Rehabilitation, recidivism hot topics

The crux of the emotional discussion about sex offenders always comes back to this: Is the adage "Once a sex offender, always a sex offender" true?

After doing time in prison, completing treatment, being on parole, will a perpetrator victimize again?

To properly evaluate that question, one must wade through conflicting data from corrections departments, government, academics, law enforcement and a host of anecdotal evidence from police, therapists and others.

Most incarcerated sex offenders will eventually find their way back into the community where the common perception is they will rape another woman or molest another child.

"It may be harsh to say, (but) when a sex offender dies, that's when he's rehabilitated," says a former sex crimes investigator and 20-year veteran police officer. "They say they can't help it. That may be true. That's why they'll never be rehabilitated."

Larry Bench, a Utah Department of Corrections research consultant, disagrees.

"A lot of people will argue that sex offenders basically commit tons of sex offenses and have very, very high recidivism rates and are basically incurable." That, he said, is "totally inaccurate. The recidivism rate is considerably lower than most people think it is."

Harold Blakelock has devoted more than a decade to working with sex offenders at the Utah State Prison.

"Most people have the belief that sex offenders continue to reoffend all the time. Our numbers show that's not the case," Blakelock said. "At least they don't get caught."

Bench, also a University of Utah criminology professor, conducted what he calls one of the most comprehensive studies on convicted sex offenders.

In the study of 389 Utah prison inmates tracked as far back as 25 years, he found 7.2 percent were convicted of new sex crimes.

"Our fear of sex offenders has increased substantially, largely unfounded, quite frankly," Bench said.

Opinions vary

But Heather Stringfellow, executive director of the Rape Recovery Center and a former Salt Lake police sex crimes investigator, said any study based on conviction rates is flawed.

"The one thing we know is that they get better at not getting caught. I am very suspect of any 8 percent recidivism. In my experience they have been doing it a lot before they are charged or caught."