What Everyone Should Know About Sex Offenders

Sex offenses are particularly brutal in nature due to the lingering effects of the offense. Those effects are felt by the victims, their families, and their friends forever. Problems arising from the sex offense range from the emotional and psychological damage to the victim, to the monetary cost of prosecution and rehabilitation of the offender that comes from the pockets of taxpayers. There are too many underlying mental and psychological reasons for the perpetration of the sex offense to try to subgroup the offenders into categories that pinpoint their behavior. As such, there can be no canvassing rehabilitation to prevent recidivism. The programs that are in place to treat sex offenders simply do not work. Couple this ineffective rehabilitation with the publics disgust for the sex offender to the point that they are ostracized and driven into seclusion, and you have the creation of a potentially hideous and stealthy predator.

Texas prisons have implemented the “Sex Offender Treatment Program” SOTP which provides mandatory counseling and treatment in a “Therapeutic Community” setting, and the offenders are given a risk level which is assigned by the Risk Management Team. There are two versions of this program. SOTP (Sex Offender Treatment Program), and SOEP (Sex Offender Education Program). SOEP is a 4 month program that is administered in a classroom setting without the Therapeutic Community environment, and it is focused on identifying the offenders thoughts and behavioral patterns that lead to offensive acts. It centers around a cycle of behavior that is expressed in a circle, and the thoughts that lead to a particular behavior are examined with the determining factors that influence the thoughts such as moods, past abuse, drugs, alcohol and family violence. Offenders are taught how to identify these thoughts and reprogram them in a healthy way in order to change the outcome of their behavior. This method is effective only for that period of time in which the offender is protected from access to influencing factors such as drugs, alcohol, and potential victims. Offenders normally respond well to this therapy and appear to be rehabilitated. The obvious question is how can you reasonably expect to change a lifetime of thoughts and behaviors in just 4 months? While the offenders targeted for this program are primarily ones who are charged with crimes which are not considered to be assaultive in their respective definitions, these individuals have underlying problems which led to their offense. If those problems are not continually addressed and eradicated, recidivism is inevitable in some form.

SOTP is an 18 month program which involves more intense therapeutic measures. The offender is housed with offenders who have similar crimes, and the community is structured for discipline and strict compliance with rules and program activities. The offenders are required to attend a group meeting in the morning which is comprised of their housing section, usually about 48 offenders. The meeting is conducted by offenders and moderated by a counselor. At the time of the meeting, the offenders housing is inspected for compliance with cleaning and setup rules which include having their bunks made and the offenders State issue of clothing folded and neatly placed by the door. The therapeutic community has a hierarchy of offenders that are elected by other offenders and approved by the counselor assigned to that section. After the group meeting, also called a “Family Meeting”, the offenders go to group meetings with counselors where they are confronted with the elements of their crimes as well as the thoughts and behaviors surrounding them. Once again, this intense therapy is only effective for the time that the offender is in the program. These are seriously deviant offenders with a lifetime of behavioral problems that can not be addressed and fixed in 18 months. Failure to complete the program merely results in the assignment of a risk level of 5, which means that offender has a likelihood to re-offend. The offenders awaiting parole who do not complete the program are denied any chance of parole. This brings about the necessity for some offenders to “fake” their way through the program and subsequently be released with a low risk factor. These offenders pose the greatest threat to the public as they are still involved in criminal thinking and behavior upon their release.

Sex Offenders are clustered into one big category which causes them all to be viewed as equal, and that kind of stereotyping causes mass hate and prejudice. Nobody in the community wishes to be associated with a person who has the label of Sex Offender and who is required by law to register as such. The public speaks out about halfway houses that accept sex offenders, which further confines the resources available for these offenders to re-integrate with society upon their release. When a sex offender is released, the very last thing we want to have happen is to allow that person to return to the behaviors which led to their offense to start with. To push them away and leave them unwanted and unable to find work creates a new problem. To have them in our site is to know their activities and their behaviors. To know where they are housed allows the public to effectively monitor their situation. To mistreat and ostracize them only compounds the problem, and it prohibits any chance of that person learning how to be a safe and viable member of society. To run that person out of your community only runs them into someone else’s community and does nothing to solve the problem. T

he solution rests in the hands of the public in the form of positive attention, education regarding the offenders behavior, and preventive measures to protect and educate potential victims. Sex Offenders will always be there. The chances are that you know at least one, work with one, live close to one, or will be in a situation which requires that you deal with one. It is at this point that one can decide to be either part of the ongoing problems associated with sex offenders, or become part of the solution which keeps these people in sight and acting proper.