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Sex offender treatment unfunded in Iowa prisons

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By Thomas Molumby, Black Hawk College, Moline | Thursday, August 17, 2006 12:29 AM CDT | () comments

Your Aug. 1 editorial on the many problems with Iowa’s new sex offender residency restriction law is accurate but does not go far enough in dealing with the problem of how to deal effectively with the problem of sex offenders.

It may come as a surprise to many that Iowa has had an excellent sex offender treatment program at the Mt. Pleasant Correctional Facility since 1984. This is a long-term cognitive behavioral treatment program that attempts to change the thought patterns of sex offenders. The treatment itself may last 18 months or longer and has proven to be very successful. Unfortunately, Iowa’s legislature has never appropriated any funding for an evaluation of this program.

Six years ago, I received permission from the IDOC to have access to sex offender files. I compared the recidivism rate of 217 sex offenders who either refused treatment or who were removed from the program during the first month for disciplinary reasons to those who completed the program. I then tracked the rearrest rate of both of these groups for five years. There was a significant difference between the treated and untreated group. The recidivism rate for the treated group was less than 10 percent and half of those were rearrested for new crimes other than sex offenses.

If the state legislature is really interested in protecting the citizens and children of Iowa, then our elected officials should increase the funding and staff levels instead of investing millions of dollars in ineffective legislation that wastes both money and resources.

Thomas Molumby

Black Hawk College

Moline