Forgot to mention this in my first post. But another concern of mine is his mental state. My son is Bi-Polar. He was when he was young. After a while he stopped taking his medication. Now he admits he is feeling the effects of the Bi-Polar depression. He also has asthma which causes him to have to "cough up a lot". Will these two things have an affect on the actual test?

crimson wrote on Feb 11^th, 2002 at 11:59am:


At first blush one would think so. Unfortunately for your son, he does not enjoy the same rights as the average citizen. The fact that he is on probation puts him in a sort of limbo between the legal definition of a citizen and the legal definition of an imprisoned convict. 

The special conditions of his probation, along with the almost god-like power his PO has over him, results in no clear definition of rights that he may assert. There is certainly no 'bright line' over which his PO may not tread (within reason, of course.) For example, his PO could not suddenly decide that you must place a huge sign on your front yard that reads 'sex offender lives here' or otherwise punitive, malicious order. Think of his PO as the hammer, the enforcer of the court's order. They are totally humourless, tin gods, and overwhelmingly callous when it comes to respecting the rights of their probationees. They are extremely disinclined to be swayed on any matter of importance with regard to post conviction treatment, polygraphs included.

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Are you saying he's a liscensed sex offender treatment provider? Would he be the one providing 'therapy' to your son? If so, how much is he charging?

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Not necessarily. The fact that he did not answer could also mean that there are no legal repurcussions, but he is trying to uphold the fear factor that there are repurcussions so that the trepidation over taking the polygraph will be greater.

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Read this link carefully. Since I don't know the particulars of your son's conviction I can't comment on whether or not he must pass, but I suspect a passed polygraph is part of the 'graduation' process.

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He must. It's the only way to be certain. If your son is a minor I would explore your legal rights to be with him during these meetings, as well as your rights to seek alternative counseling from private practitioners. Keep us posted,

BT

Before I go on I would like to thank everyone for thier replies to my concerns. Even though not much could help my son not have to do this the information allowed him to be "better" prepared for the test.

Even though i did not want him to have to use the counter-measures I ended up going thru them with him to help him get thru this. After all the preparation and everything he was still nervous. And the examiner caught him very off guard.

Instead of going thru the procedures described in the Lie behind the polygraph. They asked him one control question. " Are you a residence of the United States" and then 10 revelant questions. and the test was done. He said he was so nervous during the test that after the first few questions and no other "control question" it caught him off guard. He got nervous and that was that. 

My son isnt a minor he is 21. When he was 19 he was dating and later got a 16 year old pregnant. They eventually moved in together and were together for two years. Well when they first got together i quess they decided to get foolish with a digital camera and took some explicited pictures of themselves. When they broke up her parents found out about the pictures ( she was worried about him spreading them around and wanted her parents to talk to us about getting them deleted). Her parents talked to us about it. We told them we would do what we could but actually the whole thing was between our son and thier daughter and they would eventually have to " talk about it". Well instead of waiting for one of us to get something done about it. They contacted the police department. She was 16 (a minor) our son was an (legal adult). They couldnt get him on staturatory rape because of the age being within legal guidelines but they could get him for Exploitation of a minor thru basically Child Porn. so they came in took the computer and charged him with this. They charged him with 10 counts of this. 1 count per every 4 pictures they found of her. He eventually pleaded quilty to 5 counts. 5 year deferred sentence and 2 years probation. They charged him with the least possible crime that involved sexual offense. All sexual offenses in iowa are at least an aggravated misdeanor or in almost all cases felonies. His charges were serious misdeanors. Well when he started the SOTP program they basically told him " we know you have more offenses" So basically all that came of the polygraph test was he telling the truth that during his adult life he had no other "offenses" but he was lying about his childhood. 

They never actually told him which ones he failed but during the after test interrogation they only drilled him about his childhood. so thats all he "assumes" he failed at. Could this all be another ploy to tell them more even if he passed? do they actually have to tell him if he passed or not? He asked specific questions about the test but they basically ignored him.

Thanks again for your time.

Sexual Exploitation of a minor thru visual representation in the state of iowa means any pictures of a minor 18 or younger.