Sex Offender Visits

A new directive was handed down this week by Richmond regarding visitation procedures for sex offenders.  As I have written in the past, the status of sex offenders in this facility presents an uneasy existence.  Simply put, sex offenders are the lowest of low in a prison.  Even the officers hold sex offenders in contempt.  No one is held in lower esteem than child sex offenders and child pornographers.  Sex offenders live in constant fear that their depraved crimes will come to light.  While bounties do not exist for their heads on this compound – as they do at so many higher level facilities – sex offenders are routinely targeted for theft and extortion.  Perhaps it is justifiable.  After all, sex offenders have done – in many cases – unspeakable horrors to their victims.  Still, it is difficult to watch anyone live in fear.

So, this past week Richmond announced a new policy for visits to sex offenders.  Effective immediately, minors will no longer be allowed to visit sex offenders.  That’s no minors, not even the offenders own children.

When I first arrived here at Lunenburg, there were no prohibitions on sex offender visitation. Shortly after my arrival, a new directive was handed down.  Sex offenders were prohibited from having any children on their laps who weren’t their own.  Sex offender visits were closely monitored by staff (yes, the officers know who the sex offenders are.  The inmate “master list” has a code for sex offenders).  Sex offenders didn’t complain.  To do so was to draw attention to yourself.  And, that was the last thing a sex offender would want to do.

That policy has stayed in effect for two years and there have been few – if any – problems reported.  So why the new rule?

As I have disclosed previously in this blog, I struggle with my feelings regarding sex offenders.  I abhor what they did (and contrary to prison “myth”, the vast majority of sex offenders are not incarcerated for “statutory” sex charges, i.e. “I didn’t know she wasn’t eighteen!”)  I also deal with the knowledge that many of the child sex offenders are serving sentences substantially shorter than mine.  Those frustrations are tempered each day by the knowledge that in God’s eyes I’m no better nor worse than that man and God’s grace shines on child sex offenders, embezzlers, and law-abiding folks the same.  None of us are deserving, yet all can receive.

Still, it’s tough to not jump on the “those sick bastards get what they deserve” bandwagon.  But, in looking at the new rule, a number of questions popped into my head.

First, if sex offenders are so awful and their behavior so suspect that DOC can’t trust them in a controlled visitation environment, what are they doing being housed at Lunenburg, a low custody, dormitory-style housing environment?

A fundamental problem with Virginia’s correction paradigm is that the vast majority of facilities – and, by implication, inmates – are low custody.  I have serious reservations about a system that says a murderer or child rapist is a “violent felon”, yet then allows those inmates to serve the bulk of their sentence at a low level.  If sex offenders are so suspect in their proclivities that they can’t be trusted in the Lunenburg VI room, what are they doing here?

And second, how does denying a sex offender access to his children coordinate with Governor McDonnell’s “re-entry initiative” which states that “90% of all inmates will return to their communities”, and “a goal of re-entry is to promote family support for the returning offender?”  It seems to me limiting structured visits is contrary to those goals.

I don’t know what the answer is.  As I said earlier, I’m very conflicted on the issue.  I do believe child sex offenders have a mental illness that needs to be addressed and prison isn’t the best place to address it (then again, prison isn’t the best place to address most nonviolent criminal behavior).  And, child sex offenders tend to also have been victims themselves.  Somehow, that cycle has to be broken

There’s no easy answer.  I’m just not sure DOC’s new visitation policy helps in any way.