Topic : 04/04 Did He or Didn't He?

I didn't see much of this show, but I was active on the Saving Grace Forum.  Without re-hashing my own situation, I'd like to address the very real dilllema which occurs when there is the case of "he said, she said".  Grace's Grandfather, Steve made me sick...you can't hear of that being done to a child and feel very well.  However, he admitted to it, thereby erasing all doubts.  How can a confession be compared to out and out denial?  A child says something, the adult denys it.  Suddenly, anyone and everyone is forced to be judge and jury...and face judgement themselves...depending on whose side they are on.  This man couln't be read on a polygraph...something with brain wave abnormality.  Maybe if the research, which is quite extensive, on the abnormalities of a pedophile's brain chemistry were not hushed, there would have been a commonality...but when that research, hoping to find a cause, control and cure is viewed to be pro-pedophile(which it is NOT), therby underfunded, will we ever really KNOW?

If this were me and I just could not believe that a particular person did this, I'd be strung up in the court of public opinion.  Here we have a man, Dr. Phil, who has certainly had greater training than most of us...more than the average therapist...and HE doesn't believe that this man is a sexual offender.  What if he is wrong?  Do we kill him too?  And if he's right, that man could have had his life ruined, along with his entire family of support.  There is no concrete answer without physical evidence, or a confession...or another eyewitness who broke it up.  So why is this man given the thumbs up, while others are not?  Dr. Phil was not irresponsible, but he can't KNOW..none of us can..we can only have opinions...very different from proof.

The harsh judgements on the Saving Grace boards were often directed at people who as Dr. Phil, did not or could not, believe that of the accused.  So they are bad people, negligent people...that is such crap!  A confession removes all doubt...Grace's Grandfather did one decent thing in this whole mess...he didn't leave room for doubt.  Don't diminish it...it is huge...as it took away these "what ifs" that if we were not to question, we'd not be human.  We need so much more information on this disorder...and if Dr. Phi was mistaken, he's not alone...as many people do side with the accused,  it is their right to an opinion.  Dr. Phil should stress this a bit more, as there are too many families at war over opinions...if one man is entitled to his, are we not ALL entitled to our own?  If we believe, and we are wrong, it's a mistake, if we don't and we are wrong, that too is a mistake.  It's very touchy, lives on either side can be ruined, and with the absence of any real evidence, the "MANDATED REPORTING" laws do more to harm, than to help.  You pick your belief to your best flawed by humanity judgement, hope you're right and procede to follow the course...but not the legal course...as it has been proven by this show, an expert witness can change the complexion of your stance, but more so, make a victim appear to be a liar...almost as cruel as the molestation.  Love, support and therapy...sometimes that's all you can offer.  If this man did it, he got a free pass and made a fool out of a victim and her supporters.  If he did not, then he deserves to be free.  But we DON'T and CAN'T ever know for sure, and there's got to be some major changes to serve in everyone's best interests...if not...this is heading back to the "good old days" of sweeping it under the carpet"...and those days were not so good.  Not being allowed your opinion is not much better...that goes for Dr. Phil and for all of us who have found ourselves in a very tragic situation.  O.K. for one...then it's O.K. for everyone...all you do is your best...and pray like crazy you are right.

The tax payers in the state of Indiana pay a great deal every year to support sex offenders and even their dangerous behaviors.  As our organization worked through the DOC and many other ways, to provide victim services and to teach empathy to offenders we were ask by an offender organization AIM (Aftercare in Indiana Through Mentoring) to join their operation acting as their counterpart to insure victim safety, educate their staff on victim issues, design and implement Restorative Justice programs, train graduate and undergraduate students in victimology, giving them 4-6 credit hours of criminology for working with our Exec. Dir., etc... AIM operates under the umbrella of I.U. and we decided to join them as AIM Victim Services.  At this point we had decades of experience with offenders and ended up with 10 years of experience and research on sex offenders exclusively.

As our Exec. Dir. and Dir. of Sex Crimes Div. worked on a high profile, first time for the state amelioration (referred to by others as a mediation) in a homicide, she used the opportunity to train the Exec. Dir. of the offender side of AIM.  We started getting clues about the true agenda of the offender organization.  During this first training opportunity the Exec. Dir. of AIM revictimized the homicide victim (or secondary victim - family) repeatedly.  Since this was a first time training we wrote it off as innocent mistakes.  The action that had the most impact, at that time, was when, despite being told to have NO contact with the victim's family, the head of AIM went behind our backs and contacted the victim's family asking them to sign a request for the release of the offender.  The student (head of AIM and recipient of hundreds of thousands of tax payer dollars) was sternly warned.

The abuse of Indiana victims and survivors not only continued but as we got deeper into the program we found the abuse also extended to the students that had internships with them, staff and especially the staff and clients of Victim Services.  Not only was this offender organization behaving as offenders on the tax payer dime, but they were teaching the offenders terrible behaviors, modeling terrible behaviors, colluding with them and actually helping some to avoid consequences.

The victims they had us luring in were terribly abused and we had to stop having any classes or groups in that office.  The abuse of not only the students, victims and Victim Services was coming from the staff of AIM and their Exec. Dir. refused to interfere. The training he wanted Victim Services to do - he never allowed.  Students were lured in from I.U. and treated terribly but had little recourse since their grade was dependent on the offender organization and the Dir. who, like offenders, always had his best, most compassionate "face" on.

After completely moving our program away from them because of constant and often shocking behavior from the offender organization, we got a call asking us to house an offender.  Had the request come two weeks earlier our Exec. Dir. would have had access to the DOC records.  She had just gotten back from working with human & animal trauma survivors in NOLA and we had decided to halt the DOC program. This decision was due to AIM's, the DOC's and a new Superintendent's determination to implement dangerous and abusive programs in Indiana.  We had provided the victims services for the facility for 10 years without a single bad outcome and raving praise.  Now they tried to force us to do things that were not only dangerous to us, the victims involved but the community in general.  Rather than compromise victim and the communities safety we halted our involvement.  Anyway-

We house battered women, rape victims and the homeless.  We received this call to house an offender and were told by the Exec. Dir. of AIM  that he had never committed a violent crime and had been terribly victimized - needing our help.  After he assaulted our Sex Crimes Dir. he claims AIM assisted him in evading arrest.  He then terrorized the victims on the property to the point of having to also halt offering them housing.  We found out that not only did he have a long history of assault but had assaulted the staff members of AIM.  They knew this and put all of the victims at risk, as they do the citizens of Indiana. 

When cutting ties with AIM we heard the line they often use when discovered, "You'll never work in this town again."  We are certain they have lured another victim organization in to make it look like the victim's of these offenders matter to them.  They put the community at risk by assisting the offenders in maintaining their thinking errors and even evading law enforcement.  Your tax dollars pay for this in the State of Indiana and I am certain these programs exist all over the U.S. without citizens knowing that when they go to work and pay their taxes, they are assisting offenders victimize.

I.U. was notified about the danger of this program along with the DOC and even the Governor's Office.  The State Victim Advocate (through the DOC) has revictimized the citizens and AIM operates apparently accountable to no one when they do harm.  This is ALL politics and doing what is in the best interest of victims requires telling powerful people and organizations things they may not like.  Many victim orgs do not feel free to do the right thing because they may jeopardize their funding.

I have no advice as to how to stop this.  Just a warning that it's going on. With the victims of these orgs we are currently producing a documentary.  Please feel free to contact us if you need info, but answers, at least to this problem, we don't have.  You can contact us at victimservices@ccrtc.com or call the hot line at (765)2922590.  If you have stories about being revictimized by service providers etc... we are interested in hearing from you for the documentary, web site posting etc...

Amanda Stone

Dir. of Funding Resources

Real Estate Dev. & Acquisition

Trust for the Human & Animal Restoration Project (T-4)

Jasper Jameson

Dir. Sex Crimes Div.

T-4