It’s been over a year since Out Of The Closet and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation moved out of the yellow building on the corner of Church and Duboce, and finally, a new tenant has emerged. Sharper Future, an outpatient clinic which helps rehabilitate individuals who have been convicted of sex crimes, will be moving into the 7,400 square foot space at the end of this month. Full Article
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San Francisco Jan. 21, 2016: Sex Offender Rehab Center Moving To Former ‘Out Of The Closet’ Space
Overall a good article.
http://hoodline.com/2016/01/sex-offender-rehab-center-moving-to-former-out-of-the-closet
Sharper Future, an outpatient clinic which helps rehabilitate individuals who have been convicted of sex crimes, will be moving into the 7,400 square foot space at the end of this month. Co-founder Dr. Tom Tobin states “some of them have committed their offense 30+ years ago. Research says that anyone who has lived offense-free in the community for 15 years has a risk of reoffending no different from any person on the streets.” Someone has also started a change.org petition to stop this move.
Supervisor Weiner put a halt on this until further community outreach is done.
The neighborhood outreach hearing for this clinic might be a good opportunity for interested folks in the Bay Area (including counselors) to educate the public about sex offender issues.
Supervisor Wiener Asks For Hold On Duboce Sex Offender Clinic
http://sfist.com/2016/01/25/supervisor_wiener_seeks_pause_for_p.php
After reading all the complaints from the residents about needles and crime in that Area, I feel the people going to that Clinic should be the ones complaining and not the residents.
If it’s information the residents of Duboce Triangle want, then it’s information they’ll get. I posted a comment to the article to bust the myths supported by links of credible, documented sources. Here’s hoping they become a little more enlightened and a lot less of a NIMBY.
I feel badly Sharper Future (SF) and Tom Tobin are seen in favorable light. SF forced me to sign a dizzying amount of complicated paperwork that foreclosed me of many constitutional rights. SF requires so-called “clients” to foreclose the tenant of client-therapist confidentiality allegedly important in Psychology. Parole officers are entitled to everything told to a SF ‘clinician,’ many of whom are unpaid/unlicensed/inexperienced people (SF clinicians have not been clear on this). SF intimidated through use of unscientific polygraph exams administered by a jerk polygrapher. SF relies on the Static-99/R — which is far from accurate. I have seen people harmed, more than helped, by Tobin’s unfair business practices. As a Registered Citizen, I fear “Dr.” Tobin may be acting more to protect business interests. Mr. Tobin: Actions speak louder than words. When you run a ‘training site’ business, holding multi-million dollar CDCR contracts, whilst serving as Vice Chair of CASOMB, I don’t think I should feel shame!!
Tom Tobin’s CASOMB wants a “tiered” registry. But a tiered registry will require lifetime registration based on one’s Static-99/R score. See “A Better Path to Community Safety: Tiering Background Paper,” CASOMB (2014), at 7 [any person with a Static-99R score of “6” or above, regardless if crime is non-violent or violent, required to register for life]. Contrary to Tobin, the Static-99R is inaccurate. See Shoba Sreenivasan, “Alice in actuarial-land: through the looking glass self of changing Static-99 norms,” J. Am. Acad. Psychiatry L. (2010); also Peter Aldhous, “These 10 Questions Can Mean Life Behind Bars,” BuzzFeed News, Apr. 22, 2015. Tom Tobin is NOT a man of science. Tobin’s Sharper Future program intimidates disclosure through unscientific polygraph exams. Tobin’s Sharper Future has no confidentiality; it is waived under threat of parole revocation, as “clients” are forced to sign many confusing pages waiving one’s Rights. Tom Tobin masquerades as a so-called “Psychologist.” IMHO, he is anything but.
Sharper Future = Tom Tobin’s Corrupt Cash Cow = CDCR’s Clever Method To Circumvent Constitutional Rights = Scam. Sharper Future is nothing more than psychologists and therapists, who supervise UNLICENSED interns, used to carry out the oppression of CDCR. The Sharper Future psychologists and therapists are people who have sold out from the tenents of confidentiality and trust. CDCR — and its agents — is/are entitled to EVERYTHING said at Sharper Future. Thus, people who work at Sharper Future are frauds, most of whom too numb to comprehend the corrupt and dirty “treatment” they perform. They have sold out to corruption. My opinion: In a just world, Sharper Future psychologists and therapists should lose their licenses for intimidating through the unscientific polygraph, as well as non-confidentiality (alone). The upshot to this travesty is more profit and power for Tobin (who I consider a true villain, veiled in fake kindness). This is my opinion. Take it for what it’s worth (it seems many would agree).
The Containment Model propaganda (peddled by Tom Tobin) intends to make the Sharper Future scam seem legitimate than it is. The so-called “Containment Meetings” serve to boost egos of parole officers seeking to impress arrogant supervisors. The fake personalities of Sharper Future employees are showcased at said Containment Meetings. During the week, they play your advocate. At the Containment Meeting, Sharper Future scam artists are no longer on your side; they psychopathically play middlemen. Sharper Future fraud therapists are NOT your advocates (despite what they tell you). Then they expect “clients” to trust them? Sharper Future is a scam. And employees of Sharper Future are sell outs to CDCR corruption and oppression! Horrible people.
Sharper Future is a division of Pacific Forensic Psychology Associates. I am suspicious of any professional who has an employment history with Sharper Future. I consider history and/or association with Sharper Future and/or Tom Tobin a black mark, a red flag, if you will. This company and its owner has done much harm to Registered Citizens. They have no respect to the sanctity of evidence-based treatment. Like others say, polygraph, the Static-99 scam, and no confidentiality are crazy practices that Tom Tobin and his illegitimate company have no problem subjecting people to. It speaks volumes to the character, or lack there of, of Sharper Future workers and their Dear Leader, CASOMB Vice Chair: MR. Tom Tobin.
I will NOT support Sharper Future opening its location not because of sex offenders, but because of what Tom Tobin & Sharper Future stand for: corruption, questionable profiteering, unscientific practices, and the prison industrial complex. Sadly, Sharper Future robots are peddling a CHANGE.ORG petition. (Not only has Tobin managed to pervert “treatment,” but Tobin has also managed to pervert change.org.) Of course, the true intent is not to educate the public of sex offenders — but to open more Sharper Future locations to inflate Tobin’s fat, corrupt, wallet filled with blood money. Tom Tobin is a phony; he does not represent the values of psychology. Sharper Future is a scam. I can’t believe that with the protections of the Constitution, and APA ethics, Sharper Future continues business. In a just society, free of corruption, Sharper Future would be shut down. And Tobin would be barred from clinical practice for his lifetime (i.e. revoke Tom Tobin’s license)! I agree: Tom Tobin reminds me of a villain.
no one talks about the lie detector examiner. why does sharper future contract big jerks to conduct polygraph exams? at the same time, i am guessing these big jerks are profiting from tom tobin’s scheme. it’s like a money tree where we are all free for picking. what made me uncomfortable was when the clinicians work closely with the fraud polygraph examiner. do the sharper future people ACTUALLY believe that stuff is real science?? it’s just sick to see alleged mental health experts at sharper future push the polygraph scam that the american psychological association considers psychological torture (look it up yourself), as well as inaccurate (a perspective shared with the more conservative american medical association). thus, sharper future therapists who use polygraphs to extract disclosures are venturing on a slippery slope in which “clients” are treated more like experiments labeled by an inaccurate static-99 score. good job tobin. /sarcasm
My opinion: Sharper Future is built to maximize profit. Sharper Future is a “training site.” Thus, Tobin is able to use essentially free or low-cost labor of inexperienced interns. The intern is “supervised” by a staff clinician. Sharper Future staff clinicians/therapists are sell outs who have prostituted themselves from the basic tenets of psychology (i.e. no confidentiality, disingenuous trust, questionable evidence-based treatment). Between the intern, staff clinician, A-hole polygraph examiner scam artist (note: capital ‘A’), and parole officer, the “client” is placed in a twisted predicament, as he had signed a long and intimidating contract, under threat of parole revocation, giving up many Rights. Do you see what is wrong with Tom Tobin and his Sharper Future business model? Tom Tobin’s business, Sharper Future, holds CDCR sex offender “treatment” contracts worth millions of dollars. Tom Tobin is also Vice Chair of CASOMB. I wonder how Sharper Future got its contract$? Hmmm…
my bfs been at sharper future for a few yrs now. they are so inconsiderate with his work schedule. they switched his group around so many times. he had to go twice instead of one time a week because he is “high risk?” he isn’t high risk!!!! he made a dumb mistake when he was 22. its been 10 yrs since! ive learned its cause of the static score mentioned above. so a score can predict my bf’s future? plus why does sharper future make my bf take the lie detector so many times? and why does sharper future have any business knowing what my bf and i do when we are intimate? months back my bf told his sharper future therapist that we watched a dirty movie together. well, his therapist told his parole officer and his p.o. harassed ME for it! then my bf who has not been in trouble for many years was threatened with jail time for a LEGAL dirty movie! i dont believe therapy should be a free for all for parole officers to use against some one. when i read about this tom tobin con man i get so upset.
How outrageous! This issue of opening another Sharper Future isn’t about sex offenders as Tobin and many seem to portray it as. This is about building Tobin’s business! There are so many Sharper Future locations opening than there are Amendments to the Constitution. Tobin seems the mastermind of Sharper Future. But a Mary-Perry Miller co-founded the Sharper Future deception. Miller got her “Ph.D” from a California School of Psychology. Miller seems as much to blame for Sharper Future’s government sanctioned corruption. “Dr.” Miller wrote her thesis on “The creative process of women poets.” Yet she started a “treatment” program that profiteers from CDCR contracts. I kid you not. See for yourself: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/35220872_A_pheonomenological_investigation_of_the_creative_process_of_women_poets_the_structure_nature_and_ontollogical_significance_of_the_creative_process
we could write sharper future reviews. yelp sharper future. if you have a negative review, write sharper future complaints. we need to stand together because we are brothers and sisters in this fight for true justice. veritas!
As a former Sharper Future clinician myself, we were instructed not to hand out the complete set of polygraph consents until THE DAY OF the polygraph… even if a client demanded it beforehand. So clients (who really aren’t the clients: CDCR is the true client) are unfairly surprised with a barrage of new info on what I have seen as a stressful day for many. I learned in school the poly is not valid science. Like I said: it’s unfair. Which is why I moved on to a better paying job in a different clinical setting that doesn’t carry as much guilt (where I don’t deal with parole agents only clearly pretending to care). It’s a strange treatment culture at Sharper Future. They taught us to do a lot of dirty things rationalizing it for “public safety” or “state law requires it” (then dishonestly pretending to stress the utmost importance of ethics and boundaries). And most drank the Kool Aid. It took me a while to see the truth. Money can blind a person. Good luck in your challenge.
My relative is in the sharper future program. He told me about this bogus scheme a few months ago. He mentioned on one side they pretend to his side but they (sharper fut.) can turn on him at any time. At the same time, he said he’s prodded with quasi forms of science like the lie detector – a form of psychological intimidation. A program aimed to help people would not intimidate the people they want to help – but hey, what do I know. We went to one of the carsol meetings a few months ago. when i see him again, i will let him know of this topic…. very interesting subject. Those who have been mistreated should write sharper future reviews – as someone mentioned above. PEACE OUT!
Looks like someone already wrote a Sharper Future review, 12/29/2015:
“This place is about the BIGGEST SCAM on the people of California! Charging the CDCR MILLIONS in supposed ‘therapy’ You dont do treat a wound 5,10,20 years after it has happened with so called Therapist that INTERNS!” – Jim S. (http://m.yp.com/san-diego-ca/mip/sharper-future-460148846)
We start writing Sharper Future reviews exposing the truth?
I was in Sharper Future between 2011 & 2012 when it was still an 18 month long program to ONLY “high risk”. Now, based on what I’ve heard from a man in an anonymous 12 Step group I attend in San Fran (who is a 290), I hear Sharper Future’s duration lasts one’s entire parole? And parole lasts anywhere from 5, 10 and 20 yrs?!?! When I was in Sharper Future I couldn’t believe the low quality and demeaning clinicians and therapists they employ. To have to endure 5, 10 or 20 years of Sharper Future’s illogical abuse just seems like a waste of taxpayer resources and a violation of the cruel and unusual ban. I really got nothing out of Sharper Future except to see how “doctors” parade around pretending to be doctors and put us down for a mistake we made 5 plus years ago. So from Sharper Future, I learned psychologists can be frauds too. Just my opinion. Also, someone already wrote a negative review on Yelp for the Sharper Future Oakland location. We should all write Yelp reviews for each of Sharper Future’s sites.
My cousin is to attend Sharper Future lest he indefinitely return to prison. So a part of me has naturally taken interest in the subject. I have read articles and research, as well the user comments on several websites, and I must say there should be (at minimum) greater scrutiny of Tom Tobin and the California Sex Offender Management Board. When both endorse the polygraph, one under his private contracted company and one under a government agency in form of policy recommendation, there must be question to the underlying ethics. I speak from experience, once holding a Top Secret Security Clearance for 10 years. I was required to take the polygraph ONCE in that 10 years. My cousin tells me (confirmed with research from casomb literature) he is subject to polygraph twice a year. So it makes little sense that a U.S. citizen, who has paid with incarceration, be subject to the unscientific abuse of the polygraph when it relates nothing to national security.
Just a heads up: Sharper Future beginning to go by the name Pacific Forensic Psychology Associates, Inc. Different name, but same dubious & unethical practices.
I cant say a lot as to NOT get intermingled,*More GOING-ON’s* but… SHARPER FUTURE SAN DIEGO located on Camino Del Rio South is being forced to MOVE now because of backlash by parolee’s plugging toilets and MANY MANY other things including TENANTS of the building going after SF Legally not to mention ALL tenants in the building know WHO SF’s clientele are (290’s), (about 50+ tenants) The management is KICKING SF out and BREAKING their lease. *THIS IS FACT* SF is NO LONGER allowed to have 290’s at that address and their lease is being terminated. Lets see, SF has to business register a new addy, all their interns have to notify the BBS.CA.GOV of their address updates, new leterheads, transfer of phones,new business cards, a new lease deposit and im sure the list goes on and on. Ironically I just came across this thread, and I posted a yelp review back last year (that is posted above).
*Ive bookmarked this posting/thread and will follow up with more juicy details here and there later as I can.*
Always be skeptical of any “therapy” that incorporates the polygraph as part of what the “doctor” ordered. Real treatment does not include fake, below-the-belt psudo science that preys on ignorance perpetuated by the Jerry Springer Show. The “instruments” they use to label people, the Static 99R, is another fake form of science. Being labeled “high risk” [HRSO] because of the Static 99R was completely demeaning. The frauds at Sharper Future deserve zero mutual respect. From my experience, Sharper Future was indirect & void of transparency with their methods. They were rarely honest or even direct in their plans. I hated how they scared clients in selling the lie detector as accurate. The polygraph examiner was a complete con man (as is his alleged lie detector)! Again, Sharper Future must never be trusted. I’m just glad to be done with dealing with those crooks! The experience taught me that therapists & psychologists can be complete fakers. It’s all about who pays the bill (CDCR).
What about the fact this company issues CASOMB certification to its interns and employees? The CEO of sharper future is also vice chair of CASOMB. You shouldn’t be able to give out certification, issued by your public agency, to people that work for your private company. Potentially a conflict of interest issue (in addition to the multi-million dollar state contracts).
I never understood how Sharper Future’s “treatment” program could be rationalized when the Static 99 and Static 99R do not even take treatment into account. The pseudo-science Static scores that Sharper Future puts so much emphasis on do not take into account the very services they proclaim to offer. By default, Sharper Future’s support of the Static 99 tests render its ‘treatment’ program as utterly useless. A BIG scam on the taxpayers, if you will.
Another way of looking at it: If the Static 99 and Static 99R scores do not change, and it assumes people do not change over time (even with many years offense-free in the community), then Sharper Future’s services are completely useless. It’s a big logical fallacy in the California Sex Offender Management Boards’ — CASOMB’s — policy.
One more thing: I’ve seen many people labeled “low risk” who probably should have been high risk. I’ve also seen many people given the “high risk” — HRSO — designation who probably should have been low risk. The Static 99 and Static 99R are complete crapshoots. Sharper Future is not at all smart (in fact, it’s pretty stupid) in its reliance on this flawed instrument. It seems the psychologists at this company hide behind these pseudo-scientific measurements of future behavior to only make themselves seem smarter than they really are.