My “Sex Offender Brunch”

I think your heart is in a good place, and our justice system certainly needs fixing.

On the other hand, I do not understand the problem with the statistic that 95% of sexual abuse is committed by people not on the registry. That means the registry is working as intended to prevent recidivism. We should be thrilled with that statistic.

@L.
“That means the registry is working as intended to prevent recidivism.”

Which is like believing the sun rises because the cock crows.

Maybe recidivism is rare because:

1) Contrary to popular belief, this is not a high-recidivism crime
or
2) Many of these people did things that aren’t crimes by any reasonable standard, such as peeing in the woods in the rough off the 14th hole.

i truly want to thank you for doing what your doing. the problems of the outrageous sentences and the sex registry need so badly to be corrected.

While I applaud your attempt to shine a light injustice on how “sex offenders” are treated (without due process, exaggeration, …) nonetheless I hope you realize you are severely damaging the messaging your other mission (FreeRangeKids). You may think they are not at cross purposes – and perhaps they aren’t when looked at rationally and with statistics – but the messaging absolutely is.

For example – who is going to forward your website to a nervous spouse when the top story is about how sex offenders are really ok?

I’ve written to Lenore personally of my belief that the free-range child movement
and sanitizing our reactions to SO-related offenses are two sides of the same coin.
Something happened in the late 70s, early 80s, where we as citizens collectively
threw up our hands in defeat and gave government carte blanche to clean things
up. Custody of the economy was handed over to Wall Street and the managerial
class, and we know how that worked out. And the criminal justice system reform
was handed over to similarly interested parties: careerist prosecutors,
tough-on-crime congressmen, police unions, and the prison industry, both public
and private. So you can label a 30-year-old man with inappropriately touching
an 8-year-old girl, neglecting to mention that happened almost 20 years ago,
and with his sister (which doesn’t make it legal, just that within families that
situation is more likely to present itself in an innocent framework). And you can
charge a couple with “unsubstantiated child neglect” for letting their school-age
children walk to a neighborhood park on their own. Throw the book at them.
If we try to approach these crimes reasonably, the bad guys will get away with it
like they did in the 60s, and the cities will end up covered with graffiti again.

All this because since 1980 we’ve slowly moved from a commercial nation to
a guardian nation (see Jane Jacobs’ “Systems of Survival” for an explanation
of those two main parts of any working society), and in a simple sense, because
our calvinist roots prevent us from paying people for doing nothing, as there
aren’t enough jobs in the commercial sector to go around, we pay one class of
people to guard another class of people, and so the economy continues to grow.

Lenore, why not start a nationwide “Invite a Sex Offender to Brunch” campaign?
Match people who are willing to host with former offenders who are willing to come
public with their story. If your neighborhood child pornographer was a high school
student with a nude photo of his ex on his phone, what’s there to be afraid of?

@Marilynn those images are just youtube’s algorithm suggesting related videos.
Could someone with the time please file a complain with youtube that the
algorithm is getting it wrong?

I agree that people shouldn’t end up on the SOL for crimes that do not hurt children, like public urination.

Your two brunch guests, though, don’t fit that bill.

My eldest two are 13 and 11. If either one of them played doctor with one of their younger siblings at their age, I would be gravely concerned. It’s one thing when little kids express their natural curiosity in inappropriate ways, but 11 (much less 12) is old enough to know better and to control oneself.

Any 19 year old having sex with, or sending pornography to, a 14 year old is a rapist. It’s not even a near thing. There is a huge difference between a 19 year old and a 14 year old. The latter is *incapable* of providing informed consent due to immaturity and the power dynamic.

I’m not arguing this from ignorance. My friend “Mouse” used to call me every few weeks to tell me about his new girlfriend. He was 20, then 21, and they were 17, then 16. I didn’t find out until I read the court documents that some were as young as 13. (http://law.justia.com/cases/minnesota/court-of-appeals/2007/opa061567-0213.html) After he got out of jail the first time, he went back to calling me every few weeks, always to complain about the unfairness of the SOL and related laws, insisting that he wasn’t a pedophile, that what he didn’t shouldn’t be a crime. He was violating his parole every which way and felt it was justified because, in his mind, he’d done nothing wrong. I told him that I agreed with his court-appointed therapist and he stopped calling.

And then, two months ago, the nice man two doors down — who helped me patch my tire a few times, whose weekly poker game I used to attend, who gave the kids candy — was busted after visiting a prostitute and asking for her five year old daughter. (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/man-brought-teddy-bear-sex-5-year-old-cops-article-1.2110635)

I’m not living scared and neither are my kids. They run around the neighborhood and beyond unsupervised. Having now had two family friends turn out to be pedophiles has not turned me off of Free Range Parenting.

But it has strengthened my conviction that these people belong on the SOL, perhaps especially the ones who think that they did no wrong.

>>Clark,

Let me put it to you this way. That the mind of an overprotective parent is not soothed or eased by the SOR, but only fuels their paranoia to the point that they are disabled by knowing that information.

Case in point. A person on the SOR is not allowed within 2000 feet of a park. To make the park a safe zone for kids. Yet all these moms that are in support of the SOR won’t let their kids play alone in that same park, because of all the “sickos” out there.

The sex offender registry is the greatest political tool ever invented. It keeps the public huddled in fear of the boogeyman. While politicians and police can still point to it, to prove how they are keeping the public safe. Then they can come around every once in awhile to tell you of a new boogeyman that came to live in the area, to scared the hell out of you all over again.

The SOR is nothing more than the Scarlett Letter of our time. So hell why not go back to doing just that. When one gets married the swear infront of God, family and friends to remain faithful. So why not make cheaters where the red A again. As far as I am concerned cheating on your spouse is more horrible than 90% of the crimes that could put you on the SOR.<<

@Warren–That's about right. The sex offender registry doesn't make anyone feel safer; it just fuels paranoia, while making life a living hell for the many, many people on the registry. It may have started out as a good idea, but it's way out of control now, to the point that it's making life worse both for the registrants, and for the people with kids who pay attention to the registry.

I think the debate on the overreach of sex offender lists is warranted. I have been following that incidentally in the context of post-conviction lasting effects (such as the virtual unemployment people with records and served sentences face)

However, something that always leave me uneasy is how these debates bring out of the woods people who also want to promote a free-for-all, in particularly regarding the idea, unacceptable in my opinion, that adults should be free to prey sexually on minors, as long as the minor consent – not as in 18 yo and 16 yo, but more like 28 yo and 15 yo. There are also those with strange views that claim it is unfair to exclude any post-pubescent teen from their right to have sex with whomever they want, including people twice their age. All in a context where no responsibility is attributed to the older adult with a more developed brain in the pair.

Emily,

When it comes right down to it, the effect of the SOR that bothers me the most, is the effect is has on me and my family.

Because of the SOR, anyone with a computer can pull up a map and have it light up like a Christmas tree, with local offenders. They then use that as proof that our communities are not safe. They then start screaming at our elected officials that we have to do more to protect the kids. And we then have kids like the Metiv’s getting brought home in a police car.

As long as the SOR is accessible to the public, things are only going to get worse for our kids, grandkids and so on. And lets face it, law enforcement loves this level of fear. The more the public is afraid, the less they will be out and about, and the less law enforcement will have to deal with.

One thing that holds true, and the people that use the SOR and swear by it as a great thing are proof. It is true, and I always keep that in the back of my mind whenever talking about issues. A person can be intelligent, but people are stupid.

I think they should get rid of the SOR. But if they are going to have it, I think they should list the age of the offender at the time of the offense, not just the age of the victim at the time.

Looking at a 45 year old offender convicted of stat rape of a 16 year old looks pretty bad, unless it shows that he was 18 at the time.

From the example at Lenore’s brunch, looking at a 30+ year old man convicted of touching an 8 yr old makes him look like a pedophile. But if it shows his age as 11 years old at the time, maybe people would question why he is even still on the list in the first place.

And to Dan Guy – yes, an 11 year old should know better. That’s why his parents took him to a counselor, so he could get help. But the counselor was a mandated reporter, and instead of helping this child, ended up ruining his entire life.

Minors should not be added to the SOR. Period.

>>Emily,

When it comes right down to it, the effect of the SOR that bothers me the most, is the effect is has on me and my family.

Because of the SOR, anyone with a computer can pull up a map and have it light up like a Christmas tree, with local offenders. They then use that as proof that our communities are not safe. They then start screaming at our elected officials that we have to do more to protect the kids. And we then have kids like the Metiv’s getting brought home in a police car.

As long as the SOR is accessible to the public, things are only going to get worse for our kids, grandkids and so on. And lets face it, law enforcement loves this level of fear. The more the public is afraid, the less they will be out and about, and the less law enforcement will have to deal with.

One thing that holds true, and the people that use the SOR and swear by it as a great thing are proof. It is true, and I always keep that in the back of my mind whenever talking about issues. A person can be intelligent, but people are stupid.<<

Warren, that's so true, but so sad. What can possibly be done about it, if the government is on board with the sex offender registry, because maintaining it makes the elected officials look good, and the police are on board with it, because it makes their jobs easier by keeping more people inside? I mean, Lenore's book, and the Free-Range movement in general, is a start, but the voice of the sheeple is so much louder sometimes, even if they're wrong.

@Dan: “Any 19 year old having sex with, or sending pornography to, a 14 year old is a rapist. It’s not even a near thing. There is a huge difference between a 19 year old and a 14 year old. The latter is *incapable* of providing informed consent due to immaturity and the power dynamic”

Sorry, but I find that nonsense. Sending a 14-year-old some pictures at THEIR request is a long way from having sex with a 14yo. Plus, and now I’m talking about this specific case, just imagine for a moment you’re that 14-year-old boy. You’re curious about sex (which 14yo isn’t?), and you’re smack in the middle of the process of discovering/admitting to yourself that you are/might be gay. That’s hard. Doesn’t matter how progressive the people in your life are. It’s makes you different from pretty much everyone around you, such as your friends, who are giggling over pics of (half)naked women. Whom are you going to talk to? Then you get to know, or maybe you knew him already, this young man a couple years older, a couple years further, who knows exactly what you’re going through.
And since you’re 14 and curious, you ask him for dirty pictures of the kind that you (think you) DO like, and he sends some.

How on earth is that rape?? And even if you think the 19yo did something wrong, was it really so horrible that it should be used as a reason to ruin his life?

“Sending a 14-year-old some pictures at THEIR request is a long way from having sex with a 14yo.”

Sending pictures NOT at their request is a LONG way from forcing sex with them. I have gotten unwanted pictures from men. I do not consider myself raped. I do not feel victimized; annoyed, maybe, but not victimized. I deleted the pictures, blocked the person and went about my day.

When I was a teen, pre-texting days, I saw the occasional unwanted penis. A flasher when I was walking. I guy who thought he was being funny at a party. A different guy who was being an immature jerk at a different party. I do not consider myself raped. I do not consider myself a victim. My life was not scarred. I didn’t need therapy. While I cannot speak about the random flasher, I do know that the two guys from the two parties did not grow to be rapists. They aren’t even particularly jerky anymore.

I really like Lenore and am not necessarily an advocate for offender registries but I am disappointed in this. In her linked article, I applaud her initial points about stranger danger and the false sense of security that the register may provide are great. I would consider myself a free range parent and allow my child the freedom to explore. We talk, at length, about safety and what to do and, as a professional in the field of child sexual abuse, we do not talk about stranger danger recognizing that the risk is most likely to happen by someone who is not a stranger.

However, in addition to my clinical work with victims of child trauma, I also have extensive experience working with children and adolescents with “problematic sexual behavior.” With the knowledge I have from that work, I am troubled by her comments about the register in general and about those two cases more specifically. I appreciate (and agree with ) her point that not everyone on the register is a danger to kids but her comments perpetuate some inappropriate (at best) beliefs about the sexual behavior of adolescents and pre-adolescents.

First, no one is on the register for peeing in public. Of the 13 states that could require registration for this, the law is about public indecency. It’s about exposing your genitals in view of a minor or someone who could be offended. Of these 13 states, several have further criteria (like subsequent incidences or even fondling) for registration. Despite this, there is NO ONE on the register for peeing in public.

Second, her two case examples are problematic. 12 is too old to be playing doctor. The other child was more than 3 years younger, also a problem. It doesn’t matter if she forgave him, what he did was inappropriate and illegal. 14 is below the age of consent. This means that 14 is too young to be involved in consensual sexual activities (even requesting/receiving porn). The person was 19, an adult, by the law. It doesn’t matter that they are gay. If the 14 year old have been a girl, I suspect there’d be a different response from people. And, this 19 year old had a previous sexual encounter with another 14 year old. It doesn’t matter that it was once. I’m not saying these two men SHOULD be on the register. I have not personally assessed either nor have I read the investigation files or their professional risk assessments, but I suspect neither has Lenore.

I have a number of problems with the sex offender register. I don’t agree with it, on many levels. And, I don’t necessarily believe in labeling teenagers who commit offenses as “sex offenders” (professionally, I’d use the term “adolescent with harmful sexual behavior”), but Lenore’s argument against the register by minimizing these two individuals’ sexual behavior as teens is appalling. This article may be published under the guise of being about not being lured into a false sense of security for your kids, but in reality this is a (thinly) veiled attack on the sex offender register. While such an attack may be warranted, basing it on such misinformed arguments is seriously disappointing.