Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 16, 1995 TAG: 9504170083
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LISA APPLEGATE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
At his request, Bob probably will spend the rest of his life in prison.
An inmate at the Bland Correctional Center, Bob - who spoke on condition that his last name not be used - originally was to serve a 10-year sentence for sexual assault.
Less than a year ago, he entered a new sex-offender treatment program at Bland. From that program, he said, he learned that the only way to change his behavior was to own up to his crimes.
So he turned over a list of five additional people he had assaulted to the Augusta County commonwealth's attorney. None of these people had come forward to report the assaults; Bob said he hoped that, now that they had been named, they would receive counseling.
Recently, he received five more 40-year sentences, to run concurrently. Now 60, Bob said he is prepared never to leave prison.
"I'm not looking forward to serving more time," he said in an interview, "but if that's what it takes for my victims to get help, that's what I'll do."
He attributes his decision to the empathy for sex-abuse victims he has learned while living in what is called the "therapeutic community" at Bland.
The community - the first of its kind in Virginia prisons - is based on many of the same principles as substance-abuse treatment.
Forty-eight inmates, convicted of various sex offenses in which murder was not involved, live separately from the general inmate population.
Each day, they participate in intense sessions of group and individual therapy. Most nights, they do homework from books with titles such as, "Why Did I Do It Again?" and "Growing Up Male: Identifying Violence in My Life."
The program was designed to treat inmates over a two-year period. Those who planned and implemented it say statistics won't show for at least five years whether the primary goal - reducing the number of repeat offenders - has been reached.
But just a few months shy of its first anniversary, Department of Corrections Director Ron Angelone cut funding for the program.
Supporters of the cut say the program had not proved its effectiveness. Eliminating it, they say, was part of across-the-board cuts ordered by Gov. George Allen to reduce the state budget and help fund new prison construction.
A total of $40 million was cut from the Corrections Department's $460 million budget during the last legislative session. Cutting the sex-offender program, Angelone said, would save close to $1 million.
Program supporters say that figure is misleading, because it includes start-up costs for the Bland program and another at Haynesville Correctional Unit, which never became fully functional. Now that buildings are set up and supplies have been purchased, they say, the annual cost would be closer to $220,000.
They say the program is working, but the political pendulum is swinging away from preventive measures in favor of "getting tough on criminals."
Many of the inmates involved in it say they refuse to give up on a program that, for the first time, has given them hope that they can change. And they're willing to challenge the governor to continue treatment.
Last month, 23 Bland inmates filed a petition asking the U.S. District Court in Roanoke to halt the closing of the sex-offender treatment program.
The complaint names as defendants employees at every rung of the Corrections Department ladder, including Allen and Angelone.
The inmates claim their sexually deviant behavior is a clinically diagnosed mental condition. Depriving therapeutic treatment for their problem, they argue, is akin to refusing to administer insulin to a diabetic inmate.
That is "cruel and unusual punishment" and a violation of their Eighth Amendment rights, the complaint argues.
The complaint goes on to note that the same type of therapeutic communities, established for drug addicts, will continue to operate. Such action by the Corrections Department is "clearly discriminatory," it says.
Ridiculous, says Angelone.
"We found a ... higher success rates with the drug and alcohol addicts," he said in an interview after budget cuts had been approved by Allen in February. "It was obvious to everybody that the [sex-offender treatment] program was not working."
Angelone, who gained a tough-guy reputation as director of the Nevada Bureau of Prisons, came to Virginia in 1994. He questions whether there is any effective treatment for sex offenders.
"Whatever sexually turned you on in puberty basically is what turns you on for life," he said. "Otherwise, I could take 10 heterosexuals and turn them into homosexuals ... because you could change sexual orientation. ... [Life in prison] is the ultimate cure for violent criminals, or those who rape or molest."
In 1989, the General Assembly saw a need for improved, intensive therapy for both drug addicts and sex offenders.
The Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission found the Corrections Department lacked adequately planned and consistent programs for inmates.
Among the commission's recommendations was that the Corrections Department should "implement a comprehensive program that includes education and intensive group therapy."
Four years after the commission's study was released, Shawn Meek submitted a proposal to a committee established to implement the study's suggestions.
Meek, now the director of Bland's therapeutic community, said Secretary of Public Safety Jerry Kilgore told her she could not comment on any aspect of the program's history for this story.
Scott Richeson, statewide program coordinator for the Corrections Department and one of the defendants named in the complaint, was a member of the committee that chose Meek's program.
Richeson said the committee chose it because "it seemed to be the standard for what was being done nationally."
Meek incorporated a 15-year-old Minnesota program into her therapeutic-community proposal.
That program, designed by Dr. Dick Seely for a prison hospital in Minnesota, is based on the same relapse-prevention model as treatment programs for alcohol or drug addicts. Seely says a pattern of behavior develops in any addictive behavior - the cocaine addict or the pedophile - but it can be broken through identification.
"Sex offenders are who they learn to be," Seely said. "We teach them how to react differently to small steps in the relapse cycle - teach them how to intervene so that their actions won't follow through to a true relapse."
Seely estimates that fewer than 10 percent of the 130-or-so men he has tracked since the program began have been convicted of another sex offense.
The National Institute of Corrections estimates recidivism rates for untreated sex offenders to be 60 to 70 percent.
Seely's success rate is an improvement on that of behavioral intervention, which was the treatment trend 25 years ago. Isaac Van Patten, director of the Roanoke area sex-offender program, said therapists would try to block arousal patterns with electric shocks or noxious odors.
"That worked beautifully - it knocked down arousal for two or three days afterwards," he said. "Problem was, the therapy didn't stick outside the laboratory, and they started reoffending."
With the rise of victim advocacy groups and an increase in incest awareness in the late '70s a new treatment trend emerged.
Doctors "acknowledged that this is not a problem to be cured," Van Patten said. "They began to teach to control deviant behavior."
But Angelone, who said he wasn't aware of the recidivism rates for Seely's Minnesota program, said they are not an accurate measurement.
"It takes years for someone who was molested or raped to come forward to report it," he said. "There's no way 90 percent haven't repeated again and that they're telling the truth - unless they have them locked in a closet somewhere."
In the therapy trailer - one of four separated by fence and barbed wire from the rest of the buildings at Bland - several inmates sit in couches and chairs arranged in a circle.
Red flowers, stenciled by the inmates, border the walls. In one corner stands an easel with a flip chart on it. At the top of the first page, in large blue letters, are the words, "No More Victims."
Inmates spend much of their day in this room. Three times each week, groups meet with a counselor to discuss overall issues. Other days, smaller groups converge to focus on specific topics such as anger management and parenting.
All have been convicted of some sort of sexual crime, including rape, sodomy and indecent exposure to a minor. . A few also have been convicted of other crimes, such as burglary or use of a firearm in a felony.
Almost all of these inmates are scheduled for mandatory release within four years. One or two have refused discretionary parole so they could complete the program.
They know the therapy lingo, casually using terms such as "holistic approach" and "irrational belief systems." Most think those philosophies have shed a new light on who they are and why they're in prison.
"Your life is like a giant jigsaw puzzle," said Terry. "Once you get it all together you can start looking at it and working on yourself and understanding why we did what we did to our victims." They admit that the close living quarters - 24 people to a double-wide trailer - is difficult, but it's the only way to foster trust and honesty.
"Therapy goes on here 24 hours a day, seven days a week." explained Rod. "Everybody knows what your issues are. Not only do you not manage to get away with anything, because you could be caught on it, but you get a chance to be open with people like we've never been able to in our entire lives."
Many of these men say they were sexually abused at some point in their lives. They're beginning to see a pattern to their behavior and are finding ways to break the cycle.
Said Wayne: "One of the most important things I've learned is that a thought precedes every action. ... We look at a situation and see, `Wow, my thinking's really distorted here.' We turn our thinking around so we're not stuck in that mode of believing that `I feel this way, so I'm gonna act this way.' Hopefully, we're going to consider how that action affects somebody."
They resent that the program has been cut by people who have never visited their therapeutic community. They acknowledge they should be in prison,
"I think I deserve incarceration," said Miguel, "But if I'm shown a little compassion and some treatment, maybe I can turn around and show that to someone else." but all agree prison in itself is not a deterrent.
"Had we not come through this program, we could be laying back in our cells saying, `Well, I don't want to go though this again,'''
Most say they hope to find a similar program when they get out of prison. If the program is cut this summer, many plan to continue their work in groups while living in Bland's general population.
All these men, with the possible exception of Bob, will return to society eventually.
Asked Terry: "To go back out there the way we was when we first got in here - who's that helping?"
by CNB