UT: Sex offender treatment – Is it working?

Please note that I am not a psychologist or doctor of any kind. I’m a reasonably well-read former military intelligence analyst grandson of a rocket scientist. I tend to make reasonable (to me) presumptions, admittedly on partial facts (former occupational hazard). Though stubborn to a fault, I have no problem with being proven wrong. The following is just my opinion, for what it’s worth. If any presumptions below are incorrect and changes any corresponding opinion, please provide a link and I will print it out and eat it.

DWIs and drug users are always court ordered to “treatment” as a matter of routine when they are convicted, yet it is largely the same people running in and out of every court for those offenses. Should beg the question, “what good is treatment?” but never seems to.

The behavior modification model is used by most counselors whose patients are court ordered. Indulging in their addiction is usually how addicts cope with life’s setbacks. For behavior modification to even have a chance of success, 1) there has to be an actual addiction, and 2) something in the patient’s life must occur to make them actually want to kick their addiction. Until that event occurs, whatever it may be, forced participation in treatment is nothing but lip service, of the addict and the treatment provider. If the patient is a user but not an addict (very, very big difference), forced behavior modification causes other emotional problems.

Sex offender treatment, also ordered on conviction as a matter of routine, is based on the same behavioral modification model and usually fails for one simple reason: there’s often no addiction to treat in the first place. First time sex offenses – of which the overwhelming majority of sex crime prosecutions are – are often (if not always) committed because of a mix of opportunity, curiosity, and lack of judgment (a polite way of saying stupidity), none of which is a mental illness.

A few generations ago, it was common for children as young as 13 to get married and start families, at times to spouses twice their age or more. Some were miserable to be sure, but most ended up leading perfectly happy, normal lives. It’s rather ironic that the generations that are currently leading the legislatures and sitting on the court benches have determined that children who have been through puberty but haven’t reached the (arbitrary) age of consent are either too immature or too stupid to consent to sexual activity (ignoring that nature has already made that decision) and made them scarred-for-life victims, even if they instigate the offense.

This is not to endorse or condone adult/child sex. It’s only questioning the logic and whether the punishments are proportionate. Personally, I would argue that adults convicted for sex with a minor should be imprisoned and released on the minor’s birthday of the age of consent.

Presuming mental illness requiring behavioral modification based on a single incident is logical fallacy in several regards. One, obviously a single incident does not make one an addict. A person doesn’t become an alcoholic the day he drank his first beer, even if he did into a lake afterward. He becomes an alcoholic when the most important thing to him is getting his next one.

Second, few if any judges (or more likely, DAs, considering most criminal court judges rubber stamp whatever the DA wants in 90-some percent of cases) are eligible or qualified by any competent authority to diagnose addiction or determine the type or amount of treatment needed, if any. And even if they were, they certainly couldn’t do it without hours and hours of observation, conversation, and personal history review of the defendant, which never happens. In cases where the mental health of the defendant is questionable, but more often than not will side with the DA no matter what determination the appointed physician makes.

Third, treatment is rarely a preventive measure in medicine in general, not just mental health. Chemotherapy will not prevent cancer. It will only subject the patient to radiation poisoning and the associated sickness and possible hair loss, and the possibility of cancer remains unchanged.