Copyright 2004, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

FIRST PERSON/OPINION

Via e-mail:

First off, let me state that this post is for educating the general public on sex offenders and just plain criminals in general.

One might question what credibility do I have speaking on this topic. Well, I spent 10 years as a full-time police officer and the last 3 1/2 years as a detective. As a detective, I personally handled, on the conservative side, 60-80 sexual assault cases involving adults and children, with the bulk of them being children. This was one of the reasons why I decided to leave police work. You can only sit through interviews of kids so long giving graphic details of how they were sexually assaulted numerous times without it having an effect on you. Then as a detective you have to turn around and play nice to the suspect during the interview in order to get the confession out of them when your stomach is churning on the inside picturing what happened to the victim.

By the way….forget what you see on the latest episode of CSI and Law and Order. THAT’S NOT REALITY FOLKS!!!

First let’s look at the suspects in these cases. Victims almost always know the suspect whether it be a family member, neighbor, other relative, etc. The chances of it being a total stranger and a single isolated incident is incredibly small. By the time the actual assault takes place, there has been an extensive grooming phase where the suspect befriends the victims over the course of several days, months and years. For example, I handled a case where a person in the education field was sexually assaulting boys. He would start grooming these kids in the 5th grade and actual sex acts didn’t occur until they were in the 6th/7th grade.

Sex offenders also have a certain type of victim that they prefer and rarely deviate from it. From my example above, this particular person liked young, light-skinned, African-American boys with short hair who came from low-income homes. The victims that we were actually able to interview, I could have lined them up in a row and it would have looked like an assembly line. Plus, you never find all of the victims. The grooming phase started by buying the victims tennis shoes, taking them to sporting events and movies and actually paying attention to them and spending time with them. Then it becomes a gradual progression of things until you actually get to penetration. The chances of a sex offender being rehabilitated are incredibly small. The recidivism rate is huge! People are always blown away when they find out who these offenders turn out to be. I would hear things like, “He was such a great teacher, he would do anything for those kids and spent so much time working with them….he would never do anything like that.” Hello people…..that’s why sex offenders take jobs where they work around kids all of the time such as teachers, janitors, day care workers, etc.

Then, when people actually get charged and things go to trial one of two things are going to happen from the defense side. If you can’t attack the evidence, then attack the witness. Case in point, the OJ trial. The scary thing is that most juries don’t base their decision on the facts, they base it on an emotional decision. Therefore, testimony in court becomes a theatrical performance on the prosecution and defense side. And then you get the usual response from the sex offender side. “The only reason I plead guilty is because I didn’t want to put my family and the victim through this.” That is such B.S.! If you were charged with something as horrific as sexual assault, common sense and rational thinking would tell you that you would refinance your house, vehemently deny the charges and spend every dollar it took to clear your name of the incident. You don’t just take a guilty plea full well knowing the social stygma attached to it!

I personally had a Catholic Priest that was a friend of mine in high school that I used to go hunting with all the time. He was later charged and convicted of sexual assault when I was in college. No….I wasn’t a victim and never saw any signs of it because I didn’t fit his type. That was the excuse that he used and people bought it.

Now let’s look at the victims. It’s pretty safe to say that they are messed up for life. Yes, extensive counseling does help and can help victims move past it, but it takes years of counseling. That’s why victims act out in different ways in their lives whether it be in future relationships, destructive behavior, etc….after becoming a victim. The scary thing…..victims now become our future sex offenders. Personally, I think sex assault crimes are worse than murder because the victim is still living and has to deal with years of emotional distress.

Is it bad that a sex offender gets labeled for the rest of their life? That’s up to every individual person in society to decide. Is it fair that the victim has to deal with their emotional issues and hurt that surfaces in everyday life? Put yourself in the victim’s shoes.

If anyone wants to learn more or dispute what I’m saying….by all means pick up the phone and call me (217)493-3811. I’ll give you all the graphic stories you want to hear.

And who said cops just sit around and eat donuts all the time!!!!

Kevin Hanson
Safety First Racing
Chicago, Illinois



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11/16/2004 How We Became The Bad Guys…

11/15/2004 Spies Looking Forward To 2005 And Is Working With Former Bicycle Racer Boyer