Taxpayers paying for ineffective sex-offender treatment programs

This excellent article has one inaccuracy in it, it is, that the Federal Government has not spend a dime on any sex offender treatment (in-community treatment like there is for drug offenders), they will not even discuss the issue. Some states do recognize treatment programs and fund them, but not the federal government!

6-26-2010 New York:

Federal and state governments have shelled out billions of dollars on programs to track, treat and punish sex offenders—even as those programs do little or nothing to prevent recidivism, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor Charles Patrick Ewing told a crowd of about 100 attending his UBThisSummer lecture yesterday in Talbert Hall.

“My conclusion is thumbs down,” said Ewing, the Law School’s vice dean for legal skills. “We, the American and New York State taxpayers, are being hosed, to put it bluntly. We’re spending billions of dollars that largely go for cosmetic programs.”

Ewing’s talk, appropriately titled, “Perverted Justice: Sex Offenders and the Law,” focused on four issues: civil commitment laws, which allow states to lock up sex offenders indefinitely; Megan’s laws, which require sex offenders to register their address and other information for use in public databases; sentences for possession of child pornography that are so severe that they are sometimes harsher than sentences for actual molestation; and attitudes driving increasingly harsh punishments for solicitation of sex from minors over the Internet.

Under civil commitment laws, a judge or jury can order “sexually violent predators”—offenders who, in essence, are found likely to commit criminal sexual acts again—to remain in state custody against their will, even after finishing a criminal sentence. These laws allow states to commit offenders indefinitely to hospitals where they can receive treatment if they admit to their crimes, though many already have completed multiple treatment programs. (In California, Ewing said, three quarters of convicts in such facilities refuse treatment.)

The result is a system that is expensive but doesn’t work, Ewing said: “There are no data to establish that this treatment is effective in reducing recidivism.” New York State spends at least $225,000 on each hospitalized individual, more than five times what it costs to keep an inmate in state prison. And civil commitments, which states often apply to convicts sentenced long before those laws went into effect, raise legal questions—with the U.S. Constitution forbidding ex post facto laws and the trying or convicting of a defendant more than once using the same set of facts.

The hospitals involved in civil commitments are “really prisons,” Ewing said. “We have two in New York State now, and they’re more secure than Attica.”

The patients, Ewing said, are really “inmates.” “These are people who are being locked up. They’ve served their time. They’re being locked up. Why? Because, well, we think they’re going to commit future crimes.

“We don’t usually lock people up because we think they’ll commit crimes in the future,” Ewing added.

Megan’s laws, another costly regime, enlarge public bureaucracies while doing little to keep the public safe, Ewing said. In some cases where states have gone further and restricted where sex offenders can live, work and travel, recidivism rates have actually risen, Ewing said. Stringent regulations have pushed some sex offenders into the margins of society, with one colony of convicts residing beneath a highway bridge in Miami.

Ewing ended his lecture with a discussion of sentences for possession of child pornography and Internet solicitations of minors, pointing out the irony in the fact that sentences for these two types of crimes often exceed sentences for crimes including actual molestation, statutory rape and even homicide.

The mean federal sentence for possession of child pornography rose 443 percent between 1997 and 2007 to 91.3 months. While child pornography is repulsive, Ewing said, the severity of such sentences doesn’t necessarily make sense. He noted that, “You can kill somebody and get five, 10, 15 years.” Data indicate that consumers of child pornography are, generally, not hands-on offenders, Ewing said.

“America has declared war on sex offenders,” Ewing said, and in doing so, “We’ve gone off the deep end.” He explained that he is not against spending money on interventions that work—ones like an FBI operation that targets distributors of child pornography and has rescued more than 100 children who were being sexually abused. What he opposes, he said, is wasting taxpayer dollars on programs that are ineffective.

The UBThisSummer Lecture Series will take a break for the Independence Day holiday and return on July 7 with a lecture by Aaron Hughes, associate director of the Institute of Jewish Thought and Heritage. Hughes’ talk is titled “Building the Academic Study of Judaism in Buffalo.” ..Source.. CHARLOTTE HSU

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Tougher laws keep sex offenders behind bars

5-18-2010 Utah:

SALT LAKE CITY — In 1983, when Sen. Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan, then a state representative, pushed through a bill imposing tougher sex-offender laws, it was a different era.

"I was convinced at the time that society had not really looked at sexual abuse," Hillyard said. "There were things going on, even within families, that nobody dared talk about."

And while 1996 legislation, also proposed by Hillyard, eliminated mandatory minimum sentences and widened options for prosecutors and judges, Utah still has one of the country's toughest stances on sex crime — with the prison population to show for it.

That's why it's unlikely a program like the one upheld Monday by the U.S. Supreme Court to indefinitely hold the most dangerous sex offenders after their prison terms, will come to the state anytime soon.

The court held that the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, signed in 2006 by President George W. Bush, was a proper exercise of federal authority. The four men who challenged the law were held after serving prison terms from three to eight years for possession of child pornography or sexual abuse of a minor.

The law only affects federal inmates, although 20 states have similar civil commitment programs.

Hillyard said such a program would be too expensive in Utah. Indeed, officials are already struggling to house and treat the sex offenders who make up 30 percent of the state's prison population — well above the national average of 12 percent.

The number of sex offenders in the Utah State Prison jumped from 864 in 1996 to 1,967 in 2008. Meanwhile, prison funding remained static.

"Programs are spread thinner across a higher number of inmates," said Utah Department of Corrections spokesman Steve Gehrke. "That means some inmates end up waiting a while before they get into treatment programs. You have a small number of staff pressed to do more."

The prison's Diagnostic Unit, a wing where new inmates underwent a roughly 45-day pre-sentencing evaluation, closed last year for lack of funds. Now, though Gehrke says other methods provide much of the same information, offenders who could have received probation end up in prison instead.

Changes in state law in 1996 replaced mandatory minimum sentences for many sex crimes with indeterminate terms of six, 10 or 15 years to life. At the same time, many attempted sexual assaults became more-serious first-degree felonies, with the possibility of probation or prison sentences as short as three years.

That gave prosecutors more options, more ways to reach plea deals — even to first-degree felonies with maximum life sentences — without forcing victims on to the witness stand.

"Prosecutors wanted it but didn't dare ask for it" for fear of public outcry, Hillyard said.

According to Paul Boyden, director of the Utah Statewide Association of Prosecutors, those options have protected the public and led to fairer outcomes.

"When we got rid of mandatory minimums, the actual time spent in prison increased substantially," Boyden said. "Now when we have a dangerous criminal who shouldn't get out of prison, the Board of Pardons just doesn't release them."

Elements of Jessica's Law adopted in 2007 bumped sentencing guidelines higher with increased penalties for sex offenses against children, including a minimum of 25 years to life for rape, object rape and sodomy.

While the 1996 laws gave more flexibility to prosecutors, they have also sometimes created dilemmas for judges.

Last month, 4th District Judge Claudia Laycock wrestled with the case of an 18-year-old Springville man who pleaded guilty to attempted sodomy on a child, a first-degree felony, after originally being charged with sodomy, one of the crimes carrying a minimum punishment of 25 years to life.

The slightly built young man, who admitted to a sexual encounter with a 13-year-old boy in a Highland park, still faced at least three years to life in prison, while the judge also could impose a minimum term of six or 10 years. But even the most lenient sentence, which she chose, seemed to haunt Laycock.

"Because of your age and build, you will suffer a great deal in prison. I'm very aware of that," the judge said. "Frankly, I hope you survive prison. I think you're facing horrors you can't even imagine, and I'm very worried for your safety."

Laycock also noted the damage done to the victim and said if the man abuses anyone else after getting out of prison, "I will live to rue this day and this decision."

Jim Hatch, spokesman for the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole, said that while the majority of sex offenders are released after a few years, a "handful" have been ordered to spend the rest of their natural lives behind bars. The makeup of the prison population does not affect when offenders are paroled, and if there is overcrowding, those who committed property and drug crimes will be released before sex offenders and other violent criminals, he said.

Hillyard says the state has come a long way toward better understanding offenders and doing more to help victims, but there is still room to improve.

"I think we're doing a fairly good job of convicting people. Where we're not doing a good job is treatment," he said. "I think we need to be a little more aggressive in weeding out those who are really sick, and lock them up forever to make sure they're not posing a danger."

Striking that balance between punishment and therapy is difficult when policymakers are driven by "emotion and anecdotes" to impose ever-tougher sanctions, says Kent Hart, director of the Utah Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

"We're very reactive and when (a sensational crime) happens, we throw more people in prison," Hart said. "But that's not solving any problems."

He urges more emphasis on intervention and prevention by looking at the causes of sex crimes.

Hart also criticized increasingly strict laws placing more people on the state's sex-offender registry.

"We're driving these people underground to where they don't want to report, where they can't get jobs or housing," he said. "We're basically dooming these people to fail." ..Source.. Paul Koepp

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House lawmakers show support for $1B-plus bill, with key funding for sex offender treatment center

2-16-2010 Minnesota:

The Minnesota House kicked its public works funding proposal to more than $1 billion Monday, adding a facility for 400 sex offenders.

ST. PAUL — The Minnesota House kicked its public works funding proposal to more than $1 billion Monday, adding a facility for 400 sex offenders.

Representatives voted 92-37, with some Republicans joining Democrats, to fund college, trails, transportation and other construction projects. The only major change in the measure came when representatives voted 114-19 to spend $89 million to build a 400-bed addition to the Moose Lake sex offender treatment center.

Decorum broke down in the House chamber as the time ran out for debate, and Republicans objected to what they said was Democratic-Farmer-Labor leadership cutting them off.

“It’s too bad we couldn’t have informed each other and the people of Minnesota about what was in this bill,” said Rep. Marty Seifert, R-Marshall.

Representatives debated the bill for more than four hours.

Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty insisted on the sex offender facility, and Rep. Alice Hausman, DFL-St. Paul, offered an amendment to include it. A Senate-passed bill contains $1 million for the facility, something Sen. Keith Langseth, DFL-Glyndon, called a placeholder so the topic could be discussed later.

The House and Senate bills are headed to a conference committee that is to work out differences between what the two chambers passed. They each spend about $1 billion. However, Pawlenty wants to spend no more than $685 million, and on Monday said he would either veto individual projects or kill the entire bill if lawmakers send him a bill he deems as too big.

Pawlenty said he could not accept a bonding bill that funds civic centers and other things he called not essential, but did not include the sex offender facility.

The bill also includes $50 million to prevent flooding, mostly along the Red River Valley.

The overall bill funds public works projects across the state with money raised by the state selling bonds.

About a third of the bonding bill funds state-run college and university improvements, ranging from additions to classroom buildings to roof repairs. It also contains money for projects such as sewage systems, park improvements, civic centers and transportation improvements. ..Source.. Don Davis, West Central Tribune

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Sex offenders face housing limits in Oklahoma

2-13-2010 Oklahoma:

Budget restraints have officials at the state Corrections Department considering eliminating the agency’s prison sex offender treatment program.

Department spokesman Jerry Massie said this means community-based treatment will be needed more than ever to keep sex offenders from committing more crimes.

"Treatment should be in the community, because that’s where they pose the biggest risk,” Massie said.

The prison program only has slots for 55 sex offenders, but there are more than 450 offenders incarcerated, The Oklahoman reported in July.

Statewide there are more than 5,000 registered sex offenders, but only 1,700 are on supervised probation who may require treatment.


Nowhere to go
Donna K. Thompson, director of prison ministry for the Oklahoma Baptist State Convention, said there is already a shortfall in community-based programs for sex offenders. And the restrictions on where they can live force many of them underground or to be homeless, she said.
"It’s falling on the churches and the community more and more to find places for sex offenders to stay and help to keep them from re-offending,” Thompson said. "But even we are hitting brick walls in trying to help.”

Thompson said many times the only housing they can find for a registered sex offender is in a motel, because the clerks don’t ask about criminal history. She said more organizations need to be allowed to house sex offenders released from prison so they can transition back into society.

Hand Up in Oklahoma City houses 152 registered sex offenders and is the only transitional program of its kind that allows registered sex offenders to live under the same roof. The nonprofit organization was grandfathered before the 2006 state law prohibiting it.

Hand Up office manager James Womack said its residents have to pay $25 to $35 a week for counseling when many of them can’t get jobs because of the accompanying stigma of being a sex offender.

"The state requires they go to counseling, but no one is willing to pick up the tab,” Womack said. "They’ve already put so many restrictions on sex offenders it makes it impossible for them to re-establish themselves.”


Individual cottages
To get around the 2006 state law, Lincoln County resident Tom Wright is building individual cottages for his ministry that provides room and board for sex offenders in exchange for carpentry work. He has eight sex offenders living on his property three miles north of Chandler.
Earlier this month, authorities told Wright he was violating state laws by allowing the men to live under the same roof, and not providing counseling. Neighbors complained to the district attorney after learning Wright was sheltering sex offenders.

District Attorney Richard Smothermon said law enforcement has inspected Wright’s property and he is getting it into compliance. He said they’re being careful not to create a situation where the men living with Wright are left homeless and without supervision.

Holly Chandler is one of 19 professionals who contract with the state to operate sex offender treatment programs in Oklahoma. She has sessions in 23 cities, most of which the public has no idea go on.

Chandler said she has to have sessions at night and rent space from landlords willing to respect her need for a low profile.

That’s because instead of being seen as a public safety service, she’s often treated worse than an offender, Chandler said.

"I’ve had windows broken and death threats on my answering machine,” Chandler said. "People don’t understand that if they’re in treatment, we can keep an eye on them. Instead, they’d rather run them and me into hiding.”

Chandler said programs for sex offenders last two to three years and include polygraph tests every six months and intense counseling. Many of her clients voluntarily continue counseling for years after they’ve completed the program, she said. ..Source.. ANN KELLEY The Oklahoman

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An In-State Treatment Facility For Registered Sex Offenders Still Just A Pipe Dream

12-22-2009 Connecticut:

With the July 2007 slayings of a Cheshire mother and her two daughters fresh on their minds, legislators moved quickly last year to toughen up the state's criminal justice system.

But one of their reforms — creation of a residential treatment facility with a range of services for sex offenders on parole or probation — never happened, even though it was part of a bill that passed by wide margins in both the state House of Representatives and the Senate.

Now, a three-time convicted rapist — considered so dangerous and untreatable he was denied admission to sex offender programs in Connecticut and seven other states only two years ago — will have nowhere to go when he is released from prison on Christmas Eve.

Instead, 52-year-old Ransome Lee Moody will be waiting in line for a bed at Immanuel Baptist Homeless Shelter in New Haven, a place where indigent offenders who have done their time often go for housing when there are no other options.

Judicial officials say Connecticut badly needs a sex offender treatment facility for recently released inmates in Connecticut. They blame state budget woes for the failure to create one.

"It's a very significant gap in how the state provides the appropriate services for these kinds of defendants," Moody's public defender, James S. McKay, said. "And it's potentially dangerous for the public if the defendant doesn't get the benefit of the right services. Yes, it's expensive. But there are also costs for not doing it."

Probation officials have informed the 75-bed Immanuel Baptist shelter about Moody's criminal history, Wesley L. Thorpe Sr., executive director of the shelter, said Monday. Less than half of those who regularly fill the warehouse-type shelter are former prison inmates.

"We're just hoping that nothing happens," Thorpe said.


Housing Wanted

Legislators recognized the need for housing sex offenders on probation and parole, including it in the 2008 crime-fighting bill they passed after the Petit home invasion in Cheshire. Two longtime criminals who had been out on parole are accused of breaking into the home of Dr. William Petit in July 2007 and killing his wife and two daughters.

The 2008 legislation toughened the state's criminal laws, including the addition of a new "home invasion" law and the allocation of $10 million for increased crime-fighting.

Part of that money was to be spent on housing for recently released sex offenders who would either receive inpatient treatment in a restricted facility or, if they were capable of looking for jobs and a new home, get placed in transitional or permanent housing.

State officials moved ahead on a plan to provide 12 beds for sex offenders on probation and another 12 beds for those on parole, to be housed in an existing building at Corrigan-Radgowski Correctional Center in Montville. The Department of Correction put the project out to bid and selected a vendor.

William H. Carbone, head of the state Judicial Department's Court Support Services Division, said the court support services division and the Department of Correction planned to pool together $2 million for the facility.

But by the end of 2008, state revenues began to fall and a projected budget surplus dwindled.

"The budget ax kept falling every few months and money kept getting chipped away," Carbone said. "It's very frustrating because it's a worthwhile project that's badly needed. There's no question about that. At some point in the future, we hope there will be adequate funding."

Michael Cicchetti, deputy secretary of the state Office of Policy and Management, said departments have to set priorities. "There's money in their budget, not as much as they would like, but every state agency is operating with less dollars," Cicchetti said. "It's really a question of how they want to use it. "

"This is one of the things caught up in this budget nightmare up here," said State Rep. Michael P. Lawlor, D-East Haven, one of the legislature's leading authorities on criminal justice who has advocated strongly for a treatment facility for sex offenders. "I realize that tough decisions have to be made but if I was the governor, I would put a secure facility up and running for this guy and others like him who could potentially be a threat to public safety."


A History Of Problems

Moody was 17 when he first went to prison in 1974 for raping a 9-year-old girl. By 1978, he was out of prison and in Florida, where he served seven years in prison for several crimes, including burglary and assault with a deadly weapon.

While living in Middletown in 1985, Moody was charged with raping two women. In one case, Moody cut a window screen, entered a woman's home and raped her several times at knifepoint, prosecutors said. In the other case, Moody raped a hearing-impaired woman on the grounds of Connecticut Valley Hospital in Middletown.

Moody was sentenced to 18 years in prison for the rapes and was released in April 2001. He was back in police custody two months later for violating his probation when he used drugs.He was released again after a July 2001 court hearing — and arrested again in February 2002 for violating his probation after he tested positive for smoking marijuana. Judge Elaine Gordon imposed a sentence of 18 months, but in January 2003 she modified the sentence, reducing it to time served, though she imposed a number of conditions of probation, according to a court transcript.

In May 2003, Moody violated his probation again; he was arrested for exposing himself to a woman near Connecticut Valley Hospital.

During a July 2004 violation-of-probation hearing, Middlesex State's Attorney Timothy J. Liston pushed to keep Moody in jail as long as possible. He cited reports from probation officials who said only a "substantial amount of time" in prison — not treatment — would protect the community from Moody's "violent acts," a court transcript shows.

Judge Robert L. Holzberg sentenced Moody to six years in prison and ordered him to get "intensive" sexual offender treatment. Moody was released Aug. 31, 2007. Unable to live with family, Moody sought housing at a Hartford homeless shelter.

A month after his release, probation officials lost track of Moody, and authorities went searching for him. A GPS tracking device Moody was wearing led police to Middlesex Hospital in Middletown, where Moody had sought help for suicidal thoughts. He told one official that he wanted to "end it" by either hurting himself or someone else.

Two months after his release, Moody violated his probation again. Project Green, a New Haven drug rehabilitation program with 24-hour supervision, kicked him out of its program, the only program in eight states willing to house Moody. Officials said Moody left the program "in direct violation of his probation."

By then, probation officials, with the help of other state agencies and Judge Holzberg, throughout multiple court hearings tried to devise a treatment and housing plan for Moody, but officials testified that no sex offender program existed for someone like Moody, who officials said continued to present a "high degree of risk of sexually assaultive behavior."


Finding A Solution

When it appeared that an inpatient sex offender treatment program was coming to Connecticut, it seemed the perfect spot for Moody. Holzberg ordered Moody into such a facility as a condition of his probation.

But last month, McKay said "we're quite a long distance from the hopes of Judge Holzberg." McKay told Superior Court Judge Patrick J. Clifford the facility would have taken care of Moody's housing and his therapeutic needs.

"But the problem is that there isn't one," Clifford said. "It is a hope. And that was the legislature's hope also. But with the budget crisis, we don't have it."

In the meantime, probation and parole officials will struggle to find options for homeless sex offenders, addressing public safety but also helping offenders adjust to life outside prison walls.

In Moody's case, probation officials plan to monitor his movements with the help of a 24-hour GPS monitoring device. He will be required to report seven days a week to a program where he will receive life-skills training. The program will pick him up from the shelter and bring him back in the afternoon.

Probation officials said if that shelter is full, Moody could look for a bed at two other New Haven shelters. And in what they called a rare case that all beds will be filled, Moody could end up on the streets.

When asked at last month's hearing if Moody would be guaranteed a bed, Chief Probation Officer William Anselmo admitted it was not a sure thing.

"We can do our best," Anselmo told Clifford. "We don't have a safe house. We don't drop them off at a motel and pay for the night. Unfortunately, we do have some sex offenders supervised by probation, registered offenders that do live under the bridge for a couple of nights. We've had guys sleeping on the green in New Haven. Unfortunately, we just do not have the resource to put somebody up for the night."

Clifford replied: "Well, I'd rather have a situation where Mr. Moody would not be sleeping on a park bench in New Haven."

"That's our wish too, your honor," Anselmo said. ..Source.. ALAINE GRIFFIN

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Group That Does Good Deeds Threatened By Old Deed

12-8-2009 Connecticut:

Longtime home for troubled youths locked in legal battle for land

The Connecticut Junior Republic is a fixture in Litchfield, having housed and schooled thousands of troubled youths over the years. But now the private, non-profit organization faces a new challenge.

Someone is trying to take away its 160-acre campus and buildings, located just north of Litchfield’s historic downtown. That someone is the previous owners, who gave away the property nearly 100 years ago.

The battle over the deed has reached the highest levels of state government. State Sen. Andrew Roraback, an attorney at Roraback & Roraback in Litchfield, is leading the charge to protect CJR. Roraback, whose brother is a past president of the organization’s board of directors, said he “may have” contacted state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal about the situation.

CJR, Roraback said, “is part of the fabric of the community of Litchfield, well-respected and well-supported.”

The property was owned originally by Mary Buel, a Litchfield resident who donated the land in 1904 to an Upstate New York group called the George Junior Republic Association. It’s now called the William George Agency.

In 1915, the association deeded the property to the Connecticut Junior Republic, which was allowed to keep it so long as the property was used for residential treatment of children. But the deed said if CJR ceased using the property for that purpose, ownership would revert back to what is now the William George Agency, a children’s services organization headquartered in Freeville, N.Y. in Tompkins County.

Earlier this year, CJR announced that it would stop housing youths, whose transgressions ranged from vandalism to chronic truancy to being unmanageable in their homes. Instead, it planned only to provide daytime special, alternative and vocational education programs for about 22 young people. Students from nearby regular high schools also use the facility for farming programs and the campus pool for swim teams.

It seems that the William George Agency was not told firsthand about the new plans for CJR. When officials found out this past spring, they filed notification of a title interest on the land records and a notice of forfeiture.

“The William George Agency has a fiduciary responsibility to honor the terms of the deed and to continue services to at-risk youth,” wrote the William George Agency’s executive director, Brad Herman, in a statement. The agency’s lawyer, Dwight Merriam, of Robinson & Cole in Hartford, declined comment for this article.

Still, what’s to debate? The CJR was supposed to be residential. And now it’s not. So the deed reverts, right? Not so fast.

While the William George Agency was planning its takeover, the CJR says it was awarded a contract with the Judicial Branch’s Court Support Services Division to house boys in Litchfield again, beginning this coming spring. However, the state’s budget problems came into play. The Judicial Branch wrote a letter to CJR in October informing officials that the new program would not receive funding anytime soon.

“The funding has been delayed but we still have the contract from the Court Support Services Division of the Judicial Branch,” said Hedy Barton, director of development and public relations for CJR. “We’re currently in the process of renovating one of the cottages for that program for boys who will be referred from the court.”

Sex Offenders?

Raising the stakes for Litchfield and state officials are reports that the William George Agency would use the campus to house youth sex offenders and young violent offenders. In its prepared statement, agency officials didn’t confirm that report. Nor did it deny it.

“It has been our experience,” the agency’s statement said, “that children who are classified as sexual offenders are those who have a problem with sexual ‘acting out.’ They receive treatment for these issues and are very closely observed. However, they are not rapists or pedophiles.”

The statement further said the agency “typically” treats only youths who have “been involved in only minor offenses.”

Predictably, the situation has prompted a flurry of lawsuits. Blumenthal filed a suit last week against the New York organization to stop what he described as “illegally seizing” the Litchfield property. CJR went a step further, filing a suit that, according to attorney James K. Robertson Jr., of Waterbury’s Carmody & Torrance, includes “claims for slander of title and the demands for compensatory damages.”

Robertson says the controversy surrounding the Litchfield campus has hurt the “funding streams” for the Connecticut Junior Republic, which also has group homes, crisis intervention facilities and community-based programs in other Connecticut towns.

Meanwhile, Sen. Roraback’s idea is simply to get the state money to CJR so it can fulfill its state contract and truly become a residential facility again. He said he’ll push his legislative colleagues to find money for the Judicial Branch program.

“I’m going to do everything in my power,” Roraback said, “to make sure that dangerous sex offenders are not housed in an inappropriate location.” ..Source.. CHRISTIAN NOLAN

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OK- Oklahoma Corrections Department lacks funding to help sex offenders

7-7-2009 Oklahoma:

Inmates being released before getting treated, state officials say

Sex offenders are likely being released from Oklahoma prisons without any treatment to curb their criminal behavior, a state Corrections Department official says.

Oklahoma only has space for 55 inmates in the treatment program for sex offenders, who number more than 3,000 in state prisons.

"I was not prepared to hear that,” Oklahoma City attorney Robert Sisson said. "It’s appalling.”

That figure came to light last week when Gilbert D. Smith, 20, unsuccessfully sought to have an Oklahoma County judge reduce his 15-year prison sentence for rape.

Sisson, a father of two, said the Corrections Department needs to ensure those offenders aren’t released without receiving treatment to control their sexual urges.

Corrections spokesman Jerry Massie said resources such as bed space and manpower limit the size of the sex offender treatment program. It is not likely to expand.

Inmates who are closest to completing their prison terms are given priority when slots open, Massie said, citing research indicating such programs are more effective at that time.

"You’ve just got to maximize the resources that you have,” he said.

If it is true that public safety is trumped by lack of money, then why is the nation spending billions on the Adam Walsh Act while people are losing their homes in the worst financial crisis this nation has seen in many years?

‘Waste of resources’

Oklahoma City attorney Jack Dempsey Pointer said he plans to ask an Oklahoma County judge to release one of his clients from prison so he can continue sex offender treatment at his own expense. The man — whom Pointer declined to name because nothing has been filed in the case — is not getting treatment in prison.

"This is a tremendous waste of resources,” Pointer said. "Plus my guy’s not getting any help.”

Pointer unsuccessfully lobbied the judge last year to sentence his client to probation, citing his progress in sessions with Dr. Richard Kishur.

Kishur, who created the Corrections Department’s sex offender treatment program, offers similar treatment in his private practice.

Pointer said releasing his client from prison would relieve the burden on the prison system, while allowing him to get the treatment he needs.

He said sex offenders who are amenable to treatment should be allowed to get it, even if that means not putting them behind bars.

Cheaper alternative

Randy Lopp, chairman of the Oklahoma Coalition for Sex Offender Management, said community-based treatment is a cheaper alternative than prison.

"Punishment and treatment are two different things,” he said.

Lopp said recidivism rates are low for sex offenders, which makes them good candidates for treatment instead of incarceration.

Studies show 13 percent to 15 percent of sex offenders are re-arrested, Lopp said.

Oklahoma County prosecutor Suzanne Lister favors treating sex offenders while they’re in prison.

"They’re a captive audience,” she said. "They need to be getting some kind of treatment.”

The state Corrections Department does not provide treatment for sex offenders in the community.

Agency spokesman Massie said it likely would be required for anyone who is being supervised by a probation officer. ..Source.. by JAY F. MARKS

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VT- Sex offenders not getting treatment

6-1-2009 Vermont:

BENNINGTON – Local officials have expressed concerns after learning that the Department of Corrections has not provided treatment for sex offenders living in local communities in Bennington and Rutland counties for several weeks because the contract to provide that service was broken.

Corrections Deputy Commissioner Lisa Menard said that while there was not currently a clinical provider under contract to treat sex offenders, regular meetings are still taking place. The meetings are run by experienced staff members from Probation and Parole who discuss subjects like risk factors.

Menard said the weekly meetings also provide another element of supervision.

Georgia Cumming, the department's program director for sex offenders, said she didn't know the exact date the previous contract was broken, but said it was earlier in May.

Cumming said a provider had been found and would take over starting Monday to provide full coverage for Rutland County, so sex offenders there will only have missed a few weeks of treatment.

But Corrections Commissioner Andrew Pallito said given the nature of the contract and the requirements for filling it, which include advertising the position and approving any prospective candidates, it could take as long as three months to find a replacement in Bennington County.

"That gap is being filled partially by the (Department of Corrections), but for treatment like this, you really need a licensed provider. Unfortunately, the state doesn't have the luxury of being able to afford to have any back-up providers," Pallito said.

Pallito said the department was committed to finding a new treatment provider and said there had already been some interest shown in the job after ads were placed in trade publications and the "electronic billboard."

Sen. Richard Sears, D-Bennington, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he had already told Pallito that he was concerned and expected the position to be filled as soon as possible.

"The idea that parole officers are doing a little bit extra just doesn't cut it, given what we've been through in this state," he said.

As the primary investigator of sex crimes for the town, Bennington Police Detective Lawrence Cole said he understood sex offenders who had been returned to the community needed experienced support.

"Without the proper programming, I wonder if we're setting ourselves up to have people veer off the right side of the law," he said.

Several Bennington County officials said they were also concerned because they hadn't been notified by the Department of Corrections that sex offenders living in their community were not getting clinical treatment.

Bennington County State's Attorney Erica Marthage said her office, Cole, the Bennington County Special Victims Unit and other agencies had worked together to create a successful team that had attracted positive attention for its response to sex crimes. But she said part of the success had been the trust that all members of the team were doing their part.

"My office makes plea agreements all the time in cases that require sex offender treatment. The fact that we don't have someone doing that right now would have been good to know," she said.

Marthage said the former treatment provider had been a valued member of the team, and while she acknowledged the Department of Corrections did not have to consult with her before breaking the contract, it was "very distressing" that her office didn't learn of the decision until after the fact.

Sears said that as chairman of the Judiciary Committee he is in frequent contact with the Department of Corrections, but said he only learned about the change when he was contacted by the former treatment provider.

Bennington Town Manager Stuart Hurd said he was not surprised that the town government had not gotten notification.

"(The Department of Corrections) may believe that the situation is under control but I'm concerned that they just don't get it. They don't understand how a community feels. They don't understand how vulnerable a community feels," he said.

Hurd said the department's response was "poor communication at the least, arrogance at the worst."

Rutland City Police Detective Sgt. Kevin Stevens said on Friday he had not been notified about the lack of treatment but said he didn't believe it would have a direct impact on police. However, he said he did believe it raised some questions.

"Should (the local sex offenders) be put back in the (correctional) center? Because if they're not in treatment, than they are a greater risk," he said.

Pallito said it wouldn't have been a "high-level of notification" because he believed that local law enforcement agencies would have been aware of the change in treatment.

Menard said she could not discuss why the contract ended but said it was "not expected" rather than a contract that had not been renewed after it ended.

According to Cumming, the gap in treatment would not change a sex offender's length of probation. The average time in treatment is about two years, but because people move at their own pace through treatment, they wouldn't have to "make up for lost time."

The state is looking for someone who would have a master's level degree in a field like psychology or social work and someone who has experience working with sex offenders to fill the position in Bennington County. ..Source.. by PATRICK McARDLE STAFF WRITER

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NC- Immigrant Sex Offender May Be Released in North Carolina Untreated Due to Illegal Status

It seems that money is needed to solve all issues surrounding sex offenses and offenders, and lawmakers refuse to appropriate the funding. So is it their priority -as they profess- to prevent future victims?

2-9-2009 North Carolina:

A high-risk, 18-year-old sex offender in North Carolina may soon be a free man — because he is an illegal immigrant and the state has determined it cannot pay to put him in a treatment facility.

The Guatemalan man, identified only as "D.G," was convicted of raping his 5-year-old handicapped cousin when he was 15. Despite recommendations by criminal psychologists that he be sent to a sex-offender treatment program, he wound up in a youth detention center instead.

But D.G. can stay in the center only until his 19th birthday — and with that day approaching, what happens next is anyone's guess.

D.G.’s attorney, Ann Petersen, said the case didn't always seem so complicated.

"When he was originally adjudicated in 2005, the trial judge took into account all of the expert psychological examinations and his background and determined that there was a program that was well suited for him through a private agency," Petersen told FOXNews.com.

"He was sent off in September and doing great in the program until the county decided they didn’t want to pay for it."

In February of 2006, a motion for review was filed stating that "funds were no longer available" for D.G.'s placement. A notice from the local mental health agency, Foothills Area Program, soon followed, saying the $128,000-a-year services being provided to him would be terminated effective March 31, 2006.

"The court decided that it couldn’t force the state or county to pay for it because there’s this statute that says that for illegal aliens no government agency should be forced to pay a benefit," Petersen explained.

With no public funds available for D.G.’s treatment, the court moved him to a youth development center, where he could remain in custody only until he turned 19.

"It’s not a treatment center, it’s a jail," Petersen said of the facility. "He couldn’t get treatment for sexual deviance there, which is what he needed."

D.G. appealed the ruling, but a court determined that under federal law, he was not a "qualified alien" — and thus the state could not provide funding for him to receive "custodial sex offender treatment," court documents show.

On Feb. 23, Petersen will take D.G.'s case to the North Carolina Supreme Court and argue again that D.G. should be committed to treatment. If her appeal is unsuccessful, D.G. will be released, from the development center untreated.

But exactly when that will happen is unclear.

D.G. cannot be kept in the center past his 19th birthday, but Petersen said she doesn't know when his birthday is and, considering illegal immigrants often have faulty documents, it's possible even the state doesn't know for sure.

The even bigger mystery is where he will go when he is released.

The court has established that D.G. can’t return to his family's house in North Carolina, as his victim lives there. But beyond that, little is known about where he will end up.

Petersen said she doesn't know what will happen or whether the federal government will deport D.G. The district attorney, when contacted by FOXNews.com, declined to comment on the case.

An immigration attorney, Erena Baybik, is surprised D.G. isn’t already back in Guatemala.

"Since in most cases, a sex crime is deemed an aggravated felony under immigration law, the alien would be automatically deported because there is no defense to aggravated felonies under immigration law," Baybick told FOXNews.com. "I am a bit surprised at all of the bureaucratic hoops that the government is having to go through in North Carolina in order to find a resolution to this case."

But Cheryl David, the the national chairman of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said deporting D.G. might not be that simple.

"Since it's a youthful offender adjudication, he might not even be deportable at all," she said.

Former Immigration and Naturalization Service Special Agent Michael Cutler said the idea of keeping D.G. in the country is deplorable.

"The bottom line is he committed a heinous crime and he poses a threat to people in the community where he lives, and I don't think the United States has a burden to keep mentally incompetent or criminally insane people in this country when they don't belong here," Cutler told FOXNews.com.

"He may need help, but there are children in America who aren't getting the proper education that they need to help them with a variety of issues either.... If you can't feed your own children, you don't invite more people to the dinner table."

Whether D.G. stays in the U.S. or is sent back to Guatemala, former federal prosecutor and immigration attorney Michael Wildes said he will still be a threat to children, and American money will have been wasted.

"This is a lose-lose for everybody, including taxpayers who are going to end up having to pay for care that isn’t going to change the defendant," Wildes, currently the mayor of Englewood, N.J., told FOXNews.com. "Simply put, an individual with this problem should be treated."

And at this point, that might be easier said than done.

"By pulling him out of treatment he was sent the message that he was wrong to trust the program and the providers, and this could have further damaged him," forensic psychiatrist Dr. Hans Stelmach told FOXNews.com. "It might be tough to re-engage him in the program."

But all that considered, Stelmach said, he would still recommend that D.G. return to a treatment program.

Petersen said even if help is out of reach for D.G., it's not out of reach for others.

"It’s kind of a peculiar case because the appellate process takes so long that by the time we get this resolved, unfortunately, it may or may not be too late for him," she said. "But hopefully his case will prevent this from happening to someone else." ..News Source.. by Diane Macedo

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UT- Economy forces state to scrimp on treatment for young sex offenders

12-21-2008 Utah:

Budget cuts » The state is scrapping plans for a new center and could close a long-term lockup facility.

Despite Utah's young demographics and a booming number of juvenile sex offenders, upcoming budget cuts will hit kids in trouble hard.

An expected $3 million shortfall through 2010 means fewer juvenile sex offenders will be evaluated and treated as efforts to build a new center have been scrapped. More kids will be crowded together if a long-term lockup center is closed. And funds will be chopped from a slew of community programs including one that gives police a place to take arrested juveniles if their parents can't be found right away.

"We're concerned," said Director of JJS Dan Maldonado. "Anything involving the justice community is really important, and we're a big part of that."

After 15 years of efforts to start a center to identify those juvenile sex offenders in danger of becoming predators, Juvenile Justice officials finally found a welcoming property. The budget downturn will force them to eliminate $600,000 pegged for the center and restart the process of finding land in a time when the number of young sex offenders is exploding.

In the mid- to late-1990s, an estimated 7 to 10 percent of the juvenile offender population was in for sex crimes. The number has now doubled to 20 percent, Maldonado said, and there are many more offenders among the nearly 10,000 kids taken in annually by the Department of Child and Family Services and the courts. Rob Butters, co-chair of the Utah Network on Juveniles Offending Sexually (NOJOS), said the increase is due in large part to more victims coming forward to report crimes.

Butters said Utah now has a pair of gaps in its system. In addition to losing the prospect of an assessment center, Valley Mental Health last year cut contracts providing mentally ill juvenile sex offenders much-needed psychiatric help. Without treatment alternatives, young offenders tend to land in lock-ups more often, he said.

As a clinical social worker, Butters said he once treated a 16-year-old boy who fit a fairly typical mold for young offenders -- exposure to pornography in pubescent stages and being slightly socially awkward or bored. The young man has since gone on to graduate from college, is married, has a child and plans to study law so he can help kids in similar situations.

"If you treat them, they probably won't do it again," Butters said, citing studies that show treated kids re-offend less than 10 percent of the time. "We want them to get on with their lives rather than put a scarlet letter on their forehead."

Treatment for the most common young offenders involves individual and group visits to therapy programs, but one of the major components is simply preoccupying the kids.

"There is some sex-specific treatment, but it's very much focused on all the other things going on in a kid's life," Butters said, adding that workers will often check grades or have youths attend social activities. "This new model really says all this clinical voodoo is OK, but let's really focus on helping these people live healthy, productive, happy lives. Social skills is a big part of that -- if you can't get your needs met one way, you turn to the Internet or underground deviant stuff."

If a child goes untreated, it's harder to change sexually deviant behavior in adults, Butters said.

"If we can stop this behavior now, it will save us so much money," Butters said.

But given the reality of the economy, Juvenile Justice workers know it's more likely they will lose more cash across the board in coming years.

Over the next two years, Juvenile Justice plans to eliminate $3.7 million from community programs, ranging from group homes to psychiatric hospital treatment. It will also eliminate $3 million from holding facilities, such as the Decker Lake Detention Center, which could force the department to cram twice as many juveniles into cells. Other proposed cuts include supervision and diversion programs for juveniles.

"We are very concerned about public safety first and foremost," Maldonado said. "We want to isolate sex offenders, and we spend time and energy in treating all of those kids and affording them opportunities for treatment."

Early treatment costs only a few thousand dollars, said Maldonado, and could help alleviate the heavy burden on the Department of Corrections, which pays around $30,000 per inmate each year and recently reported a growing waiting list for sex-offender treatment at its facilities.

The total number of offenders at the prisons doubled from August 1996 to August 2008, and Corrections says adult sex offenders make up 30 percent of the total inmate population. Even so, low funding means only 235 of the nearly 2,000 sex offenders imprisoned in August were receiving treatment as of November.

The young population of offenders is expected to continue to rise, posing what Maldonado called a "daunting task for the Legislature."

Cuts to social work programs that carry long-term benefits for the community concern some who warn of an "economic aftershock."

"It's when the economy is terrible and people are broke -- that's big business for social workers," Butters said. "People are desperate, but we also stop putting money into programs." ..News Source.. by Steve Gehrke, The Salt Lake Tribune

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