No quick fixes, but child-porn users can be reformed, experts say

2-6-2009 Canada:

Despite the disturbing rate of repeat offenders, experts believe that some sex offenders - child-pornography enthusiasts included - can learn to control their criminal appetites.

But it takes years rather than months, they say.

"If you do it in the right way and target the right things, you can pretty much guarantee that you can reduce the re-offence rate," says Bill Marshall, who has treated thousands of sex offenders over the past 40 years and is director of the internationally acclaimed Rockwood Psychological Services in Kingston.

Yet he also emphasizes that there's no quick fix.

"Whenever I go into court, and it's always on behalf of the Crown, the judge often says, 'How long a sentence does this man need to get effective treatment?' And I always say, 'Give him less than three years and he's not going to get effective treatment.' "

Child-porn crimes, however, rarely incur such sentences. Far more common is a provincial jail term, meaning less than two years.

Both Dr. Marshall and Peter Collins, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto who lectures widely on treating sex offenders, reject the notion that child-porn users are innately different from other pedophiles, or that their activities serve as a kind of safety valve.

And a landmark piece of research published two years ago for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, dubbed the Buttner Study, bears them out.

The survey questioned several hundred convicted child pornographers who had no criminal record for contact offences against juveniles.

In therapy and confidential surveys, a full 85 per cent of the pool admitted that they had, in fact, physically abused children.

They simply hadn't been caught.

"All the evidence that we have on these guys is they have the same kind of features and background," Dr. Marshall said.

So can child-porn users be reformed? Probably, both specialists say.

"They can be treated if they're motivated," Dr. Collins said.

"But pedophilia is a deeply ingrained erotic preference." ..News Source.. by TIMOTHY APPLEBY