Prison sex offender programs - Judge wants Becker to get more treatment

3-8-2010 Wisconsin:

The judge who sent Gary Becker to prison hopes the Department of Corrections will place the former mayor in sex offender treatment programs.

If the DOC does, he will spend between four months and three years in therapy sessions, counseling and doing homework designed to help him recognize and address unhealthy sexual behavior.

Becker was sent to prison Thursday evening, to start the three-year sentence he was given Wednesday afternoon. He had earlier pleaded guilty to sex charges related to his January 2009 trip to Brookfield Square Mall to meet a fictitious teenage girl for sex.

Like almost every man sentenced to prison, Becker first went to Dodge Correctional Institution in Waupun. He will be assessed, to determine what kind of programs he needs, and then DOC staff will decide where to send him. Judge Stephen Simanek, who sent Becker to prison, said he believes Becker needs more treatment.

No one knows yet where Becker will serve the majority of his sentence. If the DOC agrees with Simanek that Becker needs more treatment, he will likely end up at one of eight state prisons where they offer sex offender treatment programs. The Racine Correctional Institution is one of those prisons.

Julie Wurl-Koth, director of the office of program services for the Division of Adult Institutions, said sex offenders go through a "rather thorough" psychological assessment to determine if they need sex offender education or just an after-care program when they get out.

Sex offender programs require inmates to meet for several hours each day, for group sessions and individual therapy, where they work on denial, victim impact, cognitive distortions, their attitudes toward sexual offending, preventing re-offenses, controlling their anger, criminal thinking, honesty, and impulsivity.

An important aspect of therapy is honesty, Wurl-Koth said.

"One of the things we know is an important part of sex offender treatment is full disclosure," Wurl-Koth said. "The person really needs to own up to everything. If they're able to hide any of their sexual deviancies, then it's almost like an enabling factor."

To do that, she said, staff may use lie detectors or other devices to measure someone's truthfulness and the extent of their disclosure.

That was an issue with which Simanek expressed concern.

The DOC interviewer that completed the pre-sentence investigation report given to the court "knew what kind of questions to ask," Simanek said. But Becker didn't answer them satisfactorily, he said.

"He has not been outgoing and responsive to the inquiries that were made," Simanek said, reading from the report. "It's that very emotionally closed attitude that makes him dangerous and a risk to re-offend."

Simanek said he believes Becker still needs treatment, and that he needs the kind of intensive treatment he could get while in prison.

If the DOC agrees, Becker would join the list of people waiting to get into a program.

Wurl-Koth said there are typically more people waiting to get into a particular program than there are slots available. They try to place people in programs close to their release date, so someone with a 20-year sentence may have to wait a long time before admission, while someone with a shorter sentence could be admitted right away. ..Source.. JANINE ANDERSON