Spotlight: clustered lives of sex offenders

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

Spotlight: clustered lives of sex offenders

Sandra Pedicini
Sentinel Staff Writer
November 29, 2008

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/state/orl-thepalace2908nov29,0,6218134.story

ST. PETERSBURG - The Palace Mobile Home Park has become a sort
of modern-day leper colony. Tucked beside a liquor store off
Interstate 275, the trailer park is a haven for sex offenders,
with about 100 of its residents on the state's registry.

It is also the subject of a documentary film by a group of
Central Florida filmakers. Titled Scum of the Earth, the film
takes a generally sympathetic approach to its subjects, whose
crimes involved children.

One subject molested his daughter, whom he's now not allowed
to contact. Another claims she was sexually abused by family
members and years later molested a 3-year-old girl she was
baby-sitting.

The title, meant as irony, sums up society's view of sex
offenders. The film explores how the Palace became a sanctuary
for these outcasts.

Clustering of sex offenders is a natural outgrowth of
restrictions on where they can live, said Jill Levenson, an
assistant professor at Lynn University in Boca Raton who
specializes in sex-offender issues. Communities throughout
the state have restricted offenders from living too close to
schools, day-care centers and bus stops.

"This public policy of fear and revenge is really making
the problem worse," said filmmaker Phyllis Redman, who has
a background in social work. "Yet it's continuing to be
implemented primarily because of public fear."

Her husband Eric Breitenbach, a fellow filmmaker, acknowledges
that many people might find the subject matter tough to watch.
When he has brought up his latest project in group settings,
"you can hear a pin drop in the room . . . You can tell people
are immediately worried or turned off or apprehensive about
watching or even considering watching a film like that."

'Marginalized' lives

Breitenbach and Redman, who live in Deltona, often focus on
those Redman describes as "marginalized." Their critically
acclaimed film When Pigs Fly chronicled a Flagler County woman's
battle to save domestic pigs from death. The production team
also includes Gary Monroe, a DeLand photographer.

When the group started its most recent project, a mental-health
counselor at the Palace encouraged his clients to tell their
stories on film. It would be cathartic for them, said therapist
Don Sweeney, and educational for those who might choose to
watch.

By opening up on camera, "I wanted people to see that I'm still
a human being," said Robert Smith, who spent time in prison on
charges of lewd or lascivious battery on a child. Smith said
he molested a 10-year-old girl at his son's party. Smith said
he doesn't remember the crime because "I got pretty blitzed"
beforehand.

People credit -- or blame, depending on their point of view
-- a woman named Nancy Morais for creating this haven for sex
offenders. Morais, whose son is a convicted sex offender, began
offering services at the Palace for sex offenders when she was
managing the park. The group she founded, called Florida Justice
Transitions, has its headquarters there. At the Palace, "I think
they feel safe," said Sweeney, who runs group-therapy sessions
there. "They don't have to worry about vigilantism, people
hating them, putting them down."

Redman said their subjects suffer with shame, guilt and remorse.
In the course of filming, one went back to jail for missing by
one day a deadline to register as a sex offender. One attempted
suicide. Another faces eviction from the park.

"All of these guys are really hanging in the balance," Redman
said. "The tougher society makes it on them, the more likely
they will not be successful, whatever that means: re-offend,
return to addictions or commit suicide or become homeless."

2nd arrests rare there

The Palace has its share of problems, although law-enforcement
officials say it's rare for park residents to get rearrested for
sex crimes. Sweeney said drugs and prostitutes are prevalent.
Earlier this year, a transient visiting friends at the park
murdered a pregnant woman whose fiance lived there, according
to news reports. And there is occasionally tension between the
sex-offender residents and their neighbors.

"It's hell here," said one woman who had complained to
management that an offender in the park had harassed her.

Residents pay several hundred dollars a month to live -- often
with roommates -- in tiny mobile homes packed tightly along
narrow streets. Many of them are well-kept, landscaped and
decorated with items such as pink flamingos. An American flag
hangs in front of one home.

Harold Cooney's home has a ramp for his wife's electric scooter.
The living room is decorated with angel figurines and filled
with wooden and glass furniture that seems out of place in its
cramped surroundings. A small sign over the door reminds him
not to forget to wear his electronic monitoring device when he
leaves the house.

Now 76 and battling leukemia, he served prison time in 2006
after police caught him masturbating on a Web camera, thinking
a 14-year-old girl was watching him on the Internet. It was
actually a law-enforcement officer.

Cooney and his wife, Ruth, consider themselves parental figures
to many of the men. She said her husband's arrest turned out to
be a blessing in disguise because they have been able to help so
many men at the park."If it wasn't for this place," she said, "I
don't know where these people would go."

Sandra Pedicini can be reached at spedicini@orlandosentinel.com
or 386-851-7914.

Baal <Baal@Usenet.org>
PGP Key: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x1E92C0E8
PGP Key Fingerprint: 40E4 E9BB D084 22D5 3DE9  66B8 08E3 638C 1E92 C0E8
Retired Lecturer, Encryption and Data Security, Pedo U, Usenet Campus
- --

"Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes?"  --  "Who will watch the
Watchmen?"
-- Juvenal, Satires, VI, 347. circa 128 AD

The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the
people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit
of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of
liberty and almost any deprivation.           -- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

iQEcBAEBCgAGBQJJMwdTAAoJEAjjY4weksDoyAkH/jYb94LOB89hM2jmig0dXqUQ
3/xBwrv3ofTg7EEBwlfDqUDNLuUW2InzbaFFaV2TSIwwY7EGaakYYdfWUcbYH0UO
4ah9krmbZN+Wu4IZ6r46aQpa0kgJbZKbIOtgjBkniS9di1ZTXGj6clNyajX1LWjo
uMpQR4ZU0zh6kKQx7u4VWEc6oHVqf8FxMGvVQALqSJbjfUE+3sdeV2yshedXPyoJ
GxcE+NopAajcdnvociB40OVlwlicWqzXL1/A/SMy+E3+kXaoeZkmFXOO8tZJtil3
AxO0wpVLo8hMCPlIKceL+hvZNe/Ro2TIM7dfwp8+RLDty7Vdzte6jjlAmd3i0Os
=WoaQ
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
[ Auf dieses Posting antworten ]