When Convicted Sex Offenders Are Released...

What comes next for convicted sex offenders who are released from prison?

 Marty Driscoll, Co-Chair of the for Pasco County, is a licensed therapist who helps sex offenders find the answer to this question.

I spoke to him about what it is like to work with the convicted sex offenders who are out of jail on probation or parole:

Driscoll is a licensed mental health therapist who worked with child abuse prevention and started first child abuse prevention program in Pasco County.  Then in private practice, he noticed there was a lack of sex offender treatment in East Pasco. He started a small treatment program, then got a Department of Corrections contract in 1989. 

The program has grown into a 3 and a half year minimum treatment regimen for convicted sex offenders. If a defendant is not convicted, or if he or she is allowed to do something like plea down to felony child abuse instead of felony sex crime, then Driscoll cannot treat them.  Then they get enrolled in a year-long child abuse prevention education program but not treatment.  They do not work on their individual issues. Driscoll said he also gets people with custody issues who have been accused of sex abuse and also  a non-offending parent treatment program for the mother   

Participants have to meet certain requirements as a condition imposed in the sentence by the judge under Driscoll's program, called Prevention Projects Inc.

Even if the judge does not directly require a polygraph, the court ordered program does requires the polygraph, even if not named in the sentence. 

What is Driscoll's role in the court process for sex offenders?

Driscoll gets the offender after there has been conviction.  There are exceptions: "Some lawyers send the offender ahead of time to work a plea bargain but that is rare," he said.

Does Driscoll encounter controversy because he works with sex offenders? Yes, he said.

"The controversial side: they are offenders are on the lowest rung of the criminal ladder, even below murderers," Driscoll said.

What is a treatment goal that he has with them? "A key element is to learn how to regain their integrity.  Society is not going to forgive them, so how do they forgive themselves, or else they live an unhealthy shame-based life. (The) majority are called regressed sex offenders:  under certain situational and psychological conditions, they will turn to an underage person…not necessarily pre-adolescent. The probability of re-offense is therefore higher."  

"(Sex offenders) don't see people, they see objects," Driscoll said.  "They experience  anger, sadness and depression,"  he said.

According to Driscoll, sex offender treatment involves learning what triggers a sex offender psychologically to offend. Sometimes it is a sex fantasy they enact on a child.  Once you discover the trigger, you can help reduce the chance that they will re-offend, Driscoll said.

"Treatment helps them to interrupt those behaviors," Driscoll said.  "They have to learn how to have empathy for others.  What they most want to avoid experiencing is empathy for their victim because it is so painful.  That is the key element to stop re-offending.  See a person who can help them stop what is triggering them."

People, even some judges, may sometimes hope that a psychological evaluation or other psychology tests can be used to prove or disprove whether or not someone is a sex offender.  Here's the reality check from Driscoll: 

"There is no test that can prove someone is or is not a sex offender.  There are tests for arousal for images but not whether or not they acted on it.  Misconception is that psychologically they would test normal like anyone else: it does not show a mental or personality disorder.  That is why so many get away with it for so long." 

 Originally, most men in the treatement program were men who were not sentenced to prison, Driscoll said.

Driscoll states that more recently the sex offenders he sees are men who had longer sentences who were released from prison.  

Most in Florida had no treatment while incarcerated.  The other inmates physically and verbally abuse these offenders.  They are the low rung on the ladder, so that is why they would avoid going to treatment programs inside.  The public thinks of them as monsters.  Most of the men have come from dysfunctional families, where an uncle, grandfather, brother or somebody has exposed or molested them."

Driscoll is providing an important service. Primary prevention is something the Task Force is focusing on more now to try to prevent all abuses rather than reacting to it after it occurs. 

Find resources available for rape victims and information that will help you protect yourself or your loved ones by clicking on the following links.

Attorney General Division of Victim Services

http://myfloridalegal.com/pages.nsf/Main/B371D29EBE5C97748525749C00518B58

Find local rape crisis centers http://www.fcasv.org/past-saam-events

Rape Abuse Incest National Network RAINN 1-800-656-HOPE

Prevention and help for victims of sex offenses Lauren’s Kids www.laurenskids.org

Senator Fasano’s  sponsored Walk in Their Shoes Act – to contact Governor Scott http://www.flgov.com/contact-gov-scott/ 

FDLE Sex Offender homepage http://offender.fdle.state.fl.us/offender/homepage.do

To search for sex offenders and predators in your neighborhood, go here http://offender.fdle.state.fl.us/offender/Search.js