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Middle-aged shlub with camera puts State Police on high alert
By adamg on Sun, 06/11/2006 - 2:15pm
Because it was such a nice morning, and we had some time to kill, Greta and I drove over to Houghton's Pond this morning.
As usual, I took my camera with me (Greta and Nancy have somehow learned to tolerate me and my camera). As Greta effortlessly went around the monkey bars (the playground there has an unusual round set), I took some pictures (I love how she can do that; maybe because, as a kid, I sucked at it). We played tag for a few minutes. Then we walked over to the snack bar, got some chicken fingers and fries and went over to the beach for lunch.
A State Police trooper in a cruiser slowly drove down the pathway behind the beach. He then turned around. When he came even with us, he stopped. Got out of the cruiser. Greta courteously offered him a fry. And when she skipped a few feet away, he asked if he could talk to me.
Seems somebody had reported a suspicious character with a camera. He asked me some basic questions, such as my name, where I'm from, what I was doing with the camera - and when he called out to Greta to ask her name, he pretended not to understand what she'd said to see what I'd say.
To his credit, he was professional and polite - waiting until Greta was out of immediate hearing range was a nice touch (even still, afterwards, she asked me why he wanted to talk to me - I told her he was just making sure everything was OK). But it's kind of sad knowing that I can't take photos of my own kid without somebody calling the State Police - and that I now apparently look like a perv.
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Comments
Adam, I think you should be
Adam,
I think you should be pleased. Someone did the right thing. See a strange man taking photos of children? Call the cops.
I frequently see male photographers around playgrounds. If I can't place them with a child of their own, I challenge them.
CP
I mostly agree...
...except for the idea of calling the cops first without approaching the people yourself. I think that if we see someone taking pictures at a playground (or observing people a little too closely), it's not a bad idea at all, as responsible community members, to introduce ourselves, ask "whose parent are you?" etc. Most of us can then judge pretty well whether the person is someone we're comfortable having in the community and around our neighborhood's children.
A person who isn't a parent/caretaker may well be an art student or psych student who has been told to go to a playground, or someone who's watching/shooting out of similar personal interest. I was given an assignment in an art class to use a playground as a subject, and also was given an assignment in a child development class to observe on a playground. So someone on a playground could very well be legit. They would probably have a textbook on them or be very eager to talk openly about what they're studying, and most of us would be convinced pretty easily that they aren't doing anything they shouldn't.
Having worked with sex offenders, I know that they give up REALLY easily when they're found out early on. If someone's watching a playground or taking pictures for perverted purposes and someone in the community asks them what they're doing, they're gonna leave and won't come back again. They're also cowards for the most part and don't cover well when questioned -- they rely on NOT having their activities questions, which sadly, a lot of people won't do. A sex offender isn't going to make up a story about how they're in photography school or something -- they're going to get really freaked out and not ever come back to that playground. Then they'll go to another playground where no one cares enough to ask why they're taking pictures.
It is important, I think, that we send a message in our communities that we care about who's where and what they're doing. I don't think though that we need to do this by calling the police when someone is doing something that isn't illegal (except in cases in which the photographer had been asked by the parent not to take the pictures, in which case the police should be called).
http://1smootshort.blogspot.com
That's what has me puzzled
Guess I never realized I looked *that* strange. :-).
Plus, aside from about a minute when I *was* just sitting on the bench taking photos, I was either playing with Greta (right after I took the pictures, we started playing tag) or basically spotting her on the monkey bars (if she gets into the Olympics, I will *still* hold my breath expecting her to fall on her head, no matter that she never has).
But yeah, like you said, somebody called the police, the police did their job and Greta still had a good time, even if I wouldn't let her wade in the pond (all those signs warning about high bacteria counts).
It sucks that this is what
It sucks that this is what we've come to -- that a dad playing at a park with his daughter on the first sunny day in AGES is so disturbing to some presumably well-meaning onlooker that the police have to be called in to investigate. The thing that disturbs me the most is that this probably wouldn't have happened if the adult in this scenario had been a woman. I hate to say it (my inner feminist is cringing as I type), but I think that we as a society tend to ascribe a certain level of potential "creepiness" to the picture of a middle-aged man (sorry, Adam, you said it first) hanging out with a female child when we don't know for a fact that they are related, whereas we tend to assume all is well when the adult is a female (even though we have unfortunately seen in the news that women are not above exploiting and/or kidnapping children).
Here's my suggestion for a litmus test so that we can all be vigilant but not reactionary: Is the behavior between the adult man and the child something that would be appropriate if the adult were a woman? If so, chill out. If not, intervene -- and fast.
Adam, I'm glad you didn't get 'cuffed and booked! And I'm very relieved that Greta remained blissfully unaware of the incident. Assuming Monkey Bars is a summer event, let us know if she's gonna be ready for Beijing in '08 or if we have to wait for London in '12! ;-)
Men and Women are different
>>The thing that disturbs me the most is that this probably
wouldn't have happened if the adult in this scenario had been a
woman.<<
There are almost no female pedophiles.
There are a lot
of male pedophiles.
That is a real, practical difference worth noting, and adapting our
behavior to. "Equality of the sexes" is a nice concept, and a good one
to build laws and mores around, but it is a lousy one to internalize so
deeply that it outweighs reason. 'Cause it just ain't always true.
Terminology
Just to clean up your terminology a little, most sex offenders are not pedophiles, and many pedophiles do not sexually offend. They're different diagnoses. Pedophilia is about equally distributed between males and females. Sex offenders are primarily male. (And almost exclusively straight, in case anyone wants to go there.)
Right, most sex offenders are male. I'd say just from experience working in offender treatment that more female sex offenders are really really pathological and have little hope of recovering, but I don't have any evidence to back that up right now. But most sex offenders -- a huge majority -- offend people they know. Calling the cops isn't going to do anything in most of these situations. You call the cops, they come over and verify that the kid is with a parent or a caretaker. The person who called the cops could in fact be right that something just doesn't look right with the adult and child (Adam, I'm of course not referring to you), but the cops can't and shouldn't do anything based on someone thinking that Timmy's babysitter looks at him wrong.
I do think it's really important that we introduce ourselves to people at the park and make smalltalk about who they're with and what they're doing. This way, we send the message that our neighborhoods are places where people better not try anything with our kids. I think though that particularly when it's not a small residential neighborhood, like mine, where we all know the neighborhood cop, people tend to brush off a call to the cops as paranoia. If a neighbor of mine mentions to me that someone in the neighborhood seems a little off, and they've talked to the person to see what s/he's up to, I'm going to trust that instinct. If a neighbor tells me they CALLED THE COPS BECAUSE SOMEONE DIDN'T LOOK QUITE RIGHT, I'm going to think that person is paranoid.
confused
I think I'm one of many who don't understand the terminology, then. What does it mean to be a pedophilic non-offender?
Oy.
Pedophilia is sexual attraction to children. Most people with the diagnosis do not act on it by offending children; it's more common that someone will feel really disturbed that they're aroused by children or have intrusive thoughts along these lines while trying to engage in adult sexual relationships and so forth. Some of these people will actively seek out children to watch on playgrounds while having sexual fantasies. Others might watch children out a window while masturbating out of view of the window. None of these behaviors constitute sexual offending, and many people engage in them without ever engaging in any illegal behaviors.
There are also a LOT of people who view child pornography (which is illegal to make and possess and which exploits children while being made) but who have not and will not personally sexually offend a child.
Most people who sexually offend children are not sexually attracted to children. For most, it's a violent act rather than a sexual act and most don't report arousal from the act. It's about power and control, not sexual gratification, for most offenders.
My point was only that,
My point was only that, assuming an innocent foray at the park between parent and child, as this obviously was, I think it's less likely for any of us to jump to a wrong conclusion if the adult is female. (Doesn't mean we shouldn't still be vigilant. Ideally we should neither over- nor under-react to observed behaviors.) If the activities observed are, indeed, suspicious, then it desn't matter what gender the adult is.
Absolutely true
Most of the female sex offenders I worked with had offended for years without anyone intervening.
Several of them had been in multiple treatment programs for general emotional/behavioral issues where certain behaviors had been considered abuse-reactive, where in young men they'd certainly have been considered sexual offending behaviors.
It's especially this way when older teens or young adults engage in verbal sexual harassment -- teaching young children developmentally inappropriate sexual lingo and engaging in them in extensive conversations, like encouraging them to engage in sexualized behavior and report back on their experiences. Females who do this are either viewed as showing "sexualized" behavior (indicating they need support/treatment as a victim) or as excessively open hippies who you might not want around your kid, but who you aren't gonna report. Males are seen as offenders.
There've been studies where the researchers write an assessment of a person and give copies to various professionals and laypeople. Some versions of the assessment say it's a male and some say it's a female. Professionals are sliiiightly better at being objective, but both groups tend to view the males as perpetrators needing discipline and the females as victims needing treatment. Of course, in reality, both groups need a combination.
There is the interesting piece though that in order for something to be harassment/abuse, there has to be a victim for whom it's unwanted (or who's too young/disabled to be able to give consent, which automatically makes it abuse). I think it's also the case that adults often see the same behavior as harassment coming from a man and just weird or flaky coming from a woman.
I had a professor in college who tried to come off as an ultra-liberal feminist liberated-woman-type. She'd say things to students in private and to groups of students during class that were way over the top. She was kind of like Chef on South Park actually -- she'd be talking about a piece of music with a student and would say with total seriousness that it's the kind of piece they could listen to when making love to [specific person they're dating] or something along these lines. She'd also talk about our school's great books curriculum with entirely too much interest in the sex lives of the characters and the authors and would try to engage specific students in her pervy discussions. Was this harassment? I'm not entirely sure. We were all of age, and as far as I know, no one asked her to stop or filed a complaint or anything. It was also a situation though where we were a small elite college and she was married to a superimportantpowerful individual. So maybe she had power over the students that kept us from seeing her objectively and from feeling like we could ask her to stop or could complain.
http://1smootshort.blogspot.com
Re: Men and Women are different
carpundit wrote "there are almost no female pedophiles"
I'm a columnist for Network World (Adam's employer) and some time ago I wrote about the Megan's Law database. I went down to my local police station to take a look and was surprised at not only how many offenders are in my area but how many are women. While there may be few female pedophiles it seems that women can't be ignored as a significant child predation risk factor.
Oh no!
Careful, Adam!! Your employer is on to you! They know you've been working on this site--quick, make up an excuse!
Gee,
I can't imagine why the cops would be there.
dickalerts
Man, that's a great domain name. I could think of so many reasons to use that, too. Not just for listing sex stings.
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