FREE TO RAPE AGAIN

By the time Michael L. Reese was 17, he had sexually assaulted at least four children. Each time he was caught he spent, at most, a few months in a youth facility or in counseling.

Later, given six years in prison for a rape, Reese was paroled in three. With in weeks, he attacked another girl and got six months in jail. Soon after his release, he raped again. But the judge refused to impose any mandatory minimum term. "I feel that is inconsistent with having him treated," he said.

After spending three years in a sex offender program at Oregon State Hospital, Reese was declared a "successful graduate" and paroled. Then he tried to sodomize an 11-year-old girl. He got three -- to -- ten more years, but was paroled after serving the minimum sentence. Last December, Reese kidnapped and tried to sexually assault a young woman.

James Charles Stark got three years to life for a kidnap-- rape in California. He was paroled it less than three. After attempting rape again, he got 1 to 20 years but was in there three. Six months later, he molested a 14-year-old girl.

Stark was sent to Patton State Hospital near San Bernardino. After four years there, he was to return to court and sentenced to eight years in prison. Paroled only a year later, he then kidnapped, raped and shot a teenage girl.

Sickening cases like these two are occurring with alarming frequency, a nationwide Readers Digest investigation has discovered. Of the thousands of chronic rapists and child molesters, who prey on society, surprisingly few are arrested or convicted. And for those who are, the punishment rarely fits the crime.

Their juvenile offenses are glossed over. They are allowed to plea -- bargain. They are put on probation. When they do receive prison terms, they are paroled early. "Most return to their predatory ways," says Capt. Thomas Chronin of the Chicago Police Department, a noted expert on criminal psychology. "Often, their behavior escalates in frequency and brutality."

Haunting Picture. "Up to the mid-1960s, we saw few juvenile sex offenders," reports veteran forensic psychologist John Cochran. "Today, there's a flood."

The justice system has failed to come to grips with the problem. A study commissioned by Utah juvenile -- court executives explained that many sexual offenses by youths went unreported, or charges were dropped, redefined as normal "experimentation."

Teenagers Timothy Anthony Combs and Danny Lee Hill were well known to authorities in Warren, Ohio. Combs, who had and extensive arrest record, had been convicted for gross sexual imposition on another boy. Hill had been given a "permanent commitment" to juvenile facilities after raping two women at knifepoint, during which he threatened to kill his victims and rape one woman's three-year-old daughter. While incarcerated, Hill sexually molested a boy and threatened other boys with violence. Nevertheless, he was released after only a year.

On September 10, 1985, 12-year-old Raymond Fife of Warren, Ohio was biking to a Boy Scouts meeting. He never made it. Hill and Combs raped, beat and tortured Raymond. After choking him with his clothes, they impaled the unconscious born with a stick. Then they set him on fire.

Raymond, who was found by his father, Isaac, never regained consciousness and died two days later. The horrors of that evening still haunt Isaac. "I can't tell you the hell he has had to live with, seeing that picture in his mind," says his wife, Miriam.

"Bargain Day" in Court. Investigators have discovered that by the time sex criminals reach adulthood most have committed an extensive member of offenses that are never reported. Psychologist Philip Humbert of Eugene Oregon, was treating eight sex criminals charge with 16 offenses in all and convicted of 12. The eight admitted to over 13,000 deviant acts, including molestation and rape.

When the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit in Quantico, Virginia, research the backgrounds of incarcerated serial rapist, they found that 41 of them were responsible for at least 837 rapes and over 400 more attempts. In a study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, Emory University psychiatrist Gene G. Able found that 453 criminals admitted to molesting more than 67,000 children. Those who abused girls had an average of 52 victims each. But men who molested boys had an astonishing average of 150 victims.

When these repeat sex offenders are finally caught, they are encouraged to plead guilty to lesser charges in exchange for reduced punishment. Multiple charges pending against them are dropped, and they are often given probation instead of prison. Wisconsin Court of Appeals Judge Ralph Adam Fine asks, "What is the serial rapist to think when its 'bargain day' at the courthouse: three rapes for the price of one?"

Melvin Hemphill was arrested in Hollywood CA for robbery and accused of sexual assault by the victim. A plea bargain dropped all him but misdemeanor charge. Hemphill was freed on two years probation. Arrested again for robbery and sexual assault in Ohio, he was allowed to plea bargain only to robbery. His 3 to 15 years sentence was suspended. Hemphill was put on probation and sent back to California.

A few months later, in May 1988, a janitor at Hollywood High School followed a 200-ft. trail of blood to a ventilation shaft. There, strangled and sexually assaulted, was the body of teenager Robert Campo, Jr. Hemphill was soon arrested and allowed to plea bargain to second-degree murder. He will be eligible for parole in 1998.

"More than one person murdered my son," says Robert's mother, Mary Campo. "The whole criminal justice system let us down."

Crazy like a Fox. Many of us assume that anyone who would molest, torture or kill women or children must be insane. As a result says Terry Miller, an Oregon therapist who has worked with many violent offenders, "treatment programs have been used as a substitute for imprisonment." The Vermont based Safer Society Program, which monitors treatment efforts, reports that such programs have mushroom nationally, from fewer than 600 in 1986 to over 1400 today.

Yet, increasingly, experts reject the few that sexual deviants are mentally ill. Virginia clinical psychologist Stanton Samenow, has studied criminals for over twenty years. "The sex criminals anything but 'sick.' He is calculating and deliberate in his actions. He just shuts off his knowledge of right and wrong long enough to commit his crimes."

Warren Bland, the serial rapist, was sent to California's Atascadero mental hospital, released on probation, convicted for more rapes imprisoned and paroled. He then abducted, sexually assaulted and tortured and 11-year-old boy with clothespins, wire and pliers. "I get my fun this way to" Bland told the screaming child.

Sexual predators take their primary pleasure in dominating a helpless victim. "They are playing God," says Miller.

No "Cure." Oregon researcher Lita Furby and two associates reviewed the re-offense rates of sex criminals from treatment programs through out North America and Europe. They concluded: "There is as yet no evidence that clinical treatment reduces rates of sex re-offenses." Cautions forensics psychologist Cochran, "Treatment has been oversold."

Moreover, the legal system rarely monitors offenders once they are diverted into therapy. "Judges and parole boards order sex criminals into treatment, but do not necessarily follow up when they quit," complains Steve Jensen, director of the Center for Behavioral Intervention in Beaverton, Oregon. And to often psychiatrist recycle dangerous offenders back into the streets, says Wisconsin's Judge Fine.

Convicted of exposing himself to a small boy in Washington, Wesley Allen Dodd entered a sex offender treatment program. Even though he repeatedly violated treatment rules, a court allowed him to move to Idaho and enroll in the another therapy program. Officials there said he seemed to be "benefiting from the sessions." Less than a month later, he was arrested for molesting another boy. Dodd was ordered to resume treatment.

Dodd moved back to Washington, abused a four-year old for months, then tried to lure another boy to an building. He spent 118 days in jail, was again put on probation and the to seek treatment.

In September 1989, Dodd raped and killed William and Cole Neer, ages 10 and 11. In October he sodomized four-year-old Lee Iseli, then hung the boy in a closet to die. In November, Dodd was caught trying to abduct another boy from a movie theater. He now awaits execution.

Theodore Frank was convicted of numerous statistic sexual assaults on children. Frank was committed to, then released from, several mental hospitals, where he became an eager student of psychology. He was invited back to a California hospital to lecture as a guest speaker at a model of the effectiveness of therapy.

Weeks later, he raped, then strangled a two-year old girl. "When convenient," he admitted, "I have used by knowledge of psychotherapy as an ongoing game a manipulation."

"Sexual offenders are far better at manipulation and deceit than many therapists can comprehend," says therapist Jensen. "And I admit that I can be fooled by them."

Common-Sense Solutions. Sexual criminals must no longer be allowed to terrorize society with impunity. To control this growing menace, psychiatric experts and law-enforcement officers suggest these measures:

1. Get tough on first offenders. For those who commit violent assaults or sexually abuse children, penalties should be massive from the outset. Too many first-time sex offenders get suspended sentences or probation. “This is a gross perversion of justice and common sense,” argues Chicago’s Captain Cronin. “When first offenders get a slap on the wrist, they think, ‘I’ve beaten the system.’ They get the wrong message from the start.”

Experts warn that therapy should never be a substitute for incarceration. “Every sex offender should do some jail time,” Jensen says. “It gives them a taste of reality.”

2. Get even tougher on repeaters. Jill Otey, a former sex-crimes prosecutor in Portland, Ore., who helps victims with civil suits, says of violent rapists, “After the second offense, such attackers deserve life in prison. Why give them a third chance?”

But though sentences can be undermined by plea bargaining, which is sometimes meant to spare victims further pain. “This puts the rest of us at risk,” Judge Fine says.

Though a judge must make sure that a trial is not overly traumatic to victims, Fine contends that “in my experience, the victim’s worst trauma occurs when the attacker isn’t properly punished.”

In addition, the lunacy of basing parole on a sex criminal’s behavior in prison must end. “Of course the rapist or pedophile is going to behave himself behind bars,” observes Captain Cronin. “No women or children are there to attack.”

3. Tracking them. Whenever sex offenders are freed, their activities must be carefully supervised and monitored.

“Right now, our country has huge gaps in the identification and tracking of convicted sex offenders,” declares Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

David Barry Harrington was convicted of child molesting in Connecticut. While under investigation for a similar crime in Vermont, he disappeared. Then Harrington became principal of a private school in Maryland, where he molested several young boys. A pre-employment background check of Maryland records had revealed none of his out-of-state crimes.

California requires anyone convicted of specified sex crimes to register with the state, and to notify local police whenever they move. The registry helped lead police to serial rapist Warren Bland, for example, and to William Bonin, the infamous “Freeway Killer,” who is currently on death row for 14 sex murders.

“There should be a sex-offender registry in every state, and these should be coordinated through a national network,” says Ernie Allen.

The ultimate price of our leniency toward violent sexual marauders is paid each year by the thousands whose lives are destroyed.

Five-year-old Kenny Claudio of Roslindale, Mass., left his house to play one October afternoon. He never came back. A few days later, police discovered Kenny’s body in a garbage bag. He had been sexually assaulted, then drowned in a bathtub.

They arrested Matthew Rosenberg, 14, who later pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in juvenile court. But the criminal-justice system responded in all-too-familiar ways. The Massachusetts Department of youth Services placed Resenberg in sex-offender therapy, from which he may be released as early as March. A DYS spokeswoman explains, “Every kid should be given a chance.”

“He’s a rapist and a murderer. How many chances does he get?” asks Marilyn Abramofsky, the woman who raised Kenny. “My Kenny is dead. How many more have to die?”

READER'S DIGEST

NOVEMBER 1994 BY ROBERT JAMES BIDINOTTO

MUST OUR PRISONS BE RESORTS?

Mercer Regional Correctional Facility is a complex of tidy brick buildings situated in the rolling countryside of western Pennsylvania. From a distance, a visitor might mistake this state prison with its manicured green lawns for one of the nearby liberal arts colleges.

In his office, Superintendent Gilbert Walters explains that Mercer's 850 convicted felons "aren't evil, by and large. Many just did not have good life circumstances and have reacted inappropriately." Walters, who began his career in counseling and refers to the inmates as "clients," tries to make the prison experience "as much like the street as I can."

It's hard to imagine that, for most of Mercer's "clients," life outside could be this good. One of the three full time "activities directors" shows me the Recreation Building. "Nothing cheap here," he says proudly, pointing out the full sized basketball court, hand ball area, punching bag and volleyball net. There are enough barbells to "bulk up" 15 criminals at a time; others can use weight lifting machines. Nine electronic exercise bicycles and four stair type aerobics machines face a TV, all part of the Leisure Fitness Program. Outside, the men can play softball and sharpen their tennis skills. Emotional problems? Five psychologists and ten counselors are there for Mercer's "clients."

Housing about a third of the inmates are two dormitories with 8x10 foot "rooms" (not cells) equipped with desks and bookshelves. As we enter one room, a chubby, middle aged man turns down the volume on his TV set. This housing unit, the guide says, shelters a "peer group" with "special needs"" largely rapists and child molesters. Mercer is not an exceptional institution; it is, in fact, typical. A nationwide Reader's Digest survey shows that in most prisons, felons have access to a startling array of creature comforts.

*Hard labor is out, physical fitness is in. From aerobics to strength training to boxing, today's thugs and armed robbers can return to the streets bigger, stronger and faster than ever. *When they're tired of working out, they can join theater groups, take music lessons or college courses--all for free. Or they can tune in the latest R-rated movies. *The overall cost of these prison amenities is soaring. They take up a huge portion of state correctional budgets, while thousand of violent criminals are released each year for lack of space.

Inside New York's maximum security Attica prison, which houses many of the Empire State's most violent felons, there is an incongruous sight: three small white buildings, which some staffers call "the hotel." Here, a counselor schedules up to 18 inmates per week for sex with their wives. New York offers such facilities for so called private family visits at 14 of its prisons. In seven other states, including Washington, and New Mexico cottages, trailers, mobile homes, even tents are used.

Washington State's David Jirovec hired two hit men to kill his wife for insurance money. Now serving a life sentence, the Walla Walla inmate receives conjugal visits from his new wife. In New Mexico, it took a public uproar to cancel Ricky Abeyta's eligibility for that state's program after he married in prison. Abeyta had killed seven people, including two police officers and a five month old baby.

According to Larry Meachum, Connecticut's Commissioner of Correction, "We must attempt to modify criminal behavior and hopefully not return a more damaged human being to society than we received." It's a statement repeated over and over by prison administrators as the reason for the vast array of recreational and physical fitness amenities available to convicts.

Weight lifting equipment, all but universal in prisons, is far more expensive than most taxpayers might suspect. The Arizona Depart of Corrections, for example, calculated that injuries sustained by prisoners lifting weights produced medical bills for $600,000 to $700,000 last year in that state alone.

At the high security Sullivan prison in Fallsburg, N.Y., twin yards filled with barbells and recreational equipment also have outdoor TV's, so inmates working out don't miss their favorite shows. Inside, prisoners "jam" in a music room crammed with electric guitars, amplifiers, drums and keyboards.

In Pennsylvania, most felons can get in cell cable TV, including premium channels, at a huge discount. The maximum security federal penitentiary at Lewisburg, PA., offers HBO and Cinemax to its resident drug dealers and killers.

At the Jefferson City Correctional Center in Missouri, inmates run their own around the clock, closed circuit TV studio. Four channels routinely broadcast movies containing sex, horror and violence.

Hollywood likes to film at the century old State Correctional Institution in Pittsburgh because it looks like a real prison: massive stone walls, guard towers and a huge core building with five ugly tiers of barred cells. But inmates can wander the yard at will, congregate in gangs, lounge on the steps of buildings. Visitors enter the prison in large numbers, and contraband--including drugs is a big problem. "Security has become a costly nightmare," complains a state prison employee.

Socializing with the outside world is also a feature of prison life. In Louisiana, the Angola prison Drama Club players (whose president is a convicted murderer) visits colleges and theaters. On the grounds of the Penitentiary of New Mexico near Santa Fe, some 1200 inmates and their guest whoop it up at the annual "Outta Joint" picnic. At last year's festivities, they were entertained by a clown, a puppet show, a political satire performance and eight bands.

Last March 19, in the $2 Million visitor' center at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution in Norfolk, the Lifers Group held its annual "Lifers Banquet." Some 33 convicts, mostly murderers, and 49 invited guests enjoyed catered prime rib dinners.

"Inmates are sent here as punishment, not for punishment, says Joseph T. Smith, Deputy Superintendent for Programs at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison in New York State. In truth, nothing seems too much for society's predators.

How did the pendulum swing so far from the austere, even harsh conditions of the past? John J. DiIulio, a prominent political scientist at Princeton University who has studied and written about prisons for 15 years, explains: "Prisons used to emphasize inmate discipline and forced labor, and wardens ruled the cellblocks with an iron fist. Beginning in the 1960s, federal judges ruled only that prisoners were entitled to nutritious meals, basic health services and protection against arbitrary discipline at the hands of guards. But a number of federal judges went beyond such reasonable reforms and began ordering that prisoners be provided with expensive, untested treatment programs and a wide range of recreational opportunities regardless of the cost.

"Most of these judges never set foot inside prison themselves," DiIulio continues. "Instead they appointed monitors to investigate prison conditions--many of whom came from the prison right movement. At first, security minded wardens resisted the new orders from federal judges. But their resistance was gradually undercut by case managers and psychiatric social workers. In time, treatment personnel became top prison officials.

"When many prisons experienced unprecedented numbers of escapes and had hostage taking incidents," adds DiIulio, "the remaining guards from the old school argued that discipline had become too lax. But nobody listened, preferring instead to hear academic 'experts' proclaim that prison violence and other problems were caused by a lack of adequately funded rehabilitation programs. More programs, of course mean bigger staffs, fatter budgets and more perks."

In principle, few Americans would oppose basic efforts to educate and rehabilitate convicts. But what we have today borders on the absurd.

Morgan County Regional Correctional Facility in Tennessee offers six vocational programs and four levels of academic education. To house the expanding programs, it had to erect a new education building at a cost of $1.5 Million. In California the corrections budget for 1993-94 includes $50 Million for academic education, $40 Million for vocational training and $57 Million for inmate employment.

Last year, the Boston Globe reported, Massachusetts set up a Correctional Recovery Academy in its state prisons at a price tag of $1000 per inmate. A major component was yoga.

At the Dade Correctional Institution near Miami, members of the Inmates' Cultural Club have developed a taste for opera. Prison librarian Rolando Valdes obtained a series of federal grants and purchased a 50 inch TV and laser disc equipment. Each Saturday night, he conducts opera appreciation classes in the prison library. Funded by another government grant, several inmates have even written their own opera, El Caido-a tale of a prisoner who rehabilitates himself. Says co-composer Elton Edwards, a "lifer" convicted of murdering a home owner during a robbery, "its been great therapy for us."

Therapy for mental health, aggressive behavior, domestic violence, sex offenses and substance abuse has grown into a prison cottage industry. Yet after decades of attempting behavior modification, the overall results of rehabilitation and therapy are meager. When asked by Reader's Digest how many sex offenders he has rehabilitated in his years on the job one New York State prison counselor bluntly responded, "None."

Inmates, for their part, are not fools: participation in education and therapy can chip time off their terms. "The saying among inmates is 'get a program,' says criminologist Charles Logan of the University of Connecticut. "They know that it will help with the parole board."

Studies by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics have shown that between 60-70 percent of inmates revert to crime after release. A model federal prison at Butner, N.C. applied every known rehabilitation technique to inmates for over a decade. The results: no reduction in recidivism and no improvement in convicts' employment prospects.

After extensive study of prison rehabilitation criminologist Logan concludes: "Despite claims to the contrary, no type of treatment has been effective in rehabilitating criminals or preventing future criminal behavior."

At present, prisons or prison systems in 35 states operate under federal court order. In North Carolina, following a class action lawsuit brought by state inmates, U.S. District Court Judge James B. McMillian approved a settlement in which the state would provided at each of 13 prisons, softball and basketball equipment for two teams, a piano, a set of drums, three guitars and five Frisbees.

Elsewhere, prison inmates have demanded and won access to pornography. Says Pam Smith-Steward, a senior staff attorney for the California Department of Corrections, "One inmate, who tortured and killed his own infant daughter, wrote sadistic stories in exchange for pornographic photos of women being tortured. When the prison staff confiscated and destroyed the photos, he sued in federal court. California taxpayers ended up paying the prisoner compensation."

In 1993, inmates filed nearly 33,000 civil suits in federal courts a stunning 14% of all federal law suits. The New York State Attorney General estimates that prisoner lawsuits chew up 20% of his department's resources. In Arizona, 70% of all lawsuits brought against the state are by prisoners.

And things are getting worse. Last year Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), intended to protect the religious freedoms of American citizens from government intrusion. But at the urgent request of 25 state attorneys general and the heads of every state prison system, Sen. Harry Ried (D-Nev.) introduced and amendment excluding prisoners from the law's strict provisions. State officials were certain that RFRA would allow inmates to file even more outrageous lawsuits.

Attorney General Janet Reno dismissed their concerns, however, and urged Congress "to approve the bill without the amendment." Reid's amendment was defeated.

Indeed, RFRA has opened a Pandora's box. Following a "religious freedom" lawsuit, the Florida Department of Corrections has been forced to allow into state prisons virulently racist materials intended to incite hatred of whites. In Illinois, a follower of the "religious" arm of the Aryan Nation which believes in exterminating blacks and Jews has sued under RFRA to demand its own ministers, literature and the right to congregate inside prisons.

After adjusting for inflation, prison spending per inmate is nearly 2 1/2 times higher than it was three decades ago. In fiscal 1994, prisons cost society around $20 Billion. Says Princeton's DiIulio: "At least 40% of prison expenses go to rehabilitation programs and inmate amenities that have little bearing of institutional security, and that far exceed basic standards of human dignity. Roughly speaking prisons cost nearly twice as much as they should."

When Sam Lewis took charge of the Arizona Department of Corrections in the mid 1980s, he found "security problems and a bunch of spoiled inmates." A former Airborne paratrooper, Lewis decided to clean house.

He imposed a strict dress and grooming code and ordered that newly built prisons would have no weight lifting equipment. He also stopped unescorted furloughs, interprison recreational travel and the annual prison rodeo.. To alleviate overcrowding, he started double bunking inmates in some maximum security facilities and using inmate labor to build new prisons.

"The message inmates are supposed to get, " Lewis explains "is 'this is not a place I want to be' not because it's brutal, but because it's a strict, tough environment without a lot of creature comforts." The results? The system's escape rate, once the highest in the nation, plummeted and so did costs. Arizona now spends 38% less than the national average to build a new medium security prison cell and 45% less for a maximum security cell.

Arizona Governor Fife Symington has encouraged Lewis's reforms and becomes sharply critical of federal judges who interfere with prison operations. "It's nonsense for them to say that convicts have a constitutional right to taxpayer provided services that many taxpayers can't afford on their own," he declares.

"The intellectual and bureaucratic forces that have turned prisons into 'resorts' are deeply entrenched," John DiIulio notes. "They won't be changed unless there's a loud, persistent and politically pointed public outcry."

Until then, we will see memos such as the following, which was posted at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution in Norfolk by policy coordinator James Krantz: "A third softball field will be make in the West Field in order to allow more inmates to play softball. The horseshoe pits will be temporarily relocated near the golf course. The bocci area will be relocated at the site of the new gym. The soccer field will be relocated to the East Field behind the softball field."

Hasn't the time come for us to require public officials to explain why prisons need to be resorts?

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