Philadelphia Inquirer – August 4, 1986
By Claude Lewis, Inquirer Editorial Board
Several years ago I covered a court case that involved a young man whose first name is Howard. He was a convicted child molester, having harmed several young children in the Northeast.
Howard, in handcuffs, explained to the judge that something “made” him want to touch very young girls, especially at springtime.
“I don’t know what makes me do it,” he told the court. “I just can’t help myself. Sometimes, before I realize it, I’m doing things that I know are wrong, but I don’t know how to stop.”
Howard had been arrested and jailed several times for molesting young children, mostly girls. But after each release from prison, he found himself outside some elementary school, Sunday school or playground. He often waited until a child was alone, then he would make his move. Within minutes, some girl, aged 6 or 7, was frightened when Howard put his hands all over her and ran away.
Some of the kids went wailing into their homes. Others remained silent, either too afraid to tell or because they felt guilty.
The judge decided to place Howard on probation when he discovered there was no facility available in Philadelphia to help the young sex offender, who obviously had psychological problems. Jail, the judge properly reasoned, was not the answer. He sentenced Howard to probation and Howard keeled over in the courtroom.
Outside, all along the marble hallways, dozens of mothers stood in their anger screaming and shouting as the defendant walked away.
Several months later, a number of little girls began to complain that a stranger “touched” them. As it turned out, it was Howard, up to his old tricks once again.
Hundreds of women stormed into City Hall to rail against the judge’s decision and to seek revenge. This time the judge sentenced the sex offender to a prison term. But Howard remained a problem because he never received adequate help while he was incarcerated.
Last week, in Pennsauken, N.J., 16 years after Howard’s initial arrest, another convicted child molester, Bruce Whittick, opted to serve his five-year sentence in a state prison instead of waiting in a county lockup for a bed in New Jersey’s overcrowded Avenel Diagnostic Treatment Center, where some sex offenders receive help.
Adequate facilities to treat sex offenders in the Philadelphia region still do not exist. During all that time we have built houses, sports complexes, hotels, parking lots and supermarkets. A race track in the region has been revitalized, new restaurants have sprung up, yet we have not devoted our energies to helping sex offenders who desperately need attention.
We are moving toward construction of a convention center, and the Camden waterfront is being revitalized. All these things are needed, but so is protection for women and children. Some efforts are being made to create new facilities for sex offenders, but there has never been enough money – or interest – to protect the young adequately.
Many New Jersey judges have been sentencing sex offenders to treatment, even though treatment is unavailable for months.
Last week, Whittick, 37, a former Camden city firefighter, was represented by an attorney who successfully argued that locking Whittick up in a county facility for 10 months while he waits for treatment would violate his constitutional rights. The result was that Bruce Whittick, labeled by a psychiatrist as “compulsive and obsessive,” was sent to jail where he’ll probably serve no more than 15 months. Unless he is an exception, he will not likely receive adequate help in prison.
Psychiatric services must be made available for the many who often traumatize and who sometimes kill. Despite this persistent problem, we remain a society that responds more quickly to the profit motive than to those sick souls who cause irreparable pain and suffering throughout the region.
I wonder if we’ll ever understand that medicine for the minds of the Howards and the Whitticks — and many others like them — is at least as important to protecting the young as prisons that alone can never bring about safety..
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