And don't tell me it's because you have compassion for the family. If you don't have compassion for the suspected SO, you can't even begin to have compassion for their family.

If you told me you had compassion for me but not my son, I'd tell you to (fill in the blank)!!!!

Hi Gary,

I'm uk based, my husband is serving 9 months suspended for child abuse images. There is *no* support for offenders or their families pre-court. It's something I was discussing last week actually, with an NSPCC worker (I'm enrolled on 'women as protectors'). My husband was indeed suicidal on arrest, his mindset was (he tells me now) that he knew he would be caught, but had such a low opinion of himself that he just intended to kill himself. He genuinely thought that I and our three young daughters would be fine - he couldn't find anything 'loveable' about himself, so how could we possibly love him? To be honest, the only reason he's still here was because I received an excellent piece of advice from someone who works with sex offenders, two days after his initial arrest (social services arranged a meeting for me). He told me to tell my husband - whatever you've done, the worst thing you could possibly do to us is commit suicide. That, along with my repeated messages of support, got him through. We never had any other guidance or support at all. The system just doesn't support offenders or their families, there is nothing.

Ok, I wish I'd seen your comment about not having compassion for offenders before I'd posted, as I wouldn't have bothered. Admin, please delete my last post if possible? I thought this was a genuine poster.

I am really upset by this post. If you are genuinely a police officer, shame on you. This group is comprised of sex offenders and people who love them. I find your lack of empathy utterly depressing.

Ditto that. Gary, this forum isn't for voyeurs/researchers who admit they have no compassion for offenders. I can't speak for everyone on here but as a family member, that's a slap in the face.

Aw Gary, what a way to knock the wind out of folk. Here I thought, and I'm sure others too (especially Phoenix who like me is a fellow Brit) that you could be our breath of fresh air. Now, reading into it, it seems you want to keep offenders alive to punish them.

Had you been in our situation, that of utter despair of living with the label we have, maybe you would understand. Yes waiting for trial is horrific, sometimes you feel the only way out of it is to end it all but that is NOTHING compared to the aftermath. Having your life and errors broadcast to the world, putting your innocent family's safety in jeopardy, not knowing if you are safe and if and when you will see your loved one(who has made a bad choice in life) again. THAT is the time we need support. We are told if there are any concerns wether you are a friend, family member or offender yourself, contact the police. How are we expected to contact the police when they judge just as much as others which you have shown us today.

I highly recommend before you even THINK of writing this paper you educate yourself on how offenders end up in the place they are in. If you really wanted to help you would build up knowledge from criminal justice, psychology and possibly even the CID. In this group we have loved ones who are offenders or ex offenders ourselves. We are here to support each other every way we can, finding ways to go through life with this weight on our shoulders. I hope you respect that.

Ok Gary....i have to admit i was skeptical at first. After reading and re-reading....i believe you are an officer. And i only hope you are genuine in your quest.

As for everyone else please read post #9.

I appreciate your candor. It takes guts to come on this forum with your beliefs. And i appreciate that you would like to help and train your fellow officers in this.

I am a retired cop. I too, had no empathy for sex offenders. I would just assume hang them in the public square. It was only when a loved one committed a sex offense that i changed.

I wanted to change the system. I wanted to help the sex offenders family in this crazy system of so called justice. I ran into a brick wall. Not only with my fellow officers but with my family as well.

For those of you who have never been in LE, you have no idea the toll it takes on us. I am not asking you to understand because you never will.

I will be honest. You want hear a LE's perspective? I will tell you. We are a product of our environment. How can we change what is happening? It is not about bitching about it. Get out there and have a voice! We can only blame ourselves.

I also wanted make a difference. I wanted to help those families with sex offenders. It seems no one wants to help. No one wants to make a difference. It is just sooooo much easier to bitch and moan.

I will continue to support my loved one.

I apologise for my previous post. Your response just hit an incredibly raw nerve, I'd come on here last night feeling rather miserable & lonely, precisely due to my husband's situation. Hence my knee jerk response.

GaryBUK, I for one welcome you here to this forum. I think having your perspective is very helpful. I don't have to agree with everything you believe or do, but that doesn't mean I can't benefit from hearing your side of things.

I have two adult sons in prison in the US with long sentences for sexual abuse. They were both abused as children by a trusted family member, of which I was totally unaware at the time. It turns out the person who abused them had also been abused as a child by a trusted friend of his family. I believe this abuse "tricked down" from one generation to another. I believe a child who has been abused has a monumental task to grow up sane. My sons, obviously, didn't do that very well.

Additionally, there are several other members of my extended family who are either guilty of or victims of sexual abuse, but who never ended up involved with law enforcement. The families either didn't know or ignored it, thinking it would have been much worse for LE to get involved. There are many levels of sexual abuse and many levels of damage that is done to folks. Sometimes, one has to decide what is the lesser of two evils, and sometimes getting LE involved is the WORSE of the two evils.

Thankfully, both of my sons are doing pretty well in prison and haven't ever gotten even close to the brink of suicide. However, if they had killed themselves, THAT would have been an utterly terrible calamity that would have damaged more people than the ones who were the victims of their crimes.

LE needs to understand that. LE needs to understand that their intervention into the private lives of sex offenders involves them in a far-reaching network of tender and innocent lives, including the wives, parents, and children of the offenders. LE needs to understand that their actions often times make these situations MUCH WORSE than they would have been if they had never gotten involved in the first place.

Having said that, there are some cases in which having LE involved is an absolute Godsend. For the really violent, ruthless sex offenders, they must be stopped and LE officers are truly the knights in shining armor. However, I think LE needs to understand that the percentage of really terrible monsters is probably much lower than they might be willing to believe. The media attention given to the really bad monsters and the fact that LE deals with crime on a daily basis give LE a very skewed view of how bad our society is and how much ruthless force they need to apply.

I too appreciate other people's perspective. LE's do have a very tough job. No one in their right mind will doubt that. There is a tremendous amount of pressure and the fact is they do save lives.

I can only speak to what my relationship has been with LE's which was confirmed when Gary made the comment about having no compassion for our family members as well as supporting registries. It confirmed to me that Gary has the typical attitude LE's have towards our community. They are viewed as filth and garbage. I've seen it, time and time again but how they have treated my son. It speaks to the fact that if Gary is serious about his project and is indeed sincere, he needs to become concerned about mental health issues after adjudication not just prior to because he gives the appearance of only caring in the pretrial so they be punished later on. That strikes as a bit sadistic or at least vindictive. Certainly not rehabilitative.

I appreciate his opinion that people shouldn't come out in pitchforks because of what the media says and I am obviously in agreement with that. But speaking ill of our loved ones and showing utter discontempt by saying he has no compassion for them and seeming to only care about suicide pretrial makes me skeptical of his true intent. If he is sincere in what he is doing, then I do wish him the best and hope he can be a part of understanding how destructive registries are for family members as well as registrants. But because he currently supports registries, he must not at present have that level of understanding. I hope he gets it.

I have made a little progress now- but could really do with some anecdotal input on what the effect of having a partner arrested for child sexual abuse has had on your lives- financial loss etc. never mind the emotional impact. A perosn is innocent until proven guilty- at least that is what the law says- so punishing a person BEFORE A TRIAL is in my view unacceptable. And that is what media coverage and vigilantism does.

I've just read some more of your posts. I cannot claim to be a psychiatrist and know the background to all cases. I can empathise with people who found they were abused as children then subsequently offended themselves. I confess I don't know the answers. How do you temper the validity of a current offence committed by a person, bearing in mind their domestic history. I can't answer that. As for only keeping people alive to punish them... that's way off base. Firstly, in society we have a rule of law. It is necessary. We also have a system of punishment for breaking the law. The effects of arrests for child sexual abuse are completely disproportionate and are not matched by any other offences. You will no better than I what is available to the offender after trial in terms of rehabilitation, or support. My Agency is not responsible for supporting offenders in prison. I am trying to inform it of the effetcs the allegation alone has on suspects and their families. I am approaching this from a compassionate view. What I find unacceptable is the posting by Sallyblue. If you think that educating a law enforcement agency in it's need to provide support for suspects and their families is misguided- think again. You don't understand what I'm trying to do. And the whole point of coming to this site was precisely to learn about the issues from the perspective of those who have dealt with the issue. There is NO support in the UK for the families and suspect- nothing. I am trying to put a policy in place to provide it.

Ok ive gotta aske are you looking at this from a law inforcment point......as others have talked about or are you looking at setting up support services fof the offender and there families?
Yes i do agree that there needs to be something even if its something that you guys can tell people about so that they can get help on every step of this road.........yes theres nothing in Australia as well. There lso needs to be something there to explain how each prison works....every place is different and i wouldn't expect the police to know about how that side of things work.

Hi Suchaslife,
There are a number of things that I would ideally like to introduce. I believe that suspects (and I deliberately use suspects and not offenders) are entitled to have professional support during a very stressful period for them. That support maybe the help of a medical professional who can assess and recommend further medical intervention. Also social support for the suspect. The suspect remains a member of the community and until a time when they are not they should be entitled to whatever support other members of the community get- whether that's temporary housing or welfare checks on the person. In terms of the family. They have just lost a parent etc. Again the support mentioned should be made available for them. Law enforcement Officers are basically completely unable to deal with these circumstances. They aren't trained adequately and that inadequate training may lead to a death by suicide- nobody needs that. Again I cannot possibly know what occurs in other countries or what happens in individual cases. I want to set-up a clear guideline on what should happen to avoid harm whether physical, mental and emotional.