Woman says rehab does not work, wants tougher law
 
 
Patricia C. McCarter
The Huntsville Times
August 01, 2005
 
 
Lock 'em up forever, or if you won't do that, please give them drugs that wipe out their sex drive.

That's Jackie Perfetto Bennett's recommendation for sex offenders. She doesn't think they can be rehabilitated - not really, really changed - and she believes that, next to murderers, they're some of the most vicious criminals in the world.

And her son is one.

He was put in juvenile detention briefly for molesting his elementary school-age brother for three years.

Now, Jonathan Perfetto, 31, is in prison in his home state of New Hampshire for possession of child pornography over the Internet. He was convicted on 50 counts of it, and he's due to be released in October.

The Alabama Legislature passed a law last week to allow judges to give up to life sentences - without the possibility of parole - to violent sex offenders and those who target young children. An amendment was dropped that would have required surgical castration of men convicted of violent sex crimes against children under 12.

Bennett is glad for the new, stronger sexual predator law, but she believes it should have been even stronger. She knows that most sexual predators don't kidnap and beat children.

They do what her son did, starting at age 14. They pick their victims from within family or the family's circle of friends.

Even if they get caught, most will get out of prison. And there's little or no therapy in prison, and no mandatory drugs to curb their abnormal sex drives.

"I love my son, but facts are facts," said Bennett, who moved to Huntsville with her husband three months ago to escape New Hampshire's cold. "You can't just turn them loose and hope everything will be all right. It won't be."

Oh, does she know.

Vicious cycle

When Jonathan was younger, he was a happy, friendly child. But, at age 7, while he was living with his father after his parents' divorce, Jonathan was molested, by a relative just a few years older than him.

His molester was also a sexual abuse victim, at the hands of a family friend.

When Jonathan told his father that the adult friend was molesting other children in the family, "his dad slapped him with a 2-by-4," Bennett said.

She didn't know it was happening. She didn't know that when he moved back in with her, her new husband and their 8-year-old son, that he was both a victim and predator.

It was obvious he had problems, though. He intentionally started a fire in the house about the time the family learned that his younger brother had been abused by a 19-year-old man who repaired bicycles.

While a social worker was investigating that, the then-11-year-old boy admitted his big brother abused him, too.

Bennett wanted her son prosecuted.

"It's like he took my other son's life," she said. "He had to pay for it."

Instead, a judge sent him back home to their tiny two-bedroom apartment, with his victim. Bennett said she was told that if she kicked him out - like she'd said she would - she would be charged with neglect.

"So, I kept this bowl of water, with ice in it, beside me, all night, and I'd splash myself with it to keep myself awake so I could make sure nothing happened," she said.

Even with precautions, something happened. She walked in on Jonathan trying to molest his sleeping brother.

After that, a judge did send Jonathan to a detention facility and group home. While on a lake outing with other delinquents from the home, Jonathan was caught trying to molest a young girl who had gone to the lake with her family.

When Jonathan was 20, he contacted "The Jane Whitney Show," a short-lived TV talk show in New York. He said he wanted to talk to the world about what happened, give parents tips on keeping their kids safe. And he wanted to apologize to his brother.

The family hadn't seen him for about a year when he walked out on the talk show stage. His chair was placed next to Bennett's. She leaned away from him and toward her younger son.

For the first time, he showed remorse. He admitted that he'd also molested some children of his mother's friends.

And he said unless he got some serious treatment, he was afraid he would do it again.

'Terrible place' to be in

He's been in and out of trouble with the law since then. He went for counseling at a mental health center where he met a woman - a patient - twice his age and asked her to marry him. Because she had children at home, Bennett insisted he tell her his sexual abuse history.

"And so she sent her children to go live with her brother, and they got married," Bennett said. "But still, she allowed him to baby-sit her landlord's daughter, who was just 20 months old."

The marriage split after a year, and Jonathan's moods and behavior worsened. In 2000, when a friend borrowed his laptop computer, he found 250 child pornography pictures on it. He turned him in, and Jonathan was convicted.

"As the years go by, I get closer to forgiveness," Bennett said. "But I'm not there, yet. He's my son, but he took away my other son's life.

"As a mother, you can't imagine what a terrible place this has been."

Treatments can work

State Sen. Hinton Mitchem really wanted his new, tougher sex offender bill to get passed. It called for no parole for rapists and molesters - with life sentences possible for some of them - and 10 years of electronic monitoring for those who do get out.

Until a couple of days before the vote last week, a House amendment added to the bill called for the surgical castration for those convicted of violent sex crimes against children under the age of 12.

"But we were afraid the castration amendment could've made the whole bill unconstitutional, and the rest of the bill was too important to Alabama's children to risk it," Mitchem, D-Albertville, said.

"It's not that I think surgical castration is inhumane, I just didn't want to jeopardize the bill. I think it would've passed. I imagine somewhere down the line it will be introduced again, as its own bill."

Dr. Fred Berlin is an associate professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University Medical School in Baltimore, and he's also the founder of the Sexual Disorders Clinic there. He views castration as a humane option, too - when it's chemical.

He said he's given the testosterone-lowering drug Depo Provera (injectable birth control) to at least 200 sex offender patients, and very few have re-offended.

"I'm not suggesting that this is a panacea," Berlin said. "But there is a group for whom this can be most helpful, those with abnormal sex drive."

But he doesn't necessarily think it should be mandated, "because often when there's across-the-board legislation, they don't require proper psychiatric assessment or it just isn't the right thing for each offender."

For those it is right for, it's very right. Berlin said by lowering testosterone, an offender isn't as compelled to offend and "they can live a safer life."

Berlin said for the nine states that require chemical castration, it works best when the legislative and scientific communities regard it as treatment and a way to make the world safer instead of as punishment.

"I caution against the idea of this being a simple solution," he said. "But, with this treatment, men can have better control of themselves. But men who are dangerous will still need monitoring and supervision.

"Even without testosterone driving them, there are psychological issues that need to be addressed."

Berlin said most children who are sexually abused don't become abusers; however, most molesters were sexually abused as children, "just like most smokers don't get lung cancer, but most people who get lung cancer are smokers."

Just as tough DUI laws don't cure alcoholism, tough sex offender laws don't cure the sexually depraved.

"When we think of sex offenders, we think of the horrible cases of kidnapping and assault and murder," he said. "But that's a fraction of less than 1 percent.

"The public wants to know why the treatment in prison didn't work. It's because they didn't get any."

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