You may have seen Brett Collins on the evening news of late. He’s the bloke who’s been standing outside Dennis Ferguson’s house defending the convicted pedophile’s right to stay in his apartment in the North Sydney suburb of Ryde. Today he tells Crikey why.
The State Government’s legislative solution to dealing with Dennis Ferguson demonstrates a spectacular dearth of leadership.
Instead of trying to deal permanently with the problem, which will recur not only with Ferguson but other child sex offenders released from prison, all they want is the media to go away.
Changing the law to deal with the immediate problem is playing straight into the hands of vigilantism and the sensational media outlets which have capitalized on the coffin and other media stunts which have given them centre stage in the debate.
There are many considered Ryde residents who are lending support to Ferguson, who abhor and feel ashamed of their vigilante neighbours. Yet their comments are not sought because it doesn’t feed the frenzied controversy.
Justice Action became involved in this issue because we see it as the pointy end of a much larger problem.
By whipping up hatred about child sex offenders, it’s easier then to cross the line to hating other offenders who have served their time and are trying to move on with their lives.
We believe Justice Action represents the views of hundreds of thousands of Australians who are appalled and embarrassed by this medieval lynch mob mentality happening in our midst. We have received hundreds of emails of support from around the country.
This issue is not going to go away. It is, in fact, providing a global stage for an issue we, as a society, are in denial about. The whole world is watching what happens here and will take its cue from it.
Monstering pedophiles who offend against children unknown to them deflects focus from the real problem. Intra-familial abuse accounts for 90-95 percent of child sexual abuse and yet Federal and State governments bury their heads in the sand when it comes to protecting children, or even investigating child sex offences within the family.
Justice Action is calling for a comprehensive public health response to child sexual abuse, which will address this issue.
Police involvement as a first step, deters families from dealing with the issue. A community public health treatment response is the only one which has achieved efficacy. Community run child sex offender treatment programs have the best recidivism rates in the world. Illustrating where we stand as a society, is the fact that the program with the best rate in Australia, of 2 percent, was defunded this year.
Refusing this service to families desperately seeking it, would be like refusing to implement AIDS prevention education and policies and expecting to deal effectively with HIV.
Dennis Ferguson may look like a child sex offender from central casting, but in reality, most offenders look like the person sitting in the next office or living in the house next door. They are not, unlike Ferguson, vision impaired with a facial tic.
Ferguson is being targeted, partly because of his disability. Where else have you seen such hostility towards a child sex offender?
Yet to his great credit, his actions are being informed by his desire to make a difference for other families and people going through similar problems. The stigma attached to this crime is worse than that associated with murder. Nobody knows that better than Dennis Ferguson.
This has to say something about our denial that one in four girls and one in seven boys will be sexually abused, 90 percent by somebody known to them, before they turn eighteen. If this was any other public health plague, we would be throwing all our resources at it, not targeting one carrier who brought it into the community 22 years ago.
Those in the community who are appalled by this uneducated response need to stand up, be counted and force the government to show leadership and responsibility by doing far more than bringing in a Dennis Ferguson Law.
Yes criminals of all types do need to live somewhere but I find it a bit rich to comment disdainfully about people’s reactions when they wake up and find that a convicted peadophile has been situated near children. I cannot see how I would react much differently if I had kids.
It seems like the ultimate N.I.M.B.Y. arguement
I believe the author was asked by one of the “medieval lynch mob” why he doesn’t have Mr Ferguson move in with him and his family, he didn’t reply. I dont think the article addressed this. I believe this is the most relevant point the author could make.
I ask the same question of anybody in relation to this problem. Would you put them up for a few nights?
I see it like the Michael Jackson conversation.
1st person: Michael was great, he wasn’t found guilty, leave him alone.
2nd person: Would you let him babysit your kids?
1st person:oh well…..
Amy, most of your response is irrelevant to the matter at hand.
What may or may not happen in America is not the issue here. What you and Collins appear to ignore is the genuine concern of parents and (dare I say it) law-abiding citizens in general.
There is no doubt that the Ferguson case has been exacerbated by the media. However, I’ve never seen anyone in Crikey complain when the SMH campaigns on behalf of inner-Sydney NIMBYs, so that particular element can be taken out of the equation.
There is a real feeling that successive governments have placed the interests of small pressure groups ahead of those of the populace as a whole. To some degree, this is a matter of perception, but in many cases (eg, the constant rolling out of crime statistics that purport to show that crime levels are falling), common sense tells Joe and Josephine Blow that their interests are simply being ignored by government and the public service.
How are they expected to think any differently when a government agency places a convicted paedophile in their community? This is not a matter of “Ferguson has to live somewhere”, but “why does he have to live next to me?”. This attitude is like that displayed by latte-sippers who campaign against high-rise or new train lines in their suburbs, with only one difference: the latte sippers are motivated by fears about their property values; the parents of Ryde are concerned about the safety of their children. Demonising them simply reinforces their feelings of alienation.
I think it’s a little disingenuous to be so outraged by community reactions to this man. Sensationalised media and redneck vigilantes aside, I do not find it in the least surprising that people do not want him living in their neighbourhood.
He has committed horrific crimes against children, he was caught, convicted, imprisoned and released. Then he did it again. Rightly or wrongly, public perception is that he is at high risk of repeating this behaviour and there would be something wrong with a society that didn’t act to deal with this perceived threat to its most vulnerable members.
I understand that he has some rights that should not be taken away, but rights are not something anyone has in isolation, we all have responsibilities that go with them. When Ferguson chose to abuse children – repeatedly – he made a choice that the vast majority of people find utterly abhorrent, this is a consequence he has to live with. How does it help him, or anyone else, to say that he shouldn’t have to? The consequences for criminal behaviour are not just legal; they are social, emotional, professional and financial. This is true for all of us, why should it not be true for him?
Finally, I think it is also disingenuous to suggest that “monstering paedophiles who offend against children unknown to them deflects focus from the real problem” as if men like Ferguson and Dolly Dunn are NOT a real problem – they most certainly are.
It is tragically true that many children are abused by people who know them, and teaching children and parents how to recognise and avoid these threats is absolutely something we should be doing, but this does NOT mean that we should ignore the threat of men like Ferguson, or allow him to become a danger to anyone else, in the name of protecting his rights.
And Amy: “an excellent article, and one that I think sums up the feelings of the majority of the community”.
Don’t ever presume to speak for me or for the “majority”. Speak for yourself.
I’ve never been interfered with by a paedophile, but I’ve lost money in corporate scams. I was hoping the Ferguson precedent would mean that the next focus might fall on convicted company directors once they are released from jail- I certainly don’t want them living near me in Double Bay.