Sex Offenders and Prison

This blog post will be about sexual offenders in prison. Sexual crimes impact the victim, families, and the community in a psychological manner that other crimes or mental disorders do not. Incarceration alone has not alleviated the problem, and other methods to prevent offenses or recidivism appear to be merited. (Flora, 2001). The monetary cost for the life sentencing of a sex offender is very high. A sex offender who is given a life sentence at age thirty and dies at age seventy would cost the state about $ 1,000,000, over the course of his lifetime (Flora, 2001). This is very expensive and generally is not doing anything to rehabilitate or change the offenders.

Sex offenders in prison need programs to help them rehabilitate and get better before they are released into the community. Various treatment programs are offered for sex offenders in the correctional facilities across the country. The Vermont Treatment Program for Sexual Aggressors utilizes relapse prevention and group and individual therapy. This aids the sex offenders in therapy that is much needed and in a group setting. The most effective treatment programs combine behavioral cognitive approaches with aversion conditioning, skills training, cognitive restructuring, and relapse prevention. These therapies are often supplemented with family therapy, drug or alcohol treatment, marital therapy, and individual crisis intervention (Special Needs Offender Bulletin).

The emphasis of this blog will be on Sex offenders and reentry into the community. The department of Corrections believes that sex offender treatment is a key component of its Re-entry Initiative, which is designed to help offenders begin to receive the treatments, education and job training they need in prison so that they return to society making choices that will keep them out of prison. Sex offenders need to learn self control, and through these treatment programs that is possible.

One of the best studies about sexual offenders and reentry is by Mary Ann Farkas and Grace Miller, called Reentry and Reintegration: Challenges faced by the families of convicted sex offenders. This article presents the results of a study about how sex offender’s families are impacted by the release of the offender. The article begins with stating that releasing sex offenders back into society raises questions about public safety, especially when it concerns sex offenders. Because of this, many laws have been passed including the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Violent Offender Registration Act passed in 1994, this legislation requires states to establish sex offender registries or risk losing ten percent of their federal funding for law enforcement (Farkas; Miller, 2007). Many places, including California require sex offenders to register online and they have living and working restrictions. These include not allowing convicted sex offenders to live or work within 2,000 feet of a school, park, day care center or bus stops.

Very few programs have included families into the reentry program for sex offenders, although the family often takes the brunt of the social and economic hardship. Many studies have found that there is a strong correlation between the maintenance of family ties and a lower recidivism rate. The article focuses on the adult family members of convicted sex offenders and the many challenges they face in reuniting with there loved ones post-incarceration (Farkas; Miller, 2007). The article examines the hardships and challenges facing the family of a sex offender, including emotional/psychological issues, housing, employment, economic hardship, invasion of privacy, social stigma and isolation (Farkas; Miller, 2007).

The article notes that family members often suffer from emotional trauma from the incarceration of a loved one and sometimes they are directly involved in the sexual offense, such as incest; sometimes they have to go through the stress of having a loved one incarcerated. When they are released, the loved ones often fear that they may commit the crime again. Research confirms that these fears are well founded, because many released offenders have great difficulty coping with the everyday problems of reentry and end up re-offending (Farkas; Miller, 2007). Released sex offenders and their families often have a hard time finding places to live, due to the many restrictive laws passed for sex offenders and they have a hard time getting a job as a convicted sex offender. This creates a problem for family members and the community where the sex offender lives. The social stigma of being a sex offender also relates to the family of the offender, “many family members reported feeling as if they were convicted of sex offenses themselves” (Farkas; Miller, 2007 pg 89). The sex offender and the family have many obstacles to overcome and having no useful tools to achieve this is very discouraging. The Second Chance Act of 2007 was designed to create a reentry program designed to prepare prisoners for successful community reentry. It addresses issues such as employment, dealing with money management, identifying community resources, housing availability, social skills, and relapse prevention. For both the family and the offender, these services can be very valuable in making the reentry process successful. The article concludes by saying that families can be a valuable resource in assisting offenders in their transition from prison into the community and everyday life.


Sources:
Farkas, Mary Ann and Grace Miller. ( 2007). Reentry and Reintegration: Challenges Faced by the Families of Convicted Sex Offenders, Federal Sentencing Reporter, Vol 20, No. 2, pp 88-92.

Flora, Rudy, ( 2001). How to Work with Sex Offenders. New York, Haworth Press.