When registered sex offender Thomas Henry Madison of Gresham, Ore., turned up six months ago at a neighborhood meeting protesting a sex offender clinic, he was tossed out.
That protest was in the Inner Southeast Portland enclave of Sellwood/Moreland, and those neighbors succeeded in shutting down the clinic.
Last week, Madison was back at a different neighborhood protest – this one fighting the new location of that same clinic, Whole Systems Counseling. It’s now open in Outer Southeast Portland in a working-class neighborhood. These residents let Madison have his say.
They also made it clear that while they don’t like inheriting Sellwood/Moreland’s problem, they also don’t want to dump it on some other neighborhood. They would like to find a solution.
Inner and Outer Southeast Portland are flip sides of the same city.
Inner Southeast Portland attracts New York Times restaurant critics. The neighborhoods found in the Inner Southeast, such as Sellwood/Moreland, merit their own walking maps. Sellwood/Moreland is home to antique shops, galleries, pubs, restaurants, a movie theater, a farmer’s market. Reed College nestles along its border.
Outer Southeast Portland attracts snubs and ubiquitous, strip-commercial development found in any American city. The specific neighborhood where Whole Systems Counseling opened includes a trailer court, mobile home park and apartments. The clinic is in Plaza 125, which looks like the typical small-office complex where you would find a dentist, an attorney, an ob/gyn. There’s plenty of parking.
When Whole Systems Counseling was located in Sellwood/Moreland, it was in a nondescript building at 7304 SE Milwaukie Ave. Residents were concerned that the Boys and Girls Club was nearby at 7119 SE Milwaukie, and a Montessori pre-school was at 7126 SE Milwaukie.
But it’s also a lively, well-traveled stretch of Milwaukie Avenue. It brims with people – pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists – all potential witnesses who could discourage criminal activity. These are not just any people, either; they are middle-class and upper middle-class professionals. The kind of people who, if they – or their sons and daughters – were victimized in a violent crime, would receive immediate attention.
By comparison, the new location of Whole Systems Counseling in Outer Southeast Portland looks like the kind of neighborhood where someone might get the idea that they could get away with a crime.
That was the concern of the 50 or so residents who gathered last week in the board room at David Douglas High School, not far from the clinic.
“Is there anyone here who thinks it is OK for a sex offender clinic to be located by kids?” asked Chris Piekarski who led the meeting.
Madison raised his hand. Many of the men and women in the room had the weary appearance that comes after putting in a day’s work. Madison looked crisp and chipper, like a man going into a job interview. He was one of the few men in the room wearing a tie.
He stood before the residents and told them that he wanted to put out all the facts about sex offenders.
Madison didn’t volunteer that he was a registered sex offender until he was later asked. Instead he delved into studies and statistics.
“Ninety-four percent of brand new sex crimes are committed by people not on the sex offender registry … not the few over here at Whole Systems…,” he said. “More than 90 percent of sex crimes are committed by people in the family.”
Madison eventually led up to this declaration: “It is all of us that commit sex offenses.”
That’s when Piekarski asked him if he was a registered sex offender.
“Yes, I am a registered sex offender,” he said.
There was a brief gasp from the audience, and a woman cried out that she was a victim. Another woman reached out to comfort her, and the audience quickly calmed down. They let Madison continue.
It was only when he veered off into what he really came to talk about – he belongs to a group that wants to do away with sex registration entirely – that the audience turned on him.
“We’ve heard enough of this,” one man shouted, and Madison sat down.
State Rep. Jessica Vega Pederson spoke briefly about a bill (HB 3509) she has sponsored that would allow counties to govern where sex offender clinics can be located.
It seems like a gesture that probably won’t have much impact if it passes. These clinics are going to be located somewhere.
Members of the audience struggled with what to do. Piekarski pointed out that one of the local TV news shows had portrayed them negatively. The show had focused on the fears of the clinic’s owner, Johneen Manno, who said windows had been shot with a BB gun.
Nobody at the meeting took credit for the vandalism, and Piekarski reminded them not to support that kind of activity.
“It just makes us look like kooks. …. ‘Those people in east Portland are so immature … they are criminals and hooligans.’ … Violence is not acceptable …,” he said.
Finally, one woman rose. It would be great, she said, if they could step up as a group and find a solution for the clinic. She wondered if the clinic had deliberately chosen their neighborhood because there is a large number of residents who don’t speak English.
“I hate to say this, but it’s a needed service. … Don’t be a NIMBY…,” she said. “It’s not appropriate for anybody’s back yard.”
She is right, but if it has to be in somebody’s backyard make it a prosperous one.
For too long, violent crime has been borne primarily by the poor and working class. The good people of communities like Sellwood/Moreland seem like the kind of folks who gladly embrace politicians who promote rehabilitation over incarceration. It’s an easy concept to support when felons settle in poor neighborhoods. But wouldn’t they stand a better chance at rehabilitation in a nice neighborhood?
If it takes a village to raise a child, maybe it takes a village of well-educated, broad-minded liberals to watch over and rehabilitate a sex offender.
In which case, the people of Sellwood/Moreland and the Inner Southeast should come to the aid of their less fortunate brothers and sisters in the Outer Southeast.
Perhaps the sex offender clinic could relocate near Reed College, considered one of the most intellectual colleges in the U.S. It could be a merger of academic theory, philosophy and hard-core reality. The life of the mind meeting the temptations of the flesh.
As a bonus, the school’s president is John Kroger, former Oregon attorney general and a fan of Jeremy Bentham, the 19th Century philosopher who influenced prison and law reform.
Among other ideas, Bentham believed that public humiliation could be useful in deterring deviant behavior. He might have found sex offender registries and clinics practical crime prevention tools.
It would be something for Reed’s intellectuals and Whole Systems’ clients to explore.
– Pamela Fitzsimmons
I have to say this is a better article than the ones written by Steve Beaven at Oregon Live, who has been stirring the pot and giving one-sided commentary. However, I have to disagree with you about moving the clinic again. It should never have agreed to move in the first place.
Manno’s clinic isn’t the only one in town, and they are spaced out all over the city. It was in Sellwood a full year before anyone raised a stink about it.
The outrage is based in a number of myths– the stranger danger myth, the high recidivism myth, and the myth that all sex offenders are pedophiles and doomed to reoffend. I say myth because they are untrue.
1. Stranger danger: By far most sex crimes occur in the home with a trusted friend or family member; stranger offenses are very rare. And most sex crime arrests are of people with no prior sex offense.
2. High recidivism myth: studies have consistently shown that sex offenders have an extremely low recidivism rate (between 2%-8% even in long term studies), and this rate is lowered between 60%-90% with proper treatment.
3. All sex offenders are “pedophiles”: The P word is the most misused work on the English language. It is a clinical term for a person with persistent attraction to children under pubescent age. Most people convicted of offenses against children are “situational” rather than “preferential” offenders. That means the person does not have an attraction to children but has acted under duress. Less than 5% of those convicted of these offenses are clinically diagnosed with pedophilia.
Moving the clinic yet again will not help at all. It will just stir up yet more outrage, protests, and threats. Instability and disruption of services increases crime.
PS: Bentham would be wrong, as the registry’s social ostracism effect has been found to be at best ineffective and at worst counterproductive.
I think it’s revealing that the landlord in Sellwood/Moreland responded to complaints from residents. As a result, the clinic was shut down. The landlord at the new location, decidedly a lower socio-economic demographic, won’t even meet with the neighbors.
I live near Sellwood/Moreland and visit that neighborhood at least twice a week. It was surprising to me that the residents reacted the way they did towards the clinic. Many of them seem to be proud of their classic, Portland liberalism. When offered a chance to demonstrate a commitment to their political values, they couldn’t even keep an open mind and listen to someone like Madison. I don’t hear or see anyone from Sellwood/Moreland speaking out in defense of the Plaza 125 neighborhood protests.
Personally, I wouldn’t have a problem with Whole Systems Counseling next door to me. I would be more curious about the clients than frightened of them since I have worked with felons and people in crisis. If I had children I might think differently, but perhaps not – kids have to be taught how to navigate in a world that can be unsafe and downright dangerous. Look what’s going on right now in Cleveland.
There is so much more to say about this sex offender registry and treatment topic (of which I am listed although not publicly). There are those of us who have family members who obviously share our shame and humiliation because of commonly shared “registered home addresses” and employers of registrants who also share in the burden of having a “registered employment address”. These are the unintended consequences (or collateral damage) of the sex offender registry in Oregon (and in most/all states).
We registrants (with our family members and friends) on the Oregon sex offender registry must come forward and join the fight to gain back our lost civil rights. I have given testimony to the Oregon Judiciary committees (house and senate) on several sex offender related bills this 2013 political season. There is much to say on this issue since the media rarely covers the truth about we the previously convicted sex offenders of Oregon.
-Tom Madison of Gresham, Oregon
http://Www.OregonActionCommittee.Weebly.Com
Pamela,
Would you please remove the link to ‘Evil-Unveiled.Com’? They are political enemies of mine and I consider them a vigilante website that attacks people like me for my outspokenness. My debts are paid and now I fight for the civil rights of all former “sex offenders” and their families.
Thank you for writing an otherwise objective account of that meeting. Too bad the Oregonian couldn’t do the same thing.
Regards,
Tom Madison
I removed the link, although it’s still readily available online. When I initially used the link, I considered adding a parenthetical comment questioning the Website’s use of the word, “evil,” a frequently misused word (and as overused as “horrific”).
You, on the other hand, might want to reconsider comparing registered sex offenders to Jews in Nazi Germany on the Oregon Action Committee’s Website.
Yes, the Evil Unveiled site needs to go. It is run by Cynthia Dale-Harvey of Nashville Tennessee, and it is an attack site. It is not a legitimate news site and the information they provide is false and only serves to assassinate character.
It is interesting that Thomas Henry Madison is not shown as a registered sex offender in the state’s database nor that of Multnomah County.
Take a peek at the list of sexual offenders in your Multnomah County neighborhood, e.g., 97209 zipcode. Read their profiles – click on the photo. https://so.apps.multco.us/
See the Oregon’s database. http://sexoffenders.oregon.gov/ Input minimal information, e.g., a zip code like 97209. See how many predatory sex offenders are living in Old Town. Next compare the two databases and notice the absence of similarities.
Notice that for 97209 Multnomah County shows 10 and the state shows 30. And of the County’s 10, they are not fully replicated in the state’s database. The value of registration databases is practically nil. It needs fixing – not elimination.
The overall problem is systemic. The question might well be – why are they on the streets. Many have not in fact served their full time – they are out on parole mostly because the state determines that it is less expensive for them to be located among us with living assistance than to keep them in prison.
And if they are on the streets why isn’t the system keeping better tabs on them. Multnomah County has demonstrated that the ankle bracelets have little value. The offender that takes off the bracelet is often relocated than returned to prison.
And is it correct to release sexual offenders early? Should money be a determining factor? What are the measures to insure that they become something other than sex offenders? What value are ‘clinics?’ What is the actual recidivism rate?
A neighborhood isn’t told that sex offenders are in the neighborhood. And given their income status even with state assistance – they are either homeless or living in the low income neighborhoods.
The stated intention is that they – the sex offenders – are there temporarily is false. A sexual offender is faced, rightly or wrongfully, with nearly insurmountable obstacles in becoming self-sufficient.
I know that I wouldn’t want a sex offender living in my neighborhood. They are the most repugnant of criminals. But, if they have served their time, their existence in some neighborhood is a risk that society has to take.
And until the system is fixed, the clinics, despite their dubious value, and their clients will be located in lower income areas. The West Hills will not be seeing any clinics or sex offenders in their neighborhoods.
A focused discussion might help, but . . . .
Larry Norton,
Thanks for your comment. Not everybody is up to speed with the SOR (Sex Offender Registry) laws here in Oregon and for that reason I can understand why you may have wondered why you were not able to verify my existence on “the list”.
As you may have since discovered, Oregon SOR law is divided into two tiers, “predator” (which I was told numbered around 900 people or so) and then all of the remaining registrants for a total SOR count of about 19,000 people. As you can see, Oregon recognizes that not all SOR listed registrants are the same.
You should also know that there are many kinds of sex crimes that will get you on the SOR list: Public urination, exhibitionism, voyeurism, consensual sex (where age differences are greater than three and half years, mooning and streaking, lewd and lascivious and more.
Here are two sex offender news stories that I recall from about five years (or was it seven?). There is a “make-out” park in Salem where three different married couples, each not related to the other couples and at different times, were arrested for lewd and lascivious behavior (although in their cars). Those three sex crimes got the husbands (not the wives – don’t ask me) on the SOR list. Doesn’t take much. Here’s the link: http://www.salem-news.com/articles/august182006/silly_sex_laws_81806.php
Here’s a different story (I’m not able to find the link from about 2004, sorry): Two young people were living together, a boy aged 17 and his girlfriend (adult female) aged 18. The boy was on probation for the crime of theft. On day, a probation officer had come to check up on the boy at his home when he ran into the girlfriend coming out of the apartment where they lived and asked her who she was. She explained everything and showed her identification to the P.O. A few weeks later, the girlfriend was arrested and charged with “contributing to the sexual delinquency of a minor” and ultimately ended up on Oregon’s SOR list.
One of the mistakes that people not familiar with SOR list is to assume that they are all the same: incurable, highly recidivistic (likely to re-offend) monsters that cannot control their sexual behavior. This is not true of the vast number of those on the SOR list. Except for stranger-on-stranger rape of adult women and the “fixated” (dedicated) child abusers, the vast majority of “sex offenders” (registrants) are those who are classified as “situational” (non-dedicated) child abusers (around 90% of all registrants). Here is a link for more reading: http://blogs.psychcentral.com/sex/2013/04/clinician-prejudice-toward-sex-offenders.
Also you will probably want to know that about 94% of all sex crimes are committed by “first time” sex offenders (think about this: “first timers” are not on any SOR list). Here’s this link: http://www.rethinking.org.nz/images/newsletter%20PDF/Issue%2078/C%2002%20watchedpot.pdf
Who commits crimes against children? As it turns out, it is the family members and acquaintances of those child sexual offense victims. The remaining percentage belongs to the “stranger” category. But of those stranger related sex offenses (in round numbers: 3% to 6%) – and from the previous paragraph’s statistic, we know that 94% of them are first-timer sex offenders. Here’s that link: http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/01/living/juvenile-sex-offenders-rights/index.html?hpt=hp_t2.
People who have completed their obligations to society need to be re-integrated back into the community so that they can become the good neighbors that you want: law-abiding, productive and conscientious members of the community. If any person commits a crime of any kind then we have laws described in the ORS to hold them accountable. Free democratic societies respect the principle of equality under the law for everybody not just most.
It’s time to repeal or reform the Oregon’s SOR laws.
Tom Madison, Registrant
Gresham, Oregon 97080
(Not on the public registry)
Larry, those are excellent questions you asked.
When I was an editor at a Washington state newspaper, law enforcement would send us press releases on registered sex offenders moving into the area. Level 2 and 3 offenders involved violence and were at greater risk of reoffending so we would run a mugshot and a brief on each of them, detailing the crimes they had committed. Some of the Level 3 crimes were so serious you wondered how these men could even be released.
We did not do public notification with Level 1 offenders, whose crimes did not involve violence or coercion and who were regarded as unlikely to reoffend.
Sex offender notifications were popular with the readers. I went over and checked the Website of that paper and found they are still diligent about sex offender updates. http://www.columbian.com/news/2013/may/07/sex-offender-update/
As Mr. Madison points out, Oregon has its own variation on this tier system.
I believe he overstates his case, though, when he talks about public urination leading to sex offender status. Technically speaking, it can. But public urination is still treated mostly as an infraction or misdemeanor – if it’s even ticketed at all (especially in Portland and Spokane, where I’ve seen guys urinating in public with no obvious fear of consequences).
If someone lands on a sex offender registry for public urination, there are probably extenuating circumstances – say, a man exposing himself on more than one occasion near a school.
I don’t think the sex offender registry is going to be repealed, but it needs to be refined.
I have no idea how effective sex offender clinics are. Since so much of the work they do is confidential, it’s difficult to audit their results. It would seem that offenders who have a low risk to reoffend wouldn’t need the clinics, and some of the high-risk offenders are beyond help.
Mr. Madison beat me to it. Oregon is at least somewhat more rational in regards to limiting the registry to those deemed the highest risk.
The entire essence of the debate over the location of this clinic is the assumption that everyone going to the clinic has a propensity to snatch children off the street. Most sex crimes involve people who know each other. The stranger-danger event is extremely rare. People tend to place more emphasis on the super-rare event rather than than the reality. Most sexual abuse occurs in the home, not on bus stops and street corners.
As previously stated, Oregon has varied degrees of risk among those forced to register, so the state recognizes not every registrant is a threat to children.
Also, to assume ridding yourselves of the clinic rids yourselves of a “problem” is foolish. Most sex crimes involve people not on any list. No one is addressing the root cause. Instead they waste time sharpening pitchforks and wicking the torches. That is why they fail to solve the issue.
Thanks Pamela. I could have written much more about the fallacy of the “Registered Sex Offenders” listings. One problem is the low threshold of who is a ‘sex offender.’ The second is the uselessness of a list that doesn’t, in fact, contain the name of someone court ordered to register.
As to the latter, I wonder about the efficacy of a system that causes a person to be registered as a sex offender, yet that list isn’t public. Either the person ought to be on the list or not.
One list that I didn’t mention was that one can obtain by writing to the state. Maybe I might find Mr. Madison’s name there, but I doubt that many people will actually write for that list. I did when I lived in Old Town.
As I remember the list, it showed every registered offender. It was that list demonstrated the weakness in the ‘sex offender’ label.
I think I would agree too that those listed as ‘predators’ should receive more notoriety.
I guess a point might be made that if someone’s name is not actually available on some public list like that of Multnomah County or Oregon’s Internet website he or she is not likely to be the focus of any intention other that drawn to himself or herself.
It is interesting too that those labeled as sex offenders are typically court ordered to attend sex offender treatment. As I have mention, the benefits of such treatment is in doubt, but the state can’t order treatment then not provide access to the treatment.
Thus clinics are necessary in that sense. And I don’t know of any statistics that demonstrate or even suggests that the clinics are related to any sex related crime in the neighborhood where they are located.
Again, it is pure economics that determines that it will be the poor and low income areas where the clinics will be located.
In the end I would agree that public discussion might be beneficial especially if the listing of sex offenders is, in fact, relevant to the public’s safety.
Speaking of the low threshold for landing on the list, Oregon IS that state that registered married men for getting caught having marital relations with their wives in a secluded area of a public park.
Oregon is also the state that handcuffed some middle school kids for participating in the time honored tradition in their school called “slap ass day.”
On the upside, Oregon hasn’t registered a 9 year old kid like Delaware did, or Texas with 10 year old kids.