posted 05-18-2007 10:33 AM         

[This message has been edited by stat (edited 05-18-2007).]

[This message has been edited by stat (edited 05-18-2007).]

posted 05-18-2007 11:15 AM            

It was more fun observing as you danced on the tables at the anti-site.

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I think your right to think ahead about the longer-term social and systemic impacts.

Your state has closed-door meetings? That may be part of the problem. Publicly funded meetings in public facilities are necessarily open door in this state, unless the meeting pertains to protected information regarding an individual. Not saying we've got anything figured out.

In our haste to feel good about ourselves as citizens or professionals, or please our constituents as politicians, we sometimes loose track of the big picture.

Some jurisdictions prohibit sex offender from living in child-safe zones (nearly everywhere in town). So we're all supposed to feel safer with a bunch of homeless sex offenders sleeping in their cars on the edge of town - stressed, isolated, angry, depressed, whatever... - its just a dirty trick of nature that their penis works so well to relieve (temporarily) all that dysphoria.

We know from data, they are safer when connected in functional relationships and functional support systems - structure serves many of them well.

Problem is they don't always know it and sometimes rebel against structure and authority - psychologists sometimes call that spike-4 - because their common elevations on scale 4 of the MMPI. 94/49 profiles are common) among sexual and other types of offenders. 9 is mania. 4 is called psychopathic deviate - but its an arcane mis-use of the term 'psychopathic' (polygraph examiners aren't the only one's who make stuff up). 4 is really about anti-social problems - only the MMPI does depend as heavily on criminal behavior to define that, compared with DSM-IV-TR. So many people are spike-4 who are not psychopathic or criminal - they just have authority problems and fight structure - then they get involved in thrill-seeking and self-medicating behaviors and what we got ourselves is a social nuisance, a pariah.

Some of those people with authority issues are not dumb, and not without resources. They also tend to think for themselves, so they sometimes notice when we miss the point.

That is our vulnerability.

Funny, but years ago the struggle was to get people to take sex abuse seriously and not just sweep in under the rug or into the closet. Many victims of abuse tell use they would not report the abuse if they had to do it again, and would not report another abuse.

I tend to think we will prevail, as long as we don't forget the lessons from Kafka's penal colony and Zimbardo's experiment = it doesn't make us better or others safer/heathier to treat them badly.

r

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"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the war room."
--(Stanley Kubrick/Peter Sellers - Dr. Strangelove, 1964)

posted 05-18-2007 12:06 PM            

I've wondered about the connection between Mennonites and Amish - don't know much about those things. This guy seems to be vocal about restorative justice ideas.

RJ is really a foreign language to a lot of folks who are steeped in adversarial mental models of justice - in which somebody wins and somebody loses. RJ seeks win-win at all possible opportunities.

They sometimes rub me the wrong way, due to what I perceive as sometimes attending to the restoration of relationship over the potential for revictimization. Remember Kissinger's win-win story of the frog and the scorpion.

I don't think they are wrong, but I do think there is a need for a lot more dialog and understanding of both the importance of restoration (which is sometimes equated with forgiveness - and that seems a little troublesome at times) and the need for accountability and safety.

Fay Honey-Knopp was an early vocal advocate for the need for sex offender accountability. She was also a forerunner in the area of restorative justice dialog, and her work is well known among RJ circles, which also seems to be populated by Amish, Mennonite, and Friends. She was also one of the inspirtional forces behind Greig Veeder and named his treatment program here in Colorado - Teaching Humane Existence - (THE) http://www.about-the.org

It is the only non-profit (adult) sex offender treatment program in Colorado.

Greig's SOCR program has a been jokingly termed Veederville, and has a definite Kafkaesque tinge to it.

r

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"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the war room."
--(Stanley Kubrick/Peter Sellers - Dr. Strangelove, 1964)

posted 05-18-2007 12:48 PM            

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"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the war room."
--(Stanley Kubrick/Peter Sellers - Dr. Strangelove, 1964)

posted 05-18-2007 01:05 PM            

AP&P is now stating only a certain number of SO's can live in a certain apartment complex (due to Legislative concerns) - once the max is met - they deny the offender from living there. It is problematic for SO's to find any Apt building that will allow them to reside in their dwelling. Due to the prohibited areas, financial concerns and fair treatment - I see law suits coming from this decision. If they don't allow them to live in Section A that costs $300 a month and the SO has to live in Section B that costs $500 a month - is the state going to have to pay the difference?

posted 05-18-2007 01:43 PM            

quote:

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There was some talk a few years ago about closing all the SO Community Correctional Centers and have the SO's due their time at the prison and then release to the streets.

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This seems to be a constant argument. Its unlikely to go away, so we might as well look forward to the opportunity to educate others through dialog.

There is always the moralistic outraged voice that says: 'why don't they just do their whole time in prison.'

And then, we have to contend with the eventual release from prison - unless we are truly prepared to incarcerate every offender forever.

So, our choice seems to be whether we want:

1. A structured and supervised release and adjustment to the community, with mental health counseling, psychiatric services, lifetstyle structure, and assistance in creating a functional and informed support system that care about both the offender and the safety of the community.

   or

2. An unsupervised release - just bounce the fruit-loop off the end of the DOC conveyor belt with no assurance of an informed support system, no structure, no accountability (other than the registry - whoopey), and no-one looking over the guy's shoulder as he's suddenly left to his internal coping skills to contend with numerous adjustments - living, working, financial, friends, associations, romances, addictions.
   

Its no great mystery that people's pathology tends to come out during periods of stress, and that adjustment/change are stressful - especially when we stack up numerous transitions at once. Normal resilient (non-pathological folks) handle this just fine - just look at a college or high school campus, and you will see the period transition of time, place, task, association, leadership, and stimulation - all at once, over and over throughout the day.

Anyone who has spent any time in an institution (working I mean), knows that less resilient folks don't handle multiple or numerous transitions well. It is axiomatic in group and social theory that people perceive a decrease in structure (increase in chaos) during periods of transition - political, social and otherwise. Fragile people fall apart, opportunistic people take advantage, and all forms of pathological coping will become more apparent.

Problems in schools don't generally happen during class, but in between classes. The potential for chaos in any institution is greatest during a transition.

If you want a safe institution - structure transitions carefully, and stagger them. Take them one element at a time. Don't assume that pathological (criminal or mental health) people can walk and chew gum at once. Don't schedule shift changes during the transition to dinner - duh!

Its also no great mystery that sex offenders tend to mis-use sexual behavior to remmediate non-sexual needs like stress, frustration, loneliness, boredom, recreation, ego-enhancement, sport, empowerment (power and control), and the (ineffective) resolution or acting out of misogynistic or hyper-masculine attitudes, and, I suppose, the occasional acting out of old trauma.

Is it any wonder they can't hold it together?

Why would we expect that they can learn to manage money, schedule and structure their own time, pick the right friends and associates, have fun (because nobody sits around bored for long), and manage their addictions all at once, while looking for a home and a job - all while managing a sometimes intense sense of shame about their personhood, along with sometimes intense resentments surrounding the consequences and reactions when others learned of their past behaviors.

This seems like a no-brainer to me.

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"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the war room."
--(Stanley Kubrick/Peter Sellers - Dr. Strangelove, 1964)

posted 05-18-2007 03:01 PM         

I would like some feedback on the article. The center's story would make a great movie---it's got the daring helicopter escape, knife fights, gay and guard-on-resident sex (hot!), and a weeks long outdoor sit-in protest (koom bye ya.)

posted 05-18-2007 10:05 PM         

As a citizen, with children and grand children, I don't want a sex offender anywhere near them. As a Law Enforcement Officer, I want them in prison. As a polygraph examiner, I want them in treatment. That is reality.

posted 05-18-2007 11:59 PM         

Great post Bill. I tend to agree, but such SO allowances are fast becoming extinct.Despite all of the research into how safe neighborhoods are next to prisons, people will either need to be bribed to allow one built near them, or the municipalities will declare imminent domain. Education has its limitations over even reasonable folks.

Bill: "You also educate the public regarding sex offenders"

This can backfire in so many ways, don't you think? If I educated a neighborhood about 25 miles away that they have a 46 year old male who, until a few months ago we now know he has a thirst for 3-7 year old little girls urine for consumption. I don't know about you all, but I'm seeing alot of bizarre paraphilias----many of which I assumed years ago to be quite rare. I won't be educating the ladies at the PTA rally about that animal. Hell, they still don't describe the true nature of many offenses in newspapers. Even when you remind the public that the vast majority of sex offenses are committed by known.....----they still want to be scared. I see my wife under blanket watching those awful A&E crime shows---she, and tens of millions of others, like to be scared and paranoid.

Bill: "You remove those offenders considered predatory from access to children for life."

I wish.I don't believe that the present risk models mixed with polygraph are in enough agreement. I mean shoot, we all know that self reporting is often times laughable, and consequently, the risk models (VASOR, STATIC 99, MNSOST-R) are immutable (they are only a snap shot of any given reporting period) Additionally, we can't spend 3 weeks interrogating these people---although I have been known to run a 9 day pretest (kidding). The most popular risk assessment of reoffense used to date(IMO) is the SONAR ---a test which looks at "Acute Dynamic Risk Factors"---tests which look at substance abuse history, mood,anger issues, hair style etc. If I sound a little sarcastic here, it's on purpose. These tools, even combined are ultimately (italics) based on self-reporting by the Offender---even polygraph is similar for that matter to be precise via admissions. If we only had the elusive panacea(s). Is he an Uncle Woody, or a Monster, or Both?

OK, so with all of my negativity said, the next obvious conclusion I make is that maybe we should banish sex offenders from society until that elusive panacea becomes a reality (if ever.)
The next conclusion I come to, as result of banishment, is a drastic decline (I'd guess 75-85%) in convictions of sex offenders due to family and friend's of the perp being resistant to the legal system's sentence for a sex crime as being a lifetime of slavery, misery, and hoplessness.

[This message has been edited by stat (edited 05-19-2007).]

[This message has been edited by stat (edited 05-19-2007).]

posted 05-19-2007 10:54 AM         

Bill, you were right. I used too much babble. What I tried to say was that the way that the shrinks determine how risky a feller is--you know, all those oral and written tests and (like athletes) "handicapping them" to see how risky they are is well, not all that super.Even polygraph doesn't exactly distinguish the difference between the less awfull "Uncle Woodys', and the really high risk "Michael Jacksons."

posted 05-22-2007 11:24 AM            

Several months ago I intended some motivational interview training inside a correctional facility here in Oklahoma where I had the opportunity to interview several convicts. 3 were inside on second offense sex crimes. 2 of these guys had decided to forgo the parole process and "Time Out" their sentences so they didn't have to "Put up with all the supervision Bull $#!+" .
(meaning of course having a P.O., attending treatment, polygraph, GPS monitoring and other inconveniences.) For this category, the only handle the State will have on them are Sex Offender registration and statutory residence restrictions. If we lose these limited controls the only way we will clue to a re-offense is victim reporting. At least they know somebody is watching.

I am not so naive as to believe that P.O.s, Treatment, GPS, Registration, polygraph or residence restrictions are an absolute guarentee against re-offense, but I am a believer that they are effective in combination and that something is better that nothing. I have little sympathy for an individual who cries that our laws make it impossible for them to live in our community, when it was HIS/HER choice that led to their defacto banishment. Whose fault is it that they are social outcasts? If we can't keep them in jail we have to do everything we can to deter re-offense through treatment and monitoring. I am willing to accept, for the sake of discussion that residence restrictions may not be the best solution or even a part of the best solution, but I believe that it is a necessary PART of the solution until somebody comes up with something better.

On the tongue in cheek side WINK WINK Since Oklahoma sits astride Tornado Alley, I have a plan to purchase 25-30 mobile homes and build a trailer park about 15 miles outside of town renting exclusively to convicted Sex Offenders. This would not only provide housing outside restricted areas, but serve as a "Tornado Decoy" to keep the storms from hitting our town. (We all know how tornados love trailer parks) If a Tornado did destroy SMUTTY ACRES PERV PARK well..... Corrections keeps turning them loose and I can always buy more trailers.

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Ex scientia veritas