03/03/2012 UPDATED: 129th General Assembly page.

Officials Defend Sex-Offender Programs

Posted on: Sunday, 26 March 2006

By John Futty, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio

Mar. 26--About 21 percent of the 45,000 inmates in Ohio prisons are eligible for treatment as sex offenders.

The treatment programs are sound, prison officials say, despite criticism during the sentencing of Andrew S. Selva, who received probation for sexually assaulting two boys.

"Our programs are based on the literature on best practices for sex-offender treatment," said David Berenson, director of sex-offender services for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

"Any bona fide sex-offender program is based on the same principles."

Franklin County Common Pleas Judge John A. Connor said he relied on the testimony of two psychologists when he decided in December to sentence Selva to five years of probation, including a year of house arrest, and ordered him to receive treatment.

One of the psychologists, Jolie Brams, testified that sex-offender treatment in the Ohio prison system is "fairly infrequent" and "very rigid. ... It's not a program that utilizes a great deal of resources."

During Selva's sentencing hearing, Connor insisted that the director of Ohio's prisons would say, " 'Please don't send this person to prison. ... We can do nothing for them except warehouse them and put them back on the streets in the same condition or worse.' "

Last week, prisons director Reginald A. Wilkinson declined to discuss Connor's comments but asked department spokeswoman Andrea Dean to comment.

"We take exception to the idea that we warehouse them," Dean said. "If someone is sent to prison, we have treatment programs available, and we have an assessment process so they can be placed in the appropriate program when they arrive."

Connor came under fire this month from Republican state officials, a victims-rights advocate and TV commentators for not sending Selva to prison. Selva, 46, pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual battery following allegations that he engaged in oral sex with two boys, one of whom was 5 when the abuse began.

Selva is being treated at a Volunteers of America-sponsored residential program in Dayton after Connor ordered that he complete an inpatient sex-offender treatment program.

Had Selva been sentenced to prison, he would have been sent to the Madison Correctional Institution in London for assessment at the Sex Offender Risk Reduction Center.

There, inmates take a paperand-pencil test known as the STATIC-99, which determines their level of risk for committing future sex offenses.

All sex offenders are scheduled for a 20-hour psychological and educational program in which they are taught victim awareness and empathy as well as sex-offender management skills.

Those who score in the high or medium-high categories of risk are placed in a comprehensive sex-offender treatment program, which involves group therapy two or three times a week for 12 to 18 months.

"We teach them the skills to manage and stop the behavior," Berenson said. "I believe we have approaches that, if offenders utilize them, they will not re-offend. The question is whether they will utilize them."

Inmates who deny their sex offenses go into a program aimed at getting them to admit their guilt before they enter treatment.

"About half of those who are in denial admit to their offenses and go on to the comprehensive treatment program," Berenson said.

Contrary to popular opinion, sex offenders are treatable and have relatively low recidivism rates, said R. Karl Hanson, senior research officer for Canada's public safety department.

Hanson, who developed the STATIC-99 and is considered a leading expert on sex offenders, said that 10 percent of prisoners who are treated and 17 percent of those who aren't treated are reconvicted of a sex offense in the five years after the end of their sentence.

"If you ask the general public what percentage are caught re-offending, the common response is 70 or 80 percent, even among people who should know better," Hanson said.

Charles Onley, a research associate at the Center for Sex Offender Management in Silver Springs, Md., said he was among those who assumed sex offenders were likely to reoffend.

"When I came here, I had worked in corrections for 26 years and I thought it was a certainty that they'd re-offend," Onley said. "But you can't find anything to back that up from a research standpoint.

"From our perspective, we see treatment as being beneficial in managing these offenders in the community."

jfutty@dispatch.com

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