| In late February 2003, Jeff Welch was tried and convicted of two counts of child molestation in Maricopa County, Arizona (Case No. CR2001-097224). In March 2003, Jeff Welch was also tried and convicted on child-pornography charges (Case No. CR2002-097527. He was sentenced to serve a total of 242 years in prison. |
My brother is a child molester, and I was one of his victims. For many years, I felt a sense of responsibility for his actions, because I did not take "every action possible" to stop him from molesting more children. Ultimately, he was convicted twice of child molestation, and in 1987 was sentenced to 10 years in Tennessee state prison. With credit for working and good behavior, my brother was scheduled for release in late March 1994.
Although I resolved many issues through therapy, I retained the same sense of responsibility for not speaking out about my brother when I suspected he was seeking out new victims. In addition, because my brother never obtained meaningful therapy, never expressed remorse for his actions, and continued to blame his victims, I strongly believed that my brother would re-offend after he was released, and I was worried that he intended to travel widely and eventually move to a new state where no one knew of his past. Because my brother's sentence was completed, he would not be subject to any supervision.
Ultimately, I decided that I wanted to publicize my brother's release from prison, in order to limit his opportunities to disappear into a new community and molest more children. By doing so, I hoped to protect children and increase the chances that my brother would be caught again before harming a large number of children. In addition, I wanted to discharge my own sense of responsibility for not speaking out earlier, even though I recognized that I not wrong to remain silent.
I spent many hours carefully drafting press releases and a "factual backgrounder" to send to the news media and police departments. I also compiled a list of newspapers and television stations in the cities where I knew or suspected my brother would visit, and the area where he had announced plans to live. Finally, I made 231 copies of my nine-page "press release kit" and mailed them on February 7, 1994 to the media outlets and police stations on my list. My total cost (excluding my time) was about $100.
Over the next few weeks, I began receiving many inquiries from newspaper and TV reporters, and then from TV talk shows and even a producer of TV "docu-drama" movies. I spent many more hours talking to the reporters and appearing on several local TV news and interview programs.
After the first news stories appeared, I began receiving telephone calls and letters from other survivors of child sexual abuse, and their family members and friends. Many of those callers found themselves in a situation similar to mine, with an offender scheduled for release to a community that would not know of his background. These people asked for my guidance on how to warn other parents and children about the threat posed by this offender's release.
After speaking with a number of people, I realized that most did not have a clear understanding of all of the issues that are involved in publicizing an offender's release, and finally I decided to write this article to address the issues I have encountered.
Please note that I am not an "expert" in any of the subjects I am writing about. I am just one person who has gone through this unusual experience, and who has wrestled with these issues for several years before making my decision. I am sure that a qualified therapist could add many comments and insights. Although I am an attorney, my specialty is estate planning, and I suspect that other attorneys with experience in this subject area could add more insight. Finally, while I spent several years as a journalist, I spent only one year working for a college daily newspaper before working for computer magazines, and thus an experienced newspaper, magazine, or television reporter or public relations expert could add more insight on the subject of publicity.
I considered the option of speaking out about my brother's sexual abuse of children for many years before I decided to do so. Sometimes I wanted to warn the parents or teachers of children Jeff was befriending, since I knew of his past but they did not. Sometimes I wanted to warn the children themselves. Sometimes I felt a desperate need to reject the "conspiracy of silence" that allowed my brother to continue molesting children while his victims and family members remained paralyzed. And sometimes I felt a need for simple revenge: my brother had hurt me in a way that made me feel damaged and ashamed, yet he did not seem to feel any pain and he enjoyed a "normal" life while I suffered for years.
Ultimately, I focused on two reasons to publicize my brother's release from prison, and I decided to focus carefully on those issues while I prepared the press releases and when I spoke to reporters.
The main reason, I concluded, was my own sense of responsibility for remaining silent, after I wasn adult, at times when I strongly suspected that my brother was molesting children. In part, my brother fueled this feeling by constantly telling me what he was doing: I felt sick when he told me how he was coaching little league, or working at a roller skating rink. In addition, I felt that I was continuing to participate in a "conspiracy of silence" with my family. Although I believe my sense of responsibility was probably misplaced, I wanted to discharge it once and for all.
My second reason for publicizing my brother's release was my strong belief that my brother would seek out new opportunities to molest children. I wanted to protect the children, and I knew that no one else would (or could) do what I could. I kept hearing the same pair of questions: "If not me, then who? If not now, then when?" And I felt that I wanted to take a positive action to protect children.
A. "Destroying" the Offender (Or Yourself).
At one time, many years ago, I thought that any publicity about my brother's history of sexually abusing children would have the immediate and absolute effect of destroying the lives of my brother, myself, and my family. In time, and through the help of an extraordinary therapist, I learned that the world is not so black and white.
As much as my own sense of rage makes me wish that I could make the whole world hate my brother -- even at the risk of ruining my own career -- I eventually realized that no matter what I did, most people wouldn't even care. In fact, even after my face appeared in front-page articles in two local newspapers and lead TV news stories on five different local TV stations, many people I know still aren't even aware of my actions to publicize my brother's release.
B. Stopping the Offender.
Sometimes, I fantasized that my efforts to publicize my brother's release would actually prevent him from offending again. He would be recognized everywhere he went, and no one would allow him to be near children.
In time, though, I realized that this was an impossible fantasy. First, even the best effort to publicize my brother's release would only reach a small fraction of the nation's population. Second, my brother is only one of many tens of thousands of child molesters in this country, and no parents or policemen could be expected to keep track of this one man.
While my efforts generated substantial local coverage in northern California, front-page stories in two Tennessee newspapers (where my brother is in prison), the coverage in Wisconsin (where he will visit for several weeks) was minor, and none of the newspapers or other media outlets in Arizona have even contacted me, although my brother expressed plans plans to move there. My efforts have generated some publicity, and many people (including law enforcement officials) will be watching for my brother, but they cannot devote much time to that task and my brother can still find many places to disappear.
C. Tracking the Offender to the Ends of the Earth.
For years, I felt as if I was being "dragged along" when my brother told me how he was coaching little league or working at a roller rink or pizza restaurant. I felt as if he wanted me to know he was molesting more children, and that there was nothing I could do to stop him. In response, I sometimes felt a desire to keep close track of him so I could catch him in the act and have him arrested.
But I am not my brother's keeper. It is not only not my responsibility to follow my brother everywhere he goes, or to hire people to do so, but taking on that role would be pretending that I could control my brother, or that my brother controlled my life. And of course, he eventually could find a way to disappear so I couldn't find him, and he could molest children, and I would then feel even more responsible because I failed to track him down before that happened.
D. Protecting Children.
For many years, I felt anguish that no one had protected me from my brother, and no one had protected other children. The result was a desire to protect children myself, to take some action to prevent one child from being molested by one offender.
This is a goal I knew I could achieve. By publicizing my brother's history of abusing children, I could make parents and children more aware of the issue. Already, people have told me how my publicity efforts have led them to have discussions within their family, and I strongly believe that increased awareness of child sexual abuse will lead to more protection of children.
On the other hand, I know that I cannot prevent my brother from seeking out a child who is not protected, or from befriending a family that isn't aware of his past. I had to recognize my own limitations, and accept that while I might protect some children from my brother, and perhaps from other offenders as well, I cannot protect all children.
E. Publicize Issue of Child Abuse.
In addition to protecting children, I hoped that publicizing my brother's release would spark more in-depth discussions of the problems involved in dealing with child sexual abuse. In this regard, I was fortunate that the "crime" theme is a hot topic in this election year, and many new laws have been proposed that focus on the issue of child sexual abuse. As a result, my press releases earned more coverage, and at the same time fueled more discussion about the proposed laws and the problems they sought to address.
Many reporters were surprised to learn that there was no meaningful therapy offered to my brother (or to most other prisoners), even though in-depth therapy was generally agreed to be the only effective way to reduce the potential for repeat offenses. The length of my brother's sentence and his complete lack of supervision after release also gained some attention.
After I decided that I wanted to publicize my brother's release, I believed it was important to consider the needs of other people who would be affected by the publicity.
A. Other Victims.
As a survivor of child sexual abuse, I recognize the wide-ranging effects that the abuse can have on a victim's life. I also recognize that many victims do not receive therapy, or wait many years to start therapy. Finally, I recognized that some people are more likely to become victims because of the nature of their existing family relationships.
I strongly believe that a survivor of abuse is the only person who can decide whether it is appropriate to publize the fact of the abuse. In addition, I have very strong reservations about whether a child can ever consent to publicity about his or her victimization, since a child (even more than an adult) may not understand the wide-ranging effects of the abuse and is much more likely to be subjected to embarassment or ridicule by insensitive peers. In addition, I strongly believe that a victim should have control of their own life, and that by publicizing the offender you may be wresting control away from the victim.
For many years, I have known the identities of several of my brother's victims, as well as many more children whom I suspected he abused. None of those victims' names appear in police reports or court files, and I do not intend to ever reveal those victims' names to anyone. But when I obtained a copy of my brother's court files, I was shocked to learn that the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of four child victims were in the public file in one county. (The other county had sealed the documents that identified the victims.) I was concerned that if I publicized my brother's release, some unscrupulous reporter might check the court file and then contact the victims or their families, creating new trauma for them. While I believed this was an unlikely event, I wrote to the judge and district attorney, asking that the file be sealed.
If you are considering publicizing the presence or release of an offender who molested his (or her) own family members, or if the identity of the victims could be easily determined by others once the offender's identity is known, you must carefully consider whether it is proper for you to proceed. The victim is entitled to decide whether she (or he) is willing to risk the stigma or general discomfort that would follow if people knew of the offense.
Even if the offense has already been publicized (at the time of trial) or even if the identity of the victim isn't known, consider how your new publicity efforts might be felt by the victim. In addition, even if you are a victim or one victim consents, consider the possibility that the same offender may have abused others in the family or community, or that others might wonder about abuse if the offender was close to other children.
Finally, you should consider whether it is appropriate to contact other victims or their families to discuss your plans. In my case, I have never had any contact with the other victims or their families, and I considered it unlikely that they would be identified by the news media. I decided that because I was the brother of the offender, it would be inappropriate for me to contact the other victims or their families. However I knew that they might be very uncomfortable to learn of my publicity efforts from a local newspaper headline, and I accepted that they might even be angry at my actions.
I don't have absolute answers to any of these questions, but I believe it is very important to consider them before taking action. In addition, you should recognize that some reporters and some members of the public may not be sensitive to these issues.
B. Family members.
When I decided to publicize my brother's history of sexual abuse and his pending release from prison, I knew that many members of my family (and other victims' families) would be uncomfortable. I made a point of calling my mother and each of my deceased father's brothers and sisters to tell them what I was doing. My mother strongly opposed the idea of publicizing my brother's release. My other relatives were uncomfortable, but understood the reasons for my actions.
I was concerned about several problems. First, I worried that some people might believe that it was the family's "fault" that my brother molested children, or might be upset to learn that family members did not warn them earlier. (In fact, only our immediate "nuclear family" knew of the abuse before my brother's imprisonment.) Second, I worried that neighbors would be upset to learn that my brother would be visiting relatives in Wisconsin, and might blame those relatives for putting their neighbor's children at risk.
Ultimately, I decided that my need to warn these communities about my brother outweighed the likely adverse reactions, and in fact it was my family's discomfort about discussing my brother's history that made me believe that they would be unable to act to warn or protect their own neighbors. I also strongly believed that my brother might try to molest children while he visited relatives.
I am unmarried, and I have no children. If you are married, or if you have children, you must also consider how they may be affected by your efforts. They may be uncomfortable or embarrassed, and their friends and peers may also have negative or mixed reactions.
Again, there is no "absolute" answer to these questions, but you should consider how your own family, the victims' families, and the offender's family will react to your efforts to publicize the offender. In addition, you should recognize that others may view those family members negatively, because they failed to discover the abuse earlier, or to warn or protect their family members or neighbors.
C. Your Community.
Some of the reporters I spoke with seemed to believe that the release of a child molester from prison without any supervision was an unusual event, and the result was that some news stories were slightly "sensational," as if my brother were somehow a unique risk.
I found this upsetting because I know that many child molesters are released from prison every single day, and my brother was unique only because I was stepping forward to alert certain communities that he was coming.
I worried that the approach taken by some reporters might lead some people to overreact or even panic; at the same time, I worried that by focusing on a single offender, the media might cause the public to let its guard down in the mistaken belief that the media would devote the same coverage to any other offender being released.
My only solution to these concerns was to respond to interview questions by addressing these issues when I could. However, I was cautious not to discourage an opportunity to publicize my brother's release or the problem of child abuse in general, so I did not over-emphasize the fact that my brother is just like the many other child molesters who are released from prison every day.
D. Offender.
As you consider the other people who may be affected by your publicity efforts, don't forget to consider the effect on the offender. While you obviously should not be concerned with protecting the offender from the negative effects of his own actions, you should consider the possibility that widespread publicity may cause the offender to flee the community (hence increasing the risk of re-offense, if some people in the the local community were already aware of the offense).
It is also possible that the publicity will simply fuel the offender's lack of self-worth or his belief that the world is against him (and hence that others are to blame for everything bad that happens to him, and he is not responsible). If so, the offender may be discouraged from seeking treatment that could help reduce his potential for re-offending.
Also, if the offender is driven out of the community by the publicity, or is prevented from getting a job (in which children would not be in danger), then the offender will not have the income necessary to pay restitution to the victim or to pay for the offender's own treatment.
Finally, it is possible that wide publicity may fuel a "vigilante" mentality that could lead someone to try to harm the offender. While you may not consider this a bad thing, you must recognize that the same type of people who think it is okay to harm child molesters may think it appropriate to harm other family members, or may harm others by mistake.
E. Other Victims/Other Offenders.
Many child victims hesitate to come forward to report abuse because they actually love the offender and they want the offender to get help, not prison time. This is especially true for incest victims.
You must recognize that your publicity efforts, and the community's reaction to these efforts, will be most closely watched by other victims and other offenders. If your efforts result in a strong backlash against offenders, or vigilante responses, then other victims may hesitate to report abuse by other offenders, fearing that the offenders would be harmed. In addition, other offenders may feel discouraged from seeking treatment.
I tried to keep these issues in mind as I drafted my press releases and as I responded to reporter's inquiries, in the hopes that my publicity efforts would lead more victims to come forward, and might even lead some offenders to seek treatment. Sometimes, this has meant holding back strong feelings or downplaying certain aspects of my brother's situation.
I am pleased that the reaction to my publicity efforts have been uniformly supportive, and I have received no crank phone calls and no threats from my brother or others. However, I believe that there are probably a few people in my community who believe that I was wrong to publicize this matter, and who think less of me. I don't worry about this now, but at one time it was the focal point of many nightmares.
A. Reaction of Offender.
My brother was violent and unfeeling when he sexually abused me, but I honestly do not believe that he will physically harm me because I have publicized his release from prison. He will be angry and resentful, and he may even blame me for all his future problems, but I do not consider it likely that he will try to harm me or kill me. In part, I believe this because my brother is intelligent and knows he would be the first suspect if any harm came to me; he also knows that nothing he does can undo the damage already done.
But some other child molesters are very violent and vengeful, and you must keep this in mind. Child molesters never want to accept responsibility for their own problems: they believe that they are in jail because a child or parent said something, because a police officer arrested them, or because the judge didn't like them -- not because they sexually abused a child.
In addition, the mind of a child molester (like any disturbed person) works in bizarre ways, and so you may need to consider other possibilities. For example, while I rarely worry that my brother will harm me personally, I do worry that he will seek to sexually abuse children in my community or in our extended family in order to "show me" that I couldn't stop him. And I have read accounts of other child molesters killing pets and even children of people they disliked.
Even if your offender does not seek to physically harm you, there is another possible consequence of his inability to accept blame for his own actions: he may seek to sue you for defamation or harrassment because he perceives that you are the cause of his problems. Even a frivolous lawsuit can cost many thousands of dollar to defend, and if you publicize claims that cannot be proven, you may actually face legal liability if the child molester can convince a judge or jury that you damaged him by causing false information to be published about him.
B. Reaction of community.
As I've discussed above, I also consider it important to consider the possible reaction of your community to your efforts to publicize a child molester. Depending on the type of community you live in and your past involvement in the community, you may find a wide range of reactions.
Without a doubt, many people will be uncomfortable. They won't know what to say, and they might not even know how they really feel. Keep in mind that a very large fraction of the population (ranging from one-fourth to one-tenth) has suffered sexual abuse as a child, and most people never seek to resolve their feelings about the abuse through any type of counseling. Therefore, they are uncomfortable talking about any abuse. In addition, our society has long believed that this is an "unspeakable" subject, and that programming is hard to resist even for people who want to support and encourage you.
Some people may react to your reports, or your reasons for publicizing the offender, with disbelief. This is especially true if the offender continues to deny any offense, claims that it was the victim's fault, or is a respected member of the community.
Since you are speaking about an unspeakable act, it is possible that some people will conclude that you're crazy. This is especially true if they know that you have gone through therapy and the offender has not, or if you are highly emotional about the subject (which is appropriate) but the offender is not (because he is a sociopath).
However, I think it's important to point out that no one has reacted to me with disbelief or accused me of being crazy. While I have encountered some discomfort, the overwhelming majority of people who mention the publicity to me are very supportive and describe my actions as "courageous" or "heroic."
In fact, the only negative reactions have come from a few family members who do not wish to acknowledge that my brother is a child molester, and who blame me for making the matter public, even though I have shielded them from being subjects of the publicity. Even there, however, I feel more empowered by the amount of support and acceptance from other relatives, and I have actually felt somewhat pleased to learn which members of my family simply do not want to acknowledge my brother's crimes.
Once you decide to take some action to publicize the offender, you must decide what your immediate goals are, and the best way to achieve those goals.
My main goals were to discharge my own sense of responsibility arising from my brother's continued reports about his plans and activities, and to protect children. My method was to send press releases to the media and police departments in those cities where my brother either told me he was travelling, or was likely to visit because of relatives or past experience.
One person called me because she wanted to warn neighborhood children and parents about the offender's pending release back into the same community. She wanted to post flyers in her neighborhood with the name and picture of the offender.
One caller was concerned that some friends and family members did not believe that the offender (schedule for release from jail) was guilty. She feared they would allow the offender access to their children, or would faily to alert neighbors about the offender's background. She wanted to meet with these friends and family members to provide them with additional information that she had not previously shared. (From my vague description, you might wonder whether people who didn't believe the prior victims would now believe this woman, but I agreed that the information she had previously withheld would probably convince anyone with an open mind.)
These different approaches are appropriate for the stated goals, but it is important to recognize that once the offender knew where the publicity had spread, he could relocate to another area and continue his activities. In the third example,
As I prepared my press releases, I spent many hours carefully revising them to focus the issue on my brother's release, his long history of abuse, and the fact that he was coming to visit the community where I was sending the release.
I worried constantly that some reporters or editors might decide that I was just a "kook," and would discard the releases. To avoid this, I made the releases look very professional.
I worried that editors would worry about defamation suits, and so I provided detailed references so that reporters could review court files and check prison records to confirm my information.
I also worried that because many child molesters are released from prison every day and my brother's case is not unusual, the only "unique" aspect about my brother's release was the fact that his own brother was warning others about the release. I did not want to be the focal point of a news story, but I recognized that it was likely that I would be and that this might be the only way to publicize my brother's release.
As I noted in the prior paragraph, I recognized that I would probably be a part of the news stories that were published, because my publicity efforts were the "angle" that made my brother's release unusual. Even if I had not been a major part of some news reports, I could hardly hide from the news because my brother and I share the same last name.
If you are considering making anonymous reports to the news media or police, you must recognize that your report will probably not receive much attention unless you provide information that can be confirmed.
In addition, you must recognize that news media will require some unique "hook" or "angle" to justify publishing information.
I have now appeared on several local TV news shows. For the first news reports, the TV crews came to my office to film the interview, but two other stations required me to come to their studio. I had to decide how much time and energy to devote to these efforts, and ultimately I spent about 15 to 20 hours per week for several weeks, just talking to the news media.
Several weeks after I started my publicity efforts, I received a telephone call from a national network television "news magazine" program. The producer was concerned that I would be unable to provide enough visual material for the show, and wanted to discuss the story with my mother. I strongly suspected that any such conversation would not only be very disturbing to my mother, who was already upset about my publicity efforts, but would probably be secretly recorded for later broadcast. I advised the producer that my mother had chosen not to participate in the publicity efforts, and I refused to provide her name, location, or telephone number. The producer then said that without my mother's cooperation, they could not run a story. Because I had considered this possibility in advance, I refused, and I therefore gave up an opportunity for national publicity regarding my brother's release.
I also received a call from the producer of a national TV talk show, and I had to consider whether I could take several days out of my schedule to fly east to appear on the show. While they offered to pay my expenses, I was concerned that I was spending too much time on the publicity efforts and I was being distracted from my career.
I have also been asked by several reporters to provide details about the abuse by my brother. In some interviews, I responded with varying levels of detail. In other interviews, I declined to provide details, because I felt that it was inappropriate in the context of the particular interview. I am sure that other survivors will have different views about talking about their own abuse.
While most reporters were extremely polite and usually apologized in advance when asking sensitive questions, some of the reporters and some of the questions were simply out of bounds, and I had to politely decline to answer. It is important that you define your own firm boundaries before talking to a reporter, not only to protect information you want kept confidential, but also to avoid additional stress.
Here are links to two of the newspaper articles that resulted, as well as a link to the full text of the press releases I mailed in February 1994.
Current bio and photo of Mark J. Welch
Please read the following "form reply" before you write to me:
This is a "form letter" which I send in reply to email about these issues.quadrivalentI am responding to your inquiry regarding child molestation, sex offenders, and/or "Megan's Law."I get 10 to 20 email messages every week on this subject, in addition to more than 500 other email messages per week that demand my attention. Due to time constraints, I simply cannot devote adequate time to reviewing and replying to these messages individually. In addition, I have moved on in my life and I do not wish to spend more time and energy discussing my brother.
Everything I have to say about this subject is posted in my essay (linked from http://www.ca-probate.com/molestpr.htm and http://www.markwelch.com/molestpr.htm) and I am not interested in expanding on that information any further. I wrote that essay in the spring of 1994 and I have not updated it since then. I have had no contact with my brother since his release from prison, and I am not certain of his whereabouts (although I believe he moved to Arizona).
I do wish to share any thoughts or comments about "Megan's Law," community notification, or other efforts to register or publicize sex offenders.
I do not have time to reply to students working on papers about this subject, nor will I respond to reporters.
I thank you for your comments and support, and I wish you luck in your efforts.
-- Mark J. Welch
