A molestation is an event, but it’s more like a wound. It’s a wound that grows, if unattended. Multiple molestations cause multiple wounds. These wounds that each victim endure are the facts.
Guys usually don’t talk about each other like this, but I’m going to get a little mushy-gushy: as if one of my best friends had been mugged and beaten within an inch of his life, as if he endured a terrible burning car crash, emerging from twisted metal with a disfiguration or handicap. Knowing that my friend went through repeatedly being molested by Charles Donald Corley evokes similar emotion to a catastrophic physical injury, except worse.
Unlike most physical injuries, I know my friend is not completely healed of his wounds, years and years after being molested, which is a constant reminder of the severity of the crime. A person who has endured a car accident or a mugging have fewer long-term internal wounds that affect relationships, self image, success. Knowing my friend has been molested and is still feeling the effects evokes a different kind of sadness. You can’t have empathy for your friend, and even if you could, you wouldn’t want to know what it’s like. Sympathy doesn’t help, either. My friend, Victim #1, just has to endure and heal, which takes tremendous personal effort, internal courage, and unrelenting will. The most important lesson I learned when I chose to support 30 is 30 is that the statistics of molestation do not reflect the events, the wounds – the true facts.
You can find statistics in blogs and Universities, and in government reports. A statistic some people feel is key in determining whether sex offenders should stay in jail are recidivism rates. For child molestation, you can find numbers on recidivism varying from under 10% to over 20% and higher.
It’s important to remember that recidivism rates count the people who have gotten caught again sex offending, not those who have offended again. It’s just impossible to know whether they have or haven’t. But you can point to the nature of the offenders. Take Don Corley. 3 boys pressed charges, and there are at least a dozen others but we don’t know the true number of people affected by Don Corley. He successfully convinced his church and the Boy Scouts that he was a good leader for over more than a decade, while taking advantage of those positions for his sexual desire of young boys.
This is what molesters do. They are experts in social engineering. They figure out how not to get caught.
I’ll give you a statistic. Don Corley was convicted for less than 20% of his crimes. Perhaps even less than 10%. Molesters create fear, and sex crimes create an undesirable stigma on known victims. Coming forward means getting yet another wound when the world finds out. Unlike Victim #1, I’m not sure I could have been that courageous.
Society should not tolerate repeat sex offenders. The wounds, the true facts, the lives affected, cannot be measured, therefore cannot be adequately paid for with a specific amount of jail time. However, Don Corley has been given 30 years. We ask that he serve the remainder and stay away from creating more gruesome facts.
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