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Are we doing enough? Major story outlining abuse with the Southern Baptists


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And thus the criminal makes victims of everyone around them. It is up to the extended family, community and church to ensure that the targeted victim and the innocent members of the criminal's family are assisted in whatever ways possible. However, the suffering that the criminal inflicts on targeted victims, "loved ones" and friends is going to happen in some ways no matter what help is rendered, the suffering of any of the victims can never be wholly mitigated. We need to support all the victims in whatever way we can. The criminal must be forced to successfully complete treatment and the success of that treatment needs to be guaranteed by the providers, which is NOT being done. The recidivism rates of "treated" sex-crime perpetrators is unacceptable.

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3 minutes ago, CAS said:

The criminal must be forced to successfully complete treatment 

Forced treatment isn't going to be successful in most cases (maybe medical castration or other forms of drug treatment, but most drug treatments are most effective if combined with therapy and that requires client commitment for true change to occur).

Edited by Calm
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27 minutes ago, Calm said:

Forced treatment isn't going to be successful in most cases (maybe medical castration or other forms of drug treatment, but most drug treatments are most effective if combined with therapy and that requires client commitment for true change to occur).

Drug treatment only partially works on the mentally ill and is not a guarantee that the criminal will not reoffend, you also have to force them to stay on the drug - which is unbelievably costly. Castration, believe it or not, does not stop the victimizing, they are that focused on this behavior, it has been tried and does not work. Forced treatment with guaranteed results or lifetime imprisonment is all that works, although they do victimize other inmates. Treatment providers DO NOT guarantee their results at this point in time.

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4 hours ago, CAS said:

Drug treatment only partially works on the mentally ill and is not a guarantee that the criminal will not reoffend, you also have to force them to stay on the drug - which is unbelievably costly. Castration, believe it or not, does not stop the victimizing, they are that focused on this behavior, it has been tried and does not work. Forced treatment with guaranteed results or lifetime imprisonment is all that works, although they do victimize other inmates. Treatment providers DO NOT guarantee their results at this point in time.

CFR that forced treatment works, (call for reference).  I am very interested in seeing evidence that you can force change.

I am really curious about what you mean by treatment and how you think it can be guaranteed to work.

Even things like fixing broken legs can't be guaranteed to work as far as I know.

Edited by Calm
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10 hours ago, RevTestament said:

I don't know if you intended to make the inference that Southern Baptists don't care or are not concerned with this problem. I believe they are, but to some extent how much an organization cares is manifest in their actions, and to this extent you probably have a point about Southern Baptists. Many of their larger churches have had a tendency in recent decades of having "youth ministers" and as one may imagine this is an area ripe for sexual predators. I believe Southern Baptists have utilized at least some common sense in requiring background checks for youth ministers, although I don't know if this is a uniform requirement in the convention. Nevertheless, I have heard of instances of abuse or inappropriate behavior by youth ministers. 

But I have heard of such instances in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and disturbingly, even with a centralized HQ, sometimes the accused have continued in their callings without the accusers actually getting a fair hearing from what I have heard - this is largely due to the feeling that those called are called by the Lord, and therefore the calling can't be questioned. More recently the Church has instituted a call line, which I applaud, and is certainly a recognition that members, and those in callings are imperfect, and cannot be assumed to be passed off as innocent.

Perhaps both can take some cues from the Jewish Community's approach to the issue, and the degree of openness it engenders - it certainly seems a more honest approach to the issue than most organizations are willing to provide. As pointed out by Navidad most organizations are not prone to be open about abuse matters. However, we should not tip so far as to allow mere accusations to ruin innocent lives - that can lead to societal abuse which can be almost as tragic as sexual abuse.

All religious groups have a problem with predators of various kinds, Roman Catholicism more than the others (and it is unclear that the Pope understands the problem).  The solution is to encourage reporting to a central HQ which is programmed to take action, with a policy of zero tolerance, and careful predator tracking.  This is also a problem for non-religious groups, such as the Boy Scouts.  Insisting on background checks, not allowing adults to be alone with children, and the like, are only some of the solutions.

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I hope I can be helpful by providing a brief explanation of the organization of the Southern Baptist Convention. I believe it is important to do so since the SBC has been singled out in this thread and is the largest Protestant group and second largest religious group in the United States. Only the Catholic church is larger. It is probably also accurate to describe it as the largest evangelical, and the largest fundamentalist organization in the US (using both terms in their formal theological, not colloquial sense). It is a massive non-centralized (in some sense) non-organized (in some sense) organization. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is about 15 years older than the Southern Baptist Convention. It was not Southern Baptists who struggled with the Saints in Missouri or Illinois for example. The SBC didn’t exist until 1845.

Estimates of how many Southern Baptists there are vary between 15 and 20 million, with the lower number most likely accurate. James Dow, probably the leading scholar of religious demographics (now deceased) told me on several occasions that it is accurate to describe one third of the number claimed by any religious group as an accurate estimate of “the faithful.” This may help explain the wide divergence in claims of adherents for religious groups, including both the SBC and the LDS. I digress.

Each local church in the SBC is autonomous yet agrees to “cooperate” with a hierarchy that exists to provide services, more than to “control.” Each church appoints delegates to an annual conference where Southern Baptists come together to set policy, determine leadership, budgets, debate, argue, etc. about the direction of the denomination as a whole.  At the local level individual churches belong to and cooperate with an “association.” This association provides resources to the local church. The associations then merge upward into what might be a state (or several states) organization that provides more services, direction, and leadership. Most non-members see for example, Baylor University as an institution affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. That is not strictly accurate. Baylor is affiliated with and controlled by the Baptist General Convention of Texas through a board of directors. The BGCT, for example can both add and remove churches. It can discipline member churches. It cannot remove the ministerial credentials for an individual minister, but it can make it pretty impossible for that person to serve a church within its organization. All of this happens in a “cooperative structure” that is not without teeth, especially at the association and state level.

For example, Southern Baptists are organized into a Utah/Idaho Southern Baptist Convention.  Their mission is “We are a convention of Southern Baptist churches that have chosen to cooperate with one another in order to share Jesus Christ with the world.” Notice the words “chosen” and “cooperate”? Within this structure there are ten associations providing services to approximately 185 SBC congregations in those two states. All data is from the Utah/Idaho Southern Baptist Convention website. 

The associations, state, and national levels provide organization in missionary efforts, disaster relief, mutual assistance, education, Sunday School materials, etc etc. They fund counseling centers, medical facilities, colleges and universities, training for local leaders and on a national level, seminaries. It is common for example for an association to provide training in a conference for Sunday School teachers, youth leaders, deacons, elders, pastors, etc. If a church has a conflict with a pastor, the association will step in to help (upon request, or upon a determination there is a need to do so).

The funding is provided through, yes, you guessed it a program called “The Cooperative Program.” A local church agrees to send a portion of its tithes and offerings to the higher levels of organization (or some Southern Baptists would say “disorganizations”). The higher level organizations then use the funds to provide services. Seminaries provide very low-cost education to current and prospective Southern Baptist ministers. There are many resources provided to the local church leadership and congregation via this “hierarchy.”

A local church may join the convention or may leave it via a process. A local church may be “kicked out” of an association, state or national group, based on a process. It would be very rare for this to be done at a national level. The national level, at a conference might provide a statement on gay rights, for example. An individual church has a vote on that statement through its delegates to the conference. That individual church may also internally vote to leave because of that statement. There are over 50,000 churches who “cooperate” in this way.

It is of not much value to say whether the Latter-Day Saint ward, stake, area, etc. does a better job with this or that than does the SBC church, association, state or national organization. I would know of no reliable or valid source of data from either group about things like sex abuse, pastoral marital unfaithfulness, doctrinal or cultural issues, etc. It is both impossible and of no significance to say which group has higher standards for this or that. Chest thumping and ethnocentrism in competing religious organizations cannot be pleasing to the Lord (my opinion).

I hope this helps.

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10 hours ago, Calm said:

CFR that forced treatment works, (call for reference).  I am very interested in seeing evidence that you can force change.

I am really curious about what you mean by treatment and how you think it can be guaranteed to work.

Even things like fixing broken legs can't be guaranteed to work as far as I know.

There is no reference, this is me talking from experience. The evidence of forced change is from my experience of being a prison counselor with a high amount of sex offenders on my caseloads, you are not going to get better evidence or reference than that. The context is this, pedophiles are court-ordered to go through treatment, they do not have to go through the treatment though and eventually they must be released. Treatment providers provide ZERO guarantee that the treatment, even when successfully completed, will work, AT ALL. If we cannot guarantee the results (words like "likely" add up to being meaningless and are often wrong) and the inmate cannot be forced to be treated do you want that person back out in the community? This is what I want people to think about. Pedophiles (and other sex-related criminals) need to be incarcerated a long time, or, we need a treatment program that works and that they HAVE to participate in and successfully complete. The current recidivism rate is about 70%, that is too high for us to risk letting these people back out in the communities. (I am not providing a recidivism rate reference either because there are many and they are all conflicting and biased toward whoever paid for them and they are ALL based on incomplete studies). The reason about 30% (or less not more) do not go back to prison is because the whole process of being caught, being in jail awaiting court, the court process and then being in prison overrode their desire to ever commit this crime again, or, they now are extremely clever in what they do and are avoiding getting caught. Does that sound like a good deal to you? People need to think about this and push for better results or more time.

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1 hour ago, CAS said:

There is no reference, this is me talking from experience. The evidence of forced change is from my experience of being a prison counselor with a high amount of sex offenders on my caseloads, you are not going to get better evidence or reference than that. The context is this, pedophiles are court-ordered to go through treatment, they do not have to go through the treatment though and eventually they must be released. Treatment providers provide ZERO guarantee that the treatment, even when successfully completed, will work, AT ALL. If we cannot guarantee the results (words like "likely" add up to being meaningless and are often wrong) and the inmate cannot be forced to be treated do you want that person back out in the community? This is what I want people to think about. Pedophiles (and other sex-related criminals) need to be incarcerated a long time, or, we need a treatment program that works and that they HAVE to participate in and successfully complete. The current recidivism rate is about 70%, that is too high for us to risk letting these people back out in the communities. (I am not providing a recidivism rate reference either because there are many and they are all conflicting and biased toward whoever paid for them and they are ALL based on incomplete studies). The reason about 30% (or less not more) do not go back to prison is because the whole process of being caught, being in jail awaiting court, the court process and then being in prison overrode their desire to ever commit this crime again, or, they now are extremely clever in what they do and are avoiding getting caught. Does that sound like a good deal to you? People need to think about this and push for better results or more time.

It is a grim reality that we often choose not to deal with because it is so terrifying. 

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CASWhat training have you had to be a prison counselor?  I ask because talking about guarantees is so foreign to any training I received in clinical psychology (never practiced, just education).  And I am wondering why you think it is a possible option.

I assume that many imprisoned are committed to change and get committed to working with the treatments because they don't like prison or they are truly sorrowful about hurting others.  Thus treatment works for some.  

There is no way in creation that psychotherapy or any other kind of treatment for behavioural or mental change can be guaranteed.  The body and mind just don't work that way.  They are not completely predictable.  At best, they can give rates of success, but in individual cases no guarantee possible.

So if you want 100% guarantees before releasing offenders, you are going to have to convince people to change the laws and come up with a lot of taxpayer money to pay for lifetime incarceration or supervision.

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3 minutes ago, Calm said:

CASWhat training have you had to be a prison counselor?  I ask because talking about guarantees is so foreign to any training I received in clinical psychology (never practiced, just education).  And I am wondering why you think it is a possible option.

I assume that many imprisoned are committed to change and get committed to working with the treatments because they don't like prison or they are truly sorrowful about hurting others.  Thus treatment works for some.  

There is no way in creation that psychotherapy or any other kind of treatment for behavioural or mental change can be guaranteed.  The body and mind just don't work that way.  They are not completely predictable.  At best, they can give rates of success, but in individual cases no guarantee possible.

So if you want 100% guarantees before releasing offenders, you are going to have to convince people to change the laws and come up with a lot of taxpayer money to pay for lifetime incarceration or supervision.

My training is called Adult Services Academy, add about 90 state courses to that and 15 years in-unit prison counseling experience coupled with five years as a Sergeant and Officer. You are right, there are no guarantees and there are no rates of success either, they do claim with treatment to lower the recidivism rate by 38% but the facts show that this is a baseless claim, it is rhetoric to get funding. A guarantee is not, at this point in time, an option. Very few of the inmates are sorrowful or willing to complete the training, on the whole they participate because they become convinced it will reduce their time in prison, which is not a false concept but it takes a lot of talking to them to get them to accept that. The fact that the therapeutic treatment providers can guarantee nothing truly makes them a laughing stock in the professional prison community. As a prison unit worker I can guarantee that an inmate will not harm your little ones (because they are in prison!), my mechanic can guarantee that my brakes will work, but after years of treatment a therapist can guarantee -drum roll- NOTHING. Of the thousands, yes thousands, of sex offenders I have worked with I have met approximately five who I am convinced were sorrowful, but not convinced they would not do their crime again. No one is more frightened of this potential than I am. So, my effort here is to warn. I am not a scientologist who hates the mental health community just to clarify, I still have friends who provide this treatment though I am now retired. To them, like yourself, the fact that they can guarantee nothing is just a fact based on human nature, I get that. We can't change that, therefore I am for stiffer sentencing, this does help, it does make them think. The rhetoric that stiffer sentencing does not reduce crime rates is completely bogus I cannot tell you how many times I have heard an inmate say, "Yeah, well I knew I would only get 18 months." They definitely make decisions based on possible outcomes, just like all normal people do only in this case for an exceptionally abnormal reason.

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On 2/15/2019 at 10:40 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

All religious groups have a problem with predators of various kinds, Roman Catholicism more than the others (and it is unclear that the Pope understands the problem).  The solution is to encourage reporting to a central HQ which is programmed to take action, with a policy of zero tolerance, and careful predator tracking.  This is also a problem for non-religious groups, such as the Boy Scouts.  Insisting on background checks, not allowing adults to be alone with children, and the like, are only some of the solutions.

Kinda makes you wonder if institutions are the best place to go. Or putting so much trust in so called people of God.

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1 minute ago, Tacenda said:

Kinda makes you wonder if institutions are the best place to go. Or putting so much trust in so called people of God.

For me, I try to remember that each individual remains human and each has their own kind of weakness. I believe there is such a thing as holiness; where the individual overcomes many of their personal failings. Yet, even then, they remain human and continue to have degrees of failings.

It is my belief that we put our trust in God and our forgiveness in humanity. We should never be blind to the humanity of each individual - including ourselves. Be cautious about tempting others.

I have a dear friend with whom I served in the temple with many years ago. He taught me about his personal concern with false compliments or overly complimenting others - his focus was on correcting others when they complimented him. His concern was personal humility and he felt that constant compliments affected the humility of himself and others. He focused on gratitude in his communication with others while complimenting rarely. It made me think how often we influence others - for the worse - by what we think are positive things.

Humans will never stop being humans regardless of their calling or their desire to serve others. 

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24 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

Kinda makes you wonder if institutions are the best place to go. Or putting so much trust in so called people of God.

Society is filled to overflowing with institutions of all kinds, including marriage, family, city council, individual businesses, corporations, state and federal legislatures, military organizations, schools, etc., any one of which can go terribly wrong and become corrupt.  What is the answer, Tacenda?  Hide in a closet?  Or find solutions to problems?

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I am S.Y. #823.  The LDS curch did NOTHING to help anyone in my family.  The abuse went on years and years during which time the abuser was "called by god??" to serve in the bishpric??? was serving with kids in boy scouts when arrested??? The case was so badly handled by the church, that I have left.  

 

On 2/10/2019 at 2:20 PM, MustardSeed said:

Another area of change that *****I believe***** is crucial is that if the offender and the victim are in the same ward, the offender should always be ministered to by a different bishop.  No exception. 

 

The offender should have to move to a new ward - they should have a restraining order to be no where near the victim.  The new ward's members should also all be notified to keep kids in the new ward safe.  

 

On 2/10/2019 at 2:41 PM, SouthernMo said:

I understand the importance of allowing and supporting  those who have committed offenses the blessings of the atonement. On the one hand, we are instructed to forgive all (D&C 64:10).

 

Pedophiles do not change.  It would be akin to forgiving someone of having cancer, or forgiving them of being mentally insane - it is a physical condition, a disease.  

 

On 2/10/2019 at 2:52 PM, Calm said:

You have no way of being sure therapy wasn’t offered. The father shut down the police, he could very well have shut down the bishop about therapy. 

And if David is relaying what he was told his parents were told, he may have misunderstood. 

It is clear the bishop’s/stake pres' approach was not to let the Church authorities handle it on their own since the perpetrator was encouraged to confess to police, which he did. If David was misinformed about this, he could have been misinformed about other things. 

 

No therapy was offered to anyone in our family.  Over the last 2 years, I met with my bishop twice.  Once where I was told "sorry, I have no experience with that", and the second time where I turned in my TR.  No help.  No support.  Nothing.  I asked for a support group and was told that regular church meetings would be good enough for me.

Strange - the LDs church offers "addiction recovery" support groups for addicts, yet the support for victims is non-existent.  This is my current experience.  

 

Read through S.Y.'s stories.... hundreds of stories.  too may stories.

 

Edited by changed
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21 hours ago, CAS said:

My training is called Adult Services Academy, add about 90 state courses to that and 15 years in-unit prison counseling experience coupled with five years as a Sergeant and Officer. You are right, there are no guarantees and there are no rates of success either, they do claim with treatment to lower the recidivism rate by 38% but the facts show that this is a baseless claim, it is rhetoric to get funding. A guarantee is not, at this point in time, an option. Very few of the inmates are sorrowful or willing to complete the training, on the whole they participate because they become convinced it will reduce their time in prison, which is not a false concept but it takes a lot of talking to them to get them to accept that. The fact that the therapeutic treatment providers can guarantee nothing truly makes them a laughing stock in the professional prison community. As a prison unit worker I can guarantee that an inmate will not harm your little ones (because they are in prison!), my mechanic can guarantee that my brakes will work, but after years of treatment a therapist can guarantee -drum roll- NOTHING. Of the thousands, yes thousands, of sex offenders I have worked with I have met approximately five who I am convinced were sorrowful, but not convinced they would not do their crime again. No one is more frightened of this potential than I am. So, my effort here is to warn. I am not a scientologist who hates the mental health community just to clarify, I still have friends who provide this treatment though I am now retired. To them, like yourself, the fact that they can guarantee nothing is just a fact based on human nature, I get that. We can't change that, therefore I am for stiffer sentencing, this does help, it does make them think. The rhetoric that stiffer sentencing does not reduce crime rates is completely bogus I cannot tell you how many times I have heard an inmate say, "Yeah, well I knew I would only get 18 months." They definitely make decisions based on possible outcomes, just like all normal people do only in this case for an exceptionally abnormal reason.

 

Our abuser will be in their 90's when released, no probation under Jessica's law.  He denies even now what he did, even though it is all on video tape - he is convinced there is nothing wrong with what he did.  It is a mental insanity, and those who have this disease need to be put away for life for the safety of children.  

Laymen in the church have no idea what they are dealing with - they will believe the abuser's lies, believe nothing wrong happened, victim shaming, victim blaming, ignore, laugh at, roll their eyes at - allow abuse to continue for year after year after year - because until you are in it, you don't understand it.

Edited by changed
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1 hour ago, changed said:

I am S.Y. #823.  The LDS curch did NOTHING to help anyone in my family.  The abuse went on years and years during which time the abuser was "called by god??" to serve in the bishpric??? was serving with kids in boy scouts when arrested??? The case was so badly handled by the church, that I have left.  

 

 

The offender should have to move to a new ward - they should have a restraining order to be no where near the victim.  The new ward's members should also all be notified to keep kids in the new ward safe.  

 

 

Pedophiles do not change.  It would be akin to forgiving someone of having cancer, or forgiving them of being mentally insane - it is a physical condition, a disease.  

 

 

No therapy was offered to anyone in our family.  Over the last 2 years, I met with my bishop twice.  Once where I was told "sorry, I have no experience with that", and the second time where I turned in my TR.  No help.  No support.  Nothing.  I asked for a support group and was told that regular church meetings would be good enough for me.

Strange - the LDs church offers "addiction recovery" support groups for addicts, yet the support for victims is non-existent.  This is my current experience.  

 

Read through S.Y.'s stories.... hundreds of stories.  too may stories.

 

I believe, even though I'll get in trouble for sayin it, that our church has a problem with sex abuse cases. Utah is among the worst states with child abuse cases and not, IMO, because people go to the police more than any of the other states, that's just a lame excuse and according to the link it's under reported.  https://fox13now.com/2016/02/17/rate-of-sex-abuse-in-utah-among-worst-in-the-nation-advocacy-group-pledges-support-for-survivors/I don't know how it all started but one thing is for sure, people didn't look at children as people with full rights apparently and the adults got more credit than the children ever did. Hopefully this will dissipate as the world gets better and better! 

Edited by Tacenda
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1 hour ago, changed said:

Laymen in the church have no idea what they are dealing with - they will believe the abuser's lies, believe nothing wrong happened, victim shaming, victim blaming, ignore, laugh at, roll their eyes at - allow abuse to continue for year after year after year - because until you are in it, you don't understand it.

This is a blanket statement that does not reflect my experiences in the Church. What happened to you and others is terrible, but it is not universal. I’m very sad you had to go through that. While there are some who have reacted the way you describe, there are many others who take this very seriously. I think times are changing. We have witnessed the improvement over the 10 years we have worked with the Addiction Recovery Program. Some in our groups were victims of abuse. Our group support has been helpful to them.

Edited by Bernard Gui
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On 2/10/2019 at 1:06 PM, Storm Rider said:

Let me get this straight, you reported a individual to the police because you heard that he may engaged once in a "minor" (whatever the heck that means) episode many years in the past?  Yup, that is what we need, to train a group of hyper-active individuals to report on all of the bad acts of their fellow members.  Yeah, we will be a beacon to the community there.  Do we just report on sexual abuse or any other sin?

Being an individual that has never been tempted to engage in any form of pedophilia, this type of thing scares the crap right out of me. It is good intentions turned into a monstrosity of evil and sanctimonious actions. 

This is what scares me and others I know, in this age of social media it's too easy to ruin someone this way.  You can create a bogus facebook, use software like tor and quite possibly ruin someones life with a little social engineering.  With photoshop you can make bogus screencaps and circulate them everywhere, with linkedin you can even forward them to someones boss.  Makes me wonder how much longer this will go on before people decide to be adults and not ruin each others lives.

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8 minutes ago, poptart said:

This is what scares me and others I know, in this age of social media it's too easy to ruin someone this way.  You can create a bogus facebook, use software like tor and quite possibly ruin someones life with a little social engineering.  With photoshop you can make bogus screencaps and circulate them everywhere, with linkedin you can even forward them to someones boss.  Makes me wonder how much longer this will go on before people decide to be adults and not ruin each others lives.

I hope you read my response to this post, directed to me. 

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4 hours ago, changed said:

 

Our abuser will be in their 90's when released, no probation under Jessica's law.  He denies even now what he did, even though it is all on video tape - he is convinced there is nothing wrong with what he did.  It is a mental insanity, and those who have this disease need to be put away for life for the safety of children.  

Laymen in the church have no idea what they are dealing with - they will believe the abuser's lies, believe nothing wrong happened, victim shaming, victim blaming, ignore, laugh at, roll their eyes at - allow abuse to continue for year after year after year - because until you are in it, you don't understand it.

I’m so sad that your family was affected this way.  So sad you didn’t feel supported in the way you needed.  

No buts from me. 💕 I hope for peace for you. 

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6 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

I hope you read my response to this post, directed to me. 

 

3 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

I’m so sad that your family was affected this way.  So sad you didn’t feel supported in the way you needed.  

No buts from me. 💕 I hope for peace for you. 

I did plus a few of your other posts, I have friends who've worked in corrections just like you, one of em with sex offenders.  You are so correct, Bishops, even the general population is poorly equipped to deal with people like that.  What I was alluding to is how easy it is to have your name smeared, should have read your posts a bit more first. 

Let me ask you this, how would you solve this?  I don't see the point in long stints in jail, it costs us a lot of money and really accomplishes nothing.  We could always do what other countries do and just execute them, I doubt that would fly here.  I don't like pedos either but hey a lot of these people were abused horribly as children.  I'm all for taking responsibility for ones life but in cases like this are they even capable of it?  The average person cannot imagine the confusion and rage that's going through these poor peoples minds when they've been accused of something they do not understand.  I do wonder how all this will play out in the future, white flight isn't much of an option and the moment you have kids you can't just hide from the world as easily anymore.  Your kids are going to be exposed to some very messed up kids in school, even if you're a stellar parent there are many, many more who aren't.  My own life growing up was pretty bad, no one cared and i've paid for it, still at least  I know if I do anything horrible I'll have to answer for it, so many people in our prisons can't even do that.  What's worse, esp. in the case of pedophiles the abuse they get in jail just makes them worse.  Judging them, saying the kinds of things so many people do along the lines of next time don't do those things doesn't mean much once they're released.  I doubt the average person thinks that a mentally ill ex convict can really understand what he did was wrong. 

As someone who's been exposed to this kind of stuff, how do you think this will all play out in the coming years?   Like I said, white flight isn't much of an option anymore, we're running out of places to put jails and yep, the old not in my backyard rule is still in full affect.  Families aren't as stable as they used to be and with the latest from the CDC the downward spiral will just continue.

BTW, I like people like you, it was someone who worked with crime victims and violent offenders who made it possible for me to get work at DI, and i'm about as LDS as Trump is Muslim.  I had gone through a horrible stint in life that wasn't my fault and yep, most of the people at the ward wouldn't give me the time of day.  Took me years to understand that it's not like they had it in for me, the majority of people out there just can't fathom just how horrible life can be to people.  I do think that's going to change very soon.  The USA is playing catch up with the UK in areas like drug abuse and family disfunction, they've had to deal with it for decades.  I had a conversation with my 90 year old aunt today, she's not a fan of things like legal dope yet does understand the root cause, atleast one of them, family disfunction and the broken people it creates.

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6 hours ago, Tacenda said:

Kinda makes you wonder if institutions are the best place to go.

Institutions are the only way to really address abuse except vigilantism.  Without institutions, you have no laws or law enforcement, no one to report abuse to, etc.

Edited by Calm
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5 hours ago, changed said:

I am S.Y. #823.  The LDS curch did NOTHING to help anyone in my family.  The abuse went on years and years during which time the abuser was "called by god??" to serve in the bishpric??? was serving with kids in boy scouts when arrested??? The case was so badly handled by the church, that I have left.  

The offender should have to move to a new ward - they should have a restraining order to be no where near the victim.  The new ward's members should also all be notified to keep kids in the new ward safe.  

Pedophiles do not change.  It would be akin to forgiving someone of having cancer, or forgiving them of being mentally insane - it is a physical condition, a disease.  

No therapy was offered to anyone in our family.  Over the last 2 years, I met with my bishop twice.  Once where I was told "sorry, I have no experience with that", and the second time where I turned in my TR.  No help.  No support.  Nothing.  I asked for a support group and was told that regular church meetings would be good enough for me.

Strange - the LDs church offers "addiction recovery" support groups for addicts, yet the support for victims is non-existent.  This is my current experience.  ...................

 

5 hours ago, changed said:

Our abuser will be in their 90's when released, no probation under Jessica's law.  He denies even now what he did, even though it is all on video tape - he is convinced there is nothing wrong with what he did.  It is a mental insanity, and those who have this disease need to be put away for life for the safety of children.  

Laymen in the church have no idea what they are dealing with - they will believe the abuser's lies, believe nothing wrong happened, victim shaming, victim blaming, ignore, laugh at, roll their eyes at - allow abuse to continue for year after year after year - because until you are in it, you don't understand it.

Your complaints sound valid, but the only effective way to gain the attention of local ward & stake leadership is to file a major civil lawsuit alleging lack of due diligence, etc.  This has been very effective in other  venues, and will pay for plenty of first class therapy.  Have you explored that possibility?  Of course, fully utilizing the law enforcement system is absolutely vital.  Sociopaths never repent because they do not recognize the harm they do.  They have no empathy.  Local leaders are too unsophisticated to be saddled with the responsibility of dealing with such realities.

Even a well-meaning Pope is having great difficulty dealing with sex abuse within his priesthood (including cardinals).  https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/16/us/mccarrick-defrocked-vatican.html .

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34 minutes ago, Calm said:

Institutions are the only way to really address abuse except vigilantism.  Without institutions, you have no laws or law enforcement, no one to report abuse to, etc.

I didn't mean any government institutions. Mainly religious ones. Because so many think they are men/women of God so they put more trust into them. And maybe teachers/coaches in the schools are second.

Edited by Tacenda
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