Like what you've read?

On Line Opinion is the only Australian site where you get all sides of the story. We don't
charge, but we need your support. Here�s how you can help.

  • Advertise

    We have a monthly audience of 70,000 and advertising packages from $200 a month.

  • Volunteer

    We always need commissioning editors and sub-editors.

  • Contribute

    Got something to say? Submit an essay.


 The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
On Line Opinion logo ON LINE OPINION - Australia's e-journal of social and political debate

Subscribe!
Subscribe





On Line Opinion is a not-for-profit publication and relies on the generosity of its sponsors, editors and contributors. If you would like to help, contact us.
___________

Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Publicly exposed

By Barbara Biggs - posted Thursday, 14 December 2006


As a victim of child sexual abuse, I want to reply to the growing public push to make child sex offenders public.

Contrary to what many would imagine, my strong opinion is against making public registers of this kind.

Wanting to protect children in this way is a natural reaction. After what happened to create Megan’s Law in the US, I was a great believer in making the register public myself. That was until I started learning more about the crime through my own work in campaigning to stop the plague of child sexual abuse in our society.

Advertisement

My books about my own abuse are now used in one of the world’s leading treatment programs for child sex offenders. I speak at child protection conferences about my own story and speak with experts in the field.

In New Zealand recently I told my story to a room of about 40 child sex offenders. There’s a common social myth that offenders of this crime can’t be treated. These men were all clients of a community-based treatment program in Auckland.

The latest international research disputes the popular notion that the condition can’t be managed. The prison where my books are used, in the empathy part of the program, has a recidivism rate of just 5 per cent.

It’s my belief, and that of experts in the field, that the only way to stop child sexual abuse is by treating offenders - stopping it at the source. You may want to lock them up and throw away the key or hang them from the nearest tree, but in our society this is not going to happen.

Given that we need to co-exist, there are certain elements of this crime that should be understood.

For example, Patrick Tidmarsh, a therapist who works in Melbourne with juvenile offenders - and any other specialist therapist in this area - will tell you that one of the triggers for offending, is stress, drama, a death in the family, losing ones job or security, and so on.

Advertisement

Vigilante action against offenders on a public register has already happened in Australia and horrific examples can be found overseas. One where a UK pediatrician’s house was set alight because the person thought the sign meant “pedophile”.

A public register also does not take into account the various types and degree of offending. A flasher who has never touched a child would be targeted equally with a serial child rapist. And yes, our society is awash with such ignorance.

I absolutely agree that registers should be used by police and other authorities to check the suitability for people applying to work with children.

But for an offender trying to rebuild their life, through treatment, into a more functional, safe one for the community, a public register would be a disaster. And I predict, should it ever happen, more, not less offending would occur.

And has everyone forgotten that most child sex offending, about 90 per cent, happens within families?

Consider what a public register would do to the victims of these offenders?

Most victims, like me, had an emotional attachment to their abuser. A father or mother (it’s rarely acknowledged that 30 per cent of abusers are female) who abuses their child may also genuinely, aside from the abuse, love him or her. This is not lost on the victim.

Needy children dress up whatever attention that comes their way as the love they need to grow. This attachment is the most serious and deepest damage of child sexual abuse, the effects of which, I can attest, linger for decades.

The best healing programs lead the whole family into therapy with the victim, other parent, brothers and sisters and train them all to understand what triggers the perpetrator’s dysfunction.

They are then given strategies to recognise potential offending behaviours and situations.

Through such programs, the child victim can salvage vestiges of the relationship, as can the perpetrator. And through this, healing through restorative justice, a powerful mechanism for the victim, is more likely to occur.

It shouldn’t be about punishment. Who would choose to be a child sex offender, reviled by your entire family and community?

If the day ever comes when we can talk about this crime like any other, over the dinner table, instead of furtively hiding and being in denial about it, this will be a step in the right direction.

The alternative is what we’ve always had: offenders going underground, not seeking treatment, changing their names, hiding their shameful attractions until they grow larger and less manageable by the day and being unable to continue treatment or quietly set about healing their own damaged lives.

Making a public register would be little better than putting offenders in the stocks to be kicked and jeered at by any passer by.

I personally know two offenders who have contacted me after hearing my story. Both live in eternal regret about the damage they’ve caused, have received treatment, hate themselves for what they’ve done and are trying to rebuild their lives. Both have attempted suicide.

Even I remember that Jesus said: let he who has not sinned cast the first stone.

If I, as a victim of this crime, can see the merits of treatment rather than retribution, can’t others also open their minds to new possibilities?

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. All

First published in the Herald Sun on December 11, 2006.



Discuss in our Forums

See what other readers are saying about this article!

Click here to read & post comments.

25 posts so far.

Share this:
reddit this reddit thisbookmark with del.icio.us Del.icio.usdigg thisseed newsvineSeed NewsvineStumbleUpon StumbleUponsubmit to propellerkwoff it

About the Author

Barbara Biggs is a former journalist and author of a two-part autobiography, In Moral Danger and The Road Home, launched in May 2004 by Peter Hollingworth and Chat Room in 2006. Her latest book is Sex and Money: How to Get More. Barbara is convenor of the National Council for Children Post-Separation, www.nccps.org.

Other articles by this Author

All articles by Barbara Biggs

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Photo of Barbara Biggs
Article Tools
Comment 25 comments
Print Printable version
Subscribe Subscribe
Email Email a friend
Advertisement

About Us Search Discuss Feedback Legals Privacy