Interesting piece in the NYT on a “dilemma” facing churches and the rest of society:
On a marquee outside and on a banner inside, Pilgrim United Church of Christ proclaims, “All are welcome.” Sustained by the belief that embracing all comers is a living example of Christ’s love, Pilgrim now faces a profound test of faith.
The Rev. Madison Shockley is leading his church through a discussion about whether it should admit a convicted child molester.
In late January, Mark Pliska, 53, told the congregation here that he had been in prison for molesting children but that he sought a place to worship and liked the atmosphere at Pilgrim.
Mr. Pliska’s request has plunged the close-knit congregation into a painful discussion about applying faith in a difficult real-world situation. Congregants now wonder, are all truly welcome? If they are, how do you ensure the safety of children and the healing of adult survivors of sexual abuse? Can an offender who accepts Christ truly change?
“I think what we have been through is a loss of innocence,” said the Rev. Madison Shockley, Pilgrim’s minister. “People think of church as an idyllic paradise, and I think that is a great part of that loss.”
This is not a new problem- what do we do with those who have served their time and need to re-enter society? I am afraid I do not have many answers. Years ago there was a terrifying series of reports (and I wish I could remember where I read them- I want to say it was the Atlantic) about what was going to happen in the middle to late 2000’s when an entire graduating class of drug dealers and convicts from the 80’s crack wars were released from prison. Essentially, an entire generation of men would be released on the public, and due to the punitive v. rehabilitative nature of modern incarceration, they would be released with pretty much the same skill set they entered prison with maybe a few new tricks learned from their peers.
What do we do with these people? Recently, moves have been made in Florida and elsewhere to allow former cons the right to vote, but that is really a smaller part of the bigger issue. With the numbers we have in jail at the moment, we have to appreciate the magnitude of the problem we will soon be facing. Where will these people live, work, worship?
Or are we, by the nature of incarceration, creating a permanent criminal class? Politics being the way it is, it is impossible for people to introduce sensible legislation to provide training and education to inmates- those who do are immediately assailed by the usual suspects for coddling criminals.
Scary, and like I said, I have no answers.
Andrew
I do enjoy watching Christians wrestle with the basic tenets of Christ.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
And the meek shall be pushed off the Earth…
Zifnab
We can always take the Republican road and make every offense a life-sentence. That’s the only non-rehabilitative alternative. The big joke about “coddling” criminals is that you don’t really have a choice if you don’t want them to criminals anymore.
At some point you’re going to have to spend more effort handling these guys than you do handling average joe citizen. Either you invest the time in jail or you invest it on their release or someone else invests it for you when they need to train up the convict they just hired. Someone is going to have to rehabilitate this person at some point or… guess what? He’s not going to get rehabilitated!
And criminals are a huge drain on the economy and the community. Prisons don’t help property values. High incarceration rates really only look good next to high crime rates. And the boondoggle down at the Texas Youth Commission is just the latest in a long list of prison-related scandals that always come up to bit politicians in the ass.
Cromagnon
Released drug dealers is one thing. But sexual predators are another matter. They can never been cured or rehabilitated. They should be kept as far away from the public as possible. Preferably six-feet under
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
One obvious solution to part of the problem might be creating a separate prison system for nonviolent offenders. That way, you make it somewhat less likely that a nonviolent, non-gang affiliated drug offender comes out of prison 15 years later as a hitman with gang ties.
One other solution to part of the problem might be recalibrating the penalties for crack cocaine possession. My recollection is that in the federal system possession of 1 gram of crack cocaine is punished as harshly as the possession of 100 grams of powder cocaine. What purpose does this law serve?
I’m sure we could come up with dozens of such ideas, and at least some of them would be helpful. Then again, we’re pissing into the wind here. Nothing is going to change. Granting prisoners humane treatment= coddling. Taking meaningful steps to stop prison rape= coddling. Giving people any other outlet for their energy and frustration than violence and drug abuse= coddling.
sidereal
“what do we do with those who have served their time and need to re-enter society?”
I find it odd that your take-away from this story has to do with the post-incarceration rights and expectations of felons. While an interesting question, this story has much more to do with the degeneration of the moral character of Christianity in this country.
Christ bade his time not with priests and nobles, but with lepers and whores, and he did it openly and brazenly, in order to make the point abundantly clear that grace was not bought or earned by being telegenic and sociable, it was given equally to all. It is, one could argue, his most fundamental and frequent teaching. The very idea that a church would reject a believer seeking repentance is nothing less than a slap in the face to that heritage. A Christian denomination that behaves otherwise is not a representative of the Christian faith, it’s a social club. Unfortunately, there are many of these.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
I guess we should at least give Chuck Colson credit for the whole Christian ministries in prison thing. I guess he’s one Christian conservative we can credit with demonstrating some Christianity. Post-incarceration, anyway.
John Cole
I had been thinking about the initiative in Florida for voting rights for felons for a few days and this story triggered that.
Sadly, though, you are right about everything else in your comment.
Tom Hilton
That’s exactly right. Either we lock up everyone forever, or (more realistically) we come to grips with the fact that most people currently in prison are going to get out eventually–which means seriously trying to rehabilitate them.
Chad N. Freude
I had the same response. This is a test of faith of the members of this congregation, not the closing of a proverbial debt to society.
John Cole
I think they are related- if we can not even find churches thaty will readmit them openly into the congregation, how the hell will they find jobs or houses?
Wolfdaughter
I attend a progressive Episcopal church, and our mission statement says specifically that we welcome all who want to worship with us, regardless of ethnicity, sexual orientation, previous religious practices (if any), etc.
I think we would welcome this man, but with the reservation that he would not teach Sunday school or otherwise have close interaction with the children. Unfortunately, such people do not overcome their attraction to children. Hopefully, our close community at our church would help him to live with his impulses and to control them.
That said, it’s not my place to tell the Pilgrim Church what to do. But I do believe that Jesus teaches us to welcome ALL “sinners”, since none of us are perfect.
James Gary
My thoughts exactly.
Chad N. Freude
The LA Times has reported that it’s already happening in LA. (This is from memory — I can’t find a cite.) Large numbers of narcotics convicts sent up during a crackdown a few years back have served their sentences and are returning to the streets they left, which have been taken over by a younger generation, which is resulting in a surge (another surge!) in gang warfare in the streets as the old guys attempt to reclaim their turf. It seems that it was enough to put these guys away, no need to think more than five minutes into the future and try to prevent this from happening.
Don
Nobody ever rode to office preaching rehabilitation. Don’t hold your head under water waiting.
If we spent the money on case workers to work with sex offenders rather on punishment (and let’s face it, that’s what lists, neighbor notification, and living locations are about) I wonder how much good we could do?
Eural
I very much agree with this comment:
But I also have to give this church credit for wrestling with a gigantic real world dilemma. In theory we all say we would accept this man but when push comes to shove I would have very awkward and unChristian feelings if he were around my children.
I think that this is the Christianity of reality that most denominations don’t want or have to deal with since most are a glorified social club.
I applaud this church for challenging themselves…hopefully an update will let us know how it turns out!
Bob In Pacifica
Since I tend toward the scientific, I think the first thing that needs to be done is separate the crazy from the crime. I think the latest Harper’s gave a statistic that same percentage of Americans are hospitalized for mental illness/imprisoned as it was back in the fifties. It’s just that now there are more in prison and less in mental hospitals.
Seems to me that anyone going into prison should be thoroughly diagnosed and anyone coming out should be thoroughly diagnosed. And they should get what help is needed to keep them on the straight and narrow. It’s probably way too late, but better to know and offer help off the path of crime than presume the worst and build another 100,000 cells.
Stop sending anyone to jail for using drugs.
As to how society should treat those released from prison? Be cautiously optimistic.
Randolph Fritz
One problem is that we outlaw too many things; in Oregon an eighteen-year-old who makes love to a seventeen-year-old is a sex offender, can be convicted, imprisoned, put in the sex-offender lists, and so on. (True! And common in state laws.) Likewise, one of the best arguments for changing our practices on victimless crimes is that our laws often make the problem worse; our drug laws seem to add a violence problem to an abuse problem.
I think it’s perhaps better for society that released non-violent sex offenders be in strongly-organized social environments, where people can be on their guard, than simply out in the anonymity of major cities where they can become both predators and prey. Better for those social environments? Perhaps that also; more awareness of the hidden abuser and of the characters of abusers is probably healthy–most abuse after all takes place within families and other “safe” social environments.
For the truly violent or destructive personality disorders, I simply don’t know enough to venture an opinion. I am opposed to execution because of the imperfections of our system of justice, but do not know what reforms we might undertake to improve matters in dealing with such offenders. I do know, however, that the politics of crime and punishment is such that it is going to be hard to implement any reforms–it’s hard to lose an election by being tough on crime.
Pooh
Yes. Simple answers to simple questions…
This is just another corner being turned in the War on (minority/poor-white people who use some kinds of) Drugs.
Nick Kasoff
John Cole says:
We aren’t talking about somebody who was busted for smoking a joint, we’re talking about a child molester. I don’t have a problem with him getting job, so long as it isn’t at a daycare center. And he can get a house, although he will be listed in a sex offender registry, and barred from living a certain distance from schools and daycare centers. And he can worship wherever he wants. But I have four kids, and for me, it isn’t an issue of Christian forgiveness, it’s an issue of safety.
MNPundit
Crazy Answer: Ship them to Iraq without guns and let them run wild. I’m sure it would hardly make a blip there.
I don’t mean that, but I don’t know what to do either.
Pb
Come on, Pilgrim UCC. What part of “All are welcome” didn’t they get? Turn the other cheek, etc., etc.
Well, it sounds like he came clean with them, at least.
I guess it’s not too late for them to start?
Aren’t you supposed to be keeping track of them anyhow? Children are perfectly capable of getting in trouble all by themselves, you know.
Isn’t that the point? If an offender who accepts Christ truly can’t actually change, then Christianity is a total fraud. I guess, as a church, they should decide whether or not that’s the case at some point.
People like blood sausage. People are morons.
Chad N. Freude
In the case at hand, the guy is apparently a middle class type like Kevin Bacon in The Woodsman. The unrehabbed gangsters alluded to in my previous post have no trouble finding housing in their old neighborhoods, no trouble in re-entering the drug trade (well, except for gang warfare, but that’s just part of the business), and, as far as I know, do not seek redemptive Christian acceptance.
This man has served his time, the state that put him in jail has approved his return to “the community”, and unless he openly drools on the kids in the congregation, he deserves at least a chance to show that he can control his behavior. I think if the congregation has strong enough faith in living the teachings of Jesus, they have to find a way to bring him into their community while protecting their children. That’s not likely to happen, and may not even be possible. This is an unsolvable problem and all the faith in the world isn’t going to solve it.
sidereal
They are related, and I didn’t mean to be a jackass about the difference. But to me, the question of what ‘we’ as a democratic society should do in terms of law relating to released felons and what a church should do as a matter of spirituality and its community are different enough that I have a hard time putting them under the same umbrella.
On the general question of rehabilitation: I believe that the current prison system has nearly no rehabilitative effect absent external (primarily religious) institutions that participate with inmates. And in fact, it’s probably counter-rehabilitative. . meaning that sticking a guy who sold weed to his college buddies but was otherwise perfectly pleasant in prison with a bunch of hard cases turns him into an amoral hard case.
We actually have an engine that takes a massive percentage (higher than any other first-world nation) of our populace and puts them into a brutal, repressive, rape-inducing environment, then dumps them on the street again. It’s difficult to imagine how that leads to a safer society.
Pb
After looking into this a bit further, perhaps I shouldn’t have been quite so hard on the church–they’re at least trying to do the right thing, even if some people aren’t:
Cyrus
The particular case featured in the NYT article is about the most controversial instance possible of the general phenomena John’s talking about. It’s conventional wisdom(1) that pedophilia and some other kinds of sex crimes are psychological diseases(2), and they are, of course, traumatic in ways that aren’t immediately obvious. If the example was a murderer or thief or drug user who had done their time and a church couldn’t decide whether to accept them, I’d find it easy to say that the church is fucked up and not acting very charitable. In this case, though, I’m still inclined to say that they should let him join, possibly with guidelines about interaction with others, but it’s easier to see the other side.
(1) Maybe the fact that it’s conventional wisdom alone should make me suspicious, but what the hell.
(2) Which is of course not to excuse them, insert boilerplate denouncement here, just to say that the chance it’ll keep on happening is higher than for many other crimes, and there’s less that can be done to prevent or control that.
Zifnab
And then, of course, there’s the flip side of things. I don’t have kids (that I know of, *wink* *wink*), but I can still sympathize with the mom who doesn’t want her son or daughter hanging out on the same street as a convicted pedophile. If I found out my next door neighbor was a cat burglar, I’d want him out of my neighborhood too. I mean, would you want to live next to a criminal? It’s like a hill full of used razor-blades moving in next door. Even if you’re not in any real danger, it sure as hell looks dangerous to you.
Of course, pedophiles live under somewhat different standards than the rest of the criminal population. No one is required to notify their neighbors that they were a former car-theif or ex-con convicted of insurance fraud.
Pb
sidereal,
Check the article I linked as well:
Also note that he was only released in 2006 after a psychiatric evaluation and a court order.
sidereal
And I also feel compelled to point out that the Times (or AP) reporter’s paraphrasing is very unkind to the congregation. Like “applying faith in a difficult real-world situation”, as if faith and the real-world are expected to rarely intersect. Or “Can an offender who accepts Christ truly change?” That’s like asking whether God really exists. Belief in the power of faith to change your life is one of the fundamental beliefs of Protestantism (sola fide). If this church really is struggling with that one. . wow. I’m more inclined to think the reporter is mischaracterizing the debate. Though. . as I said before, there shouldn’t even be a debate.
chopper
thing is, sexual predators aren’t all the same. many are seriously ill, in which case they shouldn’t be released into regular society if there’s a chance they’ll do it again. however, there are those in the system who are not ill, and can either be easily managed, or fell through the cracks (the 18-year old mentioned above who had sex with his 17-year old GF).
in this case, i would worry about whether or not this guy was rehabilitated. i would hazard a guess that many, if not most child molestors released from prison are not rehabilitated in any meaningful manner given the way prisons are run these days.
this church exists in the real world, and in the real world you don’t let someone in who you think will cause that kind of trouble. at the same time, i think too many christians forget that the world of today is not the world that jesus lived in and the generic values he spouted aren’t always practicable, such as in this case.
one worry of mine is that given the status of guys like this, he may be alright and still get the shaft because of the prevailing attitude towards his kind. the fact that the church even thought about it this hard actually makes me feel better, i expected far less.
pharniel
how motherfucking christian of her. I hope she gets boils.
seriously. that’s the same fuckign vindictive child assinine NE behavior that is fucking up our economy and political system.
scarshapedstar
Well, I think the answer is pretty obvious: keep half of ’em locked up forever, making military supplies at slave wages in private prisons, and send the other half right to the front lines since it’s not like anyone will hire them.
And, sure, let the survivors vote, I guess.
Pb
Yep.
She doesn’t even go to the church–and from what I’ve heard of their statements, the sex offender sounds like the nicer of the two people; probably saner, as well.
sidereal
That’s not the important question. The important question comes next, which is “To what ends will you go (or allow your society to go) to avoid living next to a criminal?”
We (as Americans) have come to believe both in an entitlement to a high degree of safety, and a willingness to grind down other human beings, both foreign and domestic, to achieve that safety. I do have kids — two sons — and while of course I want them to be safe, I’m willing to accept a more dangerous world both for myself and for them if it’s also a more just world. No one deserves safety at all costs.
Pb
I’d think about moving to 1601 Pennsylvania Avenue, if it’d get the ball rolling… :)
Chad N. Freude
I don’t think that’s unkind. There are a lot of people of faith who make charitable contributions, volunteer at soup kitchens, and generally do Good Works, but are don’t know what to do when confronted with a serious moral or ethical issue, particularly when what appears to be the right thing may be damaging to them. This is something I believe, I have no cites or stats, so I guess I take it on faith.
rbl
I’ve occasionally attended a church where this exact issue happened. It’s a very liberal church (and by “liberal” I mean that it takes the whole love everyone thing seriously) and so I imagine that there was some significant soul-searching going on. They ended up setting up an area of the sanctuary where only adults would sit, and the sex offender would sit there.
I feel that it was the right decision, but I am still bothered knowing that there was a child molester in the same room as a bunch of little kids that I adore. It really is a trial of how all believers behave when following Christ really is a risk. Its a tough situation, but yeah, any church that rejects someone who so obviously needs God’s love isn’t a Christian church, but a social club that happens to decorate its meeting room with a guy nailed to a tree.
rbl
Should I be worried that when I was trying to figure out what NE was, my first thought was ‘Neutral Evil?’
sidereal
I went with Night Elf
rbl
Night Elf was my second thought, I usually write it as nelf though.
Speaking of which, did anyone ever find out which server(s) John is on? I can’t be the only one who thinks a BJ guild would be awesome. With Darrel’s crazy posting frequency, it seems like chain casting fireballs would be a breeze. And TZ would be able to hold aggro like nobody’s bidness.
Tsulagi
Yeah, if they’re Christians, they will welcome him into their church. Especially after he admitted his past crime. However, just because that would be the Christian thing to do, that doesn’t mean they have to turn off their brains.
There is no way I leave that guy alone with children, nor would I let him be unwatched if there was any possibility of his creating an opportunity to be so. Say like at a church social or gathering in a park.
I have absolutely zero sympathy for any adult who commits a crime against children. Don’t give a shit whether they have abandonment issues, alcoholic parents, or are afraid of catching the gay like this guy. If I was on a jury listening to that coming from a defense attorney as an excuse, that would just piss me off. You are 100% responsible for your actions; not mommy, not daddy, nor any bad things that have happened to you.
If a child sexual predator reoffended, I’d have no problem with a snipping sentence.
grumpy realist
There’s a very serious question that this can be expanded to: what is to be the interaction between society and those who have been identified as being higher-risk individuals?
Another example, to my mind, is someone who has been convicted of domestic violence or had a restraining order placed against him. Given the distressing frequency of cases where estranged-husband-kills-wife-then-kills-himself, are we justified in clapping the guy into detention BEFORE he gets his jollies off with a shotgun? What about in the case of someone who has been convicted of stalking someone else and has been known to have stated death threats?
Andrew
No. There are lots of fat loner dudes looking for love too.
Zifnab
If someone started a BJ guild, I would be morally obligated to reactivate my account.
chopper
better’n Chaotic Evil, i guess.
rbl
grumpy realist;
I generally hold to a pretty strong ‘innocent untill proven guilty,’ pro-limited state power standard, even though a more proactive stance would likely lead to less crime. Here in Kansas, there was a little issue with our AG (ab)using mental hospitals to keep sex offenders incarcerated past their sentences. While I imagine this prevented some sex crimes from happening, it undermines the entire justice system, and thus is wrong.
p.lukasiak
from the original story:
just an observation, but even if it is “much higher” this looks like a very low rate of recidivism to me — (and note that the 3% is not people convicted a second time, only arrested on suspicion).
***********
what I found interesting is that the UCC is one of the most “liberal” Christian denominations around — the UCC is the sect whose commercial was banned in some places because they made it clear that they accepted openly gay people.
But that “liberal theology” may well be what is at the heart of this controversy. Right-wing evangelicals believe that one is literally “born again” — and not accepting a convicted pedophile who has been “born again” would be the rankest of hypocrisy for evangelicals (although, my guess is that most right wing churches would not even provide Pliska with the the same consideration being shown by the UCC.) It may well be that the UCC’s position that acceptance of Christ is not a radically transformative act that is causing the controversy here — that there is some suspicion/fear that Pliska’s acceptance of Christ doesn’t change his essential nature.
Pb
p.lukasiak,
The thing is, he was already at another UCC church (First Congregational Church) for months (and they dealt with this issue as well), and when he moved, he had this church recommended to him by that church. The controversy itself seems to have more to do with: (1) the fact that this church also has its own preschool next to it; (2) a parent (who doesn’t go to the church but) whose kids go to that preschool circulated a petition about this; and (3) the reaction of some in the congregation who had themselves been abused in the past. So far, I’m thinking, #2 is the biggie, and that apparently cost him his job and his home as well.
p.lukasiak
So far, I’m thinking, #2 is the biggie, and that apparently cost him his job and his home as well.
I tend to agree…. it seems to me that the minister of the Church was leading his flock in the right direction, and that the Times is exploiting a controversy created by someone who is not part of the Church itself (i.e. I think that it was non-Church members who brought this to the Times attention, and that the Times thought it would make good copy.)
jake
As much as I agree with the notion that there is no cure for child molestors but:
1. Our criminal justice system is still (for the most part) based on the idea that punishement has a beginning and an end. This guy served his time and he’s done so all I can do is STFU.
2. There’s a huge difference between this person and the man who has been in prison for molesting children and doesn’t say anything or worse, the creep who is still molesting children and is looking for a new crop of victims.
He told the church and left it up to them. Their need to “wrestle” with this issue does not bring a tiny tear to my eye. If they want to create a calendar of offenses and say these sinners (ex-cons) can come in, but these can’t…well it won’t be the first church to engage in blatant hypocrisy. (We forgive you Mr. Bakker!) I’m quasi-lasped RC and I can’t begin to tell you how hilarious I find it that a church which aided and abetted pedophiles for decades still has something to say about who does what with consenting adults.
But John raises (unintentionally) an interesting point for churches. These organizations rely on money from congregants as more and more ex-cons come out of prison, what’s a church to do? Turn away all of those potential tithers or stop asking WWJD and do it?
Punchy
In other equally earth-shattering and surprising news, Bush sucks, the Sun is rising in the East, and my Cubs will lose 90. ;)
Richard 23
I suppose you guys could get behind the Second Chance Act and the InnerChange Freedom Initiative?
Problems do have solutions.
HyperIon
if i were a parent, i’d like to think that i would view everyone with a jaundiced eye (not just “that guy”). IMO there are many more undetected child molesters than guys who have served their time for it.
but this whole “child molestation is the WORST crime in the world and we need special rules for this HORRIBLE crime” meme strikes me as demonizing.
sexually exploiting or committing violence against someone, whatever the age, is awful. but it’s still relatively rare. and most of the time, the kids know their abuser, no? too bad those catholic parishioners didn’t keep an closer eye on some of the priests.
CW says this behavior is learned. so it could be unlearned IMO. but this would take time and money. they are doing the time so why not spend the money to try to change their behavior? that’s when someone chimes in that child sexual abusers will always re-offend, are the worst of the worst, etc, etc.
thanks, p.lukasiak, for posting the stats from the article. now i’m wondering if rapists with adult victims have recidivism rates different from that of child molesters.
Richard 23
Your opinion (which is NOT conventional wisdom) is absolutely worthless. Take the risk with your own children. I’d prefer we kept these monsters in jail.
jake
Fixed.
jake
The same can be said of all victims of sexual abuse. The creep who leaps out of the bushes or drags you into a cargo van is the exception, not the rule.
Tsulagi
I am and I do, but if I knew “that guy” or any others that could be near them are convicted pedophiles or child molesters, both eyes get more jaundiced.
That said, doing a very quick search for long-term recidivism rates did show numbers lower than I would have thought. Past few years or more I’ve heard there are no cures for pedophiles, and that child molesters likely re-offend. Could have been from people/groups trying to push a point of view.
But still, a state government report looking at the 10-year numbers in Ohio found that 8.7% of child molesters convicted of an extrafamilial crime will commit another sex crime. Incest at 7.4%. And rapists with adult victims re-offended at a 17.5% rate.
In this long-term Canadian study prepared for the Ministry of the Solicitor General, they found within a 30-year followup, 50.3% of child molesters would be reconvicted of a sex crime.
So to sum up, yeah, “that guy” would definitely get some extra jaundice from me.
Chad N. Freude
I was unaware of the Second Chance Act, and I thank you for making me aware of it. I have heard of InnerChange, and I have serious reservations about using prisons as religious recruitment pools. Is religious conversion the only method that brings these people back to civil society? Are there no non-religious methods that work? I get very nervous when the number of people who know absolute truth (and therefore how I should live) increases.
demimondian
What evidence there is suggests that “faith based” rehabilitation is significantly *less* effective than whatever one calls the more traditional approaches. Evidently, reality-based jailers do a less bad job with their charges than we’ve always thought. Who’d a thunk it?
tBone
I’d like to get your opinion on this after you have kids of your own and a convicted child molestor moves in next door to you.
Sorry. I don’t like playing the “it’s different when you’re a parent” card, but in this case it’s true.
chefrad
So, if I have this straight, sexual predators can tale refuge with Rome, while Jewish murderers like Scheinbein can emigrate to Jerusalem. Richard Dawkins take note.
annie's granny
Jesus actually did have a solution for this problem, according to Mark 9:42-47. Somehow, though, I doubt this guy is willing to castrate himself for his faith.