Banished: When a child is on the sex offender registry - Includes testimony from individuals who were placed on the sex offender registry as juveniles, and the experience and harms of being on the registry as a child.

The panel discussion that occurs after each performance with leading experts connects the play to data and public policy related to the sex offender registry and its harms. Banished was developed with support from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities. The project’s scholar-in-residence is Laura Cohen, Distinguished Clinical Professor of Law, Justice Virginia Long Scholar, and Director, Criminal and Youth Justice Clinic at Rutgers Law School.

Parts 1 and 2 are currently available for performance in communities in the New Jersey/New York/Pennsylvania region, and nationally with special arrangement. For more information, please contact us.