Why Are Child Molesters on the Loose?

It was with a sick feeling in my stomach, a dreaded recollection, that I read about the paroled child molester whom Long Beach police trailed recently as he skulked around school playgrounds.

I know what the guy is thinking as he cruises the playgrounds listening for children’s voices. I was sentenced to three concurrent three-year terms in state prison for molesting a neighbor’s 7-year-old son. I didn’t receive psychiatric care while in prison. I tried, but I was told by prison authorities: “There is no rehabilitation anymore, only punishment.” That would be fine if it worked, but it doesn’t.

Since there are no simple answers to stop repeat offenders, there always are demagogic politicians willing to offer simplistic solutions. Los Angeles County Supervisor Pete Schabarum recently sought a study on the effectiveness of castration for sex offenders. Sure, we could do that, just as we could lobotomize politicians who espouse rabid views. Before sentencing, I requested chemical castration--such was my mental state at that time. But I was fortunate enough to find a psychologist who helped me a lot for the few months I was out on bail, and since I’ve been released.

But what if I didn’t have the motivation or access to an excellent psychologist? I might easily have been like the Long Beach molester, prowling around looking for children. Why isn’t that man in a state hospital that specializes in the treatment of sex offenders?

At one time the Mentally Disordered Sex Offender (MDSO) program would have given a judge the option of commiting this man to a state hospital for treatment, but the program no longer exists. Instead, we have punishment--and nothing else. The MDSO program cost a lot of money, and it didn’t always work. We are saving money now, but at what price?

I deserved to be punished. But I also deserved some help in getting back to a productive life, and that was denied me. Worse, it also is being denied the children who may become victims of men who are released untreated to molest again.

The Corrections Department makes an attempt at treatment by requiring parolees to attend weekly 45-minute group-therapy sessions. But these sessions include everyone from purse snatchers to armed robbers, so sex offenders do not feel free to talk candidly about their problems. A separate therapy group for sex offenders was started last summer, but once such offenders are paroled they often are reluctant to confide to a prison official that they still have a problem. The time to treat molesters is while they are in prison, not when they are out on parole with access to children.

Instead of treatment, I walked the prison yard trying to sort out what caused me to act in such a repugnant manner. In the brief time I was in treatment before going to prison, I realized that all the men in my therapy group had one thing in common: a low self-esteem. So what is the wisdom of locking up molesters in a place where even the lowest mugger and degenerate regards them as dirt? It is likely that they will come out of prison in a considerably worse state than when they went in.

I’ve met other molesters in parole clinic therapy. One man is a walking time bomb. He didn’t molest children, he said, he just loved them. He’s a very ill man, and I would breathe easier if I knew that he were in a state hospital. But he’s not, I wasn’t, and the man in Long Beach is not, because it costs a lot and doesn’t always work.

The advantage of the MDSO program was that an inmate could be held beyond his term if doctors believed that he was still a threat. Now when you enter prison you are given a parole date, generally half the sentence. I served two years. If you have no disciplinary offenses and you take part in the Work Incentive Program, they must release you. I was not given any psychiatric examination, no questions were asked--no steps were taken to determine if I was a threat. I was warehoused at a cost of roughly $30,000 a year. What did the taxpayers get for their money?

My type of crime seems impervious to the threat of punishment. What has worked for me is an examination of my motivations and social responsibilities guided by a compassionate therapist. I’ve been with my therapy group for almost two years now, and I’m only just beginning to dig out of the morass into which I had sunk.

I’m more than a little embittered by the fact that my attorney led me to believe that I would be admitted to Patton State Hospital if I pleaded no-contest to the charges. I had no intention of dragging a child victim into court to testify, but I was relieved that I would be getting help. After I was in prison, I was told that there was no chance of treatment, and apparently there had been no chance of that for some time.

I’m sure the lawyers believe that the bogus promises are for a good cause if they keep a child out of court. And I certainly would have preferred a state hospital to prison, but I also desperately wanted help to stop me from repeating my crime. Yet I was afraid to seek help before I was caught because I thought that the doctor would be bound by law to report me.

Child molesters will continue to be a threat to the public unless they get help. The police cannot protect children from molesters, and prison officials aren’t happy about putting these men back onto the streets. Pouring money down the rat holes of jammed prisons is not the answer. It is true that not all sex offenders respond to treatment, but it is in the public’s best interest to continue to look for a rational solution.