Letters To The Editor

Subject: GEO Group

Letter to Editor: If any of you RSOL participants have family members being held in a GEO Group run facility (this is a for-profit, private prison company), perhaps your hearts may be lifted by the recent news that one of their major board members - John Perzel, has been indicted on 82 counts of corruption in Pennsylvania. He has resigned from the GEO Board.

Meanwhile, other Board members have suddenly left GEO, cashing in their stock holdings as they leave. The President & Vice-President of GEO Group (a publicly held stock - shameful!) have quickly sold off their holdings of thousands of shares, as if they're all jumping ship.

GEO runs Florida Civil Commitment Center and a few other notorious institutions around the U.S. After a little investigation, I've discovered this company to be in tremendous debt. One investment strategist commented that GEO Group could be the next Enron - a lot of fluff up front with nothing behind it.

I would also like to comment that I do not believe we are losing the war. Everyday people that I speak to say that our justice system is all wrong. People are tired of paying outrageous taxes to uphold laws and keep our people in prisons when there are better alternatives.

The Author Responds: [Article: We Are Losing The Battle]

I remain discouraged that the war on sex offenders is going to slow down any time soon. It may take a generation to get lawmakers, listening to their scared voters, to enact humane statutes and policies toward this demonized group. Like other civil rights movements, this one will do most of its winning in courthouses.

I am encouraged, though, that legal scholars and academic researchers widely understand the campaign against sex offenders is unreasonable, unfair and counter productive.

Chris Dornin

[Editor:] The following important dialogue between the Author of We Are Losing the War and a reader ensued and is reproduced here.

Dear Mr. Dornin:

I work with B4U-ACT (www.b4uact.org), a non-profit organization in Maryland funded by Baltimore Mental Health Systems. Our goal is to promote communication and understanding between mental health professionals and people who are emotionally and sexually attracted to prepubescent children or to young adolescents. These people are called "pedophiles" and "hebephiles," respectively. They do not choose to have these feelings any more than straight people choose to be attracted to same-age people of the opposite gender, or gay people choose to be attracted to the same gender.

Your article says the following:

"The roster even includes a small percentage of stereotypical, mean-stranger, serial pedophiles. One of them could keep rotting corpses in his house."

Please take a look at http://b4uact.org/facts.htm. The word "pedophile" refers to feelings of attraction, not to behavior, so the phrase "serial pedophile" is nonsensical. Pedophiles are no more violent than people attracted to adults; in fact, research shows no signs of psychopathology or any other particular characteristics, other than the attraction to prepubescent children. The idea that pedophiles "keep rotting corpses in their houses" is ridiculous.

Most pedophiles realize their attraction to children in early adolescence. The stigma and hatred for pedophiles causes many of these young teenagers to have internalized self-hatred and severe depression, and some consider or attempt suicide. I know a young man who at the age of 14 was cutting himself with razor blades because of this, and this past summer I received a plea from a 17 year old who said he was seriously considering suicide. He knew he was a pedophile when he was 13.

The sentence in your article perpetuates a most inaccurate and horrible stereotype of the kind that encourages these kids to commit suicide. These monstrous stereotypes and demonization directed at pedophiles and hebephiles force them into hiding. How does this help society or protect children? RSOL should never reinforce horrendously destructive and blatantly wrong stereotypes. It should never demonize people for feelings they do not choose to have.

Richard Kramer
B4U-ACT
P.O. Box 1754
Westminster, MD 21158 http://www.b4uact.org



The Author Responds:

Richard-

My editor passed along your well written letter taking umbrage with my choice of wording in the article about the war we are losing against sex offenders because the campaign does mostly harm and destroys some democratic principles our forefathers paid in blood to earn. Believe it or not, I wrote the piece at some cost to myself to do my small part to help stop the war on sex offenders. If my phrase was sloppy or facile, I apologize to you and to the people you work with. I respect and admire what you're trying to do. The last thing in the world I want is to make your task harder.

One of the keynote speakers at the national RSOL conference this August made the very point you called me on: that the spectrum of sexual orientation is incredibly broad, and that some people only feel drawn to children or teens and not to adults. It's the way they are made. I knew or should have known that when I wrote the article, but you caught me using a thoughtless and damaging stereotype. I believe I should have said "serial child rapist" or "serial child molester" and not "serial pedophile."

As for research, I've been reading sex offender studies and court cases for several months and I'm barely started covering the literature. I'd like to learn a lot more about your efforts and the people you serve. I'm trying to do the right thing, and you're obviously doing that too. We both see the same huge injustice. It will take thousands of folks like you and me to turn things around while there is still time to do it. I don't like where things are heading at all.

Chris Dornin.

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