Lisa Ling tackled an extremely difficult topic this week on OWN’s Our America.   She gave us all an in-depth look into the problems surrounding sex offenders as they are released back into society.   

Let me start by saying…if you see Randy Young scouting out your neighborhood, you should be worried!  He is not only a convicted sex offender, but he also started up a business of locating housing and renting to sex offenders.    

I am the first person to say…not in my OWN neighborhood.   I think of the kids, the teens and the families.  But now I have to ask myself….what do we do with them?  If we by law say they have served their time and have a system in place to monitor them, how do we allow them back in?  We always hear of how bad the recidivism rate is…once an offender, always an offender.  But by treating them like pariah, we merely establish a no win situation.  Where is the incentive to act socially acceptable in a society that will NEVER accept them?  This is SUCH a difficult situation. 

The show stepped outside one of Randy’s homes as a newly released tenant was getting acclimated.  Literally across the street was a house with two children.   When Lisa asked the father (off camera) about any concerns, he shared that a year ago when it opened he had concerns, but he followed up with “I haven’t had any problems”.   As a parent that has got to be scary…especially if you can’t afford to move.  As the footage showed children playing in the yard, I couldn’t help but feel VERY worried for that family.    

The show then headed to a tent city in the middle of the woods; a place where sex offenders go that can’t afford or find anywhere else to be.   Far from anyone, they live like animals.  Lisa commented that “there are a lot of people who would say this is how they should be living”.   As the cameras got closer, we met 36 year old Steve…who happened to have his 23 year old wife by his side.    He opened up about how he got arrested for molesting two children and I found myself disgusted and reminded of why sex offenders are so hated.  Yet here was this man telling of this horrible crime and trying to find a way beyond it.   His wife had come from a string of bad men and he treated her better than they had.  Sadly…she has a 2 1/2 year old daughter (and a 7 month old baby with him) that she allows him to be around.    

Don’t be fooled by his life.  He merely sleeps in the woods as the curfew in the neighborhood is from 10pm to 6am.  I am not sure how that does much good.   So…sex offenders can roam the neighborhoods  and be with children from 6am to 10pm?  When children are out and not safe in their homes?  This is “the illusion of safety”.   I guess the point is that the offender isn’t in the house at night with kids.  Steve vows that he would kill himself before he ever re-offends, but I am still uncomfortable as he was shown giving his baby a bath.  He notes that the only way to stop people from re-offending is to keep them in jail.  If they want to re-offend, they will.  Deep down, I know he is right. 

After seeing the lives of these offenders, Lisa introduced us all to Lauren Book who had been molested by her nanny.  A victim from 10 to 16 years old, Lauren now runs programs in schools to teach children how to protect themselves from sex offenders.   She and her father fought to double the distance for sex offenders and safe places and accomplished it!  Lauren still believes however that “there will never be enough distance between an offender and one of my kids”. 
 
Next, OWN’s Lisa Ling informed us that we would be following Ryan, a newly released repeat sex offender, on his first few days of out of jail.   Ryan admits that sex offenses are addictions, but doesn’t feel all sex offenders should be lumped together.  Someone who kidnap and rapes a 4 year child versus someone who has sex with a 14 year old are different….in Ryan’s eyes.  I am not sure I see it as all that different.  The only difference is the age preference of the victims for the offenders.  They are all still criminals.    

His first night out, Ryan pitched a tent near a hotel that his parole officer recommended.    The next day while driving around with Lisa, he spoke of places he wanted to avoid….like he mall where he had met his last victim.   As his monitor went off, he struggled to figure out how to work it.  He wasn’t in violation of anything…that he knew of.  Lisa pulled the car over and he reset the monitor.  It appeared everything was great….until he showed up to meet his parole officer the next morning.  Lisa waited patiently in the parking lot for hours.  She finally went to ask if everything was alright and found he was being sent back to jail only 24 hours after being released.    Apparently by going home (a place probation hadn’t verified had no children) and by going with Lisa to put his feet in the water on the beach (a place where children congregate), he had violated his parole and was sent back to jail.  He had to wait a few months for his fate to be determined.  He could go back to prison for up to 12 months.   Although this seemed harsh, it is easy to understand.  Law enforcement was just trying to keep the community safe.  No one wants nything to have this happen on their watch.   

OWN’s Lisa Ling commented how fundamentally she believed in change and wanted to believe people can change.  Yet she doesn’t know if she would be able to take that risk with her OWN children.   I believe most of us totally relate to Lisa.  So how do we as a society deal with this?  With over 700,000 Americans on the sex offender registry, it is clear the system is not working but what do we do?  

When this show began I thought that no life would be hard enough for a sex offender.  Now I am simply left realizing that this is a HUGE problem in America and I have no clue what to do.  We can watch sex offenders under a microscope so that people feel safer, but even Steve admitted that if someone wants to re-offend they will.  We, as a society, are doing something WRONG.  The question is where to start.