![]() The room is large and sterile, with white tables, blue chairs and vending machines pushed up against one wall. "Do you stay for the interviews?" I ask, hoping his answer is yes. ![]() We walk through a metal detector and into an interior hallway, where a reassuringly large security guard leads us to the visiting room. Book, Claire VanSusteren (communications director of Lauren's Kids) and I had already agreed to background checks, so all that was left to do was present our IDs to the guard and hand over our personal belongings. When we walk into the FCCC's main entrance, the first thing we see is a large poster announcing a sexual-abuse awareness fundraiser among residents and staff. Florida is among the harshest states in regards to punishment for sex offenders, and requires those it deems a potential repeat offender to stay at the center for additional time following their jail sentence. ![]() Lauren Book, who was sexually abused by her nanny over a five-year period, visits the Florida Civil Commitment Center, a facility for post-incarceration treatment for convicted sexual offenders. "It was important to say, 'Yes, it does happen to blond-haired, green-eyed kids who go to the university school.'" "There was a prevailing thought that child sexual abuse only happened in those neighborhoods over there, with those kids, not in our private school, in our gated community," says Book, who grew up in a wealthy part of South Florida. Today, she teaches children, parents and educators about child sexual abuse and prevention through her nonprofit, Lauren's Kids. For six years, starting when she was 11, her family's live-in nanny sexually abused her. Lauren Book, who's 30, is one of over 42 million adult survivors of child sexual abuse in the U.S. "These are people one step away from killing a kid. "I just don't like exposing her to the population," he explains. Her father, Ron Book, routinely referred to as one of the most powerful lobbyists in Florida, was not happy about that trip. Aside from prosecutors, defense attorneys and legislators, the last time anyone from the general public was granted this kind of FCCC access was in 2013, Book's first visit.
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