Transcripts

ERIN GALBALLY: It's a Tuesday afternoon, and 10 men spread out around a long wooden conference table. They range in age. Men in their 20s and 30s sit next to silver-haired grandfathers. There's at least one Rochester business owner in the group. A handful work in local restaurants or stores. Others are retired, under house arrest, or living in the county jail. All of these men are convicted sex offenders. They've gathered here at the Olmsted County Government Center for group therapy.

The session begins with a man we'll call Dave. He's considered an old-timer, having been part of this group for several years. He's a larger fellow and wears his hair in a graying pompadour. Dave's on probation for sexually molesting a girl. He talks about how he felt during a recent encounter with a new neighbor.

DAVE: The neighbor right across the road from me moved in last November, I think, or October. And they've got a little Jack Russell Terrier, and it was in our yard in the morning. And that afternoon, I was pulling out, and I saw the guy in his driveway. So I pulled up and introduced myself. And it went through my mind while I'm talking to him, the trigger, does he know I'm a sex offender? What does he know about me? Is he going to ask questions? How am I going to deal with this?

ERIN GALBALLY: By all accounts, Dave seems to be using therapy to change his behavior. He uses terms he's learned in treatment. He tries to identify triggers that can set him off. When things get tough, he checks in with other group members with a buddy call. All are staples of something called wound therapy. It's the particular brand of treatment administered here.

Charles Dawley helped pioneer wound therapy. And he sits at the far end of the table, listening intently as Dave speaks. Dawley believes the majority of sex offenders are amenable to treatment. And when he's not helping to facilitate groups like this one, he's evaluating new offenders to determine whether or not they should be sent to prison. Dawley estimates that in 7 out of 10 cases, he recommends intensive therapy and probation instead of incarceration.

That's partly because 90% of the offenders who are sent directly to prison return to the community without having undergone any treatment at all. That can be a recipe for trouble.

CHARLES DAWLEY: I believe that the majority of offenders are what we refer to as wounded. In other words, somewhere during the course of their lifetime, they suffered more damage than what their psyches can handle. And as a result, they've developed an excessive number of negative beliefs, which they hold to be true about themselves.

ERIN GALBALLY: Dawley believes offenders act on those negative impulses and commit sex crimes to escape their problems.

CHARLES DAWLEY: Sexual abuse is a medicator, in my perception. It allows one to be distracted from where they hurt or to get away from that pain. And so the concept is to not only have the offender take full responsibility for his inappropriate sexual behavior, which is the first thing you attempt to accomplish, but also to understand that there's a reason for his offense.

ERIN GALBALLY: At the heart of wound therapy is an attempt to make offenders change the way they think. If they can do that, the theory goes, they can begin to change their actions. Take Dave for example. Dave continues the story about encountering his new neighbor. He tells other people in the group how he felt.

DAVE: The belief was that I'm defective. I'm a bad person. I had the feelings of being on edge a little bit, concern, worry.

SPEAKER: Embarrassed?

DAVE: Yeah, I wasn't embarrassed at the time, but I would have gone there had he asked.

ERIN GALBALLY: The other men in the group listen and chime in. Dave says if the neighbor had inquired about his past offenses, he would have fessed up. And Dave says he would offer to stay away from the man and his wife.

Dawley's wound therapy has caught on. Several other counties around the state now use a textbook he designed as the cornerstone of their sex offender treatment curriculum. But another component of the therapy process in the three Southeastern Minnesota counties has also gained popularity. It's called the co-facilitated method, and it involves a therapist and probation officer jointly participating in group therapy.

The probation officer takes notes and uses the information to check up on the offender out in the community. They also have the power to re-arrest offenders who aren't complying with the conditions of their parole. It adds an extra layer of consequence. Therapist Charles Dawley says it's a model that seems to work.

CHARLES DAWLEY: Having the probation officer in the group acting as a co-facilitator, we can deal with pretty much all of the potential problems that could arise, both from a mental health standpoint and a correctional standpoint. The offenders in the treatment groups have a clear understanding of what the boundaries are, who does what in terms of my being responsible, for instance, for the therapeutic aspects and the probation officer, the more correctional or court-oriented aspects of treatment.

ERIN GALBALLY: We weren't able to tape another group therapy session later that week. That's when members of the group turned on one of their own. They found out that a middle-aged man who we'll call Harry had been fantasizing about his daughter. Harry had also come into contact with a former victim. Harry saw the woman walk into the store where he works, and he deliberately chose to wait on her.

The men around the conference table were furious. They told him he was dangerous and a risk to the community. After a short conference in the hallway, Charles Dawley and the probation officer in the session seemed to agree. Harry was re-arrested and sent back to jail. He may be thrown out of the program for violating the terms of his probation. If that happens, Harry will serve out his sentence. That means 12 years in prison.

I'm Erin Galbally, Minnesota Public Radio, Rochester.