So i recently send some letters/emails out to get back on the penpal wagon. Some are good, some are duds that instantly asked for something....and then there is this one.
Usually i ALWAYS background check before writing, but i forgot it this one time. What a mistake that was. The young woman in question seems super nice and is very polite and so on. Problem is, her case makes my stomach turn, and i usually do not care at all how many people somebody killed, tortured etc.
So this woman, when she was on the outside apparantly sold liveshows of herself, and lewd pictures of herself. The "cam" business. Fair enough, her body. She also engaged in bestiality, not my thing but ooooook i can still roll with it. Unfortunately when a regular customer said "If you can get me some nice pictures of minors i will pay you 3x the normal rate", the woman thought that was a great idea and dressed an 11 year old family member and her 11 year old friend up in lingerie and snapped pictures which she then sold. With one of the girls she also performed a live cam show. WHAT THE FUCK!
I really want to seperate person from crime and usually have no issue with it. How do you guys handle something in this category?
Last post
I had no one with a crime of that kind so far. Don't know if I could handle it.
To me it seems that this woman does a lot of things for money. Apart from that it lacks anything of what's been brought up to me as "human decency" is. Now, everyone has his or her own limits of what is ok for money to do. And what she does with her own body still isn't my thing to judge. As you said, it's her own body. But kids? No, just no! That's a crime and rightfully so. Plus, apart from that, in my opinion she put an awful idea into the two girls minds, aka: "It's okay to sell your body- and your beauty is the only/most important thing you have to offer. Your intelligence and talents mean much less than just what you're wearing."
To seperate a person from the crime? I guess, I know what you mean and a person does not consist of his or her crime only.
But, on the other hand, it is the person (with a personality, with a biography, with personal priorities, needs and strategies to fulfill them) who committed the crime.
So, as little as I'd want to say a person is defined by a crime, as little I'd say a person can be totally seperated from it.
The question you've got to look at is whether you want to bring it up in your conversation or not. Or whether you want to keep up that conversation at all. But if you don't, I'd not ghost her, meaning, I'd tell her why. And then "the elephant in the room" is addressed anyway.
That's a big no from me... Someone who has sex with a beast is one thing.... Someone who abuses a child is another thing altogethher. I would drop someone like that like a lead weight. Just say something along the lines of "sorry but I'm sorry I can't write you anymore..." If its the one I think I know of in Minnesota I know exactly why also.
I experienced something similar with one of my very first penpals, years ago. When I started writing I thought I would never look up someone's crime, because I thought everybody deserved an equal chance. FF to a couple of months later, when I was too lazy to walk to the living room (where I had his address), looked his address up online and found out that way what he did. It was not nice and it involved minors as well. I, however, was already too deep in to be able to just drop him out of the blue, but the contact has never been the same anymore. Mostly because he made me feel like he was only sorry for getting caught, not for committing such a heinous crime.
Now we've lost contact a couple of years ago and I vowed from that moment that I would always look up a person's crime. I can deal with a lot, maybe even sex offenses, as long as a person shows actual remorse for the crimes he committed. That may be a long shot with some offenders.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with ending this correspondence, as long as you do it with dignity. Like Kirsten said: do not ghost her, but rather tell you how you feel and why you came to that decision. Maybe you know someone that is willing to look past her crimes and is willing to take the correspondence over from you?
Confronting someone with his/her crime isn't easy anyway, let alone on such a subject.
I don't know, I honestly just don't know. I do despise the crime, that's out of any question.
On the other hand, heck, sometimes I think there's a lot we (as a species and as individuals) don't understand.
I don't think there's a cure for pedophilia (if that's the cause).
On the other hand I came across several people in real life (both genders) who had been sexually abused as children. I've seen some of its possible effects quite nearby in both professional & private context (though not out of my own experience, I was lucky).
But I remember a conversation with one of those people where someone who definitely had been a victim and suffered consequences looked me straight in the eye & said quietly: "As much as I hate what happened to me - and what's still happening to so many others- how could we ever hope to save kids if no one works with the perpetrators?" I never did (could've chosen to do so,but that was just a step I never took) and I still don't know whether I could it do now. (Back then I had just finished university and gotten my degree & it would've been way too soon). I'm not sure, but this conversation just came to my mind again.
I'm (currently) not writing to a sex offender (as far as I know) & I am not planning on doing so, but in a way I am glad that there are ppl who do. Not to think in relative terms when it comes to the crimes, but because of the question that friend asked years ago.
It is the Minnesota one. Anything I should know as a heads up ?
Nevermind. Its not Minnesota . Its California.
If its the one in Minnesota, she performed sex acts on her own children for her boyfriends pleasure among other things... Because having anyone in a relationship is better than no one. It's some really weird kind of logic that she shares and something I don't even want to begin to know anything about because it makes my skin crawl that as a mother you can't know right from wrong in that situation. I don't think anyone should be writing to a person like that.
Damn, thanks for ensuring I never forget to do thorough background checks on any potential new penpals I write to.
It can be difficult finding out more or unearthing things about a penpal once you have already began corresponding (and getting along well) - but in your case it's on a whole new level.
Despite me considering myself a non-judgemental person, everyone has their limits on what they're willing to tolerate or feel comfortable with. Perosonally, when I've been searching penpals my no-go zones have been any crimes relating to children or animals, particularly violent (or serial) murders, identity theft and bank fraud type crimes.
@KoifishDK Unfortunately your penpal's crime is never going away. The past cannot be changed. So if it's something you feel incredibly uncomfortable about now, that's not going to really change. I don't think you can really continue healthy friendships under such circumstances.
Come on, you don't just randomly stroll up to people in the street and ask them to be friends, do you? Same logic applies here. Sure, you don't meet the person first, but you see their name, crime and introduction. After googling the name, to get to the specifics of the crime, is when you can decide if that person is ok to correspond with. To jump into a pen-pal commitment without knowing who you're writing to seems... odd?
I wrote to someone who’s crime was aggravated manslaughter in the 2nd degree. I thought ‘well, it’s not murder’. I decided to google after I wrote. Turned out he killed his wife and took a plea deal to avoid a life sentence. Shouldn’t have assumed the victim was a man, not that it makes it better.. We still write but it took a while to get my head around that.
I don’t want to sound judgy but I’m surprised by the “has sex with animals, ok, can still roll with it” attitude. I’d be horrified. I would also never write to a sex offender so maybe that’s just my view point on it.
I wrote to someone who’s crime was aggravated manslaughter in the 2nd degree. I thought ‘well, it’s not murder’. I decided to google after I wrote. Turned out he killed his wife and took a plea deal to avoid a life sentence. Shouldn’t have assumed the victim was a man, not that it makes it better.. We still write but it took a while to get my head around that.
I don’t want to sound judgy but I’m surprised by the “has sex with animals, ok, can still roll with it” attitude. I’d be horrified. I would also never write to a sex offender so maybe that’s just my view point on it.
I always check what WriteAPrisoner points as the commited crime, rarely I do more research than that... I don't care much. I don't need to approve all past actions of a person to write to them, otherwise, I wouldn't be here on WriteAPrisoner, right? All people here commited mistakes.
I was struck by what you wrote "As much as I hate what happened to me - and what's still happening to so many others- how could we ever hope to save kids if no one works with the perpetrators?" I couldn't have a "friendship" with someone like that but it is a point well taken.
I didn't say that. The statement came from a friend of mine who had molesrted and abused as a child. I was also swallowing hard when I heard these words, but I guess, there's sth. to them.
+ "been" in the post above. Need the edit button!
I think it's fair that we all have limits. If you feel really uncomfortable with what someone did, it's your right to not correspond with someone. I'd probably let them know you can't write them anymore even if you don't tell them why, because a penpal suddenly stopping, especially after you formed a connection, is really tough.
I'm actually very much with OP. Some people can look past child molestation or whatnot, but that's one of the few no gos for me. I have two pen pals that have committed murder and I read up extensively on their cases and they have been pretty honest and reflective about it to me. Idk, I am of the opinion that all people deserve a degree of dignity and etc but it would bring up too much stuff for me personally to talk to someone with that past.
Most of the time, it doesn't come up. I don't push them to talk about their cases and I prefer to talk about life and art and music and etc. But it still would be hard for me to get past.
What the fuck indeed.
I had this happen back when I first started writing to prisoners. I found out a few letters into it that the guy had done...let's just say things I couldn't live with. It involved kids and vans. I just didn't write him back. I know this was not a flawless move on my part, but I didn't know what else to do. I didn't want to tell him why. I'd invited myself into his house, after all. I didn't want to be like "Hey, I just realized how terrible what you did was. Goodbye forever." But I just couldn't write him again. It's not like we'd been writing for years. If we had, that would have been different. The realization really messed with my head though.
A charity passed on a nane and address to me..told me he was super excited to be writing to me..and one if their rules was that you never look the person and tgeir crime up.. stuff that..turned out my gut instinct was right..he had been messing with kids..and it wasn t his first dance either..I told the charity I wasn t writing to him..they were mad that I'd broke their rules and said they were going to remove me.. yeah? Don't bother I removed myself...
Why on earth would they have that rule? That seems like a terrible rule. You deserve to understand the decision you're making in reaching out to someone. Besides, who can resist Googling at some point? Sounds like WAP was a better way to go anyway.
Its the level of altruism of the church and other simmiliar charity based organisations in wanting to do a good thing and turn the other cheek I guess. It's the belief that everyone can be humanised. But yeah, I'm sorry once someone commits some kind of crime like that they end up on my do not write list. There's another one on my do not write list at the facility my significant other is at. She violated her own children for the gratification of her boyfriend... "better to gratify the boyfriend then to be single I guess because I fell from the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down..." If you're going to do something like that you deserve to be locked in a box and not talked to.
Isabelle... are you serious??? They can be mad all they want, you are well within your right to cease correspondence if you don't feel comfortable and the transparency WAP provides in knowing what the person has done is invaluable. WAP is way better anyway, they're the ones who lost out, you'll find a good home writing here!
Wildart... it's nice to see you around the forums, I'm pretty sure you've been around here and been writing for longer than me, that's awesome that you're still here because alot of people I came on around are no longer here, though I am still in contact with a few of them elsewhere!
Thanks Shadey...yes..the charity one was pretty effed up..the stupid women said to me.." oh..we just believe in.loving them all"....yeah..no..that ahole was someone prolly only his mother could love...