9 treating state's sex offenders lose jobs

I need to understand why, why spend millions of dollars on tracking sex offenders -which does not prevent new sex offensaes- and the state cannot spend a dime on treatment which does prevent new sex offenses. It seems to me that, the answer here is to divert some of the funding to PREVENTION if the real goal is to prevent new sex offenses. i.e., sex offender treatment.

12-24-2009 Iowa:

The Iowa prison system's only sex offender treatment program will lose eight of its 13 counselors and its only social worker to layoffs next month.

Inmates who have molested children, raped women and committed other sex crimes will not get treatment as quickly or as intensively, and some might be released without any rehabilitation, according to staff at the prison in Mount Pleasant.

The program will shrink considerably in mid-January, Warden Ron Mullen said. Already, there is a long waiting list for the 300-bed program.

"We're going to do as much as we can with the resources we have left," Mullen said.

All of the program's counselors fall under the Iowa United Professionals labor union, the only public employee union that declined to accept unpaid days off to address the state's budget crisis.

Bradley Hoenig, one of the five counselors who will keep his job, believes some inmates will be released before getting adequate therapy.

"Not only that," Hoenig said, "I think there will be some medium- and high-risk individuals walking out without any treatment."

The Iowa Board of Parole is usually reluctant to give early parole to sex offenders who have had no treatment, but those who reach the end of their sentences must be released even if they have not received treatment.

Gail Huckins, director of the sex offender treatment program, said Tuesday the staff will have to redesign the program, possibly by shortening treatment.

"We certainly don't have all the answers today," she said.

Sex offenders from throughout Iowa's prison system are sent to Mount Pleasant for treatment. Counselors work to teach offenders responsible social behavior, how to manage sexually deviant thoughts, and how to prevent a relapse.

Offenders are divided into one of three treatment tracks. Low-risk offenders get about six months of treatment. Medium-risk inmates get about nine months of treatment, and high-risk get 14 to 16 months.

Typically, 20 to 50 inmates are on a waiting list for each of the three tracks, Huckins said.

After the layoffs, the low-risk offenders may get a brief education program, and the programs for medium- and high-risk offenders could be combined into one shorter program, Hoenig said.

"The high-risk group could see their treatment cut in half," he said.

Mullen said details are still being worked out, but he agreed that "it's going to take longer for an offender to get into the program, and it's going to affect our ability to move people through as quickly as we are now."

He added that when offenders are released, they can continue to get supervision and treatment in the community-based corrections system.

Mount Pleasant's sex offender treatment program saves the state money because it helps make sex offenders eligible for parole, staff said.

Huckins said treatment works.

"The change process we see in an individual from beginning of the treatment process to end is phenomenal in what they are able to learn and digest," she said. "It's gratifying to see such a change process in individuals."

Generally speaking, sex offenders have the lowest rate of committing new crimes among prisoners in the Iowa criminal justice system, Mullen said.

Research by the Iowa Division of Criminal and Juvenile Justice Planning shows offenders who successfully complete sex offender treatment have lower rates of rearrest for sex offenses than other offenders.

Among those successfully treated, 0.7 percent were arrested for a new sex crime within two years, while among those who got no treatment, 3.2 percent had a new arrest, according to a 2006 Department of Corrections report.

When Gov. Chet Culver asked Iowa's three public employee unions last fall to accept concessions in pay to spare layoffs, two unions agreed: the State Police Officers Council and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

The concessions averted 606 layoffs for workers who fall under those two labor contracts.

But Iowa United Professionals leaders refused the offer without giving dues-paying members the chance to vote, according to workers and the governor's staff.

"IUP has not served us - or the people of Iowa - and we have voiced our displeasure with that union loud and clear," said Terry Moore, one of the eight Mount Pleasant prison counselors who will lose his job.

"What upsets us most, though, is not the loss of our jobs, but the pending decimation of a viable program that keeps sex offenders from committing new crimes against new victims," Moore said.

Union officials did not return phone calls this week.

Sean Crawford will lose his $45,000-a-year job counseling sex offenders with special needs, such as an IQ score below 85, a reading level below sixth grade or other mental or social inadequacies.

"Ultimately, my biggest concern with this type of reduction in the program is that it's going to affect the number of offenders getting treatment, and it will affect the number offenders released without completing treatment," he said. "As a citizen of the state, that concerns me that there's a likelihood of untreated sex offenders returning to their communities."

Pink slips handed out last week give workers 20 working days before they must leave their jobs.

The Mount Pleasant prison houses 913 men and 83 women. Its budget is about $24.5 million after the 10 percent across-the-board cut Culver ordered for this budget year. ..Source.. JENNIFER JACOBS