Comments on: The Tragedy of Chelsea King and Amber Dubois

By: Raynoch

Raynoch — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 00:32:12 +0000

None can doubt the vercatiy of this article.

By: mother

mother — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 03:41:00 +0000

Dr. Phil, thank you for your article.
An important point hat I am not sure has been brought out here, is that fact John Albert Gardner was apparently guilty of multiple parole violations. What was he doing on the street when either of these young ladies were killed? It should NEVER have been allowed to happen. I don’t understand.
Until we start to uphold the laws and rules that we have, it seems to me that we will never be able to make our world safer and better.
I believe we start when our children are young to teach them that rules are OK to be ignored, or to be broken. It starts with, “clean up your toys or you won;t be allowed to go outside: and next thing we know, toys are still all over, but Johnny is out on the trampoline. When they are in junior high, there is a dress code – behaviour code and from my experience – broken and ignored completely, and no one seems notice or care. I know parents who buy alcohol for their underage teens because, “well, they deserve to party” but to my mind- when we condone and worse participate in breaking the law with our children, we can’t be surprised whenthat accelerates.
I am not in anyway saying that every kid who underage drinks, or whatever the rule break, is going to become a horrible rapist and murderer, I am saying, that from an early age- we need to teach consequences for actions, and we need to uphold the laws we do have, or we will never be able to protect our children.
In John Albert Gardner’s case and cases like his where a child has been brutally raped, compassion must lie with the victims and the protection of any future victim, castration, permanent ankle monitoring, injection of female hormones, WHATEVER it would have taken to keep Amber and Chelsea safe and at the least burden to us as tax-payers. When we so brutally destroy the rights of another, we lose the privilege of certain rights for ourselves.
To the parents of these girls and all parents in similar situations, my heart breaks for you, but your strength and determination keep me humbled. May God bless you!

By: kris perk

kris perk — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 07:05:15 +0000

FORBES
Oddly Enough
Shred Your Sex Offender Map
Lenore Skenazy, 06.25.10, 06:00 AM EDT

If anything, the sex offender registry is making our kids LESS safe.

Recently I consulted my local Serial Killer Registry and found out I’m living next door to a guy who killed three lunchroom ladies when they refused to give him seconds on the chili!

Oh please. I’m kidding. There’s no registry of murderers out there. There’s no armed robber registry either. Not even one for drunk drivers. No, the only easily available registry for all Americans to consult is the Sex Offender Registry.
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Because ex-sex offenders are so much scarier than murderers?

No, the reason there’s now a sex offender registry in every state–most of these lists dating back only to the 1990s–is that sex offenders have become the focus of intense parental fear. Who could blame us moms and dads, when we hear about kiddie kidnappings 24/7 on the news? The problem is not with nervous parents. The problem is with the registries. Turns out, they’re worse than useless.

They are making our kids LESS safe. How? Well, there are three big problems with the registry.

1. The first is that we have not decided, as a country, which crimes we really want to see registered. And so, in five states, a man can end up on the registry for having sex with a prostitute. In 13 states, it is a registerable offense to urinate in public, and in 32 states, it’s just as bad to be caught streaking. Yes, streaking. That means that when we look at a little map of our neighborhood and it’s covered with red “Sex Offender” dots, there’s often no way of telling whether the guy down the block is a child rapist or a jerk wearing a headband (and nothing else), bent on re-living the Carter years.
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2.There are almost three quarters of a million people on the sex offender registries now. But according to a study done by the hardly soft-on-crime George Sex Offender Registration Review Board, only 5% of the 17,000 sex offenders in that state were “clearly dangerous” to children, and among them, only 100 could be classified as “predators.”

So here’s an idea, says Adam Thierer, president of the Progress & Freedom Foundation, a market-oriented think tank: Why not make a “Scum of the Earth List” featuring only the scummy 5% and let the other 95% go streaking on their merry way? Save time! Save money! And, oh yeah: Save lives!

After all, maybe one of the reasons Jaycee Duggard was allegedly imprisoned for 18 years by a known sex offender was that an overburdened police force couldn’t concentrate on creepy Phillip Garrido and the hut behind his house. They were too busy with the 100,000 other Californians on the registry.
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This brings us to the third problem: The list keeps growing.

3. Perhaps the gravest danger posed by the Sex Offender Registry is how very easily your own child could end up on it. Consider the case of Ricky.

Ricky was 16 when he met a girl named Amanda at a teen club. She said she was about his age. They hit it off, started dating and ended up having sex, twice. A while later, Amanda ran away from home. When she thought the better of it, she went to the police. They questioned her and found out about Ricky.

Amanda, as it turns out, was only 13. So when the police tracked down Ricky and he admitted they’d had sex, he was arrested. Though Amanda’s parents did not want to press charges, the district attorney did. In the end, Ricky took a plea to avoid jail time. Now he is registered as a sex offender. For life. There are thousands and thousands of teens like him on the list.
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It is hard to get anything–an education, housing, job, even a pew in church (because offenders are forbidden to step foot anywhere children congregate)–when you’re a registered offender.

An 18-year-old senior who has sex with his freshman girlfriend can end up on the list. A 19-year-old who sleeps with his underage sweetheart can end up there, too, even if they plan to get married. In a blink, boys go from normal, horny teens to official sex offenders on the registry–a registry that sounds so helpful.

But is all screwed up.

By: NimblePig.com

NimblePig.com — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 12:38:36 +0000

Chelsea King Slain, What Can We Learn?…

I found your entry interesting thus I’ve added a Trackback to it on my weblog …

By: Jean Glisson

Jean Glisson — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 19:34:25 +0000

There should never be a release date for a convicted child molester. Even if a child survives, they will never forget and can have lingering problems. So why release a child molester to strike again. Release drug addicts, they choose to harm themselves, but never a child molester. Create a law to pass to make it a life in prison offense.

By: Rick

Rick — Mon, 24 May 2010 21:41:45 +0000

There’s a good book called “Victims No Longer” written by Mike Lew for men who were molested as children. It’s a pretty intense eye opening and educational piece of work. It helped me realize I could never get my chilhood back, and will never know what an unabusive childhood would be like’ that is for me’personally.Yet I find it beneficial to read the comments of people who had a seemingly unperverted childhood, and who were later victims of a sexual crime express their outrage and views. It helps in the sense of finding pieces that never existed and adopting them into the “pick up the pieces and go on with your life” advice. What life?

By: Lorraine

Lorraine — Sun, 16 May 2010 18:15:37 +0000

This story is horrible and hindsight is always 20/20. Just a few weeks ago Dr. Phil featured guests who had lost the better portion of their lives to a wrongful conviction. So here we are, stuck between the extremes in the failures of our judicial system. The solution isn’t to toss the law aside and put people in jail because the investigation looks damning and the solution isn’t to set all of the predators free. “You cannot solve the problem with the same thinking that caused it.” The solution is going to be a reconsideration of terms like “crime” and “dangerous”. There was enough information to understand that John Albert Gardner III was a danger to others. Unfortunately current laws indicate he must DO something before LE can respond.

Maybe we need to consider that being a sexual predator is a mental illness – and we don’t wait for these sick people to commit a crime before we take them off the street. You don’t have to DO something to me a medical threshold for hospitalization. Just sayin’

By: Nick

Nick — Fri, 14 May 2010 06:57:26 +0000

In the news today was another story about a sexual predator being arrested for sexually abusing his foster daughter for years. Every day, I read the paper or listen to the news and EVERY day there is a story of a sexual predator. It’s getting worse not better, and that is because sexual predators come from dysfunctional homes, and all forms of child abuse is passed from generation to generation if the cycle is not broken. I think we need to get out priorities straight: the protection of the public is more important than the “rights” of the criminal. In some ways the crime of sexual abuse is more serious than murder. The victim of murder goes to “a better place” but the victim of sexual abuse ALWAYS suffers immensely, OFTEN times is a drain on society because of medical, emotional, and psychological problems caused by the abuse, and ALL TOO OFTEN perpetuates abuse in one form or another. We need to decide that people so “sick” that they will do this to others needs to be put out of their misery. Let’s give them a quick trip to that “better place”…AND we need to emphasize the idea that children are a blessing to be protected, loved and nurtured. We need to send the message that if someone has a child that is now there #1 purpose in life. It is REQUIRED of them to do everything in their power to teach, love, and educate, and keep their children safe….Remove the threats as they surface, and create an environment that is conductive to the healthy growth of individuals anti-conductive to the formation of predators.

Nick

By: K. Leister, M.A.

K. Leister, M.A. — Thu, 13 May 2010 11:40:51 +0000

I have a book written by by Fred Storaska in 1975 entitled: “How to Say No to a Rapist and Survive”. I got it when I was 20, and I am now 50. I have read this book at least 10 times during that period. It outlines methods to deal with the threat of molestation and rape that goes against the conventional method of, ’scream, run’. It starts with the definition of rape and goes from there. There’s even a section for young people/children. You don’t have to have a high school diploma to read them. I have taken the ideas/techniques from Mr. Storaska’s book and burned them into my brain.

I may not avoid rape or molestation in my lifetime, but it does give me valuable tools in case it does happen. I know Mr. Storaska has written material since then, and after reading this blog, I fully intend to obtain it and read that 10 times as well!! I love your show, and never miss it! K. Leister, M.A.
(I have an M.A in cognitive psychology).

By: barbara daley

barbara daley — Tue, 11 May 2010 06:28:26 +0000

offer the court money then you will get justice each time you go into a court room its not about right or wrong its about$$$$$$$ sex offenders should be put away never to hurt another person again let it be a judges kid or wife and you will see justice what a croupt world we live in