FAC Responds to Ignorant Florida Atlantic University Course Description.
A member wrote:
In the Lifelong Learing program of FAU, a professor, Laurence Miller, is offering a course on “Bad People: Modern Insights into the Criminal Mind”
http://www.fau.edu/divdept/lifelong/LLSBoca/F541B.php
He says: “The second lecture deals with the predators among us: stalkers, sex offenders, and serial killers.” This seems to be saying that all sex offenders are predators, on the sale level as stalkers and serial killers.
FAC RESPONDED WITH THE FOLLOWING:
August 25, 2014
Dr. John Kelly, President
Florida Atlantic University
Administration Bldg, Room 339
777 Glades Road
Boca Raton, FL 33431
RE: YOUR COURSE; BAD PEOPLE: MODERN INSIGHTS INTO THE CRIMINAL MIND TAUGHT BY LAURENCE MILLER
Dear Dr. Kelly:
Your online course description for the above-referenced course, taught by Dr. Lawrence Miller, was brought to my attention.
The course is entitled “Bad People” and under the Lectures it lists “2. Predators: Stalkers, Sex Offenders and Serial Killers”, presumably as one of the categories of “bad people” the professor will be lecturing on.
In the state of Florida, there is a distinction between a Sexual Offender and a Predator. Most sex offenders committed offenses that are not predatory in nature and the term “sex offender” covers a very broad number of crimes ranging across the full spectrum of severity.
There are individuals on sex offender registries in the United States for urinating in public. There are teens on the registry for having consensual relationships with other teens a few years younger than them and, in fact, more than one-third of sex crimes against juveniles are committed by juveniles themselves, according to the US Justice Department.
Further, the recidivism rate of sex offenders is among the lowest of any crime and the majority of offenders are first-time, non-violent offenders. I would be very happy to send you extensive research on this subject.
This course description serves to perpetuate a myth and hysteria that is unfounded and has caused over three quarters of a million people to become second-class citizens, publicly humiliated by public registries, separated from their families and forced into homelessness because of residency restrictions and shunned into a hopeless existence.
Granted, there are those who committed particularly heinous offenses and deserve the lifelong stigma that is placed on them, but there are others who may have done something “bad” but are not “bad people”. The majority of sex offenders are low risk and certainly not “the predators among us” as the course description states.
For Dr. Miller and Florida Atlantic University, an educational institution, to publish this course description is irresponsible and, candidly, ignorant.
Sincerely,
Gail Colletta, President
Florida Action Committee
Cc: Stacy Volnick, Liason to the Board of Trustees
Board of Governors
State University System of Florida
325 West Gaines Street, Suite 1614
Tallahassee, Florida 32399-0400
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