Is porn a public health issue?

Several states have passed resolutions proclaiming pornography a public health crisis. Adult porn, not child. 

The Arkansas General Assembly has declared that "pornography has created a public health crisis," leading to a broad "spectrum" of public health "impacts and societal harms." The Assembly also stated that pornography can increase "the demand for prostitution and the sex trafficking and slavery of children and young adults, primarily girls." 

The Resolution, HR 1042, is an official recognition by the Arkansas government. It is not a law. It reflects the official view of the legislature and a copy of the Resolution is sent to the director of the Department of Health in Arkansas. Similar resolutuions [sic] have passed in South Dakota, Utah, and Virginia, and in the State Senate in Tennessee. The Arkansas resolution passed the Assembly on March 28. 

It's only an official recognition...it isn't a law, but how does government respond to a public health crisis?

One idea is a porn tax. David Oliver writes in US News and World Report:

It's called the Human Trafficking Prevention Act and it proposes a tax on porn – and lawmakers from approximately a dozen states are mulling it over. 

If passed, consumers would have to pay a single $20 tax to access pornography on any new computer or phone. States like South Carolina, Georgia and Texas are looking into variants of the bill, while North Dakota and Wyoming, for instance, have squashed it.

Advocates contend porn is a public health issue. In their minds, taxing it could help curb sex trafficking, for example. According to the act's website,"The temptation to hire a prostitute to deal with one’s emotional challenges will be reduced tremendously by this act."

Porn causes plenty of trouble, no doubt, but not for everyone. Vices are not universally addictive.

What would a porn tax do? Elizabeth Nolan Brown at Reason.com explains:

A cabal of legislative cheerleaders from Alabama to Wyoming has embraced the idea that we should require manufacturers of computers, tablets, iphones, smart TVs, and the like to equip devices with the anti-porn filters and require consumers to pay to remove the filters from their devices. South Carolina state Rep. Mike Burns, who co-sponsored one bill in his state, told the Beast that they "do not want more taxes. Period. But we are trying to make a statement, and $20 ain't gonna kill anybody." 

But of course it's not only monetary costs to consumers that are are a concern. The porn-filter proposal would also impose costs on product makers, and even steeper costs on U.S. civil liberties. "The way it's written, it would cover your router. It would cover your modem," said Electronic Frontier Foundation researcher Dave Maass. "Plus, now Best Buy is sitting on a database of people who wanted their porn filters removed." 

And then there's question of how the filters would decide what is and isn't porn—content filters designed to catch explicit content have historically been harsh on all sorts of sexuality-related content, from educational websites to news to art. 

Conservative lawmakers seem to support anti-porn proposals like this one because they please certain segments of their electoral base, give people easy fodder against lawmakers who vote in opposition (how does it look at a glance to be against the Human Trafficking Prevention Act?), and aren't generally a political dealbreaker for those who oppose the plans. The porn-filter laws might irk some or seem silly, but like Rep. Burns said, "$20 ain't gonna kill anybody." 

This justification might make sense if the idea was simply a tax on porn consumers. But the porn-filter bill is explicitly packaged as a response to porn being a "public health hazard" and "cancer on society" that "perpetuates a sexually toxic environment" in America, normalizes violence against women and children, "portrays rape and abuse as if such acts are harmless," promotes "problematic or harmful sexual behaviors," and "increases the demand for sex trafficking, prostitution, child sexual abuse images, and child pornography." 

If Republican lawmakers really believe that online pornography is a public health crisis that directly contributes to human trafficking, isn't $20 to access an unlimited quantity of it a bit low? Why shouldn't such a scourge just be banned entirely? [My emphasis.]

 Pornography is a target -- a target for tax opportunities, a target for public outrage.

A "simple" tax on access to porn might not kill anybody but what comes next? When legislators identify an issue that generates public outrage, legislation follows. The porn tax will not eliminate pornography so something else will be suggested. How far will the outraged public let legislators go?

When sex offender registries began, who would have predicted that public urination would land someone on the registry for life and who would have predicted that nine-year-olds would be listed? This is what happens when an issue is so toxic that legislators dare not vote against legislation that promises to save the world from the scourge of the day.

How long before there is legislation that creates new felony offenses related to pornography?

The US already has 2.2 million people incarcerated in overcrowded prisons. Do we really want more behind bars?

When lawmakers pass bills making something illegal, even something that we really, really don't want to be available, we have to accept that someone will be punished and families will suffer.

When something is made illegal and yet is still in demand, that product goes underground.

Underground is where there are no rules.

surprised by WAR: "it takes a moment to digest that such a group exists"

The Daily News (TDN.com) out of Longview WA ran an opinion piece expressing shock at an email they received in response to an earlier story about a vigilante "sex abuse sting." After telling the reader,

Let’s be clear, The Daily News does not support vigilantism, we think local law enforcement does a great job and we should stay out of their way 

...TDN goes on to explain which vigilante operations they do support.

There have been all types of vigilantes throughout history. Some romanticized in fiction like Robin Hood, Superman and Batman. And then there are groups and individuals like the Guardian Angels and John Walsh.

No one can dispute the amazing work of people like John Walsh from his television program “America’s Most Wanted” and we aren’t going to start. Nor are we going to weigh in on the pros and cons of what Curtis Hart did this past week.

True to part of their word, they do not weigh in on the cons of what Curtis Hart did.

What we are concerned about is what happened after we ran the stories.

We received an email from a group called WAR, Women Against Registry.

And then...the belly laugh:

It takes a moment to digest that such a group exists, a group that defends the privacy of sex offenders and is against a national registry.

It takes a moment. Really? A whole moment??

Their entire organization is about educating the public as to how the sex offender suffers after they have been convicted of a crime of a sexual nature and stopping laws that are put in place to protect society from sex offenders. On the homepage of their website, the group tag line is “Fighting the Destruction of Families.” 

We found this quote on the brochure emailed to us, “We, the members of WAR, feel that it is time to stop the cruelty. It is time to reform the registry for the good of the over three million family members of registered sex offenders who live under the invisible punishments of the registry every day.” 

So it appears, at first glance that this group is claiming that it’s the registration of the sex offender that’s harming the offender’s family, not the act they are found guilty of committing.

WAR is also against the reauthorization of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act.  

Once they loosened their grasp on their pearls, it seems they did read the email from WAR and absorbed what it said. Until...

In the midst of a re-telling of the Adam Walsh story, they lose all sense of perspective. After detailing the gruesome crime:

The details of the crime are disturbing, yet sadly, not uncommon.

Not uncommon? After discussing the decapitation of a child, they pronounce it not uncommon.

No wonder they are shocked that anyone could oppose the registry! They are completely disconnected from reality.

Women Against Registry are opposed to the Adam Walsh Act. They claim this law harms the offender and their families because they might not be able to keep or find a job, they are threatened by members of the general public, the offenders suffer from depression, anxiety and are teased.

 Teased. Yes, sex offenders are teased. They are also murdered right there in Washington state.

We don’t agree with the public harming, harassing, assaulting, either verbally or physically.

They don't agree with tormenting sex offenders in the same way TDN "does not support vigilantism."

But what about the victim? What about the family of the victims?

If TDN is concerned about the family of the victim, have they considered what it must feel like for the family to hear details of the child's death over and over again?

Is society better served by the public knowing where these predators are living? [My emphasis.]

Now, there's a question a good journalist would love to dig into. Is society better served knowing where these predators are living? Much research has been done on this question, leaving us to wonder which studies will be cited to answer it. Their answer:

We thinks [sic] so and, as parents, we appreciate these laws.

Oh, TDN! You think so?

If that's the best they can do to answer a question easily answered with facts, then it is time for WAR to fire off another email.

Maybe this time TDN will absorb all of what WAR says.

You think so?

these women will never recover

What happens to the wife of a man convicted of a terrible crime? Shannon Maroney tells how her life changed when her husband raped two women.

He confessed to the crime; in fact, he called 911 to tell police what he had done. From that point, her life was turned inside out.

News of the crimes hit the media, and I couldn't return to my home, now a crime scene surrounded by police tape. Privacy was ripped away and replaced by public scrutiny. He has a wife. Who is she? What's wrong with her? Was she part of this?

She had done nothing wrong and yet she began paying for his crime immediately.

The police were clear in telling me whose side I was on, no matter what my feelings for the victims might be. When I asked if there was anything I could do to help them, the victim services officer looked me up and down and said sternly, "The victims don't need to hear from Jason's arena."

Some friends drew lines in the sand, too. "Shannon, don't you know these women will never recover? You can't have compassion for them and Jason." Others offered their sympathy and support, as they faced their own conflicted feelings toward the Jason they'd known and the terrible things he had done.

These women will never recover. Labeling the victims according to the role they played in his crime--the woman who was raped! the wife!--forces the victims into a narrative the public enjoys in a twisted way. You think Nancy Grace doesn't enjoy the stories she details exhaustively again and again, trying to draw the audience into her horror story? The audience of strangers, family, and friends does the same thing, telling and retelling the story, relishing the thrill of the gory details, The players in the drama are not allowed to step out of their assigned roles and be people with complicated emotions about the crimes. These women will never recover.

While Jason spent nine months in solitary confinement — or "protective custody," as it was called — I was left on the outside to deal with the aftermath, completely unprotected, an easy target for judgment and blame. My school principal banned me from entering the school without permission and forced me out of my job. I lost my salary, benefits, seniority, place of belonging, and, worst of all, my relationships with students, staff, and parents. I was made guilty by association. [My emphasis.]

 She had done nothing wrong. Remember that...because the principal did not.

I turned to victim services at the police for help, as surely they could let the public know I had nothing to do with the crimes, that I hated what Jason had done. ...

But there was no one to help me. The defense counsel was for Jason, the accused. Victim services were for the real victims, not the collateral ones like me. I didn't fit anywhere. All I could do was put one foot in front of the other and try to find a way through to the other side, whatever that would look like.

Other wives out there are nodding as they read this story, recognizing themselves in it. With 850,000 sex offenders and 2.2 million people incarcerated in the U.S., that leaves millions of people who are collateral victims ignored by victim services, left alone to deal with the aftermath.

At the end of it, after enormous pain and loss were expressed in victim impact statements, remorse and confusion were expressed in Jason's statement, and the facts of the assaults were reviewed by the judge, all that happened is that one person was sent to prison for the rest of his life and everyone else was just sent home. It was indescribably empty, with no peace or healing to be found. That was something, it seemed, we would each have to find on our own.

Even the real victims, the ones who were raped, are left with no peace or healing. While sending the rapist to prison is the right thing to do, that alone does nothing to resolve the ugly mess of emotions caused by the crime. We ought not pretend that fear of him doing it again is the only thing the victims must deal with. Putting him in prison does not help with the rest of their turmoil.

They put the state and the accused in the center and victims around the periphery, typically using victims' stories only to achieve a conviction and to influence sentencing. The focus is on retribution.

Retribution is not healing.

Because when we merely lock people up, we seal off much of our own chance to build understanding or have our questions answered. Victims can be plagued by questions their whole lives, questions that only the offenders may be able to answer: Why did you do it? What was going through your mind? Why me? Do you know what you've done? Do you know how you've hurt me and my loved ones? How can I know you won't do it again?

Neither the real nor the collateral victims deserve to be left with unanswered questions. Restorative justice programs, Shannon Maroney's passion, offer a chance for them to ask those questions of the perpetrator and for the perpetrator to answer. Answering the questions can be part of healing the perpetrators, too

Maroney refers to the conversations she had with her husband during prison visits as an "informal" restorative justice process. It is an interesting thought, that people like her have been engaging in restorative justice ahead of the professionals.

At the same time, though, she was being punished by her community for being the wife of a man who did something terrible. That is what the sex offender registry does to families: punishes them right along with the sex offender.

We lock down the families of offenders, typically into poverty, stigma, and shame. We often deem victims to be ruined for life. We make pariahs of people who have made mistakes right along with people who plan and carry out murder and harm "in cold blood," rather than getting to the root causes of either type of offending behavior. And all too often, we lock up people who suffer from mental illness, even as we know we cannot punish the mental illness out of a person.

Could professionals learn something from those informal restorative justice sessions that could lead to better help for the real victims?

These women will never recover. That's just wrong.

a library can't be too safe...or can it?

A Maryland librarian wonders if libraries are safe enough for children.

Your local library is in the child-care business. Public laws in Maryland, Virginia and the District allow children as young as 8 years old — 9 in Washington D.C. — to be dropped off at a public library without parents or a guardian. It's a curious arrangement: The children are not signed in at the library, librarians don't take attendance, and the library is not liable if children hurt themselves or walk out the front door and wander off.

Notice that he does not follow up with a string of anecdotes about children who hurt themselves or wander off or of crimes committed against kids in public libraries.

He tells a single story.

Several years ago, I worked in a library that had a regular customer I will refer to as Mr. Frank. Mr. Frank visited the library every day and knew most of the staff by name. Sometimes he would stand next to the security guard, as if he were part of our security team. When the branch manager made his rounds, Mr. Frank would join him. If teenagers in the library became noisy, Mr. Frank would accompany the librarians who spoke to them: "You kids better be quiet!" he would say.

Eventually, Mr. Frank and I had a falling out. He started asking me to refer library customers to his business, and when I refused, he became nasty. I decided to check him out online and found him on Maryland's sex offender registry where he is listed as a violent sex offender. Mr. Frank had insinuated himself into our daily activities to such a degree that library users often thought he was staff. 

If the library had been a school or day care center, Mr. Frank would have had to identify himself to staff as a registered sex offender. There is no such law for public libraries, even though libraries function as informal day care centers and children dropped off at the library receive much less supervision then they would at a school or a day care. 

From that story about an annoying though harmless library regular, the librarian goes on to suggest some changes to make libraries "safer".

First, convicted sex offenders should have to identify themselves when they enter a public library, just as they are required to do at schools and day care centers. Medium and large public libraries are simply too hard to police; long rows of shelves, bulky furniture, hallways, stairwells and restrooms offer too many nooks and crannies to monitor effectively, even with security guards and cameras.

Mr. Frank had a falling out with the writer. The librarian doesn't accuse him of any illegal behavior, only of being an odd character who eventually got on his nerves enough for the librarian to check him out online.

Knowing that Mr. Frank is on the sex offender registry is enough to make this librarian want to change everything about the library for kids.

Second, libraries should offer structured after-school programs similar to those run at schools and community centers, where responsible, trained adults offer meaningful activities for children. Too many children dropped off at the library spend hours playing mindless shoot-em up computer games where they learn nothing and don't interact with kids around them. Structured programs would allow children to benefit from all the resources available at the library and keep them safe at the same time. 

He wants responsible, trained adults and meaningful activities to keep kids safe.

How many kids have been molested or worse by coaches or teachers during structured after-school programs? Far more than have been molested by strangers in libraries and yet the librarian wants to put kids in the charge of those trusted adults.

A library full of children must be providing something meaningful for the kids--books, a place to study while waiting for a ride, or Internet access and video games the kid's family cannot afford at home, perhaps? One wonders if this librarian disapproves of the kids' book choices the way he disapproves of their taste in video games.

Could a stranger molest a kid in a library? Absolutely, and when it does, the story makes the news because it is so unusual. Could a stranger molest a kid at the grocery store or at a ball game or the laundromat? Sure. That, too, would be very rare. It is far, FAR more likely that a child would be molested by a family member or someone trusted by the family. Far more likely for kids to be molested by responsible, trained adults at a day care center or school, the very places the librarian wants the library to resemble.

This is what happens when we keep a list of people and tell the world that everyone on that list is dangerous: people act on unreasonable fears.

Mr. Frank--and the other registered citizens who visited this library--had committed no sex offenses in the library but when the librarian found Mr. Frank on the list (along with 850,000 other Americans), he begins suggesting safeguards to protect kids against sex offenses. The kids seem to be doing fine without those safeguards.

When the community reads the suggestions and sees how unnecessary and expensive it would be to protect against an extremely rare event, I hope they tell the librarian, "Shhh."

Check out books and video games. Not the registry.

apologies and podiums

The data dump from the Ashley Madison hackers is stirring up muck from the bottom.

AshleyMadison.com--tagline: "Life is Short. Have an Affair."--is a site for those seeking a partner for an affair. Want to cheat? This may have been the site for you but now that hackers have posted 9.7 gigabites of data stolen from the site, those who decided not to go that route can heave a sigh of relief. Not so with those who had accounts there.

Whether the data is accurate or not is up in the air. We are talking about data entered by people who want to cheat, after all. Right or wrong, names will be dragged through the mud and those who need to salvage their reputation will be hitting the talk shows to tell us they have reformed.

Already, the public apologies have begun. Josh Duggar, skin-of-his-teeth survivor of one scandal has been thrown into another because his name showed up in the data dump.

He says,

“I am so ashamed of the double life that I have been living and am grieved for the hurt, pain and disgrace my sin has caused my wife and family, and most of all Jesus and all those who profess faith in Him,” he continued.

Have some dignity, man, and stop groveling. The rest of us are no better than you.

What, exactly, does Josh Duggar owe any of us in the way of an apology for cheating on his wife? Nothing.

If an apology isn't personal, it means nothing. Apologizing to "all those who profess faith" in Jesus is bizarre. Duggar's offense was not against strangers who happen to share a religious faith with him.

Christian or not, we all sin. Christians profess to know that.

Matthew 6:5 says,

And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.

And yet, Duggar will not be alone in confessing his sin and apologizing publicly in the most pious and prayerful ways. He probably received advice from well-meaning experts who told him to "get out in front" of the scandal. That worked for Tylenol but Tylenol's ugency was about public safety and the survival of a company. Duggar's problem, as revealed by the hackers, is marital.

If you commit a sin against someone, apologize to that person. If you sin against God, apologize to Him. Leave the rest of us out of it and knock off trying to impress us with your heartfelt apologies.

It is not our concern. Our concern is our own sinfulness.

You think that your double life offended your congregation or your fan club? It probably did. Was it a sin against them? Maybe, maybe not. Even if you are sure that it was, consult the rule book before you start composing an emotional apology to be delivered in a press conference because somewhere there is--or ought to be--a rule that apologies delivered in a press conference automatically do not count.

Again, our concern is our own sinfulness. 

If we know that, those tearful public apologies will mean nothing to us. Why? Our concern is our own sinfulness. We are not surprised to learn that others--truly I tell you, even reality TV stars--are also sinful.

Those of us whose sins are made public, through sensational hacking events as in the lurid Ashley Madison story or through a public registry for sex offenders, must consider carefully before apologizing for our misdeeds.

Who did you sin against? Will your apology help or hurt that person? If it will not cause more pain, apologize to that person privately. This is between the two of you.

Talk to God privately. This is between you and Him.

Only egregious sins are committed against the world, so there is no need to apologize to the world. Your sin may indeed cause you a heavy burden of guilt; that heavy burden does not mean you owe the world an apology.

If someone tells you that you must apologize to your community, remind them that you are not the example of sinlessness that your community needs to heed.

bogus number drives sex offender legislation

Where do legislators get the idea that sex offenders are so dangerous that they must be tracked via the sex offender registry?

Ira Ellman, an Arizona State University law professor, lays it all out for us.

McKune v. Lile, 536 U.S. 24, 33 (2002) rejected, 5-4, Robert Lile’s claim that Kansas violated his 5th Amendment rights by punishing him for refusing to complete a form detailing prior sexual activities that might constitute an uncharged  criminal offense for which he could then be prosecuted. The form was required for participants in a prison therapy program; refusing to join the program meant permanent transfer to a higher security unit where he would live among the most dangerous inmates and lose significant privileges, including the right to earn the minimum wage for his prison work and send his earnings to his family.

A treatment program held over the heads of inmates is a threat, not a treatment, and yet the Supreme Court said the prison could continue that program.

Justice Kennedy explained the treatment program helped identify the traits that caused “such a frightening and high risk of recidivism” among sex offenders—a rate he said “has been estimated to be as high as 80%.”   The following year in Smith v. Doe, 538 U.S. 84 (2003) the Court upheld Alaska’s application, to those convicted before its enactment, of a law identifying all sex offenders on a public registry. It reasoned that the ex post facto clause was not violated because registration is not punishment, but merely a civil measure justified because the “risk of recidivism posed by sex offenders” is “frightening and high”, 536 U. S. at 34. 

The idea that sex offenders repeat their crimes at high rates has fed legislation imposing increasingly harsh post-release burdens on them, nearly all triggered by being on a sex offender registry.  [My emphasis.]

 Where did Justice Kennedy get that 80% figure?

McKune provides just one citation for its much-quoted statement: a 1988 Justice Department “Practitioner’s Manual”. That reference likely came from the amicus brief supporting Kansas filed by the Solicitor General, then Ted Olson, which also cites it. This Practitioner’s Guide itself provides but one source for the claim, but it’s no scientific study. It’s a 1986 article from Psychology Today, a mass market magazine aimed at a lay audience, which had this sentence: “Most untreated sex offenders released from prison go on to commit more offenses–indeed, as many as 80% do.” Freeman-Longo, R., & Wall, R, Changing a lifetime of sexual crime, Psychology Today (1986). That sentence is a bare assertion with no supporting reference. Nor did its author have the scientific credentials needed to qualify at trial as an expert on recidivism.  He was a counselor, not a scholar, and the article containing the sentence isn’t about recidivism statistics. It’s about a counseling program for sex offenders he then ran in an Oregon prison. His unsupported assertion about the recidivism rate for untreated sex offenders was offered to contrast with his equally unsupported assertion about the lower recidivism rate for those who complete his program. [Again, my emphasis.]

Ah. The number came from an unqualified source trying to sell his own program by fabricating numbers to make his program look effective. Snake oil salesman.

Professor Ellman goes on to explain numbers that come from legitimate research, numbers that tell us what my readers already know: sex offenders have an extremely low rate of reoffense. It is worth reading the whole thing.

The label “sex offender” triggers fear, and disgust as well. Both responses breed beliefs that do not yield easily to facts. That’s why even those politicians now urging criminal justice reforms conspicuously omit mentioning sex offenses when they argue for less punitive policies that would facilitate the offenders’ reintegration into civil society. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has fed the fear. It’s become the “go to” source that courts and politicians rely upon for “facts” about sex offender recidivism rates that aren’t true. Its endorsement has transformed random opinions by self-interested non-experts into definitive studies offered to justify law and policy, while real studies by real scientists go unnoticed. The Court’s casual approach to the facts of sex offender re-offense rates is far more frightening than the rates themselves, and it’s high time for correction. Perhaps there’s now hope it may soon happen. 

Using fake numbers to gin up fear and disgust has real effects on real people, real families. Families are destroyed by those fake numbers.

Once again, we see the danger of a simplistic label applied by legislation to a very broad range of offenders. That label--and the fear and disgust that accompany it--encourage legislators to ignore offenders who could benefit from criminal justice reform with only a tiny risk to society.

The fear and disgust driving sex offender laws and regulation come from a phony number.

Ellman's article is a good introduction to reliable numbers derived from methodical research.

Educate your legislators.

driving public policy with personal grief

Reacting to events that happened to SOME as if those events happened to ALL is what has driven sex offender policy. News spreads instantly, details are broadcast endlessly. We are encouraged to react with the same outrage those close to terrible events must feel.

As unthinkably horrible as what happened to Megan Kanka, Adam Walsh, and Jacob Wetterling was, it was a bad idea to look at those individual events and write laws in reaction to them. Those laws would not have stopped the bad things from happening to those children--or to other children--but those laws continue to ruin lives and wreck families all across the country. And most of the laws wrecking lives and families are for crimes not even close to what happened to Megan, Adam, and Jacob.

So...Charleston. Maybe the guy shouldn't have had a gun...but let's not write gun laws as if we can stop the next awful shooting from happening. We won't. Maybe the guy hated black people...but let's not decide policy as if we can control what happens in people's hearts and minds. We can't.

Let's not leverage the grief of the affected community to further our own political aims.

knee-jerk response serves our sense of outrage, not victims

When people think of children who are victims of sex abuse, imaginations run wild and thoughts turn to the horrific stories we've heard. Criminal actions that are labeled sex abuse cover a wide range, though. Not all sex abuse--no matter how wrong--leaves the victims damaged for life.

Most child sex abuse is perpetrated by a family member or by a trusted friend or acquaintance, circumstances that must surely complicate family situations.

We often assume that the victims share the revulsion we feel toward the perpetrator but some victims know that the abuser is more than an abuser. Not all victims want the perpetrators to be removed from the family. Getting the abuse to stop would be enough.

If a child understands that exposing Dad's criminal behavior will result in Dad being removed from the family for years, the victim may be less likely to ask for help. If a child understands that telling someone about what happens at home will break up the family, the victim may be more likely to keep the dirty secret.

Not every victim, not every family, not every instance of child sex abuse is like this, of course, but we ought not ignore those victims who feel different from how we expect them to feel.

We don’t support or acknowledge victims grappling with shame, confusion, love for the perpetrator and guilt. We don’t want to view this through the eyes of children who are afraid they will break up their families if they take action to make the abuse to stop. 

We don’t want to accept the real human actors and emotions that accompany these situations; we seem only capable of labeling them as inhuman crimes committed by inhumane people. 

That label can also stick to the victim, a monumental injustice. When Grandpa is on the registry for abusing a child and when his crimes were already the subject of salacious news coverage, there is very little protection for the child who would rather not be known forever as Grandpa's victim.

Society has created an expectation that once someone has committed a sex offense he or she should be hated, but this attitude leaves little room for victims to come forward. 

Sometimes, a victim’s experience is, “I want the abuse to stop, I want the abuser to be accountable for his actions, but I care for this person, and I’m afraid people will try to make me hate him.”

Outrage on behalf of the victims can steamroll right over the child's needs. Authorities whose job it is to protect the child sometimes do not know the best course, no matter how sure they are. How can they, if they ignore the child's response to the situation?

Victims of sexual abuse need us to make room for their emotions, even when they include love, concern or confusion about the offender. Until we do, we are contributing to an environment that unintentionally silences them. 

Our outrage does not offer support to the many thousands of victims who love the person who has harmed them and simply want the abuse to stop.

Removing the abuser from the family may be necessary. Instead of knee-jerk reactions, though, careful consideration is due before destroying a family to protect a child--a child who needs that family.

for those who just landed in this pile of manure

You have a family member in trouble for something that the whole world hates and you cannot stop imagining what people would think when they find out.

Will they think you knew what was going on and that you let it happen? Will they expect you to abandon your family member because what he did is just too awful to deal with? Will your friends leave you? Will your family be angry with you?

When he comes home, your address will be on the registry. That thought makes it hard to breathe.

Will your children be safe? Will strangers target your house? How will your kids deal with the heartbreak of him going to prison? Can they visit him in prison? Do you want them to do that?

This is a frightening time. The justice system will ruthlessly remove any illusion that you can control the outcome and any illusion that the justice system has to do with justice. You are left waiting. Waiting in fear is excruciating.

The good part? You can get through this.

Yes, even years of visiting someone in prison, even stories in the news, even abandonment by someone you thought would stand with you, even your address on that registry.

Good people will help you through, if you let them. Your need is another person's opportunity to be a better person by helping you. Your helplessness is another person's call to be strong for you.

You may not realize that someone is watching and learning from you but you are an example of steadfastness for someone who needs your example. Walk with your head held high.

The world is full of good people. Be patient; you will find them.

elderly sex offenders to be turned away from nursing homes?

Iowa State Representative Helen Miller introduced a bill that would create a separate facility for elderly sex offenders who are turned away from private nursing homes and assisted living facilities because of their sex offender status.

“I don’t care how old they are,” Miller said. “You cannot turn them onto a population that cannot protect themselves in any shape or form.”

The idea of a loved one in a nursing home being abused sexually is heart-wrenching. Nursing home residents are vulnerable for many reasons--illness, weakness, dementia, unlocked doors to residents' rooms, inadequate staffing, poor management, among others.

Before we make generalizations based on the one case mentioned in the Omaha World-Herald article of an elderly resident being abused by another resident who was a sex offender, perhaps we should find out how often this happens. It goes without saying that even a single incident is unacceptable so we must protect residents from those who would abuse the elderly.

The first question ought to be, who does perpetrate sex abuse against elderly nursing home and assisted living residents? Are elderly sex offenders the biggest risk?

It seems not.

Very little research exists regarding perpetrator risk factors because commentators cannot agree on who are the most common perpetrators. One study found that the majority of perpetrators were nursing home employees, and that other residents abused only three in twenty victims. This finding reinforces the widely-held perception that most elder sexual abuse is committed by the people charged with the elder's care. In contrast, another study found that the most frequent perpetrators of sexual abuse in the institutional setting are other residents, rather than staff members.Perpetrators frequently suffer from untreated psychiatric conditions or abuse drugs or alcohol Ten to fifteen percent of nursing home employees abuse drugs or alcohol, which increases the likelihood of sexual abuse in nursing homes.

Nurse aides, who comprise the largest proportion of nursing home employees, not surprisingly are the most frequent perpetrators of abuse. However, these employees are not the only employees with access to residents. Laundry aides, security guards, and maintenance workers also have been accused of abuse.

While dementia and mental illness may make some elderly sex offenders dangerous, dementia and mental illness can make other elderly residents just as dangerous.

Turning away sex offenders who need care at a nursing home or an assisted living facility simply because of a conviction committed years if not decades earlier is cruel.

The first line of defense should be within the nursing home: better training for staff, locked doors to keep intruders out of residents' rooms, cameras in the hallways, improved caregiver-to-resident ratios, better pay for staff...all of these measures could help to reduce the incidence of abuse.

Until it is proven that sex offenders pose more risk than other nursing home residents, we should not write legislation as if they do.

Once again, imagining something does not make it real.

Once again, hysteria about sex offenders gets in the way of measures that would definitely improve community safety.

Legislators need to ask themselves what they are trying to do: Demonstrate their disgust for sex offenders or actually reduce sexual assaults in nursing homes?

will victims of child sexual abuse become abusers?

It is impossible to predict with certainty which convicted sex offender will reoffend after completing his or her sentence. Predicting which childhood circumstance or trauma will lead someone to commit a sex crime in adulthood is just as impossible.

From the abstract of a study published on the JAMA(Journal of the American Medical Assciation) Network:

The widespread belief that sexually abused children are uniquely at risk to become sex offenders was not supported by prospective empirical evidence. These new findings suggest that early intervention programs should target children with histories of physical abuse and neglect. They also indicate that existing policies and practices specifically directed at future risk for sex offending for sexually abused children may warrant reevaluation.

That widespread belief can be dangerous.

Not only do children of sex offenders have to endure knowing that a family member is listed on the registry, if those children are victims of the offender, the registry can expose them to the world as victims of sexual abuse. In some jurisdictions, the victim can be identified on the registry as "granddaughter" or "nephew", often enough information to identify the child. 

Imagine growing up having been sexually abused and living in a world that has a widespread belief that you will abuse a child yourself. 

Children who have been sexually abused deserve better than to live under suspicion and fear that they will be abusers themselves.

Via Families Affirming Community Safety (FACTS).

UPDATE:
This is exactly the kind of cruelty that children of registered citizens must endure.

The right of children to be free of the imaginary threat posed by a registered sex offender does not trump the right of other children--children of sex offenders--to have their parents freely take part in school activities with them.

ignoring prison rape

Anyone with a family member or friend in prison grows to hate the inevitable "don't drop the soap" joke. Jokes about prison rape are rife when discussing someone convicted of a sex crime.

The idea seems to be that someone in prison for a sex crime is so evil that it is acceptable for another inmate to commit a sex crime against him.

In this manner, rape is treated as a feature of our justice system when it happens to prisoners, rather than what it is: another grave crime.

Sexual assaults in prison are not only inmate on inmate. No, they too often include assaults by prison staff. In his article in The Week, Michael Brendan Dougherty quotes from Colorlines.com: 

Roughly 200,000 men, women, and children reported being sexually abused in detention facilities in 2011, the most recent year for which the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) has anonymously self-reported data from inmates.

If the jokesters are any indication, this is acceptable. Instead, let's recognize those jokes for what they really mean.

Acceptance of prison rape is a stinking corruption. No conception of justice can include plunging criminals into an anarchic world of sexual terror. And obviously it thwarts any possibility of a rehabilitative justice that aims to restore criminals to lawful society. Inmates are not improved or better integrated into society through physical and psychological torture.

Dougherty reminds us that what the government does to prisoners, it does in our name. In a moral world, that in itself is reason to work toward reducing prison populations. The larger the prison population is, the more we will see stinking corruption.

Prison rape ... vitiates any sense of retributive justice, since rape is not a proper punishment for a crime. Allowing prison rape is just a vindictive horror, and when accepted under the name of punishment makes criminals the victims of justice.

Prison inmates--save for a very few--are released back to society and we ought to want them to come back ready to be part of our society. Do our prisons prepare them for the return? 

Absent major and drastic reform of our prison system, however, the "lesson" our justice system teaches is not that crimes will be punished, but that getting caught may send you to unpredictable horrors; that our society's primary way of dealing with criminality is plunging you into more of it; and that the rod of the law comes in the form of supermax cruelty.

The statistics Dougherty uses show that prison rape is all too common. If it is, that is a problem that can be tackled with more oversight of and accountability for prisons.

How to solve the more insidious problem of people horrified by rape losing that sense of horror when it happens behind the razor wire? 

why we shouldn't prosecute the football hazers

In a tweet, Lenore Skenazy calls Judith Levine's piece in CounterPunch the "bravest, best article on Sayresville, NJ football hazers." 

Levine begins:

If it’s true that all seven of the football players arrested for hazing in the Sayreville, New Jersey, War Memorial High School locker room are students of color, that is one more reason not to prosecute them as sexual felons. 

I don’t mean not to prosecute them in adult court. I mean not to prosecute them at all. 

If they’re guilty, they should be disciplined by the school, kicked off the Bombers team, and held accountable to their victims by making amends in words and deeds. 

But the punishment the state will mete out far outweighs the transgression. For kids who are 15 to 17 years old, it will be life crushing. 

Yes, more life-crushing even than being punched, kicked, groped, or subject to an unwanted finger inching into your anus.

Why not prosecute them? Levine says research shows that blacks are over-represented on public sex offender registries. Twenty-two percent of those registrants are black, while blacks make up only 13% of Americans. 

In other words, the corrections agency psychologists and police deciding who is so sexually dangerous that his presence must be announced to the whole neighborhood, tend to think of black men as more dangerous than white. 

The Sayreville high school administrators seem to think the same. The Bombers, who surely did not start hazing new players last month or even last year, are 70 to 80 percent white.

If their race figured into the decision to prosecute these seven for doing what has been done for ages by white football players, the decision must be questioned.

The fact that these seven young men, if convicted, will be listed on the sex offender registry is another reason not to prosecute them, Levine says. The punishment will surely be out of proportion to the offense.

Megan’s Laws were supposed to protect children. But two decades of research show they don’t improve anyone’s safety, least of all children’s. In fact, it may be minors themselves who are harmed most by the laws put in place to safeguard them. 

The age of the greatest number of people involved in the criminal justice system for sex offenses is 14. Thank age-of-consent laws for that. Because the laws deem minors categorically incapable of consenting to sex, any sexual contact with a minor is considered an assault. Indeed, if the victim is a minor, sexual assault becomes “aggravated” sexual assault. Aggravated does not mean more sadistic or lengthy. It can just mean the “victim” of a touch or chat room conversation was 13. [My emphasis.]

Fourteen is also the age at which the federal government requires committers of certain sex crimes to be listed on the Internet registries. 

Fourteen. The federal government requires...that there be no room to make judgments specific to circumstances or individuals.

And in a nation already overflowing with prisoners both juvenile and adult, the vast majority of them black and brown, do we need to lock up more black and brown kids? 

The United States would benefit greatly from putting far fewer people of any color in prison. 

In its 2011 report “Raised on the Registry,” Human Rights Watch detailed the severe and lifelong harms of putting youth on sex offender registries, from chronic unemployment and homelessness to depression and suicide. HRW and other human rights advocates have condemned the incarceration and registration of minors as violations of their human rights.

Judith Levine will come under fire for writing this piece. She is brave.

a defense of John Grisham

Radley Balko steps in to remind us that John Grisham is not a lunatic who cares nothing for justice even though Grisham himself has apologized for his earlier statements about child pornography sentences.

Grisham's apology:

"Anyone who harms a child for profit or pleasure, or who in any way participates in child pornography -- online or otherwise -- should be punished to the fullest extent of the law," the author said in a statement. "My comments made two days ago during an interview with the British newspaper The Telegraph were in no way intended to show sympathy for those convicted of sex crimes, especially the sexual molestation of children. I can think of nothing more despicable. I regret having made these comments, and apologize to all."

Balko's defense of Grisham, which is a longer and much more thoughtful piece than my blog post: 

Grisham certainly could have chosen his words better. But he isn’t wrong, and the invective he’s receiving right now is both misinformed and wildly over the top. There are Twitter users calling him a pervert, or for his hometo be raided by the FBI. It isn’t all that different than suggesting that people who criticize the drug laws must be doing or selling drugs. [My emphasis.]

Take this quote out of context, and one could make Grisham look like he thinks the biggest problem with the criminal justice system is that old white guys are getting locked up for looking at child porn. But context is important. Grisham has spent a great deal of time, money, and influence advocating for criminal justice reform. He helped found the Mississippi Innocence Project, and sits on the board of directors for the Innocence Project in New York. He wrote a nonfiction book about a wrongful conviction, and helped another get published. He testified before Congress about the need for reforming the forensics system, addressing the problems he’s seen firsthand in Mississippi.

Balko's piece is heavy on the links because the information he presents about Grisham is important. Grisham has a history of being on the side of justice. 

The reality is that John Grisham has done far, far more to actually address racial bias in the criminal justice system than the self-righteous pundits mocking him have done or will likely ever do. But because he had the temerity to stick up for a friend — and a middle-aged white male friend at that — the rush is on to disregard all of Grisham’s prior work, exaggerate the indignation, and reduce the man to a caricature....

This dressing down of Grisham by Jessica Goldstein at ThinkProgress pieceis pretty typical. There’s no mention of Grisham’s criminal justice activism. Just a lot of scolding, belittling, and berating. Worse, much of it is factually inaccurate.

Balko goes on to point out several inaccuaracies and then takes issue with the usual arguments about child porn.

I don’t disagree that children depicted in child porn videos continue to experience harm as those videos are distributed. I’m also certain that viewing the ISIS beheadings causes trauma to the families of the victims. Yet I’m not ready to start putting people in prison who, for whatever reason, decided to watch those videos. I’m skeptical of the supply and demand argument, particularly when the suspect hasn’t bought or traded any porn. But even if it’s true that merely viewing child porn provides a market for more child porn, it’s also far from clear that harsh sentencing laws are the answer. We’ve been tossing people in prison for viewing child porn for decades now, yet both the United Nations and the Justice Department say that the online supply of child pornography is only growing. [My emphasis.]

Read all of the Balko piece; I covered only part of it. It will be worth your time. 

If only John Grisham had been better-prepared to argue what his good sense--and his sense of justice--knows to be true: Sentences for child porn offenses are too harsh.

child porn voodoo logic

State and federal courts hand down very different sentences for child pornography crimes. While state courts will hand down a sentence of probation, federal courts will send the defendant to prison for years for the very same crime.

Federal laws are tougher than state laws, but federal authorities say their limited resources allow them to go after only the worst of the worst.

My family and many other families waiting for someone to come home from federal prison would dispute that the feds go after only the worst of the worst. A man in possession of four images or twelve images or eight videos simply cannot be the worst of the worst. The feds go after the easy cases and child porn possession cases are easy.

An interesting research project would be to compare recidivism rates of child porn defendants sentenced by the state with those sentenced in federal court. If there is little difference (a safe bet), that should further the cause for reduced sentences.

...many cases end up in state court where sentences are lighter — which some prosecutors say can be appropriate for offenders who mostly need therapy.

 Makes sense. Why spend $25-30,000 to incarcerate someone for a year when lesser measures can have the same effect?

Others say the lack of mandatory sentences creates a system where the punishment does not fit the crime.

 Nope. Without mandatory sentences, the judge can hand down stringent sentences when necessary but mandatory sentences prevent the judge from giving a lesser sentence when appropriate. Mandatory sentencing laws get in the way of proportionate sentencing.

The article ends with a quote from someone who said,

"Child porn is not a victimless crime — and we need sentencing laws that recognize not only the severity of these crimes, but the suffering the victims endured,"

In the comments, Tiglath Philizar talks about "Child Porn Voodoo logic"--the idea that looking at child porn images can hurt the person represented in the image in the same way that sticking pins in a voodoo doll can cause damage to a real person nowhere nearby.

Think logically for just one minute. If front of me I have a voodoo doll I stick that voodoo doll with a pin and the person I curse is injured. Child Porn Voodoo logic; Someone possesses a photo of a child, in the form of 0′s and 1′s in a computer file. When s/he looks at the medium, the individual depicted in the photo, video or both gets victimized and hurt. While I can appreciate that actual creating CP victimizes children, I cannot agree that looking for, viewing, or collecting CP actually victimizes anyone. If you were to apply the same reasoning to any other crime, then looking at a photo of any crime would be re-victimizing someone.

If the argument is correct that the child in a pornographic image is victimized again when someone looks at the image, we should be able to extend that argument to other victims and other situations and yet no one suggests that possession of a photo of someone cruelly beaten with fists should be illegal because looking at the image will victimize that person again. No one seriously suggests we incarcerate those who downloaded the recently hacked naked photos of celebrities. Making the argument for anything other than child porn exposes the silliness of the argument.

Tiglath Philizar has his own example:

If the simple act of viewing an image of someone is harmful perhaps an appropriate punishment would be to simply take a photo of the perpetrator in jail, then set them free, but have some look at the photo that was taken while they were in jail; same logic.

That would be a change in sentencing policy I could get behind. 

The idea that someone looked at or possessed images of child pornography should concern us far less than the very real actions of someone who abuses a child sexually and records the abuse. 

"shock waves at city hall"

This story, about a city attorney getting caught for possession of child pornography, has been making the rounds. When I saw it on Facebook, it was heralded with, "Shock waves at city hall..."

Really? Shock waves??

We have been watching first-time offender after first-time offender get hauled off to prison for years because of child porn and now you are shocked? If anything, seeing it happen again and again and again--and rarely a repeat offender--should tell you it can happen to anyone.

How can anyone profess to be shocked when someone who looks at child porn as part of his job...looks at child porn? It has happened so frequently that we simply should not be shocked anymore.

how a congregation should respond to sex offenders among them

Yesterday, I congratulated The Lutheran for publishing Same Table, an article that talked about sex offenders in church. Its loving attitude and efforts to dispel myths about sex offenders were like the smell of bread fresh from the oven. Comforting. Promising something wonderful at the table.

The article linked to some suggested resources for churches trying to decide what to do about registered sex offenders. Heaven help the sex offenders!

Perhaps now that The Lutheran has made it known that...

1. "public perception of the risk of repeat sexual offenses [is] much higher than it is"

and

2. "offender registries and notification systems have little to no effect on recidivism rates and may, in some cases, increase the risk they will commit future sex crimes"

...the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) can rethink the "help" they offer congregations.

In a document titled Legal Resources: Responding to Sex Offenders in a Congregation, the ELCA says,

Numerous studies in recent years point to an extremely low likelihood that pedophiles can or will change. Without extensive professional treatment, virtually all child sexual offenders will re-offend. Repentance, prayer and pastoral support can be crucial elements when combined with life-long treatment, but, in themselves, they offer little hope of changing the behavior of perpetrators.

Let's begin with the casual use of that frightful word, pedophiles. Most sex offenders are not pedophiles, not even those who offend against children. Most pedophiles are not sex offenders. Pedophile is a word meant to frighten you.

As for that hopelessly grim statement, virtually all child sexual offenders will re-offend, see #1 above. The recidivism rate of sex offenders is extremely low.

The ELCA document continues:

A convicted sex offender who wishes to be part of a church community, whether one he or she has attended for some time or a new one, should expect to have conditions placed upon his or her participation. This can best be done through the development of a written covenant, signed by the offender and by church officials, preferably by both the pastor and the chairperson of the Church Council (or other administrative body of the church).

The covenant should begin with a clear statement of the role of the church as "sanctuary," with appropriate Biblical reference(s).

There's more but this is the point where I started laughing. The role of the church as sanctuary? Not for sex offenders! Sex offenders should expect to have conditions placed upon his or her participation. Forgiveness? Pfft.

The appropriate Biblical references in this case are meant to warn the sex offender that the need for sanctuary for people who are uncomfortable with former sex offenders trumps the need for sanctuary for the sex offender who wants spiritual nourishment.

Surely there must be some appropriate Biblical references about forgiveness and mercy that could guide a congregation in welcoming a sex offender. Maybe something like this:

Ephesians 4:32 - And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

Back to the covenant that sex offenders must sign:

As part of your growth and penitence, you shall prepare and deliver written acknowledgments and apologies for the pain caused directly or indirectly by your actions. At the very least, you shall address these statements to your victims, their families, your own family and the members and supporters of this church. (Requests for forgiveness shall not be included). This will become part of an open letter to the congregation, informing them of your presence and of the conditions of your participation.

My, that's quite stern. I am trying to imagine the effect on children in the congregation. I am trying to imagine the effect on the family of the sex offender in the congregation.

Another condition for the covenant:

You may not use restroom facilities in the church buildings.

Welcome to church; stay away from the coffee.

Yesterday, I stood on my well-worn soapbox and was gently pulled down by someone reminding me that other people do have stories that make them fearful -- someone betrayed by a financial advisor, someone whose family suffered a murder, for example. Some fear they could be victims of another crime.

Members of the congregation who have been convicted of non-sexual crimes such as assault or fraud -- possibly leaving someone critically injured or leaving a family in dire financial straits -- those convicts can come to church with no covenant demands. They can even use the restroom.

Crimes and the effects of those crimes fall in a wide range. Some sex offenders perpetrated a violent rape; some touched no one. Some assaults don't do serious injury; some leave the victim in a vegetative state.

After serving their sentences, some criminals are allowed to continue with their lives without public self flagellation; some are seen as needing only a quick stop at the restroom to return to wicked ways.

The reason so much attention is on sex offenders is that there is a list of them. Once there is a list, the fear seems justified. They must be dangerous if the law requires them to register!

How to square this cold, demanding document with the compassionate Same Table article? At first, I assumed the document was very old but no, it was last modified November 2013. Better information was easily available at that time. I hope the ELCA realizes the disconnect between the myth-based covenant and the recent fact-based article and moves to update the document with better information and with more attention to the role of the Church in the world.

When I found Ephesians 4:32, I also ran across this:

John 3:16 - For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

God gave his Son and the ELCA is putting conditions on space at the table?

This helpful document suggests that some in the congregation can partake of the Bread.
Some are allowed only to smell it.

a church welcomes registered sex offenders

In its July 2014 issue, Lutheran magazine published an excellent article by Ryan P. Cumming about a church that welcomes sex offenders.

After months of preparation and prayer, Redeemer held its first adults-only worship service at 4 p.m. Easter Sunday, welcoming 20 visitors, all registered sex offenders.

Paul (last name withheld upon request) was one of them. He hadn’t been to church for eight years and didn’t expect to go for another eight, when his parole would end. But a friend who attended Redeemer handed him a flier for the adults-only service.

“I didn’t think I’d be able to go back again until I got done with probation,” Paul said. “This church doesn’t judge. They accepted the fact that some of us had gotten into trouble and were learning from our bad decisions. A young man told his story and it struck home with me. … We had communion, which was awesome. I actually felt a sense of peace come over me. This makes me feel much better about life.”

Former offenders in church! A good thing, but why adults-only?

Ministry among registered offenders is particularly difficult. Many offenders can’t be in places where children gather.

Some former offenders are not allowed to attend worship services even with their own families. This article makes only glancing reference to families of sex offenders, profiling an offender who seems not to have one. Offenders do have families -- children, spouses, parents, in-laws, siblings, grandchildren -- families who welcome the offender back into their lives. It seems particularly cruel to withhold the experience of worshipping with family from someone who has paid his debt to society.

In addition, the stigma following [sex offenders] can be turned against congregations that would welcome all—including offenders. A primary concern for Hayden is that Redeemer could “be targeted” for backlash from its community.

Rightfully so, say many. Churches are supposed to be welcoming but also safe places where members can trust one another and where adults and children are protected from harm. In a 2010 survey, Christianity Today found that nearly half of respondents would oppose allowing a registered offender to serve in a ministry in their congregation. For many in the church, the risk of re-offending is too high.

But researchers have found public perception of the risk of repeat sexual offenses to be much higher than it is, especially when the specific characteristics of a crime are taken into account. In a 2010 study for the Justice Department, researchers from the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, found that offender registries and notification systems have little to no effect on recidivism rates and may, in some cases, increase the risk they will commit future sex crimes. [My emphasis.]

The registries isolate former offenders at a time when a strong social network is a way for them to stay on a good course. Places of worship have traditionally been a particularly fine way to build that support network. Hard to do when attendance is prohibited by probation and parole officers, and harder when the congregation fears repeat sex offenses that research shows are unlikely.

If more places of worship follow the example set by this church, the rewards will be much greater than the perceived risks.

The transformation hasn’t been limited to former offenders. As plans for the service developed, a woman approached Hayden and said: “I hear you’re having this alternative service. I’m a victim of a sex offender. But I’m going to come, because I feel like I can be healed there, because we’re all going to be at the same table together.”

Kudos to The Lutheran for daring to publish a piece promoting the inclusion of sex offenders in church services. 

Disney World, running amok with perverts; or, reading between the lines

Theme park employees from Disney, Universal Studios and SeaWorld caught in sex stings, the headline says.

Thirty-five Disney employees arrested in sex stings since 2006, that is. Thirty-five arrested over a period of nine years. Thirty-five out of 300,000 employees during those nine years.

Thirty-two of the 35 have been convicted. Well, of course they have! The other three cases will almost certainly end with a conviction, too. The article does not tell us how many of these people went to trial though I imagine the number is close to zero. Most prosecutions--not only for sex offenses--end with plea agreements.

A justice system where the prosecution never has to prove its case is no justice system at all.

The article provides details about some cases. In one case, a man was found in possession of illegal images that included "multiple scenes of nude prepubescent children engaging in sexual activity with adults and other children". For other cases, the illegal images are described only as "child porn."

Why the difference? I have a sneaking suspicion that some cases have more interesting, more shocking details than others. It simply isn't shocking to hear that someone was in possession of video that a teenager made of himself and uploaded himself. News media doesn't like to explain that the legal definition of child porn also includes images of teenagers, made by teenagers. When people hear about child porn, they assume it means images of small children being raped. What news outlet, hungry for advertising dollars, wants to get in the way of audience imaginings that will bring them back for followup articles?

Some of the arrests were of men who met a kid online and eventually tried to meet in person for sex. Where do you suppose these men were hanging out online that they met kids eager for sex? Nickelodeon? PBS Kids?

Let's think. If the men had been trolling websites meant for children, what reporter would fail to lead with that detail? Look at the headline above: It doesn't leave it at theme park employees; it says Disney, Universal Studios and Sea World. If the websites had been those intended for children, the headline would have included that juicy tidbit. But it doesn't and that tidbit doesn't show up in the article, either. We are probably safe in assuming that the men were using adult websites.

But what children hang out on adult websites looking for sex? As it turns out, it seems there weren't any children looking for sex. There were only law enforcement officers pretending to be children. Is it possible that some cases did involve real children? Let's go back to the question about what news outlets would like to include in their stories. If an actual child isn't mentioned in the story, it is safe to say there were no actual children involved.

So: we have men spending time on websites meant for adults, in conversation with adults pretending to be children. Who starts those conversations? Who brings up the possibility of sex? If the pretend child introduces the idea of sex, that is very different from an adult approaching children in a chat room for children and asking for sex. The reporter does not tell us who introduced the idea of sex with the minors.

Now that Disney has been named in a headline as an employer of sex offenders, what does Disney have to say about it?

In a statement to CNN, Disney spokeswoman Jacquee Wahler said, “Providing a safe environment for children and families is a responsibility we take very seriously. We have extensive measures in place, including pre-employment and ongoing criminal background checks and computer monitoring and firewalls. 

Background checks, hey? If that means the kind of background check that would have exposed a job applicant as a registered sex offender...that must mean that none of these 35 were registered sex offenders. Once again, we see that arrests for sex offenses most often are of those who are not on the registry. Once again, we see that the registry protects no one.

“The numbers reported by CNN represent one one-hundredth of one percent of the 300,000 people we have employed during this time period. We continue to work closely with law enforcement and organizations like the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children as we constantly strengthen our efforts.”

Huh. Now that Disney has been named in a headline as an employer of sex offenders, they have no choice but to cooperate with law enforcement. Imagine the headlines if they did anything else.

What is said in a news article can be interesting. What is not said can be even more interesting.

so much judgment about the Willow Smith/Moises Arias photo...with so little cause

Recently, a photo of a 13-year-old girl and a 20-year-old man went viral and stirred up controversy because of the age difference between the two. The girl is Willow Smith, daughter of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith; the young man is Moises Arias, an actor and friend of the Smith family. In the photo, the two are on a bed. He is shirtless, sitting up. She is lying across the bed. The two are not touching.

Michel Martin, of the NPR program Tell Me More, talked to a few people about the photo. You can see the photo at the link.

Leslie Morgan Steiner, author of The Baby Chase: How Surrogacy Is Transforming the American Family, said:

But he's 20 and she's 13. And I tell you, my parenting head would explode if my 15-year-old daughter or my 12-year-old daughter were found in a bed anywhere, anytime with a shirtless 20-year-old man. And if I discovered my 17-year-old son with a girl six years younger, I would be beyond furious.

Phil Lerman, author of Dadditude: How a Real Man Became a Real Dad, said:

If you're OK with your kid, at 13 years old, lying around on a bed with a 20-year-old guy, then God bless you and good luck to you. We have so many stories on "America's Most Wanted," thousands of stories of child molesters and pedophiles. Stories that started out with - it seemed like such an innocent relationship.

So there you have the Chicken Little reactions to the photo. A 13-year-old is lying on the same bed that a 20-year-old shirtless man is sitting on. There is no context given for the photo, no way to guess what was going on before or after the photo was taken...and yet Steiner says her head would explode and the photo makes Lerman think of child molesters and pedophiles. 

My own reaction to the photo? I don't understand why there was a fuss at all about the photo. I do not think that a man without a shirt means sex. I do not think that a young girl next to an older man means sex. I do not think that the photo is evidence of anything untoward. If I were there and I knew what really was going on, perhaps I might be more (or less!) exercised about it.

Jada Pinkett-Smith, Willow's mother, said something we should all listen to:

There was nothing sexual about that picture or that situation. You guys are projecting your trash onto it. And you're acting like covert pedophiles and that's not cool.

I love her recognition that the people making a fuss are the ones thinking about sex when they see the 13-year-old.

Definitely not cool.