Wednesday, April 25, 2012

The Forgotten Children


          I have always avoided the thought of children being molested.  My imagination is too good, and if I think about it, really think about it, I get sick to my stomach.  I find myself in the place of the little child, trusting, helpless, brutalized and raped by an animal that looks like a person.  It takes me to a very dark place where rage and sadness blend.  It makes me despair for the human race.  If I ever thought about the sex offender registry it was to be grateful that all the hopelessly insane, violent pedophiles were being closely monitored.
          What happened to my son and writing this blog has forced me to think about all this whether I wanted to or not.  It has also required that I do some research.  This is how I learned that the majority of people on the registry are there for nonviolent offenses, that among those who actually did molested a child, the recidivism rate is quite low and some will respond to therapy, that many of the genuine child predators are not adequately monitored and many others nowhere to be found.
           But I also found out something more.  In a study done in 2009 by the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) they estimated that 1,770 children died that year from abuse and/or neglect.  These are the percentages: 35.8% neglect, 23.2% physical abuse, 1.8% medical neglect, and 0.4% sexual assault.  80% of those that died were under four years of age.  46% were one year old or younger.
           I do not remember any national headlines that read: “Five Children Died Today From Abuse and Neglect!”.  Nor do I recall seeing their names in the papers or their photos on the evening news.  It is certain their parents did not clamor for preventive laws, named for their dead children.  The parents were the ones usually responsible.  But does that make the deaths of these children any less real?  Is their pain, sometimes going on for years, less significant than the children who suffer for hours or days?.  Is the reason we do not hear about this because we would have to hear about it almost every day?  No.  The reason these children dying goes unnoticed is because their deaths can not be turned to a profit.
           “Sex Sells”.  It sells newspapers.  It sells air time.  It sells politicians.  We hear about the few horrendous abductions with sexual assault and murder because that is what sells.  We do not hear about the many more deaths from slow starvation or battered-child syndrome because that does not sell.  It is that simple.

Friday, April 20, 2012

The Road to Hell


          I contend that our current laws dealing with sex offenders, far from protecting our children, actually brings about what they were written to prevent.  They endanger children’s lives.
          One reason for this is that the rolls are cluttered with non-violent offenders and those not fixated on children.  All of them must be monitored, and with every state financially stretched, that means fewer people to handle an every increasing work load.  It is inevitable that some violent pedophiles will slip through.  It also makes it that much harder for the general public to determine where the real dangers lie.
          Another reason is that offenders who deeply regret their action and want very much to reform, are discouraged from doing so by these very laws.  Their chances for employment are nonexistent.  They are forced to live in areas where crime is the norm.  In every way they are indoctrinated into believing they are scum sex offenders and that that is all they will ever be.  If all hope is taken from these people, no one should be surprised at the very few who do reoffend.
          Lastly, these laws give a false sense of security.  If people check the data base and find no sex offenders living in their area they may conclude that their children are safe.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  There are plenty of child predators out there who have never been caught or have yet to claim their first victim; and the ones who are registered are not like a dangerous intersection or an open manhole—they move around.  They could be anywhere.  Ironically, the only people on the registry who care about complying with the multitude of restrictions are the ones who are law abiding and not a danger.
          I understand people’s rage and need to do something when these terrible crimes against children occur.  They feel helpless and threatened.  On a much lower level, they just plain want revenge.  But shaming and circumscribing every sex offender is only going to make things worse.  We need to concentrate all our efforts in researching what causes these people to become monsters and keeping track of those who are.
          The complete saying that gave this post its title is: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”.

Monday, April 16, 2012

With What Judgment


            Judging others is my besetting sin, and I do it for the worst of all possible reasons: because God has given me uncountable blessings all through my life.  This has not made me humbly as grateful as it should.  I am ashamed to say that it has made me look down on people who are less fortunate.  How crazy is that?  As if I did anything to deserve God’s goodness.  I am constantly battling this tendency in myself, constantly asking God's forgiveness for the times I fail.
But this inclination to condemnation goes far beyond my own personal journey of faith.  Nor is it just one of the countless sins wiped away by Christ’s sacrifice.  It is nothing less than a cancer in the heart of the Body of Christ.
Jesus stated the one sin that could never be forgiven: the sin against the Holy Spirit (Matthew 18:36).  Exactly what that is has been hotly debated ever since there have been Bible scholars. Now, I am no theologian or scholar, but I have read and studied the scriptures all my life, and I think that sin is the habitual judging of others.  Not the judgment that comes unbidden and which we instantly regret.  As I said above, I am one of the worst of those offenders.  I believe that  that sin becomes unforgivable when we refuse to acknowledge it as a sin, when we revel in it rather than fight against it.
There are several references in the Bible that back me up. First, when Jesus spoke of the unpardonable sin, it was in response to the Pharisees judgment of Him.  Second, Christ warned us that with what judgment we judged, we would be judged (Matthew 7: 1& 2).  Third, He told the story of the servant whose lord canceled his great debt and how that servant refused to cancel the tiny amount a fellow-servant owed him, with the result that the servant’s lord “delivered him to the tormentors till he should pay all that was due unto him”.  Then Jesus warned: ‘So shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not everyone his brother’s trespasses” (Matthew 19:23-36).  This he said to his disciples, not the crowds. This he says to us Christians.  Lastly, there is the scariest reference of all.  In the Lord’s Prayer it clearly states: "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive".
My son is a dedicated Christian.  Being caught in his sin was all the punishment he required.  He repented and asked for God’s forgiveness.  He is forgiven.  If anyone who follows Christ now condemns him, they are setting themselves above God.  
Many people, including myself, are saddened by the great number of Christian churches closing and that those still hanging on have so few worshipers.  I would like to hazard a guess as to why.  I think the reason for the Body of Christ withering away can be found in Revelation 2:4: “because thou hast left thy first love”. We are no longer showing the love of Christ to a broken world.  We judge, shun, and exclude: we shoot our wounded.  Jesus could  just as well say: Verily I say unto you, That the felons and registered sex offenders go into the kingdom of God before you.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Christian Pharisees



When I asked my son’s lawyer why the Oklahoma lawmakers “bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne” on registered sex offenders, he told me it was because we are “the buckle on the Bible belt.”  This only added to my grief.
I once was proud of that title (the operative word being “proud”).  I thought that it meant Christians in Oklahoma knew the scriptures inside and out, followed the example of Our Lord, and were more loving and caring than others; but even before my son’s trouble I came to realize that was not the case.  Though we may read our Bibles and attend our churches, for many of us the love of Christ is lacking.  Not to say we do not love, we do, but only if the person is worthy.
What could be farther from what Jesus taught?  He was called a friend of sinners.  He said we were to love our neighbors as ourselves, even if that neighbor was a despised Samaritan.  He came as a physician for the sick, not the well.
His harshest rebukes were for the most dedicated, God fearing people of that day.  Their whole lives revolved around keeping the Law and worship.  They avoided the slightest hint of sin.  Even their name means “separated ones”.  Yet Jesus called them “whited sepulchers” and “a generation of vipers”, said their father was the devil.  Why?  Because their’s was a religion of judgment.  They kept the rules and all those who did not were accursed of God.  Perfect people have no tolerance for the imperfect.  Self-righteous leaves no room for love.
But none of us are without sin.  Yehiel Dinur, a survivor of Auschwitz, had that lesson brought home to him when he walked into a Nuremburg courtroom and faced the Nazi war criminal, Adolf Eichmann.  The experience caused him to faint in the witness box, and not, as he later explained, because of loathing or remembered  atrocities.  It was because he saw a man, just a man, and not a devil. He saw what most of us close our eyes to, that within himself, within all of us, is the capability to do great evil.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Life in No-Mans-Land


        Life in the trenches of World War I was ghastly.  Rain turned them into miles-long troughs of mud in which whole armies huddled.  The threat of bombardments and snipers filled every waking moment.  Short rations and long watches wore down the mind and body. paving the way for disease.  But as bad as it was, life in no-mans-land was far worse.  Out there the solider ceased to be a man and became only a target.  Exposed, with only the occasional shell-hole for refuge, any move could be their last.  Invisible walls, consisting of fields of fire and land mines, marked the difference between life and death.  Fear was just another name for life.
My son and I have discovered that life in the no-mans-land of the registered sex offender is much the same.  There, you are no longer a man, you are the enemy.  There, only certain places are safe.  Make your home within the invisible wall of two thousand feet from a school, park, or day care, and someone comes and throws you into prison—no trial, no appeal.  Stand around within the other wall of five hundred feet, or cross the one that marks three hundred feet, and the end is the same.
In this battle ground as well, the rations are short and the watches long because no one wants to hire a RSO.  It also has its snipers and land mines: malicious people who consider the ROC subhuman and go out of their way to cause them grief or trick them into some violation.  Fear becomes another name for life.
I have felt this fear for my son.  I have felt the callous disregard and enmity directed toward him.  A man who never harmed another soul is pined down in a thirty-year bombardment by the laws of the United States and the state of Oklahoma.   

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Let the registration fit the crime.

  Before all this began, I was like most people.  If I had heard the term: “registered sex offender”, I would have assumed that a child had been violated.  That is not the case.  People are being labeled RSO for crimes that in no way involved children, people who would never, in their worst nightmare, harm a child.  If a homeless person relieves himself and is witnessed, he must register as a sex offender.  If a man watching a woman do a pole dance so much as reaches out and touches her, he must register as a sex offender.  Even if a person’s offense did not involve another human being, he must register as a sex offender.  Everyone of those “streakers” of a few years back would be forced to register as a sex offender.
There is a man known to us who was accused of abusing his two children as a ploy in his wife’s divorce suit.  After she won her settlement and married her lawyer, his children recanted their testimony.  It made no difference.  He is still listed in the registry.  
As for the people on the registry who actually harmed another person, it is the same for them as for anyone who commits a crime: either they are sorry for what they did, or they are without remorse; either they want to rebuild their lives on better lines, or they want to continue doing harm to others and themselves.  There are ways to tell which are which.  Yet in the black and black world of the RSO, both groups are treated exactly the same.  Those who are trying to reform have every conceivable obstacle placed in their paths.  They are systematically driven back to the way of life that was the breeding ground for their original offense.  Why should they even try to fight their inner demons when the chorus of the world relentlessly drums into them that they are the demons?  
The other outcome is that they are driven to despair.  This gives sociologists and psychiatric associations an excellent opportunity to study the effects of oppression on the physical and mental health of a large group of subjects: registered sex offenders and their families.  They should at least be interested in the incidence of suicide.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

The Beginning of Sorrows

     The nightmare continues. The sentencing is past. Between one day and the next, my son was labeled a sex offender. It did not matter that what he did in many states is a misdemeanor, and in many more, not even thatin Oklahoma it is a felony. It did not matter that the only person harmed was himself, that the incident happened years ago and was not repeated, that until then his worst offense was a speeding ticket.  What mattered was that the charge pertained to the three-letter word: “sex”. 
In the beginning, the Asst. D.A. gave us hope for leniency. Considering that his career and reputation were destroyed, he had paid enough. Then the press got a hold of it. They lifted that one act out of the context of his life, because it is easier to report a fact than a person.  After that, everything was infected with politics. Both the judge and D.A. are thinking of reelection and no one wants to appear soft on crime, especially crimes that have anything to do with the three-letter word. My son was transformed from a human being, to a column inch. to an example.
     As for the judge, he did his job with the cold, detached efficiency of a machine, if a machine could be said to be arrogant. Yes, I understand the customary groveling is supposed to show the respect due his office, but it only shows fear, and breeds hubris. He has forgotten that he is but a man with all the weaknesses and inclinations to sin as the rest of us. When my son’s lawyer explained that his client’s home, wife, therapist, and support group were in another state, and requested he be allowed to return to them under D.A. supervision, the judge denied it out of pure malice. It could be nothing else, for what judge anywhere would not want to rid his state of convicted felons?  
     Now my son has begun his thirty year exile in the mine field of restrictions that is the Sexual Registration Act. We will visit him and the others in that hell in my future posts. For now it is enough to say that the lawmakers have done just about everything they can to shame, hound, and isolate these people.  All that is lacking is for them to be required to bare the tattoo “RSO” on their foreheads. Who knows, maybe that very requirement is pending in some legislature somewhere.
  If they would have allowed me, I would have gladly registered in his place. But then, if the law allowed that sort of thing, the prisons would be filled with the mothers and fathers, wives and husbands, brothers and sisters of the convicted.  It would be a world where people thought twice about committing crimes, knowing that someone they loved would take there punishment. But that is not the way the world works. That is the way God works.