On the Inside: Dallas Morning News article: Opening convicts' eyes to crime

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Dallas Morning News article: Opening convicts' eyes to crime

The Dallas Morning News carried an informative article Sunday about violent sex offender treatment being offered to a few prisoners within the Texas State Justice system. Here's a link:

Opening convicts' eyes to crime

Here's a quote:

"A recent state audit of the Texas prison program shows some encouraging results. Reincarceration rates were more than 60 percent lower for offenders who went through the program than for those who did not. Most returning to prison went back for technical violations, not new criminal charges.

Jeremy Serna, 33, who has served most of a 15-year sentence for rape of an adult woman, said nothing "caught my attention" until he got into the treatment program a few months ago.

'If you lock somebody up for 25 years, that puts a Band-Aid on the problem,' Mr. Serna said."

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Our Main Blog Author's Story

THE INTERROGATION

On April 24 of last year (2006), the FBI showed up at my house to question me in response to allegations made by a policeman in another city that I was in possession of illegal pornographic images depicting underage persons, that, in 2005, I had emailed some of these images to a person he had arrested and had received an image from this person. During the course of the FBI interview, the agents threatened that, unless I confessed, they would tear my home apart and they would arrest my housemate as well. My housemate has never had any part in the activity that got me into trouble. In fear of these threats, I confessed to the truth of some of the allegations made against me.

My computer was then examined and seized. I was taken to the FBI office where the agents praised me for my cooperation. The officers repeatedly assured me that the repercussions, if any, would be minimal because I had been honest with them and had cooperated in such a manner. In part, because I was afraid of the threats made in regard to my home and housemate earlier and partially because of the reassurance I had received from the officers, I waived my right to have an attorney present and consequently signed a confession.

THE INDICTMENT

Exactly one month later, I was notified that a grand jury had indicted me on 4 counts, 1 count of emailing 5 illegal images across state lines, another count of emailing 1 illegal image across state lines, 1 count of receiving 1 image across state lines, and 1 count of possessing an external hard drive that contained 196 images, 6 of which were cited to be illegal images (the FBI and the government have now admitted that this count was made against me in error).

The indictment also carried what is called a "forfeiture allegation count," which means that I had to surrender possession of my computer and that it would become the property of the federal government even though it contained no illegal images (in other words, I would never get the computer back, which was the least of my worries). The story was printed in the local newspaper and appeared on local TV news and as a result, I was subsequently fired from my job of 11 years.

THE SENTENCE

The government has now admitted that count #4 was brought against me in error and that I never possessed an external hard drive that contained 196 images. I have yet to receive an explanation from anyone as to where this count came from or why it was alleged against me.

However, the assistant district attorney handling my case agreed to dismiss count #4 upon my pleading guilty to the other 3 counts. I subsequently did plea guilty in late April of this year to emailing 6 illegal images and receiving 1 illegal image. I was sentenced on August 13 to the mandatory minimum of 5 years.

I will report to a nearby low security facility at the end of October. With time taken off for good behavior, I will serve 4 years, 4 months, 3 weeks, 5 days. If I am calculating correctly (the final sentence length determination will be made by the BOP), that will make my release date during the last week of March, 2012.

As a point of reference, this is a much longer sentence than Mary Winkler’s sentence for fatally shooting her husband, longer than John or WillieAnn Madison's sentence for defrauding a day-care center, and nearly as long as John Ford's sentence in Tennessee Waltz.

TREATMENT

Over the course of the last year, I have sought counseling and treatment and have come to understand that I have a very common mental health condition, which is now referred to by clinical mental health professionals as a paraphilia-related disorder, a PRD. I am a recovering paraphiliac. According to a New York Times article published in 2006, approximately 10 million men and 1 million women struggle with hypersexuality and paraphilia-related disorders. That's 11 million people, which is 3.65% of our total population. I share this not for your pity, but for your understanding and in the hopes that you may extend this understanding and perhaps more compassion to others.

THE DISORDER

Why do so many people suffer from hypersexuality and other PRDs these days? That's a good question, and a very tough one to answer. I strongly feel that anxiety, stress and low self-esteem plays a big role. Dr. Martin Kafka, who treats and studies male paraphiliacs at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts has found a direct correlation between eating disorders and sexual-impulse disorders. The sex distribution of paraphilias and related disorders is about 95 percent male, 5 percent female, whereas the sex distribution for eating disorders is just the opposite. Both disorders involve difficulty experiencing satiation, as well as a general disregulation of appetite drives.

Assuming that the correlation between eating disorders and paraphilia related disorders is true, it is interesting to note that Ira M. Sacker, a highly regarded medical doctor who is a world renowned expert with over thirty years of experience in treating eating disorders has written a new book called Regaining Your Self: Breaking Free from the Eating Disorder Identity: A Bold New Approach.

In his book, Sacker puts forth that an overpowering feeling of agitation can lead some people to engage in extreme behavior, especially with regard to eating and sex. Applying Sacker's ideas to PRDs, a compulsive sexual behavior provides an outlet that can replace anxiety by providing a Dissociative focus, which in turn creates purpose and ultimately a new identity. Not only does this newfound fixation become a place to avoid anxiety, it provides a meaningful, albeit negative, structure for a distorted identity. In a culture such as ours where image and identity seem to be interchangeable, the PRD based identity may, unfortunately, even regard some aspects of the disorder as accomplishments.

PRD BASED IDENTITY

What I mean by the "PRD based identity" (Sacker refers in his book as an eating disorder identity) is that we all want an identity that gives us a strong sense of self (positive or negative), something that distinguishes us from others and reflects who we "really" are. But when our sense of self is vulnerable, as mine was, we may feel compelled to seek an identity based on fantasy or the approval of others. That can be very dangerous. Because an individual with a PRD is usually highly imaginative and adept at picking up cues from the outside world, the search for self may be defined by extreme fantasy or outside approval (even from other unhealthy persons) rather than by the individual's true and healthy interests, passions, and expectations. In a culture such as ours where so much focus is placed on sex and looking a certain way, this search for sex and approval—which is actually a search for an approved identity—can morph into an extreme, such as a paraphilia-related disorder and eventually a compulsion to offend, to break a law.

MY BEHAVIOR

In my own experience, I developed a PRD based identity that I used to dissociate from my anxiety and depression over extreme unhappiness with my job and the feeling that I was a failure and that I had wasted my life. My PRD based identity emerged over a period of several years of using internet chat. Eventually, I had one identity for work and with friends and at church and another PRD based identity that I used while conversing in internet based sexual chat rooms where I felt a strong need to gain intimacy from, be approved of and accepted by unhealthy men who tended to communicate with each other about sex combined with extremely taboo unhealthy behavior including pedophilia. I would lapse into a fugue state and become irritated when disturbed or interrupted and stay on the computer for hours at a time. These are classic signs of Dissociative behavior and addiction.

These behaviors led me, while assuming my PRD based identity, to temporarily suspend my sense of morality, what I knew to be right or wrong. In 2005, I received and emailed some illegal images in order to gain approval from another paraphiliac online.

After engaging in internet chats, I would feel self-condemnation and attempt to stop my bad habit on my own. Eventually, anxiety would drive me back to the Internet chat rooms and my PRD based identity. I've since learned that this spiraling downward trend is very common among paraphiliacs. I've learned that these behaviors rarely ever stop unless one receives professional treatment that combines mental health and pharmaceutical therapy.

I still very much regret and am very ashamed of my behavior. I realize now that I was a "hands off" offender. By sending and receiving images I was participating in the perpetual victimization of those individuals depicted in the images. These are real people, with real feelings and I participated in violating their privacy and the ongoing perpetuation of these violations.

I have never physically harmed anyone and never would. Of my own volition, I've had three separate 'psycho-sexual' evaluations and a polygraph that state that as fact. The evaluation results on each one of these reports state that I am at extremely low risk to 're-offend.' Also, I've gotten a year and a half of intensive counseling from three different practitioners as well as pharmaceutical treatment.

I can gratefully say that I have experienced very little rejection because of this and that the majority of my friends and family have stood by me. 31 letters of support requesting leniency in sentencing were sent to the judge from people who knew me and who were aware of the charges against me.

A CURE?

Can hypersexuals and those with other PRDs be cured? The term recovery is used —not cure— because the underlying PRD based identity never fully goes away. This is a disease that has great power, so the challenge for a person struggling with a PRD is to learn that there can be more power in recovery than in the illness. In other words, recovery is about much more than just maintaining a healthy sexuality—it's about regaining your self.

Recovery is the healing process not just from the perspective of the paraphiliac, but also from the paraphiliac's community of family members, friends, teachers, and others. It's important that the individual suffering from a PRD feel understood and supported, and it's important that those who care for a person with a PRD know that they are not alone.

NO MORE VICTIMS

While I feel it's very important for us to remain compassionate toward those afflicted with this disorder, we must also remember to give more focus to the victims of offender crimes. NO MORE VICTIMS should be our center of attention.

However, the real stats about victims and offender recidivism may surprise you. Most sexual misconduct happens within families or among friends; the stalking predator is more a myth than a reality.

A concerned citizen once asked a criminologist what could be done about child molestation. "Don't molest your children," he replied.

The truth behind this response is undeniable. What was said previously is worth repeating:

Most sexual misconduct happens within families or among friends; the stalking predator is more a myth than a reality.

MORAL PANIC & VIGILANTISM

For this reason, community notification provisions like Megan's Law are deceptive. They focus attention on individuals who have been caught - not because of the threat they pose but because of other threats we are unable to solve. They also invite vigilantism and violence against individuals who have paid their debt to society and need to be peacefully reintegrated.

The term moral panic was popularized by the British sociologist Stanley Cohen in 1972's Folk Devils and Moral Panics. Cohen described the phenomenon as the process by which prejudice or prudery isolates for scorn a subset, trend, or habit in the broader culture. The scorned tend to be "deviant," or at least to display characteristics unsettling to established cultural norms. Scorn soon sours to contempt, activists emerge, and the panic is on. Truth, perspective, and context give way to urban legends, hyperbole, and hysteria. A well-executed panic leaves vigilantism, ill-considered legislation, and eroded civil liberties in its wake.

American history teems with such episodes, from the Salem witch trials to reefer madness. Other panics include the 1950s hubbub over horror-themed comic books; 1980s fusses over heavy metal and Dungeons & Dragons; and more recent furors over the Goth subculture.

CAST THE FIRST STONE

I feel the media and the public at large are clinging to and perpetuating this panic because the moral questions it places before them are easier to answer that their own moral questions. When an accused pedophile shows up to face an over-the-top sensationalist misreporter in league with a amateur vigilante organization at a sting operation on Dateline NBC, it's so obviously a bad thing for the accused pedophile to do that it's satisfying to the public in a voyeuristic way.

Instead of wondering if this person is suffering from a mental disorder that might perhaps be treatable, judging these accused pedophiles as incurable demons in perverts' clothing and making life unbearable for them forever gives people comfort and certainty in an uncertain world.

It's sort of like why most of us enjoy hearing that Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan are in trouble or reading any other tabloid headline, the war in Iraq may rage on, the stock market may tumble, but come what may, things are still okay if some sicko on TV is behaving more badly than you are.

By the way, in many states, it is a felony (at the very least, a misdemeanor) to solicit someone to commit a felony. Could it be that Dateline NBC or the amateur vigilante group are committing crimes themselves by baiting these guys?

BEST COMMUNITY RESPONSE

I feel the best community response is to focus on recognized ways to keep the problems at a minimum. Punishment and incapacitation have a role to play, but they are inadequate by themselves.

Psychological and pharmaceutical treatment as well as spiritual growth while in prison and after release is vital; education and aftercare are proved to reduce the likelihood of re-offending in the future.

Most importantly, the public must resist vigilantism and make a determined effort to remain sane and sober in the face of these serious crimes.

Blog notes:

1. Terms in brackets, "[ ]" indicate editorial abbreviation and insertions within quotes.
2. Links on this blog are of two types: Editorial or Associate/Affiliate Program links.
3. Editorial links are placed by the authors for the convenience of the reader.
4. Associate/Affiliate Program links (example: Amazon.com) are advertisements, some of these links are placed automatically by code embedded in the blog layout. These automatic links may be out of context from the material referenced in the blog posts. We apologize for any inconvenience. A percentage of the cost of the items purchased by using the Associate/Affiliate Program links on this blog will paid to the authors' family (not the author) to provide assistance during this difficult period of incarceration.
5. Posts are being placed on this blog by friends and family of the incarcerated main blog author. The main author has no access to the internet or a computer.
6. You may email the main author of this blog at zobseolg@gmail.com . He will reply, however, keep in mind that your email must be snail-mailed to him, via the U.S. Post Office, by the blog editors. Then, he must reply back via snail-mail. At that point, the editors will email you a reply. Expect a delay in replying of at the very least a week.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Dallas Morning News article: Opening convicts' eyes to crime

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