In their own words – A look at The General Assembly Report on the treatment of Colorado’s incarcerated sex offenders by those who know the issues
By dutch franz
Background
The General Assembly Report was published by Central
Coast Clinical and Forensic Psychology Services Inc., in January 2013 after
approximately four months of on-site data collection in Colorado’s Sex Offender
prison treatment program. Central Coast
Clinical looked specifically at how the state’s Sex Offender Treatment and
Monitoring Program (SOTMP) performed their mission of providing institutional
treatment to those incarcerated in the state for sex crimes.
In Their Own Words: Central Coast Clinical – Deirdre
D’Orazio, Ph.D., David Thornton, Ph.D., and Anthony Beech, D. Phil. (Quotes taken from General Assembly report)
1. A significant
number of therapists were inadequately trained and abusive.
“the program
has difficulty recruiting staff who come with a high level of skill, retaining
qualified staff, and providing timely and adequate training….”
“monitoring
procedures are insufficient to detect and correct problematic therapist
skills.”
“little
internal motivation for change will be created if participants feel they are
being brutally coerced into compliance.”
“eight of
the groups therapists displayed poor therapist style – therapist behavior was
outside the range of what was acceptable for a therapist.”
“The program
seeks to influence and control patients through invoking fear.”
“The
treatment climate contains a detrimental level of fear and perceived coercion.”
“It is
recommended that a thorough internal review of program procedures and decision-making
that is designed to specifically target participants’ fear and sense of being
coerced is conducted.”
2. The SOTMP has a one-size-fits-all method of
providing treatment to offenders.
“A
particularly striking aspect of these findings is the failure to effectively
individualize the program….”
“Many…do not
need prison treatment of this intensity.”
“The present
situation…leaves treatment participants fearful of being removed from the
program due to excessively long delays in readmission. When this is combined with poor therapist
style, the result is an unproductive group climate, and treatment participants
adapting by trying to appease providers rather than engaging in treatment in a
more genuinely productive way.”
3. Individuals
pressured into giving false statements and confessions.
“the intense
pressure treatment participants feel to appease their treatment providers. Thus much of what is ‘disclosed’ in various
clinical exercises is quite likely offenders giving treatment providers what
they think treatment providers want to hear….”
“Many participants report they
fabricate false confessions.”
Background:
Mechanical Manipulation
Colorado
uses an intensive polygraph testing process for individuals in therapy and
passing the polygraph is a requirement to meet parole eligibility. Participants are interviewed and tested on
every sexual contact and thought they have had from their earliest memories to
the present time. The tests are
administered by Amich & Jenks,
Inc. a company owned by Jeff Jenks who is also a member of the state’s
SOMB that establishes the procedures for SOTMP testing. The 2013-14 CDOC budget request for Jenk’s
testing was $141,000. Amich &Jenks
has been performing the CDOC testing since polygraph testing became a
requirement.
Jenks
told Central Coast Clinical that his tests were between 82 – 93 percent
accurate. Records show that there were
505 tests conducted in FY 2011, this means using Jenks’ numbers between 35 – 91
participants were falsely accused of deception; this could also include
findings of “inconclusive” which the SOTMP also treats as deceptive.
Central
Coast Clinical found that when a participant is determined to be deceptive,
they must admit to their deception and confess (sometimes to a new crime) in
writing before they are allowed to progress through the program. According to Central Coast Clinical, “Many participants report they fabricate
false confessions.”
The
result of the false confession is three-fold.
First, the new crime becomes part of their official clinical record and
they must admit to the Parole Board that they have additional victims for which
they were not prosecuted. This
disclosure makes it less likely the participant will be paroled…and remember
they have a “life” sentence, the only way out is through parole. Next, the fabrications inflate the perceived
sexual deviance of the participant, and the entire population, making them
appear more dangerous than they are.
Lastly, it obscures the type of treatment actually needed by the
participant.
In Their Own Words: Attorneys John Pineau and Christopher
Decker
John Kenneth Pineau graduated from University
of Colorado School of Law in 1994. He was a King Scholar and American
Jurisprudence Awards (highest grade in a law school class). John is an
Instructor in Trial Advocacy at the University of Colorado School of Law, the
University of Denver College of Law, and instructor at various Continuing Legal
Education seminars for lawyers. He was selected by lawyers to the national list
of Super Lawyers and the Register of Preeminent Lawyers and has been the Gilpin
County Bar Association President from 2001 to present. John is a Fellow at the
Colorado Bar Foundation and a member of the Colorado Bar Association, the Colorado
Criminal Defense Bar Association, and First Judicial District Bar Association.
1. What did you think of the report?
I was ecstatic; it corroborates
the lack of sufficient resources and staff.
The current treatment mode is dysfunctional and represents lies, ignorance,
and cruelty.
2. What do you feel is the larger issue here?
Watching clients going to prison
believing they will get treatment and be released, but there is no treatment
option and they are dying in prison. The
Lifetime Supervision Act is a death sentence.
The law is not being interpreted
correctly; they could not get this law passed now.
3. Do you think the legislature is ready to make
the changes recommended?
No, they are not likely to make
changes. This is a constitutional issue;
power of the majority over the minority who are deprived of their basic rights.
The majority rules in this country,
but they need to be controlled, the majority will do crazy things if there are no
checks on their power.
This is a “Fundamental Rights”
issue of an insular minority that is prone to be targeted and is most vulnerable;
they are due special protection under the law.
(John
was not able to answer questions on the record about the Class Action Lawsuit
he is pursuing in Federal Court against the Colorado Department of Corrections
on behalf of thousands of incarcerated sex offenders.)
Christopher Decker has taught trial practice classes,
lectured on Sexual Assault defense techniques, and conducted continuing legal
education seminars for attorneys in Colorado. He is also a graduate of the
National Criminal Defense College in Macon Georgia, which is taught and
attended by America’s top defense lawyers. The specialized training he received
at the NCDC Trial Practice Institute included exposure to the most advanced
techniques of witness examinations, trial strategy and methods of persuasion. Chris
has tried to verdict over one-hundred-twenty-five cases and successfully
settled thousands more. Chris is a
Board Member of the Colorado Defense Bar.
He was born
April 24, 1963 Santa Barbara California.
Education: Graduate, Buckingham Browne & Nichols School, Cambridge
Massachusetts, 1982; Bachelor of Arts, (Economics and Political Science) University of
Vermont, 1986; Juris
Doctorate, University of Denver College of Law, 1995; Graduate,
Trial Practice Institute, National Criminal Defense Collage, Macon Georgia,
2006. Member: American Bar Association, Colorado Bar Association,
Colorado Criminal Defense Bar, Colorado State Bar, Denver Bar Association,
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Federal Bar State of
Colorado, 10th Circuit Court Of Appeals.
1. What was your impression of the report from
the point of view of an attorney who has worked in this area for over 20 years?
The report quantifies the
concerns I had of the Lifetime Supervision Act’s (LSA) structure. It also reflects what I have experienced in
my practice, that individuals under LSA where not being released after serving their
floor sentences, and that this was because they were not allowed to participate
in treatment. The numbers were initially
horrific, but now seem to be a trickle.
2. How does the report support the efforts of
defense attorneys to change the legislative and SOMB treatment protocols?
It certainly helps in the ongoing
dialog between the criminal defense bar and the legislature to have this well researched
General Assembly Report. Many of the necessary changes are more likely to come
about now that this report illustrates specific shortcomings and failures of
the protocols. In the end, protocols are better left to qualified treatment
providers and not legislators or judges. Because of the politically charged
nature of the issue, change in the protocol is more likely to come from
feedback from treatment providers. This has already occurred to some degree.
I hope the report will further
encourage and accelerate the trend of releasing inmates. The containment model in Colorado has proven
to be expensive, ineffective and counterproductive for many sexual offenders. Research
shows that incarceration actually increases the risk that an offender will reoffend. So there is a fiscal downside and a risk
downside to the course of conduct that Colorado DOC has taken for the past ten
years or so. There is a small percent of
the population that needs prison and treatment, but with the broad discretion
given elected prosecutors, there is an unequal sometimes arbitrary application of
a draconian set of statues. I think it
was the intent of the legislature to apply uniformity, but prosecutors have
this discretion and it creates less uniformity and more abuse.
3. The report encourages CDOC/SOTMP to work with
the parole board to “expediently parole
inmates whose level of risk can be managed in the community.” Do you
think the parole board will be moved to increase the parole numbers? Is
there anything that can be done, short of changing the law, to compel the board
to release more low risk sex offenders?
Yes, I think it will have an effect,
and it should increase the numbers of inmates being paroled. I think they were hesitant to release sex
offenders in the past, but I think they will start listening to the experts and
not acting on fear and hysteria. Good
people are hearing a lot of overstated concerns, well intended, but misinformed
concerns; recidivism does not support the low rate of release.
4. Could the poor performance and training of
the prison clinical staff possibly be considered negligent form a legal
perspective?
The inmate can’t be released
without treatment, but the inmate is not getting the treatment that is
mandated. Inmates are often taken out of
community treatment where it is actually successful, then put in prison where
they don’t get treatment or get poor quality treatment, making the person more
dangerous than he would be in the community.
It is probably illegal. The statute says you provide…and they are not
providing it and supervisors are negligent of not managing the program.
5. What is your view of the study’s findings
that inmates were coerced through clinical staff and polygraphs to invent
crimes in hopes of meeting parole criteria?
I’m not surprised, the protocols
and standards that SOMB established puts an inmate’s freedom on the line, this
is coercive, the inmate will say whatever is needed when his liberty is at
stake.
Para-professionals who are
expected to apply the protocols and standards of the program are minimally
qualified to make decisions as important as releasing a sex offender.
There is also a significant due
process issue by extending sentences based on the whims of unqualified or
minimally qualified personnel. You can’t
incarcerate someone, say they can’t be released until they meet a standard and
condition, then not give them the opportunity meet the standard. Staffing with minimal providers and relying
on the polygraph causes all sorts of problems like funding, or who’s got the
release key to prison? The report shows
that the liberty of these inmates is resting with individuals who have little
training and significantly inadequate scientific research to back their
programs.
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