Let's get the biggest bang for our sexual offense prevention dollar

From North Carolina comes this all-too-familiar story: Law enforcement is patting itself on the back for "tracking" those on the sex offender registry. In the typical it's-a-dirty-job-but-somebody's-got-to-do-it style of reporting, the journalist lauds Investigator J. Moore and the other two in the sex offender unit for spending all of their working hours verifying that Wake County's 800 registered sex offenders are where they are supposed to be. I guess when they finish with them all, they start over.

Congratulations, Mr. Moore, et al: it would appear that you are truly doing your share to keep people safe, but let's just look at the science: A Dept. of Justice study of all released sexual offenders in 1994, almost 10,000 persons, shows that 96.5% did not recidivate. 3.5% were convicted for committing another sexual crime.

Since child victims are normally the greatest concern with this issue, I have tried to find a study giving some indication of what percentage of sexually molested children were victims of repeat offenders. It appears those studies haven't been done. Instead, I find statements by law enforcement personnel that in years of dealing with child sexual abuse cases, not one, or maybe one or two out of hundreds, was committed by a repeat offender.

What I find are studies showing that virtually all of those who sexually abuse children, as high as over 98% for young children, are those close to the children in their everyday lives and people highly unlikely to be on a sex offender registry. And what I find is that, as horrible as it is, sexual abuse of children accounts for only 7.6% of the abuse that children suffer, almost always at the hands of those who claim to love them.

It would appear that, no matter how you slice it, the resources expended in “tracking” this specific category of individual, even if it actually prevented crime, are only addressing the tiniest percentage of the problem. How much is being expended on fact-based education and prevention initiatives that are shown to actually reduce the other 98-or-higher-percentage of child sexual abuse? How much is being expended on effective rehabilitative and re-entry initiatives for former offenders, things shown to bring down the already extremely low re-offense rate? How much is being expended on initiatives to reduce the other 92.4% of non-sexual violence and abuse of children as well as that of vulnerable adults? 

I wonder if the answer would show a concern for public protection that is in concert with the facts, or if it would show a topic that captures the public's imagination and earns public officials kudos for keeping children safe even though it falls far, far short of that noble goal.

Source image 1: Pub. 2003; "Recidivism of sex offenders released from prison in 1994" (NCJ198281)

Source image 2: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Statistical Briefing Book 2008

Source image 3: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and    Families, Administration on Children, Youth and Families,Children’s Bureau.(2010).Child Maltreatment 2009. http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/stats_research/index.htm#can

Facts, not fear-mongering, work best for preventing child abuse

News bulletin: Sex offender arrested for violating his conditions and going to a school. The original header for this -- and what search engines "hit" on -- is "Sex offender arrested after trying to pick up children at Heber School."

The facts: A guy on the sex offender registry in Utah went with his girlfriend and her daughter to the girl's school to see her teacher and turn in some homework.

Now, this guy had done this previously, allegedly twice, and had been warned, so -- is he the brightest bulb in the box? Probably not.

However, this being treated like a potential child abduction by the more sensationalist-inclined media outlets is just nonsense. Encouraging parents to feel their children were at risk of harm is beyond nonsense; it is irresponsible. It feeds into the myth that individuals on a sex offender registry are roaming the streets and the halls of academia ready to snatch whoever crosses their paths, and it obscures the facts about actual child molestation.

After learning of the non-incident, one mother of two students at the school said she "felt sick" and credited the office staff as heroes for recognizing the man and saving the children. And an officer with the Heber City Police Department, bless his little heart, agreed. “The school staff around here, all of them are absolute rockstars at keeping our children safe,” he said.

The fact of the matter is that incidents of former sex offenders abducting children from schools are rare as hen's teeth. In fact, when I did a search for "sex offender abducts child from school," I got five hits of actual incidents spanning from 2007 to 2017, and only one of them occurred inside a school or even, as far as I could tell, on school property, and that was a situation in 2007 where a youthful-looking man actually enrolled in a school as a student. In none of the situations were children actually abducted or molested.

Are children molested in schools? Yes, we all know they are, and we all know who the perpetrators are. As sad as it is true, those who use the school setting to sexually abuse or manipulate students are those to whom their parents entrust with their care and safety.

There are fact-based prevention programs that teach children what to do if they are being molested or abused by adults that they trust. These are what the media needs to focus on.

What's "unusual" is removal from the sex offender registry

Kaitlin Durbin has written a touching story about a young man, David, who has been on the Colorado sex offender registry for over a decade for consensual teenage sex with his girlfriend. She tells, briefly, some of the difficulties that public registration posed for him in his attempts to live a normal life, and she shares his relief and joy that he has now successfully been removed.

The title given the piece -- and writers and journalists seldom select their own titles -- is "Colorado Springs man removed from sex offender registry in 'unusual' case." Several times in the article the fact that this case was so rare was referenced. The attorney spoke of the case as having no precedent.

From what I could tell -- and my legal acumen is somewhere down there with what I know about building rocket ships -- the only thing "unusual" is the fact that he was actually removed.

Young men being on the sex offender registry for consensual sexual involvement with a partner under the age of consent is quite common. David was 17 and his girlfriend turned 14 during their relationship.

Young men being on the registry for a decade, over a decade, and in some states for life, for such activity is common. Young men having their futures ruined due to such registration is common.

Often couples such as this remain together in a committed relationship or marry. One such couple in Texas has also had their share of media attention. In spite of marrying and raising a family, he will be on the Texas public sex offender registry for life for "sexual assault of a child." He was a high school senior and football star; she was a sophomore and a cheerleader when they started dating. Many years later, he couldn't coach his girls' soccer games. He couldn't take his family on an out-of-state vacation without the permission of law enforcement.

These two couples are representative of countless thousands. No one "wants" teenagers to have sex, but turning them into criminals because they do and making it difficult for them to go to college, be hired at meaningful employment, and exercise the rights of the productive citizens that they most likely would otherwise be is, of all possible "punishments," the most extreme and least productive imaginable.

No, teenagers having sex is not unusual. The boys ending up on the sex offender registry due to it is not unusual. Being removed from the registry -- now that is unusual.

And that needs to change.

We can't afford showy but ineffective sex offender policies

This was a recent headline in the Daily Democrat in Yolo, California, recently:       " 'OperationVigilance’ targets Yolo County sex offenders.”  

“Yolo County law enforcement conducted surprise compliance checks on over 300 sex offenders earlier this week…”

“While many of the sex offenders investigated were in compliance, two sex offenders contacted were arrested for a variety of weapons, pornography and other violations. An additional 18 of these offenders are the subject of further investigation to determine whether or not they are in compliance.”

“Over 60 law enforcement personnel from seven local, state, and federal agencies participated in this joint operation from 15 agencies…” 

I suggest we look at this from a slightly different perspective. 

An unknown number of law enforcement man hours and an unknown amount of taxpayer dollars were expended in Yolo County recently when more than 60 law enforcement officers from 15 local, state, and federal agencies visited over 300 persons on California’s sex offender registry who were all living exactly where they were registered as living. Two of the 300 + persons were arrested. One or both of the two were in possession of weapons, illegal for all felons, and one or both were in possession of pornography. Whether or not the pornography consisted of legal or illegal images is not stated, but if they were on parole or probation, viewing even legal pornography is forbidden.

An additional 18 of the registrants are being further investigated for some sort of possible minor registration or probation compliance violation such as driving a family member’s car not listed on the registration form or being in a location that was, unknown to the registrant, inside an exclusionary zone too close to something like a day care facility or a park. 

Almost 300 registrants are indisputably in compliance. None of them, in fact none of the over 300 with the possible exception of the one or two in possession of pornography, has been arrested for a sexual re-offense. 

Questions need to be asked. 

How many have been on the registry 0-5 years? 6-15 years? 16-30 years? With California’s policy of lifetime registration for all, an enormous and growing number are still required to register decades after the commission of a single, possibly misdemeanor, offense. 

Does the expenditure of resources accomplish the stated goal? Do these checks by law enforcement prevent or even discourage future offense? It seems highly improbable that it could. Knowing where a person lives places no restraints on what he does when he is away from home or, indeed, even when he is at home. Lawenforcement regularly visited Philip Garrido, a registered sex offender, for all of the 18 years that he was holding and raping kidnapped Jaycee Dugard in backyard outbuildings.  

Is the expenditure of funds and other resources effective in preventing child sexual abuse? Empirical evidence says no. Those who are not on the registry but rather in the victims’ lives as trusted family members, peers, or authority figures commit, on average, 95% of all child sexual abuse; the younger the child, the higher the percentage. 

And of the up to 5% who are strangers or barely-known acquaintances, only an extremely small percentage are on the registry for a previous sexual offense. 

Are such visits to registrants disruptive to their lives to the point of interfering with successful rehabilitation? Do they negatively influence community opinions to the point of making successful re-entry extremely difficult? 

That one can be answered with another question: How could they not? 

Rehabilitation is a criminal justice goal equal to if not surpassing punishment in importance. Smart policing furthers that goal. Studies show that the longer a person with a previous sexual offense, for which he was convicted and punished, lives in the community with no further offense, the less of a risk he is to re-offend going forward. 

California’s own Sex Offender Management Board supports this position, stating (page 2) “The longer a sex offender remains offense free in the community, the less likely he is to reoffend.”  

Public resources are limited and must be expended as suggested by empirical evidence. We can no longer continue practices that may earn the approval of the public but do not further the goal of protecting the community, especially those that fail in the goal of protecting our children from harm.

When will "Me too" become "Everybody too"?

Jan, a junior executive for a large company, was seeking approval for a new project. She was learning how essential it was to have the friendship and support of the more senior and influential company executives. Therefore, when Ted, one of those important and influential persons, made teasing comments to her about her physical attributes and flirted and joked about a sexual assignation with her, she took it in stride, smiled, and even flirted back a little. 

That was twenty years ago. Jan is no longer with that company, but Ted is, now even more senior. Jan has realized, along with countless other persons, primarily women, that Ted’s comments and behavior were inappropriate and actually amounted to sexual harassment.

Swept along with the backlash against harassment by those in positions of power, she reported Ted’s past behavior to his company and in the media. She was applauded for her courage in “coming forward” and “speaking out.”

No criminal charges were expected, of course. Ted hadn’t broken any laws, and even if he had, the statute of limitations had expired. He had just been a bit of a chauvinist pig. He wasn’t even sure that he remembered Jan or his behavior with her.

None of that mattered to the company. The board of directors fired him almost immediately.

A very familiar story, it is repeating itself over and over. The basic elements don’t vary: a man (almost always) in a position of power; a woman (almost always) hoping to do well in the company or the profession; many years later accusations of inappropriate sexual behavior on his part and helplessness on hers; his very quick firing/removal/canceling of contract by the company.

So what’s the problem?

Was he actually guilty? Only he and she know. Why did she wait so long to speak up? It doesn’t matter. He isn’t being charged with a crime. There are a few people here and there raising a stink about due process and innocent until proven guilty, but no one seems to be paying attention. One writer said that innocent until proven guilty is a legal concept, not a societal one.

The fact that it is a constitutional one seems irrelevant. But if we are willing to change the rules in the absence of legal action, how soon will we be willing to change them within the legal context? This may be the very definition of the slippery slope.

Will this run its course, causing enough concern for enough people that some actual pushback occurs?

Or will others, emboldened, see the perfect way to get rid of unpleasant co-workers, grumpy and demanding supervisors, or others they just don’t like?

What could be easier? Make a few accusations to top management, go public if necessary, and problem solved. How can he prove he didn’t say that to you over the water cooler? 

What’s important is that you don’t have to prove he did.

Sex offenders need not apply

How many times, when reading about virtually anything, has the phrase, “No one with a conviction for a sex offense is eligible,” or “No registered sex offenders allowed,” been part of the narrative?

In everything from voting in some states to being eligible for many government and criminal justice programs to seeking shelter in emergency situations, those who are called sex offenders by virtue of being on the registry are excluded.

The latest to cross my desk is this, “VCU offers chance for jail inmates to ‘write way

out,’ ” about a program being offered by Virginia Commonwealth University.

The program sounds great. Its goal? "To help offenders 'figure out a way to live a better life, a life that keeps them out of the criminal justice system, a life in which they’re proud of what they’re doing, where they’ve discovered a new life purpose or just kind of figured out those self-sabotaging behaviors that create a lot of pain in their own life and in the lives of others.' ”

Wow.

A secondary outcome is that those in the class, inmate and non-inmate alike, learn  “how to respect one another in their very diverse struggles.”

The program offers something that is not normally found in the more traditional crime to conviction to punishment path: introspection and hope. To be eligible, applicants must be able to read and write and want to break the cycle of criminal offending.

Oh, and they cannot be incarcerated for a sex offense – any sexual offense – or a violent felony or burglary.

Why is this program not available to those who have committed non-violent sexual offenses?

Would sexual offenders benefit from figuring out a better way to live? From figuring out self-sabotaging behaviors? From understanding the pain they have created for themselves and for their victims? It sounds like a page out of a sex-offender therapy manual, one of the actually good ones.

Do those who have committed sexual offenses need to learn how to respect themselves and others? Do they need introspection and hope? Can they read and write?

What are we saying when we close off these sorts of opportunities to those who may need it most of all? What message do we send? We don’t want you to figure out a better way to live? We don’t want you to understand how your behavior caused pain? We don’t want you to have self-respect or respect for others or hope?

Everything about being on the registry says those things already, and the registry is not working, has never worked, and will never work in any positive way, not for those on it nor for society in general.

If having understanding of one’s own behavior and having self-respect and having hope are desirable goals, why do we withhold this opportunity from those on the sex offender registry JUST because they are on the sex offender registry?

Do sentenced sex offenders deserve special mistreatment in prison?

Closing our eyes to prisoner abuse must stop

Prisons are not supposed to be fun or pleasant. They are designed for restrictions and punishment intended to bring about rehabilitation.

They are not intended to facilitate, even encourage, vigilante activities against those whom other prisoners choose to mistreat.

Men in prison for convictions involving sexual offenses are often considered “fair game” for mistreatment and violence, and all too often prison personnel appear to turn a blind eye to this.

Speculation is already dominating the reports of Ben McCormick’s conviction for child pornography and what will await him if he ends up behind bars. The irony in the situation is that, while a reporter for A Current Affair, McCormick was instrumental in exposing sit-com star Robert Hughes and for Hughes’ subsequent trial, conviction, and incarceration for child sexual abuse. 

Reports of the mistreatment visited upon Hughes are only exceeded by the speculation that the same fate or worse awaits McCormick if he is imprisoned. Reporters euphemistically speak of the “prison welcome” given to Hughes, a welcome in which inmates hurled at him their own feces and urine that they had saved up in milk cartons the first time he entered the prison yard.

Were there guards and other prison personnel who knew the inmates were hoarding their bodily wastes for this purpose? No one is even asking the question. And while this treatment is mild compared to the sexual violence, rapes, and murders that those convicted of sexual crimes fall victim to behind bars, no one is asking those questions either.

There are no statistics. No one knows how many instances of sexual violence prisoners are subjected to. It is not a horror that is visited only upon those convicted of sexual crimes, but they are without a doubt singled out especially for such treatment.

And what of beatings, of maimings, of murders? Prison is a violent place. People in prison are violent people. These things are bound to happen. As far as those who commit sexual crimes receiving more than their “fair share” of such treatment, it is “jail-house justice.” Even other criminals won’t “tolerate” those who sexually abuse children. It’s bound to happen.

But it should not happen because those who should and could prevent it are closing their eyes and tacitly enabling it to happen.

Those who harm others should be punished. The punishment should not put them in positions where others who are also being punished feel free to turn a prison sentence into a sentence of torture or a sentence of death. Those who do that are proving their criminality yet again.

And also earning the title of criminals are the prison officials who shut their eyes. Their refusal to see does not excuse them from their culpability. We must demand that they be held accountable.

The cruelest cut of all

I started this blog as a means by which to comment on and question a segment of our criminal justice system, that which deals with crimes of a sexual nature. I saw then and see even more clearly today how far from reality these laws and practices are, how far from fact-based, how damaging rather than rehabilitating, how life-destroying rather than healing.

I have not previously used this forum to discuss or deal with any personal involvement in the issue. It is said that for every "not ever," there is an exception. This is mine.

A person close to me, a person I will call Lee, was adjudicated for a sexual crime, inappropriate sexual behavior, almost nine years ago. The victim was an older teenager and Lee was in a position of authority. The victim was sexually aggressive and coercive. Lee was the adult, knew better, and was wrong. It was a one-time situation, and they were caught.

Lee's probationary conditions are standard for one-size-fits-all sex offender management.

Ten years of probation.
No contact with anyone under the age of 18, not even young family members.
No internet access except for job searches and for work itself.
No going out of the county, not even just across the county line for a family gathering following Lee's sister's funeral. Lee was allowed to attend the funeral; it was in the county Lee is confined to.
Mandated sex offender "therapy" sessions once a week, every week, for ten years.

Lee has and has always had mental health issues: medically diagnosed depression and anxiety; poor decision making and coping skills; very little self-confidence in spite of a great deal of talent and ability. Lee is on the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum.

Lee has always had difficulty establishing and maintaining relationships. The publicity surrounding the sexual offense destroyed hopes of having a normal social life. Career in ruins, other attempts at jobs were futile. One was denied by probation because it was on the same block as a building that served as a children's theater.

Family gatherings were denied because Lee's siblings had young children, infants and toddlers--nieces and nephews to whom Lee had been close.

Church was denied until Lee disclosed the crime to the congregational leader, something Lee was too ashamed to do.

Lee's only outlet was and is the weekly "therapy" session.

I cannot use the word "therapy" in context with this treatment without enclosing it in quotation marks. Whatever definition the word "therapy" conveys does not exist among the state-sanctioned, mandated sex offender treatment models in the state where Lee lives. Every single session focuses on the vileness and the guilt of the attendees. One assignment required Lee to list 40 people who were affected by Lee's offense and to write an essay for each of the 40 detailing all of the ways that person was or could have been harmed by the offense. If the group leader felt the account was not thorough enough, it had to be redone with Lee imagining even more ways the offense might possibly have hurt the person.

Lee's mental health has declined not just significantly but dramatically. Any attempts to seek outside therapy, even autism-specific therapy, were denied by the treatment group on the grounds that it might "un-do" the work they were doing.

Any attempts to be released early from probation were shot down by the judge who yelled at Lee from the bench that sex offenders didn't get early release in her court.

Any appeals to the probation officer resulted in an automatic repetition of what the treatment provider had said.

Over the years Lee has become more and more isolated, desperate, and suicidal. The end of the year, with Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays and family gatherings that cannot be attended, exacerbates Lee's depression and isolation.

The "therapy" group, the one place where sharing of negative feelings and the offering of positive support should be a given, is the opposite. Lee knows that such sharing of negative feelings and fears invites the reinforcement of them: one who has committed a sexual crime should be depressed.

The thing that should be helpful is the most hurtful. And that is surely, to paraphrase Shakespeare, the cruelest cut of all.

It's time to stop and think about accusations from years gone by

Something is happening in this nation that should cause serious concern to every American.

It is being praised by many as being an incredible break-through, something whose time has finally come; and it bestows on those who are speaking out the status of brave heros – or heroines – for opening the floodgates.

And those who have serious reservations aren’t saying much of anything. Why not?

They know all too well the fate that awaits them if they do, the sneers, the looks, the accusations, the hateful comments. Rape apologist. Aiding and abetting the enemy. Victim-blamer.

And there’s something else. Deep in the heart of everyone who is thinking, “Wait a minute; slow down; this has the potential to destroy so many innocent,” there is the knowledge that some of it is true. People in power have, without doubt, used that power to extract sexual favors from those with less power. It is an abhorrent and vile truth.

But does that justify jumping on every bandwagon that leaves the starting gate and assuming the worst about every person, celebrity or not, about whom an accusation is made?

Accusations of this sort are the most insidious of all. Accuse an innocent man of stealing company funds, and when the true culprit is caught, he is exonerated; his reputation and life are not destroyed. Someone made a mistake in accusing him, and that mistake was righted.

Accuse an innocent man of making improper sexual advances, of molestation, of rape, and there is no exoneration. He is judged guilty even if the charges are never proved, even if there is never a conviction. He just got away with it. Those in power cover up for their friends. He's got money; he bought his way out. Where there is smoke, there is fire. When two or five or ten women accuse the same man, it has to be true.

Does it?

There is something about this that reminds me of the psychology of mob mentality.

Men who are celebrities are, by definition, high profile targets. Saying something happened fifteen or thirty or forty years ago is such as easy thing to do. If someone else has already said it, it is even easier. It spreads like wildfire.

So what should we do? Should we just close our eyes and allow real abuse to continue? No. But should we slow down and have a conversation about how easy it would be, how easy it is, to destroy someone who is innocent? Should we recognize that this is a bandwagon that people are being encouraged to jump on? Should we at least talk about the part that is played by the emergence of the “social justice warrior” movement and the new feminism, a feminism that appears to seek not fairness and equality but domination and even revenge?

Should we recognize that, with this issue, a highly cherished constitutional protection is disappearing right before our eyes? The burden of proof has always been on the accuser, on the state. That is shifting and morphing more every day, with every accusation. Each person accused feels the burden to prove he did not do such a thing. That has terrifying implications, not only for those accused of crimes of a sexual nature but for those accused of any crime.

And in attempting to prove innocence, is anyone talking about the sheer impossibility of proving a negative, especially one alleged to have occurred decades ago? Or for those not so innocent, the impossibility of mounting a legal defense when the accusations are from another lifetime ago?

No one is having these conversations, but should we?

We must. Otherwise, who is safe? Not your father, not your husband, not your son, not your friend.

Not you.

I'm Baaack

Due to other demands on my time and my talents, such as they are, I have severely neglected this blog. I have recently been admonished for doing so by a dear colleague whose thoughts I value highly, and I was easily persuaded to return . So, for what it's worth, posts by Shelly Stow will again be going forth. I hope that there remain at least a few readers who will help me put this back together, and I thank them in advance.

And here we go.....

Truth in sex offender headlines? Really?

According to this article posted March 22, 46 registered sex offenders in Florida cannot be located by law enforcement. The headline, “21 sex offenders unaccounted for in Palm Beach County,” is designed as click-bait with the point being that almost half of the “absconded” registrants in the state are in one county.

I propose a new headline, one that would possibly not attract the same readership but one that would be more accurate and factual.

According to the Sexual Predator Unit for the state of Florida, as of  3/23/2017, Florida had 69,842 persons registered on its sex offender registry.*

The headline I propose is, “In Florida, 69,796* registered sex offenders are exactly where they are supposed to be and doing what they are supposed to be doing.”

Of course, with Florida’s harsh “scorched earth” policy resulting in residency restrictions that leave thousands of the state’s registrants living under bridges, in the woods, and in parking lots, where they are “supposed to be” and what they are “supposed to be doing” is living in conditions to which we do not subject our pets.

But I digress.

Think how much better it would be if our headlines reflected the positive rather than the negative, or even just included the full facts. Rather than “Deschutes County issues alert for missing sex offender,” how about, “Deschutes County issues alert for missing sex offender and thanks the other 239 for being in compliance.” Instead of “Two registered sex offenders in nursing homes committed new assaults,” we read, “9,000 [estimated] registered sex offenders in nursing homes are model patients.”

Will that ever happen? Nah.
But it’s nice to dream, isn’t it?

* Original numbers edited after I heard back from the state of Florida.

No validity for keeping those on sex offender registry from state parks

"What is the point in doing everything right for years when it counts for nothing? Where is the incentive? What I did was wrong, but that was 15 years ago. I'm not the same person I was when I was 19...My oldest is 9, and I've had to explain it to her -- why we can't go to a lake, why there's no point in our getting a boat. She understands as well as she can at her age."

Shawna is a mother of three. She is on the public registry in Oklahoma for life for a one-time sexual encounter on her 19th birthday with a 14-year-old boy. Her court-ordered punishment was a jail sentence, which she served, and lifetime probation and sex offender treatment. She is also serving an additional life sentence on the public sex offender registry, one whose requirements can shift and change depending on the whims of legislators and new laws. Since it is not considered punishment, applying conditions retroactively is apparently not a problem.

Oklahoma, where Shawna, her husband, and their three children live, is one of only three states defining “parks” to include public state parks and with a state-wide law forbidding park usage, access, or loitering to some or all who are required to be on a sex offender registry. The other two are Louisiana and Illinois. A fourth, Tennessee, couches its language ambiguously, saying that such access is prohibited “…when the offender has reason to believe children under eighteen (18) years of age are present…”

Oklahoma extends the definition of “park” far beyond children’s playgrounds, parks, and areas whose primary use is intended to be by children, the definition adhered to by other states with presence restrictions and by all individual counties and cities with similar ordinances. In Oklahoma, Illinois, and Louisiana, a park is a park is a park, and state parks are included. All access to lakes, beaches, and waterways are state parks.

Oklahoma passed its law in 2014, twelve years after Shawna was ordered to register on the Megan’s Law registry as a level 3 offender, an automatic designation when the victim, even a statutory one, is under 16.

Another Oklahoma registrant, writing a comment on a With Justice for All blog, said, “I was surprised that here in Oklahoma, I cannot go to a park. A park does not mean a place with swings and playground equipment... it means ANY park, State Park included. I really wanted to buy a boat, and I can, but I would have no place in Oklahoma to use it.”

The state of criminal justice reform as it applies to those required to register as sex offenders is very much in flux. While some jurisdictions and states recognize that no evidence supports residency and presence restriction as effective and either eschew or overturn such requirements, others are rushing to implement them.

In North Carolina such and other restrictions have become so onerous that National Association for Rational Sexual Offense Laws (NARSOL) and NC-RSOL have filed a suit against the state on constitutional grounds.

A fourth of the states follow what research clearly shows as the most beneficial to public safety, making serious efforts to integrate law-abiding former sex offenders into their communities by placing no restrictions on where they may live, work, or go with their families. The majority of the other states range widely in the restrictions and requirements they place on their registered citizens.

Only three – Oklahoma, Illinois, and Louisiana – have taken steps to assure that children with a parent on the sex offender registry will not enjoy, as a family, the wonders and beauty that their state’s national parks offer to all citizens and the educational value of their state’s historical monuments – all, that is, except those who are punished beyond reason and with no safety justification all the days of their lives for crimes committed far in their pasts. Those like Shawna.

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Sex offenders and the YMCA

I will from time to time receive columns or op-eds written by others with requests to print them on my blog. I have complied a time or two, but generally I do not. This one can be added to the times I complied.

I received an email from someone requesting anonymity. He explained that he was a registrant in New Jersey. He included this link, which led to a message to “the community” in the form of an open letter from the executive director of the West Essex YMCA, which is in Livingston, New Jersey. It is the standard public relations fare put out by businesses in order to familiarize communities with their products and services.

My anonymous correspondent included his own open letter with a request that I try to have it printed in the same online neighborhood newsletter that printed the one from the YMCA. I found the request valid, and I zipped it off to the editor the same day. After several days of no response, I emailed her again telling her that if she would not be using it, I would be printing it elsewhere and asking for an acknowledgment. I received none, and therefore I am printing his letter to the ED of the West Essex YMCA.

Ms. Helen Flores
Executive Director, West Essex YMCA

Dear Ms. Flores,

My family and I have recently moved to your community. I was pleased to see your letter to the community about what your facility offers. My wife and I have three children, and we have been recently discussing the value of the many programs that YMCAs offer. In fact, we had reached the conclusion that a family membership would be a good investment, and then I read something that stopped me in my tracks.

Apparently you have installed a program that screens for sex offenders for the purpose of preventing their entry into the Y and, I presume, preventing their becoming members.

Since the vast majority of those who are currently engaged in sexual offending, especially against children, have never been identified or charged, this confused me. How could your system alert on them? And then I realized that you mean those who are required to register on a sex offender registry, almost none of whom are still sex offenders.

Let me tell you my story. When I was a high school senior, 18 for a portion of my senior year, my girlfriend was a sophomore and 15. We became sexually active and became pregnant with our first child. I was charged with sexual crimes against a child and required to register as a sexual offender.

Sadly, we lost that child in a miscarriage. Her parents moved away, taking her with them, to prevent our seeing each other. Of course we communicated, and after she graduated from high school and I from college, we dated again and then married. Today we have a wonderful marriage and three great children. It took a while, but her parents forgave our bad beginning. I, however, am required to register as a sex offender for life.

Everyone where we lived knew our story, and we were fortunate to suffer only minimal collateral consequences from being registered. Our wonderful family more than made it worthwhile.

My work has now brought me here, and we have had some rocky patches. I am sure though that we will work through them. We cleared a big hurdle recently when we finally found a church who would accept us as a family.

If my wife or I applies for a family membership at your YMCA, what will the outcome be? Will you accept our application? Will you exclude me? If so, will I be allowed to enter to pick up the children on those occasions where my wife’s business takes her out of town and one of our children may have an activity at the Y?

I would very much like to know. I don’t want to put my children in the position of facing embarrassment or ridicule if their father is treated like a criminal and refused entry.

Thank you for your time.

A very concerned father who is NOT a sexual offender.

Shelly here – I have nothing to add.

What does it take to activate a vigilante?

Obviously, not much.

Start with a totally made-up story, make sure it involves child sexual abuse and troops of pedophiles trading and selling kids in Washington, D.C., and mix in enough of one of the major presidential candidates to guarantee that approximately half of the population are predisposed to believe it. 

Stir in one self-proclaimed “protector of children” with a gun or guns – reports are mixed – and the willingness to “protect children” by shooting off said gun into a crowd of them eating pizza.

Edgar Welch drove from North Carolina, gun or guns at the ready, and marched into his target, a popular D.C. pizza restaurant, Sunday, December 4, in order to, in his words, “self-investigate” the pedophile activity. The fact that the false rumors about the pizzeria have been debunked and found to be totally unsupported did not serve as a deterrent to him at all. After all, where sex and children are used in the same sentence, how could it not be true?

How that evolved to his shooting off his rifle is anybody’s guess.

Thank God no one was hurt and the gunman was captured.

False news is apparently one of the negative consequences that we just have to put up with in this age of social media and electronic information where anybody can say anything online with the assurance that somebody will believe him.  But given what it has led to in this specific instance, we need, more and more, to remember that responsibility must accompany the exercise of rights and freedoms.

We must remember that freedom of speech does not grant the right to yell “Fire” in a crowded theater. And the ability to make up a story and disseminate it far and wide via Twitter and Facebook does not grant the sense to know when not to do so.

What drives Ron Book?

 I watched the film Untouchable through live streaming as it was shown at the RSOL National Conference that has just concluded in Atlanta, Georgia.

This film could well have been named, “Portrait of a bitter, angry man.”

Ron Book’s daughter Lauren was sexually assaulted by a nanny the family had hired for Lauren. The abuse went on for many years. She kept Lauren from revealing the truth to her parents through threats and intimidation.

Of course he was angry to learn the truth – devastated, actually. Any parent would be. Of course he is bitter that his little girl suffered pain and horror for so many years.

Rob Book, as an outlet for his anger and his bitterness, has made himself a juggernaut whose purpose is to destroy every sex offender in the state. Involved even then in Florida’s political scene, he has become arguably one of the most powerful men in the state.

He is responsible for legislation that created the Julia Tuttle Bridge scandal. He is almost single-handedly responsible for law after law whose sole purposes are to punish everyone on the Florida sex offer registry to the furthest degree possible. He openly and proudly announced that Florida was

“scorched earth” to any registered sex offender.

He revealed that he is closely watching the progress of Lauren’s abuser toward a release date and that he will be there to hound her every second he can.

He cites unrealistically high sexual recidivism rates and makes outlandish statements about the surety of registrants to commit new crimes and their extreme danger to society. When questioned about research study after research study all showing the opposite of everything he has said, he brushes it aside like an annoying gnat. All lies, he said, trumped up figures, nonsense.

It is not until the last few minutes of the film that another motive for all of his actions, all of his hatred, emerges. He is seated behind his desk, and an off-camera interviewer asks him which, if any, of all the laws on Florida’s books today, laws whose existence he is responsible for, would have, had they existed years ago, saved Lauren.

He stumbles only a little when he says no, most likely none of them would have made a difference. None would have protected Lauren from her abuser. And then he says something remarkable.

He says, stumbling a bit more, that the only thing that would have saved her is if he and her mother had, when she was young, educated her about what to do in such a situation. Told her that she could tell them anything. Told her that secrets are not forever. Told her what to say to them, her parents, if anyone hurt her or scared her. He said that she might not have told them the first time it happened, or maybe not even the second, but that he is sure she would have told them soon -- if only they had taught her that she could.

And with those words, the truth about what motivates Ron Book was revealed. Yes, he is angry. And bitter. And vengeful. But that is not what drives him.

What drives him is guilt.

Picketing and threats for Brock: Is there a better way?

In the wake of Brock Turner’s stint in jail and subsequent release, America has not behaved very well. Like the cluster of schoolboys ganging up to neutralize the playground bully, their actions are understandable but not helpful to the ultimate goal of ending the violence.

What is the ultimate goal in regard to Brock Turner? Surely it is that he has learned his lesson and will not commit another sexual offense.

What is the broader goal in regard to the community and society? Surely it is that public safety is enhanced.

Groups of armed vigilantes outside his home and hate messages scrawled on his sidewalk fall far short of contributing to either goal, and many of those not close enough to strap on their weapons and descend on the Turner home are cheering on those who are. Additionally, some media reports all but encourage and applaud such behavior.

What will contribute to both goals? Culling from studies and experts who have worked for years toward these goals, who have made the choice to be part of the solution, it is this: successfully integrating the offender back into the community. And what works toward this? That is best answered by looking at what destroys it: isolation; shaming; rejection; ostracization; hatred; vilification.

Neighbors with guns, reminiscent of lynch mobs several decades ago.

Brock’s neighbors are not expected to welcome him with apple pies and invitations to backyard barbecues – at least not now.

But if they too want to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem, they will leave him and his family alone.

They will look within themselves and find the grace to consider the greater good of society rather than reacting out of a media-whipped, frenzied belief that he wasn’t punished enough – a judgment call that was not theirs to make in the first place.

Dealing with monsters -- uh -- sex offenders

If things really come in threes, then I have a monster story yet to come my way.

The first one was when an editor wrote a "Pokemon warning" to his readers and chose to call registrants living in the area "the real monsters." I took exception to that verbiage and, after contacting him, sent my rebuttal, which he, in decency, printed.

THIS IS A MONSTER

Now, this morning, when I opened my usual collection of daily alerts, one shouted at me, "Monsters among us site provides digital vigilance to help you keep track of sexual predators..." The thing turned out to be nothing more than an advertisement for Family Watchdog masquerading as a site review, but my initial reaction was, again, my radar going on high alert at the word "monsters" being used to describe those on the registry.

At the end of the piece was a request for readers to share their favorite sites for him to review. I took him up on it, sending him the following. Time will tell if I get a response.

Dear Mr. O'Neill,

Thank you for the invitation to share a favorite site. The one I would like to share is www.nationalrsol.org. It is the site of National Reform Sex Offender Laws, Inc., and it is dedicated to the advocacy of laws and policies based on facts and evidence that support

THIS IS NOT A MONSTER

the successful rehabilitation and reintegration of law abiding, former sex offenders into society. This is our goal because this is what research shows will help create a safer society.

Unlike the site you most recently recommended, we do not call people "monsters." Research indicates that pejorative language of that type is counter-productive in furthering the rehabilitation initiatives approved by our criminal justice system.

Additionally, we find the type of site touted in your article "Monsters among us site..." contradictory to empirical evidence, and we find companies such as Family Watchdog extremely unethical as they are using deceit to play on the fears of parents. An exhaustive look at the research and scholarly literature on the subject will reveal that evidence does not support the use of public notification such as public sex offender registries. These popular but wasteful schemes do not further public safety, reduce sexual re-offending, nor offer any protection to children or other potential victims. They are predicated on misconceptions and myths and are denounced by academics and scientists alike.

I will be happy to dialogue with you further on this subject. Thank you for considering the site I have recommended for your column.

But you can't do that -- I'm not a sex offender

Source 

A horrible thing has been happening in a town in Texas. A family has, for the past month or so, been subject to a barrage of harassment. Strangers have been driving slowly past their home in this Dallas suburb and yelling horrible things at them.

The family has expressed fear for their lives, and of course the police are taking this very seriously. They got to the root of the problem quickly and are taking action to rectify it.

Apparently a month or so ago, the DPS mailed postcards to each home in the community within four blocks in every direction from this family’s home. The post cards gave the address where the family resides along with the information that a registered sex offender lives there.

Except he doesn’t.

It was a mistake. The registrant in question once lived there but then moved away. Apparently his moving back into the area triggered the postcards to be mailed and gave his prior address, thus marking this family, who have no registrants living with them and no connection to the registrant, to be targeted as sex offenders and subjected them to a taste of the harassment, vandalism, and physical assault that hundreds of thousands of registrants, along with their children and family members, are subject to as a matter of course.

The police in the area are trying to determine how to better assure that registered citizens are living where they should be.

A better task would be for them to determine how to prevent vigilantes from using the public registry as a hit list.

If the registrant had been living in the house, is there any reason at all to believe that the same incidents would not have occurred? No, none.

And if they had, and he notified police and asked for protection, is there any reason to believe that the story would have made headlines in the local media, spurred law enforcement to immediate action, and produced 18 hits when entered into an online search engine? No, none.

The message is clear: Incidents like this one, so shocking and urgent when they affect "normal" people, are acceptable in the eyes of law enforcement and the public when carried out upon those on the registry. They are everyday occurrences; they create scarcely a ripple in the fabric of society.

In spite of the ordeal the innocent family has suffered, they can at least be thankful there is no one living in their area of the mind set and inclinations as Jeremy and Christine Moody of South Carolina.

They can also be thankful their ordeal is over. They need no longer fear for their lives. That cannot be said for the several million American citizens whose addresses are listed on public sex offense registries throughout the United States.

This week in the sex offender world

Re the current Pokemon Go craze and concern this could put children and youth in "proximity" to registrants:

This is shaping up to be the new "Halloween boogie-man" scare. Now that enough people have said often enough and loudly enough that there is no statistical increased sexual risk to children in connection with Halloween and trick-or-treat activities, along comes Pokemon Go to keep the fear-pot boiling. And of course the sensationalism-creators and fear-mongers can point to an actual

incident: a registered citizen was "caught" playing Pokemon with a 16 year old teenager--outside of a downtown courthouse, a location that probably boasts as many law enforcement officers per square foot as any other in town. Television anchors, a-la-weather map style, are displaying maps of local areas with Pokemon stops marked in one color and the homes of registered citizens marked in another and pointing out, with horrified faces but barely concealed glee, the places where one is within proximity to the other. Well, that does it! Put a kid on the same block with someone on the registry, and Katie, bar the door. I wonder what the statistical risk of harm is to a minor while playing Pokemon Go within shouting distance of where a registrant lives?

Re online "stings" and headlines shouting that parents are terrified over the potential risk of harm to their children:

Of course parents are terrified; that is the purpose; terrify the parents and assure future funding for continued stings and special forces. It has very little to do with actually protecting children. There were no children. Those men were idiots as well as potential criminals. Virtually everyone arrested for being online child predators are arrested in these kinds of made-up situations. Where are the cases

of real children being lured from their homes by some stranger online? Surely there are police reports...parents whose children have just disappeared? Where are the real ads from parents offering up their children like items on a menu? If this were the problem that law enforcement and the media make it out to be, there would be enough real cases to keep law enforcement busy. There would be no need to resort to entrapment and 50 year old cops pretending to be 12 year old kids.

Re the necessity of residency restrictions for protection of property values among other reasons:

Many millions in public resources are spent in the U.S. on keeping and maintaining a public registry. Research has shown little to no public safety value in public notification and most definitely no reduction in child molestation. Little to nothing in public resources is spent on education,

prevention, victim services, and meaningful reentry initiatives for former offenders. Research shows that all of these enhance public safety and work toward reduction of child molestation. Property values, which do not come close to importance in comparison with child molestation and general public safety, are reduced only due to public notification. If no one knew that the guy next door who committed a crime 20 years ago, has led an exemplary life since, is raising his kids and supporting his family, had committed a sexual crime, there would be no increased risk to anyone and no loss of surrounding property value. If his crime had been murder or arson or armed robbery or killing someone while driving intoxicated or any other offense, all with higher reoffense rates than sexual crimes, no one would know. As far as the disproportionate number of registrants "clustering" in areas without restrictions, registrants of necessity live where they are allowed rather than where they are not. If there were no residency restrictions anywhere--and nothing is so devoid of any proof of effectiveness or public safety value as residency restrictions--the disbursement would be even-handed, driven primarily by what the individuals could afford. Nothing supports the efficacy of a public registry. The many millions would be much better spent on the things are are shown to work. A law-enforcement only registry under the conditions supported by empirical data is the only logical answer.

A good man's life ruined due to the public sex offender registry

My readers know that I do not often use someone else's words in my posts. I seem to have too many of my own bubbling over to need borrowed ones.

However, I recently read a comment on the RSOL website that will not get out of my head. I could never write what this man has written, for I have not had his life's experiences, and after obtaining RSOL's permission to use it, I hope I can do it justice.

John had written a comment to Steve Yoder's article "What’s the Real Rate of Sex-Crime Recidivism?" that was posted on the website blog. Another reader replied to him with a commiseration and comment about the waste of taxpayer money to track someone who doesn't seem to have been a threat to re-offend for thirty years.

This was John's response.

Commit another sex crime? Absolutely not!

I finished my probation in Jan. 1991. Between 1991 and 2007, I was called to jury service 4 times and actually sat on a trial, even though I told the judge and both the plaintiff and defense attorneys of my conviction. I have been to 8 other countries, including Can., Mex., and the UK. I traveled all over the US, worked for the government on military bases that required security clearances, and handled some of the most expensive military defense systems in the world. I’ve been invited to a Presidential Fund Raiser; I have met US senators, a couple of state governors, and one state supreme court justice.

There have been a countless number of laws passed after the dragnet of SORNA pulled me in. Those laws not only had a stifling affect on me but also on my wife, my children, and my grandchildren; we all have been affected in negative ways.

I took advantage of the break I received from the justice system and turned my life around. I raised well behaved, career oriented, college educated, civic-minded children. But then came the destruction of SORNA. Anything that I had done that was good, right, or proper had become irrelevant. In fact, I just read the other day that I won’t be able to be buried in a National Cemetery because my Registered Sex Offender status has cancelled out my Vietnam War Military Service.

He then asked questions that I would like to have answered.

My question is this. If after my conviction, it was okay for me to do the things that I mentioned earlier, than why can’t I now do some of the little things in life? Such as, attend my granddaughter's school function and not have her be embarrassed because I need to be escorted?

Why is it illegal to go to a family reunion just because of playground equipment in the park?

Why did I have to report to the CLEO and have my mother's home address listed on an on-line sex offender registry because I was in her home for more than 3 nights in one year while she was in hospice care?

Why is it that I can bob for apples at a Halloween party with my grandchildren on Oct. 30th or Nov. 1st, but I will be arrested and sent to jail if I do that on Oct 31st between 5 pm and 8 pm? (That one proves legislatures are imbeciles, and because the police actually drive around to RSO’s homes to enforce it, they look like the Keystone Cops.)

He ends with reminding us that he is not the exception and hearkens back to Mr. Yoder's explanation of how this got started.

I’m sure 850,000 RSO’s could fill volumes of books with questions of why. But as of today we learned that Justice Kennedy may have violated a common rule of interpretation: “A text, out of context, is a pretext." Due to this misinterpretation, from the kid in the back seat mooning the car behind the school bus to the most dangerous re-offender, there is no difference between them. He assigned that pretext to all. 

For once, I have nothing to add.