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Featured Issue: Posted 2-21-2005
Is it a public safety issue, when the public does not know where former sex offenders live? -AND- Not a public safety issue, to deny sex offenders the treatment which everyone says they need?
To deny them in every way possible, funding, zoning, treatment centers, transitional housing, etc.
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2-21-2005 Oregon:
Oregon sex offenders receive no treatment in prison |
.About 3,400 people housed in Oregon prisons are charged with a sex crime, according to the Oregon Department of Corrections. There is no state money allocated for in-prison specialized sex offender treatment, said DOC spokeswoman Parrin Damon. But the DOC provides programs that are the foundation that provides inmates to succeed in community treatment. Changing criminal thinking patterns is 80 percent of the battle, according to Damon, who says the DOC provides that to inmates.
Behavioral management, substance abuse treatment and mental health services are available to inmates at risk. According to the law enforcement community, most sex offenders prey upon extended family members and others with whom they are aquainted.
: by Associated Press
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2-21-2005 Utah:
Prison's Sex Offender Program Needs More Money |
.I don't want to hurt people and I want to be free. I desperately want to be free of the desire to sexually assault people. Convicted sex offenders speak out on how they're turning their lives around. The state prison is currently treating up to 200 inmates for sexual offenses. Corrections officials are lobbying the legislature for more money for the program. Tonya Papanikolas spoke with two convicted sex offenders going through the treatment.
Prisoners say this therapy program helps them take responsibility for their actions. Corrections officials also stand behind the program, but they say they could do a lot more with more money. In the last seven years the number of imprisoned sex offenders has grown from 900 to about 1450. But during that time, the funding for treatment hasn't budged. Jeff Mason, Convicted Sex Offender: I really didn't think I did anything wrong. I was in denial. Jeff Mason is in prison for raping his ex-girlfriend. Jon Stephens was convicted of sexually abusing a child.
Jon Stephens , Convicted Child Sex Offender: I thought I should be treated as a good guy for turning myself in. Both men now have different attitudes after spending months in a sex offender treatment program at the prison. Jeff Mason: I Have made a lot of changes. I see how I've hurt a lot of people in my life, and I don't want to do that anymore. Jon Stephens: Im ashamed. I caused a lot of hurt for my family and my victim.
Corrections statistics show the system is working. After one year of being released, almost fifty percent of the general prison population is back behind bars. But for those who underwent sex offender treatment, that number drops to 19-percent.
Dr. Ron Sanchez, Sex Offender Treatment Program Director: It's a public safety issue to be able to provide good and comprehensive treatment to the offenders that need it. To do that, Sanchez and other corrections officials say they need more funding. They're asking for half a million dollars from the legislature. Dr. Ron Sanchez: We would be able to hire three or four new therapists. Extra staff would mean more prisoners could finish treatment before they're paroled, treatment these offenders swear by.
: by Tonya Papanikolas
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2-21-2005 Washington:
Tulalips may evict facility for boys |
.Less than a week after a 16-year-old boy was arrested for allegedly trying to rape a counselor at a group home, Tulalip Tribes Police Chief J.A Goss said he will ask tribal leaders to find a way to force the home from the reservation.
Suzanne Rubenstein, director of Second Chance's three Snohomish County juvenile facilities, said the six-bed Tamarack House admits boys between 8 and 17. While not all of the children at the nearly 7-year-old group home are convicted sex offenders, "many of these kids have sexually acted out in their histories," Rubenstein said.
"These are kids who come from very traumatic backgrounds," Rubenstein said. "We've always had a good working relationship with tribal police and the Snohomish County Sheriff's Department." Rubenstein said it might be difficult for the Tulalip Tribes to force the group home to leave since the Tamarack House, although on the reservation, isn't on tribal land. Snohomish County property records show the land is owned by Second Chance Trust.
: by Jennifer Sullivan, Times Snohomish County Bureau
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2-21-2005 New Hampshire:
Sex offender unit could leave city |
.Although the Legislature will have the final word, Department of Health and Human Services Commissioner John Stephen says there are plans to move a sex offenders facility from the N.H. Department of Corrections Lakes Region Correctional Facility campus on North Main Street. "I dont think the facility will remain in Laconia," Stephen said on Thursday, although he shied away from making a more definitive commitment.
Mayor Mark Fraser said he would be happy if the 12-bed facility which houses mentally retarded persons charged with certain crimes, including sex offenses, but who have been deemed incompetent to stand trial was moved out of the city altogether. But he added that he would be equally satisfied if the state merely lived up to the conditions it agreed to in House Bill 1100, which then Gov. Jeanne Shaheen signed into law in 1998, which would have the DHHS relocate the facility closer to the Lakes Region Correctional Facility.
The Concord Monitor reported on Thursday that Gov. John Lynch in his budget proposal is thinking along the same lines as Stephen and has said he wants the unit moved from the LRCF campus because its presence within the grounds of what the federal government deems a correctional institution disqualifies the state from receiving Medicaid reimbursements. ... ...
: by JOHN KOZIOL, Staff Writer
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2-21-2005 Oregon:
City looks at housing for sex offenders: After a residential neighborhood erupts in protest over a group home, zoning rules are reviewed |
.Six sex offenders have moved out of a house on Southeast Belmont Court after residents complained they didn't belong in a neighborhood with so many children. The men, all classified as nonpredatory sex offenders, finished moving out of the house as of Saturday. The home, where they had lived about a month, is in the 5000 block of Belmont Court. John Hartner, director of Washington County Community Corrections, said corrections and city officials met with the home's owner and decided that moving the men would be in everyone's best interests. Hartner said the men have moved into several apartment buildings in an industrial area. Citing privacy concerns, he declined to say where.
"I don't know if we could have resolved the issues and if neighbors and the men could have lived in harmony," Hartner said. "There was no reason to be testing the city here and fighting a situation that was likely to be difficult for both the residents of that facility and the neighbors." Despite the move, neighborhood residents are urging the city of Hillsboro and Community Corrections to do everything they can to block such facilities from locating in residential areas again. City councilors asked Tim Sercombe, city attorney, to research what uses are allowed in areas zoned for single-family residences under local, state and federal law.
Swensen had asked for city building permits to turn a garage and shed into four additional bedrooms, for a total of nine renters. When neighbors learned that Swensen was renting the rooms to sex offenders through Prison Fellowship, a Christian group, they stormed City Hall. More than 150 people also packed a community meeting two weeks ago, asking why they weren't told about the sex offenders moving in and why such a use was allowed in an area zoned for single-family residences.
: by HOLLY DANKS and ESMERALDA BERMUDEZ
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2-21-2005 Massachusettes:
Sex-offender housing ban gains support |
.LYNN-Ford School officials endorsed a proposed ordinance Tuesday banning sex offender residential treatment facilities near city schools or playgrounds. The ordinance, proposed in January by Councilor At Large Loretta Cuffe-O'Donnell, would establish 1,000-foot boundaries around public and private schools, parks and playgrounds in Lynn, creating a no-fly zone for sex offender treatment facilities, clinics, or halfway houses.
Council members opened public hearing on the proposed rule in the Ordinance Committee Tuesday. Claire Crane, principal of the Ford School, backed the ordinance. "We are in favor of this," she said. "We feel that (any sort of sex offender treatment facility) would be inappropriate for the neighborhood and surrounding community."
Tom Goff, superintendent of administration for the Essex County Sheriff's Department, told councilors that there was no basis to rumors that the sheriff was considering opening any such facility in Lynn. Cuffe-O'Donnell originally proposed the ordinance after receiving information, apparently baseless, from an inmate's family member suggesting a residential facility slated for Hollingsworth Street. "Totally false," said Goff. "I'm just here to let the board know that's totally untrue."
: by James Haynes
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2-21-2005 Connecticut:
DCF Plan For Young Sex Offenders Opposed |
.A plan to put young sex offenders in the state's juvenile correction center in Middletown is meeting stiff opposition among some local officials and advocates. "If you try to place sex offenders in Middletown, there will be a war," state Rep. Gail Hamm told senior officials from the state Department of Children and Families on Thursday. "It's an inappropriate place for it."
Hamm, whose district includes Middletown and East Hampton, voiced her opinion during a review of DCF's proposed budget before the state appropriations committee, of which she is a member. The East Hampton Democrat said that Middletown already bears a disproportionate share of state programs with the presence of Connecticut Valley Hospital, Riverview Hospital for Children and Youth, River Valley Services, the Whiting Forensic Division and more than a dozen other counseling and rehabilitation services.
Hamm said she believes that the children would be better served in smaller, regional programs where they can get the kind of intense personal therapy and counseling they need. Studies have shown that most children with sexually reactive disorders have been victims of sexual assault or abuse themselves.
: by COLIN POITRAS, Courant Staff Writer
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2-21-2005 Alaska:
Sex offenders will receive new approach: Dept. of Corrections hasn't provided sex-offender treatment since July 2003 |
.When Juneau Superior Court Judge Larry weeks sentenced a 61-year-old sex offender earlier this month to serve eight years in prison, he said incarceration wouldn't be enough. "He is amenable to treatment and will be a danger to the community if he is not treated before he is released," Weeks wrote in the judgment for Richard Callahan. "The state is ordered to provide meaningful sex offender treatment to him while incarcerated for the protection of the public."
The problem is the Alaska Department of Corrections hasn't provided sex-offender treatment for inmates since July 2003, Deputy Commissioner Portia Parker said. And it has no plans to offer prison-based sex offender treatment. It isn't a question of resources, she added. "Treatment doesn't cure sex offenders, period." She said a new program that will be tried out on a limited basis in July will address the ultimate concern of public safety, working on in-community treatment of sex offenders while they are on probation and parole.
Parker said sex offenders currently receive treatment outside of prison as a condition of probation or parole, and they receive specialized supervision. The pilot program beginning July 1 will add the use of polygraph tests to aid in the supervision. The program is modeled after one used with success in 38 other states, Parker said. During the first year, it may be available to only 30 or 40 released sex offenders, but if successful, it could be fully phased in over six years.
Parker said that while the in-custody sex-offender treatment program was available, it was expensive for the state and actually served very few of the sex offenders. "Less than 5 percent were completing it," she said. The program aimed to show sex offenders that their behavior was deviant and that their actions had consequences for victims. Parker said one problem with many is that they are in denial of the seriousness of their crimes.
: by TONY CARROLL, JUNEAU EMPIRE
..more.. See also: Judge says sex offenders need treatment, by Warren Williamson
 e Ponders?
Obviously the findings of 38 states and the U.S. Supreme court, all holding that, treatment works, has no meaning to this person in charge of whether the state should provide treatment within Alaska's prison system.
"Therapists and correctional officers widely agree that clinical rehabilitative programs can enable sex offenders to manage their impulses and in this way reduce recidivism. See U. S. Dept. of Justice, Nat. Institute of Corrections, A Practitioner's Guide to Treating the Incarcerated Male Sex Offender xiii (1988) ("[T]he rate of recidivism of treated sex offenders is fairly consistently estimated to be around 15%," whereas the rate of recidivism of untreated offenders has been estimated to be as high as 80%." McKUNE, WARDEN, et al. v. LILE
"Denial" is not just a factor found in sex offenders, it is very apparent in public servants as well. This failure to provide treatment BEFORE the offender is permitted into society CLEARLY affects public safety!
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