Separate units for incarcerated people who committed sexual offenses: luxury or necessity?

Introduction: The policy on treatment of people who commit sexual offenses (PSOs) varies greatly across countries, creating different treatment environments. This study was conducted in Flanders (i.e., the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) where PSOs receive their treatment in the community. Before this transfer takes place, many PSOs spend time inside prison together with other offenders. This raises the question to what extent PSOs are safe in prison and whether this period would benefit from an integrated therapeutic program. This qualitative research study focuses on the possibility of separate housing for PSOs by examining the current experiences of incarcerated PSOs and contextualizing those with the professional experience of national and international experts in the field. Methods: Between 1 April 2021 and 31 March 2022, 22 semi-structured interviews and six focus groups took place. Participants were comprised of 9 imprisoned PSOs, 7 international experts on prison-based PSO treatment, 6 prison officer supervisors, 2 prison management delegates, 21 healthcare workers (both inside and outside prison), 6 prison policy coordinators, and 10 psychosocial service staff members. Results: Nearly all interviewed PSOs reported suffering at the hands of fellow inmates or prison staff because of the nature of their offenses, varying from exclusion and bullying to physical violence. These experiences were corroborated by the Flemish professionals. Consistent with scientific research, the international experts all reported working with incarcerated PSOs who reside in living units separate from other offenders and the therapeutic benefits to this approach. Despite this growing evidence, the Flemish professionals remained reluctant to implement separate living units for PSOs in prisons because of the perceived risk of increased cognitive distortions and further isolation of this already stigmatized group. Conclusion: The Belgian prison system is not currently organized to create separate living units for PSOs, which has important ramifications for the safety and therapeutic opportunities of these vulnerable prisoners. International experts emphasize a clear benefit for introducing separate living units where a therapeutic environment can be created. Although this would have significant organizational and policy-oriented implications, it would be useful to explore whether these practices could be implemented in Belgian prisons as well.

Impairment of Both Reward and Punishment Learning in Males Who Have Sexually Offended Against a Child.

Prior studies suggest that persons with a sexual offense against a child (PSOCs) present with an impairment in learning from reinforcement, which may contribute to the behavioral dysregulation often seen in PSOCs. Therefore, gaining more insight into the nature of this impairment seems essential to better understand child sexual (re)offending. Using a passive avoidance task, we found that PSOCs (n = 57) have difficulties with selecting behaviors that are associated with reward and suppressing behaviors that are associated with punishment relative to nonoffending men (n = 33), but not compared with persons with a nonsexual offense history (n = 31). The latter ability was particularly compromised in nonpedophilic PSOCs. By unraveling a source of pathology in the mechanisms that are involved in behavioral control, this study helps setting a step toward new, more tailored, therapeutic approaches.

Reinforcement learning in child molesters.

BACKGROUND: Child molesters form a heterogeneous group, but one generally shared characteristic is maladaptive, rigid behaviour. Impairments in reinforcement learning may explain these maladaptive tendencies, but this has not been systematically investigated. Further, it is not known if such impairments vary with subtype of child molesters. AIMS: To investigate the presence of impairments in reinforcement learning among child molesters and to test for differences in patterns of impairment with subtype. METHODS: A group of 59 child molesters was recruited from several prisons in a two-stage screening process, the first using records and the second interview; a comparison group of 33 offenders who had never committed a sex offence and who denied paedophile ideation was similarly recruited; 36 nonoffender comparison men were recruited by social media and word of mouth. Each was asked to perform a probabilistic reversal learning task, in which stimulus-outcome contingencies had to be learned. RESULTS: Child molesters, as a group, made significantly more errors on the probabilistic reversal learning task than the nonoffenders; the comparison offenders and the nonoffenders gained similar scores, although findings may have been confounded by older age in the child molester group. Nonpaedophilic child molesters had significantly worse scores than paedophilic child molesters. CONCLUSIONS: Child molesters, especially those not diagnosed with paedophilia, have deficits during both the acquisition and reversal of contingencies, suggesting reinforcement learning deficits that may undermine their capacity to benefit maximally from therapy without preliminary work to repair those deficits, possibly in conjunction with extending the offender programmes. Testing before programme entry would enable accurate targeting of scarce resources in this respect.