We don’t advocate for crime, we advocate for people… That’s what I have to remind people over and over again when they say “oh, Florida Action Committee… you’re the group that fights for sex offenders.” No! That’s absolutely not true. We don’t advocate for ‘people who commit sex offenses’ because we are very much against sexual offending. If someone is out there committing actual sex crimes, they should be prosecuted.
FAC advocates for persons who have (in the past) committed or been charged with a sexual offense and are now rehabilitated or in the process of rehabilitation. We advocate for policy that will help such people reintegrate so that they will live productive, law abiding lives as valued citizens and community members. We fight for laws based on empirical evidence and best practices that foster successful reentry and reduced recidivism. In fact, we fight to end the cycle of sexual abuse and protect the constitutional rights of ALL persons. We advocate for PEOPLE. We don’t defend or excuse what they might have done in the past, whether it was a sex offense, robbery or violent crime.
This week, when the Colorado Sex Offender Management Board decided to stop using the term “sex offender” and instead use “adults who commit sexual offenses” in order to make the term less offensive, they clearly missed the mark. They may have even made things worse! The label “sex offender” implies that is who the person is. Like “doctor” or “lawyer”. It promotes the presumption that this person wakes up in the morning, eats breakfast, and heads out into the world to sexually offend.
“Adults who commit sexual offenses” is even worse. The use of the present tense “commit” implies that they are currently committing crimes, whereas mostly all offenses took place sometime in the past, some even decades ago. The use of the plural “sex offenses” implies these people are recidivists and have committed multiple offenses. Again, completely misleading and probably more damaging to those who are subject to the laws than if the Colorado Management Board had left things alone.
People don’t realize how damaging labels are and there is significant misunderstanding when it comes to use of certain terms. Often, the terms “sex offender”, “child molester” and “pedophile” are used interchangeably, but not all sex offenses involve children or even physical contact, not all who have molested a child are pedophiles and certainly not all pedophiles have or will commit a sexual offense. In fact most never have and will not.
There are forums available for individuals who suffer from most addictions. There are welcoming groups that provide support and accountability. When it comes to drugs and alcohol, when someone is able to remain clean and sober, they are celebrated and their achievements are acknowledged, as they should be. Unfortunately, when it comes to sexual proclivity or former offenders, here in the Unites States there’s no reward chip system for people who have remained offense free. Worse, those who have never offended in the first place are considered as though they have.
Last week, a respected university professor was suspended because of comments made about pedophiles in a presentation. The professor who said the comments, made it explicitly clear that sexual offenses against children (or anyone) are wrong. They merely pointed out that some people have a natural proclivity to be attracted to a minor, but recognizing that it is wrong will never act on it. These people should be encouraged to seek help to avoid acting on this attraction should they need it.
Because society has confused the terms “sex offender”, “child molester” and “pedophile” to mean the same thing, the professor suggested using a different term to remove the stigma surrounding the term “pedophile” so that people with this diagnosis who have never acted on an impulse will feel more open to seek help if they need it. This led to a huge misunderstanding that grew out of control and led to an unfortunate consequence, that being the stigmatization and ostracism of people who research and treat this population.
The whole situation surrounding the professor is tantamount to shunning scientists studying cancer because you believe they help spread the disease. That’s not how it works. Cancer research in no way suggests that cancer is a good thing. Similarly, research into sexual disorders in no way suggests that sexual offending is a good thing. Both areas of science focus on treatment or eradication, not expansion. We absolutely need people studying physical and mental disorders and we need people studying and treating people who have sexually offended. Without these professionals we will never come up with ways to treat these conditions or best practices for preventing disease and crime. In other words, if we want to reduce the instances of sexual offending, we need to focus on prevention (before it happens) more so than punishment (after it happens). Society just doesn’t get that!
Pedophilic Disorder is a DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) diagnosis, just like Anxiety, Depression, Bipolar Disorder or Schizophrenia. As with most people suffering with any of those disorders, people with pedophilic disorder generally wish they didn’t have it and there should be as much academic and scientific research as possible out there to manage or treat the symptoms of the disorder so they don’t manifest themselves in undesirable ways. Instead of encouraging people to seek out treatment, we are driving them further into the shadows and we are dragging the experts in management and treatment down with them. It’s a real shame.
In our opinion, both of these recent events were a huge step backwards in the area of management and treatment of persons who have committed a sexual offense (and people with a certain diagnosis) and are indicative of how ignorant and misguided people are. Not only the general public, but worse, people appointed to a “Sex Offender Management Board” or heads of an academic institution. If public safety is the objective, these actions are counter-intuitive.
We don’t want to draw more attention to the controversy surrounding the professor, so we won’t mention their name or the university. We are simply hoping that enough professionals who are in the know or who have insight into the subject will come to their defense. We do, however, have a couple opportunities to help public perception in Colorado by contacting the Colorado SO Management Board and encouraging them to adopt a different name. You can do so by contacting them at:
Program Manager | Chris Lobanov-Rostovsky |303.239.4447 |[email protected]
Program Assistant | Jill Trowbridge |303.239.4526 | [email protected]
While we think no labels should apply to people, a better choice might be “people who have been charged with a sexual offense”.
You can’t offend sex. Calling someone a Sex Offender is grammatically incorrect.
The New Colorado designation, “adults who commit sexual offenses” is also incorrect. A human being is on the registry for having committed and been found guilty of a certain type of crime. Offenses is also incorrect, as it is plural, indicating more than one offense has occurred. While it would not have removed or lessened the stigma, the term, “Adult who committed a Sex Offense” is at least grammatically correct.
If these people want to remove the stigma, which they don’t, they just need to remove the term SEX. However, they are never going to do so as society has made that into a disgusting word and they want it in there so people are disgusted with registrants. They could just as easily call it “Section NNN offender” where NNN is the State Code for the crime committed.
https://dcj.colorado.gov/boards-commissions/sex-offender-management-board
If you go to the CO-SOMB front page, there is a prominently displayed link at the top of the page to vote on the propossed language as well as the chance to make comments on the proposed language. We need to flood them with comments. So take a few moments of your lives to make a statement.
Because the SOMB stated they were allowing public comments through this link for 20 days, I assume commenting ends on Dec. 9th, as it would be 20 days after the meeting held on Nov. 19th.
They did a segment on this along with other changes in terminology on Gutfeld. They even put up a quote from Derek Logue. Utter BS of course.
The only thing wrong with this is that some of the sex laws under which SOs have been sentenced and registered under ARE BAD LAWS. I don’t think we stand to gain as much as we lose by pretending this isn’t so.
If you were on the SOMB zoom meeting you learned a couple of things; it is clearly a dysfunctional group and they have too many victims rights people as part of their board. Let’s not forget that they are the state that originally coined the phrase ‘no known cure’ years ago.
One of our other directors was called on as well as Derek Logue. We surmised they were going alphabetically and for those occasions I need to change my name to ‘Bicki’ instead of Vicki. There were three people waiting to speak when they brought a guy back in to talk then ended the meeting. I had to submit my statement on their site after sitting their for hours.
Their decision on the term was ridiculous as reality shows it is more of persons who pled to a sexual offense instead of a person who ‘commits’ one. It is well known that the majority of those committing sexual offense are not on a registry which is why we advocate for the ‘abolishment of the registry!’
Thank you Vicki for representing this movement, always ready to speak out, and reporting back.
Don’t forget the trap we sometimes fall into when we point out that most sex offenses aren’t committed by registrants— “that’s because registration prevents them from re-offending,” they reply, without realizing that re-offense rates by convicted sex offenders are no different than they were before there was a registry. So I find it less heartburn-inducing to point out that most people who commit sex offenses simply have no criminal record at all.
Vicki, thank you for sharing that information. Even when we don’t see or get the outcome it should, just hearing when people do show up and speak out it is encouraging to all of us.
Love what you said the group is definitely super dysfunctional.
Question-
I get a residence check twice a year. This month a deputy came to my house when I was not there. My wife told them I should be back in 1/2 hour. They haven’t been back. Should I remain home until they return?
Thanks,
Dennis
Dennis, if your off of Paper (Probation) there’s no need to wait for anyone, you are free. It’s the police’s responsibility to come back as many times as necessary to complete their checks. as long as you’re abiding by the law and following through, ie., keeping everything up to date, there’s nothing to worry about. If your friendly with them and have their contact number, you can give a courteous call, but that’s up to you, certainly not required. Good luck!
Thank you and Happy Holidays
@Dennis,
Only if you are on some type of probation. Other than that, go about living your life.
Thank you and happy holidays.
Dennis
If you are not a Ward of the State or Federal Government, there are NO SANCTIONS or NUMERICAL CODIFIED STATUTES WITH REGARDS TO THE MADE-UP PHENOMENA OF WHAT ‘THEY’ CALL ‘COMPLIANCE CHECKS’
THERE ARE FEDERAL MONIES THAT ARE DIRECTED TO THESE ‘MICKEY MOUSE’ COMPLIANCE CHECK CAMPAIGNS ACROSS THE USA AND ITS TERRITORIES
IF YOU ARE NOT A WARD OF THE STATE, THEY CANNOT TALK TO YOU; THEY CANNOT MAKE YOU SIGN A PIECE OF PAPER…
ON THE COMPLIANCE CHECK FORM THERE ARE NO NUMERICAL CODIFIED STATUTES ON THIS PIECE OF TOILET PAPER-THEY DO NOT EXIST
FAC, PLEASE ADDRESS THIS ISSUE FOR THE GENERAL MEMBERSHIP-YOU ARE NOT A LAW FIRM BUT A SOCIAL MEDIA MEANS TO DISCUSS THE FACTS, THE TRUTHS, AND EMPIRICAL DATA
THANK YOU!
WALK AWAY FROM THEM UNLESS THEY HAVE A WARRANT FOR YOUR ARREST OR A SEARCH WARRANT ON YOUR RESIDENCE
Truth and Science,
The truth is Florida Statute 943.0435(6) states, “County and local law enforcement agencies, in conjunction with the department, shall verify the addresses of sexual offenders who are not under the care, custody, control, or supervision of the Department of Corrections, and may verify the addresses of sexual offenders who are under the care, custody, control, or supervision of the Department of Corrections, in a manner that is consistent with the provisions of the federal Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 and any other federal standards applicable to such verification or required to be met as a condition for the receipt of federal funds by the state. Local law enforcement agencies shall report to the department any failure by a sexual offender to comply with registration requirements.”
That’s the facts and the truth.
Dennis is NOT required to wait for them.
He may present his ID to them at his convenience.
Also, Contributor 3, thank you for the citation. It seems to address a frequently asked question on this forum, and I wonder whether it should be posted on a permanent page somewhere. Also, what ARE the ‘provisions of the Federal Adam Walsh Act’ wrt address checks? Do we know? I recall that all they need to do to is verify them twice annually.
If one calls me an “Adult who commits sexual offenses” in a forum or place where more than just me heard someone using the term then I’m slapping a defamation, false light, and slander lawsuit on the person who used the SOMB stupidly approved term in the vein of many $M.
THIS is what FAC is all about. Grateful for so many clear thinkers on our board and in our membership!
DITTO what Jacob said!!
“Adults who commit sexual offenses” is even worse.
Yes, it is. Because kids and teenagers commit sexual offenses also.
As for not mentioning the name of the professor, I saw the full video clip since it’s been all over the internet. I get that you’re attempting to protect the identity but… kinda late. All the WRONG kind of people have already seen it.
We get that, but we really don’t want to create ANOTHER negative link on a google search.
The problem with this is common sense arguments don’t work on people with no common sense. Things like fear, depression and anxiety all share the common problem that they bypass the logic part of the brain and go straight to the “lizard brain,” the fight, flight or freeze instinct. It took so long for society to give minorities and the LGBTQIA+ community fair treatment. The mentality of “we don’t like what we don’t understand” is prevalent, especially in today’s anti-intellectual society. And as long as the media and law enforcement promote the mentality that sex offenders are the worst of the worst, it’s going to be a struggle. I sincerely appreciate all that you folks do. It’s an uphill battle, but please keep fighting the good fight. Maybe someday SOs can be allowed to reintegrate into society and not live with a scarlet letter mentality.
I recently posted a public comment on the dcj.colorado.gov site before I read this article. I essentially summarized this article without knowing it. I essentially agree in this most important context: The public’s perception of a “sex offender” as a broad class is erroneously misconstrued as a narrowly defined class of serial child rapists. The link between the two creates a slanderous connotation (yes, I did state in the public comment that the use of the term “sex offender” is slanderous) of “sex offenders” when certain individuals who committed certain “sex offense” did not not ever will have abusive sexual contact or communication with a minor.
This whole idea that all “sex offenders” are a threat to all minors that crosses their path is preposterous especially when the offense convicted of has no such link to such conduct.