The persuasive FCCC brainwashing equation

xi3nao3 xi3 = to wash + nao3 = brain Word root derived from the Chinese (Mandarin) English definition of Brainwashing: 1. Intensive, usu. political indoctrination aimed at changing a person's basic convictions and attitudes and replacing them with a fixed and unquestionable set of beliefs. 2. Indoctrination or persuasion by advertising or salesmanship. 
 The Persuasive FCCC Brainwashing Equation A Different Type of Treatment Presented By Jimmy Pesci 
 This is a non-fiction account of a native New Yorker who fled to the State of Florida (Key West) to avoid being sent back to prison on a State parole violation that would undoubtedly trigger his arrest for a misdemeanor sex charge. I know that this is a true story because I am the subject himself. I had only 90 days left on my parole at that point. Completing that parole was a dream I anxiously waited to become a reality from the very day I received a sentence of eight and one third to twenty five years nearly two decades beforehand.[1] I served a conventional uninterrupted twelve long and hard years inside some of New York's most notorious maximum security prisons such as Attica,[2] Auburn and Clinton; just to name a few of the ones I literally grew up in and earned my convict wings at. This was followed by eight years' worth of countless technical parole violations, with no more than a year in the real world. This nightmare begins in Mid-May of 1996 while in beautiful Key West, Florida. I met a female tourist from Michigan who was on her final night of a two week vacation. After several drinks in various popular watering holes, the record reflects that she invited me to her hotel room for additional drinks and there was no question that sex was a sure thing, since we kissed and made out in the bars and walking down Duval street, which is the main drag of Key West. While in her hotel room we drank more potent cocktails, smoked some marijuana and had sex both in the room, in the warm waters of the Atlantic Ocean and on the beachside pier of her hotel.[3] It was during these interludes that I confided her with details about my life in New York, the fact that I was a convicted criminal and was currently dodging a technical parole violation for a misdemeanor sex offense to which I was guilty of.[4] Since it was her last day of a two week vacation, I had agreed to spend the night with her and see her off to the airport for her 11:00 A.M. flight back to Michigan. Intoxicated, I fell asleep around three in the morning. The next thing I knew, the lights were on when I opened my eyes to her poking me, belligerently insisting that I vacate her room immediately. It wasn't like she could not recall the previous evening with me, because she was calling me by my first name. Still half intoxicated with a minor hangover, if that sounds right, I pulled the sheets over my head and called her a few vulgar names that any woman would detest being called. When I heard her threaten to run out of the room into the parking lot naked and scream rape, I figured it was a bluff, but it was enough to make me bolt up into a sitting position. It was then that she grasped at my face and scratched my eye. When I engaged her, she screamed and attempted to run towards the door of the room. Alarmed and undoubtedly as frightened as she was, I aggressively forced her back and a violent struggle ensured. There is no question that the skirmish was rough and the assault I inflicted on her became excessive. After all, I could have just complied with her demand, got dressed and walked out of the room. Nevertheless, this confrontation had absolutely nothing to do with a sexual assault or attack. I definitely was not going to chance some crazed woman running out into the parking lot naked screaming rape while I was naked in the room waiting for police to arrive. Let's face it, do you really think for a New York minute that the police would take the word of a convicted felon from New York who just happened to be running from a misdemeanor sex crime and parole violation? After calming her down she cleverly misled me to believe that she regained her senses and her tantrum subsided. Following a lengthy conversation with her, I was stupid enough to agree to go to the store for cigarettes and coffee, accepting her rental car keys so that the trip would be expedited. Hence, when I was returning and neared close proximity of the hotel, you can imagine what was racing through my brain as I spied the parking lot filled with police cars with emergency lights still flashing, I panicked. I also knew that I could not return to the scene lest I wanted to go directly to jail. As a matter of fact, my primary mission was getting rid of the vehicle and getting as far away as possible. I knew I was in trouble. I also was cognitive that eventually my prints would come back under my real name[5] and that I would be a fugitive. It's like I told her before I reluctantly departed the room, after asking me how she could be certain I was going to return: my fingerprints were all over the suite, my DNA was inside her and she had a camera with undeveloped film which contained countless pictures of me and her and other tourists; ones that we had taken of each other as we were partying the previous evening. I never left the island, I simply hid on it until darkness, somehow believing that the night would allow me the cover to miraculously get off string of islands and buy myself more time and freedom. No pun intended.[6] Allow me to fast forward two years of me being detained at the Monroe county jail waiting for trial. I was obstinate about not accepting any type of agreement and plead guilty to something that I did not do. Besides, I adamantly felt certain that I could prove my innocence through various witnesses that the police had initially interviewed standing by itself. Both me and my court appointed attorney felt confident that I would be acquitted of the sexual battery. We did, however, speculate the possibility that I would be found not guilty of the robbery and grand theft auto. Only because we weren't so surefire that the jury would (or could) digest certain portions of the story. For instance, how I ended up with her rental car, came in possession of some heirloom jewelry and (even thought I could not possibly cash it) a traveler's check for one hundred dollars that was made out in her name. She gave me those items as insurance that she would not call the police and make up some crazy story that would send me back to prison, in Florida, no less. This dilemma was compounded with the fact and fear that the prosecutors were threatening to sentence me to consecutive maximum years permitted by law if I dared take the case to trial and was convicted even of the lesser included offenses of grand theft auto and robbery. It was around this time, while in the lock down unit of the jail, that I met and became a close confidante of another high profile inmate in the jail that I would later learn, by his own admission, was a serial killer.[7] This individual, whose name is [redacted], began confiding things in me with the hope that he might persuade me to run to law enforcement investigators with various details about these bizarre homicides that he was being charged with. Details, he ingeniously knew were ones that only the actual killer would know. He also told me about other gruesome crimes, including unsolved homicides, that he committed by himself in the Florida Keys and the State of Georgia. According to his logic, talking to investigators would make prosecutors offer me a deal and place the much needed reasonable doubt in his future jury's minds. These jurors would, at worst, spare him the death penalty, at least in the event that he was found guilty. His stories became so incredible and horrific that I confided the details to a female chaplain at the jail, a wonderful woman named Judy, whose husband also ran the operations of the jail I was housed in. Judy became to know me well and we talked almost every day. Therefore, it wasn't difficult for her to sense that something was troubling me. When she asked me about it, I told her there was no way I could tell her because she would tell her husband and I would really be in a compromising position. I ended up confiding the details after she promised me she would not do that. I was totally freaked out about these stories, specifically the lack of empathy, the apparent joy this killer demonstrated in a homicide he committed on a married couple. After creeping through home of this sleeping couple, he first knocked out, bound and gagged the husband. He then strangled him to death. The wife was clearly eight months pregnant at the time of the homicide. He then bound, sexually assaulted and strangled the female victim. When he told me that he felt the baby kicking afterwards and made no attempt to save it, this is what made me eventually over ride all the concerns about assisting the State with a death penalty case. To make a long story short, Judy was so freaked out about the details that her own husband sensed the changes in her demeanor and was concerned that something was wrong with their marriage. Thus, she confided the details to her husband who in turn was encouraging her to convince me to speak with law enforcement agents. After careful contemplation, I did just that. The details that [redacted] shared with me, I later learned, were so precise that investigators had to conduct an intensive background check on me to rule out the possibility that I was the killer or the codefendant of the killer. Weeks later the agents called me back out to reveal these facts to me. According to these investigators, they were totally convinced that I was not part of these crimes after learning that I was in prison in New York during the homicides in question. I would become the star witness of this case, next to the overwhelming DNA evidence that indicated that he was the killer. This included being an important witness in some other unsolved homicides that law enforcement agents now had absolutely no doubts this individual committed and nearly got away with. The fact that I became a State witness created other problems. First of all, the moment that my court appointed attorney heard about me speaking with investigators, he went through the ceiling with anger, telling me how stupid I was. Primarily because had I allowed him to negotiate the cooperation, he probably could have gotten me out of jail and/or a mere couple of years in State prison. But my cooperation wasn't about making any deals. It was a spiritual matter. This became something so overwhelming that I needed to trust God with the outcome. Ultimately, this also pretty much gave me no other reasonable alternative but to accept a plea agreement with the State regarding my own pending criminal charges. They refused to dismiss the sex case, which was the one charge that I was most concerned about since I was completely innocent of it and it was the one to which I faced the most punishment for. Despite the fact that they now had their own doubts about my guilt of the rape charge, they did not want to provide me with any deal in fear that the killer's jury would be led to believe that I cooperated only because the state gave me a deal that I could not refuse. The best they would do is reduce the sexual battery charge to sexually battery without physical force. As ridiculous as that sounds, it is a lesser include offense, one that is offered to individuals who might prevail if the case went to a jury trial. The way it was explained to me was that I would be conceding to the fact that she may have been too intoxicated to give me legal consent for sexual intercourse. I accepted this deal with the stipulation that the State would not argue for more than seven years, followed by five years of probation. The State also assisted me in obtaining an interstate compact for my protection and I was eventually accepted in the prison system in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Three years into that prison term, Florida became just another State in the Union that passed and retroactively applied a law which targeted sex offenders for Involuntary Civil Commitment. They called this law the Jimmy Ryce Act, named after a poor young boy who was abducted, sexually assaulted and murdered in the suburbs of Miami, Florida. This law allows the State to keep sex offenders locked up in secure facilities indefinitely for so called long term care, control and treatment. This, no matter what they say, is a potential life sentence. To have the law translated for the layman; it's not based on the crimes that I committed in the past. It is all about the (sex) crimes that I might commit sometime in the future. Ironically, this law sounds almost identical to what the United States Government subjects to suspected terrorists who are detained and held indefinitely at Gitmo.[8] They are not there for any crimes that they committed. They become labeled as suspected terrorists who pose a threat to the National Security of the United States. When my release date arrived, The State of Florida recalled me from a Commonwealth of Virginia maximum security prison. Thinking I was going to be released and have a second chance at life living in Florida with my then fiancé. Once in Florida's custody, I was immediately evaluated by two State psychologists as the Ryce Act requires. One of those psychologists had the opinion that I met the criteria to be held as a sexually violent predator. The second psychologist, a female, opined that I did not meet criteria. This split decision, although rare, required my file to be sent to the headquarters of the Sexually Violent Predator program in Tallahassee, Florida to be reviewed by the multidisciplinary team at the Department of Children and Families. They decided that I did, after all, meet the criteria and filed a petition for me to be held under the Act at the Florida Civil Commitment Center. These recommendations are then forwarded to the State Attorney's office in the County that you were convicted in. It is that State prosecutor who has the final say to release you or hold you for trial under the Act. After five long years at the Florida Civil Commitment Center waiting for my trial, I was finally tried by a six member jury. After an exhausting three day trial, with twenty minutes of deliberations, the verdict was for commitment. Needless to say, my attorney was broadsided and I, of course, was devastated. Under normal circumstances, once you are committed, it is in your best interests to immediately sign into the treatment program because it becomes the only possibility of being released sometime in the future. I had a problem with that. Why wouldn't I, when I honestly did not commit any violent sex crime, no sex crime whatsoever, in Florida? It took me four years to exhaust all my appeals right up to Florida's Supreme Court. It was only then that I allowed close associates to convince me to play the game and consent to treatment.[9] It only took me a year of this so called treatment to realize that it was nothing more than being brainwashed. I would like the opportunity to elaborate on that here. One day not so long ago, I stopped at the cube of someone I needed to confer with here at the Florida Civil Commitment Center where approximately 685 men are held either as detainees or residents.[10] There was a large calendar taped to the side of his foot locker with an upper page depicting the nation's Capital building, with a beautiful garden with a magnificent assortment of flowers in the forefront. I commented that the Capitol looked impressive and made reference to the magnitude of power it contained over our collective captivity. The owner of the calendar chuckled at me and interjected that I must have lost my mind, because the picture was not the Capital building, but that of the White House. It was my turn to hoot. Because as I pointed out to him, the White House did not have a white dome, with several windows on its side that represented floors and offices, mounted on the top center of its roof. He begged me off, not wanting to debate it with me any further, especially when it was his calendar and he knew his history and such important landmarks that dot Washington; such as this one. Despite the fact that I felt confident I was right, I asked three other people I knew in my dorm that would know the correct answer and attest to the fact that I was indeed correct. Incredibly, all three independently reverberated that the White House did indeed have a white dome sitting on its roof. It was only then that I began to question myself, wondering if age was beginning to take its toll on my gray matter, and I could be incorrect after all. Even though I have viewed pictures of the White House on hundreds of occasions throughout my life and those two historic landmarks were burned in my memory like gold plates, I still wondered if he was right. Fortunately, only a few days afterwards, while watching the world news on television, the news anchor was providing viewers with some Presidential issue when it featured a picture of the White House in the background. To my relief, there was no dome situated on its roof. This didn't, however, assuage my regret that I had allowed four different people to lead me to question my own knowledge. I equated this experience to the very topic that I am writing about: the human brain, human beings and how we can easily allow ourselves to be manipulated by outside input that interferes with how we form our thoughts and process our information. At least to the degree where it effects what we believe is right and what we perceive to be wrong. What we know to be true or untrue. What is mythical and what is factual. What is truth and what is a lie. What is confidence and what is confusion. My intentions are to reference other examples of how similar experiences have shaped our thoughts and subdued the mind via the clinical treatment modules that are implemented here at FCCC by the Geo Corporation and the State's Department of Children & Families expectations. So you all mind as well dismiss that old adage of getting what you pay for. Additionally, I will explore how these organizations have used the so-called treatment component to make us believe something that isn't necessarily true about ourselves. It has, however, deeply affected how we think about ourselves, which, in this case, ultimately and unwittingly brainwashes us to believe that we are all dangerous sexually violent predators who pose a threat to the community, which ultimately justifies our need for the treatment that only they can claim to be able to offer us; so that we can eventually be regurgitated back into society as cured as can be. This is a program that will, or so they made many of us believe, heals us of any existing or preexisting sexual deviant behavior, personality disorders and character defects, including our criminal thinking. A sort of sexual healing, mind you. I should know, because they nearly made me believe the same thing about myself after nearly eleven years of resisting their so-called treatment. So, based on that foundation of experience, allow me to be more persuasive with the facts, as evidenced on such a profound costly personal knowledge, which shapes this thesis as easy as gold. Let me approach the roots of this tedious adventure by admitting that, for years I resisted treatment here at the Florida Civil Commitment Center. For the first five years that I had to endure just waiting for this costly trial, I felt self-confident that there was no way that a Florida Court could or would, find that I met the criteria as a Sexually Violent Predator, especially someone who was being accused of posing an immediate threat to the community and commit me for long term care, control and treatment. However, when l was finally tried and committed, I was beside myself to learn that it wasn't just the sex crime that I pled guilty to that caused this commitment. It was a twenty year criminal history back in my home State of New York that did it. It is important to note that not an iota of those crimes had anything to do with sex whatsoever. Furthermore, let us not forget that when I was testifying for the State as a star witness in the triple homicide case, I was the greatest guy in the world whose word was as good as gospel, as far as the prosecutor's office was concerned. The two psychologist's subcontracted by the State's Department of Children & Families who were dispatched to the prison I was soon to be released from dissected my as much of my entire life as possible. First, through a personal face to face interview with me. Then by scrutinizing my files and speaking with as many members of my family and friends as possible. From day one, I realized how morally and legally wrong it was for me, or anyone else for that matter, to be detained on the day of release from prison like this. Especially me, after serving the lawful five years that I was sentenced to after pleading guilty to crimes - one of which was a sexual battery without physical force charge that I honestly was not guilty of - just to satisfy the docket and bring the legal nightmare to an end. Furthermore, to be accepted into this treatment plan, I had to sign a consent form, cautiously admitting that I desired this treatment because I needed it.[11] It took me four years after being committed to finally consent to treatment. Without exaggeration, within the first year of participation, I began to realize that this whole scheme was nothing short of a brainwashing technique. Not only that, but it also was more about the supervising agency, the Department of Children & Families, to look good. In retrospect, it was the subcontracting agency, the infamous private, for profit Geo Corporation, who was in this business just to make money. Although I did not permit the clinical teams to control me, I did witness them consume other men that had endured treatment and were in the program much longer than me. These are the individuals, no matter what their sex crimes were, that succumbed to the notion that they were indeed sexually violent predators who, would more than likely commit additional sex crimes sometime in the future. I discovered how simple it became for the weak ones to get caught up in this hypnotic state, believing what their captors were insisting they were. They condition these men to accept these diagnoses as gospel, a sort of torqued and tweaked Stockholm syndrome by manipulating their own Bible, better known as the DSM-IV-R.[12] There comes a time, somewhere in this legal quagmire, when we forget that the whole process to which we are forced to endure remains wrong and has been from the very genesis of it. Like me, if we have the misfortune to lose at these Ryce trials, these unpredictable verdicts are not easy to get overturned in the appellate courts. We generally resign to the fact that the only way, at least the quickest way, that we are going to get out of here alive, at least one of the ways, is to consent and complete treatment.[13] Most men with any common sense will jump through that hoop and play the game in order to make freedom a possibility. Yet, somewhere in that process, we tend to become vulnerable to feeling that we do have some issues and that we are sexually violent predators who require the silver bullet to make us better again. That's when the brainwashing commences to take its toll. Like stranded human beings on distant islands, who want to believe that they will be rescued, we begin to talk the treatment lingo, come to feel that we do have personality disorders, mental abnormalities and are truly a danger to the community without this clinical mirage jingled before our eyes. Yet, how many of the men here just simply play the game? After all, if some of us are genuinely textbook DSM-IV-Revised psychopaths, it would simplify our abilities to play this game, gracefully articulate the lingo, execute the script, and come to master it. This, coupled by the dexterity to identify cognitive distortions, sexual thoughts and fantasies, these so-called thinking errors would make our communities a much safer place? There are those of us who can master that game and beat the polygraphs they administer with such talent that we would be worthy of Academy Awards. They call this Hollywood. At this point of my predicament, I was progressing in treatment well and confident that I would soar my way through the four phrase treatment module in record time; which as noted earlier, would require a minimum of four years.[14] First I completed the MRT group (Moral Recognition Therapy) and Thinking For a Change class, followed by the TRY (Treatment Readiness for You) group, that make up the first phrase of treatment before graduating into the Disclosure/Discover 2.1-2.2 phrase of treatment.[15] I ended up in a relatively seasoned group with a good facilitator, who was an actual psychologist with a Doctorate's Degree. I was fortunate because this was an already advanced group with a combination of well-balanced group members. I did not necessarily believe in the program and certainly did not consider myself a Sexually Violent Predator who posed a risk to the community, however; not by a long shot. There came a time when FCCC was making some adjustments, which are common here, in the treatment regimen. This particular one gave pink slips to clinicians who did not hold certain degrees. The administration also downsized the groups and created new ones, with some fresh clinicians, into smaller groups. I ended up in one of these groups, with a new clinician and a small but aggressive group of individuals. I knew that this would bring new challenges for me and I was looking forward to them. As it turned out, it became evident that this new clinician wasn't taking control of the group, nor acquiring the group member's respect because she simply lost control of the group by not establishing group rules and conduct; a consequence of not applying her training that has devastating outcomes in the long run. I wasn't comfortable with men being allowed to make jokes about past victims or presentations involving violent sex attacks, sexual preferences and other highly sensitive background information. Nor was I going to tolerate it when I was taking my treatment seriously. Therefore, I filed a complaint with the Clinical Director, and requested a staffing so that I could be considered for a group change. To my astonishment, the Assistant Facility Administrator for Operations, Dr. Donald Sawyer, returned a communication to me in which I had previously complained about the unfairness shown towards men who attempted to acquire job assignments. (This was non-treatment related). This administrator responded by telling me that I was wrong and this unfairness was not being practiced any longer now that he held the position of AFA for Operations. In this communication, he had the audacity to suggest that I focus on my own personal problems and treatment issues. Disappointed that he would ignore the problem and have the nerve to tell me that I was wrong, I wrote him another communication assuring him that not only was I was right, but I would prove it. He, in turn, responded that my concerns were "noted" and that he was referring my complaints to my Clinical team to address my "grievant thinking". My complaint to the Clinical Director about my group was already filed at this time. I was provided with a staffing;[16] where all the clinical team members attend, me included. Furthermore, I am given the option of presenting my version to the complaint. Instead of attempting to find a solution, these clinicians suggested that it was all in my head, that I was resisting treatment, that I was exhibiting "grievant thinking", "thinking errors" and perhaps I was simply apprehensive about having to present the adult block of my life, that was extensive, further alluding to the possibility that I was trying to run away from appropriately addressing these problem areas. I could not believe what I was hearing. Afterwards, I filed my official appeal to the clinical director, who was not present at the first staffing attended. Yet, she was present in the second staffing that was held without me. Incredibly, when she returned my complaint, she noted that she forwarded it to my team leader for review and appropriate action. I advised my team leader that I was not going to torment myself by returning to the group and hoped that my group would be switched, as other men have been switched to other groups by request. To my astonishment, my team leader, who I had a good working relationship with, called me into her office and advised me that a staffing was held the previous day (without my presence) and that it was decided that because of my "grievance thinking" (ironically, the same word the AFA of Operations used about my complaints), thinking errors and cognitive distortions, I was being phased down from 2.1-2.2 Disclosure/Discovery group to the very beginning of the treatment program, Moral Recognition (MRT) group. It was noted that this action was being taken because of my complaints against staff and negative newsletters that I circulate about staff members. (I had not published a negative newsletter about staff and the facility for over a year, since the Executive Director deemed my monthly blog, "Duck Soup" contraband). Here's the memo verbatim, as written, so they claim, by my clinician, the one I was complaining about, dated May 09, 2012: 
 Mr. Pesci we would like to extend to you a chance to continue to progress with your treatment at the Florida Civil Commitment Center (FCCC). You have advised your treatment team that you will not be returning to your assigned Phase II Disclosure group at your own discretion. However, you have an extensive and at times brutal offense history. As well as, documented and exhibited use of grievance thinking as evidenced by your history of complaints concerning staff members, and circulation of provocative newsletters. Thus, we are placing you back into the group, Thinking for a Change (T4C), to assist you with reexamining the thinking errors that are hindering your treatment compliance and would impact your behavior in society in the future. [Emphasis added] We want you to do well at FCCC and achieve maximum treatment benefit but your continued use of grievance thinking and negativity will hamper your treatment progress. [Now doesn't this sound like a brainwashing technique?] We strongly encourage you to complete T4C. Thank you, Ms. Epps, M.A. 
 Now, first things first. I knew that this new clinician, Epps, did not write this memo because I know her style of writing and her level of intelligence. The fact that the "grievance thinking" term was referenced again made me suspect that this was the doing of the AFA of Operations, Dr. Donald Sawyer, and the "thinking error" statement being used by him as well. When my Clinician, Ms. Epps, called me out to give this to me, she brought a male clinician in the room with us for delivery confirmation or her apparent fear that I would snap, I can only surmise. When I read it, I had to make note that she failed to place her signature to authenticate the document, which she did upon my request. Then I had to take it to my actual team leader, Lynn McNamara, to sign it as well making the document as official as it would get until I got it entered as an exhibit in Federal Court someday. When I asked her who dictated the memo for Epps, she made it clear that it was someone else, but that it did not matter who that person was. This memo made me aware of the fact on how they try to make you think a certain way, even when you are thinking logically. Besides, should writing complaints about staff and publishing a newsletter that just happens to be critical towards my keepers be reason for me to be punished? Can I not participate in the treatment I'm being provided and still be normal by voicing or articulating legitimate complaints to Tallahassee, the Department of Children & Families, the Governor, news organization, the FBI or the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, or any other agency I chose to communicate with!? My First and Fourteen Amendment Rights on this issue have already been stomped on by this Administration shutting down my monthly blog, Duck Soup, by convincing the Federal Courts that it posed a security threat to the safe operations of the facility, based on Federal rulings on prison security concerns. Does this mean that they will stop me next from filing grievances, write other articles or from initiating litigation in State and Federal Courts for relief? This action and all the possibilities become chilling, to say the least. So, is my thesis about the treatment program offered here at the Florida Civil Commitment Center being a method of brainwashing that suppresses logical thoughts, opinions and feelings incorrect? And if my readers are in agreement with me, does this mean that they too are mentally ill with grievance thinking, thinking errors or cognitive distortions as well? Does this make all my supporters of Duck Soup and many of my other articles threats to the security of the facility or make them equally out of touch with reality, as my captors would like to suggest they do? Does having the courage to fight and desire to shut down a corporate giant like the Geo Corporation that makes millions of dollars a year in profits off the misery of patients, residents, or inmates, whatever you chose to call us, wrong? Should someone who does this as courageously as I do be punished for speaking up for my Rights and all the injustices I witness around me on a daily basis? Does that give them more evidence to prove that I may be sicker than a servant of modern day Civil Rights reform? In retrospect, I'm not saying that there aren't useful lessons to be learned in the treatment modules that are offered here at the Florida Civil Commitment Center. Because, let's face it, anyone can benefit by learning things about a particular topic that might better themselves and their outlook on life. If any of us detained or committed here at the Florida Civil Commitment Center have clinically exhibited psychological shortcomings, let's send them to the appropriate mental health institutions for some genuine treatment that they deserve. Especially, as should be the case in these costly SVP trials and witch hunts, they do not possess volitional control of their sexual deviances the United States Supreme Court has ruled[17] they must exhibit before being indefinitely committed under those standards. There is nothing you or anyone else can tell me that will convince me that the Involuntary Civil Commitment scheme implemented anywhere in the Nation is right or legally sound any other way. Furthermore, if we are serious about the concerns that convicted sex offenders may be released from prison only to re-offend sexually somewhere in the future, let's start addressing that issue while they are in prison serving their punitive sentences so that this concern will not create such paranoia in our society. This argument has been rephrased and articulated and written about over and over using an assortment of different premises to make it sound accurate. There is no use beating a dead horse, as the adage goes. It's not my intent to spin it in just another sort of direction. I'm addressing issues that are within the very core of the Florida Civil Commitment Center. It's the techniques that are used in these sex offender treatment groups that worry me the most. For instance, in phase 2.1 of the program is called disclosure. This is where the individual is expected and encouraged, sometimes coaxed or tricked, into revealing as much about himself as possible. He is expected to write about portions of his life, which are called age blocks: i.e.: From Birth to age 12. Then 12 to 17, then 18 to Present with as much detail as possible, including any and all sexual experiences he encountered. There are such things called "decisions chains" that make you focus on the behaviors you demonstrated like still frames of videos. Before each group session starts, there is what is called a "check in", where each individual is asked about his day and if there are any issues that need to be "processed" by the group. Towards the end of the sessions, which, at FCCC, can last anywhere from three to four hours, there is what is called feedback. This is where each group member gives positive or negative feedback to whoever presented that particular day. The wise group members never offer anything negative, as most of the session is noted by the supervising clinician in the room. This would include notes of anyone who may not be offering anything of therapeutic value, someone who may have nodded off for a few moments or anything else that the therapist choses to note (or not note) in an individual's clinical files. The second portion of the next phrase is 2.2 that is called Discovery, which is relatively self-explanatory. The group member begins to discover things about his behaviors, especially of a sexual nature, based on all that he has chosen to disclose. There are many participants who will report past sexual behaviors that are not part of the record or that he had never been arrested for. Many do this because they fear failing future polygraphs. Some only reveal so much, just enough to make it appear that he is coming totally clean with the group. The theory and expectation is the deeper one delves into his treatment, the more that is revealed, disclosed and discovered. Although this writer has not made it to the higher stages of treatment, I am fully aware of many of the things that go on in the more advanced groups per high stage group members who confide things in me as a writer who they hope will reveal the truth of the treatment program here. In higher stages of treatment, these men are required to make collages, using pictures cut out of outdated magazines to depict their past and present lives. There is no disputing that there are those that are so into their treatment that they develop complete confidence in their groups and facilitators. Yet, just when their group members and facilitators come to trust them and believe that are being honest and forthright, passing polygraphs that are routinely administered, they become stunned to learn that the subject was searched and found to be in possession of adult or child pornography. This behavior generally gets them phrased down with other contracts that are assigned to them to atone for this transgression. Since this is just a brief summary to give the reader an idea about what really goes on in the Florida Civil Commitment Center and the treatment groups, space does not allow me to elaborate on everything in this article. There are countless horror stories that could be included otherwise. Like men who are in high stages of treatment, who have invested as much of themselves as humanly possible, only to be given a polygraph and learning that they failed. Some of these men are so brainwashed that they are convinced that there is something they are hiding. What could be more frustrating? I, for one, have been victimized by this senseless law and let me tell you how. First of all. As I established at the beginning of this article, I did not commit the index sex offense that I ended up accepting a plea agreement for. Because of the fact that, during my pending criminal case, I became a State's witness in a triple homicide, I was literally forced me to enter into a plea negotiation with the State that required me to plead guilty to a reduced sex offense that I was sentenced to five years for. As a matter of fact, Florida's Involuntary Civil Commitment Law was not in effect at the time yet. Believe me you; had I known that I could be subjected to this Jimmy Ryce law, I would have never accepted the plea in the first place. To add injury to insult, when the law went into effect it was retroactively applied; meaning anyone being released from the Florida Department of Corrections with a sex crime anywhere in their backgrounds would be subjected to evaluations to determine whether or not they met the criteria. The legislative intent that passed this law was initially supposed to target the "worst of the worst". Yet, thousands of sex offenders with cases that would outdo the ones of those currently held at the Florida Civil Commitment Center are released every year from the Florida Department of Corrections. These doctors that are subcontracted by the State conduct face to face evaluations to make these assessments and show a pattern of selectiveness in those they decide to free and those they elect to capture. In my case, there was a split decision. One State doctor claimed I met criteria and the other claimed that I did not meet the criteria. Thus, my case was automatically forwarded to the multidisciplinary team. This team is comprised of five psychologists who review the case and usually always refer the individual as an SVP without making any further investigations. The multidisciplinary team than forwards that recommendation to the State Attorney's office of the County you were initially convicted in and it's those prosecutors who make the final decision to prosecute the matter or not process the case at all. I do not know of one case that has ever been declined for prosecution. Although I have met only one other guy at the Florida Civil Commitment who I feel is genuinely innocent of the sex crime that brought him here, there is no question in my mind that there are others. Just as we have learned that many men convicted of crimes, some on our Nation's death row sites, who were completely innocent the entire time. I'm specifically referring to those who were falsely accused of sex crimes in their criminal convictions. This doesn't mean that I feel that what we are doing to sex offenders is right. Because, let's face it, if anyone remains a threat to the community, they should have never been released from prison in the first place. It's a shame that the greatest Nation in the world has found a way to circumvent our Constitution to indefinitely incarcerate men who have completed their lawful prison terms for crimes they might commit in the future. In reality, every man that is currently being detained or has been committed to the Florida Civil Commitment Center is nothing more than corporate chattel. The only reasonable solution to this problem is to shut down the Florida Civil Commitment Center and place a sex offender treatment program back into the Department of Corrections so that the offender can receive the treatment while serving his lawful criminal sentence. The millions of dollars that would be saved should be spent on educating our children, constructing more schools, hiring more teachers and upgrading our social services and law enforcement deficiencies. In conclusion, the fact of the matter is that each and every one of us here has already served our prison sentences for the crimes that we have committed. Therefore, the Florida Civil Commitment Center should not even exist. 
 [1] Three years later I prevailed in an appeal that attacked my sentence. This resulted in a re-sentencing that reduced my sentence to six and two third years to a maximum of twenty years. [2] When I was transferred to Attica (1977) I was the youngest inmate in that prison at the time. [3] This was verified from witness accounts including the alleged victim through police reports and depositions. [4] The actual charges were sex abuse and indecent exposure. [5] My birth name is [redacted]. [6] When I came out of hiding at nightfall, within ten minutes of walking down a busy street, I was stopped and arrested. The police had the developed the film in the camera that had photographs of me on it. [7] I was placed in solitary confinement as a high profile prisoner based on the severity of the alleged crime. [8] The same can be said about what happened to women during the Salem witch hunts and what the United States did to Japanese-Americans during war time by placing them in internment camps, as they called it. [9] "Play the Game" is an important statement, because even these men, who progressed into high stages of treatment, confided in me that they "beat" polygraphs, other intense testing and non-disclosure of various crimes that they committed and never revealed to their therapists. The "fake it to make it" adage. [10] The difference between a detainee and a resident is that the first is awaiting trial and the latter already has been tried and found to meet criteria as a Sexually Violent Predator. [11] I know of cases where men have submitted their requests for treatment, only to be humiliated further by the request being rejected. The individual would be asked to rewrite his request to either sound more convincing or to specifically admit that he is a Sexually Violent Predator in need of treatment. [12] Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Revised, Fourth Edition. [13] In general, the earliest one can complete the four phrase program is four to five years. [14] Committed residents are provided with annual reviews of their cases. However, one must demonstrate that his condition has so changed that he no longer poses a threat to the community. In that case, this would be enough probable cause to trigger a bench trial in front of the judge that presided over the SVP trial. Very few releases are ever granted in lieu of this. In many instances, it's just a question of what county your case is in. [15] This phrase takes anywhere from 12-18 months to complete depending on the facilitator of the group. [16] A staffing can be held for progress purposes or to be given consequences for not making progress. In this case, I had requested the staffing to address the problems inherent in my group involving my clinician. [17] Kansas v. Crane, 534 U.S. 407, 122 S. Ct. 867, 151 L. Ed. 2d 856 (2002)