Kan. lawmakers reject audit of sex offender treatment program

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) - Some legislators say the state program that indefinitely holds sexual offenders doesn't seem to be effective, while others say the treatment is working.

Lawmakers last week rejected an effort to require an audit of the program at Larned State Hospital.

Opponents said the move would threaten public safety and the jobs of the program's employees.

But Representative Bob Bethell, a Republican from Alden, says that since the program started in 1994 only two people have finish the various phases of treatment and been released. [Ed: Oh, but don't you see, Bob? That's the SUCCESS part! These laws were enacted as a "work-around" to the Constitution, enabling government to imprison these guys (and they are almost always "guys") for the rest of their lives or, at least, until they are so old and infirm that they become too expensive for the State to keep. The whole IDEA is to EMPHASIZE TREATMENT as a way of justifying "civil" incarceration while laughing at those so gullible as to believe that treatment is their real aim!]

Under Kansas law, sex offenders who have finished their prison sentences can be kept in the program at Larned State Hospital if they are determined to be a continuing threat to the community.

But costs of the program have increased. The proposed budget for the sexual predator treatment program for this year is $13.4 million to treat 171 patients.