Maybe Convicted Sexual Predators Shouldn’t Have Child Porn In Their Treatment Center Rooms
According to the Seattle Times, despite the high security of the Special Commitment Center (a treatment center for some of the most predatory sexual offenders), they’ve had at least four residents charged with the possession of illegal pornography, and “several others” are being investigated for the same thing.
Now, the SCC doesn’t want to be called a prison. Back in 1990, the treatment center was one of the first in the nation, opened after Washington started using mental-health commitment laws in order to keep sexual offenders after they had finished their prison terms. So, these sexual predators are not “inmates’ – they’re “patients.” Of course, in the years that it has been open, not a single SCC resident has been allowed to have a full and unconditional release.
The biggest problem in the prison that doesn’t want to be called a prison is that inmates are allowed to have computers, albeit stripped down computers with no USB ports and no Internet access. This has led to the smuggling, creation and hoarding of all sorts of pornographic images by the very people who are supposed to be getting “cured.”
Despite the fact that the mail and visitors are searched, and that the staff can’t bring electronic devices such as iPods to work, somehow patients have been getting their hands on lots and lots of kiddie porn.
John Obert got out of regular prison in 2004 after serving time for child molestation and not obeying sex offender registration laws. After getting out of prison (where he was caught with a hidden cache of magazine pictures of kids that he’d altered to be pornographic) he was caught taking pictures of little kids at local swimming pools and was committed to the SCC.
Of course, even the security around the SCC couldn’t keep kiddie porn out, and in August of 2006, John Obert’s CD collection, with pictures of naked little girls and sexual acts between kids and adults, was found in his room.
On Dec. 21, FBI agents went to the SCC and arrested resident John Michael Obert after the staff, acting on a tip, found compact discs encoded with pornographic images of children. Obert has been charged in U.S. District Court with possession of child pornography and could serve at least 10 years in prison if convicted. It was his second alleged offense at the SCC, and part of a history of such behavior.
One of John Obert’s previous defense lawyers says that he doesn’t understand why his client would keep child porn in his room:
It’s unexplainable. He’s subject to scrutiny all the time, and yet he does it again.
Though the residents don’t have Internet access, they are allowed computers, partly because the courts have consistently ruled that the treatment facility can’t be run like a prison.
The SCC’s superintendent, Henry Richards, has said that while the facility has considered banning computers, the act could “cut the tether to the rest of the world” for men who may one day return to society.
One of the things we can’t do is treat this group like they are correctional inmates. The presumption is they have every right as any citizen of the state, except for issues that must be constrained to run the treatment program.
Putting lipstick on a pig doesn’t make it a supermodel. Let’s at least be honest with ourselves and announce that we are holding individuals whose proclivities make them a danger to society, and that we’re not going to trust them ever again, and that we really don’t want to let them roam free. No more of this “patient” crap. These people are broken, they’ll never be fixed and they don’t really want to be fixed in the first place.
Other “patients” of the SCC have been convicted of possessing child pornography while they were supposed to be “getting better.”
And these people wonder why we don’t want them free to wander around our neighborhoods, our children or our schools.
18 Comments »
I think that the concept behind this place is good. Up here in CT and the other Northeast states we have huge building rotting away that once were state mental hospitals which should be holding those that do not belong in society, but we can not imprison because of all of the bleeding hearts wearing rose colored glasses.
In reality, building a better mouse traps will lead to smarter mice. Anyone in that facility caught with child porn should go directly to either the big house or in the bowels of such a facility – with NO computer, NO other “patient” contact, etc…
While some say these bastards are “sick”, I feel that we should label them as “addicts”. Addictions, while like sicknesses in several ways, difer in manifestations: sick people seek to alleviate, addicts look to exacerbate.
There are people on sex offender lists for sleeping with a 15 year old girl when they were 17 or 18. And then there are people like the ones mentioned in this story. Menaces to society escpially our children, ones that should never EVER get out. I agree with you guys, enough with the patient crap, let’s just admit these guys are too dangerous to be let out and the fact they collect kiddie porn in this prison proves it. The only cure for them will be a body bag, nothing more
Headstone – permanent GPS for the offender on your tax rolls!
Headstone – Rock solid GPS technology for the offender mooching off your tax dollars.
Headstone – Centuries of proven GPS technology for the pervert in you city.
Headstone – GPS and full rehabilitation system all in one!
Headstone – Centuries of criminal management, no re-offenders
Ok I’m sorry but I don’t understand why a 17/18 year old boy (who’s not an adult) who had sex with a 15 year old should be put in the same category as some old scum 30/40 something old who gets off at looking at kids who are like 8.
I don’t think that the 17 year old should be put on the list. Really I don’t. If it’s something that’s happened a bunch and is happening to kids younger than 15 where there’s not that 2 year age gap then yeah maybe.
that’s just my opinion.
I agree with Brittany
A high school senior going out with a sophmore should not get the same sentence that the teacher going out with the sophmore!
But then again, if our laws had more common sense built in, there’d be a few less rich lawyers!
sad but true, and when your listed, it doesn’t state what the circumstances were so many young men, and in a few cases women, are on the list for something that has been going since the begining of time, teens having sex.
The people who are in these centers are pretty hard-core individuals. They’re the risky ones, the level threes. They’re not the kids who slept with other kids.
Then i say, lock em in and burn the place down. Very cost effective.
yes they are, which is why they should be treated as the prisoners they are, not mollycoddled like they are now. Just pointing out one of my beefs ( and I have quite a few) with sex offender lists
I understand that thats what these treatment centers are but there’s still the charges and lists.
What if someone on here was dating some guy who go into trouble when he was like 17 for messing around with a 15 year old and didn’t think it was a big deal so he never told his gf. but when she did a background check and she found it out then you know he’d be screwed. I understand he should probably be straight up and honest with her but you get my drift?
OK. Why the hell are we rewarding “patients” (with a criminal sexual background) with computers? Most of these guys use a computer as a tool to commit these crimes against our children. Rehabilitation is not just about teaching a man how to return to society. It is also about focusing on themselves and their problems in order to aid them in becoming productive members of society. I feel exactly what should be done was stated: “cut the tether to the rest of the world†Keep these “patients” focusing on themselves instead of society (which is part of what got them there in the first place).
I am going to step out on a limb here a get a lot of flak. I say give the death penalty to anyone who preys on young children. I’m not talking about teenagers who have developed sexually and look like adults. I’m talking about kids who absolutely do not look sexual in any way and someone looks at them as possible sex partners. People who prey on them cannot be cured and need to be off this earth. Treatment has proven to be entirely inneffective. They are social deviants of the worse kind. I don’t want my tax money to provide care for them as they will not rehabilitate. I also don’t believe in sending a 21 year old to jail for having sex with a 16 year old. Send them both to counseling and teach them responibility and birth control. Ok, Bleeding hearts, Let’s hear what you have to say.
emergencynurse,
I’m with you. Statistics show that hard-core sexual offenders,particularly pedophiles have a 100% recidivism rate. They are not able to be rehabilitated and as a taxpayer, I resent having to flush tax dollars down the commode wishing that it’s going to happen.
Aboslutely amazing that they managed to get porn of any kind in there (let alone child porn!?). Even more amazing is the thought that someone might have smuggled it in there for the inmates. How on Earth do you find someone willing to bring you child pron? What kind of friends would have have to have that they would help you with your child porn, it boggles my mind that child sex offenders could possibly have friends who know about and encourage their sickness.
I don’t get how they sneak it in. like tobacco they can just squat in prison but actual porn?
I agree with you emergencynurse. It’s not the popular opinion, but 100% true.
Yeah, I don’t completely understand that either. I’ve heard of people getting small things in there, but no like mags. and what not. Weird..
“treatment facility”? are you fucking kidding me? there is no treatment for baby rapists and other sexual offenders. they either die, or they keep offending.
some say chemical castration works…but it doesn’t. the reason why is that the urge to rape or molest or whatever does not lie in a person’s genitals. it lies in their heads. if you take away a rapist’s ability to rape with his penis, he’ll merely rape with an object.
the only answers are death or lobotomy. or perhaps we could load these monsters up on enough thorazine so they stumble through the rest of their miserable lives like zombies.
something drastic has to be done. short of the actions i named above, these “people” will never be cured. thus, our communities and our children will always be in danger. we have to stop coddling sexual offenders. it’s time to stop worrying about being politically correct and finally take some action!