Are We Right to Encourage Hatred, Violence, Rape Against Sex Offenders?

Close your eyes and remember the worst thing that ever happened to you. Maybe you lost a loved one in a tragedy. Maybe you suffered a horrible accident that left you paralyzed or disabled. Or maybe you are one of the more fortunate ones, and the loss of an expensive diamond ring or the break-up with a boyfriend or girlfriend is the worst you have experienced.

Or maybe you are like Diena Thompson and suffered the almost unimaginable—the violent death of a precious child at the hands of a rapist and murderer. What kind of revenge would you have wished on her killer? What type of payback would ease your pain a little?

Jarred Harrell is right where he belongs, in prison for life for the brutal murder of little Somer in late 2009. Would that be enough for you, or would you want more payback, more revenge?

The house where Jarred had lived and Somer was murdered had fallen into disrepair and long been condemned. Earlier this month, it was burned to the ground as part of a fire-training exercise by the Orange Park, Florida, fire department—and Diena Thompson. She participated with glee, her smile described as “cathartic” by a journalist, and, according to his interview, she felt delight in the act, proclaiming herself “the big, bad wolf this time.”

I am sure there is not a one of us who does not understand her feelings.

The media is making much of this, and beyond the local level. Is this wrong? If so, why?

One answer is found in the comments posted to the comment board of one article. They range from, “He [Harrell] should have been in it,” to, “Maybe he will be getting raped for life where he is. Wouldn't that make you feel better? And when he is 80 and some young 25 y/o comes in and rapes him and the guards ignore his screams, that will be part of justice.”  

No, that will be part of something that has no place in justice. That is part of vigilantism. That is as much a part of evil as that which Jarred Harrell committed. What irony it is that, in a protest against sexual violence, one wishes for more sexual violence to be committed.

The journalist who wrote that article and played up the joy that Diena experienced in her metaphoric act of vengeance knew that comments would be of that nature, as did the media outlet that published it, as did other journalists and outlets that wrote and published like stories, and they are many.

The harm is more than just giving vigilantes a platform from which to spew their hatred, ignorance, and violence. There are, according to fairly difficult-to-gather figures, somewhere over 700,000 men, women, and children registered as sex offenders in our nation. A scant handful have come near the atrocities that Harrell visited upon Somer, but the vigilante mentality is unable to process that.  To those determined to hate, stories such as this are all of the justification they require to continue the hatred, to refuse to believe the facts, to demand with every opportunity the harshest possible consequences to everyone on the registry because, you see, they all molested children; they are all rapists and destroyers of innocent young lives, and if they haven’t murdered yet, well, just give them time because they will all do it again and will probably kill their next victims.

They are undeterred by the facts that give lie to these spurious statements.

So the questions remain: Are we right to encourage hate and violence against sex offenders? Does it really help those in pain heal? And the biggest question of all, in a paraphrase of an old cliche: Does an eye-for-an-eye make the world a safer, better place to live—or just a blind one? Or, in this case, a raped one? 

SEX OFFENDERS should not be allowed to purchase lottery tickets; they just might win

~~by Shelly Stow

If proof were ever needed that an individual, once listed on a sex offender registry, no matter for what offense nor how long ago, is forever more thereafter considered unworthy of anything good ever happening in his life, this is it.

A registrant in Florida won a three million dollar scratch-off lottery, and the wrath of every hater in the United States and then some was raised beyond the boiling point.

Now granted, Timothy Poole is no poster boy for righteous living. He has a somewhat extensive record for other types of crimes committed before he was convicted of a sex offense. But it is not because of his larceny nor any of the other crimes that the hue and cry is heard from coast to coast that he should, by any means possible, be denied his winnings. It is because he is a SEX OFFENDER.

Florida has no prohibition against any convicted felon profiting from lottery winnings, not even SEX OFFENDERS. I am currently making book that Florida's next legislative session will see a bill introduced that will do just that. The only uncertainty is whether the proposed legislation will target those with any felony conviction or will focus only on SEX OFFENDERS.

Mr. Poole, since his release from prison in 2006, has maintained a record as spotless as the proverbial driven snow. He works for the family business, a taxi company, and he plans to use the money to help his mother and improve the business. None of that quashed the flood of outrage or deterred the cesspool of nasty headlines, articles, and commentary as to why he should not receive the money and how inherently wrong it is for him to have won it to begin with.

Among the more colorful headlines are, "Who’s winning big in state lotteries? Sex offenders," "People Left Wondering About Justice When Child Molester in Florida Hits the $3 Million Jackpot," "Sex Offender Wins Millions in Florida Lottery Proving Karma Really Isn’t a Bitch," and my personal favorite, "Convicted pedophile Timothy Poole wins $2.2 million in Florida Lottery." The language in the articles does not fall short of living up to the venom suggested by the titles. Mr. Poole is a large man, over 400 pounds, and one of the articles calls him "This fat 450-pound goblin..." And since pedophilia is a medical/psychological condition and not a chargeable crime, one cannot help but wonder how that particular writer can justify his word choice.

These reactions, seeping with vitriol, are not unexpected but nevertheless highly disturbing. If one who has committed any of the myriad of offenses that trigger registration is never, ever, hell no, to move past that to a point in life where good things can happen, where happiness is allowed, what does that say about our professed commitment to rehabilitation? How does that square with the volumes of research telling us that community reintegration of former offenders is the greatest assurance of enhanced public safety?

And does that mean that we, the public, the haters, those who would wrest Mr. Poole's winnings from his hands, are deliberately sacrificing that safety so that we can doggedly hang on to our refusal to believe that people can change?

Sex Offenders and Halloween--will it ever stop?

What do these four headlines have in common?

"Staying safe and avoiding sex offenders while trick or treating on Halloween"

"Sex Offenders in Colorado Can Open Doors on Halloween" (sub-text: and we've got to put a stop to that)

"Police out in force for Halloween; extra eye on sex offenders in Effingham"

"County sex offenders required to report on Halloween"

Not a very hard question, is it? These are headlines of just four of a multitude of articles that appeared in online and print media in the four weeks before Halloween. Multitude? Yes...multitude. I captured 50 separate articles, coming from 22 separate states. Those are the ones that crossed my desk in the regular course of my work. When I did an actual search, they are less than half the number that one search brought up.

The states that seem to have put forth the most are, like the first one above, from states that have no restrictions in place for registrants on Halloween. One assumes that someone did his or her homework and knows this is a non-problem and no laws are needed. Not satisfied with that, enterprising law enforcement and journalists took it as a challenge and issued warnings left and right about the danger of those on the registry on this night above all. They cautioned every parent to check the registry carefully before letting the kids go trick or treating. Two of those states now have legislators considering bills that will bring their states in line with the ones that have restrictions. And so it spreads, like a fungus or a cancer.

Additionally, after Halloween a plethora of new articles appeared, all with the same theme: "We did it! We protected your children on Halloween from the big, bad sex offenders. No children were molested by anyone on the registry!" Well guess what, California and Florida? Guess what, Nevada? None were molested in Alabama or Kansas, or any of the other states that have no state laws and very few or no jurisdictional ones that affect registrants on Halloween. None were molested anywhere by anyone on the registry while trick or treating--ever, as far as research has been able to determine.

But this is not what the public thinks. How could they when headlines and TV anchors shout at them for weeks about the necessity to take extra precautions on Halloween against "sex offenders"? This was made clear when, in response to an article titled, "Operation Scarecrow helped keep sex offenders away from kids on Halloween," I commented:

"Kept kids safe from sexual predators"--that is such a joke. I don't imagine any kids were attacked by hyenas either, so you might as well take credit for that also. I admit to that being a bit of hyperbole, but the fact is that children are at ZERO increased risk for sexual crime on

Halloween, and all of the law enforcement hype and political hype across the nation is just that--hype that has nothing to do with actually protecting children and much to do with making the public think so. There is no record of a child being molested by a registrant while trick or treating--ever. Now, if increased patrol cars and even foot patrols were out and visible, you may have had an impact on traffic safety and thus have saved a child from being hit by a car. That is what children are at increased risk for on Halloween, and six were killed this year trick or treating. We need facts and truth in laws, in law-enforcement, and in journalism.

I was immediately challenged by a well-meaning reader who wrote:

"the fact is that children are at ZERO increased risk for sexual crime on Halloween" Really, Shelly? And where did you obtain that fact from? From your extensive...several minutes worth of...thinking about the issue? Kudos to the officers for looking out for the kids. I'm glad they take the issue more seriously than Shelly does.

To his credit, when I nicely replied and gave an excellent research source as my evidence, he apologized and complimented me on my response. He is a rare, rare exception.

When did this start? I remember many articles last year, and the year before that, and....? Time out for research.

I searched "Halloween restrictions for sex offenders." I used the time frame of September 1 through November 15. I started at 2000 and came forward. I looked at every single entry. I did not look at any actual articles. If the entry did not clearly link danger from registered sex offenders with Halloween, I did not count it. Early on and continuing forward, the entries include reports of courts overturning or disallowing these restrictions. Frankly, I was surprised there were so many. Everyone needs to go to court over this. The entries also include material from advocates, experts, and research debunking the entire premise and the laws that are useless because there is no problem for them to address. This is by no means a "real" piece of research, but these are my results:

• 2000  0 articles
• 2001  1 article, written by someone denouncing the rumors of children's deaths by poison in treats; he calls it Halloween sadism; sex offenders are not mentioned, but I found it interesting.
• 2002  0
• 2003  3; California, Louisiana, and a third I was unable to determine announced their creation of laws restricting the activities of registrants on Halloween.
• 2004  1
• 2005  11; Megan's Law was mentioned in two of the entries
• 2006  8
• 2007  15
• 2008  60 ?? My guess is that SORNA was becoming a motivating factor.
• 2009  23
• 2010  40
• 2011  66
• 2012  100
• 2013  117
• 2014  177

With very few exceptions, the pattern is clear--an increase every year. I do not expect a decrease for next year, but maybe more will be announcing the overturning of some of these laws. The evidence is clear and compelling that they are laws that have no purpose and no merit. 

This is getting boring, but it's Halloween again

I really thought this year was going to be different. Last year the "big, bad sex offender at Halloween" hype started as early as August and was in full swing in September. This year, all was quiet on the scare tactics front through the end of September and was slow going into October. However, the past few days have picked up speed, and some of the articles are so self-righteously infuriating about how they are making

Halloween safer for children by--take your pick--visiting all registrants in their district on Halloween/not allowing registrants to decorate; hand out candy; wear costumes; leave their houses; have their lights on/requiring registrants to come to "informational" meetings or seminars/some other equally idiotic nonsense. Most places limit the restrictions to those on parole or probation, but some do not.

Children are at increased risk of harm from one thing on Halloween, and that is being killed or injured in an auto-pedestrian accident. I read one article where part of law-enforcement's efforts on Halloween included increased traffic patrol. One.

Last year I wrote the "Official Halloween Blog." I don't think I can improve on it for factual information, so I am repeating it here. Happy, safe trick-or-treating, everyone.

Originally printed 10/10/2013

Why advocate for not monitoring registered offenders on Halloween? What's the harm? I'm so glad you asked.

• Most Halloween restrictions apply to everyone on the registry or everyone under supervision, whether or not their offense had anything to do with a child. This broad-brush application is bumping up against constitutional protections. Many registrants are forced to gather in one place for special "therapy sessions" or "pep-talks" or movies shown by law enforcement. If the registrant is not under community supervision, this sounds a lot like unlawful detention to me.
• It is an unconscionable waste of taxpayer money. There are so many other areas in which law enforcement could be gainfully occupied on Halloween other than checking that registrants have no lights on and no jack-o-lanterns on the porch or showing movies to a roomful of registrants. One of these areas is traffic duty since the only increased risk to children on Halloween is not assault by registered sex offenders but car-child accidents.
• Many, probably even most, registrants are family men. They have children. Under these restrictions, they cannot decorate their houses with or for their children; they cannot attend the carnival at the school with their children; they cannot take their children trick-or-treating. 

Now it's time for the experts to weigh in:

This is from an academic research study:
“There were no significant increases in sex crimes on or around Halloween, and Halloween incidents did not evidence unusual case characteristics. Findings did not vary across years prior to and after these policies became popular.

“In order to contextualize sex crimes against children we examined over 5 million victimizations that took place in 30 states on or around Halloween in 2005. The most common types of crime from among the incidents reported on Halloween and adjacent days were theft (32%), destruction or vandalism of property (21%), assault (19%) and burglary (9%). Vandalism and property destruction accounted for a greater proportion of crime around Halloween compared to other days of the year (21% vs. 14% of all reports). Sex crimes of all types accounted for slightly over 1% of all Halloween crime. Non-familial sex crimes against children age 12 and under accounted for less than .2% of all Halloween crime incidents.

“Other risks to children are more salient on Halloween. According to the Center for Disease Control, children ages 5 to 14 are four times more likely to be killed by a pedestrian/motor-vehicle accident on Halloween than on any other day of the year. Regarding criminal activity on Halloween, theft and vandalism are particularly common. Sex crimes against children by non- family members account for two out of every thousand Halloween crimes, calling into question the justification for diverting law enforcement resources on that day away from more prevalent public safety concerns.”

This is from non-academic commentary:
 “The intimidation campaign is a silly diversion of manpower and a waste of your tax dollars. Police and the politicians who are in search of tough-on-crime votes will tell you otherwise, but don’t believe the myth that Halloween is the night child sexual predators wait all year for. The facts tell a different story... Over the past several decades, there has not been one reported instance that I can find of a convicted sex offender molesting a child on Halloween night.”

And finally, this is a Halloween safety research and resource guide for parents published October, 2011, by a highly regarded world wide organization called safekids.com. There is nothing to quote from them. There is only the fact that they have researched every element of harm to children in connection with Halloween; their guide covers every possible eventuality and tells parents how to guard against it. It has many graphs, charts, and results of studies. Not one time within its 8 pages do the words “sex offenders” or “registry” appear. I believe that is called an argument from silence.

So please, enjoy Halloween; help your kids enjoy Halloween. And please spare a moment to think about the children whose Halloween enjoyment is curtailed because one of their parents is a registered sex offender and they are unfortunate enough to live in one of the jurisdictions where unneeded laws and restrictions make Halloween all trick and no treat for them.

Georgia private probation companies expand sex offender industry

In 1994 the Jacob Wetterling Act established the first national sex offender registry law, and Indiana’s “Zachary’s Law” placed their state registry online.

In 1996 “Megan’s Law” was passed at the federal level, forcing states to maintain publicly accessible registries and allowing all levels of community notification.                                                

In 1997 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld civil commitment in Kansas v. Hendricks, and a year later, Delaware passed the first law requiring registrants to carry a special ID card.

In 2005 strict mandatory minimum laws were created with the Jessica Lunsford Act followed by the Adam Walsh Act in 2006. (1)

These laws are the result of horrific acts of violence often resulting in murder and with actual or assumed sexual motivation against youth. They were driven in equal parts by grieving parents wanting justice, politicians who, for reasons both altruistic and self-serving, were willing to take up the cause, and a media fired by the sensationalism inherent in the issue.

The cases that drove the laws are rare anomalies; with instant telecommunications and every story being repeated beyond counting, the impression is easily given and received that these heinous incidents happen every day. They don’t. They represent the tiniest fraction of all sexual offenses, but the transition is easily made in the public’s mind: sex offender = violent, predatory pedophile and potential murderer.

And an industry was born—a multi-million if not billion dollar industry—containing but not limited to these branches; the only order attempted is alphabetical.

• Apps for cell phones/messages to emails-- manufacture; sales; supply; monitor
• Electronic license plates
• Expert witnesses
• Federal marshal grants/other federal grants
• GPS –manufacture; supply; monitor
• Manufacturers and sales of polygraph equipment
• Medical care for the incarcerated
• Non-government companies who post registry information and charge to remove it
• Parents of victims--publicity; financial
• Politicians-getting/staying elected
• Polygraphers—give exams as part of probation requirements; under state contracts
• Private civil commitment facilities/management/treatment
• Private monitoring and tracking companies
• Private prisons/staffing for/management of
• Registry management companies
• Screening systems in schools, libraries--manufacture; sales; install; monitor
• Security systems/alert systems—manufacture; sales; install; monitor      
• Telephone/email services: inmates to outside world; family to inmates
• Treatment providers, usually with “locked-in” state contracts  
• Webinar “instructors”

And now come private probation companies.

According to an article by Nicole Flatow at Think Progress, March 25, 2014, the Georgia legislature has passed a bill which gives private probation companies, already being sanctioned and investigated for abuses and misconduct, even more power to operate, power that has critics recalling the days of debtors’ prison due to their ability to have someone jailed for failure to pay the probation fees.

As Flatow points out in her article, “Private probation firms are a growing industry that, like private prisons, stand to profit from criminalizing more conduct, and have an incentive to lobby for policies that send more individuals to probation and/or jail.” (2)

Sex offenders are easy targets; who will come to their aid? Anyone who does so is accused of being a pedophile or a rape apologist. Any politician who does so is sounding the death knell for his career.

This is more than a sex offender issue. This is a civil rights issue. This is a constitutional issue. This is the slippery slope. This doesn’t just affect those on the registry.

Who will next fall prey?

(1) Source for timeline: Oncefallen.com: Timeline of Sex Offender History

(2) http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/03/25/3418320/georgia-passes-bill-to-give-more-power-to-private-probation-firms/

Are You a Sociopath? A Sexual Sadist? Are You Sure?

Six years ago a little boy named Christopher Barrios was sexually abused, tortured for days, and murdered by a mentally disabled man and that man’s father with his grandmother complicit. The father is on death row, and the grandmother is serving a 50-year sentence. She will almost certainly die in prison.

The third participant in the nightmare for young Christopher, George Edenfield, has several times been judged incompetent to stand trial and committed to a state mental hospital. With the recent upholding of this decision by another Georgia court, the defense and the prosecution are in agreement with the findings and the commitment.

This will not be about what happened to Christopher or the grief of his family. And even though many feel that Edenfield should have been tried and executed, or worse, this is not about him or his multi-generational dysfunctional family, although a brief statement about his outcome is in order. One of the hallmarks of a civilized nation is persons are not put on trial who are incapable of assisting in their own defense, nor are the mentally incompetent executed. It is to our credit that America still falls in this category.

No, this is about the perceptions of the public about who commits these rare, heinous crimes. Some of these perceptions are captured in responses to news stories about this case. One such pronounces it a proven fact that one in every five people is a sociopath.  Another comments that “Our system has become so bogged down with murderers, rapists, child molesters, kidnappers….”  

Almost all comments to articles about the Edenfield trials include comment after comment from parents terrified for their children, terrified at the high risk of something like this happening, some sounding consumed with panic and fear. 

Though understandable, how realistic is this fear? Long-term studies at every level and an analysis of police and FBI reports show that this type of offense is the rarest of the rare. Virtually all sexual harm done to children is at the hands of those known and trusted by them, and so seldom it is almost incalculable does it reach a level of depravity and violence even close to that in this case.

Why then the perception that these cases are so prevalent? What could make someone believe that one in every five people is a sociopath and that virtually everyone who has committed any type of sexual offense is capable of actions such as these?

Dr. Karen Franklin, in her recent “In the News” blog, has this to say about how public perceptions are formed and shaped: “The burgeoning infotainment industry has perfected a profit-making formula of sensationalized true-crime 'reporting' that plays on viewers' emotions, whipping audiences into a frenzy of self-righteous indignation….The Internet fosters this culture of hate. Its cloak of anonymity is disinhibitory, emboldening people to spew bile with impunity.” While this specific article deals with the media's role during a murder trial, Dr. Franklin's analysis is spot-on for any high-profile subject matter.

In other words, our rapid-fire, instantaneous, supply of constant and never-ending articles, alerts, reports, video, posts, comments, blogs, tweets, bulletins, and news-flashes inundate us far beyond our ability to assimilate and make sense of what we hear and see. And the competitive nature of the sources of this stream of information drives the tendency to go more over the top than the competition with the “if it bleeds, it leads” style of reporting.

And then there is public feedback--if enough people are saying the same thing, and if they say it often enough, it takes on the semblance of truth. And when they have the ability to say what they please in the “cloak of anonymity” created by the Internet, the worst examples of hatred and bigotry will surface.

We absolutely must remember, in reflecting on these heinous situations, that they are rare and terrible and not indicative of people in general. 20% of our population are not sociopaths. The terms “predator” and “pedophile” are used with great abandon in connection with anyone who is charged with any type of sexual offense whatsoever, and neither of them is accurate in 95%, or more, of the situations. We have a warped and inflated perception of how frequently these situations occur because, when they do occur, they are magnified in the news to such a high degree that we are all but incapable of seeing anything else.

~~Shelly