09/04/2011
RE “FOLLOW evidence, not gut feeling, on sex offenders’’ (Op-ed, Aug. 28):
Gareth Cook points to more of the scientific evidence that has been apparent to sex offender-specific clinicians since the inception of community notification policies for sexual offenders. Pouring salt on the wound of a man struggling to change his life after committing sexual offenses does more harm than good in many cases.
Sexual offenders have psychiatric disorders that merit comprehensive treatments as well as community containment strategies that are effective. Community notification, while intended to protect innocents from being victimized by sexual “predators’’ (as the subheadline for the column termed them), further ostracizes those offenders whose primary goal is to control their behavior through treatment.
- I do not think all sex offenders have a "psychiatric disorder," which the above statement alludes to. Many may, but not all do, so the statement, like many other statements that deal with ex-sex offenders, tend to lump all offenders into one huge group, and that is not right.
Social stigmatization and ostracism are ineffective treatments for psychiatric disorders, and do not reduce recidivism in sexual offenders.
- Sex offender recidivism (new sex crimes) are already lower than any other criminal, yet we do not have draconian registries and residency restrictions for them, for life!
Dr. Martin P. Kafka
Newtonville
The writer is past president of the Massachusetts Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers.
