IN- How effective is sex offender treatment?

Clearly the prison system, if it evaluates inmates beforehand, is partly at fault in only providing a few months of treatment in this case. Study after study shows treatment is effective in reducing recidivism, but each person's history should guide the length of treatment and here that was not the case. Society is safer with effective treatment programs in prison, before the person is released and followup care after release while on parole.

3-3-2009 Indiana:

A convicted sex offender who evaded police last week after the abduction of a South Bend woman received sex offender treatment only a few months before his release from prison after 25 years of incarceration, records indicate.

Michael Lloyd Lindsey was arrested Sunday by Newton County, Ind., police following a manhunt that began after the abduction of the woman Feb. 24 and two other attempted abductions in which Lindsey was a suspect. He also was wanted by Jasper County police for attempted carjacking and intimidation.

The 48-year-old South Bend resident has a history of violent sexual crimes and spent 25 years behind bars after he was found guilty of rape and child molesting in Elkhart County.

But records kept by the Indiana Sex Offender Management and Monitoring Program indicate Lindsey consented to sex offender treatment only in October 2007. He was released in July.

Treatment in prison

To encourage sex offenders serving time in prison to submit to such treatment, Indiana enacted a statute in 2006 to prohibit them from receiving time cuts in their sentences unless they participated in treatment. Until then, they had few incentives to do so.

Before 1999, the Indiana Department of Correction did not provide sex offender treatment in an organized way, a spokesman there said.

In prison, Lindsey received cognitive-behavioral treatment in group sessions, records indicate. Indiana provides psychoeducational treatment to sex offenders in prison, typically in the last three years of incarceration, said Jeannine Curtis, a licensed clinical social worker and local therapist.

Lindsey's risk for offending again was assessed as "medium" before his release, records indicate. He also was labeled a "sex predator" on the Indiana Sheriffs' Sex and Violent Offender Registry.

But was the treatment he receive in an Indiana prison effective? Were there any other alternatives?

Dr. Adam Deming, a psychologist and director of the Indiana Sex Offender Management and Monitoring Program, said treatment of sex offenders has proven effective in reducing recidivism rates.

In 2007, only 2.43 percent of sex offenders released from prison in 2004 had committed another sex offense, he said, citing an Indiana DOC study. Similarly, in 2006, only 3.68 percent of sex offenders released in 1999 had committed another sex crime.

Contrary to public perception, Deming said, recidivism among sex offenders is "much lower" than in the non-sex offender population.

"People fear sex offenders more perhaps because the nature of the crime is very personal, particularly against children," he said.

But if treatment doesn't solve the problem, how does society protect itself from violent sexual predators like Lindsey?

Course of action

About 20 states have violent predator laws that commit high-risk sex offenders to civil custody for indefinite periods of time, Deming said.

"But I don't know if that's the answer either," he added. "We have to balance that with a person's civil rights and liberties."

Curtis said Indiana does not have civil commitment laws to keep dangerous sex offenders locked up.

"Until such a time," she said, "society has to deal with the reality that such offenders eventually are released back into the community."

The way to go could be to invest more money in sex offender treatment, Deming said. Curtis said that while longer prison sentences could be appropriate for some sex offenders, effective community management must include sex offense-specific treatment, polygraphs and probation/parole supervision.

Curtis and Deming agreed that castration is not a solution to the problem.

"While a popular topic for some," Curtis said, "(castration) only serves to remove one means by which men sexually offend. It does not block the many other ways one can sexually abuse, nor does it reduce the drive behind sexually abusive behavior."

A leading expert on sexual disorders, Dr. Fred Berlin, founder of the Sexual Disorders Clinic at Johns Hopkins University, said medicating some sex offenders to lower their levels of testosterone has proven effective in preventing them from offending again.

Berlin said there is a subgroup of sex offenders that are driven by abnormal sexual cravings and can be successfully medicated.

"The biological approach gets to the cravings themselves, and in more serious cases ought to be considered," he said. "If someone's hungry for sex in a dangerous way, then lowering the intensity of that hunger can make it easier to control themselves. And it can reduce recidivism dramatically." ..News Source.. by Staff writer Pablo Ros