PERSONHOOD DEVELOPMENT CENTER OF CALIFORNIA
Personhood Development Center of California is a non-profit tax-exempt public charity created to provide a community re-entry program for convicted sex offenders on parole with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Its officers are all adult survivors of sexual abuse. Local sexual assault prevention organizations and women's groups have been invited to appoint advisors to help guide our efforts in the community. Victim Recovery groups will be encouraged to draw from our human resources if they wish to use them in their programs.
Through a counseling program based on the "Ten Commandments for the Recovering Sex Offender" listed on the Recovery Resources page of this website, individuals convicted of a sex offense will be given the means to avoid becoming either a repeat or more serious offender. A drop-in counseling program and participation in a community reconciliation and healing project will be offered as supplements. By using such evidence-based methods, recidivist studies show that re-offending can be reduced by almost 90%. One result is that the number of parolees needing extra supervision is smaller, which conserves corrections resources for other tasks.
While the parolees will remain under the supervision of the Parole authority, counseling will be offered by Personhood board members who are survivors of sexual abuse, certified as a Victim/Offender Mediation Dialogue Specialist or trained in a relapse prevention discipline successfully used for almost twenty years now.
Since we are non-profit, overhead and staff compensation remain our only costs: less than those paid by other organizations doing similar work and far less than the cost of not counseling these individuals and then having to prosecute those who re-offend, to say nothing of the emotional costs to their additional victims. For these reasons, donations in cash or kind will be appreciated and fully tax-deductible. Funds donated should be made payable to Personhood Development Center of California and sent to our office at 765 Geary Street, # 409, San Francisco, CA 94109. A receipt will be signed and mailed by our treasurer.
As this is not a 'sex offender housing program' of any kind, but only a re-entry effort, this project will not add to the number of convicted sex offenders returning, but only make them safer to be here.
For additional information or speakers, e-mail jake@personhooddevelopmentcenter.org
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