I Love a Sex Offender

Why are abused children not interesting enough?

noreply@blogger.com (Shana Rowan) — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 22:12:00 +0000

Some of you may have read this story already, but if not, here's the summary: Last month in Dayton, Texas, 11 children were found to be living in deplorable conditions after a CPS visit. The children ranged in age from 5 months to 11 years, and some were found restrained to their beds. There were also several adults living in the home, none of whom seemed to think the arrangement was inappropriate. Doesn't sound familiar? Let me help you. CHILDREN FOUND TIED UP IN SEX OFFENDER'S HOME!!! Now it rings a bell, right?

When I first read this story yesterday, I was immediately suspicious, as the article I read made no mention of the sex offender being a suspect or having been arrested. So why was his criminal background in the headline? Furthermore, the article provided his name, but not the names of any of the other adults living in the home. It also included his charge, which was sexual contact with a 15-year-old girl.

After five minutes of "research", I had discovered the following:

The man was 19 or 20 years old at the time of his conviction, and there was no mention of force or coercion in the description of his crime.
The man DID NOT own the house. He is the son of the caretaker of the house.
He is NOT a suspect.

According to Google, there are 370 reports with this headline, which appears to have originated from the Associated Press. Many of the articles I read were exactly the same, word for word. Very few headlines don't contain some sort of mention of "sex offender", and most of them insinuate the home is his.

If this is not sensationalist reporting at its best, I don't know what is. No one is interested, of course - I've yet to receive a SINGLE response from any of the papers I contacted about it. I'm just amazed that I seem to be one of the few outraged by this. It's far from the first time an article like this has been published and it certainly won't be the last, but it doesn't cease to infuriate me. Not just from the perspective of someone fighting for sex crime legislation reform, but also from a human decency point of view. Why is it that the horrific conditions these children were living in are not enough on their own to make a decent headline? Are we that jaded that this has become uninteresting? Whatever the reason, arbitrarily throwing in the term "sex offender" to a title is doing a disservice to TRUE victims and instances of sex crime.

Whomever hurt these children, based on the information we're provided with, needs some help - no question there. They will hopefully be prosecuted and sentenced fairly for their actions. But unlike the registrant who is probably kicking himself for choosing to live in this house, once their sentence is up - it's up. They can easily pack up and move to some other place, and probably won't have much difficulty doing the same thing, if they are so inclined. The registrant whose criminal background is now a national headline cannot. Even if he had no part or knowledge in the treatment of those children, his name is in every paper across the country - and no one cares.

While snide people may say, "why should we care about a sex offender?" it's not just about the man's right to live a normal life, 15 years after his crime. It is the fact that we are apparently more interested in shaming someone with a certain label than we are in determining who is actually responsible. It is a sad day when exploiting children to punish sex offenders is an acceptable practice.

In the same vein as what I mentioned above, consider the message of the graphic below:

When living in your car is the best option

noreply@blogger.com (Shana Rowan) — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 21:10:00 +0000

G and I moved north to Madison, NY in August 2010. It was a somewhat harried move that was the result of uncertainty surrounding G's employment. He was working as the only mechanic at a shop run by an aging Vietnam war veteran who was slowly losing his faculties. G was overworked and taken advantage of by the man, who was in serious debt to parts manufacturers and the government for back taxes. He had a habit of taking on far more work than the shop was capable of, and not billing any of the customers. G was terrified that the shop would close down without warning and he would be left without an income, leaving him unable to pay for housing, which would eventually lead to him being forced back to jail. Because he is a sex offender, he is required to have a legal address - without one, he is considered "non-compliant" and in violation of the law.

G had a friend he had met in a facility in upstate New York that was specifically for juvenile and young adult sex offenders. He and his family shared a property that consisted of a house, several acres and a pole barn that had been crudely renovated to have running water, electricity and heat. It was in the pole barn - which was essentially one large room - that G's friend, his two parents, and their four dogs lived. In the house lived the older brother, his wife, and three children. The story I was told at the time was that the older brother owned the property and there were issues between him and the parents, which was why they were paying rent to live in the pole barn. They were eventually planning to relocate to Tennessee.

After a few weeks of conversing back and forth, G and his friend, S, had worked out an arrangement: in exchange for reduced rent, G would do part-time mechanic work for S's brother, J, who owned the property. J was also fairly certain he knew of a local company that was looking for mechanics and wouldn't have an issue with G's past. S's parents would be moved out of the pole barn by the beginning of August, and S let us have the only bedroom. The promise of steady work and cheap rent was all we needed to make our decision - on August 20, 2010, I worked my last day as an executive assistant and office manager at a construction company in Westchester, loaded up my Saab convertible as much as I could, and made the five hour drive to Madison.

The first couple of weeks sharing a pole barn with G and his friend S were good - fun, even. S worked the overnight shift at a donut factory and G and I had great fun staying up until 3 AM just to play silly pranks on him when he walked in the door after work. The three of us drove around aimlessly in G's lifted Chevy, exploring the area and looking for places to go four-wheeling. It was a long summer and remained warm until late October, which meant my '72 Nova became the primary mode of transportation for hitting the drive-through or late-night alcohol runs. For a little while, it seemed like the three of us had been given the opportunity to re-live the years of our young lives we had lost: G and S to prison, and me to mental illness and an abusive husband.

Sadly, the fun was short-lived. Quickly, money issues arose between S and myself - I had spent several hundred dollars on groceries for the three of us, and not only was I never paid back, but personal items of mine were used. Suddenly, the cost of certain utilities became our responsibility, even though that wasn't part of the original plan. S accused us of "throwing him out" of the bedroom. J was refusing to pay G for work he had done weeks earlier, and money became extremely tight. Then, S decided to invite a fourth person to move in to the already crowded pole barn, without asking us, and without charging her rent. It was a girl he had met at the donut factory 3 days earlier.

Things rapidly went from awkward to exceedingly uncomfortable. In part of an attempt to communicate his anger with us for using the bedroom, S moved his queen-size bed into the kitchen. Any time G or I wanted to cook dinner, go to the bathroom, or do anything outside the bedroom, we had to walk past S and his girlfriend in bed. Sometimes, S would leave the house and his girlfriend would stay in bed for the entire day, watching videos on Youtube. When she did get out of bed, it was only to be locked in the bathroom for hours. She spoke very little English and rarely acknowledged our presence. G and I began spending every second in our bedroom, even opting to go to the bathroom outside at night rather than to risk "walking in" on S and his girlfriend. I bought a lock to put on our bedroom door and kept everything of value in there. I had a very bad feeling about the circumstances, but we didn't have the money to go anywhere else. G had a good relationship with the boss at his other part-time job, but it wasn't enough money to cover everything we needed. We desperately needed the money J refused to pay.

One night G and I were laying in bed, getting ready to go to sleep. All of a sudden we heard - and felt - doors opening and slamming on the wall directly on the other side of where our heads were. We could hear three distinct male voices and footsteps. Part of the pole barn was still a garage, but the room on the other side of our bedroom was a gun locker. J had an extensive collection of weapons and had been in trouble before for possessing and firing assault rifles. It was J, S, and someone else raiding the gun locker, and they were not trying to be quiet about it.

Immediately, I ran over to the door that opened into that part of the garage and locked it. We continued to listen, trying to make out their conversation. After a few minutes we heard, "I'd love to shoot that asshole and his bitch." Then more rifling around, and then, "but this would only bruise him up...this would kill him." The three of them then shut the gun locker and exited the garage, but only to walk around the other side of the pole barn and enter through the front door. G and I quietly moved over to the bedroom door and tried to figure out what they were doing. This time, they didn't speak at all. They just walked around the kitchen, racking their shotguns. After a few minutes, they shut the lights off, and it sounded like they walked out.

I was trying to pretend I hadn't just heard what I heard - G, on the other hand, had morphed into survival mode. I asked him if he thought we should leave, half-seriously, hoping he would tell me not to worry about it. Instead, he replied, "put this on," he said, handing me one of his black sweatshirts. "When you get outside, get on your stomach and stay low. Get in the Blazer and put it in neutral. I'll be right behind you, and I'll push the car down the driveway. Cut the wheel to the left when we get to the road and I'll hop in."

He said all of this calmly, as if he had done it many times before, and began gathering things from around the room and putting them into a bag. He barely even looked at me as he continued, "we'll need to stop somewhere and get some simple carbs, in case we need to stay awake." I stood watching him for most of the time, amazed at his calm methodology and terrified out of my mind that when we opened the door, they would be waiting. After a few minutes, he had gathered a small survival pack and it was time to head out the door. I was practically in tears.

It felt like it took hours for me to cross that driveway, and I can't recall another time in my life when I felt so much terror for more than a few brief seconds. I slid into the driver's seat as G came around the side of the car and began to push. As we reached the end of the driveway, I slid over as he hopped in - and floored it. I asked him where he was going and he wasn't sure. We didn't know the area well and especially not at night. About an hour later, after stopping at a 24 hour grocery store and purchasing some candy ("simple carbs"), we pulled onto a sparsely populated side road that had a generous shoulder, shut the car off and attempted to fall asleep. Even though the seats folded down, it was less than amenable. Regardless, we woke up in the morning alive and unbothered, albeit very cold and stiff.

Neither of us wanted to go back to J's. In fact, I was so scared, I did not even want to go back and get our things - which included two lizards and the majority of both our possessions. But aside from that, we did not even have a place to PUT said things - nor were we well financially equipped to afford one. In the midst of deciding how to figure out our housing situation, we were also left to deal with the immediate situation on hand - where to sleep. I wasn't going to spend another night with my head against a gun locker, but I also didn't want to wake up on the side of the road and barely able to walk, either. And so, an incredible concept was born: could the futon mattress we were using as a bed fit in the back of my car? Once we found out that it did - to the inch, and that the plastic moulding in the back of the car was a suspiciously perfect location for the alarm clock - living in the car took on a whole different meaning.

Now that my life wasn't in immediate danger, I recalled that there was a Park 'n Ride off of Route 20 several miles from J's property. At night, it was abandoned, empty, and surprisingly quiet. We backed the Blazer up as far underneath the treeline as possible and enjoyed a surprisingly comfortable stay - that is, until the night we were rudely awoken by a policeman shining his flashlight into the window. Upon opening the door, he asked us if either of us had a criminal record, and G was forced to reveal he was a sex offender. Then he asked us if we had any weapons (there was a bread knife in the driver's door pocket I had grabbed just in case), and then he told us that we had to leave.

After he left and we were on the road, we realized we had no idea where we were going. At a loss, I pulled onto the Thruway. I didn't even know which direction we were going, just that there had to be somewhere for us to stay where we wouldn't be noticed. I kept thinking about all the stories and movies that talk about people living in cars. How do they do it without getting tickets and asked to leave? This is a quandary that clearly, not many people have to actually think through in their lives. And then, it was there: the bright, welcoming lights of the Oneida Service Area off the Thruway East.

As soon as we pulled into the parking lot, we noticed the "No Overnight Parking" sign. At this point, however, we had no choice. G's boss at his part-time job would have let us stay with him, but the law said we can't, since he had young children. We couldn't afford a hotel, and neither of us felt safe at J's. We were both scared of retribution if we got the police involved, so this seemed like the best option. We pulled into the furthest parking space, hung sweatshirts over the windows from the drycleaning hooks in the car to block out the lights, and did our best to let the sounds of semis pulling on and off throughout the night act as the ocean waves or crickets had in earlier times.

With the futon mattress setup we had, our sleeping arrangements were surprisingly comfortable. It wasn't cramped, and the late summer kept the temperature above 40 most nights. We used old fast-food cups for toilets overnight, rather than walking across the parking lot, and brushed our teeth in the rest-stop bathrooms. In the morning, we paid our .10 toll at the Westmoreland exit, and I dropped him off at work. Then I drove to Utica, where my job was, and picked him up when I was done, around 7 PM. We would share a McDonald's dinner in the car and go to sleep.

During the day I would look for apartments, and soon, I found one we could afford. Unfortunately, it wasn't ready yet and wouldn't be until the middle of October. I emptied out the last of my dwindling savings to pay for the security deposit and first and last month's rent, and there was little we could do at that point but wait. It became harder and harder to do so with each day - one morning, I stopped by our bedroom to gather some things, and found that our room had been broken into, our clothes strewn all over the room. A few days later, I got a frantic call from G that during the day, J had entered our room, taken down the door that led to the garage, and put up a wall. On other occasions when we stopped by to feed the lizards or get a change of clothes, things would be missing - a tool of G's, the lease to our new apartment, etc. On the day we were able to move in to the apartment, we moved EVERYTHING - it required several trips back and forth. When we got back for the second load, the electricity was shut off. When we got back for the third load, the entire building smelled like gas. At that moment, I became aware of the fact that I would gladly live in my car as long as I needed if it meant I didn't have to spend another second at the hands of this psycho.

The apartment we moved into wasn't much better - it was so cold, you could feel the wind blowing through the windows. The largest heater in the house, an electric baseboard heater in the living room, nearly sparked a fire when it blew a fuse and then ceased to work. Our bedroom was the size of a closet and our landlord was a scumbag. Still, it was safe, and our neighbors on the other side of the wall weren't harboring fantasies of murdering us. Neither of us ever feel 100% safe anywhere, but it was a step up from before.

G and I survived the brutal winter in that apartment and the weeks in my car for one reason: strength. Alright, maybe some others: devotion, determination, and love. There are few people in the world I can think of who would happily live in a car with me at the Oneida Service Area for two weeks; G is one of them. And not only was he happy, he made me happy as well. Those weeks kept me extremely close to the most important things in my life and away from much else, as living in a small confined space will do. Having survived that experience with G and everything else that happened before and since then strengthens what I already know: he is the only one I want to share the rest of my life with, and I would do all of it again if it was the only way to get where we are now. No law or threat is enough to keep me from the person I love, and now that I've lived through it, there's nothing they can throw at us that won't make my love and resolve even stronger.

Hurting some kids to protect other kids is protecting no one.

noreply@blogger.com (Shana Rowan) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 22:00:00 +0000

In the wake of Virginia's TWENTY-ONE TO ZERO decision to require children who have been convicted of "sex crimes" to register as sex offenders - and face the same devastating restrictions and public scrutiny as someone who has committed a violent, forcible sexual act - I am reaching a new level of appreciation for some people's capacity for ignorance.

Of course, this ruling is mainly a result of Virginia's decision to become compliant with the Adam Walsh Act, a federal law that threatens states with drastic funding cuts if they refuse. Thankfully, my home state of New York found the costs to implement the measures to comply with the AWA far outweighed the amount of funding that would be lost, and rejected it. But this does nothing to help the child offenders of Virginia, or the various other states that do and may eventually support the AWA.

I have made it clear in the past that I do not support sex crime of any kind, and again, want to assert that I do not support or condone them. However, the definition of "sex crime" has become so watered down and all inclusive that this term does not necessarily describe a violent or sexual crime against a child, a woman, or even a crime that is sexually motivated; it does not mean that the perpetrator is an adult. Thanks to laws such as this one, "sex crime" can also mean consensual adolescent behavior. A "sex offender" is nearly as likely to be a teenager as they are to be an adult.

Teenagers being forced to register as sex offenders has gained some attention over the past few years. Some people seem willing to accept that teenagers exchanging nude photos and engaging in sexual behavior is not equal to a sex crime; others still cling to widely varying ages of consent throughout the country as though they are gospel. But did you know that you don't have to be a teenager to be accused or charged? In early January, two 10-year-old special needs boys were charged with sexually assaulting an 8-year-old special needs student in Texas. Think that's bad? In California, a six-year-old boy was accused of sexually assaulting a classmate during a game of tag when he "brushed against his groin".

Even in the case of a teenager or child who does something unusual or even forcible, we are still talking about children, not adults. Opposition to the bill in VA and others like it beg lawmakers to heed the numerous studies that have shown extremely low recidivism rates for child offenders - even lower than adult sex offenders, whose re-offense rates are lower than every other crime except murder. Mental health experts explain to lawmakers that the brains of children continue to develop after they've committed their "crime", as they have not yet reached adulthood. It's ironic - we can accept the fact that children are not adults when it comes to punishing child molestation, child pornography and statutory rape - but not when the children are also the offenders. Why?

The National Alliance of Mental Illness asserts that millions of children in our country suffer from a mental illness, and that half of all lifetime disorders begin by age 14. This list, populated by American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, gives us a very general idea of the types of disorders considered mental illnesses. Take a look at the list, and I bet you will know a child - whether it's yours, someone else's, or one that you've heard about - who has one of these mental illnesses. Should these children be treated as though they are adults, too? Should their names be on a list, accessible by "concerned parents" who would don't want their children around someone who isn't perfect or "normal"? Perhaps there should be a list of all children who have a physical disorder, disability or disease in case some parents don't want their kids to play together. Or, heck, why not a list of all children who have a criminal past? Have used drugs? Have set things on fire? Shoplifted? After all, considering sex offender recidivism is lower than other criminal acts, that seems to be the path we are headed on. And it's all in the name of protecting children.

I know that most people reading this aren't the ones who support laws like the one that passed in Virginia, and will understand that the sentences above are sarcastic. Of you, I ask: tell one person you think might believe those lists are a good idea why they aren't. Ask them if their child has ever made a mistake, and if they value their right to discipline and teach and react as they see fit. Do whatever you can to show them how harmful this narrow thinking is. The public holds the key to a world where children truly can be children and they and their parents both can feel safe doing so.

Ending sex crime through awareness, prevention and education

noreply@blogger.com (Shana Rowan) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 22:48:00 +0000

Upon collaboration with several passionate and intelligent minds, I present to you the title of this post, which also has an acronym - ESCAPE - and is the name of my newest endeavor in my crusade to end the way our society legislates and teaches about sex crime. For the moment, it's just a page on Facebook (which you are MORE than welcomed and encouraged to "like", HERE). However, I have big plans for this group. I'm hoping to use this approach, which calls for legislation reform in the name of effectively protecting our communities and families, to better gain the attention and respect it needs. I firmly believe that this is what I was born to do, and I plan to do it until it isn't physically possible. Hopefully in the near future there will be an official website, a growing member list and tax-exempt status. I am willing to do anything to get closer to a future where our laws reflect facts and everyone - from victims to former offenders and everyone in between - is truly safe.

This is the from the description on ESCAPE's Facebook page: "Our goal is to reform current sex crime legislation, which is not fact-based and provides no preventative measures for current or future victims. Because politicians, legislators, and even law enforcement are unfortunately ignorant to this, it's up to the public to learn and demand laws that effectively protect our communities. Here, we provide the information and tools you need to become educated on sex crime and how we can achieve change." My latest post, where I used recidivism rates and other statistics to calculate just how little current legislation does to prevent sex crime and how many victims it CREATES, rather than protects, has been on my mind since I wrote it. There is no way for me to "un-know" this information, and frankly I believe it would be wrong of me not to do anything about it now that I do.

This thought was reaffirmed this morning, when I had the pleasure of playing TWO church services back-to-back and listened to the pastor's sermon twice. On the eve of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, she chose to focus on the idea of answering God's call. The scripture readings were both examples of prophets who were asked by God to spread His word to others, and how the prophets were thought of to be great leaders who brought about unthinkable change in their societies. She equated MLK to said prophets, who answered a call that was impossible for them to ignore, even though it inevitably led to serious backlash - and in the case of MLK, death. These are people who were not speaking out under the assumption that someday, Bible books and national holidays would be named after them. They were doing it because it was their calling, despite the consequences and setbacks.

The pastor also cautioned that even though we aren't living in ancient Jerusalem, or the 1960's - prejudice, discrimination and bias still exists in our daily lives, even though our bathrooms aren't segregated and we don't prosecute individuals based on their religion. Our world still needs leaders and teachers like Samuel and MLK, and those leaders need followers. Without people to teach, there is no message. She challenged us to answer God's call, whatever individual request God has of us, and accept it wholeheartedly. I have!

Which children are worth protecting?

noreply@blogger.com (Shana Rowan) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:47:00 +0000

Yesterday morning I participated in a discussion in response to - oh, what a surprise! - the "clustering" of sex offenders living in trailer parks, roadside motels and other stereotypically rural, poor, shady areas. As usual, many of the posters who had gotten there before me were sounding off about how child molesters should be dragged out behind the barn and shot, sent to Guantanamo Bay or stay in jail forever. Although I strongly desired to point out how hypocritical it was for them to be judging people who had committed crimes by suggesting violent or ignorant punishments, for the most part I held myself back and instead, replied as factually as possible. The results were slightly better than usual.

For the most part, I started out my responses clarifying that the term "sex offender" is not a synonym for "pedophile". I went on to say that if, in fact, the registry was only a list of diagnosed pedophiles, individuals who had committed crimes against children or who were very violent and shown to have a high risk of re-offense, it would be a valuable tool and no argument would be heard from me as to its value. However, considering that recidivism rates for sex crimes in general have been consistently shown to be very low - 3.5 to 8.5% - and that 93-95% of children who are sexually abused are victimized by someone they know and trust, who has never been convicted of a sex crime and therefore not on any registry - our laws fail to protect the high majority of current and future crime victims. Why not remove the non-dangerous individuals from the registry, those that will very likely never re-offend, and re-delegate those resources to better tracking and monitoring of the truly dangerous and education/prevention programs for children and their parents?

Instead of being chastised for defending and loving sex offenders, for the most part my views were acknowledged, but considered difficult to implement. One individual said that prevention was impossible, and that there was no way to know who would commit a sex crime until it was too late. Another said that in a perfect world, that would happen, but it would take too long to make the changes. And of course, there were the inevitable few who were angry with me for providing the facts that as usual, the article didn't provide, and refused to believe them.

Although it was a welcome break from the typical personal attacks and blatant ignorance, it was still frustrating. Even when the topic was approached in a more socially acceptable, less emotionally charged manner, for the most part people still did not want to listen. In one particular interaction, a fellow poster took issue with the way I phrased something and claimed that in order to look at things from my perspective, one "had to be a sex offender or know someone who was." It's very rare that I allude to my personal experience as the girlfriend of a sex offender in online commenting, since it often is misinterpreted and all my credibility is lost. However, in this case I was unable to hold back and fired back that yes, I did happen to love a sex offender, who was a 13-year-old child being horrifically abused by his sex- and pornography-addicted mother in every conceivable way, forced to do something he did not want to do with a younger sibling, and then tried and convicted as an adult several years later by the same mother and was sold out by a wealthy step-father who had the funds to sway the district attorney, the judge and child protective services. For good measure, I added that one quarter of the 750,000 individuals on the sex offender registry are juveniles - CHILDREN - 18 and under.

After some weak attempts on the part of the poster who had extracted my story to gather more information about the situation and backpedal slightly, another individual jumped in. He was apologetic and acknowledged the tragedy of G's circumstances, but was sure that situations like his were unusual and that he was an unfortunate victim of a system that must act in the interest of what is best for the majority. He also asserted that a recidivism rate of 3.5 - 8.5% is still too much and in order to protect the best interests of all children, that the non-violent, non-child molesting sex offenders would just have to deal with the consequences of the system.

I responded to both of these men that while I understand and agree that laws need to address the needs of many, not a few - our laws fail to do this. Our laws don't do a thing to prevent sex crime because they only target those who have been caught. Maybe the best way to illustrate how incomplete and ineffective sex crime legislation is is to do it with numbers.

There are upwards of 750,000 registered sex offenders in this country. If the worst case scenario occurs, and 8.5% of them commit another sex crime - that's 63,750 new offenses. And since some offenders have multiple victims, let's just round it up to 70,000 new crime victims.

We know that many child molesters are never caught or convicted. The same goes for perpetrators of rape, incest, and sexual assault. Although there is no confirmed number or percentage of how many sex crimes go unreported each year, many victim advocacy groups claim it is as high as 90%. Much lower percentages have also been reported and we haven't talked about false accusations, so let's under-assume here and say that the 750,000 people on the registry represent a quarter of all people guilty of committing some type of sex crime. That means that there are 2,250,000 additional sexual predators living among us who are undocumented and completely unaffected by sex crime legislation.

The 8.5% recidivism rate is for individuals who have been caught and convicted of a sex crime - we don't know what the recidivism rate is for those who have never been caught. It would be reasonable to assume it is higher, however we don't want to assume so we'll just use 8.5%. 8.5% of 2,250,000 undocumented sexual predators committing just one crime per year is 191,250 new crime victims - not rounded up. That's over 273% more than the 70,000 who may or may not be victimized by a registered offender if they re-offend at the highest rate possible and have multiple victims.

Suddenly, the needs of the few versus the needs of many looks strikingly different. It's impossible to ignore. And my calculations are not taking into account the number of juveniles on the registry - remember that if those same juveniles were victims of a sex crime, they would be considered children. One quarter of 750,000 means there are 187,500 children sitting in prisons around the country whose lives are irrefutably changed forever - much like childhood victims of sex crime. Parents of children of registered sex offenders report that their children experience social difficulties, loss of friendships, and discrimination from teachers, schools and other children. So, which children are we protecting? How many are we really protecting? Is it really "impossible" to implement education and awareness programs to prevent and reduce sex crime towards kids, or is it just too hard?

Obviously, it's easier to protect a relative few children than it is to protect a few hundred thousand. But is it worth it?

Public perception about sex offenders is wrong - proven!

noreply@blogger.com (Shana Rowan) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 17:21:00 +0000

I rant a lot about people refusing to accept the truth and completely disregarding facts even when they are undeniably proven. Because it's a concept I absolutely cannot get my head around, I was very intrigued by two studies I discovered yesterday - one from CSOM and the other from an author out of Canada - exploring and analyzing public awareness, perception and attitude towards sex offenders and sex crime in general.

The Canadian study (here) surveyed 102 first, second, and third year behavioral science students studying at St. Lawrence University in Ontario. Overwhelmingly, young people who obviously have some interest in learning about the internal workings and capabilities of the human mind, were largely incorrect in their perceptions about recidivism rates of sex offenders. 41% of the students believed a person who committed sexual assault involving a threat to life was "very likely" to re-offend, and 31% of the students believed a person who committed sexual assault without threat to life was "very likely" to re-offend. The same students believed that people who commit assault with a threat to life, assault, arson with threat to life, and arson are all less likely to re-offend than those who committed sexual crimes. Statistics indicate that recidivism rates for assault and arson (among other crimes) are actually much higher than sexual assault, which interestingly, is notably contradictory of the students' perceptions.

The majority of the students (96%) believed that sexual assault with threat to life would pose the most trauma to the victim out of all the scenarios. It was believed by the majority of the students that treatment would not be at all effective for perpetrators of sexual assault, and the majority also indicated that the longest prison sentences (life in prison) should be assigned to those found guilty of sexual assault. Actual prison sentences for sex crimes vary quite a bit depending on all kinds of factors, however it is not uncommon for those convicted of sex crimes to receive longer sentences than those convicted of non-sexual violent crimes. Again, the students' perceptions as well as reality does not accurately reflect the documented effectiveness of sex offender treatment, which has been shown to be helpful in reducing re-offense as opposed to longer sentences.

In the CSOM study (here), which is is a project of the US Department of Justice, the 1,005 participants were individuals deemed to be representative of an average community member. They were similarly asked to indicate their knowledge of sex crime. Surprisingly, the majority of participants accurately believed that most victims are acquainted with their offenders. However, the majority of participants also believed that recidivism rates were very high (75% or above), and that post-release restrictions (such as residency restrictions, GPS monitoring, community registering and notification, etc.) are necessary in preventing or reducing sex crime. 74% indicated that the majority of what they know and learn about sex crime is via news media. Only 3% of those surveyed accurately believed that recidivism rates are under 25%.

None of these results were surprising to me - the sentiments expressed in both studies are very similar to the attitudes of people I encounter when discussing the topic of sex crime. It is frustrating to know that public awareness is so skewed, but what I found next in the study was beyond frustrating - it was disturbing.

The participants were asked if they would still support residency restrictions even if such restrictions were proven to lead to unintended consequences (which most experts believe is the case). Over half responded that they would.

This seems strange, considering that the majority of participants also indicated that they would support treatment for sex offenders if it was shown to be effective, that they believed lawmakers should base legislation on what research indicates, and that they wanted more information than they currently had about how to prevent sex crimes in the community. However, their opinions regarding residency restrictions seem to contradict all of those statements.

Although the CSOM study was personally validating to me, as it scientifically documented my experiences with the public to be mostly uninformed and based mainly on what the media tells them, it did nothing to explain why the public consistently reacts this way. As a person who desperately looks forward to the day when sex crime legislation reflects facts and not emotions, this study made me feel even more hopeless than I sometimes feel after a fruitless attempt to educate someone who simply does not want to learn. As I struggle daily attempting to figure out what the key is to breaking the cycle of ignorance, after reading the study I am even more uncertain.

I suppose for now I will plod along as I always do - allowing myself to be the recipient of daily public floggings in hopes that just a few will silently read what I offer and be strong enough to wonder if it might be true. Even if someone wants or needs to publicly degrade me and our cause, and then secretly chooses to think twice, I will have accomplished my goal.

Accept the truth and change the world!

noreply@blogger.com (Shana Rowan) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 17:50:00 +0000

As anyone lobbying for any kind of law reform knows, a fair amount of legislature is outdated. If not outdated, then focused too much on one particular goal and ignorant of obvious consequences. Or it's incomplete. Or it's largely baseless. Whatever the issue is with a particular law, they all have one thing in common: a politician is responsible for its passage. For those who have studied and/or experienced the ineffectiveness or negative results of that law, it is an infuriating but common scenario. Law enforcement deals its typical lip service as to the law's effectiveness, and the public latches on...and the cycle continues. For law reform advocates, infiltrating that cycle is usually the hardest part. In my experience, it is because one of the only chinks in the armor of ineffective but popular legislation is the public's opinion and emotions.

Those of us who have studied the law have acknowledged the facts and the statistics surrounding it; sometimes it is difficult for us (I know it is for me) to comprehend that not everyone is as willing, ready or able to accept the truth as we are. For me, and probably many of you reading, there's no consideration or wondering or pondering - the truth is the truth and the sooner we deal with it, the better off we'll be. But if the truth is scary or strange or different from what popular opinion is, many are capable of incredible mental gymnastics in order to prevent the truth from being the truth.

Maybe the best way to illustrate this is to provide, word for word, the responses I have received when I present people with facts regarding the ineffectiveness of sex crime legislation. The following are excerpts from commenting forums for various online news articles regarding various sex crime/sex offender issues over the past two weeks. Commenters' names have been anonymized.
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Article: Mission Viejo proposal to ban sex offenders from public parks
(In response to a commenter who provided text from a study that found sex offender recidivism rates to be about 4-5% )

RH: To me, 4% or 5% is 4% or 5% too much. And those findings that you posted are after 3 years. I'd like to know the recidivism rate after 10 years. Once arrested, offenders - like other criminals - become more secretive of their affairs and wrongdoings.

Me: Here's a study that spans 1983-2010, and includes all states: http://sexoffenderrecidivism.com/ Keep in mind that these studies don't differentiate between the type of offense. For example, a diagnosed pedophile who has molested children has a much higher re-offense rate than someone who urinated in public, was a teenager having a consensual sexual relationship with an underage girlfriend, or a child playing doctor. That's why broad legislation like this is dangerous. It saves money, but allows the truly dangerous offenders to slip through more easily, while punishing those who will never re-offend.

RH: Shana, you're a gullible young lady. I'm already aware of who you are and your agenda. I don't really care how you (or your "studies*) bend and twist the stats. The stats aren't my main concern. The children are. I've lived long enough to learn one unfortunate fact about people: they don't usually change. That includes sex offenders. When you become passive and do nothing to protect the children you are opening the wrong doors. The bottom line is this: putting sex offenders among the community is putting children at risk. Period.
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I should note that in the above instance, I showed RH the source of the studies - the US Department of Justice and several states (in other words, the very entities who created the laws). I also challenged him to explain how a law that only helps, statistically, 5% of children is beneficial. There was no further response.
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Article: Aliahna Lemmon lived in a trailer park with sex offenders (but wasn't killed by one)
(in response to my pointing out that the registry and sex offender legislation didn't prevent her death)

LF: I found your comments, frankly offensive to children and so I looked at your page. You're quite dedicated to defending sexual offenders. I think that's repulsive. If you have issue with the definition of a sex offender, for example someone who was 19 and his girlfriend was under the state's legal age and that resulted in his conviction, than could I suggest you persue changing that definition through the courts. To collect stories of children who were molested, murdered and then post them on a blog to defend sex offenders is disgusting. [she is referring to this blog entry]

Me: If that is what you got from that blog entry, then I can tell already that you don't want to learn. I was using those stories to demonstrate how poorly sex crime legislation is protecting children. If you can't see that, that is your own ignorance.

LF: But you DO defend sex offenders, you have an entire blog dedicated to that subject. And how, sitting in New York do you have access to "the facts" more than anyone else

Me: My blog is not about "defending sex offenders". It is only a small part of what I do to advocate for reform in sex crime legislation. For about the fifth time now, existing legislation is failing our children and our communities. Sex crime has not gone down. Children are being abused at the same rate. Prisons are so full, truly dangerous individuals are being released because there is no room for them. The facts I am referring to are not state-specific, and my location has nothing to do with the accessibility of this information. Almost everything I've learned is publicly available, and not too hard to find.
No further response from LF.

Same article, in response to an individual claiming recidivism rates are at 50%

Me: I don't know where you are getting the statistic that "almost half of sex offenders re-offend", but it is incorrect. Yes, cases like Jessica Lunsford and Megan Kanka occur. But not often. If you only go by what the media chooses to focus on - which no doubt are the most gruesome, heinous cases - I could see where you might assume that. However, the fact is you don't hear about the much more common, lesser offenses, because they are not as "interesting". If you read my entire reply, you would have seen that I support stricter management and treatment of individuals who are diagnosed pedophiles and have shown a high risk of re-offense.

JL: Shana Rowan I'm very offended by not only you sticking up for sex offenders but by calling me ignorant! For your information little girl I have my degree in criminal justice! I do feel sorry for those families however i have NO SYMPATHY FOR A SEX OFFENDER! Sorry I"m not a big hearted creep such as yourself! Ur right not all are child rapists....but the majority are not sexual misconduct with a minor either! Even so the adult shouldn't have been screwing a minor wether it was consensual or not!!! YOU CAN'T PUT A CHILD MOLESTER IN THE SAME BOX AS SOMEONE WHOSE CHARGED WITH ARSON! I never said people didn't make mistake....BUT A CHILD MOLESTER DIDN'T MAKE A MISTAKE! YOU CAN'T CHANGE A RAPIST OR SEX OFFENDERS THINKING!!! that's jus the way it is!!!
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Article: Another article focusing on the number of sex offenders living where Aliahna lived even though they didn't harm her

Me: The fact that sex offenders lived in the trailer park is 100% irrelevant to the story. Nothing more than a media ploy to further sensationalize the brutal murder of an innocent young girl. Pathetic on the part of the public and law enforcement, too. Aliahna's death is the perfect example, to a T, of everything that's wrong with SO legislation. The registry didn't help her; all the cops were too busy "tracking and managing" the 15 sex offenders in the trailer park to realize Plumadore had an active arrest warrant for a non-sex crime and could have been incarcerated therefore preventing her death. Recidivism for SOs is EXTREMELY low, and for all the parents who "didn't know" they were living there, no one to blame but yourself. The registry is public and can be searched by anyone. SOs have no choice, in many areas, but to be restricted geographically where they are permitted to live which results in higher concentrations of them. It has nothing to do with them banding together to molest more children. It is the result of laws the PUBLIC and uninformed politicians insisted on.

TC: Shana, Your sitting here complaining about how child molesters are treated and how it is irrelevent that 14 child molesters live in a trailor park? Would you feel that way if you were a mother living there trying to raise her children? Oh you probley would since you seem to love a man who has raped a child.

SH: Answer my question do you really think this is the appropriate place to post a link to your website? This is about a child. Not you. Not your boyfriend. You are adults. This is about a 9 year old little girl who's life was ruined by child molesters. Let this be about her. Honestly you and I are never going to agree on anything. You find it appropriate to use this story for your own personal gain. That's disgusting. Use your website to write what you want to help or change sex offender laws. I REPEAT THIS IS NOT THE PLACE TO DO IT.

Me: Yes, I think it's perfectly appropriate. If you had read that particular entry you would have seen why. It had nothing to do with my boyfriend or myself. It was about how Aliahna's death could have been prevented by being willing to re-think sex crime legislation. It's perfectly relevant. Now, can you answer my question, of how "advocating for legislation reform that protects children" (what I said) gets translated into "campaigning for precious convicted sex offenders"? (your words)?

SH: Your campaign is to help sex offenders. My campaign is to help children. Our priorities are the opposite and I would never post a link to my website, supporting sex offenders, on a story about the murder of a 9 year old little girl. No hits on your website, so you are going to use this poor baby to help you, right? Haven't you and your ilk, taken enough from her

Me: No. My campaign is to reform sex crime legislation so it effectively protects children. You are the only one saying that I or anyone else supports sex crime.

SH: Then write your legislators. Post on your website. Organize a petition drive. THIS IS NOT THE PLACE TO TRY TO GET SYMPATHY FOR SEX OFFENDERS. THIS IS ABOUT A 9 YEAR OLD CHILD WHO WAS MURDERED. SHOW RESPECT FOR THE VICTIM.

Me: Why won't you just answer the question? I never said anything about sympathy. Are you happy that your tax dollars (regardless of what state you live in) are spent punishing, "treating", and monitoring a flasher, when more of that money could go towards child molesters?

SH: If you disagree with our current laws write your legislators. I am not your legislator, wrong person Shana. Look up your legislators write them and tell them you disagree with the current laws. Why are you so obsessed with my opinion. Weird....I think you're trying to distract from the true victim Aliahnah Lemmon. I personally think it's disgusting and I will CALL EVERYONE OF YOU ON IT FOR AS LONG AS I HAVE TO. 2 weeks vacation, all day, all night I will defend this baby and her memory. ITS NOT ABOUT YOU!

This went on for much longer than I care to admit, but it is an excellent demonstration of the power of ignorance when the facts are too much to handle.
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No matter what things I'm accused of, what I am called or how my words are skewed, I will continue to educate. My goal isn't to change the minds of those I spar with via Facebook comments or those who flippantly suggest the death penalty or prison justice for sex offenders. It is my hope that the larger majority of people, who don't post their thoughts publicly, will allow those thoughts to blossom. That they will be able to overcome their surprise or disbelief just enough so that they will consider the facts for what they are. Maybe they will even see that often, those who are claiming the loudest to care about children's or public safety and how wrong people such as myself are, are the ones who are truly unaware and scared of the truth. It is those people I want to engage.

To my fellow advocates for any cause, continue on in the fight for justice and truth. You're not alone.

To everyone else, challenge yourself to learn even if it means accepting a harsher reality or a more frightening world. We're no safer in the dark than we are right here, right now.

There's more to protecting children than saying we should

noreply@blogger.com (Shana Rowan) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 23:04:00 +0000

If you've made it past the name of my blog, I'm glad you're here. To my faithful readers and those who are truly interested in learning, please disregard the following. To everyone else:

I don't support sex crimes.
I don't support crimes against children, sexual or not.
I believe that diagnosed pedophiles and individuals who show high risk of re-offense need intense treatment and management.
The person I love is not a rapist, a pedophile, or violent.

Sex crime laws don't protect children or the public. Here's the simple formula:

- Children are 93% more likely to be sexually abused by someone they know who is not on the registry. Over a third of those children will be abused by a family member or relative.
SOURCE: http://theparson.net/so/Levenson.pdf

- Recidivism among sex offenders has been shown to be somewhere between 3.5 - 8.5%. The average of all other felonies' recidivism is about 41%.
SOURCES:
http://www.sexoffenderrecidivism.com/
http://www.csom.org/pubs/recidsexof.html
http://dpca.state.ny.us/pdfs/somgmtbulletinmay2007.pdf
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=1136

Not all sex offenders are pedophiles, have child victims, or are violent. A quarter of sex offenders on the registry are juveniles.
SOURCES:
https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/227763.pdf
http://www.solresearch.org/~SOLR/rprt/LookNow.asp

Why should you care?
To vastly abridge, because there are no effective measures in place to prevent sexual abuse. The registry is nothing more than a list of people who, at one time, have committed some type of "crime" deemed sexually deviant by the judicial system. However, research has very clearly shown that these individuals almost always do not re-offend. How useful is a list, and related legislation, that focuses all of its attention, resources, and money on those least likely to commit a sex crime?

Effective legislation begins with education and awareness - in this case that means allowing yourself to accept facts that are contrary to what many lawmakers, politicians, and media outlets will have you believe. It does not make you a bad person to ask for sex crime legislation reform. It simply means you have taken the time to learn about a subject that rarely gets debated - and one that directly effects public safety, your friends and your families, and YOU!

It might not be popular or easy to not join in when everyone else is crying death to pedophiles, or when someone twists your awareness of sex crime legislation ineffectiveness into your supporting sex crime. But having read the information I've provided above, which is not my opinion by any means, but proven fact - how can you ignore it? That was what I said to myself when I first began to realize, while researching, how off-base our legislation is. I can't "un-know" this information. It's out there and it's not going away until enough people stand up and shout it.

That is my challenge for everyone reading. Allow yourself to learn and don't be ashamed to accept a fact that might contradict what you've always thought or what you've been told. Don't let the ignorant, weak or otherwise hateful masses quiet the truth.

I love a sex offender and I'm proud of it. I want effective legislation that truly helps people and I'm not ashamed. Tell your legislators, write your newspapers, contact your news. Do more than just say you want to protect children - DO it.

Shame on the media, the public and law enforcement for exploiting the death of Aliahna Lemmon

noreply@blogger.com (Shana Rowan) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 16:39:00 +0000

A young girl who lives in a trailer park teeming with sex offenders - 15, to be exact - goes missing. It's the media's dream come true, law enforcement thinks they've got their suspect all wrapped up, and the public gets another chance at their favorite tirades, about how sex offenders are the scum of the earth, followed closely by ripping another parent to shreds for making a decision that eventually (but unknowingly) led to her child's death. It's the perfect trifecta that skyrockets an isolated incident in an Indiana town to a national tragedy.

As I've mentioned before, I have learned to take comments that people post online with a grain of salt. Although I'm not one of them, many individuals say things they wouldn't dare say in a face-to-face confrontation when protected by the shroud of the internet. Particularly on websites where you are not required to provide your full name, or even your first name, people say things that make me question THEIR sanity and mental stability. It is striking that the majority of public reactions are suggestions of barbaric punishments or uninformed rants that ooze ignorance and hatred.

There have been thousands of articles written about this tragedy, where 9-year-old Aliahna Lemmon was pummeled to death with a brick, then dismembered and frozen. Her killer was a 39-year-old man who had been babysitting Aliahna and her siblings, and someone she had known for quite some time. Her mother had arranged for the babysitter because she was busy caring for her mother, Aliahna's grandmother, who had the flu. They had initially moved to the trailer park because Aliahna's grandfather lived there, and was dying from emphysema.

Child murder is bad enough, and the grisly details of Aliahna's death make this particular case even more shocking. It is a tragedy, any way you look at it, and I for one am thankful for the quick apprehension of her suspected murderer. Her community, and of course her family, are spared the painful and often drawn-out process of locating her body and wondering who is responsible. The conviction process can begin, and the healing can start. That is, if it weren't for the media coverage.

MSNBC coverage of Aliahna's murder <---- this is one of the thousands of articles I referred to earlier, that has chosen to focus on a piece of information that is completely irrelevant to her murder. It is almost as though the media is disappointed that one of the sex offenders wasn't responsible for her murder. What purpose can this type of article possibly serve? It seems bordering on spiteful. A child's gruesome murder wasn't sensational enough, so they grasp at straws attempting to draw out the public outrage for as long as possible. And instead of seeing that for the shameful, selfish tactic that it is, the public's response is to bring out the pitchforks and torches.

Shame on the public. Shame on all of you, blogging and commenting and otherwise spewing your hatred of this poor mother, who has lost a child in a way that most of us, thank God, can only imagine. Shame on you for sinking to a level where it's perfectly okay to wish for death, pain and suffering on an individual who inflicted just that on an innocent little girl. And shame on you for being so weak-minded that you cannot see anything beyond the media's portrayal of anything. It is sad and pathetic that you would claim to care about this girl's innocent little soul in the same breath as you are tainting her memory with hateful garbage.

Most of all, SHAME on law enforcement, legislators, and everyone else who would rather pacify a misinformed public than implement laws that could actually make our communities safer and prevent tragedies such as this. Is everyone truly so cowardly that they will not acknowledge the numerous ways in which existing legislation failed massively at keeping Aliahna alive and safe, or are they just more interested in their image and stature that they won't suggest reform that might upset the uneducated public?

The statistics I have pleaded with people to learn, and have been accused of fabricating, are impossible to ignore in this case. Aliahna knew her killer, as did her mother and siblings. He was not on the sex offender registry. She was beaten to death with a brick on the front stairs leading into her house, in familiar surroundings. The alleged killer himself was a convicted felon, but not of a sex crime. There were fifteen registered sex offenders living in that trailer park, all being actively tracked and monitored by law enforcement. None of them harmed her. The man who confessed to her murder is a convicted felon, who in addition to having a prior record, had an active arrest warrant for physical assault in the state of Florida.

To me, it seems glaringly obvious that Aliahna's death could have been prevented by fact-based delegation of resources. If legislation was appropriately applied to those who are truly at a higher risk to re-offend, it is very likely that this individual would be in jail and unable to kill anyone. Or at the very least, a wanted fugitive would have been caught and jailed, on one of the many occasions law enforcement presumably visited the trailer park to "manage" the sex offenders. Imagine if the time spent tracking and monitoring the 15 registered sex offenders was instead used to track and manage those proven to be more likely to commit another crime. Imagine if there were a public registry for all felonies, particularly violent ones - perhaps Aliahna's mother would have decided not to move to this particular trailer park. Most importantly, perhaps Aliahna would be ALIVE. Perhaps many other children would be ALIVE if their parents and communities were educated on actual facts, instead of hysteria.

Aliahna's murder reminded me of 7-year-old Jorelys Rivera, who was beaten to death earlier this month in Georgia. (Read the story here: MSNBC coverage of Jorelys Rivera). Police were proud to let the public know they were actively interrogating all the known sex offenders in the area. Luckily, the suspect was apprehended rather quickly. It was only quietly revealed that he was a maintenance worker at the apartment complex where Jorelys lived, that he had no prior record whatsoever and was not a sex offender, therefore not on the registry. Oddly, the public's reaction, rather than learning from the experience, was to launch a community-wide effort to let parents know they can search for registered sex offenders in their area. Somehow, the fact that a sex offender resided in Jorelys' building unbeknownst to her mother had taken precedence over the actual facts in the case, even though the offender had nothing to do with her murder.

Everyone claims to care about children, but time after time, facts are ignored. Whenever I point out statistics demonstrating the ineffectiveness of sex crime legislation, I am accused of being a sex offender, being sick, twisted, and in need of mental help. But what can be said for someone who consciously chooses to ignore a proven fact? Until we accept that sex crime legislation has been allowed to turn into an empire of ineffectiveness that fails at keeping us safe, more children will die. Ignore that.

RIP, Aliahna and Jorelys.

I love a sex offender, and I want to cry every day.

noreply@blogger.com (Shana Rowan) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 16:18:00 +0000

I figured since the name of my blog is so (intentionally) attention-grabbing and (hopefully) so surprising to some that they can't help but read, it's time for an entry that doesn't dance around the issue. Although I am proud of my previous entries and they no doubt represent an aspect of what our life is like and how choosing this life has changed the way I look at certain things, they do not begin to touch what goes through my mind and heart each day, nor will what I am about to write; there simply is no way to completely capture the experience in mere words. But this, for whatever reason, is one of those days that I am less able to put reality in the back of my mind long enough to focus on much else.

I will not lie - I am so incredibly angry and vengeful towards Geoff's family, that sometimes it is difficult to even think about. I preach to others about letting go of anger and letting it empower you, which I have managed to do with the man who abused me, as well as others, mostly strangers, who frustrate me with their ignorance, lack of compassion or common sense. But I cannot do it with the people who tortured the person I love. I want to let go, because the anger certainly doesn't feel good, and it sucks the will to even contemplate thinking about something else right out of me.

Because I do not trust these people, I try to loosely keep tabs on them by doing an occasional Google search or looking at their Facebook profiles, although they are private, just to see if anything seems amiss. Last Christmas, Geoff received a package from his mother, the perpetrator of the most severe physical and emotional abuse. He wants absolutely nothing to do with them, and after the life they forced him to live, if you can even call it a life, not to mention the travesty of a trial they created, I do not blame him. He has not attempted to make contact with any member of his family since the day his mother had him arrested, and in fact, legally there is not supposed to be any contact between them. However, this did not stop his mother from sending him a package containing several random artifacts from his childhood, and worst of all, a letter (after obtaining his address from the registry).

I had just arrived at work after a particularly stressful drive, as it was the day before Christmas Eve, traffic was more harried than usual and it was snowing steadily. As I chatted with my co-worker, I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. When I picked up, it was Geoff in a state of panic, sitting in his truck in the post office parking lot, holding a box from the woman who still invades his mind, his dreams, and leaves me holding a trembling, sobbing, terrified grown man having a flashback some mornings when he wakes up and thinks he's still trapped in her house. He paraphrased her letter, which among other things, communicated her confusion over why he did not want to speak with them, that she still could not understand why he did what he did, and that she "knew she wasn't always the perfect mother". Hearing his voice and being 24 miles apart made me want to sink to my knees and scream. Geoff still struggles to remember most of his childhood, has revealed most of the worst bits and pieces, all containing his mother, to me over time and is still paralyzed with fear of her to this day, almost ten years after the last time he saw her. I was so filled with rage at this woman for AGAIN hurting the wonderful man who is her son, my boyfriend and the person she ripped apart and threw away, without even seeing him or being anywhere near him.

This was almost a year ago now, and still as I write it my heart beings pounding out of my chest and the combination of tears and absolute fury compound my brain as I contemplate what I would do if I had the opportunity to speak to the woman who somehow was able to look into Geoff's innocent eyes and over and over again, strike him, hurt him, treat him like an animal, just mercilessly try to destroy this wonderful person I cannot imagine ever being without. I want to ask, and I want to understand how she lives with herself knowing the horror she inflicted on a defenseless child, who grew into a defenseless teenager and was her SON, and then threw away. How does she get through the day? I want to ask the judges, the lawyers, the county prosecutor how they could all look the other way, what amount of money it took for them to all pretend this battered, confused 16-year-old standing before them on the charges of sodomy was a monster who deserved to go to jail instead of the terrified, lonely, abandoned child he was? I want to understand how it is possible that every single person in Geoff's life - everyone who was EVER supposed to help him, didn't.

For a long time, I did not know what to do with my anguish in reaction to all the horror that has been inflicted upon Geoff. As he became more able to reveal the long list of people who had mistreated him and what they had done, it created an ever-growing list of individuals I wanted to interrogate and understand how they justified their actions. Not just his family, but his teachers and other adults who could not possibly have missed the signs that he was being severely abused, from elementary school into tenth grade. His few friends, immature teenage boys as they were, could not possibly have been completely clueless. The other inmates who tried to hurt him and kill him, over and over again. The corrections officers who stood there and watched other inmates beat him, and who sometimes joined in. How was it possible that ALL of these people were so able to blindly allow it all to happen?

But the list doesn't end there. His probation officer, and the administrative workers who think he is a piece of shit because all they see is "sex offender". Our neighbors, who, at the urging of police and the news around Halloween, checked the registry for houses to avoid and will no longer engage with us. The politicians and legislators who have created the laws that do nothing to protect and everything to make his life just a little more difficult. The anonymous individuals who I will never know, that see his name and photograph on the registry, mixed in with a sea of others, and assume he is a dangerous predator. The friends we have yet to make who might decide, upon finding out, that they do not want to associate with us. The vigilante who decided to destroy the driver's door on MY 1972 Nova this summer, assuming it was Geoff's, who trespassed on our property while we were not home, inflicted unrepairable, carefully planned damage on a sentimental and monetarily valuable personal belonging, and will never be identified. What other vigilantes are out there and what will they do next? What law will be passed tomorrow that will force us to move, require him to wear a GPS monitor for life, or God knows what else? On most days, the constant worry can be easily ignored because that is what normal means for us. But on others, like today, it is all I can contemplate.

The last time I checked up on Geoff's family, I inadvertently discovered several photographs of them taken over this past summer. His half-sister, his "victim", graduated high school and there were some pre-prom pictures of her, her date, Geoff's mother, and step-father. They were all smiling, standing on the very stone patio that Geoff, as a young teenager, had been forced to build by himself; next to the house that Geoff was forced to re-roof, alone; and in the distance, the stone fireplace that Geoff was forced to build, alone. All around them were blatant reminders of the something terrible they forced upon an innocent person who was also their family member, and yet they smiled as though he had never even existed.

All the people who have hurt Geoff in some way have done one, lone positive thing: they shaped the kind, compassionate, resilient individual I love more than anything in the world. Through all the horror Geoff has endured, he has maintained the ability to function enough to get by even without any visible incentive. He has been forced to find strength from nowhere but within himself, and taught him things that cannot and will not be learned by many people over their lives. He has built himself up from nothing, more than once. There is no doubt in my mind that if it were not for his presence in my life, I would be dead at the hand of my ex-husband. He gave me the strength, the will and the perspective to re-create my life, and he has made me happier than I can ever recall. The gratitude, unquestioning selflessness and innate kindness he shows me is the simplest and strongest love and respect I have ever felt from another person. That is why the mere knowledge that countless strangers who will never meet him, and even some who will, will never see him as anything other than a sexual predator who wants to molest children, is so very painful. But it is a pain I welcome and tolerate, because it means I get to have him in my life.

I have met some incredibly strong, passionate, dedicated individuals in the relatively short time I've been actively promoting legislation reform for sex crime. Although knowing I am not alone in this misunderstood cause and their unwavering support is invaluable to my ability to keep going, it also is saddening that so many people are effected by this - and that their pain and suffering is very rarely acknowledged or considered. It makes me wonder how many families will be destroyed before the rest of the country realizes how detrimental the legislature as well as the public shaming of sex offenders and their loved ones is for our society as a whole. On days where I am not overtaken by overwhelming sadness and outrage at our situation, that is the only fuel I need to trudge on in this extremely difficult fight. So I suppose in a way it is a good thing. But I often wonder why our society needs such an excess of suffering before they realize how wrong something is.

I do not regret my decision to be with Geoff; as corny as it sounds, I have loved him since the day I met him in math class and in the back of my mind I always knew we would be together. I never could have imagined the circumstances, but I have never questioned my love for him - never. As I am winding down this entry, feeling slightly soothed by expressing my anger and sadness, I remember what I sometimes say to Geoff when he is drowning in despair and struggling to understand why things have had to happen this way: we may suffer unlike most others, but because we know that suffering, our love is that much more intense and incredible. I wouldn't trade that for anything.

You're all a bunch of heathens

noreply@blogger.com (Shana Rowan) — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 17:04:00 +0000

Even though I'm an extremely sensitive person (some might say oversensitive), I learned very quickly when I became involved in reforming sex offender legislation that a thick skin was a requirement. I've surprised even myself in the ways I've learned to respond to stupidity, rudeness, and overall misinformation with articulate, factual responses and just the right amount of passion. The more I learn about how and why the legislation is ineffective, the easier it becomes. Sometimes I allow myself to get sucked in to a futile debate with someone whose only goal is clearly to upset me; other times, the personal attacks strangers spew at me start to hurt just a bit. On those occasions, I have to step away. On every occasion, I remind myself that the truth is on MY side and that's the most important thing. Though I've long since learned that the truth doesn't mean jack to some people, and that the world isn't necessarily based on truth, even now after being exposed to so much ignorance I am genuinely baffled as to why the truth is so often ignored.

"Sometimes the truth hurts" is an overused quip for a reason - it's true. Finding out you've been lied to, intentionally or by omission; discovering a loved one is someone or something much different than you believed; even receiving a grim or ambiguous diagnosis, or the answer to a lifelong question doesn't always result in total clarity and relief. Often, it's the opposite.

A few weeks ago, a fellow RSOL "pal" directed some of us to an article out of Massachusetts, which was nothing unusual. It included a large mug shot of a 24-year-old man, convicted of a sex offense, who had recently been released. Other than providing the name and address of the man's employer, there was no information other than what I've already mentioned. Unfortunately, articles such as this are common; after reading hundreds of them in the past several months, I've noticed that if there aren't enough sex crimes being committed, the media will instead focus on where sex offenders are living, working, and if any of them are not updating their addresses with law enforcement when they should. At first I was confused as to why the article had been brought to our attention at all.

The answer was in the comments. Several other RSOLers had gotten there before me, and were conversing back and forth with a fellow who lived in the area and clearly was not happy that the 24-year-old sex offender was working and living in the vicinity. He spoke of his young children, whom he understandably wanted to protect from potential abuse, and that he didn't feel able to do that with an individual like that around.

Others had presented this man with facts regarding the low recidivism rates for sex offenders, the likelihood of children being abused by someone they know not already on the registry, and the negative aspects of articles such as that one, seemingly printed only to scare concerned parents and make it that much more difficult for the offender to re-integrate back into the community. Links to several government-backed studies were provided, and the information was presented politely. Sadly, as I read on, the man's responses to the statistics indicated that he either did not read them or did not care to.

Because my comrades had already provided the man with compelling evidence that his view was based on a personal fear, not facts, I took it upon myself to look up the 24-year-old sex offender's registry entry. There, I found the information the article did not provide: he was convicted in 2007, which would have made him 17 at the very oldest at the time of conviction, and possibly younger when his crime took place. His victim was listed only as "a person younger than 17".

Having scoured countless registry entries in various states, I know that if the victim was a young child, it will be made painfully clear on the entry. "Person younger than 17" and similarly worded phrases usually refer to teenage "victims" over the age of 15, depending on the state. (I put the word "victim" in quotes because it is maddeningly common for consensual teenage sex to be criminalized and typically, the older teen gets slapped with a lifelong label and in many cases, jail. No, I do not advocate or support violent, forcible or non-consensual teenage sex; however no distinction is made between the two on the registry and it becomes the public's job to assume all offenses were violent.)

I pointed out to the man that the offender was 17 when convicted and the specifics of his actions were not provided; that based ONLY on the information we had, between the article and his registry entry, there was no way for us to accurately judge him or know his precise actions or intentions. I also challenged the man to ask himself what he would do if one of HIS children was accused of a sex offense, if he would support the prosecution of his child as an adult with adult consequences, or if he would see his child for what he was - A CHILD - and recognize the dire need for treatment and a support system. He clearly had not considered that possibility - but ultimately responded that he would likely sever ties with his child if he committed a sex offense.

I guess I am lucky to have grown up in a fantastic family, with awesome parents who supported me during a very dark time in my life, beginning around age 15, and struggled to get me the treatment I desperately needed to eventually understand my behavior and learn to control it. Maybe until my involvement in this movement, I did not appreciate the rarity of such understanding and unconditional love and support. I was unaware of how willing some people are to live in ignorance, as long as it does not inconvenience them or cause them hardship; how some people would rather ignore and abandon their problems, even if those problems are their CHILDREN, if that's the easier thing. But more than anything, I am genuinely shocked at how eager otherwise "normal" people are to eradicate others who are different from them, have made a mistake, or don't share their opinions; even those who simply challenge them. I've begun to feel as though our society, that prides itself on being the most advanced, the most humane and the most successful, is only that way when it is convenient. There are more parallels between the present and some very dark periods in history than most would like to admit.

The comments back and forth in regards to the article out of Massachusetts, while frustrating, were not overtly inflammatory or personal. Although we were unable to change this man's mind, armed with a very obvious truth as we were, the worst thing he did was essentially ignore us. Last week, I commented on an article out of California, where a registered sex offender had been arrested for (and I quote): "annoying or molesting a child under the age of 18". His previous offenses were for indecent exposure, there was no mention of any previous victims of any age, and the action which ultimately led to his re-arrest was an incident in a dollar store where he "followed a 13-year old girl up the aisles" and "attempted to talk to her". When confronted by the girl's mother, he "fled". The article itself was probably a paragraph in total length. The incident had occurred over the summer and the article was printed because he had recently been sentenced.

There were several individuals who had already commented by the time I read the article. The man was accused of being a pedophile, a pervert, and a sick freak. A couple of people commented that they hoped he enjoyed the prison justice he would inevitably experience while incarcerated, that perhaps he would be "crippled" so badly he would be unable to "go out and molest more victims" or maybe he would even be killed. While public disgust with sex offenders and even mentions of "prison justice" is nothing new to me, there was something about the way these individuals were so freely, unabashedly, and even gleefully expressing their hopes this man would experience violence that struck me deeper than these types of comments normally do. It was also frustrating that there were so many accusations of "pedophile", when there was nothing in the article OR on his registry entry that indicated he presently or previously had an attraction to pre-pubescent children (which is the definition of a pedophile).

I called out those wishing violence upon the man, asking them what made them any better than the man they called a "freak". I reminded those that labeled the man a pedophile what the term actually means, and how important it is to understand the difference. I pointed out to those who referred to "other victims" that no other victims existed. I finished my thought by asking people to remember that not all sex offenders are pedophiles and that treating them all as such is detrimental, as it allows the few who are truly dangerous to slip through.

What happened next was an onslaught of personal attacks and wild accusations by those who had been called out, and others who were just reading the article for the first time. I was accused of defending pedophiles, being ignorant, not caring about children, that the man who had been arrested must be my boyfriend, that I don't know the first thing about sexual abuse, and why don't I care about the victims? One man laughingly said that I was like the girl who got beat up by her boyfriend and then defended him; one was an abuse victim calling me "silly", "uninformed", and using God as her excuse for wishing death upon the man. People questioned why I would care about sex offenders, how they were treated and why was someone from New York commenting on an article out of California? They spoke about me as though I weren't reading their comments, saying I clearly had issues and really needed to get some help.

I explained that I wasn't an advocate or supporter of sex crime - that I support effective legislation that actually helps prevent abuse; I stressed the importance of educating yourself on the facts about sex crime and provided several informative links; and I told the man who made light of domestic violence that yes, in fact, I am just like that girl - not because I defend what my abuser did, but because I WAS a victim myself and have turned my experience into an empowering one focusing on the truth and not on hatred or anger. I assured them I had no personal connection with the man, nor had I even heard of him before that day. I was not even saying he was innocent, just attempting to point out that a large group of people were not only making some deplorable judgments about a human being based on very little evidence, but their own behavior and comments were bordering on barbaric. After being cut down by over twenty people who do not know me, what I have been through or why I feel the way I do - not because I did not inform them, but because they did not care to find out - I forced myself to step away from the onslaught and stop engaging.

The experience left me feeling disgusted with our society, scared that there was no hope for our cause, and personally hurting at some of the comments that were made, which is not something that happens often. On one end of the spectrum, I wasn't surprised that things had gotten so out of hand, because that is precisely the reason we have the broad, ineffective legislation we are so diligently fighting. But at the same time, I was scared that lurking just beneath the surface of a seemingly civilized and open minded society - where gay marriage is being legalized and championed; where racial equality has made leaps and bounds in the past several decades; where large corporations and powerful individuals are being challenged and held responsible for their actions - there is actually a torrent of heathens ready to tear down anyone who doesn't agree. All of the things I mentioned were once things that were looked down upon by the majority of society; it hasn't been without excruciating suffering, widespread pain, and countless innocent victims that these issues have finally reached the status of socially acceptable. It's wonderful that we're finally willing to take on these difficult and complex issues, but why must it be at such a cost? I'm not one to suggest dwelling on the negative, but I think we need to look at how we've gotten to the point we're at before touting ourselves as a progressive, open-minded country where everyone is equal and accepted. Why does our society require so much suffering before a cause is taken seriously?

The next time you have an urge to tear someone down, claim you hate someone or laugh at someone's misfortune - and we ALL do this - don't. Instead, challenge yourself to find the truth, the root of your feelings. Find it, accept it, and learn from it. Help others to do the same. Love the truth and let it heal you. Only then will we become a society to be proud of.

Empowered by Victimization

noreply@blogger.com (Shana Rowan) — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 17:09:00 +0000

As most of you know, I in no way condone any kind of abuse or violence: domestic, sexual, animal or anything else. I can put words to my experience: terrifying. Futile. Hopeless. Lonely. But they are just words, and the only way I think anyone could truly "get" what I went through is if they were to be in my mind for a few hours. Of course, not only is that impossible but unnecessary, as I think most relatively sane people can agree and understand that experiencing any kind of violence or abuse is awful - even when they disagree on how to deal with it.

It took nearly four years of abuse at the hand of my husband before I was able to leave him. As some of you may already know, my boyfriend, who is a registered sex offender, is the one who effectively enabled me to finally leave. The biggest reason I didn't leave sooner was that I was unable to accept that I was a victim. I knew what he was doing was wrong, I knew it hurt, and the fact that I was terrified of him, even when things were "fine", was present in my mind on some level at all times. But instead of leaving, I retreated into a world where I ignored my gut on a conscious level in order to continue functioning.

It didn't help that the extent of social interaction for me was my job, where I was the sole administrative employee of a construction company. My boss and his wife were both over 50, with children the age of my younger sister, and they were sometimes the only other humans I interacted with on any given day. My family, who has always been my biggest and most reliable support system, lived close by, but I rarely saw or even spoke with them. I had no friends and no means of finding any, as my life consisted of work and home only. My husband didn't believe in therapy or medication and told me that seeing a therapist would mean I was "keeping secrets from him", so I had little option but to retreat into myself. He effectively isolated me from most of the world, and those that did see me were completely unaware of the truth. I'd become so good at convincing myself that convincing others was effortless.

When I finally reached out to my now-boyfriend at the end of 2009, it awakened feelings in me that had been dormant for years: desire. Love. Safety. Happiness. Freedom! I knew, the first time we embraced each other in over 7 years, that I needed to leave my husband. For three weeks, I struggled to conceive a plan for escape that wouldn't leave me injured or dead. When I tried to get to the door during a fight to avoid his wrath, it only enraged him more, and meant a more violent punishment for me. One of the few times I was able to get to my car and lock the doors before he caught me, he kicked the car door so hard it dented. My plan couldn't leave margin for error.

The day I finally did leave - a very cold Sunday in late November - it was almost completely unplanned. I woke up knowing for sure that I was going to leave that day, even though I didn't know how yet. I pretended to sleep through his incessant sexual advances, which finally stopped after what felt like hours. Around mid-day, I broached the subject of staying with my family for a few days. My sister had recently come home unexpectedly from college and wasn't in a good state emotionally. He was aware of this, and I cited her needing me as my reason for wanting to leave. After several hours of carefully talking him into letting me go, I packed a change of clothes and deodorant, got into my car and left. I spent that night with my boyfriend, in his rented railroad apartment that was actually just a room, on a folded up futon that was terribly uncomfortable. I never went back to our apartment, except for a few months later to get my things.

For the first several months after I left, my husband bombarded me with emails and phone calls. Miraculously, he never found out about my boyfriend - which I guess isn't so strange, considering how honed in on me and how "wonderful" our relationship he was. His communications with me ranged from pleading with me to come back, luring me with promises to enter therapy, accusing me of being cold-hearted, weak and pathetic, and attempting to guilt-trip me by claiming I had abandoned our marriage. And for months, I continued to correspond with him - driven by what, I'm not entirely sure. I knew I wouldn't return to him - I'd known that since the day I reconnected with my boyfriend. Looking back, I believe I was desperately hoping that by responding to him rationally, he'd eventually see that what he had done was wrong and accept why I had left him. Throughout our relationship and even after I had left, he usually refused to acknowledge what he did was wrong - in fact sometimes claiming that I was so awful, people would undoubtedly side with him even if they found out.

My attempts to squeeze out the response I wanted from him were futile. No matter how civil, rational, validating, or angry I got, my words never got through. I was still in the wrong and always would be. One afternoon, I sat in a traffic jam on the Saw Mill Parkway after leaving work, and called my mom to let her know I would be late. Since we weren't moving at all, I began relaying my husband's most recent email, in which he was dangling a particularly heart-wrenching proposal in front of me: our dog, who he had inevitably decided was his and had taken with him when he moved, was dying. She was going into kidney failure and was scheduled to be euthanized the next day. He had asked me to come and I declined, knowing by this time that it was a manipulation on his part and I had no interest in seeing him again, even given the awful circumstances. He responded by tearing me to shreds and claiming I didn't care about our dying dog. I began sobbing as I told all of this to my mother, as leaving the dog with him was the only regret I ever had about leaving.

But something else was happening. As I was talking, and recognizing my emotions - sadness, anger, frustration, confusion - I realized that even though I'd left him physically and was embracing a life without him, I was still feeding his desire by giving him my mind, my emotions and the right to upset me. As cheesy as it sounds, it was at that moment that I realized my only option was to sever ties and move on - truly move on. Otherwise, I would forever be trapped in the cycle of abuse. Maybe not physically, but mentally. My responding to his accusations and even acknowledging his existence was just an indirect way for him to still control some aspect of my mind. When I thought of it that way, I was chilled, but moreso relieved. Now that I knew how to fully escape him, I could begin to heal.

It wasn't easy in the beginning. He did his best to goad me, and when he realized I wasn't responding anymore at all, it was an onslaught of the worst possible things one person can say to another. While my heart still pounded every time I saw his name, and I longed to point out all the ways in which what he said was wrong, I no longer had to. Each deleted email and absence of response gave me a sense of empowerment. My silence was stronger than any words I could have spoken, as that was the only thing he couldn't ridicule, twist around or throw back in my face. The power shifted to me.

Once I had disengaged from him emotionally, I began to look at him as a sick person who needs help. I hate what he did to me, how he treated me and hold him fully accountable for his actions. However, I no longer feel the need to prove that to him or even hope that he understands it. It doesn't effect me or my happiness either way. I'm living the life that I want, free from him and able to discuss my experience with others without fear or shame. I never want to see him again, nor do I trust him or his intentions. However, wishing the best for him and those like him is also the best for me - and the rest of the world. I hope he can go on to live a fulfilling life and overcome his problems. This is not just for him, but for his family, friends and the world around him. Retaliation against him and wishing harm upon him brings me down to his level as well as ensures he will always be on my mind. Letting go and moving on allows me to choose whether or not I want to be a perpetual victim, or a person who has experienced domestic violence, survived, and allowed it to strengthen me and my resolve.

My advice to those who have experienced abuse, mistreatment, injustice, intolerance or neglect: talk. Vent. Get help. Get healthy. Make a difference. Educate. Forgive.

My hero, your sex offender

noreply@blogger.com (Shana Rowan) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 21:32:00 +0000

Recently I began narrating our story on Youtube, where to significantly summarize, I reveal the graphic details of my boyfriend's upbringing before, leading up to, and after his crime including prison. I am not yet finished with the narration, and the videos are broken up in chronological segments. I received a wonderful response from viewers, but some preferred to be able to read the story rather than listen to it. For them and anyone else who is interested, I am including the text of our story, as well as a link to my Youtube channel, SOSupporter, for anyone who'd like to watch them.

SOSupporter's Youtube Channel

Part One: My Hero, Your Sex Offender

The story of my boyfriend, Geoff, and I, on one level is very romantic, and not terribly atypical to the love stories of many other young people. Not exactly high school sweethearts, though we met in high school, we were close friends, but never actually “together”. As we approached junior year, we went our separate ways, and had little contact over the next 7 years. I wound up in a relationship with an older man that turned into a marriage, and after an unhappy four years together, I reconnected with Geoff once I had decided I no longer wanted to be with the man I had married. Quickly, Geoff and I began a relationship, I divorced my husband, and now we own a house together in central New York. It's a cute little story.

A cute little story that's also terribly boring. I commend you if you've made it this far. The way I've portrayed Geoff and I – hardly controversial or even interesting enough for a Lifetime TV movie – is the way I am sure we would be perceived if you were to meet us, get to know us and even become our friend. Unfortunately, you would be wrong. Although our love and dedication to each other is as strong and sweet as it possibly could be, the path we have been forced down in an attempt to merely live our lives together has been painful, turbulent, and sometimes terrifying.

My name is Shana Rowan and I am 25 years old. I live with my boyfriend Geoff in central New York. I am also a survivor of domestic violence. Some would probably refer to me as a victim. For nearly four years, I endured horrific physical, emotional and verbal abuse at the hand of a man who played on my nineteen year old insecurities and loneliness, keeping me away from the world and molding me into a timid, empty girl who came to regard his “punishments” as deserved for my naivete, stupidity or disrespectfulness.

By the time I managed to escape, I was a 23 year old zombie whose exhaustion from working sixty hours a week – due to my husband's three year unemployment – stole from me any strength I may have had to even consider that my life was meaningless. I had lost myself what seemed like so long ago and to this day I do not know what it was that finally wore down my wall of denial and awakened my anger, kept in hibernation for much too long. What I do know is that somehow, I knew unwaveringly what I had to do to get out, and found the only person who could reach me where I was. That person was Geoff.

Our relationship as 16-year-olds isn't terribly different than the one we share today, in some aspects. Geoff is a sweet, quiet man who exudes more than he speaks. His emotions, forced down inside of him for most of his life, emanate rather than form words. He radiates when he smiles, when he trembles and when he cries. His love for me is in his timid touch, quiet pride and unquestioning acceptance. My swooning awe at his presence has as much a hold on me now, nearly ten years later, as it did as a sophomore in math class, unable to concentrate on anything but his face.

Geoff is an honorable, kind, genuine person who stops on the side of the road to change flat tires, pull cars out of ditches in snow storms, and thinks it only natural to offer his aid to whomever needs it. He is giving, forgiving and accepting. He is strong and masculine but humble, honestly oblivious of his abilities, and anyone who might appreciate them. He is handsome, funny, and he is my life. He is also a sex offender.

That is what I am here to talk about. I am here to tell you, and anyone else who will listen, how that brand, and society's opinion about what it means, has effected my life and devastated Geoff's. I want to tell the other side of the story, the one that never gets told, about how some offenders wind up in the situation they are in. I believe everyone needs understand how the way they are portrayed by the media, lawmakers and politicians is unjustified and detrimental to everyone.

I will give you the statistics and studies, and educate you on the current legislation that exists for sex crimes. You can do with that what you will. But I will also give you something that statistics and studies and mug shots cannot: the story behind the face, behind the label, behind the crime. I hope you will listen, for the story I have to tell is better than any novel, TV show or movie could come up with and that is because it's real. I promise it will change the way you look at offenders and what you believe they deserve as punishment.

I will be back very soon to begin my story. Please invite anyone you know to watch. Thanks for taking the time to listen to me talk.

Part Two: Childhood and Trial of a Sex Offender

Episode 2

First of all, I want to thank all of you for the kind words, encouragement and subscriptions. I didn't expect this kind of response and am so thankful to all of you because without you, my story won't get told.

I'm going to begin by explaining that, up until the moment that I upload this video, I am the only living soul who holds the knowledge of the wreckage that was – and sometimes still is – Geoff's life. The awful things you are about to hear were not revealed chronologically or without extreme anguish. It is only within the very recent years that Geoff's mind has allowed him to remember the majority of his life, and the path from remembering to communicating these memories is excruciating for him. It can take hours for him to reveal one memory, and is almost always ridden with tears, flashbacks, and fits of trembling, at which point I have no choice but to hold him silently and wait. After over two years, I've finally understood enough that I can take the fragmented pieces Geoff provides and fit them together into an ominous, never-ending puzzle.

As I have mentioned before, Geoff and I are both 25 years old. We grew up in the same small town of South Salem, NY, in Westchester county. South Salem is a beautiful place with lots of Revolutionary War history. Our mothers attended the same high school, John Jay, which we then both attended as well. South Salem is different than it used to be – property values, as well as demographics, changed drastically once young, highly educated professionals migrated from Manhattan and other large metropolitan areas searching for something “rural”, but still a convenient commute to the city.

Geoff's birthparents were married only for a few years, and divorced by the time Geoff was five. He remembers few actual events that took place while his parents were married, just that there was a constant feeling of being blamed and that his mother was almost constantly angry. She insisted on having custody of Geoff, and so when she immediately moved in with and married another man, Geoff was expected to adjust, accept and embrace his new life without question.

After a few years of moving around to various rental houses, Geoff's stepfather purchased a large farmhouse with several acres of land, which is uncommon in South Salem and does not come without a large price tag. He owned a successful trucking company in Connecticut and apparently did quite well for himself. He was also a paraplegic who had lost the use of his legs and been in a wheelchair for over 30 years, as a result of his own drunk driving. He was unable to perform most of the heavy labor required at the truckyard and instead concentrated on the paperwork aspect of things.

Geoff doesn't remember the first time that his mother struck him, but once it began, it didn't stop. He was beaten every day – sometimes accused of “doing something wrong” or “being just like his father”, and sometimes for no apparent reason at all. It was rarely explained what it was that he had done wrong or why being like his father was bad, just that it deserved punishment. The other family members were aware of what she was doing – his stepfather, and his half-sister, who his mother had within a year of marrying his stepfather. From what he describes it was regarded as a normal event that warranted no reaction. His stepfather did not participate physically, but often joined his mother in the verbal ridicule and withholding of any kind of affection, or even attention at times.

Geoff's mother didn't just use her hands to hurt him. Additionally, she used whatever was available – anything from a mop handle to a heavy pan or plate. These objects were used to beat him or were thrown at him – hard enough that he still suffers from physical pain in certain parts of his body. As soon as he was strong enough, around age nine or ten, he was forced to maintain the house by himself – everything from roofing, demolishing, simple plumbing and electrical work, but worst of all, chopping and stacking of wood. The farmhouse, which was quite large, had no modern heating and was heated exclusively by woodstoves. It was Geoff's responsibility to make sure there was constantly an over-abundance of fuel, which meant regardless of the season, hours of his day were spent chopping and stacking. If he resisted even slightly, he was forced to sleep outside of the house in a tent, sometimes for weeks at a time. If he was injured while working, he was forbidden from seeking medical treatment. It wasn't uncommon for him to return from a weekend with his father to find the contents of his room thrown out the second story window or simply to have disappeared completely. When Geoff was a teenager and his father bought him dirtbikes and four-wheelers, his mother would sell them when he was at school.

All of the house maintenance, wood chopping, and mechanical work he was forced to perform on the family's vehicles and various machine equipment took up so much of his time that he became a poor student who rarely completed assignments or was functional enough to retain anything that was being taught to him. This enraged his mother, who decided that in addition to house work, he was also going to “help” his stepfather at the truckyard, since his grades were so poor anyway. This meant from the time the schoolbus dropped him off in the afternoon until the early hours of the morning, he was in the truckyard, alone in the dark, loading and unloading pallets of produce. There were some mornings that he slept in the car on the way back from the yard, and was driven directly to the bus stop to go to school.

Geoff's biological father lived nearby, but the custody arrangement allowed him only to see Geoff on every other weekend. His father is the one who taught him mechanics. Unfortunately, he was either unaware of or unwilling to acknowledge what was happening to Geoff, and so the cycle continued.

As I've mentioned previously, most of Geoff's life is a blur. There are only a few specific incidents he remembers in detail. At age 13, his mother beat him until he was unconscious and threw him in the back of her car. She drove 50 miles into a nasty neighborhood in Jamaica, Queens, at 3:00 in the morning, opened the car door, and pushed him onto the sidewalk. She told him if he wanted to act like crap, he could live with crap, and drove away. At age 15, he nearly lost a finger chopping wood. His mother refused to take him to the hospital and disconnected the phone so he couldn't call 911. He took the keys to her car and began driving himself to the emergency room. She called the car in stolen, and the police stopped him before he reached the hospital. Afraid of what the punishment would be, he made no indication to the officer that he was injured, and he was returned to their home where he was forced to crudely treat his own wound.

At around age 13, he remembers encounters between himself and his then 7 year old half-sister that went on for about a year. He does not remember how it began, or why. There was no intercourse, and there was no violence; it was mutual touching of genitals and some oral contact. On at least one occasion, their mother became aware of what was going on, but she chose not to stop or report it. Geoff has very blurry memories of his mother directing him to do these things, and possibly demonstrating on him what he was to do. Unfortunately, this is often where his ability to communicate shuts down and his body transforms into a trembling, sobbing mess.

One day, at age 16, Geoff returned home from a weekend at his father's house and his mother instructed him to get in the car. It was then that she drove him to the police station, handed him over to police custody and he was arrested for first degree sodomy (which would later be modified). That night, he went to his mother's house, packed his few belongings in black garbage bags, and proceeded to live the next year and a half of his life with his father in the next town over.

The charges were filed in September of 2003, but Geoff wasn't convicted until March of 2004, right after he turned 18. His father could not afford legal counsel, so for some inexplicable reason, he agreed to let Geoff's mother and stepfather pay for his defense – even though his mother made it very clear, throughout the trial, that she was seeking the worst possible sentence and that she hoped he burned in hell. It was at Geoff's lawyer's “advice” that the trial was moved from town to county court, even though the town judge was about to offer him a deal that would have charged him as a juvenile offender and sentenced him to juvenile offender treatment until he was 18, and then his record would have been expunged.

Instead, his case was dragged out for over a year, and it never went to trial. There were months of testimony and other various delays. It was eventually alleged that the abuse of his half-sister had gone one until he was fifteen, which allowed him to be charged as an adult with a B violent felony. His lawyer rejected numerous offers from the distract attorney – without ever making Geoff aware that they were available - which were lesser than the plea he eventually took, which was 2 to 6 years in state prison, of which he served four in jail and two on parole.

I wish that I could say that is where the abuse and trauma ended for Geoff, but unfortunately, that is far from the case. I feel that the period of his life spent in prison, and the three years since he was released, deserve their own segment so they can truly be appreciated. But now, finally, the world knows what really led up to Geoff's charge and status as a sex offender. Even if some may believe he truly is guilty of a crime, that he really was aware that what he was doing was wrong, there is no denying that he was a child himself – yet he has paid for it with all of the adult life he has ever lived, and missed out on everything a normal teenager is supposed to experience, from learning about the opposite sex to a high school diploma. Even so, despite all of this, he trudges onward in life, being the best that he can be and still managing to make me smile and laugh every day. For this reason, he is my hero.

I hope my words have resonated with you, and that Geoff's story has inspired you. Maybe it has even changed the way you look at sex offenders – if so, I'm so glad. If not, I encourage you to keep watching, because his story is far from over.

Thank you again, everyone, for your time. I will be back soon. Sincerely, Shana.

Part Three: 18-Year-Old Sex Offender Goes to Jail

Hi everyone, sorry I couldn't get back to the camera sooner. Please continue sharing my videos with others so we can get as much awareness out there as possible. Even if you know people who don't agree or have preceonceived notions about who sex offenders are, perhaps seeing the story told from a different perspective will get them on the path to open-mindedness. This one is a little bit longer than the last two, but unfortunately this still the shortest story I can possibly tell without taking away from the gravity of it all.

First, I want to address some concerns that have been brought to my attention about revealing such personal information to such a vast audience. To them I say, I appreciate your concern. However what I am doing is no more personal than what is already out there. Because I love Geoff and share my life and home with him, I virtually have no privacy. I know that the other family members out there who have a loved one on the registry understand, and maybe until now I didn't even consider that those who DON'T live with someone on the registry really don't know how invasive these laws actually are. To those who don't know, let me explain as eloquently as I can what we live with every day:

Our homes, addresses, vehicles, license plate numbers, and a clinical, horrible-sounding charge against our loved one and their photograph is available for anyone so inclined to look up. There is virtually nothing preventing anyone from abusing this information. Because the registry is public, even if an individual takes it upon themselves to re-post personal information about our loved one in a public place, or online, or even if they choose to harm our loved or their personal property, there is no recourse. Even if it is the family members, not the offender, who are being harmed, law enforcement for the most part doesn't care and does nothing to stop the misuse of information. Largely this is because there is NO way to prove that the information was accessed from the registry. Privacy - and in many ways, safety - for an offender and their family simply does not exist. If people want to look, judge, or take things into their own hands, there is absolutely nothing Geoff or I can do about it. Our government, legislators and society have ensured that. That is precisely why I have chosen to take advantage of what is otherwise a very negative circumstance, and use it to our benefit.

Anyway, now that I've gotten that off my chest, I want to continue with the tale of Geoff. I left off in my last video with his trial, which was manipulated entirely by his abusers – his mother and stepfather – and his subsequent sentencing, which was four years in state prison and two years on parole.

From the courtroom, 18-year-old Geoff was transported to Westchester County Jail, where his head was shaved, his clothes were stripped and he spent the next ten days trapped in a concrete cell. He told me quite some time later that it was in that place that he spent the most time seriously contemplating suicide. However, before those plans could come to fruition, he was taken from County to his first state facility, Fishkill.

The first few weeks were terrifying, as one might assume. But for Geoff this was not because he was simply nervous or unfamiliar with his surroundings. In a way – a small way – prison was a sort of relief for Geoff, as he was finally free of the parasites that were his “family” for so many years. Though incarcerated, and handcuffed and shackled on a regular basis, it was more freedom he had ever experienced in his life, just confined to a smaller space. Or so he thought. Quickly, it became obvious that he had not escaped constant, nonsensical abuse and torture – the characters were just different.

Within the first few days, he was picked up and thrown down a flight of stairs by a group of corrections officers (who I will hereon refer to as “COs”), while handcuffed. They laughed at him as he struggled to get up without the use of his hands, and painfully crawled back up the stairs. Days later, another group of COs grabbed his hair, again while handcuffed, and slammed his face into the pavement outside until he was bloody and unconscious. Even today, every time I look at his face, my eye is drawn to the bare patch in his right eyebrow, a scar from seven years ago. In every photograph I have of him, no matter how small, it is visible. A constant reminder of the awfulness that was inflicted on such a timid, sweet, innocent young boy who was mistreated by every person who was ever supposed to help or protect him.

Geoff's eyes are boundless and beautiful. Brimming with a yearning I have never before or since seen in another human being, they burn holes in my soul. So often even now he will not meet my gaze, still afraid, even all these years later, of what he might find if he looks for anything other than hatred and anger. It hurts me still, even though he has revealed so many secrets and reasons for the way that he is, that he can't look me in the eye sometimes. I tip his face up to meet my awed gaze, and when I see his fear turn to happiness, I still shiver. That is why I cannot comprehend how any human being is capable of harming him. It makes holding the knowledge of what has been done to him ever burdening and makes me ache in my heart. But you need to know his story, so I will do my best to continue.

Geoff was shipped from one facility to the next for the equivalent of about half of his sentence. He has said that he believes it was an attempt to keep him from becoming “comfortable” in one place. Though constantly moving around was difficult, he made the best of it. He has told me stories of “bunkies” (aka cellmates) that made him laugh and whose presence made being in jail more bearable, and from the way he describes things, sometimes even enjoyable. He says that he met people who made his past seem easy, and also people who infuriated him with their ignorance or inability to accept responsibility for their crimes. In some facilities, where the COs were kinder, loud farts, flinging of frozen peas, and other forms of boyish humor were enjoyed by the entire wing, allowed to go on even past the mandatory 10:00 “lights out”. These are the COs I wish I could meet, and thank for their mercy and ability to look past incarcerated young men and see the scared, juvenile boys they really were.

He worked hard in jail, too. Not just in the programs sex offenders are forced to complete, but in the kitchen, library, and even in groundskeeping. Though most of his jail “employment” was in the kitchen, a few COs saw in him what I see – a miraculous person with a multitude of talents – and he was granted exclusive rights to tend to the landscaping and even plowing at one of the facilities. Staying in his cell made him go insane, spiral into a world he didn't know how to escape (his mind). So he worked as much as he could. In fact, he worked so many hours that when he received back a time card he had submitted to the processing center in Albany, there was a note written on a Post-It that said, “what are you DOING?” He replied, on his next time card, “as much as I can”...and received back, “Oh.”

One of the few benefits of prison was the opportunity for education – not just in terms of experience, but in actual classes. Geoff has expressed confusion as to why more inmates do not take advantage of what is offered to them in jail, as this is where he was finally given an opportunity he might not have had otherwise – a GED. This didn't come easily, in fact only after constant correspondence with the state about being able to take the test in jail. Even after he passed his GED, he continued with classes. He was already extremely mechanically able, but being able to take Physics greatly added to his ability. He not only retained this information, but filled up several notebooks with calculations, detailed notes and equations. He still refers to these notebooks when designing and fabricating custom truck suspensions, as he does today.

Unfortunately, his violent welcome to the New York State prison system was not the end of the abuse. His entire sentence was dotted with trips to the infirmary, by his calculations, equivalent to about two years. The worst facility, in terms of violence, was Gowanda. Sex offenders and DWIs were housed together. For whatever reason, the majority of the DWI offenders thought their charges were much less significant and grotesque than those of the sex offenders, even though many of them had physically harmed people with their actions. As was the case in most facilities, most COs shared this view and did little to prevent or stop issues between the two groups of inmates. This hostile environment was extremely conducive to violence and fear on the part of the sex offenders.

As anyone who has had a loved one incarcerated for a sex crime can attest, particularly if it is a husband, boyfriend, or significant other – the “therapies” sex offenders are forced to undergo are something like that out of an 1800's sanitarium. The moderators of the sessions despise the offenders and make no attempt at hiding this; and whomever is responsible for the methodology of the “therapy” either lacks any knowledge of basic human psychology, or wants to create a sub-human race composed entirely of asexual, self-loathing, perpetually terrified former sex offenders.

When an offender begins his “treatment”, the first thing he must do is reveal to the group what his crime was. Keep in mind that the moderators have all of this information already. The idea is to humiliate the offender by forcing him to reveal his charge in front of everyone else, so they can then begin the next step, constant degradation and re-assurance that once they get out of jail, everyone will hate them and want to kill them. And the saddest thing, in my opinion, is what Geoff told me when I asked how the programs addressed romantic relationships and what is healthy and what is not. In the eyes of the moderators, there is no such thing as a healthy romantic relationship for a sex offender. Not only will no woman ever want them, or even want to be in their general vicinity, but any romantic interest in a woman – from the mere desire, to an actual physical advance such as hand-holding, a hug, or a kiss – is considered re-offending.

I realize this all sounds like some kind of conspiracy, that it is too over the top or preposterous to be true. I was not there in those sessions, I've never been in jail and I've never been arrested for a sex crime. All I can do is rely on Geoff to tell me what it was like. But even if Geoff interpreted things to be this way, and it wasn't exactly as he says – the undeniable fact is that their therapy failed him. If their goal is to rehabilitate people so they can be contributing, stable members of society, they failed. They took an already unstable, self-loathing, terrified boy with absolutely no coping skills, and made him worse. He already hated himself not only for the acts he committed with his half-sister, but because of how he had been treated his entire life, regardless of where he was or who was in charge. They took someone with unbelievable potential and smashed him to pieces.

Because Geoff's final charges were not the actual events that occurred – particularly the length of time that the abuse had continued – AND none of the abuse he had endured had ever been included in the record – he refused to say to the group what his crime was the way it read on paper. It is hard even now for him to talk about what happened, and I cannot even imagine how difficult it was then. Regardless, he told his story the way it happened, but the moderators refused to accept that. Instead, they decided to force it out of him.

Later in the day of his failed therapy, while he was working in the kitchen with several other inmates – all DWIs – one of the group moderators walked in. As Geoff removed a large tray from the oven, the moderator began reciting his charge outloud for everyone to hear. Before they could finish, another inmate knocked the tray out of his hands and onto his forearms. As his skin blistered away, another inmate punched him in the back of the head, and he fell to the ground. Within seconds, eleven inmates were on top of him, punching, kicking, hitting and doing whatever else they could to hurt him. This is the fight that he says he watched take place, from far above. Outside of his beaten body, watching it waste away. He thought he was dying. He says he can't remember how long it took for them to pull the last inmate off of his back, probably because he was unconscious. It was six weeks in the infirmary after that, but at least for then he was safe.

When he was put back in general population, he quickly learned that fight had opened a door. He suffered broken ribs (being hit in the stomach with a barbel), which he walked around with for two weeks before reporting; a broken jaw, countless beatings and attempted assaults, some of which he was able to stave off. Geoff is a strong man; he can easily take down three other guys without much of a problem. The problem was, there were never just three. Even though he did everything he could to avoid the fights, and even situations that could possibly lead to them, he was denied parole three separate times. Every one of the eleven inmates who had tried to kill him that day in the kitchen was out on parole before he was finally released in March of 2008.

Geoff's father had moved to Texas – over 1,500 miles away – in the middle of Geoff's sentence. With him, he had taken all of his belongings – everything from clothes to thousands of dollars worth of mechanic's tools. So when he walked out of Gowanda the night of his release, and boarded a one-way bus to White Plains, New York, he found himself with the $50.00 they give you on the way out, nothing else. For the next three months, he would live in the homeless shelter in Valhalla, and begin his re-entry into the world.

That is where I will end today's segment because this is when Geoff's life began to change for the better. It still wasn't easy and there is much yet to be told, but I need to stop now. For whatever reason this is the hardest part of Geoff's life for me to deal with and I need to go distract myself with something else now. Thank you again, as usual, for your kind words and support. There is much more to be told, I promise. Sincerely, Shana.