Sex Offender Laws Require Rethink
January 11, 2014
Sex Offender laws are gratuitously cruel and assume
that all
ex-offenders are dangerous psychopaths.
However the vast majority can be rehabilitated
and lead normal productive lives.
Most sex offenders deserve compassion. Current laws make it harder for registered sex offenders to reform.
by Ryan Hope
(Pen name of a Colorado Therapist)
(henrymakow.com)
I have chosen to take on this unpopular issue because I have something that needs to be said.
Most sex offenders deserve compassion. Current laws make it harder for registered sex offenders to reform.
by Ryan Hope
(Pen name of a Colorado Therapist)
(henrymakow.com)
I have chosen to take on this unpopular issue because I have something that needs to be said.
Contrary to popular belief that once a sex offender, he will always be a sex offender, recidivism rates are quite low for offenders that get counselling. At about 6%, they are much lower than many other types of criminal recidivism. That means 94% don't re-offend. This is compared to only 30% in the case of other offences.
Yes, a minority of sex offenders are sociopaths or psychopaths. They are violent re-offender types, serial rapists and those that get sadistic pleasure torturing or killing. These people should never be trusted to reenter into society.
But the majority of sex offenders can be reformed, but the law won't let them or anybody else forget. Some of my colleagues work with ex-offenders and they report a high degree of depression, homelessness and suicide.
When they return home from prison, they may not be allowed to move into their own homes because it is too close to a school or park. However, 98% of molestations happen with somebody they know and not because of the proximity of schools or parks. Supportive relatives prefer not to allow ex-offenders to live in their homes because their address is posted on sites like Megan's Law. Families can be ripped apart; the very people the ex-offender needs for healing are placed out of reach.
I have heard of several cases of ex-offenders receiving death threats from strangers knocking on their doors. Ex-offenders do get murdered. Since sex offender registration is required for life, an ex-offender can be harassed or violently assaulted decades after he had overcome his problem.
JOBS
Few will hire ex-offenders. Being cut off from their own families and support networks actually contributes to recidivism. Homeless offenders are harder to keep track of. Professionals and clergy are required by law to report suspected cases to the police. Offenders thus do not seek the help they need, and some even resort to suicide.
Few will hire ex-offenders. Being cut off from their own families and support networks actually contributes to recidivism. Homeless offenders are harder to keep track of. Professionals and clergy are required by law to report suspected cases to the police. Offenders thus do not seek the help they need, and some even resort to suicide.
Victims of sexual molestation also avoid help because they don't want their cases dragged publicly through the courts. Victims then suffer a lifetime of unresolved trauma which in turn negatively affects their own marriages and children.
Many sex offenders were themselves victims and the law actually perpetuates the vicious cycle.
Many have to register as a sex offender for having consensual sex as a teenager. Some have to register for urinating in public and now their lives are ruined.
LAW ENFORCEMENT
Another unspoken problem is law enforcement. I have worked cases where police or CPS interviewers will tell children what to say before they are videotaped. Coercing children is sadly all too common. I worked with one young adult who was suffering from terrible guilt and depression because police coerced her to lie as a child and sent her father to life in prison. Try as she could the courts will not listen to her pleas. They claim she is being pressured by her family to recant.
Top polygraphers, estimate that one out-of-five people in our prisons are actually innocent. District Attorneys and police will lie and tamper with evidence. They have been known to confiscate computers and fill them with porn.
One young man accused of raping a 13-year-old girl, spent 13 years in prison. Project Innocence took on his case and discovered that the police had hidden exculpatory evidence. He was released and sued the city and won an undisclosed amount of money.
FALSE CHARGES
Women who want a divorce will accuse their husbands of rape or molestation of their children. This filthy tactic is often compounded by police, lawyers and courts not interested in truth, but interested in milking all the money they can get.
Women who want a divorce will accuse their husbands of rape or molestation of their children. This filthy tactic is often compounded by police, lawyers and courts not interested in truth, but interested in milking all the money they can get.
I worked with a gentleman whose wife accused him of molesting their two little toddlers. He was whisked off to jail and she emptied the bank account. He was unable to defend himself and was forced to get a public defender (who in many cases are useless). She had coached the two little girls on what to say and practiced with them over and over.
He awaited trial for over a year in jail, during the wait she sold the home and moved to another state. At trial the public defender actually did his job and the little children admitted that their mother had coached them.
He was released homeless and with only the clothes on his back. The law did nothing to his scheming wife and let her go without even a sigh. Even though he was found innocent, other areas of law enforcement won't let him have visitation rights and his struggle continues three years later.
CONCLUSION
So for all of you flag-waving Christians that want to punish and harass sex offenders, question whether you are Christian or not. You may be a Pharisee and the first to yell out "Crucify him!". I recall a certain sheriff in southern Florida, a proud Christian bragging about his program of putting up signs to identify homes of ex-offenders. He caused the man to take his life, a man that had been clean for 15 years.
Sex Offender laws prevent ex-offenders from rehabilitating and becoming productive members of society. Laws for ex-offenders are cruel and unusual, the vast majority can be rehabilitated and lead normal productive lives.
"Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." -Mathew 25:40. Jesus' message is all about repentance and that people can change for the better.
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First Comment from DM:
Just finished reading your article by "Ryan Hope" concerning sex offenders.
It brought to mind the infamous statement by Mary McCarthy concerning Lillian Hellman:
"Everything [she] writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the'."
I do not have the time to pick this amateur work of propaganda apart piece by piece [which would be almost too easy, for it is Leninist/Stalinist in it's crudity], but am left wondering why you would give space to someone who is so obviously your ideological enemy.
I work in a prison.
I deal with these men every working day.
They should remain locked up forever.
To make an already nauseating situation infinitely worse, they now have organized into groups, unions and political lobbying organizations such as NAMbLA.
The NAMbLA contingent marches proudly and with full acceptance [by the othere marchers and "celebrants"] in virtually every gay pride parade in North America.
I also deal with "therapists" such as the pseudonymous "Ryan Hope" on a regular basis and have found them to be, almost without exception, charlatans, frauds, panderers, intellectually deficient, sexually "confused" and near criminals themselves.
In spite of it's failings, I have confidence in the American system of justice.
Any system that is arranged by humans will have imperfections.
That being said, any culture that does not have the confidence to maintain and defend it's moral code is [and should be] doomed to destruction.
I am left, entirely suspicious of this author and his motives.
Sexual crimes, particularly child molestation, are the result of an increasingly narcissistic culture, that is the result of porn, television, movies, the cult of materialism [shop til you drop], the pseudoscientific psychic poisons of Kinsey and his compeers, etc.
It is guaranteed to get worse, unless there is a true Christian awakening in this land.
First Comment from DM:
Just finished reading your article by "Ryan Hope" concerning sex offenders.
It brought to mind the infamous statement by Mary McCarthy concerning Lillian Hellman:
"Everything [she] writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the'."
I do not have the time to pick this amateur work of propaganda apart piece by piece [which would be almost too easy, for it is Leninist/Stalinist in it's crudity], but am left wondering why you would give space to someone who is so obviously your ideological enemy.
I work in a prison.
I deal with these men every working day.
They should remain locked up forever.
To make an already nauseating situation infinitely worse, they now have organized into groups, unions and political lobbying organizations such as NAMbLA.
The NAMbLA contingent marches proudly and with full acceptance [by the othere marchers and "celebrants"] in virtually every gay pride parade in North America.
I also deal with "therapists" such as the pseudonymous "Ryan Hope" on a regular basis and have found them to be, almost without exception, charlatans, frauds, panderers, intellectually deficient, sexually "confused" and near criminals themselves.
In spite of it's failings, I have confidence in the American system of justice.
Any system that is arranged by humans will have imperfections.
That being said, any culture that does not have the confidence to maintain and defend it's moral code is [and should be] doomed to destruction.
I am left, entirely suspicious of this author and his motives.
Sexual crimes, particularly child molestation, are the result of an increasingly narcissistic culture, that is the result of porn, television, movies, the cult of materialism [shop til you drop], the pseudoscientific psychic poisons of Kinsey and his compeers, etc.
It is guaranteed to get worse, unless there is a true Christian awakening in this land.
Ryan Hope replies to DM and others:
Working in a state prison, I'm sure you have seen the worst of the worst. I view these people as mentally ill. You probably see many psychopaths. These should never be allowed free because this condition usually is not curable, because they don't want it.
Punishment and revenge do not work. Therapy is proven to work better than methods of lock'm up and throw them away. Norway has the lowest recidivism rate in the world. How do they do it? They treat their inmates as Jesus would, with respect. They don't focus on punishment, they focus on rehabilitation.
I ask you flag-waving Christians once again to introspect whether you are a Pharisee or a true Christian.
There is an assumption underlying the letters, that there is no help for a criminal. I have heard many times: "once in the system, always in the system." Even the prisoners lack hope. I can understand this; the conventional therapy that perps and victims receive is not very effective.
Ken Adachi
I can't believe the vicious comments I am reading from DM and others. The last person whose opinion I would value in this area is that of a prison guard, whose occupation often attracts the sadistic and indifferent. Ask anyone who's actually been in prison in the last decade or two to tell you what a swell bunch of guys the guards are.
MANY people are RAILROADED into prison under the banner of "sex offender" who have done NOTHING even CLOSE to having sex with anyone or even "offending" anyone. Anyone who's connected to the internet can have photos of children in pornographic poses uploaded to their computer. IT'S A PIECE OF CAKE for government hackers. The guy then has his home raided by police because of an anonymous "tip" they got that the guy may be involved in "pedophilia activities" and his computer gets seized.
The incriminating evidence is "found", of course, the kangaroo trial and the set up "witnesses" tell their incriminating tales and off to prison he goes for 5 or 10 years. He gets out and can't find a place to live because rentable apartments or rooms are located in populated areas that are within 2,000, or 1,000 feet of a school, or a school crossing, or a mini little "park where children "might" play, or a church or dozens of other buildings that "may" have children inside, so this guy is FORCED to live on the street because the parole people won't ALLOW him to live in an apartment or a rooming house.
I know a guy who was railroaded into prison for 5 years under the trumped up "Sex Offender Railroading Express" and TOLD by parole officer that he had to LIVE in his van parked on a particular street corner, on a particular street in a city in southern California between the hours of 11 PM and 6 AM and he BETTER be sitting in that van at the location between those hours because he's re-arrested if not.
He can't get a job because he has "SEX OFFENDER" printed in bright red letters on all of his paperwork. Of course, even if he found a place to rent, the parole guy will come to "inspect" and inform the owner that the guy is a sex offender and out the door he goes because your house is then listed on these absurd "sex offender" ID web sites. It's an absolute OUTRAGE what's taking place in this country with the entire "sex offender" scapegoating industry.
Kat said (January 12, 2014):
I am trying to get people of conscience to look at the following.
http://www.youtube.com/user/ChildOfSexOffender/videos
I have a pretty in depth analysis of sex offender recidivism for new sex crimes which can be seen at: http://childhood-destroyed-for-what.com/01-100-000-my-story/01-160-100-sex-offender-info/01-170-000-recidivism-of-sex-offenders.html.
The best estimate from the analysis results are:
Years from Release : Most Likely Case Recidivism : Error Margin
0 : 4.00% : (-2.66%; +6.00%)
1 : 2.55% : (-2.16%; +5.16%)
2 : 1.63% : (-1.51%; +4.32%)
3 : 1.04% : (-1.00%; +3.55%)
4 : 0.66% : (-0.65%; +2.87%)
5 : 0.42% : (-0.42%; +2.30%)
6 : 0.27% : (-0.27%; +1.83%)