Sex Offender Counseling – aka Anger Management counseling

In August of 2008, I attended by first “anger management” counseling session as part of plea bargain terms.  As I had mentioned in a previous article, this was the DAs way of tricking me into attending a few weeks of sex offender counseling.

I arrived a few minutes early at the counseling center.  A few guys were already there.  I nodded and walked up to the front desk to sign-in and pay my $35 fee.  The lady that did my initial assessment was there.  She greeted me and asked me to have a seat at the table with the two other men that were already there.  Nobody spoke to me, but I spent my time waiting and observing the two already there and those that arrived after me.  The guys already there were young, probably early twenties.  Both were decent looking guys, one fairly heavy set and not real well groomed.  The other guy was in really good shape, well groomed and frankly looked to come from a fairly well off family.

Additional men showed up over the next few minutes.  A large guy about 30 years old with spiked hair, an older thin gentleman who I would guess was in his sixties, an then another older gentleman in his mid to late 50s with a full beard.  On the later man, I immediately noticed a large black box at his belt.  I would later find out that it was a tracking device.  The final man that showed up, almost late was the only African American and I’d guess was in his mid to late forties.  To be real honest, none of them looked like I expected.  I’m not really sure how to describe what I thought they would look like, but I guess if I had to put it to words: I expected them all to look “less than normal”.  They all looked like average Joes you would meet walking down the street.

Introductions

The counselor came over, seated herself at the table and got things going.  The first order of business was introducing me.  She didn’t offer any details of my situation just said my name and that I would be joining “the group”.  She then asked each member to introduce themselves, state why they were there and provide some details of their “story”.

The large guy, approx 30-years old with the spiked hair went first.  He introduced himself, told me that he was gay and that he was guilty of possession of child pornography.  He served 6-months of jail time and ordered to register as a sex offender.  He had been attending counseling sessions for a little over two years.

The next to go was the young guy who I thought looked fairly wealthy (turns out I was wrong).  He told me he was guilty of a few things, but primarily rape of a minor.  He had been attending counseling off and on for more than 2 years.  The counselor then added that he had a bad habit of coming for a few weeks, then just stopping.  As a result, he had been in jail off and on for 2 years.  She also added that he had a bad drinking problem which contributed to his problem.

The large rather unkept guy went next.  He was guilty of indecent liberties with a minor along with a few other charges.  Similar to the previous guy, he had attended off and on and had been in jail twice.  Once initially as part of the original charge, and then again for probation violation due to not attending counseling classes.

The two older gentleman went next.  The first was the thin guy.  He surprised me when he talked as he seemed very well educated.  I would later find out he was a chief executive for a large company for many many years.  He told me he was guilty of indecent liberties with a minor, in particular an 8 year old girl who was a neighbor of his.  He explained he was long beyond ashamed and was working on trying to rebuild his life.  He had done jail time as well when initially convicted.

The older gentleman with the beard started to cry before he even talked.  He said having to state what he had done was one of the most difficult things he had to do.  He was found guilty of multiple counts of indecent liberties with a minor and rape of a minor.  The victim: his granddaughter.  At this point he became overwhelmed with emotion and literally sobbed for a good 2-3 minutes.  He finally regained control and told me that he had lost his wife of more than 30 years whom he loved dearly, his daughter (the mother of the girl) and the “apple of his eye” and all of his grandchildren as a result of his mistake.  He explained that his whole goal in life was to just get through the day and survive the overwhelming emotions of guilt and regret.  I never imagined I could feel bad for a child sex offender, but this guy broke my heart.  In his eyes I saw a man that was so full of pain that it just flowed out of him with tears and sorrow.  I noticed a few of the other men had tears in their eyes as well.  Frankly, I was tearing up too.  I was shocked…I hadn’t expected this.

The final man to go was the African American.  He explained that he was guilty of first degree rape of his wife.  My immediate reaction, although not out loud was huh?  Turns out, they were on rocky ground due to a severe drinking problem he had.  They were sleeping in separate rooms in the house, and he came home drunk one night and raped her.  He started to tear up too.  Then he said, “I am just trying to live.”  The counselor then stepped in and said while I feel bad for him, he still drinks heavily and does drugs.  Until he solves that problem, it’s hard for me to feel he’s on the right track.  The man just nodded and looked away.

My turn

The counselor then looked at me and said “your turn”.  I immediately told them that I shouldn’t be there, that I took a plea but wasn’t guilty of anything as I didn’t do anything.   The guy with the spiked hair interrupted me and very pointedly said: “Don’t even go there, regardless of whether you did it or not, you are guilty.  You plead to a crime, it’s on your record and people will think you did it.   Very few that come in here initially say they did it, so we’ll see whether you did or not.”  Wow…that surprised me, but I couldn’t disagree with what he was saying.  While he was direct, I sincerely felt like he was just being honest, but in a caring way. I would later find out that it was part of the “graduation process” for sex offenders in counseling to take over a counseling type role.  He was in the final stage and was doing just that.

The first lesson

The counselor then took over and said with that out of the way, let’s pick up where we last left off.  Seems they hadn’t started anger management yet and wouldn’t do so for a few weeks.  To be honest, I don’t recall the topic they were going through, but it had to do with their feelings and how to keep control of them.  They all listened and participated.  I remained quiet as this was all new to me.

When the session was done, everybody said it was nice to meet me and they would see me next week.  The counselor walked up and said that I had been quiet tonight.  She expected that since it was my first night, but that participation in the sessions was required and that she expected me to participate more next week.  She said it nicely though.  I noticed that the cold exterior I saw during the assessment was gone.  She seemed…nice…and really caring about the people in that were in the room.

I left to go home.  Over the next few weeks I would learn each of their stories in far more detail and I’ll share those with you.  I think each story will surprise you.