June 23, 2010
Building a non-profit during a recession can be tough. That’s why every dollar counts, and every donor who supports our work of helping law enforcement rescue kids is vitally important to our ability to move the ball down the field every day.
We’d like to give a very appreciative Thank You to America Online for their continued support of our vital mission. AOL’s support, and your support, will help us help police take more bad guys off the street and rescue more kids from a nightmare of abuse.
June 1, 2010
On Tuesday, August 17, Firefly Restaurant in Encinitas will host an evening of delicious food and wine tasting to support the work of the Innocent Justice Foundation in helping rescue kids from abuse. Come join us for our annual fundraising event, dine well, taste some fabulous wines from celebrated local vintners, and support the work of helping law enforcement rescue children from abuse and take child predators off the streets in San Diego County and nationwide.
Cost: $75 until July 17. After July 17, $100 per person. At the event, $125.
Call 760.585.8873 with any questions.
April 22, 2010
Connecticut’s children are crying out to be rescued from sexual abuse…and people in Connecticut are responding. Local area foundations and organizations are challenging you to help law enforcement get the tools they need to go out and take them out of harm’s way. We have several challenge grants that have gotten us part of the way to three Cellebrite cell phone forensic units in Connecticut. We are almost there! We have been overwhelmed by the immediate and generous responses out of Connecticut for needs throughout the state, but we need you to help take us all the way home.
In Naugatuck, Naugatuck Valley Savings and Loan has pledged $2,500 for a device for Naugatuck.
In Norwalk, the Daphne Seybolt Culpeper Memorial Foundation, Inc. has given a $2,000 check to get Norwalk or Stamford the device they need.
In Hartford, the Knox Foundation has pledged $2,000 towards a device for Hartford.
Bob’s Furniture has given $250 to be used for a device either for Southington or Stamford.
We’re half way there for three devices! But we need your help to get us all the way. Please call us if you’d like to help local law enforcement make a big impact in the lives of Connecticut children.
In deepest gratitude,
Heather Steele, President & CEO
760.585.8873
March 6, 2010
by Heather Steele, President & CEO
I admire Diane Sawyer tremendously, and was so gratified to see her achieve such prominence as anchor of ABC’s World New Tonight. That’s why I tuned in so closely to Oprah’s interview of her yesterday. Gravely, when the topic of Chelsea King came up, following all the pain we San Diegans have been bearing the last week, I hoped that she would help educate the public on the true nature of sex offenders.
But I stood aghast as Diane told the American public that only 25% of sex offenders re-offend.
There are many studies of recidivism rates, and they track offenders anywhere from 6 months after release to 25 years or more after release, so recidivism rates can fluctuate wildly based on the time period used. The only study to follow sex offenders for 25 years after release finds that 52% are caught re-offending (“Recidivism Rates Among Child Molesters and Rapists: A Methodological Analysis”, Law and Human Behavior, Volume 21, Number 6, December 1997 , pp. 635-659(25) .)
However, it is important to note, that very few sex offenders ever get CAUGHT a second time – that does not mean they do not offend a second time. In fact, a taste of prison the first time around does wonders for a sex offender’s ability to learn how to be very careful when molesting children from that point onwards.
Even the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA), whose members often advocate treatment instead of incarceration of child sex offenders, states, “It is important to recognize that official recidivism statistics are always lower than actual re-offense rates, because…less than 10% of all sex crimes results in a criminal conviction.”
Using ATSA’s math, each released sex offender has 5.2 victims in the 25 years after his release.
A study by ATSA in 2007 of its own members shows that they don’t even believe treatment works. 63% of their member professionals reported “little hope for a cure”, and 88% “feared recidivism after treatment.”
By stating to millions of people worldwide that only 25% of released sex offenders re-offend, a tremendous disservice to the children who suffer heinous sexual abuse has been done and a substantial gain for child molesters, who will continue to try to convince the public that they are not a danger to society, has been delivered.
Please, Diane, we need your help to educate the public that these offenders are extremely dangerous to children, and we must never assume that even a small percentage pose no risk to our most innocent members of society.
December 31, 2009
Even after working in this field for years, some cases, like the recent one of Delaware accused child rapist and pediatrician Dr. Earl Bradley, still have the power to surprise me with the amount of heartrending horror, shock and disgust they produce. I am continually amazed, too, at parents who would leave their children alone in a doctor’s office, even with a pediatrician.
It is an ironic and cruel twist that many of these heinous and brutal crimes are being discovered thanks to the dimwitted perpetrators’ use of video cameras to document their sexual assaults of innocent babies and children.
Bradley, 56, is accused of raping at least nine baby girls – the youngest 3 months’ old, and the oldest only 13 years old. Only one girl, a two-year-old, told an adult about the abuse, prompting the investigation. As the seized digital evidence of the assaults is analyzed, more child victims are being found.
According to Courier Post Online:”Forensic evaluation of seized video files and software has to date discovered 15 more unidentified victims,” state police Detective Thomas Elliott wrote in an affidavit Friday seeking a search warrant for BayBees Pediatrics, the name of Bradley’s practice.
“Due to the slow and meticulous process of computer forensics, [police believe] more victims will be discovered in the electronic files of Dr. Bradley and the patient records will help confirm the identity.”
The videos were filmed between Aug. 7 and Dec. 13, police wrote. Several videos allegedly showed the doctor wearing his blue scrubs and barking orders at babies and toddlers, some of whom were crying or trying to run away. In one video, Bradley had a “violently enraged” expression on his face, police wrote.
Officers found six hand-held video cameras in the BayBees complex, which included Disney-themed examination rooms, a basement toy room and an adjoining garage, where he often took children to give them candy, ice cream or other treats — all places where police said he committed and filmed sex acts.
People often tell me that they simply cannot imagine in their worst nightmares that a respected pediatrician would rape little babies. However, 96% of child rapes, according to the Department of Justice, are committed by trusted people, and often include teachers, coaches, clergy, pediatricians, dentists, day care providers, babysitters, psychologists, relatives, and even police.
In fact, Bradley is not the first pediatrician to be caught this year. Fairfield, Ohio, pediatrician Dr. R. Scott Blankenburg, 53, was charged earlier this year on 22 counts of child sex crime and child pornography charges, and was recently arrested again in December on additional counts of sexual abuse, bribery, and complicity to deception to obtain dangerous drugs (heroin). His twin brother and fellow pediatrician, Dr. Mark Blankenburg, was found guilty earlier this month, on 16 sexual abuse charges involving three former patients and five counts of drug trafficking and one count of money laundering. He had a longtime practice in Hamilton, Ohio, and still faces a trial on 12 counts of child pornography in May.
Under no circumstances should a parent ever leave a child alone in with a doctor, dentist, teacher, coach, clergy or other adult. In fact, Darkness to Light, a respected non-profit working to stop child sexual abuse, has stated that minimizing one-on-one interactions between adults and children is a key way to prevent child sexual abuse.
As in the case of Aaron Zendejas, a San Diego babysitter who sold a 3-year-old child to a child molester, and then filmed the rape of the child, there are precious few completely “safe” one-on-one adult/child situations for children anymore. Although we have the ability to track down many of the offenders who trade in images of child sexual abuse, our ICAC task forces only have enough funding to capture less than 1% of known offenders.
Parents must wake up to the realities that child molesters look just like everyone else, and seek professions where they may gain the trust of adults and children. Parents must be vigilant in minimizing the one-on-one interactions of their children with adults and even older children as much as possible in order to keep their children safe.
Author: Heather Steele, President & CEO, Innocent Justice
November 30, 2009
625,000 Americans are actively trading in child sexual abuse images. That’s a lot of people, mostly men. Many of them – 59% according to a University of New Hampshire study – are or were married. When these child predators are caught, they often leave a trail of devastated family members, friends and communities behind.
Often good people wonder – can’t we get the sex offender therapy so they can return to their lives? Isn’t there something that can be done for them so they can come home? Therapy can be helpful, but probably not in the way these people might hope.
Clearly, in the vast majority of cases, treatment simply will not work to change anything. First of all, treatment cannot be used outside of prison, because it involves admitting crimes. Once a crime is admitted, a therapist must report it to the authorities. A sex offender can never truly be honest with his therapist in the world outside of prison, and cannot benefit from treatment. Therefore, treatment for sex offenders can only be conducted in prison.
Ye only a tiny fraction of sex offenders are ever caught. Once in jail, therapy is not mandatory, nor often welcomed by them , and certainly makes no promises to reduce long-term recidivism rates . Even a 2007 study of members of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers states that 63% of professionals reported “little hope for a cure,” and 88% of professionals fear “recidivism after treatment.” Relapse prevention, a “cornerstone” of treatment efforts for the past 20 years has not been proven effective. In fact, “one of the few authoritative studies of the method, conducted in California from 1985 to 2001, found that those who entered relapse prevention treatment were slightly more likely to offend again than those who got no therapy at all.”
The New York Times relates that other treatment schemes, like using anti-androgens to control sexual impulses, are quick attempts at fixes that do not address the underlying emotional problems and impulses that drive child molesters. “I’ve had numerous situations where they say they are working just fine,” says Dr. Jesus Padilla, a clinical psychologist at Atascadero State Hospital, “only to catch them having sex with each other or engaging in deviant sexual fantasies even though their testosterone level was down to zero.”
A Canadian Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness senior research official found that “those driven by deviant sexual interests, like pedophiles and exhibitionists” are the most likely to reoffend. Pedophiles are also incredibly manipulative, and are often successful in deceiving their therapists. According to Douglas Carlin, a convicted rapist who completed treatment and was released in 2006 in Florida, “Most of those guys, they are just faking it to make it. They’re just waiting to get released so they can go right back to what they were doing.”
Civil commitment of sex offenders after their prison terms have ended is expensive and programs receive little oversight. Sex is often rampant among offenders and sometimes even between offenders and staff. And civil commitment also costs four times more than extending prison sentences, according to an investigation by the New York Times:
“The treatment regimens are expensive and largely unproven, and there is no way to compel patients to participate. Many simply do not show up for their sessions on their lawyers’ advice – treatment often requires them to recount crimes, even those not known to law enforcement – and spend their time instead gardening, watching television or playing video games. The cost of the programs is virtually unchecked and growing, with states spending nearly $450 million on them this year. The annual price of housing a committed sex offender averages more than $100,000 compared with about $26,000 a year for keeping someone in prison.”
Victim advocates suggest that it would be more effective and less expensive to give sex offenders longer sentences, prevent plea deals with prosecutors, and mandate treatment during incarceration. Leroy Hendricks, a convicted child molester in Kansas, remains locked up in a civil commitment program at the cost of $185,000 per year (8 times the cost of keeping him in prison) because he says, “I sure don’t want to hurt anybody again,” but says he could not ensure the safety of children in his presence. “The only way to guarantee that is to die.”
Sex offender treatment may never stop a predator from hurting a child again, but it can work. Here’s how. When a sex offense results in conviction, it is often the case that the offender does not serve the rest of his life in prison. However, if given treatment in prison, the sex offender can possibly realize the depth of the damage he has done to his loved ones, and especially his victims.
If he truly understands what he has done, and possesses humanity and courage, he may decide to admit to all of the sex offenses he has committed and the victims who are silently suffering because of his actions. In one instance related by one of our mental health advisors, a relatively young child molester decided to do just that.
Through therapy in prison, he realized that his victims needed help. He admitted his crimes against them, and was subsequently convicted to additional sex crimes that put him behind bars for the rest of his life.
Although therapy in prison may never be able to fix or to stop child molesters, it can play a role in keeping children and neighborhoods safe.
References
* “The overwhelming majority (of sex offenders) choose not to entire the (Atascadero treatment) program.” Littlefield, Dana. “Can sex predators be reformed? Rehab program has little participation, few success stories.” The San Diego Union-Tribune, May 22, 2006 p. A1.
* “After a 12-year follow-up period of sex offenders, no differences were observed in the rates of sexual (21.1% vs. 21.8%), violent (42.9% vs. 44.5%) or general (any) recidivism (56.6% vs. 60.4%) for treated and untreated groups, respectively.” Hanson R. Karl. “Evaluating Community Sex Offender Treatment Programs: A 12-Year Follow-Up of 724 Offenders.” Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, Apr 2004. (2) “We conclude that the (treatment) program did not influence propensities for sexual and violent recidivism.” Seager, James and Debra Jellicoe and Gurmeet K. Dhaliwal. “Refusers, Dropouts, and Completers: Measuring Sex Offender Treatment Efficacy.” International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, Vol. 48, No. 5, 600-612 (2004).
* Engle, Michael J. and Josephy A. McFalls, Jir and Bernard J. Gallagher III. “Attitudes of Members of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers Towards Treatment, Release and Recidivism of Violent Sex Offenders: An Exploratory Study.” Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, Vol 44, Issue 4, 2007. pp. 17-24.
* Goodnough, Abby and Monica Davey. “For Sex Offenders, a Dispute Over Therapy’s Benefits.” The New York Times, Mar 6, 2007.
* ibid.
* ibid.
* ibid.
* Davey, Monica and Abby Goodnough. “Doubts Rise as States Hold Sex Offenders After Prison.” New York Times, Mar 4, 2007.
* Ibid.
* Ibid.
November 5, 2009
Originally posted on November 1, 2009
by Heather Steele, President & CEO
The US Federal Government spent $60 million last year on sewage treatment of poop in Tijuana, Mexico.
At the same time, the government is only budgeting about $30 million to be divided up between 61 Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task forces for next year, and there’s concern they may not even authorize that amount. That $30 million would be just about enough to enable ICAC teams to capture about 1% of known child predators.
Let’s review that for a second. The ICAC teams KNOW where child molesters live. They have the technology to digitally track and hunt child molesters to their physical addresses right here in the US. They know where 625,000 child predators – many or most of whom may be raping and torturing local American children right now according to research published in the Journal of Family Violence – live.
Once about $5 million in training funds are removed from that $30 million, only about $400,000 per year is allocated to each team. How many predators do ICAC’s have the resources to arrest with $400,000 each? Just 1%.
But don’t take my word for it. The independent analysis comes via USA Today reporter Wendy Koch.
If you think that American children are worth more than Mexican poop, then it’s time to call Rep. Alan Mollohan at (202) 225-4172 and respectfully let him know that it’s time to increase spending to the ICAC teams.
November 3, 2009
It’s not too late to report sexual abuse, abduction, or child pornography to the police. It’s not too late to report anything that might rescue an abducted child who is living with an abuser, no matter how many years have gone by. Living with the awful feeling of knowing that something is wrong, and that you didn’t do anything about it, is far worse than finding the courage to report someone you know, respect, fear or love who may be abusing a child.
Reporting child pornography can save children’s lives in three ways. First of all, the images of children being sexually assaulted contain victims that need to be rescued. Secondly, even if the child has already been located, viewing the images and using them during masturbation is a continued violation of the child depicted in the images or videos. That child suffers for the rest of their life every time a perpetrator does his dirty business using the image of that child’s fear, pain, degradation, humiliation and shame. Finally, studies show a 1-to-1 correlation between using child sexual assault images to obtain sexual release and committing hands-on crimes on local children. The overwhelming majority of child sexual abuse image users, simply put, are child molesters preying on children they have access to.
In the best case scenario, you may save a child’s life or rescue a child from a life of horror as Jaycee Dugard was. Or you may take a killer off the street and prevent more abuse. In the worst case scenario, you may at least unburden yourself from a life of shame hiding a terrible secret that makes you complicit with the crime.
Someone took Madeleine McCann in Portugal in 2007, and more than one person in the world knows what happened to her.
Please take a minute for Madeleine and watch this video from the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre in the UK.
October 15, 2009
by Heather Steele, President & CEO
It’s a question I hear every day. People are shocked and surprised at first to think that perhaps their local police agency is not getting the money it needs to be able to ensure public safety.
But once people think about the stories on their local news, they begin to reconsider. Here in San Diego the problem funding enough officers started well before the economic collapse, and is getting worse every year. Year after year, the city councils choose and feel forced to make major budgetary cuts out of public safety, including police and fire.
After years of bloody cuts, just how many more drastic reductions in funding can police make? Surely, we are past the point of putting our own safety in jeopardy when we force our financial distress on the police charged with serving and protecting us. Stories about agencies that can’t afford to purchase patrol vehicles, computers, and even office furniture cross my desk on a regular basis. If you had to work in today’s world without a desk, a computer or a car, just how would you manage it?
In San Diego, the San Diego Police Foundation has raised over $3.5 million over the last decade to cover the gap between tax money funding of police and their BASIC needs for equipment and programs. Their work has funded vehicles, K-9 officers, community safety cameras, horse trailers, and a host of other vital needs.
In Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Police Foundation is forced to raise over $1,000,000 per year from the local population to cover the fundamental needs of LAPD not covered by their city budget. And in New York, the problem is even more drastic. There, the New York Police Foundation raises an astounding $6,000,000 per year to cover basic needs of NYPD.
But not every police department is lucky enough to have a non-profit police foundation that works on its behalf to raise money from the local community so it can continue operations.
That’s why we’re here. We stand up for any law enforcement agency nationwide which is trying to rescue children from child sex predators and make our neighborhoods safe again.
But we can’t do it without your help. As much as everyone is hurting financially, our children are hurting the most. Many are afraid to go to bed at night, because they know Daddy will be visiting and what he will do to them.
Now we have the technology to get those children to safety, stop their nightmare existence, and help them heal, but the police who are desperately fighting to get to those children don’t have the basic equipment and resources they need to do their jobs.
They need your help to get to those kids. Please pick a team. Any amount helps.
Without your help, those American children, maybe in your family, or in your neighborhood, don’t stand a chance.
September 11, 2009
America Online has sponsored the work of the Innocent Justice Foundation to help rescue children from unspeakable abuse by supporting law enforcement agencies investigating child sexual abuse image crimes throughout North America. “America Online is a strong and vital contributor to the safety of children,” says Innocent Justice Founder and CEO, Heather Steele. “We applaud their efforts to create safe environments for children online and in our neighborhoods. This generous donation by AOL will allow Innocent Justice to move operations to rescue children to the next level, and we are grateful for the opportunity to better serve the law enforcement heroes on our front lines.” If you would like to contribute to significantly reducing child sexual abuse in the US today, please donate to Innocent Justice, or help one of the law enforcement teams struggling to get to local sexually abused children with limited resources.
