 Now, this model recommends that districts or jurisdictions develop clear and consistent policies and criteria regarding when you're going to revoke somebody for having contact with the victim, or if you're going to revoke. What type of contact, under what circumstances? At what point, how are you going to decide that your district needs to revoke somebody's supervised release? And I know that this is beyond your control, and I know that there are many forces that impinge upon this. And don't get me wrong. I don't mean to say, this is what you should be doing. I'm presenting a model. If you can extract from this model something that is useful to you, please do so. Certainly, as general guidelines, we encourage you to do ongoing assessment. I talked earlier this morning about risk being a dynamic construct, and something that changes all the time. You need ongoing assessment. This is not mental health assessment. This is your assessment to ensure that the current conditions of supervision appropriately address the offender's changing level of risk. That is something that requires considerable professional judgment, because you have to reevaluate, reassess the conditions as they change over time. We also recommend that you do something that treatment providers do in the form of a treatment plan. Simply state it, treatment providers come up with, identify the problem, come up with a treatment plan that offers solutions to the problem, or interventions to the problem. The case plan is very similar, and you may already do this as part of your routine management and supervision of the offender. Develop an individualized plan of relapse, prevention, support, and supervision. This is not just supervision. What type of support, what type of treatment, and how are you going to establish certain conditions that will prevent this particular offender from re-offending and from violating the conditions of supervision? Very important one is the relationship with the offender. It is very important to develop a working alliance with the offender. In the field of psychotherapy, we have long recognized that one of the most powerful interventions that we have to offer have to do with the therapeutic alliance, the working relationship with our patients. And if that relationship is good, one that offers mutual respect, one that has clear and firm boundaries, one that is genuinely helpful, that has a positive treatment effect. Another very important role of the relationship with the offender is what we can do in treatment. What I tell them and what I try to convey to them that part of their goal in treatment is to internalize, and this is a term that we use in therapy a lot, internalize the functions of the treatment provider, the functions of treatment. What does treatment do? Well, treatment, for example, in this program and the SOTP, gives them a reminder several times a week. At certain times, it reminds them that they are sex offenders, that they shouldn't forget that, that they need to be working on their problems. So we remind them by putting them on, I was going to say, put them on the call out, but that means nothing to you. We actually schedule appointments several times a week. So these are reminders. When we talk to them, when we confront them, when we support them, these are all functions that they should be doing within themselves. They should be doing this. As I question my behavior, as I analyze my behavior, scrutinize my behavior, they should be doing the same thing. So they should take the function of the therapist, one of confrontation, and they should be confronting themselves. They should be analyzing their behavior. They should not need a therapist who performs that function outside of them. So the ultimate goal of treatment is really the internalization of these functions. These are functions that service providers, supervision officers, such as yourselves, treatment providers, such as I am, engage in. But ultimately, each offender should be able to internalize these functions so that they can do it onto themselves. Does that make sense? All right. I've gotten calls from probation officers saying, well, what should we recommend? Is there anything that we should add to the conditions of supervision? What type of language should we use? And over the course of my experience with sex offenders, I've come up with several conditions that probably ought to be included routinely in supervision contracts. So in addition, this is again, in addition to the standard conditions of supervised release, I would encourage you to specifically address contact with the victim, contact with minors, offender-specific sexual risk factors, and offender-specific behavioral restrictions. Now, what do I mean by contact with the victim? Well, if you can look at the condition of contact with the victim on a continuum, we psychologists have a difficult time seeing things in very discrete categories, so everything is a continuum. But we start from the most restrictive end of the continuum, absolutely no contact with the victim, and then move up. Contact supervised by an agent of the court or child protection worker, less restrictive contact supervised by a responsible person approved by the probation officer. This may be a caregiver, a mother, a grandmother, grandfather, anyone that you trust will be an appropriate supervisor of that contact. Supervision only after a successful course of family reunification therapy. By virtue of somebody being a parent of a child, father, mother, that does not make that person appropriate to supervise, necessarily appropriate to supervise the contact between a sex offender and his victim. All too frequently, particularly when I was working in community-based treatment programs, this issue came up a lot, where traditionally the mother sometimes was not in a position in which she could supervise the visit. Sometimes her behavior was one that enabled the offender behavior, minimized the conduct, blamed the victim. So that is very inappropriate to have a person who's exhibiting those behaviors can be very traumatizing and further damaging to that victim child. Family reunification therapy, a very unique form of therapy with specific goals, can sometimes prepare a caregiver to be an appropriate supervisor of that contact so that an appropriate safety plan for the home can be developed. And finally, on the other end of the spectrum, we have unsupervised contact with the victim without any particular restrictions. I don't think you would want that. What do we mean by contact with minors? Again, on a continuum, absolutely no contact whatsoever with minors, even if supervised. I think that's pretty clear. Contact supervised by a person approved by an agent of the court or other similar person, such as a child protection worker. Contact with minors only in the presence of responsible adults. These may be chaperones, may be individuals who provide some degree of supervision, but may not be as trained in the supervision of the individual. And finally, unsupervised contact with minors. What are some of the sexual risk factors? I mentioned this before. These are the offender specific. Again, you have to look at the offender and that individual offenders' sexual offense history. And based on that, you will determine what are the risk factors that pertain to that individual. Typically, pornography is not a good thing. I think pornography, what it does, there's a good meta-analysis that makes this argument that came out just a few weeks ago on the effect of pornography on the sex-centered population. And what pornography does in many ways is it systematically desensitizes the individual to accept what the images are presenting. There's more of a readiness to accept if the pornography depicts violence and sexual violence, there is more of a readiness to accept that. There is a systematic desensitization to violence through the pairing of sexual stimuli and violence. For child pornography, what a lot of these offenders encounter is there is a systematic desensitization to the wrongfulness of child pornography because they see images of children who were post and are allegedly having a good time. And they see, oh, that boy has an erection, so he must like it, he must be enjoying himself and fail to see beyond that. So there is a systematic desensitization. Pornography is not a good thing and it should be not permitted for any sex offender. Any materials that portray depict or describe sexual violence and exploitation, that's very broad. And that may or may not include pornography. Other offender-specific risk factors places where children congregate, especially unsupervised, arcades, video arcades, malls, well, you name them. It's not very difficult to come up with them. And finally, contact with other sex offenders and so-called enablers. Again, these are people who minimize the offenders' conduct. Say, well, it's not bad. These people are just persecuting you. You're an upstanding citizen of this community. And they enable the offenders' denial, minimization, and lack of effective self-control. Yes, sir? Are there groups of organizations, names of groups, organizations that we could be on the lookout for? I know of two. The Orchid Club in Nambla. Nambla is actually probably one of the most dangerous organizations we have in this country. And they are public. Headquarters in New York, they have a newsletter free to any inmate who requests the newsletter. And they publicly advocate for sexual contact with boys, with minors. They cite even biblical passages indicating that sex with minors, sex with boys, between adults and boys is a positive thing. It's a healthy thing. And they simply say that the law is wrong. And they challenge the law. And they are publicly identified pedophiles. Many of them are convicted. Many of them have gone undetected for many years. In the treatment program, I've had individuals who have been contributors, subscribers to Nambla. And I suspect that it's a different world. Let's move on. Now, what are some of the behavioral restrictions that you, as probation officers, can impose on some of these offenders? In the employment realm, certainly limitations to the internet, access to the internet, and telephone, where at least they can be fully accountable to what they do with the telephone. These people shouldn't be calling one of these sex lines. And you should be able to pull up their phone record and examine that. Again, we've addressed this before. Unsupervised, unstructured jobs are not good for most sex offenders. They need to be accountable at all times. A guy who's reading meters, electric meters, has very little accountability and a great deal of access to potential victims. Delivery truck drivers, certainly those people have very limited accountability. Plumbers, air conditioning repair persons. OK, what about in the realm of social, spiritual activities? Very important that, and I would encourage you to scrutinize their tendency for some of them, their tendency to position themselves in places of authority and trust within social and spiritual religious organizations, particularly if they have access to potential victims or have access to the parents of those victims. Seen it far too many times where some of these offenders will position themselves as ministers, as counselors to adults. They gain the trust, sometimes the blind trust of the adults, the parents, and then have full access to their children. Again, in their recreational activities, please scrutinize any activity where there is reduced accountability, anonymity, or proximity to potential victims. Can you think of any recreational activities, leisure activities? Anyone? Baseball coach, Boy Scouts, camping at the beach, going to the fair? Yes. Oh, gosh. A lot of volunteer roles? Yes. A lot of kids, you mentioned the fair. It reminded me of offenders and what they report. And it's amazing. And I have a two-year-old little boy, and I hope I don't traumatize him with restrictive behavioral conditions I'll place on him, because I don't think he's going to Boy Scouts. OK, housing. Access and proximity to potential victims and other risk factors, such as alcohol and drugs. And I think you're very sensitized to this particular factor instead of behavioral restrictions. Oh, question. Anyone had a question? Yes, sir? This kind of goes back to management team question approach. Do you use the management team approach in the program here? And also, to what degree does the offender know out on supervision, or should they know the network monitors that different people are checking on? Do we use a management team in the program? To a large degree, we do. Because we are not only there are treatment providers in prison, but we're also there are supervision officers, and we're also the cops. So we have multiple roles as treatment providers. We also function to collaborate with other disciplines, correctional services, the captain if they need to be locked up for how long, that sort of thing, with the unit disciplinary committee. If they get in trouble, they get an incident report, what type of sanction? We do inform that process. We also want to know how they're doing, what they're doing outside of the treatment realm. We want to know how they're doing at work. Are they getting in trouble for other behavior elsewhere? And we have set up those communication channels so that we receive that information, as well as give that information. The second part of your question was? To what degree do you feel that the offender should know there's monitors in the town? The offender should have full and complete knowledge of the monitors. In fact, he should be instrumental in identifying those monitors. And he should present himself as open to work with that approach. Otherwise, that tells you that he wants to lead a deceptive and secretive lifestyle. And therefore, then, you are going to be less trusting and supervise him more intensively. And by doing that in prison, you're starting the process. He's getting used to it. He's learning the honesty to be open to the side. Absolutely. The comment was, by starting this in prison, that enables them to get accustomed to this out in the community. Of course, that is the aim. We want them to prepare themselves for that kind of experience out in the community. Absolutely. Question, where? With the internet, if anybody has any ideas or if you have any suggestions of how you go about securing or searching their internet, which is around these guys who are pretty sophisticated as to how they can hide and download and what strategies have been used in some of the districts and looking at them that. I am not up on all the most recent technology in terms of detection and learning about the history and where that individual has gone in the computer. My recommendation is internet offenders should not have access to the internet. That's like giving a person a pyromaniac, having them play with fire. Why would they want to be exposed to that if it's such a powerful risk factor? They may not be looking at pornography on the internet, but these people have spent hundreds of hours looking at child pornography and other garbage on the computer. They've spent hundreds of hours masturbating in front of a computer. So even if they're looking at the stock market on the computer, that is still a risk factor. One part of this is pornography. The other part is chat rooms. And you also want to develop conditions that stop offenders from communicating with other offenders about sexually explicit materials. And that can further their criminal activity, their sexual deviance, and not a single picture has been transmitted. So it's a very tricky thing. A question back there. Yes, Dr. Jimenez, what do you do when the materials are not offensive in nature, such as I had a known pedophile that had 40 to 50 Disney tapes and no children were present in the home? My question is, would be the same thing as having a toy in front of you or a series of toys in your front porch. I would look at them as lures of children. Now, if they have a proven history of being avid Mickey Mouse collectors prior to the instant offense and all of that, well, exercise your best judgment. But I would look at that with a great deal of suspicion. Ideally, I again want to emphasize that, you ought to have specialized in small caseloads. It's impossible, really, to supervise an offender effectively if you have 80 people on your caseload. It's simply impossible. We need to allocate resources so that you can do your job and you can do it well. We need to be able to increase the continuity of supervision so that the offender doesn't go through six probation officers in the period of supervision, the supervised release period. There ought to be continuity of service, ongoing training and supervision, opportunities like this. I hope that some of you can also have training programs such as this. And I can come and learn from you in what you have to offer. So this is a thing that works both ways. Supervision, you need to be able to have some technical assistance. You need to be able to pick up the phone or go to somebody's office and ask for help. How can I effect a good supervision plan for this individual? You need to have that support. Availability and support of, that's a key word, competent treatment providers. And I recognize that some of you who practice and have individuals in more rural areas may not have access to treatment providers. But there may be good practitioners in that community who are willing to take on this population, get some additional training, and offer good services. They may not be the optimal services, but they may be good enough if they are good practitioners. So sometimes you've just got to work with what you have. Again, integration of treatment and supervision. And I should also add here in polygraph services. Some people refer to this as the triangle of supervision. This also goes to communication among the management team members. And finally, power and discretion to apply pre-revocation sanctions so that you can hold the offender immediately accountable for violations. Very important so that you have the power to sanction the inmate, the offender, immediately. That is a very important behavioral principle. If the punishment comes three months later, it has very little power. If it comes immediately, it has a very powerful effect, particularly if it's commensurate with the degree or nature of the offense. The sanction has to match the nature or severity of the offense. If it's less powerful than the severity of the offense, it will not have the desired effect. It must at least meet that level of severity. Does that make sense? OK. Ma'am. What about support groups? OK. I was hoping you wouldn't ask that. 12-step support groups. What about that? I think that for many people, those are very helpful. But I've seen many sex offenders use the 12 steps inappropriately to disown responsibility and to misguide the process of treatment and, quote unquote, recovery. I think the 12 steps are very good in concept. If applied correctly and with integrity, they can have a very powerful, powerful effect on human behavior and addictive type of behavior. And this is the first time I've mentioned the word addiction because I don't subscribe to the notion of addiction in sexual offending behavior. And I have only limited adherence or allegiance to the notion of psychiatric disorder. I treat criminals, and I treat their criminal behavior. So yes, the 12 steps can have a very important place. But I would be very cautious of the inappropriate use of the 12 steps, particularly to minimize the importance or the gravity of their offense behavior and to also disown responsibility for the recovery. Any other questions before we take a break? So let's go ahead and take a break. We thank Dr. Hernandez and everyone at FCI Buttoner for making this conference an invaluable experience. A great deal of thanks also goes out to all of our participants. Without their questions and comments, we would not have had the engaging discussions we did. Now for more information on the sex offender treatment program at FCI Buttoner, contact Dr. Hernandez directly by phone at 919-575-4541 extension 4462 or by email at aheranandasatbop.gov. Investigation and supervision of sex offenders pose unique challenges and concerns to all pretrial services and probation officers. We hope this two-part program addressed some of those concerns and offered practical information that you can take with you when you're working with the offender population. Please fill out your evaluations and let us know if we succeeded in meeting your needs and how we might improve future broadcasts. Also remember to fax your evaluations and rosters to us following the broadcast. We do use your feedback to design future programs. On behalf of the Federal Judicial Center, I'm Mark Mangio. Thank you for watching. Enjoy the rest of your day.