The Alliance for Constitutional Sex Offense Laws (ACSOL) filed a lawsuit today challenging treatment requirements for registrants on parole. Specifically, the lawsuit claims that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) requires all registrants on parole to undergo treatment the entire time they are on parole and that this requirement violates state law.
The lawsuit was filed today in Los Angeles Superior Court and includes five individual plaintiffs as well as ACSOL. The lawsuit could bring relief to more than 6,800 registrants who are currently on parole.
According to the lawsuit, state law requires registrants on parole to complete one treatment program that must last at least one year. The same state law requires CDCR to consult with treatment providers in order to extend the length of the treatment program. Further, that law allows a state judge to terminate treatment for a registrant on parole at any time beyond the first year.
Plaintiffs in this case include registrants on parole who have been required to undergo treatment for up to seven years. Some of the plaintiffs have been required to continue treatment even after being told by a treatment provider that they completed a treatment program.
“The fact that a registrant is required to undergo treatment is often used to keep a registrant on parole,” stated ACSOL Executive Director Janice Bellucci. “That is, they are told that they cannot be released from parole because they are still undergoing treatment.”
Treatment programs for registrants on parole can include group counseling and individual counseling on a weekly basis as well as polygraph examinations. These requirements can and often do interfere with an individual’s ability to find or keep a job for the entire time they are on parole. Parole periods last from three to 20 years.
The lawsuit requests the court to order CDCR to terminate the agency’s requirement that all registrants on parole continue treatment the entire time they are on parole. The lawsuit also requests the court to issue a writ of mandate that requires CDCR to modify its existing regulations.
A state judge in San Mateo County ordered the termination of a treatment program for a registrant on parole in March 2023. In the court order, the judge noted that the registrant on parole completed a three-year treatment program and was then told he must start treatment again because he was still on parole. A copy of that court order is an exhibit to the lawsuit filed today.
Download the petition:
Petition against ca parole treatment requirements (PDF)
They are supposed to know the current law and abide by it, but alas they do not. Go pin them down.
It is such an ridiculously stupid CDCR requirement!! 😡🤯
If she’s reading these comments, Janice will recognize me. I’ll conclude with how this all relate to parole-long therapy.
I felt I had a similar issue as Federal Court required me to complete polygraph examinations only as necessary and as part of a treatment program. A program I completed when I passed my last polygraph in spite of a medical condition that research has shown can cause false negatives. 2 years after completion the Eastern District asked the court to approve reinstatement of polygraph exams for the life or supervised release for all defendents who had completed treatment.
As it was explained to me then this was NOT part of treatment and couldn’t be used to send me back to prison. my prior probation officer said it was to help manage their workload. If for example they could just ask if I have any unmonitored computer devices, then they would not need to visit my home to see if i did. My thought was, if the court wants me on 20 years of “supervision”, then hire the people necessary to do so. I have no issue with any sort monitoring. But eventually I signed the paper agreeing to 16 more years of polygraphs.
Then a new probation officer was assigned to my case. I met her today and recapped my recent concern. She stated (paraphrasing) that treatment lasts for a lifetime, that we must always be vigilant and use our “relapse prevention plan” to intervene when our thinking starts to go awry (which presumably, contrary to the facts, it always will without a plan to follow). She said in summary that treatment was the purpose of adding the new lifetime supervision condition for polygraphs. (Seems like maybe others were refusing to sign?)
I showed her my 12-step program writing that I happened to be working on when she stopped by, step 10 “We continued to take a personal inventory and we were wrong promptly admitted it”. She said I don’t have to be doing anything wrong to relapse. Huh? Is the only plan we need follow the one we wrote in formal therapy? The approved plan? Note NA and SAA were a part of my approved plan.
So how does this relate to parole-long therapy? As I see it if we should fail or refuse a Polygraph although it’s not justification for arrest, its all they need to send us back to therapy (it’s part of therapy remember) where we’ll work on why we lied for many months until we say we did lie, even though we didn’t. At an at best 80 to 95 percent accuracy rate over 16 years I suspect for me (with my bodywide neuropathy) it might happen a time or two.
SAFER SUPERVISION ACT of 2022 excerpt: (5) The Administrative Office of the United States Courts has explained that “excessive correctional intervention for low-risk defendants may increase the probability of recidivism by disrupting prosocial activities and exposing defendants to antisocial associates.”.
It’s disheartening , when I register with the Los Angeles Sheriffs detective, he says he doesn’t know the law although he should.. it’s frustrating to say the least
This is great news for parolees! They suffer much injustice, and this lawsuit could make their lives a easier
-Roger
They do the same thing in Oklahoma. I am trying to get to last level of “maintenance” phase of my treatment. Only then will treatment provider write letter for the court. I can’t get off supervision otherwise. So I’ve been in treatment for 3 1/2 years. Poly every six months, which always puts me under threat of something going wrong (i.e. a false positive result/ or inconclusive) which makes me have to pay for another poly. The bad part is that there is no one here doing anything to challenge anything. Sex offender stamped licenses, residency restrictions which prohibit me from 98% of OKC. Yet they want me to rehabilitate. Yeah right!
THANK YOU JANICE!!!! Amazing work for your very successful efforts!
Continually improving and restoring peace and freedom to people and families.
Take care!
Go get ’em, Janet!! Don’t let them continue to twist the law that way! (They are good at twisting the laws to fit their own fiat, and this stems from a systemic hatred that is, indeed, government-sponsored.)
I hope you drag them through the mud!
I am extremely grateful for this lawsuit. It is a long time coming. I am one of the outliers. I am on parole for a period of life and am compelled to attend a treatment program at Sharper Future until such time as I am discharged from parole. I have been attending the Sharper Future treatment program for over 4 years. During that time, I have had to work with four different agents while on parole, each with their own ideas and agendas about the treatment program and its application to a consideration of parole discharge. I have made it my life’s mission in my professional life and academic journey to be a service provider for our population. I am fortunate enough to be a graduate student at the University of Southern California (USC) School of Social Work. I will graduate with my Master of Social Work in 2024. I am also a registrant on parole for having pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor sex offense in 1990 and been convicted of second-degree murder in 1996. DAPO has labeled me an HRSO though my current dynamic treatment factors score me at zero chance of a sex offense. I have been told that I am on parole for life. As such, Sharper Future has informed me that life parole also means life in a mandated CDCR sex offender treatment management program. How ironic that Sharper Future will not provide me with the treatment records I have formally requested in writing. And it does seem odd that not one treatment management program containment meeting at Sharper Future is on official record. The treatment management programs are designed to be never-ending. The entire treatment management program system is a sham. I encourage everyone who falls under this expanded parole practice to formally request a copy of their treatment records, especially the containment meeting. See Your Rights Under (HIPPA).
Federal probation is much the same way. I have to continue treatment because probation orders it, & I cannot get a certificate of completion because I am on probation. Apparently I cannot get off of federal probation early because no one does so I guess that it doesn’t matter. I am lucky though in that I am in CA so I don’t pay for treatment or polygraphs like people in some states have to.
I didn’t go to Prison in California, but put on probation for 5 year’s. The PHD therapist I had to pay every week , didn’t release me until after 4 1!2 year’s. It was never determined who had the authority to terminate. Him or probation. I was grateful for all the things I learned and has been invaluable starting my life over, but there needs to be more protocol and a realistic evaluation system , rather than a one size fits all approach. One thing I learned about the law is there is no equal justice or application of it, and the penal codes for RSO’s needs a complete makeover because it doesn’t take many circumstances into any consideration. It’s a hit hard scenario plain and simple.
[…] The treatment bullshit, in the State of California, is largely a result of Tom Tobin having been on the California Sex Offender Management Board. Tobin’s conflict-of-interest in him also owning treatment company Sharper Future–which was at one time CDCR’s largest treatment contract provider–influenced him to use all kinds of pseudo science shit like the Static-99R, polygraph, ABEL… all used to rationalize more treatment, increase the Sex Offender Industrial Complex, and create entire cottage industries out of these treatment schemes. Unfortunately, Tobin was also good at shelling a “risk-based” registry, using the same Static-99R, and now people are paying for having been labeled “high-risk.”
The fact that these contracted treatment companies rely on parolees to keep afloat and pay “doctor,” “psychologist,” and “therapist” salaries, in these pseudo treatment companies, give little incentive to discharge Registrants from parole and set them free.
The whole thing is Bullshit.
I had the same problem here in PA. I don’t know what the law was back then 2010-2014 but I was told by my treatment provider which was then Reading Specialists the first day of my treatment program that I would need to be in group the entire time I was on parole or I would be violated. $40 a week; had one inconclusive poly and they bumped me to two times a week for a few months. The group moderators/facilitators were not even certified therapists. They treated you like dirt. It was nothing but a scam to make money. The doctor that initially evaluated me and said I needed further treatment (that session last all of 10 minutes) worked for the treatment provider, so of course he was going to say I needed further treatment. On my departure from prison the head psychologist told me I no longer needed treatment though. He knew me for 3 years. So who was right?
Again, nothing but a scam to help them make money.
The clinician at Sharper Future on or around 2 weeks ago volunteered the scheme that CDCr uses/abuses. I wonder if ACSOL will use her averrment in an pleading?
I wonder if we should file 602’s?
I have been on parole since April 2014. Was sentenced in court to 3 years prison and 3 years parole. Once I got out I was told I got automatic 10 years parole due to new law. Went to “therapy” and was told there I had to come weekly for “treatment” and polygraphs every six months. I have been doing “therapy” for over 9 years now, and the polys, at two seperate companies, and each company says you do not “graduate or complete treatment” you are forced to do it the entire length of parole………so here I am….doing “treatment” losing work hours and wasting gas money weekly for the entire time of parole.
My name is William Jones, I’m a x.lifer that did 32yrs in state prison, released by the BPH 07/07/22. on a att murder/robbery charge. In 1986 I plead no contest to a Misdemeanor sexual battery charge. After the long transformation process I endured, obtaining an aa degree, bachelors degree, facilitator/chairman of aa, cga, anger management, center for counsel, and vice secutary of advisors counsel, while coming into society ive worked gathering donations for kids with cancer & currently working in a in patient facility as a sud counselor. i walk with guilt and shame that not self inficked, for i have made the change, but being judged and held back.
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We were told today that our treatment program ended because of the bidding issues, so we were told we might get move to LA since we’re located in longbeach. I called LA treatments and was told that their program was also terminated. Anybody knows what’s going on?