Treatment of Offenders

In California there are 110,000 sex offenders, 16,000 of those are in prison. 1,000 are in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) Division of Juvenile Justice, 10,300 are under probation supervision, 7,000 under parole supervision are considered high risk of re-offending, and 5,000 under parole supervision are considered sexual habitual offenders.

Treatment is a big controversy on all states minds when they think of releasing sex offenders. The question is, does the treatment that our inmates are receiving work and deter the offenders from re-offending. Well the answer is hard to figure out, due to what do we look at as evidence? Do we look at the recidivism rate, or alcoholism and addiction levels, or do we use surveys and polygraph the offenders to see if they have the urge to re-offend? There are so many ways to check but which actually tells you the true answer?

A study was ran in Portland Oregon by Barry Maletzky, MD and Kevin McGovern, Ph.d who both worked at, “The Sexual Abuse Clinic of Portland Oregon.” During 1973 and 1990 they both followed 5,000 offenders in which 3,700 were pedophiles, 770 were exhibitionist and the rest were a variety of other paraphilias. All the offenders were treated in their clinic and similar clinics and using behavior oriented methods they tested the success of the treatment. The success was measured by
• No re-arrest
• Self report of no maladaptive sexual behaviors
• Reduced deviant arousal maintained post-treatment as verified on penile plethysmograph
• Significant other rating of patients behavior

The success rate was 94.7% of heterosexuals and 86.4% of homosexual pedophiles. Rapists showed 73.5% of success, exhibitionist and public masturbators were about 92% success rating.

The overall ratings were as such;
• Treated offenders reoffended at a rate of 11%, untreated at 17.6%
• True incest offenders have lower reoffense rates than other child molesters. (5.3% with 5-year follow-up without treatment, no recidivism with treatment, compares to 17.8% treated and 25% untreated for non-incestuous child molesters.)
• When subjects were followed for as long as ten years, the "treatment effect" weakened over time, but even in the tenth year, treated offenders reoffended less untreated men.
• Men treated before 1980 (more traditional methods) reoffended at a rate of 12.8%. while men treated after 1980 (present day methods) reoffended at 7.4% (1993 data – not included in article

Megan Nicole Kanka

Megan Nicole Kanka was a seven year old girl from New Jersey who had her life taken by Jesse Timmendequas in July of 1994. Timmendequas was a repeat violent sex offender who lived with other known sex offenders across the street from the Kanka residence. The parents of Megan; Richard and Maureen were not aware that the house across the street was the home of known violent sex offenders. This horrific story would later become a benchmark on one of the countries best sex offender notification laws.

Many laws regarding sex offender notification began at the state level and throughout communities to notify neighbors when an offender was living in their area. Washington was one of the first states to adopt a full state law notifying communities of nearby sex offenders and called it the “Washington State Community Protection Act of 1990.” Megan’s Law was brought to the federal level in 1994 and is known officially as the, “Sexual Offender Act of 1994.”

In 1996 Bill Clinton signed Megan’s Law which asks states to make private or personal information about sex offenders open to the public. Different states have different requirements for sex offenders. Approximately 15 states have put their databases on-line and made it searchable for the public by name or zip code. The website shows detailed information about the person, from known offenses to known identification marks and possibly a picture of the individual. Some states require the offenders to notify schools and neighbors in the surrounding area that they are moving into their neighborhood and some states have even required them to place signs in their windows notifying the neighbors of their status.

California Megan’s Law

Megan’s Law was passed by California legislatures on August 24, 2004 and signed by the governor on September 24, 2004. The website in California gives you information on more than 63,000 individuals who are required to register. Home address’s are available on more than 33,500, more than 30,500 are available by zip code and 22,000 others are not included but known by local authorities.

California Megan's Law Website;

http://www.meganslaw.ca.gov/


Other Useful Websites;

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?id=1083&action=tdihArticleCategory


http://scsotf.com/Megan%27s%20Law.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megan's_Law

Why I Chose Sex Offenders

I decided to write about sexual offenders because I want to know more and do the research about why sexual offenders do what they do. I want to understand what the critics say about sex offenders and their mentalities, their brain functions, and what if any offenders are raised to be offenders.

Are there different issues and reasons why people offend based on age or childhood? What are the differences behind types of offenders different ages they offend such as do child molesters offend at a different age than elderly offenders? So in my blog I will be researching and talking about subjects such as these. I hope that I learn more about this subject and pass on the info and my beliefs onto you.