No matter what, treatment is proven to reduce recidivism. If you fall over a rock in your path everyday, falling to move it virtually guarantees you will fall over it again.
9-2-2009 Michigan:
MUSKEGON COUNTY -- A 47-year-old sex offender charged with exposing himself earlier this year to a young woman next door will spend time on probation and in a treatment facility.
____, of 1227 Oaklea, Muskegon Township, was sentenced Monday in Muskegon County's 14th Circuit Court on one count of aggravated indecent exposure to 169 days in jail, with credit for 169 days already served, and six months probation by Judge James M. Graves Jr.
In addition, Graves ordered ____ to spend six months on an electronic tether and to remain in an outpatient sex-offender treatment program. Pummel also has to pay $328 in fines and costs.
____ -- who pleaded guilty to the sex charge earlier this month -- was charged in March with exposing himself Feb. 24 through a window of his home to a young woman in the driveway next door, with ____ wearing only a shirt and masturbating. At the time, he was still on probation for a 2008 misdemeanor conviction of indecent exposure.
According to state law, Graves could have imposed a much harsher sentence on ____, including a life sentence in state prison.
Aggravated indecent exposure is ordinarily a high-court misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of two years in prison. ..Source.. by Heather Lynn Peters | The Muskegon Chronicle
September 2, 2009
MI- Admitted sex offender ordered to get treatment
July 28, 2009
TX- Dallas girl, 12, arrested in sex assault of four children, ages 4-7
7-28-2009 Texas:
A 12-year-old girl was arrested on aggravated sexual assault charges Sunday, accused of coercing four younger children to perform sex acts on one another.
Dallas police say she told the children – two girls 5 and 7, and two boys 4 and 5 – that she would shut them in a closet Saturday afternoon if they didn't do as she said.
One of the children later told a parent, who called authorities Sunday. Police say the children, interviewed separately, gave similar accounts of what happened.
The mother of two of the victims said Monday that she wants to see the arrested girl, who is her niece, get help – but not severe punishment.
"I feel she should be punished, don't get me wrong," the mother said. ."But I think being registered as a child [sex] offender for the rest of her life is going to hinder her from ever doing anything in her life."
"At 12, I think therapy is where they need to be," the mother said. "I really feel that she needs to be in a positive environment, and she needs to get positive help."
Her kids were with two other children playing together with the 12-year-old Saturday at the arrested girl's apartment in the 8500 block of Park Lane in Northeast Dallas, the mother said.
"Their kids play together all the time, and of course my kids go over there periodically as well," she said.
They were in the care of the boyfriend of the 12-year-old's mother.
"According to him," the mother of the victims said, "because they were making so much noise, he told them to go in the other room."
Once inside the room, the mother said, her niece apparently made the girls perform oral sex on the boys. She said her niece has not been in serious trouble before.
"She's stubborn, and she has her own little ways, but I think that she has a good heart," she said. "I was heartbroken every time I thought about them putting her in handcuffs."
She said the family suspects the arrested girl may have been molested years ago by a man who used to be close to the mother.
"Nobody liked him; everybody thought he was giving her too much attention," she said. "Now he's in the pen for molesting an 11-year-old girl."
The mother of the arrested girl waited in tears Monday for the outcome of a hearing, during which a judge ordered the continued detainment of her daughter.
"She really is a good kid," she said. "This is just a random thing that happened.
"The only thing she's thinking about is they're going to take her away," the accused girl's mother said. "That's all she keeps asking me." ..Source.. by STEVE THOMPSON / The Dallas Morning News
April 21, 2009
SD- Sentence delayed in sex case for mentally disabled man
Hats off to this judge, now how do we get him into the U.S. Supreme court? Why is it that judges see that treatment is the way to go, but, lawmakers IGNORE this and in so doing make sociiety less safe?
4-21-2009 South Dakota:
A federal judge in Sioux Falls has delayed the sentencing of a mentally disabled man who has pleaded guilty to traveling to South Dakota to have sex with a person he believed was a young girl.
U.S. District Judge Lawrence Piersol said Monday that he wants more time to explore treatment and housing options that the Bureau of Prisons has for sex offenders and whether any of them would be appropriate for a mildly mentally disabled prisoner.
Ryan Lee Balster of Jasper, Minn., pleaded guilty to traveling with intent to engage in illicit sexual contact after he drove to Sioux Falls last May to meet a person who he thought was a 12-year-old girl but instead was an undercover police detective.
A psychologist and psychiatrist each testified Monday that Balster, 23, would be best served in a community treatment program with intense supervision rather than prison. It is treatment he should have been receiving already given his mental state, said Dr. Rajesh Singh, a psychiatrist.
"I think he's fallen through the cracks," he said.
Balster testified at the sentencing hearing and admitted that he had used a webcam to chat with and masturbate about someone he believed was a 12-year-old girl. He also said he had traveled to Sioux Falls to meet the girl for sex.
"If she was underage, my plans were to just go home," Balster said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Clapper argued that Balster had engaged in many sexual conversations and exhibitionist activities online and that Balster is a dangerous person.
Balster's lawyer, Timothy Langley, reserved most of his comments for the next hearing but acknowledged that Balster's disability complicates the sentencing process.
A new court date for Balster was not immediately set. He faces a 30-year prison sentence. ..News Source.. by Matthew Gruchow
March 24, 2008
CA- An Assessment of current management practices of adult sex offenders in California
January 2008
PREFACE
Sexual assault continues to bring tremendous and long-lasting suffering into the lives of its victims, and the communities in which they live. The mandate of the California Sex Offender Management Board (CASOMB) is to play a key role in reducing sexual victimization in our state, particularly that perpetrated by individuals who have already been identified as sexual offenders. Consequently, every effort of CASOMB must be informed by a clear perspective on the experiences of victims – viewed individually as well as collectively. California is an exceptional state. Its size, diversity, distribution of resources and variations in practices, make any assessment of public safety strategies a complex and expansive challenge. The legislation that created the CASOMB in statute acknowledged this reality by requiring the board to focus the first phase of our work, and thus this report, on current practice and existing research.
When passing and signing AB 1015 (Chu) in 2006, California’s legislature and Governor wisely recognized that in order to truly, and effectively, improve sex offender accountability and management strategies it was necessary to understand the current state of practice. The safety of the public, victims and those who could be potentially victimized depends on the deployment of public safety strategies that are effective and achievable.
By studying evidence-based sex offender management practices and gathering information with regard to what California is currently doing to either conform to evidence-based practice or to diverge from such practice, the CASOMB is taking a first major step toward its mandated goal: “…address any issues, concerns, and problems related to the community management of adult sex offenders...to achieve safer communities by reducing victimization.”
The CASOMB, in preparing this Report, has been primarily interested in assembling the “currently available” information about sex offender management in California. The reader of this Report will, it can be assumed, share with its authors an awareness that there is much information that is desirable but not provided. It is not provided because it is not readily available at a statewide level. Noteworthy “gaps” in the ready availability of information needed to develop recommendations for improved policies and practices are pointed out throughout the document.
The strengths, gaps, research recommendations and policy analysis included in this document should be considered an initial assessment of California’s practice – one of the first of its kind ever produced in this state. It should be noted that, as most readers of this Report are already aware, the reality of having so many jurisdictions, laws, systems, agencies and perspectives directly involved in the management of California’s sex offenders results in a very complex web of policies and practices that defy ready simplification. It is precisely this complexity – at least in part – that has created the need for instituting a Sex Offender Management Board as a locus of cohesive information and integrated expertise. This report represents the CASOMB’s first step towards the board’s vision to decrease sexual victimization and increase community safety.
.....
OVERVIEW OF THE SECTIONS OF THE REPORT
There are many domains of sex offender management and, for effective functioning, each must interface productively with some or all of the other components of the total system. Although, for purposes of clarity and ease of understanding, each of the following sections is addressed somewhat separately, important interactions with other elements of the overall system will be regularly noted.
SECTION One – Prevalence of Sexual Assault and Services for Victims
SECTION Two - Numbers and Distribution of Offenders,
SECTION Three – Sex Offender Recidivism,
SECTION Four - Investigation and Prosecution,
SECTION Five - Supervision,
SECTION Six - Housing,
SECTION Six - Supervision,
SECTION Seven - Treatment,
SECTION Eight – Registration, Notification and Post-Superversion Management
..page 1 of this 225 page report.. by California Sex Offender Management Board
