Sunday, June 19, 2011

Sex Offenders Pursuing Healing In Adversity (SOPHIA)

Sex Offenders Pursuing Healing In Adversity (SOPHIA)
September 2006 Newsletter
By: Derek Logue a.k.a. “The Fallen One”
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Greetings, everyone! This is the inaugural SOPHIA newsletter! I have been working on forming SOPHIA for quite some time in cooperation with those most responsible for my  rehabilitation as well as agencies dedicated to the rehabilitation of all sex offenders. I wish to extend my thanks to all my colleagues in the Bullock County correctional Facility in Union Springs, Alabama, as well as those I have worked with since my days as a poster on www.sexcriminals.com, especially Scarlet. Now onto business.

Getting Started

Sophia was the Greek goddess of wisdom, which is fitting since knowledge is the key to rehabilitation. While not the first to teach methods of rehabilitation, SOPHIA is intended for sex offenders who wish to pursue a path of rehabilitation and who also desire a closer relationship with their higher power. Though I am a Catholic, I wish to make SOPHIA accessible to all walks of faith and encourage those of faiths not of my own to share the teachings of their respective faiths as it relates to the issues we all face as sex offenders. By doing so I wish to make SOPHIA unique among all the current programs that currently work with sex offenders. Also, I am calling upon those with artistic talents to design a suitable logo for the organization.

What The Future Holds

I recently read the “Report on Safety Issues Raised by living Arrangements for and location of Sex Offenders in the Community,” a study published in December 2004 by the Colorado Department of Public Safety Sex Offender Management Board. In light of the recent popularity of sex offender residency and proximity/anti-loitering laws, the study made some interesting conclusions:

1. “Shared living arrangements (SLA) appear to be a frequently successful mode of containment and treatment for higher risk offenders and should be considered avaliable living situation for higher risk sex offenders living in the community.” in otherwords, sex offenders do a good job of policing each other, just as it was in my Sex Offenders Anonymous courses and meetings during my incarceration.

2. “Placing restrictions on the location of correctionaly supervised sex offender residences may not deter the sex offender from re-offending and should not be considered as a method to control sexual offending recidivism.” Proximity to schools or other locations have no effect on recidivism rates. Later in the report the researchers noted that it had contacted four states (Alabama, Florida, Illinois, and Oregon) about their residency laws; none of the states passed their laws based on any scientific research.

3. “Efforts should be made to ensure that the sex offender’s support in the home is positive in order to aid in his or her treatment.” The main emphasis in the study is the fact that a support network is crucial to successful sex offender rehabilitation.

The point is while there is not a shortage of organizations and programs dealing with sexual issues, there is currently few formal organization geared towards dealing with the issues which we sex offenders deal with internally AND externally. There are few “SLA” homes as presented in the Colorado study. The grand vision of SOPHIS includes these SLA homes. The main factor in recidivism is instability in life and notably, a lack of support   Network. Thus I see pushing for creation of SLA homes on a grand scale to be integral to our efforts at a new life, or as we said in SOA, “No more victims.” I am presenting this and other research to the mayor of Cincinnati on September 12th. In addition, I am also doing another presentation to a church on September 7th regarding starting a group home. There are about 2 homeless sex offenders in Cincinnati, but I am hoping to change that.

Legal Battles

In the meantime, I am currently fighting the constitutionality of the sex offender residency restrictions. In Iowa, Oklahoma, Georgia, and Massachusetts, there have been temporary injunctions against enforcing these laws. The Iowa case makes the SECOND time a sex offender won a challenge to the laws. My next hearing is Friday the 8th. I am fighting to stay in my current residence. Hopefully soon I will be able to send you some good news. I will keep tabs on the legal battles in the other states as well as my own. Those with internet access can find a comprehensive listing of articles, legal cases, and statistics at   www.geocities.com/eadvocate and click the tab that reads News and Noteworthy: Articles Concerning Sex Offender Issues.

Next issue: Housing and Employment
Questions/ Comments can be sent to:
Derek Logue PO Box 141050 Cincinnati Ohio 45250
at
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"When an American says that he loves his country, he means not only that he loves the New England hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains, and the sea. He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which a man can draw the breath of self-respect."
~Adlia Stevenson U.S. Vice President (1893–1897) and Congressman (1879–1881)

On a Personal Note

Thanks for the opportunity to express my thoughts regarding the issue of citizens’ rights, particularly addressing certain sex offenders’ crimes that do not fit the devastating, inequitable and endless punishment given.


As you know, many young men and women lives across the nation are being destroyed by incarceration, life-time registry and restrictive laws that do more harm than good. For those individuals, there is no second chance.

Below is a personal letter to President Obama:
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“Dear President Obama,

I truly agree with your sentiments that individuals, such as ex-felons, should be able to receive a second chance at life. Since we all know that one can veer off that path of life and travel along rough, rocky terrain, sometimes running off and ending up in some ditch. We all have made our fill of mistakes and sometimes those held a costly consequence that changed life forever. So we lived through it, trying harder to make things right with family, friends and those around us, but what about those who aren’t able to make things right even if they tried…because they’re labeled as too dirty, a leper, a person who is rejected from society and home.

But what if they’re a seventeen year old and had sex with a fifteen year old, consensual at that? Or they’re a teen that had gotten so enraged after a breakup that he sent out naked pictures of his girlfriend on his cell phone or email? Or an individual urinates where someone just happens to see them?

All are wrong and a travesty but do they deserve the life of no second chance with a registry that ends all. They are labeled, no jobs, no where to live…they have been deemed a menace to society, a plague. These certain circumstances, and many other situations similar to these, I believe still deserve a second change.

Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

After my son’s early release and two years of prison, I thought I had handled that fact graciously knowing after serving his time he would be able to get that fresh start, that second chance. He was an exemplary inmate, GED, college courses and vocational classes. Little did I know that a second chance on the outside was the farthest from the truth? He now struggles and lives in a trailer park sharing a trailer with another and surrounded by others in the same rocking boat, one to float endlessly in shark infested waters. I see him little because of probation requirements (he couldn’t live with us because we were 800 feet near a school). My family is afraid of what would happen to them if he lived with them…vigilantism. My son has no other place to stay since others condemn him of his crime that is screamed from the highest rooftop. Sex offender, sex offender!

Not all sex offenders are pedophiles or predators but some are simply young kids that make one stupid and rash decision that eventually changes everything, and they have no idea what they’ve done until their life is never their own. Exactly, where is that second chance for those sex-offenders who are lumped together with pedophiles and predators? Now, it makes me sick to think of my son’s future and many like him that are on the registry and many with no second chance…ever. I am asking you as a mother and as another concerned citizen of the United States that these laws are looked at again and taken into serious consideration in what they are doing to the Constitution of the United States, not for sex offenders in general but the future rights of every citizen, before anymore are put into effect. They unjustly strip an offender of their rights and place them in a guillotine that can be easily set off by anyone and at anytime. Where is the second chance for ex-sex offenders in the present, pending and future laws?”
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What truly saddens me is the weakness and deterioration of what the sex offense issue is doing to our once, great nation. Across Europe, others are seeing the injustice and disregard of rights, but we ignore this problem and it makes me wonder where humanity is heading….

We have become a hysterical society in which our latest witch-hunt is a sex offender--no matter his/her crime.

Below is a email sent from a foreign advocate to a father of a sex offender:
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“The tragic story of your son's death is just so sad that it's difficult to explain how. It was very hard to read your letters. It seems almost unbelievable that this can take place in a democracy! From our point of view, there is no justice in this. Not in any way: not for you, your son, the former girl friend – or even the state.

It is an abusive legal system. It seems barbaric. And we are so very sorry that this takes place. That's why it's so important for us to try to neutralize the debate with this…, hopefully making some changes. ….. to show the every day life of the sex offenders, trying to show how they keep on being punished, even after served prison time…..But we will for sure tell the story of the injustice that your son has been exposed to.”
* * * *
I appreciate everyone's commitment and backing to protect everyone's civil rights, plainly as noted in the Constitution of the United States and is presupposed, giving ALL men are “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.”