Letter to the Editor: Parents must maintain dialogue with their children to intervene before harm occurs

Regarding the article concerning the 13-year-old and 18-year-old who sent the pictures — which, of course, he shouldn’t have done. 

A question I have: Was he aware of her age? I ask because many girls get online and portray themselves as 18, which should not happen. Parents should bear some responsibility for not monitoring their daughter’s online activities.

There are many options for parents who want to do all they can to protect their children. I sat in a breakroom where I worked listening to a conversation. It evolved into kids misportraying their age. One employee, a grandmother, said her granddaughter would not do something like that. One guy asked her name and instantly pulled her up and he showed her the granddaughter who listed herself as 18 years of age. Needless to say, the furious granny called the parents.

It happens all the time. Sadly, being unaware of the person’s true age is NOT a defense. 

Then there is the task force “grooming” that has been deemed legal by politicians afraid to vote against anything regarding sex, as they will lose their seats in the legislation. I know that for a fact. I have seen two gentlemen lose their re-election due to voting for a “risk-based” registry versus “original offense,” which gives no hope to those required to register. 

The last published numbers by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children indicated more than 917,000 men, women and children — as young as 6 (looking up a dress), 9 (popping a bra) and 10 in some states — are required to register.

The crimes range from urinating in public (indecent exposure), sexting, incest, mooning, exposure, false accusations by a soon-to-be ex-wife, angry girlfriend or spiteful student, viewing abusive OR suggestive images of anyone 18 years old or younger, playing doctor, voyeurism, prostitution, solicitation, Romeo and Juliet consensual sexual dating relationships, rape, endangering the welfare of a child, the old bait-n-switch internet stings (taking sometimes 12 months before a person steps over the line), guys on the autism spectrum or with intellectual disabilities and many others.

Multiply that number by two or three family members, and you can clearly see there are more than three million wives, children, moms, aunts, girlfriends, grandmothers and other family members who experience the collateral damage of being murdered, harassed, threatened, children beaten, have signs placed in their yards, homes set on fire, vehicles damaged, asked to leave their churches and other organizations, children passed over for educational opportunities, have flyers distributed around their neighborhood.

Registrants are unable to get life insurance or refinance their homes. Academics and researchers indicate three things are needed for successful reintegration — a job, a place to live and a “positive” support system. Banning a registered citizen from drug treatment centers is not positive support.

The Supreme Court’s crucial mistake about sexual crime statistics, “Frightening and High,” debunks the high recidivism rate cited by retired Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy and current Chief Justice John Roberts. It is very important to read the abstract below and then the full 12-page essay by Ira Mark and Tara Ellman.

This brief essay reveals that the sources relied upon by the Supreme Court in Smith v. Doe, a heavily cited constitutional decision on sexual offense registries, in fact provide no support at all for the facts about re-offense rates that the Court treats as central to its constitutional conclusions. This misreading of the social science was abetted in part by the Solicitor General’s misrepresentations in the amicus brief it filed in this case.

The false “facts” stated in the opinion have since been relied upon repeatedly by other courts in their own constitutional decisions, thus infecting an entire field of law as well as policy-making by legislative bodies. Recent decisions by the Pennsylvania and California supreme courts establish principles that would support major judicial reforms of sexual offense registries if they were applied to the facts.

A study reviewing sex crimes as reported to police revealed that:

• a) 93% of child sexual abuse victims knew their abuser;
• b) 34.2% were family members;
• c) 58.7% were acquaintances;
• d) Only 7% of the perpetrators of child victims were strangers;
• e) 40% of sexual assaults take place in the victim’s own home;
• f) 20% take place in the home of a friend, neighbor or relative (Jill Levenson, PhD, Lynn University)

There is a tremendous need to fund programs like “Stop It Now” that teach parents how to begin and maintain a dialogue with their children to intervene before harm occurs and about grooming behaviors as well as other things at age-appropriate levels in their circles of safety.

Our question to the public: After adjudicating their debt being paid to society, when does redemption begin? Is it only selective redemption? When are human beings required to register, given their lives back without the stigma, hate and fear of harm to their family or themselves? A few months ago a person forced to register in Wisconsin was murdered by a vigilante using a shovel and an animal antler. 

We support the principles of restorative/transformative justice — restore the victim, offender and the community. Unfortunately, our justice systems, federal and some states, prefer to annihilate human beings using mandatory minimum sentences, banning them from participating in their children’s lives, leaving our families in a state of hopelessness. Institutionalization is counter-productive to what we pretend to be doing.

Here is an example of how our families are harmed. A well-meaning teacher printed out profile pictures of local registrants and put them on the board around the classroom. She promoted her effort to protect her students by suggesting they look at and remember those people.

One student pointed at one picture and said, “Katie, isn’t that your dad?”

It was.

Vicki Henry
Missouri Alliance for Family Restoration
Festus, Missouri