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February 28, 2005
Sex-offender laws' review inevitable
Fear and anger swept the city during the manhunt for Brent J. Brents, a 35-year-old convicted child molester now suspected as a serial rapist. Emotions ranged from concern for the victims to fury at a system that released Brents into the community with no supervision.
Terrified for their own children, some parents demanded that Colorado's system for investigating and registering sex offenders - lambasted as toothless - be drastically overhauled. Changes are in the works.
But while the Brents case was unique, the public's reaction was almost routine.
Over the past decade, high- profile molestation cases have triggered a flurry of tougher sex-crime bills calling for extended prison terms, along with extreme measures such as chemical castration and mandatory confinement in mental institutions.
At the same time, there has been significant change in sex-offender research, including progress in the ability to predict which offenders will repeat past behavior, as well as considerable improvement in reducing this behavior.
A certain percentage of sex offenders are extremely dangerous - a miserable parole risk, according to experts. Some remain predators even into old age; others are certifiable psychopaths. Concern about their release into society is justified, experts say.
But statistics show that most do not revert to the same criminal behavior.
"It is noteworthy that recidivism rates for sex offenders are lower than for the general criminal population," says a report from the Department of Justice's Center for Sex Offender Management called "Myths and Facts About Sex Offenders."
One study shows that child molesters had a 13 percent reconviction rate for sexual offenses, while rapists had a 19 percent reconviction rate.
The problem, experts say, is that all sex offenders have been lumped into one criminal category, creating a certain hysteria in communities.
"What we need to understand is the difference between perceived fears and what we really know," says Dr. Philip Tedeschi, a member of the Colorado Sex Offender Management Board.
This rift leaves researchers and treatment counselors in the awkward position of defending the rights of people whom society most hates.
"Sex offenders should be like any other type of criminal," says Scott Matson, a principal author of "Myths and Facts About Sex Offenders." "They should serve their time and be released. Why do we think we should hold sex offenders forever if recidivism rates are low?"
The answer could be heard on Denver's streets this month: because sex offenders tend to target the vulnerable, those most innocent or helpless.
The perception that sex offenders can't be rehabilitated, repeated by law enforcement authorities during the Brents case, may be a myth rooted in outdated studies.
"With sex offenders, you only hear about the guy who chopped up a little boy and served him to his neighbor," Matson says. "You don't hear about all those sex offenders who got out of prison and are living offense-free after 10 years."
Not all offenders are alike
In this rapidly evolving field, territory is still being mapped out. The sex-offender registry is relatively new, for example, and experts say it must be fine-tuned so that low-risk offenders don't wind up on the same list as dangerous criminals such as Brents, who is accused of raping boys, girls, grandmothers and young women.
"Society is not educated in the difference between a person who truly is a sexual predator and a person who commits a single solitary sex offense," says Duane L. Dobbert, forensic examiner and author of "Halting the Sexual Predators Among Us."
He believes there is a vast difference between dangerous sex offenders and people convicted of such crimes as date rape.
"Something like acquaintance rape or marital rape doesn't make the person a sexual predator," he says. "But we put them in the same category and do not differentiate in the (sex-offender) registries."
To better understand the differences between sex offenders, much research is now focused on further delineating who's at risk of relapse. Researchers have divided up offenders by crime, profiling them psychologically to see what makes them act.
Child molesters, for example, are not mature psychologically or psychosexually, according to research. They're comfortable with children because that's the level of their own development. They also tend not to be physically violent.
Rapists, on the other hand, more closely resemble the general prison population - violent criminals seeking power and control.
Significant differences also appear in patterns of recidivism. Such factors as the victim's gender and relationship to the offender can be crucial. According to a 1995 study, offenders who had male victims outside the family had a recidivism rate nearly twice that of those with female victims outside the family - 35 percent compared with 18 percent.
As researchers work to create more detailed profiles, state legislatures are taking tough, controversial action.
In 1996, California became the first state to approve the use of chemical castration. Child molesters convicted a second time are injected with a drug to decrease their sex drive.
Now at least eight states have similar laws.
In Colorado a few years ago, Dr. Robert Miller, former chief psychiatrist of the Colorado Department of Corrections, stopped a similar bill from being introduced into the state legislature.
"Another colleague and I talked the sponsors out of it," he says. "It was a terrible bill. Basically it copied the California bill and forced judges to prescribe this treatment without giving them a choice. There was no requirement for a medical exam and no (provision) for follow-up."
In his view, this controversial treatment is "a wonder drug" for about 10 percent of the population of sex offenders. He's used it successfully with several inmates in the Colorado prison system.
"I had people tell me it was the first time in 20 years they were able to think about something other than sex," he says.
Critics such as Miller believe this is not an effective solution for the majority of sex offenders. Some say prison time is actually more effective.
"People convicted of criminal sexual conduct, particularly with children, experience prison as so violent and heinous that the thought of going back is a real deterrent," Dobbert says.
Laws in favor of chemical castration may make politicians who pass them popular with a fearful and angry public but will not solve the underlying social dilemma, critics argue.
Many experts believe that mandatory group therapy - both inside and outside prison - is particularly effective.
"Better than any therapist, sex predators can tell when another guy is ready to reoffend," Dobbert says. "In mandatory group counseling, they can say, 'I know what you're doing, and I know what you're ready to do."'
Because therapy remains an inexact science, however, it is small comfort to the larger community.
Some new studies show that certain sex offenders may not outgrow their criminal behavior. If this is true, then even with 20-year sentences, offenders may leave prison at 60 still prone to repeat the crime.
Such research is driving a push that focuses on re-entry of sex offenders into society, particularly the high-risk offenders. There are efforts to create community support - jobs, housing and church membership - to help them live offense-free.
This trend defies another myth, experts say: that the cost of treating offenders is too high, so they should remain behind bars.
In reality, one year of intensive supervision and treatment in the community can range from $5,000 to $15,000 per offender, compared with about $22,000 for incarceration, excluding treatment costs.
Colorado board sets example
Most sex-offender treatment programs in the United States and Canada use a combination of behavioral treatment and relapse prevention. This includes group therapy, empathy training, instruction about the sexual abuse cycle, anger management and the promotion of a change to deviant sexual arousal patterns.
The Colorado Sex Offender Management Board is considered a national leader.
"They were the first and have been used as a model for other states," Matson says.
This multidisciplinary board of professionals oversees the management of the state's sex offenders, including about 4,000 in prison, 2,400 on probation and 240 on parole.
Their philosophy is that offenders cannot be cured but that some can be managed by community supervision teams consisting of probation and parole officers, community corrections staff, treatment providers and polygraph examiners.
"The idea is that in order to minimize recidivism, the offender needs to be contained," says Jill McFadden, executive director of the Office of Domestic Violence and Sex Offender Management of the Colorado Division of Criminal Justice.
To Tedeschi, who works with sex offenders in Denver treatment programs, cases such as Brents' both raise society's frustration and result in the example of a dangerous sex predator being generalized to all sex offenders.
"Saying every sex offender is going to reoffend, or that it's not possible to effectively manage them, is probably not working from an accurate reflection of what we know to be true," he says.
Posted by Nealus at February 28, 2005 05:06 PM
