 You're watching FJTN, the Federal Judicial Television Network. U.S. Marshals arrested a Woodbridge man yesterday on sex abuse charges two weeks after he sparked a nationwide attack. Today, authorities charged four Roman Catholic priests with sex abuse and cases of HIV. Twenty people have been arrested in a global child molestation ring accused of posting pornographic interviews of minors on the Internet. In the broadcast, the purpose of today's program is to bring you up to date on sex offender management initiatives underway in several districts. This program is a follow-up to several other sex offender management programs presented by the Center beginning with 1998's Special Needs Offenders Overview of Sex Offenders in the Federal System. There's a companion document along with this broadcast that you should know about called Special Needs Offenders Close-Up Sex Offenders Update. Hopefully, you've had a chance to review it, but if you haven't, you can download it from the Center's website at jnet.fjc.dcn. I'm surprised I haven't memorized that yet. Among other things, Close-Up contains information on the Center's other programs on sex offender management, so I will refer you to that to find out how you can obtain those programs from the Center. Keep in mind that today's broadcast is not designed to address all sex offender-related issues. However, if you take advantage of all of the Center's programs on sex offender management, I think you'll find that most of the issues have been covered quite well. Today's program consists primarily of three segments in which officers who are experts in sex offender management discuss effective practices and district initiatives related to pretrial investigation and supervision, pre-sentence investigation, and post-conviction supervision. If you have a question or comment, fax us at 1-800-488-0397. You see the number on your screen. However, because we have so much material to cover in so little time, it's likely that we won't be able to get to the faxes here, but we will get to them in our December 9th audio conference and I'll have more information on that toward the end of the program. Certainly, if your fax is directed toward a particular officer on the panel or if I think that a particular officer on our panel can address your specific question or comment in the fax, I'll alert them to it and have them get in touch with you directly after the program. But now let's get to the meat and potatoes of this program. Our first segment, we discuss effective practices and district initiatives in pretrial services investigation and supervision, and we have several officers here to describe what they do and how they do it. Here in the studio, we have United States pretrial services officer, Jennifer Coulson from the Northern District of Texas. Welcome, Jennifer. Thanks, Mark. And on the phone, we have United States pretrial services officers Todd Skipworth from the Western District of Washington, Edward Santos and Jason Lerman from the Southern District of New York. Welcome, gentlemen. Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Mark. To get the discussion going, we're first going to view a series of several scenes from a vignette entitled United States versus Jackson. The case involves a defendant who's charged with possession of child pornography that's been downloaded from the internet. And you may be familiar with this vignette because we've used it once before in our program Introduction to Cybercrime. However, in that program, we focused on the cybercrime aspects of the case and not the sex offender aspects of the case. This time, we're going to flip it and focus on the sex offender aspects of the case and not so much on the cybercrime aspects. Then after the vignette, we'll come back and talk about some of the issues with our panelists in the studio and on the phone. So let's take a look at the vignette and we'll be back. John Jackson, 51 years old, was the vice president of SouthTrust Mortgage Corporation. Mr. Jackson has been indicted on two counts of knowingly possessing child pornography. Mr. Jackson, I'm Margaret Clark, your pretrial services officer. The FBI investigation included a search of Mr. Jackson's SouthTrust computer hard drive, which contained one file with five visual depictions of child pornography. The subsequent search of Mr. Jackson's home office computer hard drive also revealed one file containing four visual depictions of child pornography. Is 553 Norwood Drive still your current address? Yes, ma'am. Now, I have to report to the judge whether you should be released on bond and if so, under what conditions? Because this report says that both charges involve the use of computers, I'm going to have to ask you about your involvement with computers. Of course. How did you use computers in your job? Well, I was responsible for handling a portfolio of personal, commercial and mortgage loans and managed 10 loan officers. So I used my computer all the time. I used it for everything, from writing memos to reviewing loan applications. I used it to manage the office in general, you know, word processing, file management, spreadsheets, scheduling. Heck, I could even fax and copy from the computer at my desk. And did you have access to the internet as part of your job? Oh, of course. A lot of our business now is being done over the internet. In addition to regular emails, SouthTrust recently began processing internet loan applications. Folks just fill out the online form and get started right away. Lots of potential. You don't happen to be in the market for a mortgage, do you, officer? Hey, you might want to try it. No, not at the moment, but thank you. Well, keep it in mind. Online business is only getting bigger. Oh, and to stay on top of the market, I do research and monitor the daily business news over the internet. And how about a computer at home? Do you have one? Two, actually. Two. Tell me about them. Well, there's one computer for Liz and the kids, and I have another computer in my home office. What about your access to the internet? Who's your service provider at home? Well, we have a joint account on AOL for the family computer. And I have a separate account and dedicated line for my office computer. Why the separate account? The kids need a computer for their homework, and I do or did quite a bit of work from home. During my investigation, I discovered that three years earlier the defendant, John Jackson, was convicted in the same case on state-level misdemeanor charges of both public drunkenness and lewd acts in public. He was sentenced to a $500 fine and 100 hours of community service, which he paid in full and completed successfully. Jackson has been married to the same woman, Elizabeth, for 17 years. They have owned a home in the same city during that time, but moved to a larger house in a wealthier neighborhood two years ago. John Jackson has been released on bond with the following special release conditions. No patient in mental health counseling that may include specialized sex offender treatment. No position of any pornographic sexually stimulating or sexually oriented material. No frequenting of any location or pornography or erotica can be accessed, obtained, or viewed. No unsupervised contact with minor children other than his own. No loitering near school yards, playgrounds, swimming pools, arcades, or other places frequented by children. No contact with devices that communicate data via modem or dedicated connection, and no access to the internet. So, things have been looking a little better lately. Oh, you'll be happy to know I just got a new job at the Y as director of special programs. It only pays $40,000 a year, but that's better than nothing. That sounds interesting. What exactly will you be doing? Well, like I said, I'll be in charge of special programs. Why? I'm a little concerned because the nature of one of your alleged offenses is possession of child pornography. I just have to make sure that your new job is not going to pose a risk to the public. Look, I'm not some perverted child molester. I told you. I don't even know how those pictures got there. Mr. Jackson, I have to know what you'll be doing, so I make sure that you don't violate any of your release conditions and get stuck in jail until the time of the trial. So, let's talk about your new job, okay? Have you started yet? I start Monday. I'll be working with staff to develop various programs for different groups at the Y. Including children? Well, of course children. That's a large population. Wait a minute. I know what you're thinking. Look, I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I'd never. I would never. I mean, jeez, I have two kids of my own. Where will your new office be? In the administrative section of the building. And where would children be in relation to this? I can't believe I have to answer this question. You can be sure my lawyer will hear about it. I've seen kids in the hallway, but never where my office is. Besides, I'll be working with adults to develop programs for kids, not the other way around. Will computers be part of your new job? Now, that's a silly question. Who doesn't need a computer these days? Yes, I will need to use a computer. And will it include internet access? I don't know. I haven't started yet. All right, Jennifer. What are the major issues raised by the vignette? And we can talk about it regarding either the defendant's behavior or the officer's approach. And I think more importantly for our purposes, how would you approach this case if you were on it? Well, in preparation for the interview, I'd like to speak with the AUSA to try to get as much information as I can about the offense. In this case, I'd also want to know what equipment the defendant has and if this has been seized or if it's still in his possession. Also, since computer restrictions are fairly common, I would need to ask some questions about how he would use the computers that he has access to. And how that would affect his life if he were restricted from them. But a caution I would offer is that you can't ask questions that come close to offense conduct. Because, again, it's not our job to weigh the evidence. Right, right. Now, talk a little bit about the aspect of criminal history or arrest record, because we saw in this vignette that there was some arrest record there. They were of a misdemeanor variety at the state level. How do you deal with that and then how do you deal with when there's no arrest record? Well, Mark, what I found is it's really not common for defendants to have prior criminal history. And it's even less common for them to have a prior sex-related offense. So what I find is important to look at is what I would call less obvious offenses. Some of these could be criminal trespass, loitering, assault, drug-related offenses. There may be more to these offenses than we actually know. And what do those kinds of offenses or that type of arrest record tell you about the defendant's behavior or sort of what kind of red flags might they raise? Well, for example, with criminal trespass, where was he trespassing? Right. Or the loitering. It's not that uncommon to find an assault that has been pled down from something more, say, sex assault, for example. Okay, so you're going to want to look a little bit more deeply into that. Right, right. Now let's talk about the post-intake interview, which in prior conversations you've emphasized is really important at the pre-trial stage. Talk a little bit about that and why, particularly with defendants charged with sex-related offenses. Well, I can't stress enough how important a good post-release intake is. And that's true in all cases. Right, of course. But in this case, type of case especially, because you need to clarify the conditions, you need to set the ground rules. How you conduct this may set the tone for the entire case and how it will play out as far as supervision. Okay. I want to know who in the defendant's life is aware of his arrest and his offense. Reasons for that include, I want to know what other eyes are out there watching his behavior. Right. I also want to know what support he has, because a risk of suicide is something that can be higher with these type of cases. Due in part to the stigma that's attached to sex offenses, it just isn't there on other types of cases. And I've found that the risk of suicide can be heightened at certain areas, at conviction, I'm sorry, at arrest to back up, when the defendant has been found out by other people in his life, at conviction because now he is a convicted sex offender. Right. And then it's sentencing because of the fear of prison. I've had several defendants say to me, you know what they do to guys like me in prison. So that's a very real fear that they have. Interesting. Now, in that regard, let's talk about, once we're done with the post intake interview, what's your approach to supervision going to be? Well, I feel that field contacts are most important with any special needs offender case. You just can't effectively supervise a defendant from behind your desk. Our district has implemented a community supervision approach. Roughly a year ago, we did away with report days and we started doing all our contacts in the field. Very good. This gives us a lot of insight into the defendant's world. Okay. Now, let's switch gears for a minute and talk about the release conditions because I know that in your district you all do a mental health condition or you'll have a mental health condition in this type of a case and it could potentially be sex offender related treatment and that kind of thing. Talk a little bit about how that works. Right. It's often ordered in release in my district to have evaluation and treatment. So, the way we handle that, we found that it's not uncommon for a defendant to have confessed two agents actually at a rest and sometimes this can make him more amenable to evaluation and treatment. Okay. But we break it down to pre-conviction. We place a defendant in individual counseling. Our provider will focus on such things as healthy sexuality that everyone should be following. And as the case progresses... And this is a sex offender treatment provider who is a specialist in this area. Right. And some differences in traditional mental health counseling and sex offender counseling will be described a little later in our broadcast. As the case then progresses, the provider can work with the person on things like life changes and avoidance planning and so forth that are necessary for him to succeed. Okay. Records pre-conviction, we handle as sealed. So, if the person is never found guilty, obviously that's shredded. Post-conviction then this individual could be placed into group counseling and that decision is made in conjunction with the treatment provider. Just very briefly, there's this saying and you presented to me that bad treatment is worse than no treatment. Talk a little bit about that and how you ensure in your district that bad treatment doesn't happen. Well, you need to carefully screen your providers and know what their treatment approach is. I know that I have had to meet with our provider simply to explain to him what we can and can't do during pre-trial treatment. For example, we cannot use the polygraph. So, I've gotten his approach to what his treatment plan will be. His curriculum, that sort of thing. Bad treatment can allow the defendant to entrench himself into denial that will be harder to break down in the future if he is convicted and if he does proceed through the process. Very good. All right. Now, I want to go out to our officers on the telephone. Todd Skipworth, I want to start with you in the Western District of Washington because I know that you approach these things a little bit differently and sort of sticking with this treatment condition idea for a moment. Talk about how you all handle that in your district and how you handle supervision of these types of defendants generally. Well, thanks, Mark. One of the things that we're doing differently than some districts is that we're not currently recommending sexual DVNC evaluations or sexual DVNC treatment. And one of the reasons for that is that our contracted treatment providers are ATSA members and have specific standards of treatment as part of the sexual DVNC evaluation. Many treatment providers require defendants to complete a detailed sexual history questionnaire which includes disclosure of the current offense. And I guess the primary reason we're not recommending the condition is that we just don't feel it's appropriate during the pretrial process to ask that a defendant give up his right not to incriminate himself. So we're not recommending that particular condition at this time, but that may change if some new case law comes to light regarding the issue of self-incrimination and sexual DVNC evaluation. So since you don't use that type of a condition, are there other things that you do over the course of your supervision to deal with the defendant successfully and effectively? I think that we're... Our policy is a little less formal than other districts, but I think we're still systematic in how we deal with our sex offenders. We're very diligent in our supervision practices. And I just... I feel like our sex offenders in this district being supervised at a very, very high level. Very good. Now I want to go to our officers in New York Southern. Eddie Santos, let's start with you. Again, sticking with this notion of the mental health treatment condition. You all do use that in your district. Could you describe how it works in your district? Thanks, Mark. We have similar practices as those in the North and District of Texas. In our district, we have two officers assigned specifically to sex offender cases. That's myself and Jay Lerman. We also recommend special conditions. In the case of Mr. Jackson, we will recommend that he not possess a computer or have access to an internet. And those who are un... And we do recommend a mental health evaluation with a psychostexial. And we think that's very vital and important in supervising this type of defendant because we need to know, for example, Mr. Jackson's sex offences and tendencies. Very good. Now, switching just a little bit to Jason. Jason, talk about some of the behaviors you noticed that Jackson exhibited over the course of the vignette in order to give officers out in the field an idea about what to expect and then how to handle it. Jennifer alluded to it a little bit, but if you could elaborate, that would be good. Sure. Thank you, Mark. Although there was no single profile to describe a sex offender, Mr. Jackson does possess some common characteristics that these offenders may have. For example, a lot of sex offenders are well-educated. They have stable employment. They are well-established in the community. And like Jennifer said, most of them have no extensive criminal history. Also, it's not unusual for sex offenders to seek employment at job sites where children may be present, which is why it's not surprising that Mr. Jackson pursued a job at the Y. Very good. Interesting insights. And obviously, these are the kinds of behaviors that officers are going to want to keep an eye on. Jennifer, any quick reaction to what Jason said? Well, basically going to what Todd said and Jason and Eddie said and contrasting the way everybody handles these conditions, I think the bottom line is you have to defer to your court and everything will be handled district by district. That's right. And it's going back to your district. Now, you all have a more formal policy. Talk a little bit. Take us through the process of how you developed it and how it was implemented. Sure. When we set out to write our policy, first we contacted the mental health administrator and also canvassed some other districts to see if anybody else in pretrial did have an existing policy. Our theory was we didn't want to reinvent the wheel if we didn't have to. But basically what we found out was that nobody had a policy. We're all in the same boat. We're all starting the same spot. So we contacted the Department of Public Safety, which in Texas handles all sex offender registration. And we had to learn how their laws would apply to our federal defenders or defendants. For example, what triggers the need for registration? Is it at conviction? Is it at sentencing? And how will that be handled? We had to seek guidance and training from them on how to proceed with our policy. What I can't stress enough is you have to learn your state's laws. You can't write the policy if you don't know them. Also, you need the buy-in and the support of your administrators. Our chief was actively involved. He would take our product to the chief judge and did that throughout the process. Excellent. So your chief acted as the liaison to the chief judge. And that way you got not only your management team's buy-in, but the court's buy-in as well. Absolutely. Very good. All right, we need to move on in the segment where we are closing in on the end of the segment. So let's talk about some of the principles that our officers have touched on regarding pretrial services investigation and supervision of defendants. First, individual officers should be aware of the nature and circumstances of the alleged offense by consulting the case agent, reviewing the charging documents, et cetera. Should be aware of sex offender characteristics. You should be aware of the computing habits of the defendant were applicable. Officers should be aware of what the district will permit regarding assessment and treatment options. Officers should understand the pretrial treatment approach and that it's individual rather than group. And certainly they need to be aware of the qualifications of the treatment provider, understanding the axiom that poor treatment is worse than no treatment. And finally, in terms of individual officers, they should understand the importance of proactive supervision, meaning extensive use of collateral and field contacts. In terms of a district policy, a district policy could be either formal or informal, but always systematic. And also it could entail the training of specific officers, as we've heard here, to serve as resources. I want to thank our panelists. Jennifer, thank you very much for joining us. Gentlemen on the phone, thank you. We will be back in a moment with our next segment. First, several days ago I had an opportunity to sit down with A.O. Associate General Counsel David Adair to talk about some legal issues surrounding sex offenders. And we were able to videotape that discussion. So here's the first part of it where we talk about the privilege against self-incrimination in sex offender cases. Take a look. Let's first talk about the privilege against self-incrimination. And let's start out with the question of why the privilege might be relevant in sex offender cases. Sure. Well, the reason it's relevant is that most sex offender assessments of clinical or actuarial and virtually all treatment programs require that participants make admissions regarding sexual misbehavior. And if that information or if that sexual misbehavior has not already been the subject of a successful criminal prosecution, then the privilege could be implicated. Okay. So how might the privilege become an issue at the pre-trial, pre-sentence, and post-conviction stages specifically, each one? And how should officers handle those situations? Good, because it does become an issue in different ways at each of those stages. And the way that it becomes, the way that it's different at each of those stages is because it, well, it's affected by the fact that the privilege not only applies to new criminal behavior, but it also applies, the Supreme Court's recently held, to information that could enhance an individual's sentence. At the pre-trial stage, of course, both these kinds of information are at issue. Individuals presumed innocent, and so any information about criminal behavior or information that could ultimately affect the sentence is implicated. At the pre-sentence stage, primarily with assessments, the privilege becomes important with respect to information on new criminal behavior, that is, behavior that wasn't subject of the instant prosecution, or information that could be used at sentencing. Now, that latter information, I think, is not quite so important as it may seem, because I think primarily sex offender assessments are trying to get information that is used for, or could be used for the imposition of conditions as opposed to information that could actually enhance the period of incarceration. And I don't think the privilege applies to information that is relevant to conditions that are designed to protect the public and rehabilitate the offender. And then finally, at the supervision stage, the privilege is implicated with respect to questions about new behavior. Now, there's a pretty good argument that even if an individual is required to provide information that could implicate the individual for new criminal behavior, he still may be required to cooperate and provide that information. He can assert the privilege, but he might be sanctioned because of that. Recently, the Supreme Court decided a case, a McCune versus Lyle. It was a case that involved a prison sex offender treatment program, and the Supreme Court held, and this was just this year, that a prison could require answers to these kinds of questions, even if an assertion of the privilege might result in the prison removing certain privileges from the individual. Okay, now that was a situation that involved a situation of incarceration. How would that translate, how might that translate to a situation involving supervision in the community? Well, it might not, because the situation in prison is very much different. Individuals have far fewer rights and so forth, and an individual in prison is facing loss of certain privileges, whereas an individual in supervision might be facing loss of liberty. Nonetheless, I think there's still a good argument that an individual can be required to participate in one of these treatment programs. So while we don't know how it might play out in the supervision context, it's just important for officers to be aware of that it has been discussed at least in the incarceration context. Yeah, officers ought to be aware of these issues, frankly. We haven't seen that many challenges at any stage, even at the pretrial stage. So I'm not suggesting that officers do anything differently than they're doing here. Just be aware that it is a possibility that this could be raised. And what if it is raised? I don't think the officers should insist on answers or treatment providers should not insist on the individual answering, but the officers should simply take the matter to the court for resolution, because, as they say, all of these issues are somewhat influx. They're not decided. Again, these challenges should be rare, but if they do occur, take it to the court. All right, so let's summarize. A pretrial defendant has a right against self-incrimination, which might be invoked in the course of an assessment. An offender retains the right against self-incrimination with respect to new information that might result in new criminal charges or that might enhance the sentence. An offender might invoke the privilege in the context of sex offender treatment, including the use of a polygraph examination as a part of the treatment. If an offender or defendant invokes the privilege, the officer should consider referring the matter to the court. All right, in this segment, we discuss effective practices and district initiatives and pre-sentence investigation, and we continue with our case of United States vs. Jackson to animate our discussion. And here to lead us through the discussion are senior United States probation officer and mental health treatment specialist Francisco Peralta from the Western District of Texas. Welcome, Francisco. Thank you, Mark. It's good to be here. Thanks, and on the phone, we are joined by United States probation officer David Carter from the Central District of California. David, welcome. Thank you, Mark. Here's where we are now with the case of United States vs. Jackson. Jackson is pleaded guilty to both counts of knowingly possessing child pornography. He has accepted responsibility on both counts, and he has successfully completed pretrial release. Okay, Francisco, you're now faced with having to conduct an investigation of Mr. Jackson. And you are in a district where there is a formal policy for dealing with this type of an offender. So first, what's your objective when an offender like Jackson? And secondly, take us step-by-step through your investigation process. Okay, excellent question. Well, for defendants like Mr. Jackson, of course the pre-sentence report serves as the guiding document for offenders entering the federal probation system. But especially for sex offenders, the pre-sentence report needs to serve as what I call a durable database. And what I mean by that is that it needs to meet not just short-term goals, but long-term goals. Short-term goals are obviously the things that we are familiar with, the offense level computation, the special conditions, the Bureau of Prison Placement, the release planning, those are the short-term goals, but the long-term goals also, one of the most important long-term goals that the pre-sentence report should justify is to serve as a base of information for the supervision officer as well as for the treatment provider for sex offender treatment later on. Those individuals will need a good base of information to continue to assess and address risk in the community. It needs to stand the test of time because the further we are from sentencing, the more the defendant will try to discredit the report. Even after supervision ends, long after sentencing, after supervision ends, we really can't predict if this defendant that we're seeing now will ever create another crime, sexual or otherwise, so the report needs to stand the test of time. Okay, talk about the distancing effect because I think that's something we really want to focus on in terms of this particular type of offender and what they're going to try to do over the course of this sentencing process or the pre-sentence process how do you deal with that effectively? As Jason said a moment ago, Mr. Jackson provides a great example of a distancing effect and essentially the distancing effect occurs when defendants try to put themselves in the most positive light. Their goal is to appear non-threatening, even trusting. The concept is simple, distance reduces threat and the way they achieve this distance from the crime is they start moving away from the crime first by calling attention to their status in the community by offering expert testimony to show a lack of dangerousness to the community by letters of support from well-meaning but often uninformed individuals in the community. They gain even more distance from the crime when they have no prior criminal history, they have a steady work history, for example, or an advanced education and all those factors work together. They may even blame the offense on some external factor alcoholism or drug abuse or some prior traumatic event and basically they separate themselves from the crime. The pre-sentence report should close the distance and represent the crime in such a way that it neutralizes any distortion or distancing by the defendant. We simply want the report to reflect the truth. Okay, so what are the preconditions that an officer is going to have to meet in order to close that gap and put together an effective report? Two central things need to form the basis of that. The first thing is that the officer conducting the pre-sentence investigation must have an understanding of the dynamics of a sexual crime. They must be able to understand, to identify, and to explore and define both the overt and the covert actions that the defendant took in the commission of the crime. Essentially, if we can't understand something, we can't explain something, so we need to understand it so that we can explain it. They need to understand the mechanics of the crime so they can ask the necessary questions to expose the totality of the crime. They need to understand the psychology of the sex offender so they can understand his modus operandi. A couple of examples. In contact crimes, the investigating officer needs to understand what victim selection is, how victim preparation works, how boundary violations work, how grooming works, how maintaining the secret works. Those are all important factors in uncovering the crime. In child pornography crimes, the officer needs to understand what the purpose of the pornography was, how it was downloaded, how it was distributed, how it was produced, if that's the case, what it meant to the offender because the pornography that is on the computer, for example, is mirroring what's in this man's heart. So it's showing us something about what he's aroused to. I want to just make an intervene for a moment because we do have a fax from Gary Zilli from the Eastern District of Michigan and he asks about that in terms of the report from Dr. Hernandez from the Bureau of Prisons at Butler about child pornography downloaded from the internet and the dangerousness or the relation of that to contact crimes and that kind of thing. Could you address that very briefly? I can address it briefly. Probably that's a very good place to make a little intro for those folks who are bookworms out there. I'll invite you to look at your criminal code and I'll tell you it's page 871. In page 871, in September of 1996, Congress made some specific findings and I really enjoyed having this pointed out by my colleague, senior USP Caroline Clark in our office because it spells out the danger of child pornography. It talks specifically about how pornography permanently records the victim's abuse, how it's used to seduce other children as a lure, how it stimulates and wets the sex offender's appetite and how it presents a clear and present danger to the community and to children specifically. All that's in the statute. If you look at page 871 and you'll find it supporting what Dr. Hernandez is already saying. Okay, so let's get back to the, now the precondition of understanding the dynamics of the investigation. Talk a little bit about that. And this type of investigation, what I'm saying is different from other types of investigation. Our goal is to investigate the offense and write a factual report. This will naturally expose the defendant's secretive act. Sorry, no pun intended. However, the defendant's goal is just the opposite. They're trying to minimize the sentence and they're trying to conceal the information. They're called defendants for a reason so we have competing goals. As we seek to write a report that's true and unbiased, we need to remember that the more risk we can uncover as we investigate this crime, the more special conditions we justify, the more special conditions we justify, the more we can address risk when this person is back in the community. And that's very important for the pre-sentence reports. I'd like for officers to consider themselves, seeing themselves in a contest or a competition, the prize here is information. That's what we want. We need to be more strategic in our interview process for defendants like Mr. Jackson. We need to understand how his denial functions so we can tailor our methods for securing the information that we need. Who we have in front of us as we do this interview tells us how we do the interview and what questions we ask. Obviously, in this vignette, Mr. Jackson is clearly struggling with a level of denial. He's struggling to accept the reality of his circumstances, so to speak. To win the information prize, we must engage his denial in such a way that we find a way to motivate him to give us the disclosures that we need that will go into the pre-sentence report. So the officer really does need to understand the psychology of the denial and all its levels. How denial is not an offer on type of phenomenon. You're not in or out of denial, not like a light switch on or off, but rather it's on a continuum, much like a dimmer switch that people are in phases of denial. The officer needs to also use motivational interviewing, the constructs of ambivalence, of the stages of change, of rolling with resistance and move away from the concept of a one-size-fits-all interview. Okay. I want to move on to your investigation process because it's a very systematic process and we don't want to talk about that. But before we do that, I want to give credit where credit is due on that fax. It was Jeff Purcell's fax from the Northern District of Alabama. And Gary's refers to another issue and we'll get to that later in the broadcast. So, Jeff, thank you for saying that in and my apologies for getting the name wrong. Now, let's go back to the investigation process. To achieve a durable report that overcomes the distancing effect, we need to break the precedent's investigation down and I have it broken down in three phases. We have a preparatory phase, we have an interview and verification phase and then we have a report writing and analysis phase. And the preparatory phase is exactly that. What that means is that you learn all you can about the defendant before any type of face-to-face interview. That means you talk to your pretrial officer. That means you talk to the assistant U.S. Attorney. You review the U.S. Attorney's file. That means you talk to the investigative agent and review the file. It absolutely means you must look at, if this is a child pornography case, the images that were part of this crime, part of this indictment. You look at the dialogue. If it was an internet traveling case, for example, you must capture all that information before having any type of face-to-face interview. In contact crimes, if you want to address the victim's statement, it may require a victim interview, but it may not depending on how the information has already been collected. If the victim witness coordinator has already secured that, it may not be necessary to talk to the victim who certainly don't want to re-traumatize anyone. And we want to review all information from law enforcement, especially if there's a prior arrest. I know we don't always get that information by the time we go to the interview, but I would encourage officers to try to do it that way, especially if a defendant has a prior supervision sentence. That's real important to get some idea of how he did on supervision. At the end of the preparatory phase, the officer should have an idea of the depth of this person's criminality, whether there's any psychopathy involved, whether there are any personality disorders involved, or any other factors in there that will somehow impede our trying to secure the information when we actually have the face-to-face interview. Okay. Now, next phase. Once we complete the preparatory phase and we move into the interview and verification, a good analogy works well here. We've all hopefully seen maybe Olympic diving, where the person walks out to the springboard. They bounce on the springboard. They jump into the air, do their somersaults, and then dive into the water. I'd like for officers to use that mental picture to consider that Form 1 as the springboard. And you're using the Form 1 to jump over this individual's defenses and denial so that you can dive into the offense and secure the information that you need. It is hidden information in many cases, and that's why you need to leap over those defenses. During that Form 1 interview, you're basically learning how they interact to you, how they respond to non-threatening questions. You're creating a climate where their denial won't overwhelm them and they'll shut down. You begin creating that yes response set and getting information from them. You learn what their motivators are. Perhaps it's employment, perhaps it's status in the community, perhaps it's children and their family. Different things are motivating different individuals. We need to resist the impulse to go into the offense right off the offset there before we get all this information about their background. After we've done a good review of the information in the Form 1, not the offense conduct, not the instant offense, then we give the defendant a little break. This is all on the same day. Give them a little break, give yourself a little break, and then have them come back. Of course, you're going to explain all this to them. Have them come back and sit down, and then we're going to talk about the instant offense. And here are just a couple of things about interview management and then interview techniques or strategies. And again, I'll only be able to touch on a few things. We want their full attention. We need to give them our full attention so the setting needs to be a place where it's confidential where you're not going to be interrupted, no telephone calls, please don't do this on your duty day. I know we've all struggled with that. You want to pick a time of day that's good for you. You want to be mentally prepared, especially if you have an attorney who wants to sit in on the interview and know who the attorney is. There's a difference between a retained counsel, a federal public defender, and a court appointed attorney that's never been to federal court. Each one of them will handle this differently, and some of the more savvy attorneys may want to divert information or have the defendant only hand in a written statement so you need to be ready to anticipate that if that's the case. We need to be professional with these individuals, and what I mean by that is that we want to be supportive but not sympathetic. We want to give respect but not control, and we want to look for common grounds to establish a rapport, especially in child pornography crimes. We need to be self-aware, and we need to measure our responses appropriately and control the interview, especially the ebb and flow, on occasion it's okay to let them divert a little bit and then bring them back to the subject and the momentum as we go through the interview. Just for a moment to talk about interview strategies, and I can't emphasize enough the skill and the need for officers to listen, to listen, and to listen very carefully to what the defendant is saying. They are giving us information about what's going on inside their head, so we need to understand that correctly. For hostile or angry defendants, sometimes successive approximations work very well. I often use a different form, different types of questions, observer questions, explanation questions, and reality test questions, and I'll explain all those with examples. In Mr. Jackson's case, on the day of his offense, I would ask him an observer question, and it would be something like this. Mr. Jackson, the day you were arrested, take me through that day from the time you got out of bed to the time you went to bed, and then have him give me a moment by moment recollection of that entire day, and I wouldn't let him get away with giving me a big chunk of information like I went to work and I got home at 5 p.m. I want a moment by moment account because embedded in there are the seemingly unimportant decisions that comprise the instant offense. I could also ask him what's called an explanation question, and it would be something like this. Okay, Mr. Jackson, a month ago you were arrested, a month has passed, you're now sitting here with me. Tell me, how do you explain that? How do you explain your conduct? And what you're looking for in that question is what you're looking for the crime. A reality test question would be, you know, Mr. Jackson, you had this pornography in your computer. It was pornography that it was of this nature, depending on what it was. What does it look like? What does it look like to a third-party looking in? And you're looking for any type of awareness that he might have about the instant offense. You also, especially, he gives us some good examples. You want to find out why he's using some provocative labels like pervert or pedophile or I'm not like that. Those are all embedded somewhere in his denial, so we need to explore why those things are being said. Okay, let me stop you there and just have you very briefly take us through the last phase because we're closing in on the end of the segment. I need to get out to David Carter so we can talk about special conditions. Right. So take us through that last phase very briefly. Well, at the very end, in the report writing and the analysis phase, of course, the officers are familiar with scoring, the participants and the cross-references and always remembering that even though the U.S. Attorney may have agreed to a certain guideline, doesn't always bind the probation officer and the computation. We need to be aware of case law. We need to be aware of consulting with the supervision officers. But the end product is this. The offense, the report, I mean needs to convey the offense in such a way that it describes the crime and all its harm without making it so antiseptic or sexual. That's our job. Especially in child pornography crimes, there's always a real tendency to minimize the harm. Not knowing the name of a child does not make them a non-person. And what Congress has found as well is that child pornography is a pictorial record of a child being sexually abused, molested or raped. And we need to bring the truth out. The accuracy and the detail of the report must mirror the offense in such a way that it provides corrective vision to the court to see the defendant plainly. That's the end result that we're seeking. Good. Thank you very much, Francisco. David Carter, I want to come out to you and have you talk a little bit about some of the work that you've done in your district on the development of a special conditions package for sex offenders. You guys have done a lot of work on it. I was hoping that you could spend a couple of minutes elaborating on how you've done it and what you've done. Sure, Mark. About a year ago in our district, we determined that it would be appropriate and helpful to have a systematic approach for special conditions relating to sex offenders and cyber offenders as there's often an overlap between those two. We developed a committee involving primarily pre-sentence officers, but we also included supervision officers on the committee. In the course of initiating our review of district practices, we pulled officers to see what concerns they had with regard to sex offenders. We found that they were primarily concerned about things like access to pornography, potential victims, employment, residents, and treatment. We also took a look at what conditions we were currently using throughout the district and extracted those that seemed to best address those issues. We reviewed the practices in other districts and other conditions that had been successful in those districts and the methodology they went through in drafting those. Finally, we took a look at Ninth Circuit case law and did a comprehensive review to determine the legal parameters within which we have to operate. We also incorporated David Adair's memorandum regarding sex offender special conditions as well. Ultimately, this process took us about six months and at the end of this, we had drafted a fairly tight set of conditions that are not intended to be comprehensive but are intended to represent the various key issues that we found that we have to confront with these offenders. We conducted training with our line officers and emphasized to them that it's really their product of solid investigation and excellent writing that it's going to sell these conditions to the court and there's really no substitute for that. We informed them that it's imperative that their conditions be reasonably related to the nature and circumstances of the offense and the history and characteristics of the defendant. Excellent. We're running very quickly out of time, David, so I wanted to thank you for that information and I wanted to refer the viewers to the special needs offenders close up because it contains, as an example, California Central Probation's special, the package of special conditions for sex offenders and explains how they work and certainly, and it also contains David's contact information so you can get in contact with him directly as well as Francisco's. But now, since we're at the end of the segment, let's touch on some of the principles that we've covered thus far. In every sentence investigation, individual officers should prepare thoroughly for the interview and they should review all case-related documents. They should consult with the pretrial services officer. They should consult with the case agent and they should review illegal images and of course, that's the minimum. They should be familiar with sex offender characteristics. They should consider conducting separate probation form one and sexual history interviews followed by collateral interviews and a home inspection with the offender and their family. They should make sure that special conditions are justified by the contents of the pre-sentence report and that they address all the factors highlighted in the pre-sentence report, as David said. They should make sure that special conditions conform to district policy and again, as David said, relevant federal case law. For pre-sentence investigation of sex offenders, a district policy could contain guidance for conducting the pre-sentence investigation as well as, as we referred to here, a set of special conditions for sex offender cases. I wanted to thank our panelists for this segment again. Francisco, thank you and David. We'll be back shortly for our final segment, but before we do that, we wanted to show the second part of the discussion with David Adair, this time focusing on special conditions in sex offender cases. Now let's talk about special conditions. In recent years, several circuits have dealt with cases involving sex offenders and sex offender-specific special conditions, but before we get to talking about the implications of those cases, could you briefly provide your perspective, first, on how officers should view the restrictions on the liberties of sex offenders under supervision and secondly, the differences between the way officers think about sex offender supervision versus the way judges might think about it? Yeah, well, a lot of these cases that have been decided sort of help us understand that perspective. As a matter of fact, sex offenders, like any other offenders, have rights. Those rights are diminished because they're under supervision, but it's important for officers to remember that they should be treated in a way just like any other defendant from a legal perspective and that any conditions that significantly impinge on the liberties of supervisees, even if they're sex offenders, should be carefully justified to assure that the condition is necessary for the rehabilitation of this offender and that it's necessary to protect the public from this offender. So the more that these conditions restrict the liberties of the offenders and a lot of sex offender conditions do, the more carefully they need to be justified for these particular offenders. Now that means that sex offender packages or sets of conditions that officers sometimes think are necessary for all persons convicted of sex offenses, courts aren't buying that. Each one of those conditions needs to be justified for the particular defendant or offender. So it's possible for a district to develop a set of sex offender-specific conditions, but each of those conditions needs to be applied to the offender on a case-by-case basis. It can't be applied willy-nilly as a package. The officer needs to be able to justify why each one of those is required to supervise the particular defendant. Now let's talk about the implication of decisions involving the wording of special conditions involving sex offender treatment. What are some of the issues there and how should officers handle them? Well, the primary one I want to talk about is the condition involving or requiring sex offender treatment. Two circuits, the second and the tenth, have indicated that the court may not delegate to the probation officer the decision as to whether the individual should have sex offender treatment or not. Okay, in each of those cases, the wording of the condition was such that it seemed to leave that to the discretion of the court. The wording was ambiguous. I don't remember exactly what it was, but it was ambiguous and the court indicated that it needed to be clear to assure that what was happening was that the court wasn't delegating the authority to make the in-or-out decision. Perfectly appropriate, the court said, let's make the decision as to the intensity and the type of the treatment. So the condition may be worded with using words like as directed by the probation officer, but it should be clear that the court is making the in-or-out decision, at least in the second and the tenth circuit. And frankly, these circuits are following a trend. I suspect that other circuits will follow those, so I think it might be a good idea for officers to give serious consideration to drafting conditions to make it clear that they're not making the in-or-out decision. Very good. Now, what about conditions restricting access to pornography and access to the internet? There have been several cases in recent years that have dealt with those types of sex offender-specific or cyber-specific special conditions. What have the courts been saying and what should officers do? There have been a number of cases regarding both of these. Several cases on no pornography conditions. And I understand that sex offender specialists many feel strongly that individuals should not have access, or it's not conducive to treatment for individuals to have access to any sexually-stimulating material, and therefore the conditions are worded somewhat broadly to assure that the condition covers all sexually-stimulating material. Unfortunately, the courts aren't buying this. The courts are striking down conditions that prohibit access to pornography as being too broad and too vague. Courts are saying that it simply doesn't give sufficient guidance, and it's so broad, in fact, that they're not accepting the principle that probation officers can provide more specific instructions to the offender as to what the offender should have access to and what the offender should not have access to. So this puts us into a bind. There's a couple of ways we might deal with this. One possibility that some officers have suggested is to draft a condition that indicates that an individual, as part of the treatment condition, indicates that the treatment provider should have the authority to determine what kinds of sexually explicit information the offender should have access to as part of treatment. That might work, but it would have to be pretty carefully justified. The officer ought to have the science behind him or her to be able to justify a condition like that. I don't know of any court that's upheld such a condition. Another possibility is simply to define what is not appropriate, somewhat more narrowly and more explicitly. I've suggested using a definition that's already on statute books. It's in section 18 U.S.C. I think it's 2256. Officers can simply borrow the language from there. It may not be as broad as they want, but I think it would stand up in court. That's not about internet conditions. That's much more difficult. The cases are all over the block on that. A lot of cases have struck down complete bans on internet access. Courts have suggested these are simply too broad. I am still of the view that it would be possible, maybe not in the second circuit, but in just about any other circuit, to be able to make a case, in the right case, for a complete ban on internet access. Perhaps an offender who has a history of using the internet to actually prey on individuals and has harmed individuals who he's had access to through the internet. There was a third circuit case that upheld an internet ban on that basis. If it's carefully justified, it would stand up in just about any circuit, except as I say, the second, which is very strict. In other circuits, it may be possible to impose an internet ban, except as the probation officer determines, or the probation officer can determine exceptions to the internet ban. That's been upheld in a couple of circuits. Otherwise, I think it may be necessary to recommend to the court conditions that indicate what kinds of sites that the individual can visit or cannot visit on the internet, and then those will have to be monitored through the use of monitoring software or something. Very good. Okay, to summarize, sex offender-specific special conditions should be reasonably related to the offence of conviction or the offender's criminal history. The officer may not determine whether treatment is required, only the type and intensity of treatment. No pornography special conditions may be too vague or too subjective. Instead, the condition could prohibit possession of material depicting sexually explicit conduct as defined at 18 USC, section 2256, or leave it to the discretion of the treatment provider. No internet special conditions may be too restrictive and, again, should be tied to the offence of conviction or the offender's criminal history. In this final segment, we discuss effective practices and district initiatives regarding post-conviction management of sex offenders, and to do this, we're joined by several experts. Here in the studio with me is senior United States probation officer and sex offender specialist Mark Geiger of the District of Arizona. Welcome, Mark. Thank you, Mark. And on the telephone, we have several folks joining us. United States probation officer and sex offender specialist Peggy Kellow of Washington, Western. U.S. probation officer and contracting specialist Jay Schillingstad from South Dakota. U.S. probation officer and special offender specialist Carlos Jones from Montana. United States probation officer and mental health specialist Jeff Flag of Illinois Northern. United States probation officer and aftercare coordinator Helene Krieger from the Central District of California. And we are rejoined by U.S. pretrial services officer Todd Skipworth from Washington, Western for reasons that hopefully will become clearer as we move through this segment. Once again, to animate our discussion, we're going to continue with the case of United States versus Jackson. In the vignette you're about to see, Jackson and a supervision officer are in the middle of their initial meeting following the offender's release from the Bureau of Prisons. Note that the special conditions the officer goes through with Jackson are not the special conditions that this group of panelists would recommend. But we want you to pay attention to the defendant's behavior. That's what we want you to focus on in this short vignette. Let's roll that. Okay, Mr. Jackson, we finished reviewing the standard conditions of your probation, including your need to find work. Do you have any questions? No, sounds clear to me. I just have a few special release conditions to go over. Let's see. No access to pornography. No association or contact that's unsupervised with children at or below the age of five. And finally, you must attend a sex offender treatment program. Wait a minute. What kind of conditions are those? I didn't molest anyone for Pete's sake. They found a couple of pictures. You were convicted of possessing child pornography. You know, in prison they suggested I get some kind of treatment, but I wouldn't have any of it. No, sir. I'm not one of those psychos. Look, John, you really need to work with me on this. I didn't order these conditions. The court did. You need to work with me so that we can ensure that you successfully complete your supervision and get on with the rest of your life. All right, Mark, you're supervising John Jackson. What's your approach going to be? Potentially there's a lot of information that can be discussed here, Mark. We don't have that much time, but I do want to reference the previous segment where Francis could talk about victims of these crimes. Okay. And I wanted to, there seems to be a misconception generally about these being victimless crimes and that these type of offenders not actually being sex offenders. And I disagree with that. And I want to support my opinion about current initiatives in the District of Arizona as well as building a foundation, a philosophical foundation of strong and effective case management. Foremost, I think the cornerstone for this case or any case should be relapse prevention in the supervision planning. When I talk about relapse, I'm not talking about reoffending the act of reoffending. I'm talking about the precursor indicators prior to reoffending, such as high risk situations of cruising, of using alcohol or other drugs, and being alone with minors. Using a combination approach of victim-centered and containment approaches allows an officer to attempt to prevent reoffence. When I talk about victim-centered, I'm talking simply about considering victim's trauma, the characteristics of the offense and the behavior during the offense of the known victims, as well as potential victims. A good psychosexual evaluation will illuminate arousal interest, deviant interest, sexual fantasies, issues that can be used to determine a good risk-related plan. In the District of Arizona, we have developed specific sex offender initial and semi-annual case review plans, and these address things like victim typology, things, characteristics that allow us to attempt to develop this relapse prevention plan. We have also recently, in regard to victims, created a victims group. And this victims group is specific to a region in Arizona where we have lacked competent sex offender victim counseling. The victims that are involved in this, as well as their guardians, are usually victims that intend on a reunification, possibly at some point. Talking about containment approach, historically when you see a containment approach you see a triangle with the victim in the, I'm sorry, the offender in the center of the triangle, and he's responsible to deal with self-control issues, his internal controls. And historically, you've had the polygraph examiner, the probation officer, and the therapist. And I would suggest we expand this to be whatever shape fits the District to include some of the things that I think are extremely important one being a multi-discipline team, an MDT. And an MDT is a team setup so that the offender cannot potentially manipulate one professional without all of the professionals involved in the case to be included in the discussion. In Arizona, we have three MDTs monthly that we try to staff cases that are of some risk or of some question at the time. The MDT has proven to be extremely valuable in the external control process coupled with we have a strong chaperone program and a chaperone is an adult or a group of adults that the offender suggests or recommends and ultimately the probation officer and or MDT elects to be part of an educational process that they are taught in a terrific offence cycle of the offender as well as relapse characteristics and their primary focus and job in all of this is to prevent further victimization and support the offender. We have talked about actual risk assessment we have chosen three risk tools that officers have the opportunity to use at semi-annual reviews and these three actual risk assessments included probation officer experiences in their constructs as well as they include static and dynamic variables. So this gives the officer a great deal of information that is on these review forms and will keep abreast of the risk level that the offender presents. We've received the facts from Alton Morgate Northern District of Alabama along these lines of assessment and just was wondering if you could address it very briefly in context of what you're already saying. She asks or she says the risk prediction index does not take sex offenses into consideration would you consider the Minnesota sex offender test or the static 99 as a replacement for the standard RPI briefly? Well I think she's accurate that the RPI does not address specific sex offender issues however the static 99 or the men's sought is static variables and what we want to do is make sure that over time we're keeping abreast of the risk factors the risk elements and that's why these are good tests to do initially once someone comes on to supervision however over the course of time these are dynamic variables and currently we're using or have provided the opportunity of the stable 2000 by Carl Hansen in Canada, the Oregon Instrument by the Department of Corrections as well as the Division of Justice in Colorado's Instrument these all once again had probation officer experiences in their construct another external control that is very powerful is and I'm a big advocate of strategic planning in the use of polygraphs making sure that officers address disclosures that are made and resolve issues that might be presented and don't let deceptive tests go unresolved and specific issues need to be addressed as the supervision period goes on for example in Jackson's case he has obviously he is in denial of his arousal in any of this he has a previous conviction for loon lascivious behavior so there's more to this more to this offender in strategic planning for Jackson I would immediately require a specific issue polygraph to address he has two children at home we need to make sure that he has not molested in any way offended on these children coupled with we need to soon thereafter do a disclosure polygraph to find out what his sexual history is in the previous segment Francis who talked about Dr. Hernandez's survey which in November 2000 it's one of several surveys that are studies that are going on or have gone on in Dr. Hernandez's survey there were 90 male sex offenders 62 of them being porn cases or traveler cases and of those 62 there were almost 1400 disclosures of hands on contact that were not previously reported so this implies that people like Mr. Jackson in fact do do hands on type of offenses or his type of an offense needs to be taken as seriously at the end of the day and every day Mr. Jackson and all sex offenders are a risk in the community and I currently supervise approximately 40 sex offenders and of those 40 sex offenders if I ask them regardless of their amount of treatment if I ask them why would you not re-offend and tell me because I don't want to go to prison or I don't want to go back in front of the court and the other one will tell me the 40th will tell me because I don't want to hurt anybody because he thinks that's what I want to hear my point to all of this is that they are not going to protect victims it is our job and we need to be conscientious of it all right let's stop there and let's go out to the phones to our experts who are joining us from afar and Jeff Flake in Chicago let's start with you going back to Jackson's behavior and Mark referred to his denial you supervise sex offenders in your district and just to dig a little deeper could you provide some tips for officers who might have an offender like Jackson on their caseload particularly officers in districts where there might not be a formal sex offender policy where they might find a sex offender on their caseload sure Mark thank you viewers to pay attention to the interaction between the probation officer Mr. Jackson you notice that after the standard conditions are reviewed and they begin to discuss the special conditions the denial that Mark Geiger speaks of Mr. Jackson's denial becomes obvious he states I'm not one of those psychos and he minimizes his behavior by saying they only found a few pictures and it's not like I molested anyone Mr. Jackson challenges the PO in essence challenges his authority by saying wait a minute what kind of conditions are those you know Mark sex offenders are manipulative and they may intentionally utilize this behavior to distract or overwhelm officers and officers may be caught up in that if they're not aware of this sort of technique in this instance I think the officer did a really good job of distancing himself from this behavior by stating look I did not order these special conditions that court did you need to work with me I am here to facilitate your successful completion of supervision so in that regard he doesn't become the object of the offenders in this case Mr. Jackson's behavior and I think if officers approach it from that perspective initially then they'll be more successful in supervising sex offenders Excellent, thank you Jeff Now switching over to Washington Western and Peggy Kellow and Todd Skipworth now Mark Geiger talked here in the studio about his district's multi-discipline team Peggy I know that you all take a team approach of variation on the theme of the approach and how it works What we did in Washington was really kind of a brainstorm idea of our mental health specialist who had a mental health team and we thought that that would be a really good idea for a sex offender team and we approached our chief who supported it and what we basically did is that we asked our officers to volunteer who had experience and interest in this area and we basically have a team right now of about nine people myself is the lead officer, we have a pre-trial officer Todd who's going to be talking we have two pre-set-ins officers we have a supervision officer from each of our satellite offices we have an officer who's on the cyber crime technology committee and also our counselor from the Federal Halfway House who is the counselor for all of our pre-release offender cases who come there we wanted to basically bridge a working relationship with pre-trial PSI supervision in the Halfway House to be able to talk about cases to staff them we meet on a monthly basis our meetings are also open to staff we're moving more to an idea of having a set agenda and asking for officers to come and present their cases and support officers and we try to utilize the officers that are in the individual units to be a lead officer to everyone else and also to get specialized training we hope to be working on our own district protocol similar to what Mike Mark Geiger has talked about in Arizona we also are taking minutes and keeping track of what we're talking about so we're real excited about the idea of looking at each one of us in this field and increasing our level of knowledge and expertise in supporting each other I wanted to now switch over to Montana to Carlos Jones because as part of Mark's multi-discipline team is included or he includes his sex offender treatment provider and Carlos I know you also work very closely with your sex offender treatment provider in your district and if you could just sort of describe your role and her role and how you all work together Thanks Mark basically here in Montana we've had a program going that service to reservations it's been in operation now for about nine years it's kind of progressed over a period of time through looking at the research and literature that's been coming out part of what we do in order to hold the offender much more accountable is the probation officer is part of the treatment team by sitting in on all the group sex offender treatment programs and all sessions on a weekly basis the offender although a little skeptical at first they do begin to realize that the officer is part of their treatment by doing this all decisions the offender knows that all decisions that are made are made jointly by the probation officer and the therapist this prevents the offender from trying to manipulate and split the officer and the therapist in addition Mark what we have is the and the probation officer we jointly conduct family and community collateral visits this holds the offender to a real strict form of accountability also with probation officer with myself sitting in on all the groups and individuals I can better assess their risk on a weekly basis and this is a risk that we've talked about through the whole session today and it's a risk that the offender poses to the community hopefully our viewers are understanding that there's a message here in terms of whatever team approach you can take it's an effective approach to dealing with this type of an offender or defendant so you're hearing several different variations on the theme Jay Schillingstad we only have a couple of minutes left in the segment but I wanted you to very quickly comment on a fax that received from Gary Zilly from Michigan Eastern and his question is this what are some aspects of bad treatment what do you ask and look for to detect whether a treatment agency or provider is providing bad treatment or not Thanks Mark it's a good question and it really leads to the differences between traditional mental health treatment and sex offender specific treatment and there are distinct characteristics in those two types of treatment and I have a laundry list of those characteristics but in light of time I may not be able to cover all of those but a provider who is not addressing arousal sexual preference not doing good psychosexual exams and mixing too much traditional mental health with some sex offender specific treatment is a provider who is not providing the type of service that you need Very good and following, thank you Jay and following this segment we're going to have a short spot that puts a side by side or compares traditional mental health with sex offender specific treatment so Gary keep your eye out for that I wanted to finally go to Helene Krieger in California Central Probation and Helene if you could now talk about some of the training that you all have done internally regarding preparing your officers to deal with sex offenders and how that worked Okay, thanks Mark Well, as we've been hearing today these kind of cases are so complex with so many issues and need officers who will be willing to work with other team members so what we recognize is we needed interested motivated, skilled and knowledgeable officers to work these cases we developed a program that had an academic component and we had classes on mental health and also sex offenders we brought in a supervisor from another district and we also utilized one of our local treatment providers that they prescribed to the containment approach and they used the polygraph, the polysmograph and the able screen and we had this academic training and then after that officers had to apply for the experiential program where they actually carried cases and we did monthly trainings and case sharing and in addition to that we also meet quarterly all the mental health specialists and the officers in the training program and we continue to case share and have ongoing training and we try to participate in as many at the conferences or conferences by our local sex offender coalition organization so that we can stay current on all these very important issues Excellent, I particularly like the systematic way that you've approached your training internally and just to for the viewers benefit Helene referred to ATSA meaning the association for the treatment of sexual abusers www.atsa.com and you can get in touch with them and that information is in the special needs offenders close up as well we are dangerously close to the end of the program so we better wrap this segment up and just again let's touch on some of the principles that we've covered thus far In post-conviction sex offender management some mechanisms for effective sex offender supervision include a victim-centered approach a chaperone program and I should say along with that victim-centered approach a containment approach continuous risk assessment using actuarial instruments polygraph, plethysmograph examination et cetera sex offender management teams of some sort collaboration with the treatment provider as we heard from Carlos Jones sex offender specific internal training as we've heard from Helene Krieger in central California sex offender specific treatment services as we've heard Jay Schillingstad talk about familiarity with the state sex offender registration process and the officer's role we haven't had an opportunity to talk too much about that but we heard Jennifer Colson talk about that earlier in our pre-trial services segment and finally outreach to and networking within the community and other parts of the criminal justice system as Peggy Kellow referred to in the supervision segment again I want to thank our panelists Mark you thank you so much for being here all the way from Arizona and I want to thank of course all of our panelists who've joined remotely on the telephone I'll be back in a moment with some closing thoughts and reminders but first here's some important things to consider sex offender treatment sex offender treatment differs significantly from traditional mental health treatment and providers are trained specifically to handle sex offenders here are the main differences in traditional treatment trust is granted the individual is the primary client participation is voluntary the client is assumed to be honest there is low accountability there are recommendations for behavior there is strict confidentiality the client defines the problem there are few collateral contacts family involvement is often limited the primary treatment method is individual there is limited liability there are no external controls or verification in sex offender treatment trust is never fully regained the community is the primary client participation is court ordered the client is assumed to be dishonest there is high accountability there are strict standards for behavior there is limited confidentiality the treatment team defines the problem there are frequent collateral contacts involvement with family is required the primary treatment method is group there is high liability polygraph, plethysmograph urinalysis and breath analysis are used for verification and control here are some tips for contracting specialists in developing RFPs for sex offender treatment contracting officers must understand these differences develop a knowledge base about sex offenders be familiar with the simplified procurement manuals statement of work mandatory requirements be familiar with the standards of the association for the treatment of sexual abusers and or the center for sex offender management be aware that traditional mental health standards of confidentiality don't apply never settle for less than sex offender specific treatment services know the difference between and psychosexual evaluations understand the utility of sex offender specific polygraph and sexual preference testing and how they interact with treatment and supervision understand and be able to explain supervision and treatment responses to deceptive polygraph exams and proper use of the polygraph never hire a polygraph examiner who hasn't completed post-conviction sex offender specific training thoroughly research their catchment areas for potential vendors not hesitate to challenge potential vendors about their qualifications expertise or lack of experience skills general orientation to therapy etc be able to clearly communicate their local needs and expectations always reinforce to potential vendors that community safety is the primary goal of treatment and supervision be able to articulate their approach to sex offender supervision and communicate the necessity of developing a strong partnership that brings us to the end of the program I want to thank you for tuning in and I really want to thank our panelists both here in the studio and joining us remotely as well as all of the people who've helped put this program together over the past several months and hopefully your rosters and evaluations and submit them they help us shape up our programs and certainly don't forget about this coming Monday's audio conference from 4 to 5.30 pm eastern time where we'll pick up where we left off today thanks again for joining us we look forward to talking to you then and so long for now