Post by CC on Apr 7, 2009 15:16:31 GMT -5
Sex offender treatment requires wait
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.
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.
"It was a constant battle," she said. "People can only do what they can do."
And sex offenders and their lawyers know better than to look to the state parole board for help. Parole is a privilege - not a constitutionally protected right - and the parole board won't grant a sex offender parole until he has finished his recommended treatment.
"We like to get people out when they are eligible, but public safety is our top concern," said John Eckert, executive assistant to the parole board. "The parole board has always considered sex offenders to pose some threat, and they are just not going to let them out without treatment."
Prison officials, Wrenn included, share offenders' frustration and changed the program and added new treatment opportunities they hope will let them reach more sex offenders sooner.
It used to be that a sex offender had to not only admit his charged offenses to get into the treatment program, but also identify every victim not previously known to the authorities. That was a huge deterrent for offenders, said Helen Hanks, deputy director of medical and forensic services at the Concord prison. "Now we don't ask for a laundry list of what else you've done," Hanks said.
Hanks's department has also begun a pre-treatment course for sex offenders not yet willing to admit their guilt. In pre-treatment, offenders can begin talking with a counselor about what brought them to prison without confessing their crime. It allows the prison to provide some treatment while the offender is waiting to get into the program.
There is also a new, alternative sex offender treatment program for low-risk offenders that lasts just six months. There's less of a wait because fewer sex offenders qualify as low-risk. But it allows eligible offenders to move through treatment and toward parole sooner. In this program, offenders meet twice a week for counseling and treatment.
It's less intense than the 18-month treatment program, where participants live together in one area and spend every day in counseling or treatment.
Hanks's unit also offers a refresher treatment program for sex offenders who return to prison on a parole violation if their violation is somehow related to their sexual misbehavior.
Wrenn would like to add more treatment options for offenders after they are paroled. And Hanks is hoping to start a maintenance program to track sex offenders who've graduated from the treatment program and have returned to general population.
"We should get there, as long as we don't lose any more positions," she said.
But like Wrenn, she believes the prison would greatly benefit if it expanded the 18-month treatment program beyond just 90 slots. "If we had more room and more staff, we could fill that space up," she said.
And getting offenders through treatment earlier, rather than toward the end of their sentence, would allow prison staff to monitor them longer before they are released on parole. Wrenn and Hanks aren't the only ones enthusiastic about an expansion.
The sex offenders interviewed for this story said the treatment they received in prison made the difference in their rehabilitation.
A 35-year-old parolee living in Concord said the 18-month treatment program has not only changed his ways but also helped him mend his relationship with his young victim. But the man, who asked not to be named, was late getting into the program because he initially refused to admit to the allegations against him.
He said he was willing to admit his wrongdoing but didn't feel like court and prison records had described his offenses accurately. A year later, he reached an understanding with the program administrator and began treatment.
"There were a lot of things that happened that I couldn't make sense of (before treatment)," he said. "Why do I do this? Why do I do that? Sometimes you can't understand it until someone points it out to you, and it feels safe (in the program) to talk about it."
He lived with other sex offenders for his 18-month stay and spent every day with them working in groups or one-on-one with a therapist discussing patterns of misconduct, emotions, boundaries and triggers.
"It's easy to be open in (the treatment program) because you know they understand you," he said.
The 46-year-old parolee quoted above said he didn't know how to communicate his feelings and frustrations until he went through the treatment. "It touched on what got me to that point (of sexually assaulting a child), and why I was acting out that way" he said. "We didn't communicate growing up. I had no way to communicate when things were bothering me, so they'd bubble over and I'd act out."
He said he will forever wish he could go back and change the past. "But I just have to learn from it and go from there," he said. The prison's program, he said, has made that possible.
The 53-year-old parolee living in Concord learned in treatment that he had no empathy, he said. He sexually abused a child several times, according to his record. "I stuffed my feelings, and the only feelings I knew were happy and angry, nothing in between," he said. He also learned to re-evaluate his attraction to children.
"I realized that children are not good sex partners because they don't respond," he said. "You can do what you want to them, but that's not a loving relationship. Good sex is available only from adult women. And even though I have a tendency to be attracted to (children), I am aware of that now and can do an intervention on myself."
He's married since being paroled five years ago and has not re-offended.
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.
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.
"It was a constant battle," she said. "People can only do what they can do."
And sex offenders and their lawyers know better than to look to the state parole board for help. Parole is a privilege - not a constitutionally protected right - and the parole board won't grant a sex offender parole until he has finished his recommended treatment.
"We like to get people out when they are eligible, but public safety is our top concern," said John Eckert, executive assistant to the parole board. "The parole board has always considered sex offenders to pose some threat, and they are just not going to let them out without treatment."
Prison officials, Wrenn included, share offenders' frustration and changed the program and added new treatment opportunities they hope will let them reach more sex offenders sooner.
It used to be that a sex offender had to not only admit his charged offenses to get into the treatment program, but also identify every victim not previously known to the authorities. That was a huge deterrent for offenders, said Helen Hanks, deputy director of medical and forensic services at the Concord prison. "Now we don't ask for a laundry list of what else you've done," Hanks said.
Hanks's department has also begun a pre-treatment course for sex offenders not yet willing to admit their guilt. In pre-treatment, offenders can begin talking with a counselor about what brought them to prison without confessing their crime. It allows the prison to provide some treatment while the offender is waiting to get into the program.
There is also a new, alternative sex offender treatment program for low-risk offenders that lasts just six months. There's less of a wait because fewer sex offenders qualify as low-risk. But it allows eligible offenders to move through treatment and toward parole sooner. In this program, offenders meet twice a week for counseling and treatment.
It's less intense than the 18-month treatment program, where participants live together in one area and spend every day in counseling or treatment.
Hanks's unit also offers a refresher treatment program for sex offenders who return to prison on a parole violation if their violation is somehow related to their sexual misbehavior.
Wrenn would like to add more treatment options for offenders after they are paroled. And Hanks is hoping to start a maintenance program to track sex offenders who've graduated from the treatment program and have returned to general population.
"We should get there, as long as we don't lose any more positions," she said.
But like Wrenn, she believes the prison would greatly benefit if it expanded the 18-month treatment program beyond just 90 slots. "If we had more room and more staff, we could fill that space up," she said.
And getting offenders through treatment earlier, rather than toward the end of their sentence, would allow prison staff to monitor them longer before they are released on parole. Wrenn and Hanks aren't the only ones enthusiastic about an expansion.
The sex offenders interviewed for this story said the treatment they received in prison made the difference in their rehabilitation.
A 35-year-old parolee living in Concord said the 18-month treatment program has not only changed his ways but also helped him mend his relationship with his young victim. But the man, who asked not to be named, was late getting into the program because he initially refused to admit to the allegations against him.
He said he was willing to admit his wrongdoing but didn't feel like court and prison records had described his offenses accurately. A year later, he reached an understanding with the program administrator and began treatment.
"There were a lot of things that happened that I couldn't make sense of (before treatment)," he said. "Why do I do this? Why do I do that? Sometimes you can't understand it until someone points it out to you, and it feels safe (in the program) to talk about it."
He lived with other sex offenders for his 18-month stay and spent every day with them working in groups or one-on-one with a therapist discussing patterns of misconduct, emotions, boundaries and triggers.
"It's easy to be open in (the treatment program) because you know they understand you," he said.
The 46-year-old parolee quoted above said he didn't know how to communicate his feelings and frustrations until he went through the treatment. "It touched on what got me to that point (of sexually assaulting a child), and why I was acting out that way" he said. "We didn't communicate growing up. I had no way to communicate when things were bothering me, so they'd bubble over and I'd act out."
He said he will forever wish he could go back and change the past. "But I just have to learn from it and go from there," he said. The prison's program, he said, has made that possible.
The 53-year-old parolee living in Concord learned in treatment that he had no empathy, he said. He sexually abused a child several times, according to his record. "I stuffed my feelings, and the only feelings I knew were happy and angry, nothing in between," he said. He also learned to re-evaluate his attraction to children.
"I realized that children are not good sex partners because they don't respond," he said. "You can do what you want to them, but that's not a loving relationship. Good sex is available only from adult women. And even though I have a tendency to be attracted to (children), I am aware of that now and can do an intervention on myself."
He's married since being paroled five years ago and has not re-offended.