MA- At corrections’ cutting edge: Mass. native studies how to handle sex offenders

2-26-2009 Massachusetts:

Raynham — With a string of academic accolades to her credit, Rebecca Jackson could have enjoyed the ivory tower of college life.

Instead, the Raynham, Mass., native entered a field many would have shunned.

Jackson studies and teaches about pedophilia disorders, including criminal forensic evaluation, competency to stand trial and assessing the risk for sex offenders before they are released from prison.

“When I tell people what I do, the reaction I get is distaste,” Jackson, a 1991graduate of Bridgewater-Raynham Regional High School, said in a phone interview from her home outside San Francisco. “But we are trying to balance individual rights with public safety.”

As director of the Forensic Psychology Program at Pacific Graduate School of Psychology in Palo Alto and as Director of Forensic Program at Washington State University in Spokane, Jackson teaches mental health professionals how to safely move sex offenders back into society. She also trains workers at sex offender commitment centers.

As a consultant in Spokane, she helps the Department of Corrections assess the risk of re-offending based on the type of offense committed.

Despite public perceptions, the recidivism rate is only 13 percent, she says.

“There are definitely sex offenders who do not re-offend – most do not re-offend,” she says. “This is why a lot of policies don’t work. We lump sex offenders together.”

For example, her research shows that older offenders tend to be less risky than younger ones and men who abuse boys are more dangerous than those who abuse girls.

“An older man who commits one act of molestation on a young girl is a statistically a lower risk offender,” she says.

The field is moving toward civil commitments, external controls like bracelets and teaching offenders ways to stay out of trouble and live safe and productive lives.

Jackson recalled a man in his late 50s who returned home to his wife after 18 years in prison.

“He has been successfully managing his life for several years now,” she said.

The 2006 “Adam Walsh” Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act has added another layer of protection by making it a federal crime for convicted sexual predators to fail to register as a sex offender and relocate from one state to another.

While some consider her field “worthless, fruitless work,” she says, Jackson firmly believes she is safeguarding the public from those who commit the most heinous crimes.

“I don’t think there’s ever been a society without some outlaws and individuals who break the law or hurt other human beings. But between science and good policy, we can reduce the numbers,” she said.

The daughter of Elaine Jackson of Raynham and the late Jeffrey Jackson, Rebecca Jackson entered the field after earning the highest honors in college and beyond.

She graduated summa cum laude from West Virginia University and was named outstanding doctoral student at the University of North Texas.

She won awards for her clinical psychology residency in public behavioral health and justice policy at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

Most recently, she received the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Foundation’s Theodore Blau Award for Outstanding Early Career Contributions to Clinical Psychology.

Despite all her scholarly success, Jackson said she was not a high achiever in high school and might not have gone on to college if not for the coaxing of a teacher back at B-R.

“She encouraged me to push my potential. I am very grateful to her for that,” Jackson says of Kathy O’Toole.

Jackson has published 25 articles in professional journals, including Learning Forensic Assessment, the first in a series on International Perspectives on Forensic Mental Health.

She has also conducted workshops in forensic evaluations at the Department of Corrections in California and Nebraska, the El Dorado County Mental Health Department in California and the San Francisco Jail Psychiatric Services and Napa State Hospital. ..News Source.. by Susan Parkou Weinstein