Residential Treatment for Juvenile Sex Offenders
According to the Center for Sex Offender Management of the U.S. Department of Justice, adolescents—the majority of them male—commit half the cases of child molestation reported each year. Despite widespread public perception that child molesters cannot change, a 1995 study by G.C.N. Hall showed only an 8 percent rate of recidivism among offenders of all ages who participated actively in treatment. Intensive residential therapy can effect change in teens, whose brains are still growing and developing. Residential treatment programs for juvenile offenders are often based on cognitive behavioral and relapse prevention therapy.
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Clarification: Taking Responsibility for Abuse
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At the Morrison Center for Children and Family Services in Portland, Oregon, teens who graduate from the Counterpoint Program for juvenile sex offenders are required to complete a step called "clarification," in which they admit to their crimes and tell their victims it was not the victim's fault. Counterpoint teaches the boys in its care that their justifications for their offenses are "thinking errors." Once perpetrators take responsibility for their abuses, they can learn to recognize what led them to abuse. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy focuses on the link between emotion and behavior, with the belief that recognizing the emotion, or trigger, can help an abuser circumvent resultant behavior.
Anger Management
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The CSOM lists anger as a trigger for sexual abusers and uses the term "anger rapist" to refer to an offender who rapes out of a desire to release his anger onto his victim. Anger management therapy is, therefore, a crucial component of treatment. In psychoeducational anger management courses at Utah's Benchmark Behavioral Health residential program for adolescent sex offenders, clients learn to recognize anger when they feel it, what triggers it and how to express it appropriately.
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Empathy Development
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Another module of Benchmark's treatment program is Empathy Development. Empathy is the ability to relate the feelings of others to one's own feelings. Clients learn to recognize signs of distress in victims' facial expressions, statements and body language and to think about how they would feel if someone similarly victimized them. When a teen realizes that he is hurting another, he can apply techniques learned in CBT to substitute another behavior for the harmful one in which he is about to engage.
Leisure Skills Therapy
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Teens in the Texas Youth Commission's CoNEXTions program are required to attend "Leisure Skills Building Groups," in which clients learn alternatives to the ways they spent their free time before coming into the program. For example, boys who used drugs and alcohol are offered both substance abuse treatment and lessons in activities they can substitute for drug use in the future. Activities offered to teens in the CoNEXTions program, referred to as "pro-social leisure skills," include music lessons, art lessons, yoga classes and money management courses.
Relapse Prevention
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A crucial component of treatment for sex offenders is relapse prevention, in which they learn how to keep from abusing children in the future. Relapse-prevention skills teach offenders to identify high-risk situations, such as contact with children, and to cope with them using CBT techniques. Therapy for relapse prevention includes skills for coping with urges and cravings as well as creating a more balanced lifestyle in which opportunities to offend are decreased. Damage-control techniques are essential if a teen is to have a healthy life free of future offenses.
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References
- Spark Action: For Juvenile Sex Offenders, Intensive Program Offers Chance to Change
- Psychiatric Solutions Inc.: Residential Treatment for the Juvenile Sex Offender
- PANdora's Box: Juvenile Sex Offenders
- Center for Sex Abuser Management: Myths and Facts About Sex Offenders
- The Counterpoint Program at Morrison Child and Family Services
Resources
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