Hide Article Text (OCR)
PREDATORContinued from page 1waiver of confidentiality.In some, he said, new charges are held in abeyance unless the offender fails to successfully complete treatment.“Use of the waiver of confidentiality provides for greater flexibility and individual treatment,” Cunningham said.The issue has seesawed through the courts.The Denver appeals court made a similar ruling for a second Kansas inmate in November.Earlier decisions favored the state. And last year, the Kansas Supreme Court let stand a Leavenworth County District Court ruling against, some 60 inmates who challenged use of the plethysmograph.Corrections officials, in con-sultatjpn with the Kansas Attorney General’officg^ecjded .to press the issue with the Supreme Court rather than alter their sexual offender treatment program.To be effective, prison therapists need full disclosure, Madden said. “We want to know if this is an isolated rape ... or are we dealing with Ted Bundy?”Madden, who must convince four of nine Supreme Court justices to vote to hear the case, intends to file his petition by Jan. 22.If he fails, the program will have to be adjusted.Federal appeals courts in St. Louis and New York City have ruled opposite of the Denver court in similar cases, Madden said. He thinks the conflicting opinions could prompt the Supreme Court to take his appeal,Debating the issuesThe Lile case stirs vigorous, debate.Robert Lile is serving a life sentence at Lansing on convictions for aggravated kidnapping, rape and aggravated sodomy of a high school student in Johnson County in 1983.Lile, who was 25 at the time, considered the encounter consensual sex. He launched a lawsuit in 1995 when he felt he was being coerced into a revamped treatment program.Non-participants are moved to a more dangerous part of the prison and can’t have the better prison jobs, he said,Prison officials counter that inmates have no constitutional rights to such things as a television, a job, or to live in a particular part of a prison, They consider privileges part of prison management, not as constitutional rights.“Inmates don’t get a choice of where to live,” Corrections Secretary Charles Simmons said in a court deposition.If .-they .agrees toiparticipate in treatment, prisoners also don’t get a choice on whether to take the polygraph and penile plethysmograph tests. Those who refuse are booted.Madden said officials don’t want to spend time working with inmates who deny having a sexual abuse problem.“It’s a waste of time and a waste of a slot,” he said.Officials say they use lie detector tests to verify accuracy and completeness of the offender’s sexual history. They say the plethysmograph test is used only for diagnosis and treatment.During the test, inmates listen to audio recordings of sexual scenarios that include graphic and violent scenes of noncon-sensual behavior while a machine measures their arousal.Results are discussed in group therapy.Prison officials say offenders must accept responsibility for their actions, and that the program helps them live a better life when they gain freedom by learning what triggers their arousal.Robert McGrath, clinical director of the Vermont Treatment Program for Sexual Aggressors, calls the plethysmograph test an important tool.“Sex arousal, as measured by the plethysmograph, is the single most powerful predictor of sexual arousal,” he said.Yet some studies question the reliability of that test, and experts say there’s a difference between arousal and action.The test has been ruled inadmissible in courts of law, and in court filings, Lile's attorney, David Waxse, called it “an unproven experimental technology that is especially ineffective and meaningless when the partjigipspt, is bging, coerced to participate,’’,.; ^ . - .7 :He contended that the 70 percent of prison programs that don’t use the plethysmograph test could be considered equally effective.Tracking its use in a national survey, the Safer Society Foundation, a non-profit agency specializing in sexual abuse prevention and treatment, found the test used in 28 percent of community programs and in 45 percent of residential sex offender programs for adult males.Barbara Schwartz, Boston, said in a deposition that the test shouldn't be used for predictions, but could be used for treatment and therapy.That's how Kansas uses the program, Madden said.“It identifies issues to be explored,” he said.A changing programSex offender treatment, a relatively new field, represents agrowing part of the prison budget in Kansas.Last fiscal year, 549 sex offenders at Lansing, Hutchinson and Norton participated in the program at a cost of $1.4 million.Although the state has provided facility-based treatment since 1988, the program has changed and expanded in the past five years.“Management of the sexual offender has changed fairly dramatically,” said Roger Haden, deputy secretary for programs and staff development with the Department of Corrections.In 1992, the department hired DCCCA Center, a counseling agency from Lawrence, to run the program. And in 1995, the approach was revamped with help from the National Institute of Corrections.Changes required inmates to double their time in therapy. Treatment, focused on relapse prevention, girew more intense.. Today, participating inmates spend four hours per day, five days per week in the program. The routine involves three months of evaluation and assessment, 12 months of intensive treatment, and thjree months of transition planning.Haden said most programs now view sexual deviancy not as something that can be cured but something that a person can learn to manage.“Internal controls are developed through treatment,” he said. Haden said lie detector and plethysmograph tests help therapists know if an offender is trying to “work” his program or if he’s being truthful.People can argue both pros and cons of the test, he said. Still, he said, “It helps to determine sexual deviancies.”He thinks it also helps inmates address the issue of self-deception.
Newspaper Details
Ottawa Herald
Ottawa, Kansas, US
Thu, Dec 21, 2000
Page 7
Full Page
Clipped by
Emily S.
NA, 04 Oct 2020
Other Publications Near Ottawa, Kansas
Ottawa Campus
Ottawa Daily Republican
Ottawa Herald
