By Nick Buglione
It has been more than 20 years since Wayne Bowers has put his hands on a boy.
Bowers, who sexually abused children for two decades before he stopped, considers himself proof that sex offenders can learn to control their urges and become productive members of society.
It's an assertion not easily accepted by a public that holds sex offenders in the lowest regard, often viewing them as conscienceless monsters with no propensity or willingness to stop. But Bowers's claim is supported by a number of organizations, therapists and medical professionals, who wish to change the common perception and draw more attention to sex offender treatment and research.
Bowers started "acting out," as he refers to it, when he was 19, targeting mostly children in the 8- to 11-year-old range. As he grew older, he began victimizing boys in their early teens.
As a Little League coach in his native Kansas, Bowers had easy access to children, and his players became his sexual prey. Though he knew what he was doing was wrong, he couldn't stop himself.
"As soon as [I would abuse someone], I'd immediately go into a shameful phase," said Bowers, 60, describing the cloud of guilt that would engulf him each time he laid his hands on a boy. "I could see it was addictive behavior. I realized many times it wasn't appropriate."
Arrested in the early 1970s, he did a two-year stint in prison. Back then, sex offender treatment was nonexistent, and Bowers was lumped in therapy sessions with alcoholics and drug abusers, where his sexual interest in boys was never addressed.
He would spend 10 more years molesting kids. It wasn't until he was arrested again in 1983 that Bowers began to receive the help he desperately needed. Once again placed in treatment with substance abusers, Bowers was instructed to think of his inappropriate sexual feelings as the abusers did drinking and drugs.
Armed with a willingness to get better, Bowers saw through extensive therapy the pain he was causing his victims, and learned how to break the vicious cycle that led him to abuse. "I learned [to talk] about something I had kept secret all my life," he said.
Just as a recovering alcoholic never considers himself cured, neither does Bowers, who still steers clear of young children, though it has been years since he has molested a child. "I do sense I'm still attracted to adolescents," he said. "I found a way to control my behavior and acting out."
Now living in Michigan, Bowers has dedicated his life to advocating and advancing sex offender treatment, as director of the Sex Abuse Treatment Alliance. Getting people on board with his cause, however, is often an uphill struggle, he said.
A fairly new frontier
"Prior to the 1980s, there wasn't any publicity given to this kind of work," said Kenneth Lau, president of the New York state chapter of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers and a social worker who has treated sex offenders for 15 years.
In fact, sexual offenses have become part of the public consciousness only in the last 20 years, Lau said. Prior to that, such crimes were largely unreported, and were not viewed as unique problems warranting special attention. If a sex offender received any treatment, it most likely mirrored that of someone suffering from depression or any other mental illness, Lau said.
As stories of sexual abuse drew more attention in the 1980s and '90s, penalties were stiffened, but little emphasis was placed on treatment.
Following the savage rape and murder of a 7-year-old New Jersey girl, Megan Kanka, at the hands of a twice-convicted sex offender in 1994, the state enacted Megan's Law. The groundbreaking legislation required sex offenders to be tracked through a registry, and established a community notification system when they moved into a neighborhood. The law went federal in 1996.
But sex offender treatment advocates believe that such measures have treated only the symptoms of a disease. While most agree that a sex-offender registry is needed, they have problems with community notification, largely because it can inhibit the treatment process, making it difficult for a sex offender to find a permanent residence or job. "It ostracizes them even further, which is why they have a problem in the first place," Lau said.
"Registration makes a lot of sense, but Megan's Law, particularly the way it's implemented, is more harmful than it is helpful," said Joan Tabachnick, director of public education for Stop it Now!, a national, nonprofit organization started 12 years ago that views sexual abuse as a public health issue.
Considering the fact that in 95 percent of sexual abuse cases the family knows the abuser, the law also lulls communities into a false sense of security, Tabachnick said. "This is such an emotional problem," she said. "[We want to show that] these aren't monsters. These are people making monstrous choices. How can we stop them before they make those choices?"
When it comes to dealing with sex offenders, lawmakers have not collaborated extensively enough with the medical community, according to Dr. Fred Berlin, a psychiatrist who founded the Johns Hopkins Sexual Disorders Clinic in Maryland in 1980. "In this area, not only are there fewer resources, but because of the opinion of this issue, few people want to raise their hands and admit they're having this problem," said Berlin, whose center currently treats 120 sex offenders through therapy and medication. "I recognized rather early on that there was virtually nothing available for sex-offender treatment. Sadly, 20 years later it's still the same case. There aren't very many other places like this."
Sex-offender treatment centers often receive little or no financial support from the local, state or federal government, and there's a real aversion to funding research, Berlin explained. "Many legislators simply don't want to fund research in this area," he said.
And that's unfortunate, because treatment works, said Bowers. "I would rather see all the funding that's gone into Megan's Law go into therapy," he said.
Treating a sex offender
Wilson Prunier is a counselor with Mustard Seed Forensic Social Work Services in Brooklyn, which for the past five years has provided counseling and treatment to sex offenders in New York City and Long Island. About 300 sex offenders pass through its doors every week, usually ordered to attend by the court or their parole officers.
Mustard Seed is disproving the widely held perception that sex offenders can't learn to control their behavior. "Our rates of recidivism are far below rates we see posted in various studies," said Prunier, who has worked at the center for over three years. "In the past three years, we've not had more than 10 people who have been treated here commit the same type of offense."
Gathering information about sex offenders and their crimes is the first step in therapy. Sex offenders vary in motivation and the threat they pose to society, Lau said. "A lot of times with politicians, they want to lump them all together, and you can't do that," he said.
Sex offenders may be asked to fill out questionnaires upon entering treatment, though Lau often has his clients take lie-detector tests in order to ensure openness and honesty.
What leads someone to become a sex offender varies, too. Someone who was abused when they were younger could potentially become a sexual predator as an adult, Berlin said. Meanwhile, studies have shown that exposure to violence, pornography and sexual activity at a young age can trigger aberrant behavior as well, Tabachnick said.
Therapy can take place in a one-on-one or group setting. The cognitive-behavioral model is often used in treating sex offenders. This method encourages offenders to identify the chain of thoughts or events that lead them to abuse. Once that's accomplished, offenders learn how to modify their thought processes or behavior to prevent acting out.
Medication to lower an offender's sex drive or ability to perform sexually is also an option in treatment, said Berlin, who noted that 40 percent of his patients are on anti-androgen drugs. Androgens are male sex hormones, such as testosterone and androsterone.
In some instances, surgical removal of the testes, where 95 percent of the body's testosterone is produced, has been employed, though Berlin believes this is no longer necessary, because the same result can be achieved with drugs.
A few states currently mandate castration, either through surgery or medication, of repeat sex offenders. Berlin warns, however, that castration is not an "absolute guarantee" that sex offenders will be stopped, since supplements can be taken to restore the level of testosterone in their bodies.
Stop it Now! runs a national hotline aimed at getting potential sex offenders treatment before they act on their urges. Adults who are concerned about their own inappropriate sexual behavior or that of others are encouraged to call, though it's not easy to get people to admit that they have these feelings. "The stigma of someone coming forward [is great]," Tabachnick said. "We haven't really invested in prevention."
While progress in sex offender treatment has been slow, Berlin remains optimistic about the future. "At one time we looked at alcohol as a moral problem," he said. "Now we understand that good people can become afflicted with this problem.
"People say treatment doesn't work, and most of these people haven't received treatment in the first place," he continued. "Poor treatment doesn't work."
Comments about this story? NBuglione@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 236.
