/
/ Front Page
ATSA's Annual Conference
President's Column:
Community Treatment & Supervision
A Canadian Perspective
Committee Reports:
Student
Professional Issues
Book Review
Board of Directors Election Results
Bringing My Work Home
New Members
New Zealand Conference /
/ Newsletter
Archives

Contact the editor or submit articles to:
David Prescott
Forum Editor
P.O. Box 593
Shaftsbury, Vermont
05262-0593
Voice: (802) 447-1557
Email:
Deadline for Winter
2004 issue:
December 1, 2003

Association for the
Treatment of Sexual Abusers
4900 S.W. Griffith Drive
Suite 274
Beaverton, OR 97005
Voice: 503.643.1023
Fax: 503.643.5084
E-mail:
Web: www.atsa.com
/ /
President's Column:
Community Treatment & Supervision
A Canadian Perspective
Bringing Work Home
Board of Directors Election
Click here to
download a Word printable version

Volume XV, No. 4 • Fall 2003

/ David Prescott, L.I.C.S.W.
Forum Editor

Greetings from the Conference Chair
We're about to meet again for ATSA's annual conference, this time in St. Louis October 8-11, 2003. The program is exciting, occurring in a grand hotel across from the famous St. Louis Arch, and the sense of community will be warm and inclusive.
ATSA is blessed with great scientists and practitioners. This year, the conference committee received 220 abstract submissions. The conference can accommodate only 138 papers, plenary sessions, workshops and posters. Choosing submissions to ensure diverse topics, quality programs, and interesting sessions is a painstaking process. Every effort was made to present the most current research and treatment methods. Over 200 speakers will give us their best at the conference.
The backbone of ATSA is its generous and talented volunteers. The members of the conference committee deserve special thanks for their outstanding collaboration. Serving in this capacity are Miggie Baerga, Carol Ball, Jim Haaven, Steve Hucker, Connie Isaac, Keith Kaufman, Robin McGinnis, Bob McGrath, Robert Parham and David Thornton. We also appreciate the careful review of abstracts done by the conference committee members, as well as Gene Abel, Lucy Berliner, Yolanda Fernandez, Karl Hanson, Steve Huot, Richard Laws, Janice Marques, Bill Murphy, Jacque Page, David Prescott, Marnie Rice and Jim Worling.
What's New This Year
Most professionals who work with sex offenders did not specialize in this population in their graduate studies. Instead, they learned about assessing, treating and supervising sex offenders wherever they could, sometimes haphazardly. For many, this meant attending ATSA and other conferences, only to be overwhelmed with session choices where it was difficult to choose the most useful presentations. To address this educational challenge, the St. Louis ATSA conference is offering two 12-hour Sexual Abuser Assessment, Treatment and Supervision Training Tracks, one addressing work with adolescents, the other with adults. These programs provide a balanced and comprehensive overview, which for professionals new to sex offender work, takes the guesswork out of choosing relevant presentations, and for more experienced professionals provides a comprehensive update. Each program is taught by outstanding leaders and effective instructors: James Worling, Ph.D., Robert McGrath, M.A., and Georgia Cumming, B.A. These training tracks lead to a certificate of completion and continuing education credits.
There will be a film show at the conference this year, an opportunity to review relevant media in a drop-in format each day Wednesday through Friday. Come see the latest media in the field.
Although ATSA conferences always have been friendly and welcoming, this year we are making extraordinary efforts to help people find their way around the conference. Despite multiple educational sessions, meetings, exhibits and social events, navigating the conference will be easier than ever.

Proven Methods
The Pre-Conference Seminars are designed to provide in-depth education about specialized topics. Concurrent sessions offer brief updates on emerging research and practice. And the plenary sessions provide opportunities to stretch intellectually by integrating knowledge from allied professions and areas of interest.
The ATSA conference draws professionals from around the world; typically persons from over a dozen countries attend. All the "big names" are there, in a milieu that makes everyone accessible. As a growing and diverse profession, the ATSA conference also draws many non-members. In fact, you may be surprised to learn that non-members typically comprise 60-65% of ATSA annual meeting attendees. We urge ATSA members to reach out to these colleagues and encourage them to join the organization. While the education that takes place is outstanding, many people attend equally for the camaraderie, the unique opportunity to mix professionally and socially with the truly special people who comprise the sex offender treatment profession.
To all, see you in St. Louis!



Lloyd Sinclair
2003 Conference Chair

Advocating For Enchanced Community Treatment & Supervision
from a Big Picture Perspective
By Keith Kaufman, Ph.D.
ATSA President

Over the past few years, I've been talking with colleagues in and outside of ATSA about the "things" that seem to place limits on our work. When I consider the fact that our goals of community safety and our vision of a world without sexual violence are clearly shared by all segments of society (i.e., from legislators to other professionals to the public at-large), I often find myself perplexed that we can't make greater gains in any given year. Earlier this month, while preparing for a keynote on current trends, I spent some time looking at national data. While not exactly an epiphany, I was struck by the extent to which recent economic and policy shifts limit our progress.
Economics:
At present, we are spending a total of $40 billion annually on incarcerated offenders (2.1 million offenders in 2002). It is costing us $100,000 for each new prison cell that is constructed and the annual cost for each offender is approximately $20-$24,000. In contrast, community management of offenders is estimated to cost approximately $4,000 per year. For many states, corrections has been the largest single item on their budget. In a time of increased state budget woes, prison populations and associated costs continue to rise. For example, California prisons now house more inmates than are incarcerated in France, Great Britain, Japan, Singapore, and the Netherlands combined. Projections suggest that California alone will need to increase their spending by an additional $2.4 billion over the next 10 years to maintain their current prison status - which is at double its capacity.
In essence, from an economic stand point, it seems that we spend so much money on incarcerating offenders that there is little left for community management, treatment, prevention, etc. This is despite the fact that for every offender currently incarcerated, the Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates that there are approximately four offenders living in our community.
Policy:
Over the past 5-7 years there have been a number of key policy shifts that have had significant impact. These include: "truth in sentencing laws" (i.e., flat sentences); the removal of sex offender specific treatment from state prison systems; offender community notification; offender registration; and of course, civil commitment. A great deal has been discussed about civil commitment, but I've seen virtually nothing about these other policy areas. Flat sentence laws were heavily advocated in election campaigns in the mid 1990's as part of "tough on crime" agendas. While subsequent laws enacting such policies resulted in offenders serving longer sentences, in many venues, it removed the motivation for offenders to participate in treatment while incarcerated. Prior to such laws, offenders who participated in treatment earned "good time" which hastened their release date. Removal of this motivation has resulted in a decline in treatment participation. These laws have also reduced and in many cases eliminated supervision for offenders leaving prison and returning to the community (since they have served the full duration of their sentence). In other words, after passing these laws created in the name of community safety, we now have more offenders who are neither receiving treatment nor being supervised upon release. A number of states, I'm told for economic reasons, have ceased to offer any type of sex offender specific treatment to incarcerated offenders. I wonder about the wisdom of such policy decisions given research data indicating reduced recidivism rates for most offenders receiving high quality sexual offender specific treatment. Even from an economic perspective, this makes little sense. Estimates suggest that preventing one victim-offender pair saves approximately $189,000 in system costs (not to mention the human costs). Finally, offender registration and notification laws seem to have been well intended attempts at community wide prevention. So far, however, there is little to support the efficacy of these approaches - particularly relative to their costs. For example, a recent news report indicated that of the 76,000+ sexual offenders in California eligible for registration, approximately 33,000 could not be located. Community notification was "sold" both on its merits as a means of informing the community of the offender's presence and as a deterrent to re-offending. I was unable to find research evidence suggesting the effectiveness of community notification. At the same time there are a host of logical criticisms of the approach (e.g., only protects the small number of community residents notified, ignores the fact that most child victims are related to the offender). In an excellent study conducted by Roxanne Lieb (1996) in Washington State, there was no difference found in recidivism rates for offenders with and without community notification. It should be noted, however, that offenders were caught more quickly when they recidivated when notification procedures were used.
From a policy standpoint, we seem to be even more entrenched in a "lock'em up" solution set. We have moved away from policies that are grounded in research and empirically support greater community safety (e.g., participation in high quality sex offender treatment reduces recidivism). We have also adopted costly simplistic notions of community prevention that offer the façade of increasing safety, but lack empirical support and a logical grounding.

Solutions:
ATSA is responding to these difficult issues. We emphasize the identification of best practices in assessment and treatment. For example, the ATSA Adult Offender Treatment Task Force is exploring concerns germane to this issue and a Juvenile Treatment Task Force will be named in the near future. We support research, clinical practice, and training on an ongoing basis. We've also adopted a public health approach to the problem of sexual violence that offers broader, multifaceted solutions to this complex problem.
Although pleased with our efforts, there is still much that we need to do. We need to increase our public education efforts regarding the importance of high quality, sex offender specific treatment for all sexual offenders. We need to become better advocates for legislative change and promote policies that truly enhance community safety. This advocacy should include the redirection of funds that are currently spent in the endless pursuit of increased incarceration of offenders. Clearly, there are offenders whose incarceration is necessary for community safety, but subjective increases in sentencing reflects spending without reason, particularly when community supervision caseloads are so unrealistically high and there are inadequate funds to subsidize treatment services. A small change in this regard, say an average 6 month reduction in sentences on about one-half of the current incarcerated offenders would make $12 billion available each year for community services and prevention. We also need to enhance our collaborations with other organizations, the public, and the media. Finally, we need to continue to look at how we might better position ATSA to be more effective in fostering policy change and in enhancing supervision/treatment.
Please let me know about your ideas to further these goals. In the mean time, enjoy the rest of your summer and keep up your great work making for safer futures.
Hope to see you in St. Louis in October at the ATSA Conference!
Best,

Keith L. Kaufman, Ph.D.
ATSA President

by Robin J. Wilson, Ph.D., C.Psych.
Chief Psychologist
Ontario Region (Community)
Correctional Service of Canada
On the evening of May 12, 2003, a 10-year-old girl was reported missing by her parents in Toronto. By the end of the next day, her dismembered body had been found floating in the Toronto Harbor. Immediately, the entire city was gripped by the all too familiar aftermath of a child abduction and murder. Like many other cities in which similar situations have occurred, the inevitable consequence of such events is a call to "get tough on sex offenders" or to somehow change the way in which we manage risk. One of the loudest calls in Canada is for the institution of a national sex offender registry. Presently, only the Province of Ontario has a registry, named Christopher's Law after the young boy who lost his life to a sex offender in 1988.
Understandably, people are upset when a child is murdered, and it is to be expected that they want answers, but how do we address the calls for change? What does the research tell us? In this article, I will present some of the current research and thinking in Canada regarding offender risk management. In particular, I would like to take a moment to examine the role of sex offender registries in public safety, and to suggest that there may be other means that lead to greater public safety.
RISK
Forensic risk assessment is big business in Canada. Just have a look at the test catalogs-many of the more common tools used in our business are Canadian-born. Examples include the Psychopathy Checklist (PCL-R), Level of Service Inventory (LSI-R), Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG), and the Karl Hanson half of the STATIC-99, among others. Many of these tools are the result of exhaustive and groundbreaking meta-analytic evaluations of treatment outcome research (Hanson & Bussiere, 1996; Andrews & Bonta, 2003). Very few stones have been left unturned in Canada when it comes to predicting risk using actuarial measures.
Yet, there are many ongoing projects that seek to enhance the process, including looking at dynamic predictors in addition to static factors. Hanson and Thornton (2003) have recently published preliminary findings on a 2002 revision of the STATIC-99, keeping true to the idea of a "work in progress". Similarly, Hanson and Harris are continuing with their Dynamic Supervision Project (DSP), intended to refine the Sex Offender Needs Assessment Rating (SONAR-Hanson & Harris, 2000). All Canadian provincial corrections agencies, the Correctional Service of Canada, and several US jurisdictions are involved in the DSP initiative. The data collection aspect is rigorous, and the findings will no doubt contribute greatly to our understanding of the stable and acute dynamic risk factors that precede relapse. Concurrently, Calvin Langton, Howard Barbaree, and a variety of others (including myself) are involved in a large longitudinal study looking at a variety of risk prediction variables in offenders associated with the pioneering Canadian program established by Barbaree and Bill Marshall at Warkworth Institution. Langton's recently-defended doctoral dissertation suggests that a structured clinical approach can augment risk management strategies based on actuarial findings, and that measuring progress on treatment targets has additive value for the ongoing assessment of risk.
In answer to the public's call for change in regard to sex offender handling, it is apparent that there is considerable ongoing research attempting to increase the reliability and validity of the risk assessment process. But, perhaps, it is not so much the labeling of risk as it is the management of risk that the public finds wanting.
REINTEGRATION
Like our friends to the south, Canada has a highly-organized correctional system which attempts to manage the sentences of convicted bank robbers, murderers, sex offenders, and others. While there are minor differences in approach between our two countries, the basic practice is the same-remove dangerous people from society until such time as they can be reasonably brought back to the community, or be reintegrated as the catch-phrase goes. The problem is that some of the highest risk offenders serving determinate sentences were never integrated in the first place, having spent much of their lives institutionalized for one reason or another, including long histories of sexual offending. What can we do with such offenders? There are two distinct approaches to this question that have garnered significant attention in Canada: (1) use of official control measures, and (2) attempts to increase community engagement in risk management. The first of these I will address now, the latter will be the last point of discussion in this article.