Registration--and Bravery

RantWoman is meditating about conversations which occur in her Meeting as a result of The Safest Sex Offender on the Planet worshipping among us. In particular, the Safest Sex Offender... has worshipped among us for several years under one set of restrictions. Recently, defined as a few months ago but recently in Quaker time, The Safest Sex Offender... has requested or renewed some old requests to expand his participation in Meeting life.

In terms of congregational and interfaith resources available through the King County Sexual Assault Resource Center, these restrictions and the process used in our Meeting to modify them are part of the contract between Meeting and the offender.
http://www.kcsarc.org/nEvents/InterfaithSymposium2009.php
RantWoman read some of these resources awhile ago. In many congregations, people are informed of a sex offender's presence among the congregation only on a need to know basis. RantWoman thinks it is an interesting and important exercise as part of renewed conversation to spell out the Quaker values and key aspects of Quaker business process which have made the conversation so public in her Meeting. RantWoman thinks that is an important exercise, but it's an exercise for another day.

RantWoman also means to spell out elsewhere a whole clanging list of points she is finding difficult in this round of Meeting conversations. The problem is really not The Safest Sex Offender...; the problem is shifts of faces and roles, gifts, leadings, learnings. RantWoman is not entirely clear that sorting out her own thoughts in a blog will be helpful to community discernment. RantWoman is meditating about what both she and her Meeting might need both in terms of basic practices of community life, language for interacting with difficult topics, and spiritual nurture. RantWoman would like some nice tidy queries but may or may not get there.

In the meantime, some actual experiences to report on. For example, a couple months ago, our Oversight Committee sponsored a presentation by a woman from the King County Sexual Assault Resource Center, http://www.kcsarc.org/ about sex offender registration and restrictions. http://www.kcsarc.org/nServices/EducationandPrevention

See also
http://www.k12.wa.us/safetycenter/Offenders/pubdocs/FAQonRegandRestrict.PDF
and other links within both these documents.

RantWoman will let the links above speak for the content of the presentation with one exception: RantWoman notes that sex offender registration applies only to people who have been caught and adjudicated. The percentage of actual offenders this includes is arguable.
RantWoman thinks it's important for Friends talking about our walk with the Safest Sex Offender on the Planet to understand his specific issues. To repeat, the Safest Sex Offender on the Planet is a Level One sex offender. He has taken full legal and moral responsibility for his crime. He has passed test after test indicating no predatory inclinations no inclinations of any kind to re-offend.

He has complied scrupulously with conditions of his treatment program as well as the conditions set by Meeting. Meeting will continue to expect him to comply with these conditions, conditions which he also, by recent accounts, finds valuable for his own safety. The Safest Sex Offender on the Planet is registered but a conversation about sex offender registration is not only about the Safest Sex Offender on the Planet.

RantWoman supposes that an overview of sex offender registration is not a terrible place to start renewed Meeting conversation. RantWoman supposes it is not a terrible place to start, but RantWoman is not sure she would have started there. RantWoman, though, went into the event already predisposed to want other content as well.

The presentation was a public event at RantWoman's Meeting which is one reason RantWoman feels clear to share her experiences and observations. RantWoman arrived slightly late and has had previous experience with questions of sex offender registration. Because of both previous experience and quibbles, RantWoman spent considerable energy observing her own and others' experiences.

--RantWoman appreciates the bravery of people who come to such events with no experience that they know of with the topic. RantWoman finds it helpful sometimes to focus on what such people get out of the event because that can be more manageable than some of what RantWoman deals with.

--RantWoman noticed both people who made a point of not attending and other people showing signs that sitting through the session was difficult for different reasons. RantWoman is grateful that others in her Meeting were sitting close enough to reach out in various ways. RantWoman has had the experience of being able to reach out at other times but RantWoman was glad to have the space for what passed through her own head even if only tiny pieces of the points on RantWoman's mind more formally enter conversation in her Meeting rather than the blogosphere.

--In this case, the presenter was speaking of criteria for Level two offenders: multiple victims, grooming, some predatory aspects of behavior. RantWoman's mind wandered to three different situations she is personally acquainted with, thankfully outside her Meeting.

--In one situation, the offender was recognized by the legal system legally and unambiguously as a level two offender and the legal system interacted accordingly as to the offender. Getting child and teenage survivors help would have been another whole problem. This caused RantWoman to reflect on the difficulty for some of talking about their experiences, as well as problems about adults being able to hear and act thoughtfully about such information.

--In a second case, the offender, someone who had obvious survivor and personality disorder issues of his own, passed through the legal system always in domestic violence contexts. In WA, as of this writing, even if there are multiple victims, assaults, and violence, that does not get one recorded as a sex offender if one is always charged under domestic violence laws.

RantWoman is unclear what if any purpose classifying the person as a sex offender would have served; RantWoman's brain wound up with filled with many other complications and at this point does not really know how the survivor she knows best relates to several issues connected with getting him help. RantWoman found herself thinking that the situation reflects one of the holes and ways for there to be even more problems than envisioned by existing practices.

RantWoman also has challenging observations about what if anything from her Meeting would have been helpful in connection with RantWoman's presence as a witness over a long period connected with this offender. RantWoman can now acknowledge that she was decidedly NOT grounded and centered at every moment. In fact, at a few points, RantWoman was REALLY angry.

There were so many other issues of language and behavior and interpersonal challenge that at this point RantWoman is just humble and grateful that most of the associated dramas have long subsided at least for her. RantWoman makes what she can of all the experiences associated with this situation and for example draws on the experiences to steady herself sometimes when she is called on to interpret for people in traumatic situations.

--The third case involves one person who works in a large organization with legal staff and spin doctors. There appears to be ongoing opportunity for offenses and years of people willing to name things aboard the bus but no interaction that RantWoman knows of that stuck with the legal system. RantWoman knows of this case in connection with someone noticing sudden changes in a child's behavior, in connection with one comment RantWoman herself heard during a time window close to the behavior changes. The child involved has gotten all kinds of help and support but RantWoman also notes this case in terms of holes and why people need skills and language separate from what can or cannot be relied on from the legal system.

In other words, RantWoman was again overachieving on the drama front and perhaps it would be refreshing to stick with other takeaways from the event:

--Our Meeting makes a rule of having two adults with children in child care or first day school. The presenter validated this practice; RantWoman has not yet felt called to figure out what to insist on as far as adults being able to hear. RantWoman detects a certain fog about "nothing bad can happen if we do background checks for people who work with our children and always have two adults present with them."
RantWoman does not want to be Cassandra but background checks only catch people who have been caught an adjudicated. Also, our children might have many experiences outside Meeting. RantWoman thinks we must continue doing what we are doing. RantWoman also thinks it is not unreasonable to hope that there would be safe, trustworthy adults around if children needed to speak of something difficult whether it occurred within Meeting or otherwise. RantWoman also already realizes it is hard enough to recruit people to help with First Day School. However, when RantWoman thinks of members of a faith community bearing with each other in spite of different difficulties and spiritual distress, RantWoman notes that adults also have trouble hearing each other about many more mundane matters. Are there resources or worshops that would increase people's ability really to hear each other and that would both nurture community and have specific benefit for children or others facing spiritual difficulties?

--The presenter mentioned resources available through http://www.ksarc.org/ about behaviors among children of different ages that might indicate abuse. RantWoman means to download them especially since RantWoman interacts with kids only occasionally and does not really have developmental stages hard-wired into her awareness.

--The conversation got most interesting when people from Meeting started interacting with several challenging points:

--Not all offenders by a long shot get caught.

--A LARGE percentage of offenders who get caught are either level one offenders not subject to public reporting or family members or both.

--The session was not really set up for Friends to go very far with these topics; RantWoman would NOT mind having a clearer sense that there might be a place to interact further with that topic in connections with Meeting matters, but RantWoman also keeps asking whether she is just overachieving because of all the experiences swirling around her.

RantWoman promises separate pieces of background about how the Safest Sex Offender on the Planet currently participates in Meeting life and about a broader perspective on children and safety in our community but this is enough for today.


(Small extraneous tirade: RantWoman is not the most sophisticated user of her accessibility tools ever to lay fingers to keyboard. RantWoman is also kind of impatient about fishing through extraneous content to get what she is looking for. All that said, the KCSARC website leaves quite a bit to be desired in terms of use of headings and clearly labelled links getting RantWoman to the resources she is looking for. Grumble. Once RantWoman finds the resources, RantWoman has been VERY pleased with all of them. But still...)