These are some of the questions that author Jake Goldenflame answers in OVERCOMING SEXUAL TERORRISM: 40 Ways to Protect Your Children from Sexual Predators (Xlibris, 2004).
Drawing from the sex offenders he has met and walked the prison yard with, therapists, corrections officials and former victims of sexual abuse, he speaks as one who has been there. Molested as a child by a convicted sex offender, as he tells in the book, he grew up to become one himself, went to prison where he sought and received help and has never re-offended since coming out almost 15 years ago. Interviewed by Oprah, People Magazine, USA Today and all the networks and cable channels, as well as by media throughout the English-speaking world, he is now a champion of sex offender reform and helps former victims to heal.
How can a sex offender change? What makes them become sex offenders in the first place? What steps can all prisons take to make sure other offenders do as well? Step-by-step, he shows you how to use Megan’s Law to turn your neighborhood into a sheltering fortress that will protect all of its children, while leaving a way open for those former offenders who really want to have a healthier life.
Other topics include how to guard your loved ones from rapists and child molesters, child prostitution and incest. How to protect yourself and your family from repeat sex offenders who move in nearby. How to spot tomorrow’s sexual predator before he even grows up.
He lists forty steps every parent or child care-provider could take to make children safer from sexual predators: on the street, in the Chat rooms, in youth organizations and everywhere else.
Telltale signs of an incest marriage and what you could do to rescue the children trapped there. How you could help stop child prostitution. How the United States Supreme Court now unwittingly discourages sex offenders from seeking help while in prison.
He examines religion, to ask whether it can help the sex offender who wants to recover. He asks whether someone can go so far into evil that there is no way they can make it back.
Finally he answers the question of why there will always be sex offenders, why castration or locking them all up won’t work and what you could do to get more effective laws passed. An 8-step path to neighborhood safety and how to serve as a volunteer to police and community corrections agencies concludes the last chapter.
The forty ways are then summarized, followed by a bibliography, and a rich list of reader’s resources including useful websites, referral organizations and other books that can be of help.
Asked how he would summarize this book in one sentence, the author replied, "How to prevent every parent’s worst nightmare."
