Culture of Silence

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Randy English, the new COO of Sosen has decided to make a splash and draw attention to himself.

Since I'm relatively positive that it is virtually impossible for him to actually believe the demented things he's written, I'm left with the opinion that he's saying them with the sole purpose of deflecting attention away from the CEO - Mary Duval and the demented things that she says.

I believe Randy must be jealous of Mary being "at the top". She says she's "at the top". She says we rocketed her "to the top".

I'm not quite sure yet what she's "on the top" OF, but I think Randy must be jealous of it. Why else would he say these things?

Randy English has joined the long historical line of those who have enabled child sexual abuse. From the notorious Catholic Church pedophile cover-up to the Boy Scouts of America: Sosen wants to silence victims of sexual crimes.
"...we also know that it is not healthy for a family who has been devastated by a loss such as this to be cast into the spotlight, rather than having time to deal with the pain and anger in order to recover mentally and emotionally. Their pain and anger begins to rule their lives. It becomes who they are and only they know the true toll it is taking on them."
This is a continuing theme among the radical extremists of Sosen - to point the finger at victims and tell them they aren't doing it right. They aren't recovering correctly or well enough or soon enough or in a way that they deem appropriate. That victims who aren't interested in rationalizing on behalf of an offender are "haters", not "true survivors", not "true victims" or "not moving on".

Instead of focusing endlessly on bashing, blaming, distracting, rationalizing, justifying and harvesting any and all comments that they believe is favorable to "their side" as Kevin Meier refers to it - they should be focusing on identifying what is wrong with THEM and their own movement - what are they doing wrong? What behaviors and attributes do they encourage, foster and nourish within Sosen.....ways of thinking that not only led those offenders to offend in the first place but also which may lead to re-offense if maintained. Distortions which also damage the very points they are trying to make.

The mission statement of Sosen says:
"At SOSEN, we do not condone what former offenders have done. In many cases the harm done by former offenders is horrendous. No one can take that away. However, we feel that with proper treatment the victims can move on with their lives and put the pain and anger behind them. We know that this is the best thing for them as many members of SOSEN are former victims who have reached out for healing and now live normal productive lives."
The truth is, of course, that the only victims associated with Sosen are those who are now offenders themselves or are associated with - and advocating for an offender. Don Sweeney (a sex offender therapist turned activist) who Mary claims is an "expert" told her how amazing it was to him how many offenders went on to marry victims of child sexual abuse. But that's not amazing at all. It is a fact that offenders have a talent for targeting those most vulnerable to their manipulations. They find victims who ARE the most vulnerable and they marry them and begin another co-dependent relationship. The victims who are the strongest of all are those who don't fall prey again to this garbage, who speak up and tell their story without making excuses for their offender, who do support strict management of people who have committed these horrible crimes and in return for their strength and commitment are faced with a daily barrage of victim-bashing, mockery, badgering, and blatant victim-blaming. And yet they carry on. They ARE the "true survivors" to use Mary's term.

Common sense tells us that this issue must be victim-centered. The experts agree. And yet Randy English says this:
"It is time to bring in the experts and remove the decision making process from grieving families and politicians that have a political bias. Though we sympathize with their cause and feel angry that this has happened to their children, they are ill-equipped to make good choices when it comes to managing issues that are exceedingly diverse."
Does Randy believe, that as an offender himself, he is better equipped to make decisions on these issues? Randy, along with all the Sosenites keep referring to "the experts" and yet experts all agree that everything we do regarding the management of sex offenders MUST be victim-centered.

Not sex offender-centered.

Randy English once wrote:
"I would like to thank the ACLU for standing up for the truly weak, the RSO’s"
I was reminded of the infamous statement from Zman:
"Why can't we let the police do their job, and let PJ geeks get real jobs? They could be protecting the country with their hacking skills or something, yet they want to go after defenseless child predators instead of OSAMA, terrorists or other hackers!"
Victims of sexual abuse are "haters" and the offenders who created the victims are the weak and defenseless. That is the attitude of the extremists of Sosen.

When we consider that the mission statement of Sosen says:
"The mission of SOSEN is to educate the public, media, law-enforcement, and legislators regarding the facts, based on current research, of sexual abuse."
Then I am quite sure that Randy English would be interested in fixing some of the errors he has made when quoting "facts".

Error #1
  • Treatment has been proven to reduce recidivism to 1%

Treatment has not been proven to reduce recidivism AT ALL. Some studies show a reduction, some studies show no reduction. None of them show a reduction to ONE PERCENT

Error #2
  • Pedophilia is the sexual desire for a prepubescent child, and rare among offenders. Less than 1%.

This is an invented statistic pulled from someone's backside. There is no such statistic. There cannot BE such a statistic in existence considering the fact that most sex offenders haven't been "assessed" - according to Mary Duval. One-third of all sex crimes are committed against prepubescent children. While we can all agree that not everyone who molests a child would fit a psychiatric diagnosis of pedophilia, why would anyone believe that only 1% of them were? Randy English has no reference for that statistic, just as Tom Madison and Mary Duval didn't when they repeated it. In fact, the offenders in the infamous DOJ recidivism report they all rely on states quite clearly that 60% of the offenders had victims under the age of 13.

Error #3
  • Re-offense rate averages, for auto theft -78.8%, possession/sale of stolen property -77.4%, burglary -74%, robbery -70.2%, larcenist -74.6%, sex offenders - 3.5%.

That is from the Department of Justice and on it's face that's a true statement regarding what was in the report. What Randy English didn't tell you is that the report ALSO said that 78% of the released sex offenders in that report had ANOTHER previous conviction before the crime they were released for. In other words, they were already recidivists. And 28% of them had 2 or more previous convictions for sex crimes. How do you incorporate the information that at least one-fourth of them had already re-offended with another sex crime before this release - into the recidivism data? How do you use the statistic from the DOJ that only 5% of those offenders re-offended with a new sex crime within 3 years of release when 25% of them already had a history of sexual recidivism? Which leads to the next error Randy has made

Error #4
  • A study from the department of Justice found that about 94.7% of former offenders will not commit ANY other crime.

That study from the Department of Justice found that within 3 years 43% of sex offenders had committed another crime though not necessarily a sex crime. One-fourth of those were for property crimes and one-fourth were for violent crimes. THAT is what the Department of Justice said.

Staying in the closet enabled child sexual abuse to flourish and continue. The most important voice of all in this issue is the voice of those who have been victimized. Victims will no longer be badgered and shamed into silence. It is time for the culture of silence to end.