At www.spdbooks.org and other booksellers (ISBN: 9780982734377)
The unforgettable book
A PARALLEL UNIVERSE
WHAT
REVIEWERS
SAY:'As a former federal prosecutor, I thought I knew something about sex offenders and sex-crime laws, but this book showed me I'd been taken in.'
—Art Campbell
'After reading
"A Parallel Universe,"... anyone who still thinks that by electing an African-American president we have adequately redressed burning civil rights issues will be thoroughly disabused of the idea.'
— Tomás Gayton
'Speaking with two separate voices, Landon and Halleck inform the reader by citing case histories and legal doctrine ... While we ponder the facts, the reader is slowly introduced to a poignant story of a young man who suddenly must withstand a barrage of injustices.'
— Sandra Waterkotte
'...explores the powerful forces behind the enactment of the reactionary laws that we see on a daily basis.'
— Jackie Crowle
Two tales of public folly and personal devastation
By Alex Landon and Elaine Halleck
In this genre-busting morality tale, two authors take the reader on two unexpected journeys — unexpected because they oppose vast and vague perceptions that are themselves embraced with moral fervor.
The timeline of both the fictional and nonfictional story begins in 2000 and traverses a fearful decade. The "millennium bug" doesn't materialize, but the 9/11 attacks do, bringing a stampede of apocalyptic horsemen — disease scares, economic malaise, a senseless war and simmering racism.
The setting of both tales is mostly California, said to be the future of the world. Here, helicopters pursuing "illegal aliens," scrambling jet fighters, and black towers beaming Amber alerts preside over 14-lane freeways. This landscape is convulsed from time to time by abductions of photogenic youngsters — rare tragedies that are crafted into media tsunamis bringing in their wake “designer laws” that ultimately make things worse.
The landscape is highlighted by a snapshot: a blond Sunday school teacher stares at a computer, her hand covering her mouth, while a sheriff shows her “Megan’s list,” a database profiling one out of every 135 California men — which could include a teenager caught with his underage girlfriend, or a man who took a leak in a field near the Mexican border. Outside the photo frame are those who enabled it: politicians molding misinformation into images starring themselves as saviors. “An average sex offender, in their lifetime, commits 360 sex offenses," claims one.
Thus is created a class of men who live in fear of a knock on the door, don’t get jobs and are driven from their homes. One is Danny Fernandez, a single father who clings to the American dream even as a witch hunt exiles him into a parallel universe where principles enshrined in that dream are ignored.About the authors: Alex Landon is an attorney specializing in criminal law. He is a professor at the University of San Diego School of Law; past president of California Attorneys for Criminal Justice and the San Diego Criminal Defense Bar Association; and former Executive Director of the Defenders Program of San Diego, Inc. Elaine Halleck is a journalist. She has contributed to publications including the (Detroit) Metro Times, the Tokyo Journal, the Sacramento News and Review and the Guadalajara Reporter.
***REVIEWS
From San Diego Union Tribune, Dec. 18, 2011 by John Wilkens:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/dec/18/book-takes-on-designer-anti-crime-laws/*
By Art Campbell, Law Professor, Author "Trial and Error: The Education of A Freedom Lawyer"
One of the nation's top attorneys has teamed with a novelist to cast light on the stunning realities of our country's sex-offender laws. Interweaving law with personal lives by writing alternate chapters, Landon (the lawyer) and Halleck (the novelist), reveal the "parallel universe" of sex-crime legislation and enforcement. What makes this universe parallel to, instead of part of, reality is its utter irrationality. The authors reveal its origins in myths, made-up statistics, and political demagoguery, its enormous cost, its beneficiaries, and its devastating distraction from effective law-enforcement. As a former federal prosecutor, I thought I knew something about sex offenders and sex-crime laws, but this book showed me I'd been taken in by misleading reports in mass media and baseless pronouncements by "experts." Taxpayers, law-abiding citizens, and victims of crime should read this book and join the growing ranks of realistic reformers who are puncturing the puffed-up paper tiger from the "parallel universe."
*
By Tomás Gayton, Civil Rights Attorney, in National Lawyers Guild publication, October, 2011
Civil rights and criminal defense attorneys are well aware of the erosion of our civil liberties and the devolution of the criminal justice system into the prison-industrial complex. But after reading "A Parallel Universe" by Alex Landon and Elaine Halleck, anyone who still thinks that by electing an African-American president we have adequately redressed these burning civil rights issues will be thoroughly disabused of the idea.
Attorney Alex Landon teaches at the University of San Diego and has battled for many years for justice in the criminal courts of San Diego, and journalist Elaine Halleck has reported on social dynamics in contemporary society and in Nazi Germany. Together, in alternating nonfiction and fiction (based on facts) chapters, they treat the hot-potato issue of sex offenses and laws — the authors call them "designer laws" — that were named after the victims of gruesome sex crimes, such as laws passed after the summer of 2002, dubbed "The Summer of the Abducted White Girl."
The alternating chapters by Landon and Halleck, although they closely parallel one another and partly explain the title, will challenge some readers because of the mix of genres. And the book maybe be generally challenging because so many have been deceived by fear-mongering politicians to believe that designer laws (Megan's Law, Jessica's Law, etc.) actually protect children. So people suffer a false sense of security, while convicted people live in a parallel universe where they are not protected by principles that others take for granted.
Landon describes how the forces of fear have mutated those who were once described as "Mentally Disordered Sex Offenders" to "Sexually Violent Predators," "pervs, perps and peds." We now have a system where the Hippocratic Oath has mutated into "police-affiliated therapists" who are not troubled by the lack of voluntary consent or doctor-patient confidentiality in their "sex therapy sessions" because they profit from the public financing of this charade. The abuses are well described in Halleck's chapters, with one convicted man saaying he'd rather be in prison than in "therapy."
Landon explains the larger constitutional issues involved in some U.S. Supreme Court decisions, such as the 2002 decision, McKune v. Lile, that"put another bullet in the already badly maimed body of convicted people's rights," in this case the protection against self-incrimination, and the 2003 decision that gave the green light for Megan's list to go on the Internet. (Landon's factoids in Chapter 3 that one out of every 135 California men are on Megan's list and, in Chapter 23, that, per Jessica's law, the annual cost of GPS tracking for all sex offenders would cost $1.05 billion are illuminating.)
Halleck's fictional chapters present a Mexican-American family in Orange County — from the POVs of a convicted man named Danny Fernandez, his mother and daughter — who are suffering the effects of Danny's blacklisting under Megan's law, such as housing discrimination, hate incidents and vigilantism.
The "parallel universe" into which Danny and the "surfing fool" sex offender Michel are exiled is certainly not a pleasant place to visit, even from an armchair. But Danny's mother, daughter and Michel interject lighter notes that engender empathy and smiles.
In conclusion the authors ask the reader "if the 'parallel universe' where precious rights are scarce and where tax money disappears into a dark hole, has grown too large to take on." Implicit in the question is the challenge to 21st century Americans to take action before the new Jim Crow and sex crime juggernaut wake us up to a financially ruined police state.
*
From Criminal Defense (a publication of the San Diego Criminal Defense Bar Association and the Criminal Defense Lawyers Club) www.sddefense.org By Jackie Crowle, president
The new book A Parallel Universe is a bold and fascinating look at designer sex laws and their impact on the lives of people in our community. Co-authored by criminal defense attorney Alex Landon and journalist Elaine Halleck, the book alternates chapters of non-fiction and fiction in looking at “a story of tragedies.”
Alex's chapters describe the historical roots of sex offender laws, and the American penchant for using the tragedies of abducted and murdered girls to enact harsher and more restrictive legislation. He looks Jessica’s Law, Megan’s Law, Amber’s Law, and Chelsea’s Law. He explores the powerful forces behind enactment of the reactionary laws that we see on a daily basis. He describes how what he calls the “Summer of the Abducted White Girl” has become the prime motivator behind the new sex offender laws. The book is packed with well researched facts and detail, yet it is concise and readable for the lawyer and non-lawyer alike.
Each chapter reflects the theme of the book: how sensational cases, public fear, public hysteria, pseudo science, psychology, political grandstanding, and economic factors like the prison industry have combined to create increasingly draconian laws supposedly meant to protect children by targeting sex offenders. If this sounds complex and multi-faceted, it is. There are no simple causes, and no simple answers. Alex covers such diverse topics as the penile plethysmograph, therapists’ mandated reporting, Oprah Winfrey, and police stings involving fictitious “children” in chat rooms.
Elaine adds stories about affected individuals. Her chapters recount the effects of designer sex laws on men, women, and children who lead ordinary lives. She tells of families stigmatized by sex offender databases. She tells of social ostracism and homelessness. She tells of Chicano families and Anglo families.
Her characters are mothers, sons, daughters, fathers. Some are fearful, driven by the sensationalism of the crime headlines that pervade their lives. Some are obsessed, seeing sexual predators on every corner. Some ponder how an erosion of human rights has occurred. Some, especially the children, are confused. Some ask questions, others spout venom or repeat what they hear. Religion and racism play their parts too. Elaine captures the emotions of our times in the stories she tells. She shows the very real consequences of designer laws on mainstream America.
The co-authors weave the fiction and non-fiction to fulfill their promise of “Tales of Public Folly and Personal Devastation.” The book has a strong political point of view, which in my opinion makes it shine. Its message: the cookie cutter laws designed to protect children are not accomplishing their objectives, but rather are imposing lifetime incarceration and public vilification of individuals. Yet, this book does more than just preach to the choir. It provides us with a deeper understanding of how these laws came into existence. It demonstrates how the laws utterly fail to differentiate between a one-time offender from decades ago and a serial pedophile. It gives us the ammunition we need to speak out not just in court, but in the political arena. While its fictional conclusion may be a bit contrived, the research done and the care shown in the writing make this a “must read.”
If this educational reading piques your interest, take a look at Russell Banks’ newest novel "Lost Memory of Skin"—the story of “The Kid”, a registered sex offender. One reviewer says the story goes beyond the plight of the individual to our “troubled society where zero tolerance has erased any hope of subtlety or compassion — a society where isolating the offender has perhaps created a new kind of victim.” While lurid novels detailing the horrors of stranger abduction and child victimization abound, new books with a more nuanced perspective are welcome.
*
By Sandy Waterkotte
A Parallel Universe offers a unique approach that blends story-telling with reporting. This book doesn’t fit neatly into any category: It is a novel, textbook, editorial, a narrative taken from headlines, a primer on the American legal system, a manual on how the American legal system can be overwhelmed by the fears we seek to quiet, a treatise on family bonds, and a thoughtful exposé of an issue that has captivated Americans for the past decade. This book educates the reader about the scary societal questions surrounding the fate of accused or convicted sexual predators — real and imagined — and the hysteria that fuels the system that deals with them. A Parallel Universe poses the questions we all should be asking.
Speaking with two voices, Halleck and Landon inform the reader by citing case histories and legal doctrine, never talking over our heads, as they ask questions about what should be important to all of us. While we ponder the facts, we are slowly introduced to a poignant story of a young man who suddenly must withstand a barrage of injustices that he’s not equipped to understand — or to compete against. That story is brought to us through the eyes of a woman who begins to ask questions about things that many of us have failed to consider. We too often assume that what’s legal must be what’s right. What if that isn’t the case?
A Parallel Universe should facilitate an important public discourse about how our system deals with an issue that no one wants to debate. Like anything else in America today, this issue is many-sided. The reader can’t help but face questions that touch on racism, public policy, our complex system of government, social agencies overloaded and often uncaring, and our need to prioritize what truly matters. You’ve heard “read it and weep”…?
***
The authors talk about writing the book in two videos:
