[Vision2020] Child Protective Services

Wed Mar 9 12:33:03 PST 2011

Hi Sunil,

Unfortunately, I can't answer the majority of your questions.  I wish I
could, though - this is something I tried to get information about when the
practice first came to my attention with Steven Sitler.

I asked if the practice here in Latah County of letting convicted sexual
offenders out of jail unsupervised to get "therapy" was an aberration,
perhaps because of our more rural nature, and the only information I was
given was that it's not just Latah County - this happens around the state.
And, that's the extent of the information I was able to get.

Understandably, this abhorrent practice isn't something those with knowledge
of the details care to talk about, likely because they know that communities
around the state would be up in arms & demand that it STOP.  Certainly, my
personal opinion & the opinions of those I've chatted with is that any
potential theoretical benefit to convicted offenders isn't worth the very
real safety risks to our citizens, particularly to our children, who are one
of the most vulnerable groups in our communities.

Nauseatingly fascinating to me is that while the State of Idaho finds it
appropriate to give convicted & incarcerated sex offenders, including proven
predators, a temporary "get out of jail unsupervised" card to get "therapy,"
the success of which is inarguably questionable, while denying other
offenders who would clearly benefit from services like illiteracy
intervention, job skills training, and the like to help prevent reoffending
the same opportunities.

Sometimes, people ask questions when they already know the answers, so if
that's the case with the questions you asked, please feel free to share the
answers  J

You ask why the quotation marks around "therapy," and that's the one
question I can answer.  As I stated above, the efficacy of "therapy" for sex
offenders in preventing reoffending is a huge unknown and of questionable
value.  Indeed, some studies have found that sex offenders who received
"therapy" were more likely to reoffend.  Some modalities may work better
with some offenders than others - and no modality may work with some, and
some therapists offering sex offender "treatment" are frankly better than
others in general and with some individuals.  There was a boom of those
offering sex offender "evaluation" and "treatment" in the last 20 years or
so, and the qualifications of some are sketchy at best.  It's not uncommon
for those who got on the bandwagon early to have no formal training but
rather to rely on "on the job experience" under those who also had no formal
training and now claim expertise under a kind of "grandfathering."

When I looked up Sitler's "therapist," I remember being distinctly
unimpressed with his credentials.  Indeed, his boasting of membership in
ATSA, a voluntary non-credentialing organization where membership relies on
self-reporting, wasn't impressive to me at all.  He's certainly never
published, nor is he recognized to bone fide experts in the field.  Of
course, he could be the best thing since sliced bread - I don't know, but
what I do know is that no magic bullet treatment for sex offenders has been
found.

For those interested in reading - in layperson's language - a decent
discussion of sex offender treatment, check out:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/06/us/06civil.html?_r=1
<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/06/us/06civil.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all>
&pagewanted=all

OR

http://tinyurl.com/2007nytdispute

This 2007 article focuses on civil commitment, but I gives a decent overview
of some of the controversies in sex offender treatment.

One of the most insightful statements I've ever heard a sex offender make
regarding the impact on his (sole) victim was, "I killed who she could have
been; basically, I murdered a person."

Of course, he'd been in "therapy" for years at that point, so it could have
just been learned "therapy speak," which offenders are great at picking up.

And, sex offenders, especially those with more than one victim and those who
abuse children & teens, are never cured, and no one should ever delude
themselves otherwise.  The goal of "treatment" is to decrease the odds that
the offender will reoffend, not to cure.  Perhaps the best analogy is to
addicts - they have to spend the rest of their lives focused on their
personal recovery to be successful.

However, I suspect we all know how common relapse is for addicts.  Are sex
offenders more or less likely to reoffend than are addicts to relapse?  I
don't know.

But, the difference is that, generally speaking, when addicts relapse, the
greatest harm they cause is to themselves; when sex offenders reoffend, they
always harm others more than they harm themselves . . . they create
additional victims.  They always kill who an innocent could have been but
for the sex abuse.

All of that said, being the bleeding heart liberal that I am, I'm all for
requiring treatment for incarcerated & released sex offenders - I just wish
we had "therapy" that seemed to be genuinely effective for many or most.  If
"therapy" prevents even 1% of convicted sex criminals from reoffending when
released, the financial cost is well worth it in my book - we are talking
about saving innocent men, women, and children from being victimized.  My
willingness to pay more to better protect us from sex offenders is a
minority view, unfortunately, because the fact of the matter is that most
sex offenders will be released, and that includes a great many who should
never walk free, IMHO.

Steven Sitler is an excellent local example of that, IMO.  Sometimes, crimes
committed that don't result in physical death warrant the punishment of
never again walking as a free person in decent societies because the damage
caused to innocent victims is simply too profound to deserve anything less
than life in prison, and I strongly think that's the case with Steven
Sitler, child molester extraordinaire.  He victimized multiple children from
the same family, and he victimized scores of children from different
families over a significant period of time.  He killed who those countless
victims could have become undamaged.

He sentenced many, many children to life sentences, and he himself deserves
no less.

Saundra Lund

Moscow, ID

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do
nothing.

~ Edmund Burke

***** Original material contained herein is Copyright 2011 through life plus
70 years, Saundra Lund.  Do not copy, forward, excerpt, or reproduce outside
the Vision 2020 forum without the express written permission of the
author.*****

From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com]
On Behalf Of Sunil Ramalingam
Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2011 7:45 AM
Cc: vision 2020
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Child Protective Services

Saundra,

With regard to this statement, "It also leads to the insane situation around
the state of opening up the jail doors to convicted sexual offenders to get
themselves to "therapy" and back to jail again without supervision,"

-How often does this happen around the state?
-What are the particulars in each instance? What is the underlying sentence,
has the defendant gone on a rider?
-Is there any basis for the decision provided by a treatment provider?
-What do you mean by 'therapy?' What do your quotation marks signify?

Sunil

  _____  

From: v2020 at ssl1.fastmail.fm
To: reggieholmquist at u.boisestate.edu; deco at moscow.com
Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2011 18:58:52 -0800
CC: vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Child Protective Services

Well, the Idaho Department of Corrections budget has been cut:

http://www.idoc.idaho.gov/facts/fact_sheets/YearEndBrief.July09.pdf

"Idaho has cut $27 million dollars from its 2009 and 2010 corrections
budget, a 14 percent reduction. As a result, the department laid off 44
positions, and ordered 4 days of furloughs for prison security staff and 10
days of furloughs for all other

employees."

See also:

http://www.idoc.idaho.gov/press_releases/Feb2010version2.pdf

"The Department has sustained millions of dollars in budget cuts since the
recession began. Through November 2009, the Department lost 10.4% in general
fund dollars for personnel and 8.7% in operating funds.

The impacts are significant. The graphic to the right illustrates the 93
positions either eliminated or unfilled. All staff are taking furlough hours
for a total of 80,000 hours, equivalent to another 39 positions in lost
productivity.

The Department can't close a prison for a day, or stop checking on parolees;
ours is a 24/7 public safety commitment.

Staffing ratios in prisons were bare bones before the furloughs and budget
cuts. Furloughs increase the problem. At the minimum security facility south
of Boise there are an average of 17 officers responsible for 656 inmates on
any given shift."

This attitude of "cut prison costs" is upsetting to me because it leads to
repugnant decisions like contracting out staffing to for-profit private
companies like Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).  As we've seen time
& time & time again, costs always increase when private for-profit companies
are brought in to save money (as has happened with the UI & its AlliedBarton
contract), accountability suffers, and we wind up with situations like those
at the Idaho Correctional Center (ICC) that have forced the ACLU to file
suit to protect those in custody.

It also leads to the insane situation around the state of opening up the
jail doors to convicted sexual offenders to get themselves to "therapy" and
back to jail again without supervision.

I don't disagree that sentencing for some non-violent offenders is too
harsh, but we also repeatedly see cases where the sentencing isn't harsh
enough, a trend that's increased as the Idaho Department of Corrections has
struggled to cope with budget cuts on top of public pressure to always cut
costs on top of never being adequately funded to begin with (because people
don't give a rip about convicts).

And, I'm not saying that IDOC needs the money more than CPS or education!  I
worked for the Department of Health & Welfare and am well aware of the
impossible conditions our CPS & children's mental health workers face every
single day.  I value education - and appropriate funding for education - as
much as anyone else & obviously more than many in this state.

However, it's simplistic and misguided to target IDOC, IMHO.  No one is
interested in my suggestions because I'm a bleeding heart liberal, but there
are ways to deal with what's going on with the budget in Idaho.  The problem
is that the Republican controlled executive & legislative branches aren't
interested in solutions that will gore their financial backers, pure &
simple, IMO.

JMHO,

Saundra Lund

Moscow, ID

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do
nothing.

~ Edmund Burke

***** Original material contained herein is Copyright 2011 through life plus
70 years, Saundra Lund.  Do not copy, forward, excerpt, or reproduce outside
the Vision 2020 forum without the express written permission of the
author.*****

From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com]
On Behalf Of Reggie Holmquist
Sent: Monday, March 07, 2011 11:46 AM
To: Art Deco
Cc: Vision 2020
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Child Protective Services

I'm going to agree with Roger(!) here.  Cuts should come from prisons.
Sentences can be shortened because most of them are currently too harsh.
Harsher sentences came about as a result of lobbying (mostly by "concerned
parents" groups) in the 80s.  Nowadays, the US holds a quarter of the
world's prison population, but only 5% of the world's total population.  The
fact that 35-40% of Idaho prison costs are unadjustable (because they are
contracted out) is also unacceptable.  A private industry complex should not
have been created to carry out what should be a state function (for myriad
reasons).

Idaho prisons should be receiving cuts, not increases (and CCA contracts
should be eliminated ASAP).  CPS should not be receiving cuts.  Education
should not be receiving cuts.  The school-to-prison pipeline needs to be
destroyed.

-Reggie

On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 11:34 AM, Art Deco <deco at moscow.com> wrote:

Roger,

What magic formula do you propose to determine the probability of
reoffending of any given convicted pedophile?  Do you have any idea what the
estimated recidivism rates are?  Or that the younger the victims and the
more victims are fairly clear indices of potential reoffending?

w.

----- Original Message ----- 

From: lfalen <mailto:lfalen at turbonet.com>  

To: ttrail at moscow.com 

Cc: vision2020 at moscow.com 

Sent: Monday, March 07, 2011 10:42 AM

Subject: [Vision2020] Child Protective Services

Tom
I went to a 4-H training session in Lewiston Saturday.  One of the subjects
was child protection. The amount of abuse that occurs in relation to
children is shocking. I do not know where things stand on the budget, but I
would encourage everyone to make sure that there are no cuts in Child
Protective Services. This is a area that needs attention. There are  other
areas that can be legitimately cut. One would be the prision budget. It
costs a lot of money to keep people in prision. Except for those that are a
danger to society and should never be released, it is questionable to keep
people locked up for a long period of time. It may be fine for a short
sentence as punishment, but there should be better ways to deal with those
that are not a physical treat to society. 
Again Child Protective Services needs to stay fully funded.

Roger

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