There are some problems with trying to increase sentances for sex offenses. First of all, most cases are pled. This is essential for the functioning of our criminal justice system. If everyone demanded a trial, the system would grind to a halt under the sheer weight of all of the cases. Secondly, convictions are difficult to obtain in sex crimes cases if there is no direct DNA evidence. It’s especially difficult if the victim is a child. They’re incredibly easy to confuse on the witness stand, and juries are reluctant to convict a person for such a heinous offense if the victim seems unsure or possibly untruthful.
Very few offenders would plead to a life sentance. They may as well roll the dice and see if they can get off with a jury trial because they have nothing to lose. Prosecutors are often in the unhappy position of trying to get at least some prison time out of the accused rather than risk a full acquittal if the case seems flimsy.
So, they’re going to get back out-- that’s a given.
On to treatment options: There is no way to cure a sex offender. Even drastic, barbaric methods such as chemical castration will not stop reoffenses, since some sex crimes are about power and domination rather than simple sexual release. A sex offender must want to be rehabilitated. Nothing on God’s green earth can force them to change if they do not want to do so.
Next, there is utterly no way to make treatment progams in prison effective unless the budgets for institutional programing are drastically increased. As it stands now, program coordinators and counselors do their best, but there is no way to provide the intensive one-on-one sessions that a sex offender would need in order to have a realistic effecacy. Sessions in most insitutions are done in a group-therapy type setting with poorly trained people heading the program. (A good deal of the time, the person heading up the program is a case manager or social worker who is using a “teacher’s guide” book and having the inmates full out "workbooks."They are not trained counselors or psychiatrists.)
The public does not want to pay extra taxes for these purposes. There’s a vague hostilty that they have towards these types of programs. The public wants the justice system to be Tough On Crime, but certainly doesn’t want to pay for rehabilitation, which some see as “pampering” or “tree-hugging hippie crap” (as Cartman would say.)
They have a certain point: as it stands rehabilitative programming, for the most part, is a waste of time and money. But that’s because insitutions don’t have the manpower or funds it would take to make it work, and they have no way to make the inmates want to change their ways.
Of almost equal importance is post-release control, or parole. It’s been mostly eliminated from many states, which I feel was a massive mistake. (It’s my opinion that Truth-In-Sentancing will go down as one of the worst ideas in criminal justice history.) It should be a part of a sex offender’s sentance that he/she is under post-release control for a certain number of years after they are released, and the state should mean it.
As it stands now (the parole board still exists, but new offenders are not going to be subject to it once they’re released) the parole board hasn’t the manpower of budget to truly keep track of offenders and ensure that they are living up to the obligations of their release. Sometimes, they completely lose track of offenders.
What needs to be done is careful monitoring of sex offenders for a period of time after their release, requiring them to see a psychiatrist on at least a weekly basis, ensuring that the offender has a place in the community (meaning a steady address and employment) and is sheilded from temptation as much as is reasonably possible.
So, as it stands now, what’s to be done about sex offenders? Honestly? Nothing. There’s really nothing that can be done, without chucking out their Constitutional rights (draconian sentances), or dramatically increasing funding for rehabilitative programming and reinstituting parole.