Sex Offenders Need More Compassion

Tears streaming from his eyes, Dan (not his real name) recently shared with me a personal drama he faced 10 years ago. I placed my arm upon his shoulder as he recounted the details with haunting clarity. The elementary basketball coach, whom he loved, admired, and esteemed, had sexually abused a boy on his team. The action became public, and the coach’s upstanding character was tarnished in the eyes of the community and school. Yet instead of denying his responsibility, the coach confessed and asked for mercy. He spent years in prison. The boys - now men - still love him. Dan does, too.

Who can understand such a violation of trust? How should we deal with sex offenders? The latest solution from Spokane’s City Hall is to humiliate the scoundrels by broadcasting their names on television. Yet Dan’s coach reminds us that some people are willing - even in the toughest times - to take the heat for their actions. Instead of denying the act, this coach admitted his mistake. He reminds a doggedly-suspicious society that we need to relearn the meaning of mercy.

Sex offenders should be punished, and some deserve hard-line judgment. But must a coach who acknowledges his mistake and repents be treated the same way as a hardened child rapist? Should people like this be subjected to ruinous embarrassment by placing their names and sins on TV? Such televised flogging pours salt into wounds that some criminals are trying desperately to heal. Broadcasting names of sex offenders won’t bring about the healing that a mature society should promote. Instead, it reveals society’s unfortunate appetite for sensationalism and interest in lascivious crimes.

Mercy may seem an archaic ideal to a contemporary, “enlightened” nation. Yet it is exactly to this enlightened society that the grace of mercy is entrusted. To abandon the truly contrite in their hour of greatest need and slap their mugshot on TV is not the response of a wisehearted people. It is more difficult, and much messier, to expend energy and time healing a soul. Yet compassion is precisely what is demanded of us - not a fast-fix TV solution designed to “heal via embarrassment.” Please!

People do make mistakes. Dan’s coach was responsible for his actions. But we, too, must exercise responsibility. Casting all sex offenders carelessly onto channel 5 is neither a reasonable - nor responsible - solution.

, DataTimes MEMO: For opposing view, see headline: Sex criminals can wreak havoc on kids Don’t show For repentant molesters, TV would be insult

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