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Protecting Ourselves...and Our Children
By Bryan Avila, TDCJ Correctional Training Instructor - Sergeant of Correctional Officers
Published: 08/20/2012

Suv window I’m heading to my local grocery store. As I pull into the parking space, I see something that catches my eye. It is such a beautiful sight that I can’t stop staring as she gets out of the car. She is gorgeous. Her blond hair is blowing in the breeze, beautiful smile and laughing. I know that I must meet her. I can’t control myself. I have never felt like this before. She is perfect. She is God’s gift to me. She is 6 years old.

As we enter the grocery store, I keep watching her and just want to talk to her. Her mom may pose a little problem if I approach her but I’m patient. Up and down the isles we go. I keep my distance so I don’t stick out like a sore thumb. Then I see my chance. Mom is busy looking at the sales while my princess starts to make her way towards the cereal. I carefully approach her and call her by her name. At first she looks at me skeptically until I ask her how school is going and if she is enjoying her ballet lessons. I also ask how her brother is doing in football.

I CAN’T be a stranger since I know so much about her.

Before anyone notices, we are walking out the grocery store…

As children, we are told by our parents not to talk to strangers. We are told that there are bad people out there that want to hurt us. We are told not to tell strangers our names and to tell an adult if a stranger tries talking to us. In a small child’s mind, if you know my name you can’t possibly be a stranger. If you know mom’s name (or dad’s), you must be a friend of theirs so I shouldn’t worry.

There are many predators out there. A quick search of my state’s Department of Public Safety’s website showed that there are 132 registered sex offenders within a 3 mile radius and 22 within 1 mile of where I live. There is one the next street over. Would I do anything to protect my daughter from them? You bet I will.

Now, question: How many people out there will go and say to a sex offender “Good morning, this is my daughter Jane and she is in your target range?” Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? Well the fact is that it is not. The scenario played out at the beginning is not farfetched in any way. Subconsciously we give the predators all the information that they need. Some of you readers are either doing it, or have close family members that are doing it. Trying to figure out how we TELL them? Vehicle decals and bumper stickers.

We have all seen them: the family stick figure portrait on the back window. Mom, Dad, kiddos and pets along with the names underneath. How about those activity decals (football, lacrosse, hockey, ballet, dance, etc) with your child’s name under it. “Proud parent of a ‘insert school name here’ Honor Roll student.

Get the picture? As parents we are very proud of our children and their accomplishments. We love to brag about them. We tell our friends and family about their latest feat. But we are also giving the predators this information that can be used against our own children. We are constantly putting out of information out there for everyone to see without a second thought.

What got me going on this subject? Well, let me tell ya. I had been talking about this same thing in a class one day when a person made a comment that was so ridiculously stupid that it sent me into a brief coma leaving me speechless. Once the initial “you gotta be kidding me, are you smoking crack???” shock wore off, I fought off the urge to knock some common sense into him and moved on.

On my way home I had been thinking about this entire conversation and how flabbergasted I was over it. Well, I had to stop and get gas and at the pump next to me was an SUV, with the decals on the rear window, kids in the back (little boy and young girl) and mom is working the pump. Any other day I would have not even paid too much attention to it but that day the temptation was just too much.

I looked over at the woman, smiled and politely asked how she was doing. She smiled and replied. I’m in uniform so she wasn’t freaked out…yet. I then asked, by name how the kids liked their football and ballet. Now I could see the panic starting to set in. Before she could get into panic mode, I pointed out the decals on the back of her car and how potential predators could get the same information (I NEVER would have tried this while out of uniform since it would be the fastest way to get the cops called on me).

As we spoke for a few minutes, she said that she had never thought about it in that manner and truly thanked me for making her see it from a different angle. I told her that I have children myself and being proud of them is what we do as parents as well as protecting them. We parted ways and I drove off into the sunset (literally, it was just that time of day and I have to drive West to get home…).

At work we may be a little more reserved on what we say, but not always. As correctional officers, we must always maintain correctional awareness. What we say, where we say it and who we say it to must always be in the foreground of our thought process when carrying on conversations at work.

Offenders have all day long to watch us. They know what vehicle we drive. They look out windows. Some agencies have offenders that work outside doing all the landscaping in the front of the facility. Offenders talk and pass information amongst each other. Those janitors that we see day in and day out cleaning offices, hallways, etc are supposed to be there working therefore they become a fixture in that area. They have the cleanest 3 foot section around (whether it’s the wall or floor) because WE are talking and they are listening to our conversation. We have invited them into our private lives. They become a fly on the wall for us and we forget that they are there sometimes. They know almost everything about us because WE have told them.

Editor's note: Corrections.com author Bryan Avila started working as a Police Officer in 1994 while attending Norwich University in Northfield, VT. In 1999 he began working for the Vermont Dept of Corrections while still working as a Part-Time Police Officer. In 2007 he left public service until 2009 when he began working for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. He is currently a Correctional Training Instructor- Sergeant of Correctional Officers, at the TDCJ Region I Training Academy located in Huntsville, TX.

Other articles by Avila:



Comments:

  1. hamiltonlindley on 03/24/2020:

    He has blue eyes. Cold like steel. His legs are wide. Like tree trunks. And he has a shock of red hair, red, like the fires of hell. His antics were known from town to town as he was a droll card and often known as a droll farceur. Hamilton Lindley with his madcap pantaloon is a zany adventurer and a cavorter with a motley troupe of buffoons.

  2. Fred Davis on 09/01/2012:

    We can teach our sons that if they hate or resents his biological father no matter how evil the mother projects down to the son her own resentment that this could be "setting up the male" to tale on her miasma or bitterness. She does this by speaking good about your fathar and then evil about him when her mood swing kicks in. Then "you" are now her problem because if it were not for you she would be happy. Everyone knows that a son is responsible at six to make mom "feel"This sets better, right. that is HOGWASH! By teaching a son to resent or hate the alleged dad who abused her she sets the son up to take on her own bitterness by his reaction alone. This is called "transference through empathy." This sets the son up by an evil "bond" that he now sees as "love." To the victim this resentment is now romantic love or feeling shame based imprinting. It is a form of "hypnosis similar to post traumatic stress disorder.. The son will then draw a clone mother in a wife and he then returns to the scene of the crime and unconsciously is drawn to another witch of the same resentful mood swinging personality. He will repeat what dad did with his wives until the lesson is learned and he wakes up with the key one day. It is not his resentment that he feels for his alcoholic father but it is his mother's own resentment which blocks him from his own peace with GOD. Hating a father does more traumatic damage than hating a mother because of priority of position. Be cause GOD has forgiven the son before he was born he cannot judge dad or mom by resentment no matter how evil they are because "they know not what the do"either. This is the key and meditation or being still will let the hounds od heaven catch up and begin to heal.

  3. Fred Davis on 09/01/2012:

    We can protect or children by not putting too much garbage and stickers all over the back window of our gas hog van because that might block the view when we come from the left lane into the right lane when a tractor trailer is behind us. We could let them know that they could probably die in a car accident with soccer mom driving statistically than being abducted and killed by a registered offender. They need to be told that a dirty uncle or step father that is in the van or a friend of the family will be more likely to do harm than a violent registered offender statistically. This will help the munchkin to concentrate on his/her literary abilities for the upcoming test. These principles will let the dirty uncle know he is being monitored

  4. Fred Davis on 08/31/2012:

    A goat produces "kids " but marriage produces "children"

  5. Fred Davis on 08/31/2012:

    Our children can be protected by proper teaching. Education is a prerequisite to healthy habits. This can protect children from danger. Today a son does not know the dangers of the false teaching of romantic love. This "lust" causes a male to look to a female for sort of a fulfillment to "complete" himself. Seldom is this taught today but it is an ancient landmark for healthy sexual habits. It is extremely dangerous for males to accept this pseudo love. Romantic "feeling" love teaches a son for someone to marry as if that should be some sort of a goal. This ‘lust” is dangerous indeed and can be the causal factor in addiction because such a concept empowers all the wrong in a future female mate. In “corrective love” or real love it is the female that will take on the name of her husband and this sends a clear signal to those of “ill repute” that you, as a mature male will make the choice for “yourself”. Romantic love can produce children as an animal can produce offspring also but we are not like that once any “addiction” is healed. We no longer look to the degenerate female for real love because God only can supply such. Only a father can possibly understand this principle unless a female is imprinted with this teaching and today there are few fathers who can help their sons to embrace proper and noble love. Most of them are destroyed right after birth and will resent dad for leaving the girl of his dreams that has now turned into a nightmare of schemes. My wife Janis married Fred and also “my ideology” since my healing during my fiery trial and after my incarceration. In the Christian faith it is the Church that takes on the NAME of Jesus in baptism. The church does not tell Jesus what the rules are but quite the opposite indeed. In Rome-Antic love the “pool boy husband” marries the wife and the Biblical family is turned upside down or on it's head. What if a jail let the inmates correct the guards? That would not be an appropriate way to bring an inmate into a proper understanding of how to become a good citizen if he is a male.

  6. Fred Davis on 08/31/2012:

    I would never put a government honor student sticker on my car. Such an item as that shows the abductor that the school that used "no child left behind" that failed to keep up the standards now is even worse because waivers are needed to even make an already unqualified union teacher to look good. My Ron Paul sticker embarrasses me enough. With that sticker on there the predator would "know' that am stupid and think I was an easy mark. This author is more well informed than I. Every one of those registered offenders are violent pedophiles. Scary.

  7. Fred Davis on 08/30/2012:

    A lobotomy will help the veteran to IMAGINE the beauty of no religion or set standards.

  8. Fred Davis on 08/30/2012:

    We can protect or children by keeping them from getting any closer than 500 feet of any public school that will groom them into far left propaganda or radical left extremism by a union teacher screaming and yelling how good socialism is and how if you are a male who questions such debauchery as normal then you are "dis-respecting authority" and if your father is a veteran he may be a right wing nut case who needs to be medicated without a warrant if you live in Virginia. First they came for the 19 year old having evil heterosexual sex with a fifteen year old in a romantic relationship and put him on a registry for life. Then they came and took all the children from the FLDS and that was “inclusive” of the good monogamous parents and polygynous parents to be sorted out later. Then the came for the veteran that was not yet understanding that “far left” and “extreme left” in the two parties was a good thing. Masks are dangerous if there is only one ideology driving both.

  9. Fred Davis on 08/25/2012:

    One way to protect our children and our families would be to have former offenders that are non violent and are stabilized to be able to procure firearms to ward off vigilantes and small animals.

  10. Fred Davis on 08/22/2012:

    We do know that sex offender registries have not yet saved on child except in the mind of the progressive politician. We do know that most research shows that they are failed policies. We do know that recent research shows that adolescents are really young adults with extremely heterogeneous maturity levels but the “change agents” still deny these young people the privileges of personhood that the fifth and sixth amendment once offered these young people.The politicians talk of helping inmates to get out of prison, get stabilized in the community and that will cause a child to be safer. In reality the “exact opposite” has occurred over time on all three of these previous projections. We do know that there is no such thing as any egalitarian principle as far as sentencing for the same crimes by statute for both genders are concerned. When actual cases are prosecuted by the courts there is a vast left wing conspiracy indeed. We do know that the fat cat politicians using this arbitrary legislation using retroactive law is not egalitarian at all when it comes down to the real implementation of such where gender is applied. This is why socialists always have double standards and they can never be trusted because everything is based on confusion. The socialist who hates patriarchy is not immoral in principle but amoral with double standards and quite confused indeed. They see a wounded dog then the sentimentalists want to develop a bond with such but care nothing of the seed of the human father or him at all. What misandry is being propagated here. We do know these worn out Marxist ideology that has always assaulted the traditional family unit and has just recently created new developments of complete legislative metamorphic strange family structures indeed. My grandmother once said that any family with more than one head is a freak. Just maybe this is because these new age redefinitions of the family are based on a “politically incestuous relationship” of industry owned by government. Maybe they are “change agents” rather than agents of change for the better economic security of their own children and are willing to rob the next generation just to stay in power. Lenin promised hope and change also.

  11. Fred Davis on 08/22/2012:

    If one puts his child up on a pedestal he may get urinated on later.

  12. Fred Davis on 08/20/2012:

    How did Lenin bring in Marxism into Russia? He “marginalized the husband” by laws targeting the traditional family unit or structure. Next he made no fault divorce easy. He catered to the minds and hearts of the women and children. Hitler said if one can get the hearts and minds of the women and children the males in the home would follow. Then he took over the traditional family unit with the male as head authority. He did this by addressing a female congress. He was a master in the fine art of seducing the weak and politically grooming the feeble. He offered women egalitarian principles through political maneuvering. It took less than ten individuals to pull off this scam by disenfranchising the head of the family unit through legislation. The family was now reversed. It does not matter that it did not work by political means because it would be accomplished at the point of a gun if necessary. This socialist regime took the property away from the land owners and then gave that land as an entitlement was redistributed to the peasants. Then they killed the peasants but the concept of the children being chattel of the state did not matter now. It does not matter that millions died in the Bolshevik Revolution. The United States could not fall for such principles as these. We are too government educated. Right? Then Lenin removed the concept of illegitimacy under law and all the peoples became one happy family with government as surrogate father with no border in the family. NOT! How could he use less than ten people get the minds of women to fall for this? They did not know the principle. Abortion was then legalized. Then he gave equal pay for equal work. Not that this article propagates an evil hate heterosexual male deviant going after a little girl with blond hair by image.

  13. Fred Davis on 08/20/2012:

    God makes no mistakes

  14. Fred Davis on 08/20/2012:

    I am thankful for my mother. She merely had displaced resentment and before she passed with cancer my mother told me I was the best of the three children. Death changes the attitude and perspective when the Maker will judge. That is not my job. My mom unconsciously drove me to seek the father I never had in the spiritual realm. She is my biggest “blessing” today because I can now see that she could not deal with herself and her “shame based personality. She was projecting by empathy. If it were nor for her and I had a comfortable home I would not be as fearless and strong as I am today. Her cancer could have been remitted and not killed her but her resentment spread through her whole body. The bitterness was her issue and she fought that resentment until the end. I tried to find my father all of my life but even if I had he could not help me because I am sure he was passing down to me his weakness. It was the wickedness of my mother and the weakness of by father that became my weights at five years of age. That is the first and last time I saw dad. I can still remember the blue stroller and the blue flowers in the yard and his dark eyes. I was in bondage to mom because my own resentment toward her through a wrong bind bond. That spiritual umbilical cord had to be broken by GOD. My own resentment locked me into mom in a wrong way. Meditation and prayer will manifest what we have inside of us that is the cause of our lack of peace. Our peace and our esteem cannot come from others. The weight are the foundation of the future sins..

  15. Fred Davis on 08/20/2012:

    Sex offender registries are a distraction.

  16. Fred Davis on 08/20/2012:

    Most future sex offenses (95%) will occur by non registered sex offenders. Most sex offenses are familial and will occur either by family members, friends of those known to the victim. To equate “registered offenders” with predators in a homogeneous fashion must be simply to drive a “fear agenda” by using a label or therr may ignorance of the subject. While I was in Pennsylvania as a non violent and non predator registered sex offender my wife and I were visiting her mother and her ex husband had a son that that was late coming home from school. He knew I was there in Pennsylvania so he called the police because I was simply in Pennsylvania. No other reason. The police came to check and see if his son was there at my mother-in-laws house. The ex-husband could have done that on his own before contacting the police. All cowards are weak before the strong and strong before the weak. Her ex-husband was obviously just needing a little attention that day. Even during my probation period the documents said that I was absolutely not attracted or any danger to young boys or post pubescent young men. It also stated that until my probation was over I should not be around teen females without someone else there as a witness. While all this was occurring and the police were checking on me Sandusky was molesting numerous little boys and was backed up and actually enabled by the Sports industry in Pennsylvania. The registries are a distraction from dealing with the real issues residing right in the family unit where sons are raised without fathers with the state as surrogate father or with fathers who cannot correct a mother who can inflict much damage on a son. How does a son learn how to lead a family or anything else if he is “traumatized” by the first image after he comes out of the womb by the character who may blame him for his own existence as if he is the mistake. Everyone wants to deal with these issues by using laws as a band aid. Non registered sex offender predators will deliberately get jobs to get to know the “future” Most future sex offenses (95%) will occur by non registered sex offenders. Most sex offenses are familial in nature and will occur either by family members, friends of those known to the victim. To equate “registered offenders” with predators in a homogeneous fashion must be simply to drive a “fear agenda” by using a labels or there may be ignorance of the subject. While I was in Pennsylvania as a “non violent” and “non predator” registered sex offender my wife and I were visiting her mother and her ex husband thst had a son that that was late coming home from school. He knew I was there in Pennsylvania so he called the police because I was simply in Pennsylvania. No other reason. The police came to check and see if his son was there at my mother-in-laws’ house. The ex-husband could have done that on his own like a man before contacting the police. All cowards are weak before the strong and strong before the weak. Her ex-husband was obviously just needing a little attention that day as a democrat. Even during my probation period the documents said that I was not attracted or any danger to young boys or post pubescent young men. My stipulations also stated that until my probation was over I should not be around post pubescent young women without someone else there as a witness. While all this was occurring and the police were checking on me, Sandusky was molesting numerous little boys and was backed up and actually enabled by the basically the whole Sports industry in Pennsylvania. The registries are a “distraction” from dealing with the real issues residing right in the family unit where sons are raised without fathers with the state as surrogate father or with pool boy fathers who cannot correct a mother who can inflict much damage on a son. How does a son learn how to lead a family or anything else if he is “traumatized” by the “first image” after he comes out of the womb by the character who may blame him for his own existence as if he is the mistake. She might even drop him off at Planned Parenthood.. Thank God my mom had no access to such. Everyone wants to deal with these issues by using laws as a band aid. Non registered sex offender predators will deliberately get jobs to get to know the “future” victim. A bumper sticker is not the problem here. Where are all the statistics of stranger danger compared to familial offences? “Feeling based opinions” may be accepted without examination by weak willed females or “new age emasculated males” but those other rational individuals still do like statistics that are not based in fear alone nor skewed by using colloquial bastardized English and labels in a generic arbitrary fashion. Just “not resenting” both parents today is difficult enough for a child born of a promiscuous female with no real father present. If a male is emasculated spiritually and emotionally by mom in a negative way right after birth it the responsibility of his father to assure that does not occur perpetually. As fathers are removed from the homes every day the problem will only grow worse. Deal with “causal factors” that will exacerbate this disaster because a father ran off because he could not deal with a witch mother himself and then turns his son over to be the scapegoat of “mom’s resentment” toward the bastard child. The mother is not the problem here. She knows not what she does. She is passing down the generation curse. It is the father and husband that cannot give his wife the corrective love she needs to save the son from the co-dependent addicted smother love of mom. Not resenting both parents today takes a lifetime of work and even that requires the grace of God in order to get accomplished. When mom was on her back it was not the fault of the child. The laws that separated illegitimate children from a bastard child was there for a reason. The progressive movement and the “spore” of Lenin removed those protections for a son.


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