Stopping Sexual Offenders

GPS monitoring for life? Castration? Post-prison confinement in mental hospitals? States are trying varied measures to prevent sex offenders from abusing again.  In 2006, the Journalism Center's Patrice Pascual spoke with David L. Burton, chair of education and training for the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, about research on reducing risk.

Many state legislatures are considering ways to monitor sex offenders after incarceration. There have been some high-profile cases of child sexual abuse, but is there any indication that sexual offenses are on the rise?

No, in fact, there is evidence of decline. In 2004, David Finkelhor and Lisa Jones wrote an OJJDP paper that found about a 40 percent decline between 1992 and 2000 in substantiated sexual abuse cases involving children. They were skeptical and tried to find ways to explain the data, but no matter what they did they found a roughly 40 decline. That could be a reflection of several factors, including the effectiveness of treatment, more public awareness and more education in schools.

What are the differences between offenders who target adults and pedophiles? And assuming they're caught and serve time, what should happen to lower the risk that either group will offend again?

Generally speaking, those who abuse people of their own age, including date rapists, show more criminality -- substance abuse, robberies -- and overall aggressiveness. They are younger, on average, than child molesters because a lot of rape and that sort of aggression decreases with age. Child molesters are less criminal, meaning they have fewer other crimes. They may do nothing else but abuse children.

Both groups have crime related cognitive distortions, or thoughts that don’t reflect social standards. Child molesters may think a child wants sex because they look at them, and a rapist may think the way a woman looks means she wants sex. So treatment needs to address those cognitive issues. Both groups may have other difficulties in life, for instance they’re not having their intimacy needs met. I think that the most promising treatment is holistic, such as the Good Lives Model, recently developed by Bill Marshall of Canada, and Tony Ward and Mark Brown of Australia.

How do juvenile sex offenders differ from adults?

They have higher trauma rates -- of sexual abuse and physical and emotional abuse. Clinically I’ve seen less deviant sexual interest, in rape or child molestation for example, than among adults. They might act in anger like adults, or out of deviant interest, but their internal dialogue is very different. 

Juveniles also do better in treatment; their recidivism rate is about half of adults: 12 to 13 percent in studies that last two to five years. Jim Worling has a good summary of the studies. [Ed. note: Worling is also director of a treatment program in Ontario, Canada.)

Most juvenile offenders’ lives are chaotic and they have more family issues. I talked to [an offender] a few weeks ago, a 17-year-old who is struggling with school issues. He may have a learning disability and is a little behind in school. Plus he doesn’t have the social skills he needs to talk to people he’s attracted to. So I’m working with him and his parents to help him with those challenges. It’s not as much about being a sex offender. We need to understand more about juvenile offenders. I’d like to do a narrative project with them, which is something we've done with adults, but we haven’t really done with this population.

In Kansas, for example, juveniles convicted of a sex offense are listed in the offender registry for a period of time. Based on research, is that likely to keep a juvenile from offending again?

There is certainly no research that would support that registration is going to prevent someone from re-offending. I have met [national child advocate] Patty Wetterling and don’t question her desire to push forth for notification; I don’t want to take that away from the families who have suffered terribly. But the research is methodologically difficult; you’d need to evaluate a state that has [registration] and a state that doesn’t and that is not possible.

I do know from talking to abusers that [registries] increases their shame, depression and stress levels. These are things that might lead to reoffense. You might ask the police in a state that has a registry whether it has helped to solve any crimes. A lot of these policies are very well intended, but I’m not sure they are accomplish their goals, particularly for juveniles, and particularly given their low recidivism rate after treatment.

Some proposals specifically target sexually violent offenders, meaning they've caused physical harm beyond the act itself. What percentage of sex offenses would you characterize as "violent"? And is there a difference in recidivism among violent and nonviolent offenders?

The concept of a nonviolent offender is very strange to me. Even with they do it with a friendly coercive approach, they are committing a violent act.

If you look at higher risk abusers, we do have some very good tools for predicting risk. Static 99 is very promising; it’s an actuarial tool that Karl Hansen developed using data from 30,000 abusers.

We don’t have an actuarial instrument for juveniles because the population size is so much smaller. But Worling has a good risk measure based on research guided clinical judgment called the ERASOR and Robert Prentky and Sue Righthand developed the J-SOAP, and Douglas Epperson has developed a new but very promising risk assessment tool.

If we can figure out who’s at high risk that’s a better way to direct monitoring and more treatment and help; the lower risk population doesn’t need quite as much.

What questions should a reporter ask about their state laws on sex offenders?

Are these laws or policies based on any research? I think that’s very important. The Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA) can refer them to someone who will help them understand policy. We want to help legislators make good decisions based on research. We also want the public to know if they’re concerned about members of their families they should contact or Stop it Now or ATSA. But everyone should know that research funding is very challenging, especially for sexual aggression. We need to build more research dollars into prevention.