Sen. Lauren Book says no child can be kept safe by DCF
Last year, Senator Lauren Book proposed a bill that enabled DCF (Department of Children and Families) to take a child away from their registrant (person required to register as a sex offender) parent. The bill would have created a rebuttable presumption of dangerousness, thereby allowing for the child’s removal and placement in DCF custody while the registrant parent would have to prove he’s not dangerous in order to get his child back.
No allegations of sexual assault against the removed child and it didn’t matter how long ago the registrant committed their crime.
This year, that same senator, in a statement following the death of a toddler in DCF custody is saying, “ I do not have any confidence that other vulnerable individuals across the state can be kept safe by DCF.”
To any registrant with children, last year’s proposed bill was sick and scary. Thankfully it didn’t pass. Now she’s essentially calling the agency charged with removing our children inept!
It’s scary to have a person with such little experience or insight and who is willfully blind to research or expert opinion, in a position of power.
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On a cause such as this one, if you can’t control your anger, it will make you ineffective or, worse, counter-productive. It could be anger at victim(s), anger at those seeking to protect children, or anger simply with those who are trying to take your side in a controversial movement.
You might be doing other things that that are effective, but those efforts run the risk of being undermined by your anger. Among other things, anger can make you unpersuasive in a movement where we have a hard enough time educating the public as it is.
If you call someone a coward for pointing this out (as I see happened further down in this discussion), then you are simply proving my point.
Lauren Book is a victim of childhood sexual abuse. I would not wish that upon anyone. She is also, in my personal opinion, often greedy and dishonest, as are many elected officials, and in her role she has hurt many people. Both of these things are true, and anger and name-calling make the issue more simple but are not very persuasive, are they?
Please, let’s be clear here. Lauren Book is a victim of child sexual abuse only because her father, Ron Book, failed to do his due diligence as a parent by hiring a person who molested his child. Just as John Walsh, himself a child molester (an adult having sex with an underage teenager) and I am so sick of all the “so-called” hero worship here in Florida, and passing by roads dedicated to and named after some paid public servant like a Councilman from 15 years ago, and yes, it must be nice to do that on the taxpayers tab. Am I angry, Jacob? You bet I am! I am daily shamed as the wife of a registrant, I have a target on my back placed by the State of Florida, and I’ve never broken a law, ever! Yes, you think I’m scum because my husband has to register as a sex offender for life for the only conviction he’s ever had – he’s 56 and his conviction was in 1990, long before Megan’s Law even existed and long before I married him. Now with aid of the Florida State driver’s license identifier, IML passport identifier requirement, and Florida “open to the public for scrutiny” internet accessible registry information (and free downloadable software to “get pinged” on your cell phone if you are anywhere near one of those “evil” SO homes). I’ve worked for various government agencies in the past, but here in Florida I can’t even get a job cleaning someone’s toilets, all due to the publicly available registry in this state! You bet, I’m mad as hell. Just as you do, I expect to be treated fairly under the law, but that doesn’t happen for those associated with someone required to register as a SO in Florida. If Florida didn’t want us to move here, why didn’t they put a “Welcome to Hell – it’s hot here for a reason, sex offenders!’ or even a ‘No Sex Offenders Allowed’ cause gee, it sure would have been nice to know in advance just how differently we would be treated just by moving here! We’ve lived in 3 other states and have never been treated so unfairly or unjustly discriminated against as we have been in Florida. Jacob, what we all need to do is walk a mile in each another’s moccasins for a moment and realize that each case is different, and we are all deserving of forgiveness in God’s eyes, because we are all sinners.
My comments on anger were not, of course, aimed at you, Candy. YOU have every right to be angry. So does your husband. Neither of you are “scum.”
Instead, my comments were more pertinent to an out-of-state individual who occasionally risks mucking things up in Florida. He is basically on the right side of this difficult issue and devotes a good deal of time to it, but his lack of anger management has tends to undermine his efforts to persuade potential allies and turn them against him. You can see evidence of this further down the discussion.
Now, regarding Ron Book, I don’t blame him one bit for his daughter’s victimization. But perhaps deep down he does, because I can’t think why else he would have done so much to hurt so many Florida families, including yours, and that’s what I blame him for (him, and his daughter, and any other co-sponsors of such ridiculous legislation as you have described).