“The Last Group to Seek Justice”

Creators of Justice Award 2021 | Second Prize: Essay

Caprice Haverty, PhD, is a psychologist. As Co-Director of A Step Forward, Inc. (ASF), she leads the offenders’ program, which provides treatment for potential abusers and those with histories of sexual offending and sexual addiction. In 2008, she founded Community of Resource & Resolution (CORR), a non-profit, no-cost, drop-in program for those with sexual behavioral problems who are voluntarily seeking early intervention or aftercare. She also co-authored California’s Treatment Completion Guidelines for those mandated to treatment following adjudication for sexual offenses.

I was raised by a serial pedophile. The years I spent piecing together the nature of my father’s condition helped me as a criminal psychologist to see my patients individually and my own past more clearly. I lived my childhood in extreme reaction to an extreme man. My father was immature, callous, impulsive, obsessive, violent, and remorseless—in effect, he alone was all of the men I have worked with compressed into one uncontrollable nightmare.

While many of the men I have assessed or treated evince one or two types of abusive sexual behaviors, my father committed the whole range with a multitude of females from grown women to toddlers. He molested his own children too. Anyone he sexually desired was fair game. He exhibited the most sexual entitlement of anyone else I have ever met.

My professional work set in motion a process that helped me stop lumping all “sex offenders” into one solid mass, a uniformly malevolent group resembling my father. I once believed that all of them were cut from his cloth, that if they had crossed one line, they were capable of crossing all others. Until I worked with the men at my mental health clinic, I had not considered that someone who collected child sexual exploitation material (the preferred term for “child pornography”) might not molest kids or that someone who had molested one child once might never molest again.

I never set out to consider the offenders’ rights or humanity, but in order to heal I had to. As the men became human to me, I became effective and empathic toward them. After years of holding such men accountable, I no longer assumed the right to judge those who had exploited others. My work began underscoring the ethical wisdom of the Golden Rule. In circular fashion, if the men were ever to be regarded again by others, they’d first need to learn to treat others well. And as part of that humane equation, I had to regard them too. In return, they gave me a vital perspective. They annihilated the black-and-white categories that I had previously used to divide them from non-perpetrators.

And though the men express themselves uniquely, they share a confused relationship to their sexual feelings. From pedophile to single-event child molester to incest offender; from those who commit statutory rape, sexual battery, exhibitionism, or voyeurism to others stalking the Internet with sexual intent toward minors to those who view or collect child sexual exploitation material with or without a history of molesting children—they isolate themselves and hide their sexual behavior. They hide for fear of the consequences but also they find their secrecy soothing, arousing even.

In researching “risk” and “re-offense,” I discovered that treated or not, only a small percentage of those with histories of sexual offending, including incest offending, do it again. If they do, they reoffend with less frequency than general offenders. Furthermore, eighty-five to ninety percent of those who complete specialized treatment do not reoffend. Even without treatment, sixty to ninety percent of those convicted on sexual charges are considered low risk for committing further sexual crimes. Most do not suffer from mental illness, most are not pedophiles or psychopaths, and very few have maimed or killed those they sexually victimized.

One to two percent of men in general have a sexual orientation toward children—what we call pedophilia. Surprisingly, many of them have likely never acted on their pedophilic attraction because they were aware that they would hurt the child and themselves. I have also observed that a man may molest a child for needs that have little to do with being sexually attracted to children, and even if he never addresses why he offended or its impact, treatment can reduce his risk of reoffending.

My father has been registered as a sex offender since 1973. Of the tens of thousands of others on the California registry considered moderate to high risk, only a small number are considered sexually violent predators (SVP). Combining the research with my personal experience and coming to know the men in my practice helped me to conclude that my father qualified as an SVP: people who have sexually targeted at least one stranger or casual acquaintance, often a child; who are considered mentally ill; predatory; and most likely to reoffend.

The majority of men I have met during my career differ significantly from my father and other SVPs. No matter the nature or degree of their crimes, most admit wrongdoing and untangle self-serving justifications. They labor through their onerous pasts, difficult feelings, and horrendous behaviors. They sort out what was done to them and how they had turned abuse on themselves and others. Finally, most arrive at a genuine understanding of themselves and learn to act on their needs in socially acceptable ways. Given time and intense effort, at long last, they gain the capacity to feel empathy for their victims and remorse for the damage they have caused.

During months to years in therapy, the men practice new ways of being. They take strength from watching a peer do well on an assignment or create an honest connection within his family or community. They witness one another facing employers or getting employment not only because they qualify but also because they are forthcoming about their registry status and commitment to daily on-the-job, harm-free accountability. The ultimate satisfaction for the men is when one of them reconciles with his family or friends or even one he has hurt. I watch them confront that they cannot change the past, but that with help, they can choose apologetic and honorable ways of behaving.

The more success I saw in the men I counseled, the more I wondered about the mandated treatment my father was doing. Was he examining the effects of his actions on the children he had terrorized. Was he discovering conditions driving his behavior or only doing the minimum treatment required minus the sorrow that might logically arise if he felt what he’d done to our lives.

Whereas the majority of treated men do stop offending, many of them grow to want more from treatment than a reduced risk of re-offense. They desire to understand themselves and construct meaningful lives. At some point, they long to acknowledge the devastation that they have caused and to feel the satisfaction that comes from being accountable and from taking care of themselves and, in turn, others. Those men who have left behind mayhem and want to do right have moved me to take them as far as I can and to include the families and communities who want them back.

While watching some of the treated men return home, I have learned so much about the resiliency of the people whose lives are affected. It’s not enough that the offending family member has served time in jail and later in treatment. In some cases, the victim wants a detailed letter including a full admission and an apology and a face-to-face meeting with other family members present to validate their experiences.

Child victims are empowered when their abusing family member listens to everything that they have to say. They need the offender to show humility by listing every wrong doing, to understand the torment that he caused, to take full responsibility, and to confess to his web of lies. They need reassurance that the offending party “sees” them for their particular personality. They want to be appreciated for their unique talents or smarts or aspirations or attempts at a difficult feat. No matter the age, victims want to be restored as separate and valued, more than an object. They want to be cherished and loved as children, not the parts they were forced to play such as pleaser, forgiver, partner, confidant, punching bag, fantasy, participant, or parent.

Angrily or openly, some victims want to call out the offender on omissions of details, and if indeed a relationship is an option, they will typically set the parameters for moving forward. I remember eight-year-old Rebecca, whose father I was treating after it came to light that he had been molesting her over a two-year period. One year later, and after Rebecca, her therapist, and her mother had processed an apology letter from her father, Rebecca said she wanted to meet with him. As her mother, her therapist, and I looked on, Rebecca’s father told her what she meant to him, his pride in her, and his commitment to be a decent father and to keep getting help. He also apologized for twenty-five sexually offensive events. Puzzled, Rebecca said, “Daddy, what about the time when Mommy went to Target, when you put your mouth down there whileshe was shopping?”

Rebecca’s father affirmed the incident and apologized; he also apologized for leaving it out. Her relief was palpable. She smiled and moved her small body from the couch to the chair where her father sat and hugged his neck. After resuming her place on the couch, she said, “I’m glad you got help, Daddy. Are you going to do that ever again?”

Sometimes reconciliation leads to devising a plan for how to go on living separately and in relationship. This plan usually requires agreement and education for how to keep family members safe. In some cases, reconciliation leads to a step-by-step reunification safety plan including supervision for the offending family member, tools, and agreements for when he moves home.

What would have happened if my father had told his treatment providers about us, his own little girls, during his first incarceration? Would his treatment have been different? Would he have stopped molesting us? Would he have stopped molesting other kids?

As a survivor of sexual trauma and a treatment provider myself, I have learned how deeply we victims crave two things: recognition of the events that brought about our suffering and a meaningful apology with an interest in helping us heal. Many of us long for offending family members to return from incarceration and treatment as changed men. Many of us want them to live honestly with daily accountability that includes safety and respect for everyone. Some of us even want the men to assume rightful roles in our lives.

My father didn’t have to face the truth to be right with the law. Standard requirements for completing specialized treatment don’t stipulate that men fully disclose the number of victims or other details outside their legal case. Current research shows that full disclosure isn’t necessary to bring about a reduction of risk nor are clarification and apology considered essential components of successful treatment. If we therapists treat the men with interventions aimed at preventing re-offense, many would consider that we have done our job.

My work has shown me that men who choose to complete the non-required steps of treatment do so for more genuine reasons than a man like my father had. Rebecca’s father, for instance, ached for a higher quality of life beyond the standard mandates. Initially, though, he had insisted that he was the victim of his daughter, the courts, and society.

His real story first appeared as an inchoate mass shrouded in avoidance, confusion, and superficiality. He denied the damage that he had done his daughter. However, determined to face the truth, he fought through self-loathing, insecurity, loneliness, resentment, and then shame. Only when revisiting the injurious events of his early life did he begin to see how the parts fitted together. After examining the whys and wherefores of his behavior, we came up with a plan for how he could manage his future risk. His growing commitment to the work opened him to realizing his ruin to his daughter. Remorse and compassion rose in him followed by the drive to participate in her healing. He wanted to restore a boundary between them, the one that Rebecca had always deserved. He wanted to have a relationship with her—if she would permit. He discovered that he could not proceed until he had addressed the truth, every last bit of it, for everyone, for her, and also for himself.

At the start of my career, I used my position and program to push the men for full disclosure, victim empathy, and daily accountability. My colleagues and I weren’t just there to counsel and believe in the men and to defend them in court. I wanted them to suffer the shame of their crimes, and I wanted them to stop abusing others. If they expected support getting jobs, expunging records, challenging registration requirements, or reuniting with a church, a neighborhood, a family, or a victim, then I wanted them to have done their work. My approach was educated and intuitive but also driven by insights from my own victim experiences.

As time passed, however, my goal has shifted to much more than reduced reoffending and some semblance of a life for them. After coming to admire their willingness to persist under exhaustive discovery and admissions, at the clinic we urge them to call on that same strength to become whole men who live quality lives in the truth. Consequently, some men have rejoined their families, some have provided a different example to their sons, and some have stopped hiding and gone on to contribute to their communities.

I have grown to respect that healing from trauma requires courageously facing one’s story until it becomes a fully conscious narrative. Unless a man can integrate painful memories, the feelings amount to nothing more than tangled misery. I know from personal experience that fractured defenses from guilt and shame do little to protect anyone from a haunting past. Symptoms that persist unresolved find expression in nightmares, paranoia, emptiness, self- loathing, rage, phobias, self-harm, and compulsive cravings for food, sex, or drugs, even sexual harm to others. Such agonies flooded my own life for many years.

After my father’s second incarceration at Atascadero, I told the therapist in his program about my father’s violence against us. I knew that I had done the right thing by speaking out—for my sisters, for me, and especially for my father. I believed that if he were held accountable for his abuse of us, and if his therapist could treat him, then he might have a fighting chance of doing right by all of us. I also believed that additional time in treatment would help him stop molesting children. I will never know the impact of my declaration, but it appears that he did stop sexually offending.

I still needed so much more from him than he was ever willing to offer. Ultimately, I had to give those things to myself.

Today I support each man in my practice to form an inclusive personal narrative, one requiring examination of how he might have been shaped into a person who committed a sexual crime. I assist him in telling and accepting his story, not just the part necessary to “pass” treatment protocols, stop offending, and “stay out of jail.” The men learn remorse and compassion, how to contribute to victim healing, how to behave, and how to live respectfully with the rest of us.