4-5-2009 New Hampshire:(Posted by eAdvocate)
Praised program doesn't have enough space
There are 865 male sex offenders in the state's prison and only 90 spots in the 18-month treatment program most must take, meaning some sex offenders are being held past their parole dates while awaiting treatment.
Even those unsympathetic toward sex offenders might be persuaded by this: Keeping an inmate in prison one year past his parole date costs the state about $30,000. Paroling him would cost less than $800 a year.
One 53-year-old Concord man sentenced for child sex assault said he wasn't allowed to apply for the treatment program until a year after he became eligible for parole. He tried but was told, "We have such a vast number of people on the waiting list," he said, asking not to be named because he's now on parole.
The treatment, once he got it, changed his life, he said, but the delay kept him incarcerated an additional 18 months.
(Posted by eAdvocate)
The same thing happened to a 46-year-old man now living in Concord on parole for a child sexual assault. He also praised the treatment he got. But the delay getting into the program kept him in prison an extra 18 months, too. "You just keep writing letters (to prison administrators) asking for admission, and they'll write back and say you are on the list and we have your name," said the man, who also requested anonymity. "Maybe after six months, you write again. A lot of guys don't get out on time."
There isn't the same problem at the women's prison because there are just seven female sex offenders there.
Prison officials acknowledged the program's backlog but noted that not every delay is their fault. Sex offenders can't begin the program until they admit to their offense and may prefer to appeal their conviction first rather than admit their wrongdoing. And if they misbehave while enrolled, they can be kicked out and put back on the waiting list.
They try to avoid delays by putting offenders on the waiting list two years before they are eligible for parole.
Still, prison officials said, there are some sex offenders, especially those with shorter sentences, who can't get through the 18-month treatment program without running over their parole date. Treatment coordinators have introduced new options they hope will cut down on the waiting, but those alone won't solve the problem, they said.
"If we had the money, we would have additional bed space (in the treatment program)," said Corrections Commissioner William Wrenn. "Where we have so many sexual offenders in our population, and the number seems to be increasing, we'll have to expand these programs at some point in time. But we're in the perfect storm with this economy."
The issue came up in Merrimack County Superior Court last week when Judge Carol Ann Conboy sentenced a Hopkinton man convicted of three counts of felonious sexual assault to 1½ to 5 years in prison. Because the man had already served about five months of that sentence in jail, awaiting trial, he'll be eligible for parole in a year.
But there is no way he'll be paroled on time if he has to take the 18-month treatment program. His lawyer, Earle Wingate of Sisti Law Offices, tried to use the timing issue to spare his client prison. He asked Conboy to let the man get private treatment on his own. It didn't work.
"Defense attorneys talk to one another," Wingate said after the court hearing, "and the collective wisdom is that there are others finding themselves in the same situation."
Public defender Donna Brown advises her sex offender clients with shorter sentences to abandon expectations of meeting their minimum parole date. "It's frustrating," she said, "because I think there is this feeling that the only appropriate treatment is going to prison and doing the sex offender treatment program." She said she wishes prosecutors would consider pre-trial counseling and private treatment outside the prison as worthwhile alternatives.
Former public defender Barbara Keshen, now a staff attorney for the New Hampshire chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said she used to lobby the prison to put her sex offender clients on the waiting list early. She knew she had little sway because there are so few spots for so many offenders. ..News Source.. by ANNMARIE TIMMINS, Monitor staff
April 5, 2009
NH- Sex offender treatment requires wait
March 27, 2009
VT- Sex Offender Sentence Criticized
1-5-2006 Vermont:
Vermont Judge Edward Cashman is coming under fire for handing out a light sentence to a child rapist.
The judge says did it because he no longer believes in punishment and he wants to speed the rapist's entry into a rehabilitation program.
Judge Cashman's short sentence for an admitted child molester triggered immediate public and political reaction with some lawmakers saying he should leave the bench.
Judge Edward Cashman's light sentence was the talk of the town. Wednesday he sentenced child rapist Mark Hulett to 60 days in jail. Hulett admitted he raped a little girl countless times when she was between 7 and 10 years old.
Prosecutors said Hulett deserved at least 8 years in prison in part as punishment.
But Judge Cashman said the 60-day sentence guaranteed that Hulett would get into sex offender rehabilitation quickly or face a possible life sentence. He said he had no choice because the Corrections Department classified Hulett as a low risk offender meaning he can't get treatment until he's out of jail.
And more importantly the judge announced that after 25 years on the bench, he no longer believes in punishment.
Almost everyone we spoke with in Burlington on Thursday had heard about the case, but we found no one who liked it.
"We were actually talking about it at work this morning. It just does not fee as if justice was done. Seems like a really serious crime with a pretty small consequence," said Joan Robinson of Burlington.
"I was dismayed to see that someone who had committed such a serious crime against a young child would be given less of a prison sentence than for instance someone who got a second-term DWI," said Paul Poss of South Burlington.
"It just seems really sad to me that was the judge's decision. And I hope that other judges look at that decision and see it as the wrong decision,"explained Robyn MaGuire of Winooski.
It's absolutely amazing based on what's going on in the United States with sex offenders, registry, non-registry, and so forth, that somebody could get a 60-day sentence and get off that easily. It just seems impossible to me that a 60-day sentence is logical," said Bill Polk of Panton.
Now the judge's ruling apparently sparked some political fires at the statehouse. Republican lawmakers have scheduled a press conference for tomorrow to call for mandatory minimum sentences. That's a direct response to Judge Cashman's ruling.
On the other hand, several defense lawyers toldChannel 3 the judge's decision was "fair", "brilliant" and "beautifully reasoned."
Some Republicans have started calls for Cashman's removal from the bench.
But they may have to until Judge Cashman's six-year retention hearings in March 2007. Legal experts say it is highly unlikely his sentencing decision would qualify as an impeachable offense. And as for any Judicial Conduct Board disciplinary action, the judge's behavior would have to be unethical, not just unpopular, to get him in trouble. ..News Source.. by WCAX TV News
OH- Urine-fetish bill distracts Senate from real issues
3-27-2009 Ohio:
A Columbus man with one of the grossest -- and rarest -- fetishes has befuddled our criminal-justice system. What do we do? Introduce a bill to punish him!
The system of financing just about every state-government operation is on the brink of disaster. A never-more-important-than-now transportation bill is pending this week.
Side issues have stalled crucial legislation that would address prisoner access to DNA evidence that might prove their innocence, in a bill inspired by a Dispatch series.
The list goes on and on; yet, over in the Ohio Senate this week, testimony started on a bill that would address just one man's fetish for drinking boys' urine.
We can't stop Alan D. Patton's desire, but we can punish him, according to the bill, for collecting any bodily fluids without the proper "privilege," such as by doctor's order.
No one has to convince me that this guy should not be running loose amid the general population; the last time Patton was busted for urine collection was at a sports complex that my own son has frequented.
But criminalizing his kinky collections won't make him go away, at least not for very long. We already know that jail and prison time -- a total of four years, 195 days combined -- haven't reformed Patton. The fifth-degree-felony penalty in the proposed bill would carry a sentence of just six months to 12 months.
Yesterday, a judge scheduled a hearing to impose her sentence on Patton for a misdemeanor count of criminal mischief for the sports-complex bust in June, after an appeals court rejected the argument that the judge didn't have the right to order psychological testing before his trial.
That raises an interesting issue. Patton's fetish clearly is associated with sexual deviance. And Municipal Judge Anne Taylor required the psychological test because she wanted to know the extent of Patton's disorder.
But the bill completely disregards the issue of mental abnormality.
The bill's sponsor, Republican state Sen. Jim Hughes of Columbus, said he wrote the bill that way because he doesn't want to legislate how judges do their jobs -- for example, whether they should order counseling.
Hughes said that he consulted with all sorts of law-enforcement groups but didn't check with even one mental-health expert.
If he had, he might have learned what Dr. Kathy Burns told me. The chief clinical officer for Franklin County's Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health agency said prison sex-offender programs are reserved for inmates with lengthy sentences.
Even if the prisoner could get into a program, 12 months wouldn't have much impact.
And even if the bill did address mental-health issues, Burns said, any such legislation is wasteful when it focuses on just one man. Our money and time, she said, are better invested in sex-offender programs that might help protect more victims.
The rest, she said, is just grandstanding. ..News Source.. by Ann fisher
