Monday, May 2, 2016

must an inmate confess to a casual correspondent?

Former Subway spokesman Jared Fogle responded to a letter from a woman he used to know and she released his letter to the press. The press, in turn, asked a sex therapist to comment on it.
Indianapolis sex therapist Carol Juergensen Sheets says the letter shows Jared still has a long road to go. 
“He hasn’t figured out what he needs to do to get healthy,” said Sheets.“From that letter, he’s minimizing, and sex addicts or people that have sexual compulsivity tend to minimize, justify, and defend themselves, and that’s what I see in the letter. He’s obviously a man who hasn’t had enough recovery yet to be 100 percent responsible for his behavior.”
Perhaps the therapy community exchanges stories about their famous clients; I don't know. Without that kind of professional gossip,though, Sheets has no way to know anything about Fogle's story except for what the press told the rest of us. If she has ever evaluated him professionally, commenting on his state of mind is an ethical breach.

Her analysis of his letter means nothing. Fogle wrote a letter to a casual acquaintance who took the trouble of figuring out how to correspond with him. Who could blame him for wanting to leave a good impression with her?

Is Sheets under the impression that Fogle is receiving sex offender treatment in prison? While his facility offers an SOTP, (sex offender treatment program) inmates generally don't begin that program until they are near their release date. It would be extremely unusual for someone to be in SOTP after only nine months.

As for Fogle's "recovery time" prison is no place for recovery. Prison is a place to recover from.

Most important, Fogel does not owe his casual acquaintances a confession, let alone the rest of us.

Remember that name, Indianapolis: Carol Juergensen Sheets.

Might be wise to avoid a therapist who advertises her services by getting her name in articles about famous people.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Well said, madam!! Spot-on commentary. I think the actions of both the recipient of Mr. Fogle's letter and the sex therapist are beneath contempt!

LizaMoore said...

Wouldn't this be a HIPAA violation? I don't care if he's "famous". I don't think we have the right to know details about whether he needs more therapy or not.

Regarding the post under this one... My high school boyfriend was 3 years older than me. Was he a sex offender because we had sex when he was 19 and I was 16? No he wasn't!

I'm sure you've seen the ridiculousness of the transgender people using public bathrooms. People are so stupid. The real sex offenders are in your home, church and school. They are your close family friends. Sure, strangers can do it too. However, kids never go anywhere alone anymore so it would be really hard for a stranger to hurt kids.

Obviously, I think sex offenders need to be kept from hurting other kids. However, the way it's being done is so stupid. The registry is full of 19 year olds having sex with their boy/girl friends. There's people on it that took a piss on the side of the road because they couldn't wait until the next exit. It's full of people that haven't ever touched another kid. So how is that registry doing anything?

Marie, I know the next part of your journey is coming up. May have even started already. I hope everything is okay with you, your husband and kids. I want the best for you all. I know that I have disagreed with some of what you've said about child porn but we agree on a lot around sexual offenders.