Another pendulum that has swung too far....

bobb wrote:

So, bobberito, let's just have a look at what offends you so.

I'll begin with a little statement of my bias and beliefs.

If I had a daughter of eight, regardless of your particular beliefs, I
would not be offering her up for a 12 year old boy to explore his
sexuality with.

In fact, if I had a 12 year old boy, I'd not be happy with him exploring
his sexuality with an 8 year old girl. You may shift the ages in any
directly you wish. 12 is not the most intelligent of times for boy or
girl. I'd prefer they wait. So would millions of other parents.

BOY'S SEX OFFENSE STILL RESONATES

Incident at age 12 has consequences five years later

By Bill Scanlon

Rocky Mountain News, Colorado, USA: December 10, 2004
http://rockymountainnews.com/drmn/st...388085,00.html

It started with a phone call, then a knock on the door.

An Arvada police detective told the couple he was looking into
allegations that their 14-year-old son, nicknamed Victor, had sexually
assaulted an 8-year-old girl two years earlier.

Yep, and that is the tip off. Calling it "sexual assaulted." There is
very much a likelihood that more happened than anyone is admitting to.

They were shocked. Their son was shocked. There were tears, then a
confession. A guilty plea followed, and Victor found himself among a
growing number of young people on Colorado's Sexual Offender Registry.

Just the place for an incipient child molester. This is just how they
get started.

"It was an 'I'll show you mine if you show me yours' type of thing,"
said Victor's mother, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity.
"He did touch her, but there was no penetration. When she said that
was enough, he stopped."

Let me see now, would this mean he had genital to genital contact until
it hurt? Digital stimulation? How long did it go on? How many times did
it happen? Notice what the mother (bless her loving soul) leaves
carefully out?

It makes it appear there was quick tentative touch and everyone quickly
rerobed and got out of there. Don't you believe it.

When Victor pleaded guilty to sexual assault, he joined approximately
750 juveniles ages 12 to 17 who were on the Colorado Bureau of
Investigation's registry as of this summer.

And that comes as a great relief to all the families whose children were
once victims of 751 juveniles, don'tchankow.

Since 1998, the number of names on the registry has more than doubled,
from 3,600 to roughly 7,690, largely because of a national crackdown
on sex offenders and because greater public awareness has led to more
reporting. In Colorado, juveniles make up roughly 10 percent of the
registry.

And you'd rather the public stayed ignorant why again, bobberito?

Victor was required to begin a treatment program, including a set of
stringent rules and guidelines, and his parents committed to spending
thousands of dollars on counselors, polygraph tests and court costs.

Most children in treatment have "social" learning deficits. This is
opposed to the psychiatric child patent who has systemic injuries or
anomolies, such as abnormal brain development.

"Social learning" deficits are sometimes part of some systemic problem,
and both can be, sometimes, addressed simultaneously.

Treatment consists of teaching the child new ways of responding to
social situations. Sometimes just how to make and keep friends,
sometimes how to deal with their own sexual feelings and social
interactions.

In fact, bobberito, it's very simple. Just like we teach children not to
kill to get what they want. Every thought about a 3 year old being 7
foot tall and wanting the toy another child has?

The only things stopping him or her from homicide is small size, poor
coordination, and YOU the adult caregiver. The same issues ensue with
sexual behavior of the young. They may want something, but sans
masturbation, they have no right to impose it on others or take it from
them. Even if both parties think they want it. Too much is at stake.

He also became part of a program considered one of the strictest in
the nation.

I hope so. Programs without clear and hard boundaries tell the child
it's really okay, they just got caught, and have to put up with this
limitation for awhile.

Some say too strict.

Only if it included daily caning.

The rules also are indiscriminate, painting teens such as Victor who
committed one offense with the same brush as teens who are serial
sexual predators, some experts say.

The trick here, given that we are dealing obviously with a propagandist
on the order of Doug and what you wish you had the brains to be, is to
look at the language.

What rules? How do "rules" determine this "painting?"

My bet is they are simply lying, and presuming the treatment is the same
for both degrees of molestation. They are NOT in any program I'm
familiar with. There is overlap, and but for a child that is violent and
agressive the treatment modality is very different indeed than for a
timid child that has simply strayed. In fact this rendition is full of
anomolies for those of us that have worked with such youth.

Someone is lying.

But others say the standards, written in 2002, are fair, but that many
judges and psychologists don't realize they can adjust treatment for
individual cases.

I beg your pardon? Don't realize? Unable to adjust to individual cases?

Utter hogwash. Such things are the constant conversation, officially, in
the courtroom and in conference.

"There are times when we are guilty of using a one-size-fits-all,
cookie-cutter approach," said clinical social worker Tom Leversee, a
member of Colorado's Sex Offender Management Board, which developed
and oversees statewide standards for the supervision of sex offenders.

Yep, bound to happen. Part of it is lack of staffing to do what is asked
below.

"We need to get better at individualizing treatment."

Yep. And when you individualize you must work with individuals. Group
work tends to diminish, and each program takes a great deal of time to
create, to monitor, to change, and to administer to the child.

STRICT RULES FOR PROBATION

Victor is 17 now and still has a couple months of probation remaining,
during which time:

MMMmmm.... he's had 3 years of probation and treatment, bobberito. That
is NOT a long time for any major criminal offense. And it certainly
isn't for a sex offender.

* He can't go to the movies, the mall, amusement parks, parties or
anywhere there is likely to be children. He has to phone his parents
every hour.

Sounds excellent to me, and suggests even more strongly there was more
to his offense than we are being told.

* He can't go shopping with friends without first filing an action
plan with his treatment team, promising to avert his eyes if he sees
young children, for example.

Mmmm...wanna bet a penile plethysmograph got a strong hit on "young
child?" It's pretty difficult to fool that device. And they do more than
expose the subject to just the target potential victim population. They
would see how he reacted to adult male and female figures, even animals,
to have a complete picture.

He might have some reaction to any of those, but it's the stronger
reaction that is considered significant.

If he meets those requirements, he still
can't go shopping with girls his own age, only with boys his own age.
He can't have a girlfriend.

Yep. So?

* He has to take his meals on the porch if his parents invite over
another family with kids.

Easy solution.

* His little brother can't have friends over to the house - even if
Victor is away.

Yep. That protects even Victor. He could be accused when he really was
innocent.


* He has to take periodic polygraphs, which cost his parents $225
each.

Yep. He did after all sexually assault a little girl.

"It's put a major damper on a typical 16-year-old's life," the mother
said.

Nice mom. Loving. Blind.

He is not a typical 16 year old. He sexually assualted an 8 year old
when he was 12. That removes the "typical" label.

"I get so frustrated because I look at what they're putting my
son through - group therapy once a week, individual therapy twice a
week, probation twice a month. And I read in the paper about these
people who are actually sexually offending walking around on the
streets."

Yep. I got a traffic ticket once and it burns me that I actually see
traffic offenders going without being caught.

And she is wrong, of course. And she is wrong in a fundamental way. I've
watch moms become frantic being unable to get the kind of treatment
regamine Victor is getting because the court decided this was not really
a dangerous kid....as the mom watches him grow increasing sexualized and
more agressive sexually and molesting other kids.

"It's a high price to pay for something he did at age 12."

Yes, and I'd say it's a high price the little girl paid and her parents.
Hopefully she was afforded some therapeutic help as well. She needed to
learn that it really was not okay to succumb, no matter how tempting,
curious, and exciting it was, to the blandishments of older boys.


His father is torn.


In this society, yes. Of course. We still have some throwbacks that
think boys will be boys and that's okay.

"On the one hand, this is too horrible a price to pay for something so
minor," he said. "But if there weren't any consequences for what he
did, what lesson would that teach my son?"

There is much more than "consequences" if he means punishment. In fact
it's not really about punishment, since Victor has done no time in jail.
It's about helping Victor and making sure, as sure as can be done
without locking him up, he well be far less likely to offend in the future.

That's one reason the parents didn't hire an attorney to fight the
charge. The other is that had the case gone to trial and Victor was
found guilty, he could have been incarcerated.

Yep. That would have been the only alternative for society...unless they
were willing to turn Victor loose with no consequences and no
rehabilitation. That would be cruel.

As for Victor, he said he can't even think about college or plan for
the future; he is completely focused on getting through the next two
months without having his probation extended.

Yep, only two months to go. Sure motivating. And once he's free of the
probation? Might he not think back on it if he's tempted again?

TOUGH TASK BEGINS

Once Victor confessed, he was assigned a treatment team consisting of
a therapist, probation officer, polygrapher, case worker and his
parents.

I like good teamwork. Everyone is on board. The child cannot con anyone
and get away with it.

First, he answered several hundred questions as part of a
psychological evaluation.

Are we supposed to gasp? Some jobs require that.

Next, a device was attached to Victor's penis to measure his arousal
when pictures of boys and girls of various ages were shown.

Yep. Works like a charm. Yah can't fool mother nature, and that is what
is being questioned. He's expected to have an erectile response to some
pics, and not to others. My bet....he got a woody over little children,
and less so over girls his own age and women.

Then he was hooked up to a polygraph and asked about his sexual
history and fantasies.

"It's like peeling back an onion," said Greg Brown, supervisor at the
Boulder County Probation Department. "Some guys who we think are
low-risk, we find are high-risk after we do the sexual history."

Yep. Wesley Allan Dodd was like that. They just didn't think he was much
of a risk. You recall my telling you what he did, right?

"It can take a year to get a picture of what the guy is engaged in,"
Brown added. It may have been just the one victim, or it may have been
several.

And therein lies one of the more serious problems with this particular
crime. There does tend to be as string of offenses. Once a kid gets away
with this they are likely ... no more ... to repeat it than shop lifting.

Victor passed a polygraph test on his version of what happened the day
he had contact with the girl, said Dr. David Mirich, a forensic
psychologist who talked about Victor's case with the family's
permission.

Excellent. Telling the truth, even to very serious offenses is a good
sign that treatment will more likely be successful. But notice, we still
don't know, other than the protective mothers, "it was a you show me
yours...." episode.

It may have been far more than we are told by the author.

Victor passed his next polygraph, filled with questions about whether
he had ever touched his younger brother inappropriately.

But he failed his third because he had installed a PlayStation for a
neighbor boy. Victor was deceptive about violating the order that he
not be alone with a child, not even for five minutes.

This doesn't indicate he's a full blown molester, but it does that he is
sneaky. That IS a trait of a molester.

Victor also made things worse for himself when he was caught with
marijuana. The incident didn't extend his probation, but it meant he
was subject to random urine tests and had to go to an extra group
therapy class.

Oh brother. And his mom thinks he's a typical 16 year old whose style is
being cramped by the restrictive treatment and probation. R R R R R

Recently, his mother came forward and told the treatment team that her
son was not going places where he said he was going. Her admission
likely saved Victor more trouble if the team had discovered the lie
instead, Mirich said.

This IS what happens when you have a team working well together. They
are all working toward the same end, except occasionally the subject,
and that is to the good.

"The parents deserve a lot of credit for supervising this child,"
Mirich said.

Said the mother: "Our entire family really is on probation. We have to
watch every move we make."

Yep. That is the terrible burden of having a child sexually assault
another. It wouldn't be any different if he did a B&E and got caught.
You'd want something done about that, wouldn't you, bobberito?

Stealing, by the way, is a natural urge at an early age.

MEGAN'S LAWS SWEPT NATION

Like the rest of the nation, Colorado cracked down on sex offenders in
the 1990s. The rape and murder of 7-year-old Megan Kanka in 1994 by a
twice-convicted sex offender living in her New Jersey neighborhood
caused a public outcry.

All states enacted Megan's Law, which requires sex offenders to
register with police make their addresses known to the public.

Juvenile sex crimes were increasing, and some studies showed most sex
offenders could never be rehabilitated. Incarceration seemed to be the
only way to protect the public.

Until two years ago, juvenile sex offenders in Colorado were treated
like adults. But in 2000, lawmakers ordered the Sexual Abuse
Management Board to develop more flexible treatment plans for teens,
with greater emphasis on rehabilitation.

The aim was to strike a balance between protecting society and giving
young offenders a chance to turn their lives around.

But many psychologists and parents complain that therapy teams often
are reluctant to invoke that flexibility. So, a kid who was naively
experimenting is given the same treatment as a kid who has been a
repeat abuser, critics say.

A couple of same age kids fumbling about with sexual curiosity is NOT a
12 year old with an 8 year old.

The result is, Colorado has one of the highest rates of offense
reporting in the nation, they say.

Nothing like an educated public, is there, bobberito.

"The problem is, the pendulum has swung too far. We've gone from
complete denial of the problem 20 years ago to now being very
hypersensitive, reactive and punitive," said Gail Ryan, with the Kempe
Center for child-abuse prevention in Denver.

Yep. But your standards are too far the other way, bobberito. You've
even said you'd leave grandchildren with a babysitter that was on the
sex offender list.

She likes the flexibility of the new juvenile standards, but says they
rely too much on polygraphs. She believes juveniles are more likely
than adults to flunk them, even when they're not lying.

Now we see just how accurate the author is. There was a claim of
inflexibility. Now we have an appreciation of flexibility.

Everyone involved knows that polygraphs are not terribly accurate. And
in this instance they are not being used to determine guilt or
innocence. Just treatment strategies.

When the juvenile sexual offense law was being drafted, most experts
didn't want a juvenile registry, or expected it to contain only a few
names, Ryan said. Those few would be offenders with multiple victims
who weren't responding to treatment.

It's amazing how many victims of a single offender are found when they
are finally caught. And sometimes even then not for years afterward.

Ryan fears that too many young offenders will be labeled for life.

Fears and reality are too different things. If we were to respond to
this person's "fears" then no charges or treatment should be allowed at
all. Don't even investigate.

The truth is that juvenile records are sealed. And he is not required to
tell employers he was a sex offender.

And he's off the list after he's an adult.

"The community's assumption that all these kids are destined to be
this way for life is just not accurate."

Yep, that is true. But, is that the community's assumption? I've rarely
heard anyone say that. And on the rare instances I have I've set them
straight. With early and vigorous treatment these kids have a chance of
overcoming their issues.

Victor's father shares that view.

"Yes, what (my son) did was wrong. But there is no gray area in the
system," he said. "He's treated as if he was a serial rapist or
something. That's far from the truth."

Well, we can believe Victor's father, or we can consider that the
therapists may have found a good deal more. Notice Victor was sneaky
about being alone with a child while on probation, and using pot.

"Nobody is willing to say, 'This looks like an isolated incident,
let's back off,' " he said.

Why should they? It's a betrayal to Victor to NOT treat him.

A 19-year-old from Thornton who must spend the next 31/2 years in
sex-offender treatment couldn't agree more.

Of course.

He said there was no intercourse, just fooling around on the bed with
a girl he said looked 18. She was 14. The girl's father walked in on
them.

Mmmhhmmmm.....let me clue you in bobberito, if you have forgotten your
youth, or were too pimply to get laid. There is nothing more prominant
in the mind of a young lad about to get it on than the age of the girl
in question. It's theme in many conversations. Always has been. The term
"jail bait" didn't just pop up last week.

The teen was convicted of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
He wasn't put on the registry but was given four years of treatment.
He has to report to his probation officer six days a week, go to
"sexual boundaries" therapy once a week, and give a quarter of his
paycheck to pay for the treatment.

Yep. Notice he was 19 years old? We don't consider that a teen around
here. We consider that a young man.

He is required to avert his eyes when children pass, to take polygraph
tests and to submit to spontaneous urine analyses.

"One mistake is ruining my life," he said.

Wouldn't you say that's just a tad hyperbolic?

Sounds a little like he's referring to not have as much free access to
14 year old girls. Yep, that would, if I were 14 or 15, "ruin my life"
too, but he's twenty.

Juveniles must petition the court to get their names off the registry,
but few do. "That's still uncommon," said Philip Tedeschi, a clinical
social worker and member of the state's Sexual Offender Management
Board. "I'm not sure they're taking full advantage of that
opportunity."

Then they need to be better informed. That is NOT the states
responsibility, but I'll bet they were told and blew it off, as the
young are prone to do.

The statutes also allow judges to keep the juveniles' names off the
registry, if they feel the damage done by stigmatizing the child
outweighs the risk to the public.

Where is this so called 'inflexibility' then?

SIMPLE INQUISITIVENESS

Some juveniles who wind up on the sex offender registry have mental
health problems, dysfunctional families and histories of sexual abuse.

But many also are normal kids with a simple inquisitiveness about
about sex. They are typically described as naive experimenters who
have the hormones of 17-year-olds but the social maturity of
12-year-olds.

Mmmmhmmm...those are exactly the most prevalent characteristics of the
treatment population. They are WHY there are laws and treatment options.

I do hope the author isn't saying to just turn them loose as you seem to
say so often, bobberito.

Often, they have trouble making friends their own age, said Tedeschi.
They're more at ease with younger kids, and when their hormones kick
in, they sometimes experiment with those youngsters.

Which is why treatment is the very best, and most humane, and most
socially responsible alternative. These children need more attention to
help them learn to control impulses. Or they could end up, at 18, still
offending and shortly find themselves in a serious long term lockup
situation. Victor's parents, had he never received treatment and been
let off, would be crying a very differen tune them about how the system
let him down. I've seen that repeatedly.

Victor appears to fit this profile.

"I don't think he's deviant; I think he's normal," said Dr. Mirich,
his therapist.

In shrink language "deviant" means "pathological." One doesn't have to
be pathological to be a danger to others, though it helps.

Another large group of juvenile sex offenders are delinquents who
typically drink and use drugs, fight and get sexually aggressive with
peers.

A small number of youths, however, are more troubling.

These include juvenile psychopaths - self-centered and sexually
aggressive kids "who tend to be the most dangerous youths, who can't
really be treated in the open community," Tedeschi said.

The other dangerous ones are early-onset pedophiles who truly prefer
sexual contact with children rather than with people their own age.

The victims, in two-thirds of cases, are children significantly
younger than they are, and almost half the time it's someone in their
own households, said Ryan.

In a third of cases, the offenders use coercion, force or violence to
get the younger child to do what they want.

"More often, they use subtle pressure - 'I won't like you,' 'I won't
let you play with me,' 'I'll get you in trouble with your mom,' " she
said.

"The harm they cause at the moment of offending as juveniles is very
real," Ryan said. "We certainly don't want to minimize that this is a
terrible thing for anyone to do to anyone."

What's been established, most likely, by getting Victor into a strict
program, is to sort him out as either one of the above or not. In either
case, both better for society and for Victor. He and others are safer.

SOME OFFENDERS RESIST CHANGE

Jean McAllister, executive director of the Colorado Coalition Against
Sexual Assault, deals with the victims young offenders leave in their
wake.

Colorado's rules are strict, she concedes, but they may not be tough
enough for the hardest cases, said McAllister.

Two years ago, for example, a 13-year-old Arapahoe County boy was
convicted of raping a child about five years younger than he was. His
treatment team ultimately discovered there had been two more victims.

After he was caught in a lie about medications he was taking, his
therapy team revoked his probation.

The boy is now in a foster care facility that is locked down 24 hours
a day. Unless he makes a dramatic turnaround, he might be
institutionalized well past his 18th birthday.

Untreated Victor could easily have become more sexually "experimental"
again with the more succeptible young child and raped.

"We're still not great at identifying which kids aren't going to
re-offend, (and) which ones are more treatable," said McAllister.

She worries that too many juveniles are released too early.

Yep...the worry of all treatment people. It's rare that a kid graduates
treatment and everyone says, "well, he's cured and won't be back."

Victor's therapist, Mirich, said the rules may seem harsh, but they're
there for a reason.

A treatment team's first priority is ensuring the offender won't hurt
another child.

That's why an offender must be totally honest with the team about
every detail of his personal life - to ensure that they can trust him
and know that he isn't hurting another child.

Did you bother to read this far before you cut and pasted this,
bobberito? They just slapped your head a good one for you.

Mirich agrees that Victor is paying too big a price for his mistake.
But, he said, Victor didn't help himself when he broke the rules,
including being alone with his neighbor to install the PlayStation and
once hugging a girl on the day they met, an infraction that cost
Victor the privilege of being with any girls his own age.

Ah, now the truth comes out. Victor has poor social boundaries.

Victor is angry.

"My parents have been going broke over this whole thing," he said.
"It's ruined our family."

Hyperbole. They aren't "ruined."

They'd be a whole lot more "ruined" if his behaviors had been allowed to
run their course uninterupted.

There are so many rules, so many lists of "don'ts," that sometimes
it's easier just to stay home and do nothing, Victor said.

Mmmm...poor kid. No Playstation. No books to read. No homework to do.

"I'm not allowed to date anyone. I'm not allowed to talk to girls.

For two more months.

They have control over my whole life. For something that happened when
I was 12. And I haven't shown any deviancy whatsoever since then.

Well, flat out lying of course. He was a sneak. And he broke the rules.
And he was caught with pot, an illegal drug.

"Right now, I'm pretty isolated. I don't want to do a single thing
because I'm scared of getting in trouble."

For two more months. Then if he doesn't molest little kids, sticks to
women his own age, he's home free.

This sounds like a successful therapy and sour grapes.

In fact, his bitching is very healthy for a kid coming up the end of
probation and treatment. He, like other humans, is impatient now the end
is so near.

We used to watch kids that were too compliant...yes, too compliant and
too careful at that time.

Can you guess why, bobberito?

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