Thursday, September 26, 2013

Legislators Meet to Discuss Failures in Sexually Violent Predator Program.

LAKE MONROE, FLORIDA – September 25, 2013

This week in Tallahassee, legislators are meeting to discuss failures in the Civil Commitment program for Sexually Violent Predators and in Sex Offender Management. The meetings are being held in response to a Sun-Sentinel series which found individuals who could (and arguably should) have been held under civil commitment, but went on to commit heinous crimes.

The meetings highlighted the need to apply proven tools, such as risk assessments to distinguish between high and low risk offenders and then apply safeguards appropriately so that cases don’t fall through the cracks.We all agree that the systems we have in place right now are not working. Instead of piling on more ineffective laws to an already bloated and failing system, we need to examine what is and what is not effective, listen to the psychological experts, review the studies and apply resources being wasted on what is not working towards programs that are.

For example; significant probation resources are being misspent on registrant housing in light of residency restrictions. Despite the fact that studies have consistently shown that residency restrictions have no impact on public safety and may, in fact, increase risk by destabilizing former offenders, residency ordinances continue to be passed. If legislators actually wanted to improve public safety, efforts would be applied elsewhere.

The other problem is that the net has been cast far too broadly. Resources applied to low risk offenders who are extremely unlikely to reoffend are detracting from those who require enhanced supervision and are truly dangerous. Someone who had a consensual relationship with a slightly underage partner or who is a first-time, non-contact offender, should not be listed alongside a child molester with an extensive criminal history, or subject to the same restrictions - but they are.

What became apparent in listening to the meetings was that “sex offender”, “predator” and “sexually violent predator” were used interchangeably and that the legislature does not have a full understanding that we are talking about completely different classifications of individuals with different risk levels that require different levels of supervision.

The final expert to testify before the Senate committee yesterday was Dr. Robin J. Wilson, a researcher, educator, and board certified clinical psychologist who has worked with persons with sexual and social behavior problems in hospital, correctional, and private practice settings for more than 30 years. He suggested; “we need to go back to the risk principle. Those people who are at the highest risk require the highest intervention. Those people who are at the lowest risk probably don’t require a lot and they certainly don’t require all the best stuff that we have.” 

“When we institute law, we need to be mindful of this,” Dr. Wilson cautioned, “we are going to spend an awful lot of time over-supervising people who probably don’t need that level, perhaps at the risk of not having enough time or resources for those who do.”

Florida Action Committee (FAC), founded in 2006, is a state-wide consortium of concerned citizens and professionals whose purpose is to promote the prevention of sexual abuse while preserving the safety and dignity of all citizens through carefully structured laws targeting the truly violent, forced, and/or dangerous predatory acts of sex. FAC believes that many aspects of the current approach to sex offenders seriously undermine justice and actually increase the threat of sexual assault against others, particularly children. FAC opposes a publicized registry of sex offenders and seeks to bring an end to the humiliation of people who have already paid for their crimes. FAC asserts that only by supporting justice for all people—offenders and victims alike can a truly safe society be built and secured for all Americans.
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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.”
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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.”