Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Sexual Predator Insanity-Ricky's story
Sexual Predator Insanity
By Paul Elam | Aug 3, 2009
At sixteen, Ricky Blackman was fairly typical of teen-age boys. He loved sports, especially basketball and football, and played them well enough to have realistic hopes for a scholarship. He liked socializing and hanging out with his friends. And girls—of course there were always the girls.
His Middle American upbringing produced unsurprising ambitions. He dreamed of serving his country in the Navy after school, and ultimately of a career in law enforcement. He was, by all accounts, a healthy and well adjusted young man.
Skip ahead three years, and you’ll find Ricky and his life have changed radically. He takes private instruction in web design because he isn’t welcome on a campus. He no longer trusts the law he once wanted to serve, and, when in the presence of young women, he panics and withdraws. In fact, his life, once so full of promise and hope, is now little more than a daily struggle to survive, and a challenge to even find reasons for doing so.
While Ricky’s view of the world has changed since his younger days, it is nothing compared to the way the world’s view of Ricky has changed. He has become the ultimate pariah and outcast. He is, at least in the eyes of most, pernicious persona non grata; human refuse hardly worthy of life itself.
It all started before his seventeenth birthday. Ricky was at a local hang out for teens and met a girl there. Amanda was from his area, said she was fifteen years old and they seemed to have much in common. They began seeing each other, and eventually had sex on two occasions.
The encounters would undo the rest of his life.
Like many young people trying to impress someone they like, Amanda lied to Ricky about her age. She later told Ricky’s mother, Mary Duval, that she was only fourteen, and pled with her not to let Ricky know. Mary promptly told her son of the confession, and he cut off the romance immediately. They found out later that she still wasn’t being entirely honest.
Later Amanda, a runaway, became involved with the police, who discovered her prior ties with Ricky. She admitted the sexual relationship to the police during questioning. She also admitted that she had lied to Ricky about her age. After evaluating the situation, Amanda’s parents weren’t interested in pressing charges and the police weren’t interested in making an arrest. Until, that is, the Dallas County (Iowa) District Attorney’s office got wind of the case.
Shortly after Ricky turned seventeen, he was questioned by the police. His mother was present, and it was her instinct to remove Ricky from the interview. But she had just undergone surgery on her eyes and was disoriented due to the post-operative medications she was taking, so she allowed Ricky’s then-stepfather to handle things. Unfortunately, the stepfather wanted the matter quickly resolved, and signed a waiver for the police to question him without legal counsel.
The police had something they wanted Ricky to sign as well.
It was a simple statement that he had, in fact, had sexual relations with Amanda. Ricky was apprehensive, but he signed. It was, after all, the truth. And in Ricky’s world, the truth served an honest person well.
“Sorry to tell you,” the police officer told Ricky after he had signed the statement. “Amanda admitted she lied to you about her real age, but she was only thirteen.”
It probably wasn’t the tactics Ricky envisioned, when he thought of becoming a police officer: Get a kid to sign a confession, and then tell him what he just confessed to. Ricky’s naiveté took a hard blow. But it was only the first of many times that the real world would land on him like a Mack Truck.
The officer told him that the case would be sent back to the D.A., and that it might come to nothing since Amanda had confessed to lying about her age. He also advised him, in a rare moment of clarity and honesty from the system, that it could go either way.
The Arrest Made the Papers
Ten days later, Ricky was handcuffed in front of his friends and taken to jail. He was charged as an adult with two counts of third degree sexual abuse, a felony. In an almost artistic manipulation of timing and the system, police and prosecutors used laws applying only to juveniles to garner evidence and a confession, and then used it all to charge him criminally as an adult.
He was threatened with twenty years in prison (more time than he’d yet been alive), but that was only the beginning of a two-pronged assault on his life. When the arrest made the papers, complete with Ricky’s full name, address, and the nature of the charges against him, the community in which he had lived and thrived turned on him in an instant.
When Ricky and Mary went food shopping, cashiers in one line at a local grocery store refused to check them out, forcing them to go to another line while other customers glared. His younger brother, who was nine at the time, was badgered and humiliated at school.
Duval read the writing on the wall, and immediately made plans to take Ricky and his brother to Oklahoma in hopes that they could put the matter behind them. Unfortunately, the move would have to wait until the Dallas County Prosecutor’s Office was done with him.
That process began with a rare, upbeat moment that seemed to promise a partial reprieve. The prosecution offered a deal with Ricky that almost seemed reasonable, given the circumstances. He would plead guilty to one count of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child, a class D felony, which would be expunged from the records if he satisfied the terms of his two-year probation. He would not have to state a felony on job applications, and, because of the adjudication, he would not be placed on a sex offenders’ registry.
It seemed like the best offer possible, all things considered, and Ricky agreed to the plea.
Ricky and his mother took their seats in the courtroom. Then, just minutes before the hearing was scheduled to begin, the state appointed attorney advised them that there had been a recent change in Iowa law.
Any plea arrangement Ricky made would be contingent on being placed on a sex abuser registry for ten years. Both Ricky and his mother erupted in tears at the news, causing a commotion in the courtroom. It took some time for them to compose themselves.
The “recent” change in the statute had happened, they would discover, nearly a year earlier, but right now, Ricky had just moments to decide whether or not to take the deal.
He didn’t want to be placed on the registry. He didn’t think it was right. But to fight it was risking two decades behind bars; a place where young men, especially those not hardened by criminal life, were sure to find out what real sexual deviance and assault are all about.
It was a double blow for Duval, who had lost her eyesight entirely, just five weeks before the hearing. Now she could lose her son.
Ricky took the deal, but almost ran into another snag with the court. The prosecution wanted Ricky to state on the record that he had lured the girl to his home for the purpose of having sex. The request was clear. In essence they wanted Ricky to commit perjury, a real crime, so they could have on the record a phony allocution to something he never did. Blackman, with courage almost unimaginable for his age and the circumstances, refused. He told the court that the sex was what they both wanted, and he wouldn‘t make a statement to the contrary.
They entered his statement into the record and closed the case. Ricky had received the adjudication, and they were now free to move away from Iowa.
It was something Ricky couldn’t wait to do. The promise of getting away and making a fresh start almost made the situation bearable.
A Fresh Start
The state of Oklahoma, and some of its citizens, had other plans.
They’d had no idea when they moved, but Oklahoma law required Ricky to register as a sexual offender for life. And because of the age difference between him and Amanda, he would be listed as a Level Three Offender, which labels him as violent and dangerous, and his crime as “aggravated.” He was placed on the sexual offender registry, and, as a result, Ricky’s life has been affected in ways that most of us cannot imagine.
Since moving to Oklahoma he has been kicked out of school, ousted from public parks, and verbally abused by neighbors and strangers. One neighbor shouted obscenities and videotaped him whenever he stepped outside his door. The same man came to their home and told Mary Duval he would not quit bothering them till she took her “child rapist” away. He was not interested in the facts surrounding Ricky’s case. He had seen everything he needed to know about Ricky Blackman on the “Offender Registry.”
Ricky cannot live or go within 2,000 feet of schools, parks or any other establishments where children are known to be present, and this forces him to live as far from town as possible. It also means he cannot attend his younger brother’s football games, or go almost anywhere where he could make and maintain friendships. He cannot even attend church unless he informs the clergy there that he is a sex offender and gets their permission.
Now that Ricky is off probation, his younger brother can have his friends in the home while Ricky is there. But most parents don’t want their children in a home with a registered sex offender. And the reality is that children around Ricky do present a dangerous vulnerability… for Ricky. Any allegation against him, even the most patently false, could have disastrous results.
His probation officer had him dismissed from the school system, saying, according to Duval, “He is a liability to them.” He was denied G.E.D classes because they were offered on a school campus, and the State Board of Education denied him online classes because he was on the registry.
Ricky was eventually allowed to take G.E.D. classes, at a local police station.
He now lives his life in near solitude, helping to take care of his mother and trying to sort out how he is going to make something of the rest of his life. He had a job in a fabrication plant, but was “laid off” when his employers discovered his history. Effectively in prison, Ricky will remain that way for the rest of his life unless something changes.
Ricky and his mother are both involved in trying to effect those changes. They have both taken the story public, and Duval has an on-line radio program to raise awareness of what the registry actually does. She has managed to get the story covered by some television stations and newspapers. She also has an internet petition demanding changes in the laws. Primary among those demands is that the states recognize the difference between sexual predation and consensual sex between teens.
In many places, including Oklahoma, the law sees no such difference, and consequently makes no legal distinction between someone who lures a child into a car and rapes them and someone like Ricky Blackman.
The Court Knew Better
It was a difference, however, that the prosecution in his case was apparently able to see, even as they held twenty years in prison over the young man’s head in order to coerce a guilty plea. It was the prosecution that recommended to the court that Blackman receive two years probation with deferred adjudication. In that recommendation, they advised the court that this course of action would be sufficient to rehabilitate the defendant.
One only need consult a mental health professional with experience dealing with sexual offenders to learn that the nearly universal perception is that recidivism for sexual offenders is high. In my considerable time in the field, it was the general consensus of clinicians that predators were untreatable, and that incarceration was the best option. (There is research that disputes all this, but in Blackman’s case, it was always perceptions that guided events, not reality.)
That being said, prosecutors are generally less generous than psychotherapists. With their recommendation to the court, the prosecution openly acceded to what everyone else in that courtroom already knew.
Ricky Blackman was not a sexual predator.
Ricky Blackman was just a kid that had sex with a girlfriend he thought was a year younger than him.
Ricky Blackman had no business being there in the first place.
At this point, though, it was too late. Blackman was caught up in a system largely devised by politicians clamoring to quell public fears about the safety of children. Fanning the flames of public outrage, and sometimes lighting them, lawmakers run for office against each other on platforms largely consisting of “tough on crime” one-upmanship. One ever more draconian measure after another is offered up as a sales pitch to a panic-ridden, woefully ignorant public that will sign on to whatever sounds the most extreme.
The result is laws that not only fail to protect our children, but in the case of Blackman and others, have actually started destroying them. Elected politicians, like prosecutors and judges, fearful of being seen as soft on crime, force people like Ricky through the legal gauntlet without compunction. They have become robotic assassins, creating unthinkable collateral damage in a war that is supposedly being waged in the public’s best interest.
Meanwhile, children are no safer on the streets than they have ever been.
His Whole Life in Front of Him
It is perhaps fitting to point to the silver linings in this story. Duval, the loss of her sight notwithstanding, has emerged as a dogged and tireless advocate for her son, and for bringing problems with the sexual offenders registry to the public’s attention.
Ricky has found some focus for the future as well, though it took some hits and misses. He wanted to get a law degree and work to change the system for the better, but he won’t be allowed to practice law anywhere, because of the registry. Now he takes private lessons in web design, a profession suited for someone who has little reason to leave the house. He also wants to reach out to young people and caution them about the hazards and consequences of teen sex. The jury remains out on whether that can ever happen.
These are thin consolations, lending neither redemption nor solace. Even if Mary Duval had not lost her eyesight, she would never again see the Ricky she knew before all this happened. Her life is, and will be, consumed with trying to find justice for her son. She openly admits this may never happen.
Ricky, at nineteen, is supposed to have his whole life in front of him. When he should be looking forward to the time he will marry and have children of his own, his path looks to be marked by a single set of footprints. His ideas on women are not what they used to be.
“I don’t trust them,” he says. “When I see one looking at me I just walk away.”
Still, he is a young man with a message, albeit forged in the fires of adversity. It is a message that assaults the complacency in which we all too often and too easily find comfort.
“Anybody who looks at the registry should not judge people just for being there,” he says, “There are lots of people that don’t belong. People like me. There are even people that had to pee so bad they went outside and the next thing you know someone takes a picture with a cell phone and they end up on the registry too.”
Right alongside the child rapists.
Little at this point would ameliorate the damage done to this family. The Kafkaesque tempest that overtook them three years ago still darkens every horizon and pummels the simplicity out of life that they used to take for granted. It rattles their doors and windows, as though trying to shake loose the last of their dignity. And it has swept away hope for the future, leaving behind only the solemn, desperate need for peace.
We love to think that justice is blind. But we also pray that those who administer that justice are people of vision. When systems become so twisted that the letter of the law strangles its spirit, then justice cannot exist. It will die as surely as the dreams of a teen-age boy when the world caves in around him.
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Mary Duval has an online petition in Ricky’s behalf. Petition
Paul Elam is the editor of A Voice for Men
Monday, June 22, 2009
Another Shade of Gray
Another Shade of Gray
Some Surprising Truths about the Sex Offender Situation
How do we begin to address such an emotionally charged topic? A subject that by and large, is distasteful to most, and directly problematic to all too many. There are few social issues existing today that carry such widely impacting relevance, and are at the same time plagued by such an abundance of myth, misconception, misinformation, myopic motivations, outright lies, and above all – a critical shortage of accurate statistical data.
It would make the most sense to commence with some pertinent, probably somewhat surprising facts - real facts, based on true, complete, and accurate presentation of information revealed by the most extensive studies ever conducted on convicted sexual offenders. Ironically, the United States Department of Justice, the originator of the largest and most comprehensive study, would likely benefit much more by the results coming out, in effect, the opposite of what was revealed. Herein lies one of greatest intrinsic challenges in dealing with child sexual abuse – much of our perception, reaction, statute, and social viewpoint are based not on the truth, but on myth. As an example, it is widely accepted as fact that sex offenders are extremely likely to re-offend. In reality, with the singular exception of murderers (probably because they are usually imprisoned for life or executed,) individuals that have committed sexual crimes against children – once prosecuted, are the least likely group of criminals to commit a similar crime again. (See U.S. DOJ Study @ www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/rsorp94.htm.) Where much of the perceptive distortion may come from, is the actual fact that most offenders against children have committed multiple offenses prior to being caught the first time. This element of truth has routinely been twisted to serve the agendas of a host of entities and organizations that benefit greatly from the public maintaining a universal fear and revulsion of sex offenders.
In this case, it’s an insidious instance of “throwing out the baby with the bathwater.” By reacting legally and socially based on mistaken assumptions, we expend a hugely disproportionate amount of our efforts, energies, and resources on incarcerating, monitoring, supervising, and tracking a population that is relatively harmless. There is not a recognized, significant study instrument existing today, that indicates a recidivism (re-offense) rate higher than 5% among this group of criminals, and some come in as low as 3.4 %! Many will immediately contend that this still constitutes a high enough risk level to warrant the current policies, laws, rights violations, and overall hysteria, “to protect the children!!” Where the myopic rubber meets the road here, is that as sentences, regulations, restrictions, and monitoring have increased, so proportionately has the number of absconded (whereabouts unknown) offenders - and equally significantly, the number of dead and missing children. How is this helping anyone, in any way?
Most are aware that “Meagan’s Law” is the precedent for the majority of today’s sex offender registries, monitoring, and community notification structures nationwide. What may come as a surprise is that there is absolutely no empirical evidence whatsoever that Megan’s or other like-minded laws have prevented anything, or protected anyone, ever. Many law enforcement professionals have gone on record bearing this out. While it has occasionally assisted in the apprehension of a few of the 2 – 5 % of individuals that did choose to re-offend, it can also be argued that those same resources could be applied to better screening, therapy, and public awareness processes, in order to lower that number even more and better detect warning signs - rather than wasting money and punishing many undeserving individuals for the sins of the few. It is difficult to even conceptualize the depths of Mrs. Kanka’s (Megan’s mother) grief or the scope of her family’s loss, and one would hope that very few would ever have to experience that level of tragedy. What must nonetheless be said is this: Laws should never be initiated by grieving families of victims for the above reasons. Having no basis in statistical fact, a “good idea on paper” has turned out to be ineffective, often unconstitutionally restrictive, and in effect counter-productive to its intended purpose (recidivism rates are the same as they were prior to the enactment of any of these laws.) The federal government’s typically inept reaction to this abject failure has been to create “SORNA” (legislation also initiated by an impacted family,) which is just more of the same, on a larger, more comprehensive scale. It reminds one of the tale of the watermelon vendors, selling melons for half of what they paid for them. After a season of losses, they concluded that a larger truck was necessary, so they could make it up next year in increased sales volume! We will not further protect our children by enveloping them in a blanket of false security. Rather, we must face facts and change course drastically if we hope to achieve a real difference – the need is clear for more exhaustive research, and more fitting, productive responses based on truth, not special-interest-serving fear-mongering.
Another hugely unproductive myth is that of “Stranger Danger.” Whether it be in public places, like malls and parks, on the streets, at the movies, wherever – your children are almost 95% safer at any of these locations, than they are in your own home, and the company of family, friends, and others that you actually “know,” and believe to be relatively safe. The explanation is simple – the overwhelming majority of child-related sex offenses are committed by someone known to the parents and the child - not “strangers.” While no one would advocate neglecting safety measures while in public, this merely illustrates yet another dangerous, counter-productive fallacy, that by its very nature, is likely contributive to an ongoing failure in the prevention of offenses that would be less likely to occur in an environment of accurate information.
A Perfect Storm
It’s important to clarify exactly how and why there are so many misconceptions, so much irrational fear and hatred, and such an unhealthy overall climate, which unintentionally contributes to worsening the problem. Simply put, there is a self-perpetuating cycle of misinformation, fear-mongering, knee-jerk reactions, and “feel good” legislation - all of which combine to create an exceptionally ineffective environment on every front of this “war.” It begins and ends with the news media, and our society’s apparent misconceptions about their true purpose. If we keep in mind that most of the media’s actual primary goal is, and always has been, to sell advertising, the overall picture might make more sense. It should come as no surprise that society possesses a certain morbid cultural curiosity around subjects that generally have very little or no direct relevance to most of us. For example, there seems to be something about fire that attracts our collective attention. The same goes for natural disasters such as typhoons and earthquakes, half the globe away. We’re constantly subjected to comprehensive coverage of the horrific of every kind, even though it generally has absolutely no practical impact on any of us, and that we have no intention of doing anything for or about. This seems to be exceedingly apparent with sexually based offenses, especially those committed against children. Almost like peeking at a scary movie through our fingers, we sit transfixed, unable to turn away – despite the heinous and revolting nature of what we’re viewing.
This is precisely what much of the media want and expect of us, and creates the most value benefit for them, in the form of advertising dollars - generated in direct proportion to the size of their audiences. The media have no desire whatsoever to report on what’s most relevant, important, or beneficial to you. Make no mistake, it’s all about the money, and always has been. Increasingly sensational (and often disturbing) stories go hand in hand with larger revenue potentials from bigger audiences.
The evolution and emergence of such an unfortunate dynamic has directly resulted in a precariously misinformed public, having been deliberately misled for profit, at an almost unimaginably high price. Because we’re told to believe that convicted sex offenders are inherently dangerous people that should be watched, regulated, supervised, and avoided if possible, we’re not looking where we should be for danger – within our own circles of family, friends, caregivers, and acquaintances. Meanwhile, we ostracize, revile, demean and disenfranchise a statistically harmless group of human beings.
Thus, the cycle continues with ubiquitous, sensationalistic misinformation, nurturing largely irrational and generally unjustifiable fear, contempt, repugnance, and hatred, all of which results in a devastatingly wasteful misdirection of energies and resources. With the public kept in a constant mindless frenzy of emotional reactivity (often due to atypical but high profile, particularly gruesome incidents,) the stage stays set for grandstanding politicians to step up – spouting rhetoric all having the same ring, “sex offenders are bad people, and we MUST protect our children from them, at ANY COST!”
The glaring error in this is that the vast majority of new-victim sexual offenses are not, repeat, not committed by already convicted sex offenders. Consequently as stated earlier, valuable resources are wasted on a relatively non-dangerous population. Still, the pundits rant on for their own political gain, probably fully cognizant of the pointlessness of what they propose, in order to garner more votes, gain leverage, or trash more level-headed, civil-rights-minded opponents. This prompts generally useless, often Draconian legislation that protects no one, and prevents nothing, but indeed looks “tough on crime” in the media. Public misinformation is then further reinforced, because, surely the lawmakers must know what they’re doing, right? Wrong. The statistics here, while undeniably true, are almost astounding, simply because they appear so foreign from what the media, policies, attitudes and overall current climate would suggest. Figures don’t lie, but liars apparently do figure.
We now come to the next insidious, cancer-like piece of this poisonous pie: The Criminal Justice System. More numerous and stricter laws equal more walls, more bars, more guards, more probation and parole officers - MORE MONEY. With over one million convicted sex offenders living and working among us, some very attractive opportunities present themselves to the ambitious in many professions. After all, who will come to the defense of a sex offender, even when it may involve his or her (the “her” contains a hypocrisy worthy of an entire additional article,) constitutional rights remaining intact? “They don’t deserve rights,” is a fairly common belief among many, largely due to the mass hypnosis continually perpetuated by the media and law enforcement, for their own benefits, not yours. Sex offenders, due to safety concerns, often require special, more expensive housing in jail and prison facilities, higher-priced custody situations for necessary segregation, and smaller scale, more expensive transport, for the same reasons. They often receive longer sentences, and are making up an ever-growing segment of today’s institutional populations. Again, more facilities, jobs, and money for everyone, at the taxpayers’ expense. So, why do the authorities continue to ignore relevant research and real facts? Because it’s profitable to do so. What price does this carry, beyond just dollars and sense? Our children, and many law abiding citizens pay it every day, in decreased safety, misplaced trust, and losses of freedoms.
And finally, we must consider the therapeutic sector’s impacts, interests and implications in this idiotic ideology. One might mistakenly assume that therapy providers would endeavor to act in society’s best interests in order to minimize recidivism rates. Wrong again. Here is yet another area where financial interests outweigh the greater good. Psychologists that treat sex offenders are generally contracted through states’ and counties’ criminal justice systems, and therefore subject not just to intense scrutiny from law enforcement such as probation and parole departments, but actually often must waive standard confidentiality procedures, and even conform their programs to requirements set by authorities. There have been numerous cases, some successful, some thrown out, of offenders being further prosecuted for disclosing additional victims or offenses in “private” therapy sessions. In return for sacrificing professional practices, experience, and ethics, treatment providers are rewarded with almost guaranteed success through lucrative contracts that provide them with a steady stream of long-term, compliant “customers.” So, the actual “customer” becomes the state or county, while offenders and taxpayers foot the bills for substandard, compromised – and consequentially less effective – “treatment.” All this is in seeming opposition to the standard mantra that “there is no cure,” so what actually is the point? It would appear to be an exemplary application of the Orwellian concept of “Double-think,” wherein government and society allow themselves to believe two directly conflicting ideas at the same time, in order to benefit financially and politically. The major costs, obviously, are that the safety and well-being of our children, as well as the constitutional rights of over a million Americans and counting, are being line by line sacrificed to get your vote and strengthen and grow already ineffective systems.
How Do We Fix It?
The solution is two-fold. From the perspective of society and for the victims’ well-being, it is necessary to develop better awareness programs, geared toward warning signs, trauma indicators, and common techniques and typical set scenarios used by offenders to “groom” their potential victims. The most widespread fallacies must be dispelled, such as that of “stranger danger,” vs. “next-door-neighbor danger,” and replaced with solid foundational information, that may actually help prevent offenses, and protect children.
With respect to convicted offenders themselves, more accurate and universal risk-assessment tools must be developed, based on empirical evidence that already does indeed exist, and has thus far just been ignored, or at best, not properly mined. Perhaps the greatest advancement we could make to help decrease the overall aggregate amount of child sexual abuse is to confront the general public with the facts – convicted sex offenders are not inherently dangerous, and their deviances can be successfully managed. This in turn will hopefully engender an environment wherein offenders can come forward to seek the help they need, because again and contrary to popular belief, most are not devoid of conscience, and struggle with deviant behaviors prior to being caught – and are simply not willing to be subjected to the current social branding and vilification that inevitably accompany such disclosures. Instead, they are almost forced to choose to try to deal with their problems on their own, and are consequently likely to commit many more offenses then they would with proper treatment.
It is not being suggested that all be forgiven, and no consequences come to bear, but rather we endeavor to balance them with solution-oriented results in mind, as opposed to the current atmosphere of utter contempt and hatred. We stand at a critical crossroads right now, both socially and legally – we had best tread carefully.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Beware the Sex Offender Hysteria is Spreading to Those Not on the Registry
NEW ORLEANS (CN) - A man claims Terrebonne Parish and a Houma police officer warned school districts that he was "essentially a child predator" because the cop saw him resting after a 2-mile run on a public jogging path near a school.
Ronald Stuard, 47, says he took a break after a 2-mile run on a public jogging path near St. Gregory's School, where students were playing sports. Stuard says a teacher asked him what he was doing and though he told her "he was merely resting between running intervals on the public track, the teacher called police."
Stuard says Houma city police came and told him not to go there again. Then, he says, Houma police, including defendant Officer Angela Domangue, sent his photo, birth date and information about the car he drove to "several schools in the parish."
"The communication also indicated that Mr. Stuard had been 'watching school children outside.' It further indicated that if Mr. Stuard was seen near the recipient's school, he or she should contact the Houma Police Department," Stuard's complaint states. "The communications further indicated that the police department recognized that Mr. Stuard was not a registered sex offender, but that they wanted to 'keep the kids safe' and 'be in his face' if he was near a school.
"These actions by the defendants resulted in Ronald Stuard being named and published as essentially a child predator."
Stuard demands damages for defamation and privacy invasion. He is represented in Federal Court by R. Glenn Cater.
Ever notice How far some will go in the name of Keeping Children Safe? This quote is taken from Nazi Germany's plan to rule the minds of people....
“The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as thegovernment is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure
almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation”
We must stop having a knee jerk reaction to the media and politicians when they say they are protecting the children or if it protects one child. We must ask ourselves hard questions. Does what they are saying make sense? Is this the best way to protect children? Will what they are proposing hurt other children i.e. collateral damages? Do these people have some other motivation other then protecting children, like selling newspapers or getting votes!? Lets stop letting them cow us into blindly excepting their word for what will protect the children, let's step up, stand up and let our voices be heard!
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Preditor Panic
Predator Panic: A Closer Look
Benjamin Radford
“Protect the children.” Over the years that mantra has been applied to countless real and perceived threats. America has scrambled to protect its children from a wide variety of dangers including school shooters, cyberbullying, violent video games, snipers, Satanic Ritual Abuse, pornography, the Internet, and drugs.
Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars have been spent protecting children from one threat or other, often with little concern for how expensive or effective the remedies are—or how serious the threat actually is in the first place. So it is with America’s latest panic: sexual predators.
According to lawmakers and near-daily news reports, sexual predators lurk everywhere: in parks, at schools, in the malls—even in children’s bedrooms, through the Internet. A few rare (but high-profile) incidents have spawned an unprecedented deluge of new laws enacted in response to the public’s fear. Every state has notification laws to alert communities about former sex offenders. Many states have banned sex offenders from living in certain areas, and are tracking them using satellite technology. Other states have gone even further; state emergency leaders in Florida and Texas, for example, are developing plans to route convicted sex offenders away from public emergency shelters during hurricanes. “We don’t want them in the same shelters as others,” said Texas Homeland Security Director Steve McCraw. (How exactly thousands of desperate and homeless storm victims are to be identified, screened, and routed in an emergency is unclear.)
An Epidemic?
To many people, sex offenders pose a serious and growing threat—especially on the Internet. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has made them a top priority this year, launching raids and arrest sweeps. According to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, “the danger to teens is high.” On the April 18, 2005, CBS Evening News broadcast, correspondent Jim Acosta reported that “when a child is missing, chances are good it was a convicted sex offender.” (Acosta is incorrect: If a child goes missing, a convicted sex offender is among the least likely explanations, far behind runaways, family abductions, and the child being lost or injured.) On his NBC series “To Catch a Predator,” Dateline reporter Chris Hansen claimed that “the scope of the problem is immense,” and “seems to be getting worse.” Hansen claimed that Web predators are “a national epidemic,” while Alberto Gonzales stated that there are 50,000 potential child predators online.
Sex offenders are clearly a real threat, and commit horrific crimes. Those who prey on children are dangerous, but how common are they? How great is the danger? After all, there are many dangers in the world—from lightning to Mad Cow Disease to school shootings—that are genuine but very remote. Let’s examine some widely repeated claims about the threat posed by sex offenders.
the rest of the article is here. It was too long to print the whole thing.