Inside the Mind of a Sex Offender

On March 18, 2010, College Voice reporter Daniela Rocha conducted an interview with a 27 year old sex offender named Kurt Werner at the Adult Diagnostic and Treatment Center in Avenel, NJ. Werner volunteered to talk to the Voice in conjunction with an article on the fifteenth anniversary of New Jersey's landmark sex offender registry and notification law known as "Megan's Law."

The following is a transcript with video clips of the actual interview. Please use discretion as content includes descriptions of sexual violence.

VOICE: Why did you agree to do this interview today?

Werner: I felt that being that I am an inmate at a state facility, we really do not have a voice for ourselves, and I felt like this was the only way. Being that I am close to the door -I am getting out and being released- this was the only way to advocate for myself. [I want] to show that the process here does work; it works with every individual person. I think that this is my only opportunity to really show that, because there is a screening process that happens before you leave and the total outcome of that is pretty much taken by the Attorney General. She pretty much has the last say so on whether you go home or you get committed. I just feel like this is a chance for me to speak on my own behalf.

VOICE: Have you been through that process yet?

Werner: No. Not yet. That doesn't usually happen until one to two months from the door.

VOICE: You are due to be released in January?

Werner: Yes.

VOICE: What have you been convicted of?

Werner: Sexual assault. I molested my girlfriend's daughter.

VOICE: How old was she?

Werner: She was four.

VOICE: Tell me about your childhood and your teenage years?

Werner: I lived with my grandparents because my mother had physically and sexually abused me as a [young] child. I would see my father on the weekends and during the summer. My sister lived with my dad. My dad didn't have the money to raise me and my sister at the same time, so they thought it would be better for me to be raised by his parents, my grandparents.

From the age of eight to ten I was then molested by his wife's son. He was two years older then me. He molested both me and my sister. Being that I was raised by my grandparents when I used to go to school I would get picked on a lot. "Where's your mom at?" "Where's your dad at?" Typical things that other kids will say to hurt somebody's feelings. But it caused me to kind of push my grandparents away, even know they were there, they loved me and they cared for me. I pushed them right away because I didn't feel comfortable where I was at, and I chose to basically live on the streets and do whatever I could to fit in with the in crowd, the crowd that I thought was the party, just so I felt accepted. Drugs, alcohol, running around late at night, that was pretty much what I did for my teenage years. Then I got locked up at the age of 16 for a previous sex offense.

VOICE: You said you were molested by your mother. How old were you?

Werner: I was about the age of two.

VOICE: Do you remember that at all?

Werner: No.

VOICE: How did you find out?

Werner: I started asking questions about my mother, because I remember a specific incident when I was sitting at my grandmother's kitchen table doing some type of kindergarten or first grade work. I don't even remember it, but I remember a woman coming to my grandmother's front door and taking my sister. I asked "Who was that?" and my grandmother told me it was my mother. I wanted to get up and go see her. [My grandmother] told me I couldn't. So from that point on I just had a lot of questions but I didn't know how to go about asking.

When I turned about 14 I started asking a lot of questions. So my grandparents and my father sat me down and we talked about it and they gave me the court documents and the photos and [explained] what was actually done and what was said in court by everybody. That's how I found out about it.

VOICE: Did your mother serve time?

Werner: no.

VOICE: You were molested by your step-brother. How long did that last? Tell me what happened.

Werner: It was about a two year period, it happened from [when I was] the age 8 to 10. Because at the age of 10 my father divorced his wife after all of this was found out. My sister told on him.

I always wanted to hang out with him and his friends. One night I was watching T.V. with him and he put on an adult film, and we started watching it. I liked what I saw. It was arousing, but then he started playing with himself in front of me and eventually it led to him making me do things to him that I really didn't feel comfortable doing. But after I had done it the first time, I was allowed to hang out with him and his friends, and I felt accepted. So at that time I didn't know that what I was doing was wrong. So I continued to do it for about two years until my sister told on him and everything came to an end.

VOICE: How did your sister find out?

Werner: My sister was being molested too, by him.

VOICE: Was there ever an occasion in which you and your sister were molested at the same time?

Werner: No, he would molest my sister when I wasn't there.

VOICE: Did you know about it?

Werner: No, I didn't know about it until my sister told on him. I didn't know anything about it.

VOICE: When this came out, did you step up and say he is also molesting me?

Werner: No, I kept it to myself because I was scared of how I was going to be perceived as either a gay or homosexual person because my family kind of raised against it. But they are accepting. They know I am a bisexual person today and it doesn't bother them anymore.