What can be done to stop predators?

2-7-2010 National:

'Some can be easily treated, some can't... and you've got the whole group in between,' says Fred Berlin, a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University

Chris Hansen spoke to Dr. Fred Berlin, a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Berlin has over 25 years of experience working with sexual offenders.

Hansen asks Dr. Berlin, whether or not pedophilia can be solved with more severe punishment and better legislation. Can these men even be successfully treated?

Chris Hansen, Dateline correspondent: We had recently had 50 men come into a house, hoping to meet a 12 to 13-year-old child... Is it fair to call each one of these men a predator?

Dr. Fred Berlin: I don't think so. I think we're so quick now to use the term "predator." We have to talk in terms of, as far as I'm concerned, that have everyday meaning tied to them. Clearly, every one of these men is doing something that's terribly wrong. But there may be tremendous differences between them, and it's important to understand the differences as it is to understand the similarities.

Hansen: When you read the computer chat logs of the conversations between the men and the decoy, you see a grooming process. And it almost follows a pattern.

Dr. Berlin: Well, clearly, these are by definition men who have an interest in becoming involved sexually with children of that age. There is clearly something different about these individuals. They are trying to persuade these youngsters because they're attracted to them sexually to become involved in an intimate way. So what they're doing is wrong. But the fact that they're trying to pursue the kinds of desires they experience is not necessarily in and of itself surprising.

Hansen: Does it surprise you that so many men would show up to meet a child?

Dr. Berlin: Well, one of the things that we're learning about the Internet or through the Internet is the incredible diversity of the sexual makeup of human beings. These are very private matters. We don't tend to talk about it publicly.

And yet, if you go to the Internet, there are attractions of sorts that we wouldn't begin to imagine: people who are interested in looking at sites involving animals having sex with human beings, people who are interested in looking at sadomasochistic involvements, people who are interested in looking at very young children engaged in sexual activity, even infants. Obviously we don't want people to act on those attractions.

But we can't simply dismiss it as though we have no need to understand how many people have these kinds of desires. What can we do to help make sure they don't give into these temptations? The point I'm making is that we're learning that as much a public health problem as it is a criminal justice matter and that we need to address it from both perspectives.

Hansen: What makes a man go from visiting inappropriate Web sites and fantasizing on the Internet, maybe even in conversation, to actually showing up to meet a 12 or 13-year-old child?

Dr. Berlin: How do we go from fantasy to reality? Lots of people have private fantasies that give them some sort of pleasure and maybe even trouble them, but they don't act on them. I think one of the contributory facts-- it's not the only one-- is the insidious nature of the internet itself.

Hansen: The 24 hour a day, seven day a week access.

Dr. Berlin: I think there are three things that are problematic about the Internet, or at least three things. One is the easy accessibility. You don't, in the beginning at least, have to go anywhere. You just push a button that's sitting there next to you.

Secondly, there's this illusion of anonymity, which can be very disinhibiting. You feel as though you're there in the privacy of your bedroom. It's not that private, but you don't sense that at the time.

And thirdly, there is a distortion of reality and fantasy to some extent. That people feel as though they're playing a game. They're making up who they are. They wonder if someone else is giving a false persona. They begin to do things that in the light of day they might never have done and then, ultimately and sadly, sometimes cross a line that they might not otherwise have crossed.

Hansen: Does it surprise you that so many men would show up?

Dr. Berlin: Well, doing the work that I do, I wish I could say it surprises me but it doesn't. It is very clear that there are significant numbers of individuals who have sexual cravings about becoming involved intimately with children. We want to understand more about how that develops.

It's not that they sat down themselves as little children and decided to have these abnormal cravings. They discover in growing up that they're there. It's then their responsibility, in my judgment, to deal with that in a healthy and law-abiding fashion. But as with some drug addicts and alcoholics, the cravings for some of these men are so intense that they're not able to walk away from them simply through their own resources.

Hansen: What makes these men tick? Do we even know?

Dr. Berlin: Well, let me be careful when we say "these men." Because that's like asking me what makes drunk drivers tick. In other words, there's a tremendous spectrum from the alcoholic on the one end to the guy who had one too many at the Christmas party to everyone in between.

But there are a subgroup of individuals who commit sex offenses who are sexually disordered in the same way that there is a subgroup of drunk drivers who have alcoholism. When it comes to sexual disorders, what we're talking about in the simple layman's terms is that an individual experiences recurrent abnormal sexual cravings. In some instances, those are cravings that become involved actually with children.

In terms of why this can be so problematic, God or nature put the sex drive into each and every one of us for a very important reason, and that is literally the preservation of the human race. And so all of us have a sex drive that recurrently wants to be satisfied. When that drive becomes aimed, if I can put it in that way, in the wrong direction, towards children for example, it still recurrently wants to be satisfied. And it doesn't take a mental health expert to appreciate what a problematic circumstance that can become.

Hansen: Can these men, in most cases, be successfully treated?

Dr. Berlin: Many of these men can be successfully treated, many can't. Again, I'll come back to the analogy of working with alcoholics. Some can be easily treated. Some can't be treated. And you've got the whole group in between.

One point I do want to make, though, is that we're not, in my judgment, going to solve the problem only through a criminal justice approach. I very much support that, let me make it clear. But think about it for a moment, if the only thing we do with a person who's having sexual cravings about children is to send them to prison, there's nothing about prison alone that will either erase those cravings or enhance their capacity to successfully resist acting upon them.

Sooner or later, like it or not, most of these men are going to be back out there in the community. So unless we have both a strong criminal justice component and a strong public health component, in my judgment, we are doing society a tremendous disservice.

Hansen: The natural reaction after seeing a story like this is to say, "Lock these guys up. Throw away the key. That's the only way to protect children.”

Dr. Berlin: Well-- I think before I got into this area, I might have had quite the same reaction. One of the things we've done in this area is we've completely dehumanized these people. If we look back historically, at one time we looked at alcoholism as though it was only a moral problem. The alcoholic was the bum in the gutter.

Well, we still have moral values as we should when it comes to alcoholism. But we also have the Betty Ford Clinic. We recognize there are legitimate concerns for science and medicine.

When we talk about terms like "sexual predator," "pedophile," "sexual offender," we're talking as though it's only a moral problem. And God knows they're important moral issues. But there are also important issues of medical and scientific concern. How is it that some people are not attracted to people of their own age? How is it that some people crave sex with children and they're not attracted to other adults? Given the fact that such people exist and that we can't punish away or legislate those kinds of disorders, what can we learn through science research to help make society safer? What kinds of treatments can we provide for them?

If I may make one final point about treatment-- and I want to do it in the context that it should always be combined with a strong criminal justice approach-- when we see stings such as the one we're seeing here, I ask myself this (a) Does this make it more likely that someone who's sexually disordered who wants help is going to come forward and see it? (b) Does it give them any idea if they want that help where they can go to get it? (C) Are they going to feel comfortable that if they do seek help?

And if they're not going to feel that they can come forth and get help, how are we helping to prevent a problem? We're just having to pick up the pieces after the fact?

Hansen: If a man sees this program and that man has a problem in this area, what should that person do?

Dr. Berlin: There are very few resources available. We see on television all the time “if you have schizophrenia,” “if you have anorexia nervosa,” “if you have a drug problem,” “if you have an alcohol problem,” we as a society want to help you. We want to help you before you go out if you're an alcoholic and get in a car and injure an innocent person.

Where do we hear that as a society we want to reach out to people who are struggling and confused and disordered sexually? Where do they get the message this is where you can go? We're created a "we versus they" mentality. And I understand that what they do is offensive. It's aggravating. It makes me angry. But we're not going to solve the problem by pushing it further underground.

Hansen: Is there a place for these men to go to get help?

Dr. Berlin: If someone whose craving sex with children gives into that craving, hurts another person, can destroy their own life in the process. We have places like the Betty Ford Clinic for alcoholics. We have places for drug addicts to go to. There are virtually no places where people who are sexually disordered can go in our society and seek help. There are young troubled adolescents out there now today as we speak, many that are experiencing abnormal sexual cravings. They may be very troubled by that. The last thing they're going to do in our society is raise their hand and ask for assistance. And the price we pay is that we may see them ten years down the line when they're arrested after the fact, because there was no help available to them before.

Hansen: So you would argue, while you need a strong criminal justice system in place to deal with these guys, until there is a treatment network in place, we could go do this story virtually every week anywhere in the country and get the same results?

Dr. Berlin: Absolutely. We need both the attorney general and the surgeon general involved with this. How much research is being done to look at the issue of how some people become sexually disordered? There are actually people in the Congress and the Senate that say that we shouldn't fund research of that nature as though somehow by looking at what we can do to help these men, we're not caring enough about victims.

My God, prevention is the most important thing when it comes to victims. And we're only going to learn how to do that by finding out people become sexually disordered, how to intervene before the fact and how for those who want help— that they can have access to that help before they go out and hurt an innocent person.

Hansen: Is this a problem that can be solved with more severe punishment and better legislation?

Dr. Berlin: The sense that I get is that our society today seems to feel that almost every problem can be solved by enforcing some prior statue more sternly, or by enacting new legislation. There are other things that have to be looked at. There's the role of science. There's the role of research. There's the role of treatment. There's the role of treatment providers working collaboratively with parole and probation in situations such as this. There are laws being enacted now in terms of where people who are sexual offenders can live in some states. Whereas other states are beginning to wonder if those laws are helping and are looking towards rescinding them.

Because there's so much emotion tied to this, we really need to get beyond that emotion, to think it through and to try to base public policy on facts that are going to try to lead to effective solutions.

And if I may just add one final point to that: Much of public policy today in this area is based on the exception rather than the rule—those horrible cases where there's a kidnapping, a sexual assault and a murder of a young child. That is a fraction of one percent of the big problem. And yet if we're going to base our public policy on the exception rather than the rule, it begs the question as to whether or not that's going to be the most effective public policy.

Hansen: Some prosecutors would argue that there's nothing that can be done for these men. That once arrested, once convicted, they should be locked up for the rest of their lives.

Dr. Berlin: Look, if you hear an overzealous therapist saying “We can help all of these men,” that's an extreme statement that is completely out of keeping with reality. On the other hand, if you hear somebody saying “Once an offender, always an offender,” although that may not be as easily appreciated, that is an equally extreme statement that is not in keeping with reality.

Hansen: But I have to tell you, in this particular investigation, we had numerous repeat offenders and registered sex offenders.

Dr. Berlin: Absolutely. And to some extent, it's like going to the mortuary and wanting to find out whether or not doctors ever help patients. Obviously you're going to see the ones that fail. What concerns me and what concerns me in terms of public perception is that we keep hearing about the failures but hardly ever hear about the successes.

If today, we want to say “Here are ten men who are repeat offenders,” should we not also say “We've gone out and found that today there are these multitude of men who are living safely in the community in a productive way and not hurting anyone”? Wouldn't that be a more balanced and honest way of presenting the facts to the public?

Hansen: Is that accurate? Is that happening in some of these groups? In some of these treatment areas?

Dr. Berlin: The United States Department of Justice, which doesn't have an ax to grind in my opinion, because of much of this new legislation, took a look at the issue of sex offender recidivism. And I've worked in this area for many years. And the findings surprised even me because what they found was, as a group, sex offenders have a lower rate of recidivism than people who commit other kinds of serious offenses. And yet the public perception, most of public policy, the way in which we view this problem today, is based upon exactly the opposite assumption.

Hansen: But we had guys walk into our house who not only had offended before but were registered sex offenders...

Dr. Berlin: Absolutely. And if we were talking about alcoholics, there would be people who are in treatment who, unfortunately, go back out and drink. But we don't say to that we shouldn't continue to treat alcoholism. We don't say to that that no one who has a drinking problem deserves help. And we certainly don't say to that that everybody who's an alcoholic who's in treatment is almost certainly going to recidivate.

Hansen: But in this case, the stakes are high given the fact that the victim would be a 12 or 13-year-old kid who could be scarred for the rest of their lives.

Dr. Berlin: The stakes are always high. But let me tell you, and I hope to God I'd never have to make this choice. But if the choice was between a sexual offender fondling my 12 year old or a drunk driver killing my 12 year old, given that horrible dilemma, it still wouldn't take me much time to figure out which I think is more serious.

Now the point I'm trying to make is not to minimize any of this. The point I'm trying to make that as a society we've somehow come to the conclusion that the worst possible crime of any sort is anything that has to do with sex. These are horribly serious offenses. But they're not the only serious offenses that are out there. And yet it's the only situation which we say, as a group, “none of these people are deserving of help.” None of these people can be successfully redeemed.

Hansen: What makes you say that this group of people is A) deserving of help and B) can really be helped?

Dr. Berlin: Well, I think what makes me say that is simply the facts. I didn't know anything about this area before I went into it. But I've seen many men who, for example, come into treatment as a condition of parole of probation but stay in treatment long beyond when that is required. 85 percent of people in this program have remained in treatment when there was absolutely no mandate that they do so.

I prescribed sex drive lowering medication for well over 100 individuals in the course of my practice as a physician. A very serious form of treatment. In all but a handful of cases, those men took that treatment on an entirely voluntary basis. There was absolutely no mandate from the court or anyone else that they could d so. Now, again, I don't want to minimize the fact that there are people who do very bad things. I'm not suggesting that all of these people, by any means, deserve help. What I am suggesting, though, is that the opposite side of the coin, that “they're all evil people, that none of them deserve help, that there's one glove that fits all,” in my experience, simply is not accurate.

Hansen: Without the Internet, do the vast majority of these men actually show up at a house to try to molest a child?

Dr. Berlin: Well, the Internet is relatively new, so we're trying to learn more about it. The answer is that there are some men who previously set out relationships with children before there was an Internet who now use the Internet as another way of doing that. And so that's one group.

There's another group of men who seem to use the Internet simply because they're interested in visual imagery. They're looking, for example, at child pornography. For them, that's an end in and of itself. And they're not necessarily looking to go any further.

And then finally, there are a group of men who seem to have had no prior history whatsoever of trying to seek out sexual relationship with children. But now with the presence of the Internet presumably playing on some vulnerability are beginning to act in such a fashion.

Hansen: The majority of the men we found in this investigation told me something to the effect of, "I've never done this before. It's my first time." Do you buy that?

Dr. Berlin: I don't know if I buy it for the majority of men. I'm willing to believe that it may be true for some of them. And in some cases, we can simply go out and get the facts. We can see whether, for example if they were arrested. We can look at their computer and see if they've tried to talk with other people they believed were children or-- in chat rooms. But I think in some cases, it may be true. In many cases, it will turn out not to be true.

Hansen: A lot of the men told me, sure, they had an obscene conversation with somebody they thought was a child, But they really weren't going to do anything.

Dr. Berlin: Let me put it this way. I'm very worried that a man in this situation could have gone through with the fantasy. And we do, as a society, need to protect children. Now having said this, in my experience, some of these men are confused. They're ambivalent. They're not sure whether it will or won't be a child. Some of them may not themselves know what they actually would have done had a child been there.

So we need to err on the side of playing it safe in my judgment and protect children by having laws that assume that they might have acted. But speaking now as a physician, some of them indeed may have been confused, ambivalent and troubled in the bright light of day may not have actually done so.

Hansen: So some of these guys might have been telling me the truth.

Dr. Berlin: Yeah. Some of them may have.

Hansen: We saw the entire spectrum. A 65-year-old man who said that there really was nothing wrong with him having sex with a 13-year-old boy. A 43-year-old teacher who came in and said, "I'm a sick son of a bitch. Take me away."

Dr. Berlin: Well, what these men likely share in common is the fact that they are sexually attracted to children. But that doesn't tell us anything whatsoever about other aspects of their character, their temperament, their personality and so on. Some will be introverted, some extroverted.

Some may be generally kind. Some may be cruel. Some may have good insight into the fact that it can harm children. Others may be blind to that fact. And so, again, there's a tremendous disparity in terms of who these people are as human beings.

The difficult thing that I find in our society today, is even speak of any of them as human beings because one can immediately be accused of being insensitive to issues of child abuse, of not caring about victims. My god, we all care about victims. The real issue is this: How can we most effectively protect society? And in order to do that, we're going to have to learn more about these men. And given that we can't lock them all up forever, how at least in some instances we can help them to become productive and safe citizens.

Hansen: You're not suggesting that these men shouldn't be arrested or put in prison.

Dr. Berlin: Absolutely not. We need a very strong criminal justice approach when it comes to this area. But in addition, not instead but in addition, we also need to have a strong public health approach. If the only thing we do with men who are having sexual cravings for children is put them in prison and do nothing more, prison won't erase those cravings or help them more successfully resist acting on them.

It really does amaze me, to be candid about it, that in our society we treat the person who's stolen from somebody, who's cheated on his taxes, and who's sexually desirous of children in exactly the same way, as though we can just punish them all, teach them a lesson and everything's going to be fine. If only the world were that simple.

Hansen: What is it going to take to set up a treatment program for guys like this? One that's effective?

Dr. Berlin: I think it will take a change in our collective mindset. Right now there seems to be this sense in my judgment that either we're concerned for victims or we're concerned for offenders. And that the people that are concerned for offenders must somehow not care enough about victimization. We're all on the same side here. And the best favor we can do a potential victim is to keep he or she from being victimized in the first place. And the only way society can do that is to learn more about how many men are sexually disordered, how they became to be such, to provide them, as we do with alcoholics, places to go if they need help. Until we do that, if we keep just thinking, "One more law, one more stern punishment is going to solve the problem," I think we do all of ourselves a tremendous disservice. ..Source.. Chris Hansen

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Focusing on sex offenders

2-2-2010 North Carolina:

CHAPEL HILL -- The term "deviant sex offenders" might seem redundant. How could anyone who commits a sexual offense be anything but deviant?

In reaction to such sentiments, there has been a federal attempt since 2006 to create a policy that allows federal officials to civilly commit offenders deemed too sexually dangerous to release even after they have served their federal prison terms. The feds' push for civil commitment authority was challenged and is now being weighed by the U.S. Supreme Court.

At least 20 states already have civil commitment laws in place, and although no such law exists in North Carolina there has been interest in one. The high court's ruling could potentially force our state to accept and commit sex offenders from federal prisons, a costly expense that according to different studies could range anywhere from $60,000 to nearly $139,000 per inmate each year.

If the court does not uphold this ruling, North Carolina could still pass its own state civil commitment law, following in the footsteps of states that already have such laws in place but have not produced evidence that there has been a drop in the rate of sex crimes as a result of such policies.

Recent research has now questioned the efficacy of policies designed to identify and intensely monitor sex offenders. In a 2008 study from New York State's Department of Corrections, rates of sex crimes were compared for the 10 years prior to the passage of Megan's law (sex offender registry) to the 10 years after the registry was put into effect. This study found that even after the passage of the registration law, there was no change in the rate of sex crimes because more than 96 percent of all sexual crimes are committed by first-time offenders.

In other words, the law had no effect on reducing the number of sexual assaults because less than 4 percent of these crimes were committed by repeat offenders. So although state and federal governments have spent billions of dollars to contain and monitor offenders in the community, these efforts have not reduced the number of victims who have suffered through the experience of a sexual assault, as they do not capture the range of individuals at risk of committing a sex crime.

Victims of sexual assault deserve better laws that will effectively protect them and others from similar experiences.

Unfortunately, somewhat lost in the current debate and lawsuit is the effort to classify those with a mental illness as a higher risk for committing a crime. Currently, federal authorities identify individuals according to those who have "been found to have a mental illness or abnormality that makes them likely to strike again if they are released."

But mental illness is a term used to describe a wide variety of mental conditions, and while there is some evidence that people with particular disorders are more likely to be aggressive, including sexually aggressive, this category is ill-defined in the current law and could be interpreted differently by individual therapists.

At most, it is estimated that clinicians can predict with 10 percent accuracy the risk level of an individual sex offender striking again. For those already working with individuals who struggle with the stigma of mental illness, there will now be added consequences and a new battle to fight: the message that all those who are mentally ill are also dangerous sexual predators.

In addition to increasing survivor services, our state and the federal government would be better served to focus resources on:

♦Evaluating the effectiveness of civil commitment laws to see if they reduce the rate of sexual crimes

♦Understanding the factors that lead an individual to commit such a crime

♦Evaluating effective treatment programs

Those who work within the field of sexual violence are eager to prevent such violence from occurring. The U.S. Supreme Court and North Carolina would be more effective in their efforts if they first identified the causes of these crimes and then identified policies and programs that effectively reduce them. Currently, efforts are under way that would center the focus only on a few individuals, leaving the vast majority of sex crimes unaddressed. The victims of sexual violence deserve better, including government policies that work, rather than a false sense of hope that the victims and others are safer. ..Opinion of.. MELISSA D. GRADY who teaches at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Social Work.

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CA- Case of California girl held captive for 18 years casts harsh spotlight on sex offenders

9-17-2009 California:

EAST PALO ALTO, Calif. (AP) — After being locked away for 25 years for sex crimes, Donald Robinson moved to a little block of unassuming homes in this city on the San Francisco Peninsula on Aug. 27.

The timing couldn't have been worse. It was the day after Phillip Garrido was arrested just 40 miles away on charges that he kidnapped 11-year-old Jaycee Lee Dugard and held her captive for 18 years despite his long criminal record as a sex offender.

Police distributed fliers in Robinson's new neighborhood, alerting residents that he was living there. He has been targeted by a protest rally organized by the mayor and daily picketing outside his house. And the state is paying two security guards $800 a day each to protect him.

Robinson's case underscores just how hard it is for the government to move sex offenders back into society, especially at a time there is widespread outrage over the Garrido case and the missed opportunities to catch him.

It's an issue that communities around the country have faced in an era when community notification laws in all 50 states let residents know where sex offenders live.

"There's a number of challenges for everyone involved in sex offenders going through re-entry," said Richard Tewksbury, a University of Louisville professor who has studied community reactions to sex offenders. "There's the stresses and pressures on the sex offenders as they face community opposition. There's certainly stresses on communities as they have concerns about potential dangers."

Robinson was convicted of raping two women in 1976. Authorities say he first raped a 71-year-old victim, then returned to her home 10 days later to attack her again. But he could not break into the house, so he beat and raped another woman that night. He was sentenced to three years to life in prison.

In 1984, he was convicted of raping a 19-year-old girl and sentenced to 21 years in prison.

Robinson was classified as a sexually violent predator based on his likelihood of committing another sex crime, his mental state and criminal history, and forced into the state mental hospital in Atascadero in 1998 instead of being let out on parole.

He completed 11 years in state mental facilities before landing in East Palo Alto as part of a state-sponsored outpatient program. The Department of Mental Health and a contractor that manages its outpatient program for sexually violent predators looked at 1,100 properties over about six months before it found a suitable location with a landlord willing to rent to Robinson, said Nancy Kincaid, a spokeswoman for the department.

But neighbors on the street where Robinson lives in a three-bedroom corner house are furious.

Mayor Ruben Abrica had every resident in the city phone book alerted to attend a protest in front of the house. "A sexually violent predator doesn't belong here, with old people and families," Abrica said.

The mayor's office cited the Dugard kidnapping case in voicing its opposition to the placement of Robinson in this town.

"The tragic case of Jaycee Dugard ... underscores the dangerous nature of sexually violent predators and brings into question their supervision and monitoring," the office said.

Garrido, who has pleaded not guilty along with his wife, is a registered sex offender who was convicted of abducting and raping a Nevada casino worker three decades ago. He was required to wear an ankle bracelet and was under parole supervision before his arrest on Aug. 26. Police are investigating Garrido in other crimes as well, including searching his home this week for new clues into the disappearance of two girls in the 1980s.

The Robinson case and others like it illustrate the difficult balancing act between community safety and the rights of ex-offenders to live in peace and resume a normal life.

"It's hard to blame the community for a natural reaction to a horrific sex crime," said Dr. Deirdre D'Orazio, a clinical psychologist who works with sexually violent predators. "We're trying to integrate this person into being a law-abiding citizen again. On the other hand, we're treating him like he's going to be a predator forever."

Unlike Garrido, state officials and experts say Robinson completed a rigorous treatment program for sexually violent predators that only 15 others have completed.

At the mental hospital, Robinson was taught to examine what factors led to his crimes and could put him at risk of committing similar ones.

Robinson declined to be interviewed for this story, but he told a mental health evaluator he hated his mother for exposing him to an abusive stepfather and took that hatred out on other women.

But he credited his treatment with helping him make sense of his behavior and said he was no longer angry. "I know that I made myself a better person," he told the evaluator.

Three mental health evaluators concluded Robinson could safely continue his treatment as an outpatient.

The state of California has to pay for Robinson's re-entry into society, including his $3,500-a-month house. He also receives about $600 per month for groceries, utilities and other necessities although state officials say he has signed a promissory note to repay at least some expenses.

State officials estimate the cost of confinement and treatment of sexually violent predators in state mental institutions at $185,000 a year per patient.

But Robinson is barely free. He wears a satellite tracking device and must submit to random drug testing and polygraph tests. He cannot drink alcohol or use the Internet, has a curfew and needs permission to drive a car or even walk through a residential neighborhood.

Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Dana Overstreet said Robinson will be monitored most likely for the rest of his life. "Every year, we have to petition to have him continued to be monitored," she said, "and we plan to do that."

Meantime, Robinson, balding, bespectacled, with arthritis in both knees and a heart condition, has barely been glimpsed since his arrival. A few neighbors said they have seen him peek at their protests from behind living room curtains.

"The judge said that if Robinson weren't here, he'd be homeless," said Kenneth Barilla, 32, who lives next door to Robinson and has two daughters, ages 3 and 5. "We don't want him to become homeless. We just don't think he belongs among families." ..Source.. by EVELYN NIEVES, SUDHIN THANAWALA

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Key Roles of Law Enforcement in Sex Offender Management

The fundamental problem is with the belief that "former offenders in the community" need to be managed or controlled. Until "government" gets it into their heads that, "former offenders really just want to again live a normal life" there will always be opposition to any form of "control." A law enforcement perspective needs to change..

8-10-2009 National:

Introduction

Law enforcement officials have always played a pivotal role in promoting community safety through crime response, public education, and crime prevention activities. Currently, safety concerns are particularly high with respect to the presence of sex offenders in local communities. Highly publicized violent sex crimes, generally involving child victims, draw this issue to the forefront and further heighten public fears.

In some instances, citizens have mobilized themselves in attempts to drive sex offenders from communities, and some recent laws (i.e., residency bans) have had the same overall effect. Experts indicate that this can actually decrease public safety, in part because law enforcement officers and others responsible for sex offender management will not be able to track offenders’ whereabouts or provide effective supervision and monitoring, which is certainly not in the public interest.[1]

Law enforcement agencies have long recognized that fear can be just as paralyzing to a community as the actual perpetration of a crime. It matters little whether the incidence of sex crimes is low; the public reacts to the danger they perceive. As Paul Grabosky (1995), from the Australian Institute of Criminology, said: “While the fear of crime expressed by some citizens is well-founded, other individuals are at less personal risk than they might believe. Their fear, however, is no less real.”

Therefore, the key question is not how to keep sex offenders out of communities; rather, it is how to best manage sex offenders who are in the community and still ensure public safety.

Citizens generally turn first to law enforcement for these and other answers. And undoubtedly, law enforcement officials are an integral part of the broader systemic response.

The purpose of this brief is to provide an overview of the multiple roles that law enforcement can play in increasing public safety and reducing sexual victimization through sex offender management efforts.

Sex Offenders are a Diverse Population

Because sex offenders are often cast in a single light, community members, lawmakers, and others tend to assume that they should all be managed in the same way. In reality, the individuals who commit sex offenses are nearly as diverse as the general public. They differ in terms of their demographics, the crimes they commit, the individuals whom they victimize, their reasons for engaging in sexually abusive behavior, and the extent to which they can be safely managed in the community.

Indeed, the level of risk that sex offenders pose to communities is one of the important ways in which sex offenders differ from one another. Some have a high likelihood of reoffending, whereas others are at relatively low risk to recidivate. This has implications for a number of decisions that are made throughout the system. Research indicates that increasing public safety by reducing the risk of recidivism is more likely to be successful when the intensity of correctional interventions matches offenders’ levels of risk (see Andrews & Bonta, 2006). This means that intensive supervision, monitoring, and treatment are best reserved for higher-risk sex offenders, and lower-intensity strategies are more effective for lower-risk sex offenders.

Specialized assessment tools can help differentiate higher- from lower-risk offenders and ensure that stakeholders throughout the system – including judges, law enforcement agents, community supervision officers, and treatment professionals – routinely use this information to inform decisions.

Sex Offender Management Requires a Comprehensive Strategy

The problem of sexual offending is complex and multifaceted and, as such, addressing this issue requires a multifaceted and comprehensive strategy. A comprehensive approach takes into account various responses and activities throughout the criminal justice system, including the following (see, e.g., Carter, Bumby, & Talbot, 2004):

# Investigations of sex crimes;
# Prosecution and sentencing decisions;
# Assessment practices to inform decisions pre- and post-sentencing;
# Prison-based and community-based interventions;
# Supervision, tracking, and monitoring strategies; and
# Public education and prevention efforts.

Given these components, it is clear that the responsibility for sex offender management cannot rest solely on a single agency or discipline. Collaborative partnerships across multiple agencies and disciplines are necessary. Law enforcement officials are among the key stakeholders that play a significant role in these efforts.

Community Policing Provides a Complementary Model

Prior to the 1980s, the primary role of law enforcement was to respond to law violations; the focus of their efforts was on the investigation and apprehension processes. This reactive approach often resulted in officers responding to the same locations to deal with the same or similar concerns time and time again. Reactive strategies proved to be a significant drain on resources and did not result in significant reductions in crime.

In the 1980s, the concept of community policing emerged as a philosophy and practice for law enforcement agencies. The basic principles of community policing dictate that police agencies work with communities in innovative ways to address crime and the conditions that lead to it, reduce the fear of crime within the community, and enhance the overall quality of life of citizens (Trojanowicz & Bucqueroux, 1990, 1994).

The result has been a shift to a much more proactive approach to law enforcement that promotes problem solving, collaboration with community partners, public education, and prevention. Presently, well over half of the police departments nationwide have adopted elements of community policing, most often through the use of problem-solving partnerships and community education efforts (Hickman & Reaves, 2006).

These particular community policing approaches complement the various components of a comprehensive sex offender management model. For example, while law enforcement officers take the lead role in responding to and investigating sex crimes, they remain actively involved in partnerships throughout other aspects of the system as a means of ongoing management and prevention efforts. Key partners for law enforcement officials include, but are not limited to, the following:

# Victim advocates, who provide assistance and support to those who are affected by sexual victimization, and who help to ensure that law enforcement agencies are responsive to the rights, needs, and interests of victims throughout the investigative process;

# Prosecutors, who make charging decisions based in large part on the investigations conducted by law enforcement;

# Community supervision officers (i.e., probation and parole officers), who are responsible for implementing strategies for reducing and otherwise managing sex offenders’ risk to reoffend and for ensuring that sex offenders abide by the conditions of their supervision; and

# Community agencies and organizations, which provide or coordinate programs, services, and other resources for victims and offenders.

Collaborative partnerships for community policing and sex offender management are based on the recognition that public safety benefits can be maximized by respecting different perspectives, exchanging information, coordinating limited resources, and appreciating the complementary roles and responsibilities that exist within and across agencies and disciplines.

The Traditional Role of Law Enforcement: Investigating Sex Crimes

The responsibilities of law enforcement officers begin the moment a sex crime is reported. Indeed, uniformed officers are often the first to have contact with identified victims. It is important to note, however, that a large percentage of individuals who have been sexually victimized do not report these crimes to the police or other public safety officials (Hazelwood & Burgess, 2008; Tjaden & Thoennes, 2006; Woods, 2008).

Under-reporting occurs for many reasons, including the following:

# The extremely private and personal nature of sexual victimization;

# Anxiety about their identity being made public;

# Fears that they will not be believed or may even be blamed for the crime;

# Self-doubt and self-blame;

# Emotional ties to, financial dependence on, and/or concerns about the prosecution of the perpetrator; and

# Fears about retaliation.

Community Policing Defined
“Community policing is a philosophy that promotes organizational strategies, which support the systematic use of partnerships and problem-solving techniques, to proactively address the immediate conditions that give rise to public safety issues such as crime, social disorder, and fear of crime.”
Source: Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, U.S. Department of Justice, http://www.cops.usdoj.gov

When victims of sex crimes do come forward, it is generally because they hope to prevent victimization from happening again to themselves or to others (Tjaden & Thoennes, 2006). But even then, they may later recant some or all of the allegations or express hesitance around participating in the investigation and subsequent court proceedings, for the same reasons noted above.

As such, the nature of the interactions between the investigating officer and the victim become a paramount consideration. Law enforcement personnel must demonstrate respect, sensitivity, and support and take great care to minimize the potential for inadvertently re-traumatizing victims during the course of the investigation (Woods, 2008). Immediately engaging victim advocates, providing referrals and linkages to resources that are available to victims and their families, and offering information about the investigation and subsequent court processes are among the strategies that patrol officers can routinely employ (Woods, 2008).

For the remainder of this paper: by Center for Sex Offender Management

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