A Battle of Deviance: Session 1 Program Transcript [MUSIC PLAYING] [INTERPOSING VOICES] DR. CHANDLER: OK, let’s get started. Let’s go around the room and introduce ourselves. I’m Dr. Chandler. JEFFREY: I’m Jeffrey. MICHAEL: Hi, I’m Michael. JOHN: I’m John. ALAN: And I’m Alan. DR. CHANDLER: Good, welcome everybody. What I’d like to do today is have each of you talk a bit about your stories. What brings you here, the reason you were ordered to attend this group session? Jeffrey, why don’t you go first? JEFFREY: Really? DR. CHANDLER: Go on, give it a try. You’re 18, the youngest here. Tell the others why you were arrested. JEFFREY: I didn’t do anything wrong. DR. CHANDLER: Yes, Michael, you have a question? MICHAEL: Yes, for Jeffery. But you were arrested and convicted, what for? JEFFREY: It was all lies. In court, all that evidence, they said I touched my half sister and my half cousin. What the hell do they know? They’re just kids, only six and seven. Kids make stuff up. They should have been whipped for lying like that, beat good. I didn’t do nothing to them. MICHAEL: You’re angry. JEFFREY: You’re damn right and mind your own business. DR. CHANDLER: OK, Jeffrey settle down. Your aggression has gotten you into other trouble, hasn’t it? Tell us about that.
JEFFREY: Yeah, I got kicked out of my high school, because I was always getting into fights. Now, they put me in some special school, you know, for bad kids. That’s me, I guess, but I won every one of them fights and they had it coming. DR. CHANDLER: Why do you say that? JEFFREY: You know why. You read my file. DR. CHANDLER: Tell the group. JEFFREY: More lies, kids we’re talking about things they heard happened at my home. I had to shut them up. DR. CHANDLER: What were they saying? JEFFREY: My mom– my mom, she told people I was exposing myself at home. She told me to stop and I went and started doing it outside the apartment, masturbating. I mean, that’s what she said. Like I would do that. DR. CHANDLER: There must have been other reports of you exposing yourself and masturbating, not just at home. What about that? JEFFREY: What about it? Like it’s any of your business. DR. CHANDLER: Who lives at home with you Jeffrey? JEFFREY: My mom, my stepfather, half brother, half sister. DR. CHANDLER: What about your dad? Do you have any contact with him? JEFFREY: I want to, but no. My mom, she won’t let me. DR. CHANDLER: Michael, what about you? Tell us what brought you here. MICHAEL: What brings me here, the best intentions I’m afraid. I wanted to help a young man who was having a hard time and certain allegations were made against me that were completely false and they proved to be quite damaging. My reputation has been smeared. DR. CHANDLER: And this young man, he was actually a 13-year-old boy, right? MICHAEL: Yes, I met him through an organization I volunteer for. I was assigned to him as his mentor. He’s a fine young man. I haven’t seen him since I got arrested. A Battle of Deviance: Session 1 © 2017-2021 Walden University, LLC 3 DR. CHANDLER: Tell us about that. MICHAEL: He didn’t have a father figure in his life. Neither did I growing up and I thought I could help him deal with that. We got to be quite close. He needed me and I well, I suppose I needed him too. We shared a very close and special connection. I never intended for anything inappropriate to happen. The police said I’d been leading him, befriending him. They said I was doing it all for the purpose of grooming him for sex later on, but it wasn’t that way at all, I swear. I don’t care about those kinds of things. DR. CHANDLER: What things? MICHAEL: The things they said about me in court, what they found on my computer. DR. CHANDLER: Tell the group about that. MICHAEL: After they arrested me, they came to my home and found some things on my computer, pictures of children, pornography. JEFFREY: Some, I bet. MICHAEL: I don’t care what you think Jeffrey. I swear, I didn’t realize how many pictures there were. I had a lot. I guess I just– I just like thinking about them, the boys. DR. CHANDLER: How do you think about them Michael? Do you fantasize about them sexually? Is that what you mean? MICHAEL: No, absolutely not. I’m not like that. I don’t know. DR. CHANDLER: How were things for you growing up, Michael? Did anything like this ever happen to you when you were a boy? MICHAEL: No, I don’t want to think about all that. Things are so hard for me right now. Thank god I’ve still got a job. I’m an account manager and my boss kept me on, even after I got arrested. I had to register as a sex offender. You have no idea what that means. I live with my mom. I’ve always lived with her and she’s so ashamed. Everyone knows about me. I can’t volunteer any more. They won’t let me. I’m not even allowed to go for a walk in the park with my dogs, swim in a public pool. It’s like I’ve got the plague and I did nothing wrong, really. It wasn’t dirty, what I did. I love that boy. JOHN: Can I go next doc? DR. CHANDLER: Sure John, go ahead. A Battle of Deviance: Session 1 © 2017-2021 Walden University, LLC 4 JOHN: I guess I should tell you all something about myself. I grew up in a pretty normal family, middle class, went to college, got a masters in counseling, and started working with men and women dealing with substance abuse. I had a very successful practice. DR. CHANDLER: John, before you get into all that, can you say a bit more about what it was like for you growing up? How would you describe yourself as a boy? JOHN: Well, I guess some would have called me a nerd. I was pretty awkward, a bit overweight, but I was also quite smart and the other kids were obviously jealous of me. DR. CHANDLER: How was your relationship with your father? JOHN: Ah, the old man. Well, he really wanted me to have girlfriends so he made sure I always looked good, had the best clothes. I’ll give him that, but I had a lot of trouble with the whole dating thing and he never forgave me for that. Truth was I liked boys more than girls, but my father would have killed himself before accepting that bit of news so I just kept that part of me secret. DR. CHANDLER: Did you have any relationships when you were a teen with either a boy or a girl? JOHN: No, I just hid from that part of my life, like I was afraid of it or something. I didn’t have an intimate relationship with anyone until I was in my mid-30s. JEFFREY: You missed the boat man. How did you keep from going crazy? JOHN: I don’t know. I guess I tried not thinking about it. I focused on school, and then on my job. As I said, I was exceptional in that regard. MICHAEL: So what are you doing here? You must have gotten in some kind of trouble. DR. CHANDLER: Tell us about that, John. JOHN: There were these two boys, they were both 13 and they lived down the block from me and we– we started hanging out together and this one day we were in the park and I don’t know. One of the boys and I, we just started making out right there on the bench, like we were kids, and then I got arrested. I told the cops all about it. DR. CHANDLER: All about what
- Select one of the four offenders in the group to focus your Discussion.
- Select one of the following theories that may help to explain the offender’s behavior:
- Biological theories
- Evolutionary theories
- Personality theories
- Cognitive theories
- Behavior theories
- Social Learning theories
- Finkelhor’s Precondition Model
- Marshall and Barbaree’s integrated theory
- Hall and Hirshman’s Quadripartite Model
- Ward and Siegart’s Pathways Model
- Malamuth’s Confluence Model
