SEX OFFENSE: Butner Study Critique

false research, online sex offense

Butner Study Critique

The “Butner Study Redux”: A report of the incidence of hands-on child victimization by child pornography offenders.Bourke, Michael L.., Hernandez, Andres E.
Journal of Family Violence, Vol 24(3), Apr, 2009. pp. 183-191.
Abstract
This study compared two groups of child pornography offenders participating in a voluntary treatment program: men whose known sexual offense history at the time of judicial sentencing involved the possession, receipt, or distribution of child abuse images, but did not include any ‘hands-on’ sexual abuse; and men convicted of similar offenses who had documented histories of hands-on sexual offending against at least one child victim. The goal was to determine whether the former group of offenders were ‘merely’ collectors of child pornography at little risk for engaging in hands-on sexual offenses, or if they were contact sex offenders whose criminal sexual behavior involving children, with the exception of Internet crimes, went undetected. Our findings show that the Internet offenders in our sample were significantly more likely than not to have sexually abused a child via a hands-on act. They also indicate that the offenders who abused children were likely to have offended against multiple victims, and that the incidence of ‘crossover’ by gender and age is high.

There has been much controversy regarding the “Butner Study Redux” (2009). Criticism in the professional community has included:

The study had no preapproval or oversight from a Human Studies Ethics board. Some researchers say this may have led to the abuse of the prisoners involved in the study, who were subjected to demand characteristics to continuously produce more names of fictional victims every six months in order to advance in the treatment program, avoid penalties, and to earn earlier release. This is denied by the authors.
The study had no objective verification of the expansive lists of victims – they were taken at face value.
There were no recurrent polygraphs to determine whether the added victim count was authentic or simply a product of demand characteristics. Some prisoners had an initial screening polygraph on admission to Butner. Others had an exit polygraph just prior to being released into the community. But none were done during the actual study period to provide authentication.
At best, the study was retrospective regarding unconfirmed previous victims (called “pseudo-recidivism”) and does not contribute to understanding future rates of offending.
The results of the Bourke study were an extreme outlier that were not reflected in any other research (Seto, 2011).
The results of the Bourke study have never been replicated.

Importantly, Dr. Hernandez himself noted the same year this study was published,

“CP offenders are distributed along a wide spectrum with multiple dimensions (e.g., criminogenic, sexual deviance, demographic). For example, there are CP possessors who are highly criminalized, behaviorally dysregulated, and sexually deviant. These individuals obviously represent a risk to public safety. On the other side of the spectrum, there are CP possessors who are not generally antisocial or sexually deviant, and have relatively intact self-regulatory mechanisms. Although both offenders commit the same crime (i.e., possession of child pornography), they are vastly different in terms of their risk to public safety. Understanding CP offenders requires comprehensive study of the individual offenders, the crimes, and the contextual variables in which the crimes occur. Focusing on only the extremes of a subject matter obscures the truth, inhibits rational dialogue and scientific inquiry, and sometimes results in uninformed public and criminal justice policy decisions. . . Some individuals have misused the results of Hernandez (2000) and Bourke and Hernandez (2009) to fuel the argument that the majority of CP offenders are indeed contact sexual offenders and, therefore, dangerous predators. This simply is not supported by the scientific evidence.” (pp. 3-4)

Psychological and Behavioral Characteristics of Child Pornography Offenders in Treatment
Andres E. Hernandez, Psy.D. Global Symposium: Examining the relationship between online and offline offenses and preventing the sexual exploitation of children. The Injury Prevention Research Center. The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. April 5-7, 2009

In 2013, The New Yorker published an article critiquing Dr. Hernandez, the Butner Program, and the validity of his study’s claims.

“Former patients at Butner say that they did not realize they were research subjects. Federal civil-commitment hearings have offered a window into the conditions that gave rise to the study’s sensational results. Several inmates said that the program’s emphasis on confession led them to “remember” crimes that never happened. They disavowed disclosures that were later used as evidence against them.

The program required that its hundred and twelve patients accept responsibility for a life of deviant behavior and thoughts—a philosophy common to most treatment programs. Since sex crimes are vastly underreported, it is reasonable to expect that inmates have committed more crimes than their records reveal. At a professional workshop, Hernández explained that he created a climate of “systematic pressure,” so that inmates would “put all the cards on the table,” abandoning a “life style of manipulation.” Patients were required to compose lists of people they had sexually harmed, which they updated every few months. At daily community meetings, when offenders insisted that they had nothing left to disclose, other prisoners accused them of being in denial or “resistant to change.” If they failed to accept responsibility, they were expelled from the program.

For sex offenders, who occupy the bottom of the prison power hierarchy, the Butner unit was a safe haven in the federal prison system. One child-pornography convict, Markis Revland, told the judge at his civil-commitment hearing that when prisoners discover a sex offender among them “they’ll go to great lengths to stab that person.” He requested treatment at Butner after being raped at knifepoint in a Kansas penitentiary. He was encouraged by the psychology staff at Butner to “get it all out,” and came up with a hundred and forty-nine victims. Like other patients, he kept a “cheat sheet” in his cell so that he could remember his victims’ ages and the dates that he’d abused them. There was no evidence for the crimes, thirty-four of which would have occurred during a time when Revland was incarcerated. At his hearing, the judge concluded that his crimes were the “product of his imagination, not actual events.” After having been held in prison nearly five years beyond the expiration of his criminal sentence, Revland was allowed to go home.

The government has lost roughly half of the more than sixty Adam Walsh cases that have gone to trial so far. Confirming the facts of sexual abuse, the most intimate sort of crime, has always been difficult, with far too many victims keeping quiet about their abuse or not having their stories believed. For offenders, too, the heightened emotional stakes may complicate attempts to get at the truth. Another former patient, Sean Francis, testified that, in order to stay in the “safe confines of Butner,” he “fabricated” fifty-four victims and invented and embellished rape fantasies. “Every single human being, if we were to open their head up, has some form or fashion of a deviant sexual fantasy,” he said at his hearing. “I don’t deny that.” But Francis said that he turned himself into a caricature of a sex offender in order to please the “psychological gods that they have working at Butner.” Patients would sit in groups and offer one another tips for sprucing up their criminal histories. “We shared victim lists,” he testified. “So I would go and I would say, ‘Jim, show me what you have. Oh, that—that’s really good.’”

The Science of Sex Abuse: Is it right to imprison people for crimes they have not yet committed?
Rachel Aviv.
The New Yorker, (January 14, 2013).

Child Pornography Offender Characteristics and Risk to Reoffend
Michael C. Seto, Ph.D., C.Psych. Royal Ottawa Health Care Group
Prepared for the United States Sentencing Commission Draft dated February 6, 2012

“Seto et al. (2011) identified 21 studies, representing a total of 4,464 online offenders, that reported on contact sexual offending history. Approximately 1 in 8 (12%) of the online offenders (most in trouble for child pornography offenses) had an official record for sexual offending, but approximately 1 in 2 (55%) admitted having committed a contact sexual offense in the subset of six studies that had self-report data (totaling 523 online offenders). The self-report result is more tentative because of the smaller number of studies and smaller sample size, but it does contradict the idea that most online offenders have already committed contact sexual offenses, even if some of those who denied any prior sexual contacts were lying.

A study by Bourke and Hernandez (2009) examining the sexual offense histories of a sample of federally incarcerated child pornography offenders at the Butner Correctional Institution is frequently cited. This study was a statistical outlier in our meta-analysis. Bourke and Hernandez found that approximately a quarter (24%) of their sample of 155 child pornography offenders had an official record of contact sexual offending, but most (85%) of their sample had a history of contact offending after participating in treatment and, in about half of the cases, undergoing polygraph examinations. Different explanations have been proposed for this unusual finding, including the composition of the sample and allegations that there was an incentive for treatment participants to disclose previously undetected offenses. Nonetheless, the key point – that some child pornography offenders have committed officially undetected contact offenses – is not controversial.

In the same systematic review, Seto et al. (2011) reported on the results of nine samples of online (mostly child pornography) offenders, followed for an average of three and a half years. The recidivism rates were relatively low compared to the average recidivism rates found for contact sexual offenders (e.g., Hanson & Morton-Bourgon, 2005): Approximately 5% of the child pornography offenders were caught for a new sexual offense of any kind, with 3.4% being rearrested, recharged or reconvicted for a new CP offense and 2.1% for a new contact sexual offense. Not all new offenses are detected and the observed recidivism will increase with time. Nevertheless, these data belie the idea that online child pornography offenders are very high risk to reoffend. There is heterogeneity, as in other offender populations, and risk assessment is necessary to identify those who are of greatest concern.

For a more complete understanding on this topic see Dr. Simpson’s seminar handout for the State Bar of Arizona CLE training – Online Sex Offense: What Every Attorney Should Know. You can access this at http://www.drpaulsimpson.com/seminars/ .

Federal Corner: Beware of the “Butner Study” Redux”
F.R. Buck Files, Jr.
Voice for the Defense Onlinem, 11/4/14

One study in particular, published in 2009—the Butner Study Redux—offers scientific justification for a claim that convicted child pornography offenders are likely guilty of additional crimes against children. Michael Bourke and Andres Hernandez conducted research on 155 child pornography offenders treated at the Federal Correctional Institution (“FCI”) in Butner, North Carolina. Bourke and Hernandez concluded that the vast majority of convicted child pornography offenders—eighty-five percent in their study—had committed at least one hands-on sexual offense. Butner Study Redux at 187–88.

[A History of the First Butner Study]

In 2000, Hernandez, the director of the Sex Offender Treatment Program (“SOTP”) at FCI Butner, presented preliminary findings before the annual conference for the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (“ATSA”) in San Diego, California. Andres E. Hernandez, Self-Reported Contact Sexual Offenses by Participants in the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Sex Offender Treatment Program: Implications for Internet Sex Offenders(Nov.2000) (unpublished manuscript), available at http:// www.ovsom.texas.gov/docs/Self–Reported–Contact–Sexual–Offenses Hernandez–et–al–2000.pdf (“First Butner Study”). The preliminary findings suggested a significantly higher rate of hands-on offenses amongst the population of child pornography offenders than had been known at the time of sentencing. First Butner Study at 6. The study involved . . . sixty-two people in the “Child Pornographer/Traveler” group, whose crimes of conviction “involve[d] the production, distribution, receipt, and possession of child pornography,” or “involve[d] luring a child and traveling across state lines to sexually abuse a child . . .”

Hernandez found that prisoners in the Child Porn/Traveler group identified fifty-five contact sex crimes in their PSRs, but, following their treatment, “these offenders admitted to an additional 1,379 contact sexual crimes for which they were never detected by or reported to the criminal justice system.” This difference represents a significant increase in the number of crimes that known child molesters and those with no previous history of hands-on offending committed.

[The Beginning of the Butner Study Redux]

Given the striking nature of these initial findings, Hernandez continued recording the incidents of hands-on offenses in the Butner SOTP. SeeHernandez Statement at 4. He enlisted the assistance of Michael Bourke, the Chief Psychologist for the United States Marshals Service. See Butner Study Redux at 183. Together, Hernandez and Bourke interviewed 155 offenders undergoing treatment at Butner between 2002 and 2005. See Butner Study Redux at 185.

[Judge Browning’s Criticism of the First Butner Study]

The distinction between the First Butner Study and the Butner Study Redux is important, as Hernandez’ initial research lacks the specificity, clarity, and reliability of the later research. The remainder of this Memorandum Opinion and Order will consider only the published article—the Butner Study Redux—and the findings contained therein.

[The Butner Study Redux]

Bourke and Hernandez conducted their research by interviewing child pornography offenders that chose to participate in an optional treatment program, SOTP, between 2002 and 2005. See Butner Study Redux at 186. Each SOTP participant worked with his clinician over the course of eighteen months. See Butner Study Redux at 185. They attended group and individual therapy sessions as well as unstructured “therapeutic activities” for fifteen hours a week. Butner Study Redux at 185. In addition, offenders spent sixty weeks attending a psychoeducational series in which they learn about coping mechanisms and managing their criminality after release. See Butner Study Redux at 185. They were also subjected to psychological testing.

The remaining 155 participants comprise the entire research sample relied upon in the published article. See Butner Study Redux at 186. Researchers studied two separate issues – “Contact Sexual Criminality” and “Crossover Behavior.”

[The Butner Study Redux’s Conclusion]

Bourke and Hernandez used the above procedure to determine how many of the 155 child pornography offenders had also molested a child. In doing so, they recorded the number of hands-on victims disclosed on the PHQ and compared that number to what was in the PSR. See Butner Study Reduxat 186. At sentencing, twenty-six percent were known to have committed a hands-on offense. See Butner Study Redux at 187. At the end of treatment, eighty-five percent admitted to molesting at least one child. See Butner Study Redux at 187. The study indicated that only fifteen percent of child pornography offenders had not committed any hands-on offense.

[Judge Browning’s Conclusions]

Although the Butner Study Redux indicates that many child pornography “lookers” are also “touchers,” the Court does not think it is appropriate to enhance Crisman’s sentence when there is no evidence that Crisman has molested children. The Court also will not use the Butner Study Redux’sfindings to conclude that Crisman poses a risk to the community, because the Court thinks it should base its finding of Crisman’s future risk of harm on evidence in his case and not on a study in which he was not involved. The Court finds that the Butner Study Redux’s findings are, however, persuasive for the following purpose: the Court will not vary from the sentencing guidelines calculation based on a Kimbrough v. United States, 552 U.S. 85, 128 S.Ct. 558, 169 L.Ed.2d 481 (2007), disagreement with the guidelines, because, although the guidelines may punish child pornographers harshly, the Butner Study Redux’s findings that many “lookers” are also “touchers” are disturbing and, in part, justify the United States Sentencing Commission’s, and ultimately Congress’, decision to set harsh punishments for child pornographers. The Butner Study Redux may support what most parents, and the public at large, intuitively think: men who frequently view child pornography might touch children inappropriately, and such men should not be around their children. Congress and the Commission’s sentences reflect these fears, and the Court should be reluctant to set aside these harsh sentences on Kimbrough v. United Statesgrounds. The Court will not do so here. The Court will sentence Crisman to ninety-seven months of imprisonment and twenty-five years of supervised release.

My Thoughts

If you are confronted with a Butner Study Redux issue, you have to read Judge Browning’s entire opinion. Downloaded, it is 66 printed pages and contains the following:
A History of the Child Pornography Guidelines;
Research Regarding the Butner Study Redux (Including an Overview of the Research);
A Judicial History of the Cases in which the Butner Study Redux was Cited;
Criticisms of the Butner Study Redux (Including Methodology, Author Bias, Sample Size and Representativeness, Verifying the Results and Generalizing the Butner Study Redux’s Findings);
The Sentencing Commission’s 2012 Report to Congress; and,
An Analysis of the Case before the Court.
What the Government has done in Crisman is precisely what the defense bar has been doing in seeking below the Guideline sentences in child pornography cases by citing United States v. Grober, 595 F.Supp.2d 382 (D.N.J.2008), and Troy Stabenow’s Deconstructing the Myth of the Careful Study: A Primer on the Flawed Progression of the Child Pornography Guidelines.
If you are defending child pornography cases, you must be familiar with Crisman and Grober and Stabenow’s article.

The Butner Study: A report on the fraudulent execution of the Adam Walsh Act by the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP).
Citizens for Change, America
Kaufman Abstract, 12/2/15
ABSTRACT
Title III of The Adam Walsh Child Safety and Protection Act of 2006 established the Jimmy Ryce Civil Commitment Program for Dangerous Sex Offenders, now codified at 18 U.S.C. § 4247, 4248. Under this new program, the Attorney General (AG) or anyone authorized by the AG or the Director of the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) may seek to civilly commit anyone in BOP custody by ―certifying‖ him (or her) as ―sexually dangerous‖. Treatment for those ultimately committed is dispensed at only one location in the United States: the federal prison at Butner, North Carolina, and in only one program: the Commitment and Treatment Program for Sexually Dangerous Persons (CTP). The clinical director of the BOP‘s CTP Program at FCI Butner is not on trial here, but his enormous influence can and will permeate, whether directly or indirectly, every upcoming § 4248 hearing in the Eastern District of North Carolina. This document, gleaned from various sources, is a factual chronicle of Dr. Andres E. Hernandez‘ decade-long ―Butner Study‖ from inception to its ultimate opprobrium by his peers and some federal courts.

Data, generated without rigorous methodology and/or without peer review, does not survive long in the realms of science, medicine, or law. Similarly, it should not carry any weight in psychiatry/psychology. However, The Butner Study has managed to insinuate itself into every nook and cranny of Sexually Violent Predator (SVP) commitment laws in the United States without such scrutiny. Calling it self-serving (i.e., for federal psychologists) is not descriptive enough. We must add ideological, agenda-driven, politically opportunistic, unethical, and, perhaps, even criminal. As you will read in the following pages, the legal decisions and peer reviews included herein call into question not only The Butner Study, but, more importantly, every single federal/BOP-generated forensic commitment evaluation done thus far as well as any and all programming and treatment under the BOP‘s Sex Offender Treatment Program (SOTP), its Sex Offender Management Program (SOMP), and CTP Program at FCI Butner.

TEXT
In November of 2000, at the 19th annual Conference of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers in San Diego, California, Andres E. Hernandez, Psy.D., presented an unpublished paper entitled, ―Self-reported contact sex offenses by participants in the BOP‘s SOTP Program: Implications for internet sex offenders‖. The gist of this, The Butner Study, is that a high percentage of child pornography (CP) offenders, 76%, admitted to hands-on child sex abuse that was unknown to law enforcement (taken from 54 CP offenders while in the SOTP at FCI Butner, Dr. Hernandez, then the director). If true, this statistic would be quite startling. On further examination, however, the study‘s sensational results are highly suspect and, very likely, spurious. In fact (see the peer reviews cited herein), no scientifically accepted methodology was used to produce the numbers presented.

Nevertheless, Dr. Hernandez privately distributed his study widely, without peer review or any other oversight, and thus bypassed normal opportunities for either scientific validation or refutation by experts in the field of sexual offender diagnosis and treatment. He distributed his study to a limited but very receptive audience nationally (and later internationally, specifically Great Britain), including law enforcement officials and agencies, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Justice (DOJ), and state and federal prosecutors. But it was the policy makers who especially welcomed the study‘s implications.

On May 1, 2002, the Chief of the FBI‘s Crimes Against Children Unit, Michael J. Heimbach, cited Dr. Hernandez and his study during testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives‘ Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security, Committee on the Judiciary. Indeed, Dr. Hernandez himself was asked to present testimony before Congress concerning ―Sexual Exploitation of Children Over the Internet: The Face of a Child Predator and Other Issues‖ (Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, Committee on Energy and Commerce, U.S. House of Representatives, September 26, 2006). Later that same year, The Butner Study was quoted as a ―recent empirical study‖ in the U.S. Attorney Bulletin, ―Internet Pornography and Child Exploitation – How Computer Forensics Can Dramatically Improve a Case‖ by Stephen J. Grocki and Lam D. Nguyen, Vol. 54, No. 7, November 2006 (available at http://www.justice.gov/usao/eousa/foia_reading_room/usab5407.pdf).

If not utilizing scientific methods, how did he formulate these results? The answer is better described in a Memorandum entitled, ―Adam Walsh III: It‘s Not the Sentence, it‘s the Commitment‖, authored by Amy Baron-Evans and Sara Noonan of the National Federal Defender Sentencing Resource, Research and Writing Counsel:

For [SOTP] inmates … failing to disclose additional, undetected offenses and/or victims has been viewed as indicative of a refusal or unwillingness to fully participate in therapy. Some inmates who volunteered for the SOTP but declined to admit any hands-on victims were expelled for being ̳in denial‘. Clients who participated in the program have recounted intense pressure to increase the number of hands-on victims over time in order to be deemed ̳making progress‘. The BOP required updated ̳Victim Lists‘ every six months, encouraged inmates to compete with each other on who was more ̳forthcoming‘, and made no attempt to corroborate. As a result of this routine coercion, inmates kept scorecards in their cells so that they would remember to report a higher number of victims when next asked, and were never required to provide victim names or other identifying details. Ostensibly, this was to promote disclosure without fear of self- incrimination, but it has allowed the BOP to ̳tally up‘ unlimited ̳evidence‘ of multiple hands-on victims with no corroboration whatsoever. Indeed, the numbers of hands-on victims BOP claims were admitted by CP offenders in its ̳treatment‘ program are incredible on their face. See Julian Sher & Benedict Carey, ̳Debate on Child Pornography‘s Link to Molesting‘, New York Times, (July 19, 2007)‖ (available at fd.org).

Not satisfied with spreading disinformation without at least the appearance of science, Dr. Hernandez, in 2007 (now joined by Butner SOTP Treatment Specialist Dr. Michael L. Bourke), attempted to publish a subsequent paper (probably a continuation of the same study), but this was met with resistance from their employer. In a letter dated April 3, 2007, Judith Simon Garrett, assistant counsel at the BOP, requested that the editors of The Journal of Family Violence (the periodical that accepted the paper for publication) withdraw the study because it did not meet ―agency approval‖, and went on to say, ―Mr. Hernandez failed to submit for agency review the version of the paper that he provided to you for publication.‖ (New York Times, ibid).

The first judicial encounter with The Butner Study was in April, 2003, at a detention hearing (see U.S. v. Thomas, 2006 U.S. Dist. Lexis 3266), during which FBI Supervisory Special Agent James T. Clemente proffered it (he called it the ―Hernandez Study‖) in support of his contention that defendant Thomas, charged with sexual exploitation of a child and the receipt and possession of child pornography, should not be released prior to trial. U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan K. Gauvey rightly countered with an expanded discourse on evidentiary law and expert testimony, deciding ultimately that Clemente‘s risk assessment technique was based on ―anecdotal information … was not error-checked or peer reviewed for accuracy‖ and was, therefore, unreliable (Judge Gauvey ordered Thomas freed on bail; the government appealed the ruling to the presiding district judge who upheld the release decision). From her ruling:

“SSA Clemente‘s testimony patently demonstrated that the Daubert factors [a standard of evidence regarding expert forensic psychological testimony] were not satisfied, with the arguably sole exception of general acceptance within the law enforcement community.”

Five years later, The Butner Study would receive its most damning criticism from the bench in U.S. v. Johnson (588 F. Supp. 2d 997, U.S. Dist. Lexis 106494 (Iowa)) in which government prosecutors, citing the study, implied that the defendant ―is statistically more likely than not to have actually committed an act of child sexual abuse‖. From the Court‘s ruling by Chief Judge Robert W. Pratt:

“The Government offers the Butner Study to demonstrate that Defendant is a threat to the Public … The inference that the Government asks the Court to draw is distasteful and prohibited by law. Uncharged criminal conduct may generally only be considered in sentencing if proved by a preponderance of the evidence. Moreover, the Government bears the burden of proof. The Butner Study, even if credible, falls far short of this standard because it fails to demonstrate whether Defendant has, personally, previously assaulted a child sexually. At most, the Study reveals that a majority of other individuals with similar criminal history committed crimes against children, but the Court cannot see how evidence of those individuals‘ crimes establishes by a preponderance of the evidence that Defendant committed a prior sexual crime. This conclusion is only bolstered by the fact that the Government failed to present any physical evidence that Defendant sexually assaulted anyone, let alone a child. The Government produced no witnesses, no victims, no forensic evidence, no confession, and no other sign that any previous improper sexual activity occurred. Indeed, the Government agreed with the Presentence Report‘s calculation of Defendant‘s criminal history, which does not include any references to prior sexual cries. Therefore, this Court will not accept the implicit invitation to use the Butner Study to hold Defendant accountable for a phantom crime unsupported by any evidence.

The Court also rejects the Government‘s attempt to use the Butner Study to demonstrate that Defendant is a danger to the community. The Government argues that Defendant is dangerous because the Study indicates other individuals charged with similar crimes have committed ―hands-on‖ sexual abuse of sample population consisted of incarcerated individuals participating in a sexual offender treatment program at a federal correctional institution. As [Dr. Dan L.] Rogers testified, the program is ̳highly coercive.‘ Unless offenders continue to admit to further sexual crimes, whether or not they actually committed those crimes, the offenders are discharged from the program. Consequently, the subjects in this Study had an incentive to lie, despite the fact that participation in the program would not shorten their sentences. Rogers testified that the Study‘s ̳whole approach‘ is rejected by the treatment and scientific community. Complicating this bias is the fact that the Butner Study did not report on the nearly 23% (46/201) of individuals in the treatment program who left due to ̳voluntary withdrawal, expulsion, or death.‘ As a result, the offender population and the Study‘s results were almost certainly skewed.

The Court will note that the Butner Study is not exactly on point because it never delves into the risk of recidivism of sexual offenders. The Study merely investigates whether current sexual offenders have committed other, undisclosed sexual crimes. The Court will, however, accept the proposition that those who have physically harmed children are more dangerous to the community than individuals who only collect child pornography. Thus, the Study is indirectly relevant in determining the dangerous of an individual like the defendant.

The Butner Study also suffers from additional methodological flaws. First, the subjects of the Study were not randomly selected from those who only collect child pornography, which indicates that even setting aside the incentive to lie, the sample population may not be representative of the larger population that collects child pornography. Second, the Study employed an unpublished questionnaire. This prevents other independent researchers from verifying whether this questionnaire is reliable and capable of producing results that are accurate and meaningful. Third, the Study relies, in part, on the results from polygraph examinations, which is highly problematic given the unreliability of such tests, especially since ̳no standard for training polygraph experts‘ exists. Fourth, the Study is not peer reviewed, which is review process would likely be ̳pretty uncomfortable‘ for the researchers because the data and statistics in the Study do not fit the researchers‘ conclusions. Finally, the Study also appears to suffer from flaws relating to its control group and independent variable, or lack thereof. into evidence under Federal Rule of Evidence 701 (Daubert). Although the Federal Rules of Evidence do not technically apply at sentencing, the Court does note that this Study would likely fail to meet the Daubert standard.

Instead of producing an expert to explain the apparent weaknesses in the Butner Study, the Government preferred to attack Rogers‘ critique. The Government first brought out the fact that Rogers had not seen the questionnaire and had no knowledge of the 155 inmates, arguing that Rogers had ̳no factual basis to dispute‘ the methodology or conclusions of the Study. The Government also tacitly encouraged the Court to look beyond any flaws in the Study because it was ̳’exploratory,‘ a ̳’first step‘ that the authors believe to be the ̳’tip of the iceberg.‘ The Court, however, finds neither of these arguments persuasive. The Court agrees with Rogers‘ testimony that it was the duty of the researchers to be transparent and to fully incorporate their methodology and conclusions into the Study so that other independent researchers could verify the reliability of the Study. By failing to disclose this information, the researchers failed to meet the ̳’standard in scientific research‘ and failed to produce a study upon which the Court can rely. The Court will not accept ̳science‘ conducted in secret. Second, the Court will not look past the shortcomings of this Study merely because the Study is unique or new. Indeed, the fact that the Study is revolutionary in nature gives this Court great pause for concern, especially since it produced the sensational result that somewhere between 85% and 98% of child pornography collectors have personally molested children.⁹

⁹The Court finds these results highly questionable given the extraordinarily high percentages, as well as the fact that the researchers saw a 2,369% increase ̳in the number of contact sexual offenses acknowledged by the treatment participants‘ during the course of the Study. These astronomical figures lead the Court to question whether this unvetted prison Study, conducted by the former chief of the federal sexual offender treatment program and distributed by the Department of Justice to prosecutors, is, in actuality, a product of the tremendous ̳’political pressure applied‘ to researchers is this research field.

In sum, the Court will not consider the results of the Butner Study unless and until either the Government or the researchers provide transparency for its methodology and a compelling explanation for its many apparent failings. While the Court is loathe to simply agree with a mostly unchallended expert¹⁰, the Court can find no error in Rogers‟ conclusion that the Butner Study ‘isn’t scientifically vetted, doesn’t meet scientific standards for research, and is based, upon, frankly, an incoherent design for a study‟.

¹⁰The Court believes that the adversarial process is the best means for ferreting out the truth, and without another expert to challenge Rogers, any weaknesses in his testimony may not be revealed. Thus, the Court hesitates to simply accept his testimony.”

For a scholarly discourse on sex offense law in general, and civil commitment in particular, including a focus on U.S. v. Johnson and The Butner Study, see Justice Perverted: Sex Offense Law, Psychology, and Public Policy, by Charles P. Ewing, an accomplished law professor and psychologist from the State University of New York/University at Buffalo Law School (Oxford University Press, New York, 2011, ISBN 978-0-19-973267-8). An excerpt:

“. . . Judge [Pratt from Johnson] rejected the study, its methods, and its results and even went so far as to question the motives of those who conducted it.”

Undaunted, Drs. Bourke and Hernandez continued to seek publication (and, we assume, BOP agency approval‖). In 2009, The Journal of Family Violence did finally publish it (Vol. 24, 183- 191) as -The Butner Study Redux: A report of the incidence of hands-on victimization by child pornography offenders‖. This time they cited 155 inmates, 85 % of whom reportedly admitted to previously unknown-to-law-enforcement hands-on crimes for a total of 1,777 hands-on victims. (You will recall that The Butner Study (2000) cited a 76 % figure.)

Now in the published arena, The Butner Study finally became available for the peer review so long avoided, and some of the reviews have already appeared in the literature, with more on the way. An excerpt from one of the first:

“Although the format of Bourke and Hernandez‘ article may convey the aura of science, their results are misleading for a number of reasons. First, clients in our outpatient program who also participated in the Butner program have told us that they found the Butner definition of a sex offense to be more inclusive than more typical definitions that are encountered in everyday settings. Second, the same clients have also told us that the polices of the Butner program led them to believe that they were expected to amend their offense disclosures on a regular basis and that they did their best to appear responsive to this demand because they did not want to be seen in a negative light. Third, the primary content of the [technique] adopted by Bourke and Hernandez—self-disclosed incidents of non-adjudicated crimes—is not the consensually accepted standard for assessing the risk of child molestation. That status is reserved for post-apprehension recidivism in the form of new arrests or convictions. In light of the importance of this measure, Bourke and Hernandez did not adequately address the issue of dangerousness because they did not collect recidivism data.”

Child Pornography Offenders Do Not Have Florid Offense Histories and Are Unlikely to Recidivate‖, Poster session presented to the annual meeting of The Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, October, 2009, Dallas, TX, by Dr. Richard Wollert, Ph.D., Jacqueline Waggoner, Ed.D., and Jason Smith, Psy.D. (The complete paper is available at richardwollert.com)

Dr. Wollert, et al, go on to state that the study “exaggerated the dangerousness of CP [offenders]” and that the study’s results “are probably attributable to poor research methodology”.

An upcoming book by Dr. Richard Krueger, a psychiatrist and Associate Clinical Professor at Columbia University‘s College of Physicians and Surgeons, entitled “Non-Contact Sexual Offenses: Exhibitionism, Voyeurism, Possession of Child Pornography, and Interacting with Children Over the Internet” will “present emerging data which adds to the literature debunking The Butner Study”. Dr. Krueger also mentions “the oft-cited study (Bourke and Hernandez, 2009)”, the SOTP‘s treatment participants “incentive to lie” the criticism the study received “in a legal opinion” (Johnson), and the study‘s “skewed results‖” (from personal email, January 14, 2011).

In July of 1999, the results of a Swiss research project, comparable to The Butner Study, entitled ―The consumption of Internet child pornography and violent and sex offending‖ was published in Australia by BioMed Central Ltd. (available from http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471- 244X/9/43). Led by Frank Urbaniok of the Canton of Zurich Department of Justice, the study‘s aim was to “examine the recidivism rates for hands-on and hands-off sex offenses in a sample of child pornography users using a 6-year follow-up design”, and delved into the criminal records of 231 men who were charged with viewing child pornography via a U.S. website. In the six years before the 2002 police operation, only 1% were known to have committed a hands-on offense. And only 1% of the men committed a hands-on sex offense in the six years afterward. As important as the significant difference in this study‘s results (1% vs. Hernandez‘ and Bourke‘s 85%) is its adherence to widely-accepted scientific methodology and transparency. The researchers even took the added step of seeking ethical and judicial approval before the study began:

“… the entire research project was presented to the Justice Department of the Canton of Zurich. A second examination was conducted by the Federal Office of Justice in connection with the request for the criminal records. The study was approved and supported by both authorities.”

On April 5, 2009, Dr. Hernandez responded to his critics with a “position paper” entitled “Psychological and Behavioral Characteristics of Child Pornography Offenders in Treatment”, presented to The Injury Prevention Research Center at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, at their Global Symposium, examining the relationship between online and offline offenses and preventing the sexual exploitation of children. The following excerpt from this paper reveals a man clearly in denial:

“Focusing on only the extremes of a subject matter obscures the truth, inhibits rational dialogue and scientific inquiry, and sometimes results in uninformed public and criminal justice policy decisions.”

And even more amazingly, he continues:

“Some individuals have used the results of Hernandez (2000) and Bourke and Hernandez (2009) to fuel the argument that the majority of CP offenders are indeed contact sexual offenders and, therefore, dangerous predators. This simply is not supported by the scientific evidence.”

In response to the question, “Is Dr. Hernandez backpedaling?” Dr. Richard Wollert answered, “It does seem Dr. H. is backpedaling. The question is whether or not one is absolved of accountability for backing up after causing a train wreck.” (Private correspondence, December, 2010).

Unfortunately, for ten-plus years, the results of The Butner Study have been repeated so many times as to become fact in many places and in many minds. Two thoughtful men, more eloquent than ourselves, describe it best:

“When ideas go unexamined and unchallenged for a long time, certain things happen. They become mythological, and they become very, very powerful.”

Edgar L. Doctorow

“The greatest enemy of the truth is not the lie – deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth – persistent, pervasive and unrealistic.

John F. Kennedy

Sharon Begley, Science Editor for Newsweek magazine, in an article entitled “Ignoring the Evidence: Why do Psychologists reject Science?” (October 12, 2009) discussed a then to-be- published article in Perspectives on Psychological Science (November 2009) by a team of psychologists led by Timothy B. Baker of the University of Wisconsin and its charge that many clinicians fail to “use the interventions for which there is the strongest evidence of efficacy” and “give more weight to their personal experiences than to science”. As a result, patients have no assurance that their “treatment will be informed by science”. Still quoting Dr. Baker, Ms. Begley goes on to say that clinical psychologists are “deeply ambivalent about the role of science” and “lack solid science training” a result of science-lite curricula, especially in Psy.D. programs.

We close with several unanswered questions:

Did FBI Agent Heimbach and/or Dr. Hernandez lie to Congress? If so, isn‘t this a crime?

Has Dr. Hernandez‘ directorship of the BOP‘s SOTP/SOMP and current CTP programs been nothing more than one egregious misappropriation of federal monies?

Should the government‘s Health and Human Services Office of Research Integrity be called on to open an investigation of The Butner Study and its authors?

Should the U.S. Attorneys in Raleigh, North Carolina, not do the same?

Should the editors of The Journal of Family Violence, particularly after publishing “The Butner Study Redux‖ after the Johnson decision, be professionally and morally obligated to print a retraction?

How could any BOP inmates so unfortunate as to be committed under § 4248 have the “assurance that their treatment will be informed by science” in a program run by one of the authors of The Butner Study?

Dr. Hernandez’ program at Butner FCI is conducted solely by himself. There is no outside, independent or peer oversight whatsoever. He is, as the saying goes, a law unto himself. When will rigorous government oversight of Butner‘s SOTP/CTP programming begin? And can we all agree that it is long overdue?

Will the judges in the three cases that accepted The Butner Study on its face (see References) wish to revisit their rulings in light of Thomas and Johnson?

And, finally, who on Capitol Hill is Dr. Hernandez’ patron/guardian angel from whom stems the “political pressure applied” (as eloquently phrased by Judge Pratt in Johnson)?

REFERENCES

Baron-Evans, A., Noonan, S. (2007, September) ―Adam Walsh Act III: It‘s Not the Sentence, It‘s the Commitment‖, Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act Resource Page (available at www.fd.org)
Begley, S. (2009, October) Ignoring the Evidence: Why do Psychologists Reject Science? Newsweek, October 12, 2009 (available at http://www.newsweek.com/2009/10/01/ignoring-the-evidence.html)
Bourke, M., Hernandez, A. (2009) The Butner Study Redux: A report of the incidence of hands- on victimization by child pornography offenders. The Journal of Family Violence,
Vol. 24, 183-191 (available at http://bcsdcybercrimes.com/Documents/Hernandez%20Study.pdf)
Endrass, J., Urbaniok, R., Hammermeister, L., Benz, C., Elbert, T., Laubadrer, A., Rossegger, A. (2009, July) The Consumption of Internet Child Pornography and Violent and Sex Offending, BMC Psychiatry, 2009 9:43 (available at www.biomedcentral.com/1471- 244x/9/43)
Grocki, J., Nguyen, D. (2006, November) ―Internet Pornography and Child Exploitation—How Computer Forensics Can Dramatically Improve a Case‖, U.S. Attorney Bulletin, Vol. 54, No. 7 (available at http://www.justice.gov/usao/eousa/foia_reading_room/usab5407.pdf)
Hernandez, A. (2000, April) Psychological and Behavioral Characteristics of Child Pornography Offenders in Treatment, presented to The Injury Prevention Research Center at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (available at http://www.iprc. unc.edu/G8/Hernandez_position_paper_Global_Symposium.pdf)
Hernandez, A. (2000, November). ―Self-reported contact sexual offenses by participants in the Federal Bureau of Prisons‘ Sex Offender Treatment Program: Implications for Internet sex offenders.‖ Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, San Diego, CA (available at http://www.ccoso.org/library%20articles/Hernandez%20et%20al%20ATSA%202000.pdf )
Heimbach, M. (2002, May). Testimony before the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, Committee on the Judiciary, United States House of Representatives, May 1, 2002, ―Internet Child Pornography‖ (available at http://www2.fbi.gov/congress/congress02/heimbach050102.htm)
Hernandez, A. (2006, September). Statement and testimony before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, Committee on Energy and Commerce, Unites States House of Representatives, “Sexual Exploitation of Children over the Internet: The Face of a Child Predator and Other Issues”, September 26, 2006 (available at http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname-109_house_

hearings&docid=f:31469.wais)

Sher, J., Carey, B. (2007, July) ―Debate on Child Pornography‘s Link to Molesting‖, NEW YORK TIMES, July 19, 2007 (available at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/19/us/ 19sex.html?pagewanted=print)
U.S. v. Thomas (2006 U.S. Dist. Lexis 3266 (Maryland))
U.S. v. Johnson (2008, December) 588 F. Supp. 2d 997 (Iowa)
Wollert, R., Waggoner, J., Smith, J. (2009, October) Child Pornography Offenders Do Not Have Florid Offense Histories and Are Unlikely to Recidivate. Poster Session presented at the Annual Conference of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, Dallas, TX (available at http://txn.fd.org/Wollert%20Federal%20Internet%20Child%20Pornography %20Offenders.pdf)

Position Paper: Psychological and Behavioral Characteristics of Child Pornography Offenders in Treatment
Andres E. Hernandez, Psy.D.
Global Symposium: Examining the relationship between online and offline offenses and preventing the sexual exploitation of children. The Injury Prevention Research Center. The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. April 5-7, 2009
Abstract
Child pornography (CP) offenders represent one of the fastest growing groups in the criminal justice system. These offenders often present with diverse backgrounds that differ from most criminal groups. Many have no prior criminal history. Some are deeply immersed in highly sophisticated criminal networks involving the sexual abuse and exploitation of children. Understanding the diversity of these offenders is crucial to the development of effective public policy. This paper provides an overview of the results of a study that examined the incidence of hands-on sexual criminality, crossover behavior, and the onset of (online and offline) sexual criminality among a sample of CP offenders who participated in a prison-based treatment program. The paper concludes with recommendations for a research agenda based on existing empirical and theoretical work in other, but related, areas of study.

Introduction
Child pornography offenders, the vast majority of whom are first time offenders, have been entering the criminal justice system at an alarming rate for the past two decades. Many of these individuals appear to have led responsible, law-abiding lives, and their involvement in criminal activity is restricted to possession and distribution of child pornography. Others are deeply immersed in complex and sophisticated world-wide criminal networks that produce, distribute and consume millions of images of child abuse and exploitation. Between these two ends of the spectrum is a significantly heterogeneous group of individuals that comprise the majority of CP offenders.

As the penalties for child pornography crimes have steadily increased over the past ten years, judges have felt challenged by sentencing decisions and risk management considerations regarding community supervision. CP defendants are frequently portrayed by their attorneys as individuals who were regrettably seduced by the Internet into an illegal activity, and that they pose no danger to public safety because their behavior was caused by a relatively minor or temporal problem (e.g., depression, Internet addiction). On the other side of the courtroom, the same defendants are portrayed by prosecutors as sick, dangerous and covert predators who pose a direct and imminent risk to the safety of children everywhere. In my opinion, these extreme and opposing views do not describe the vast majority of CP offenders. Like other criminal offenders, CP offenders are distributed along a wide spectrum with multiple dimensions (e.g., criminogenic, sexual deviance, demographic). For example, there are CP possessors who are highly criminalized, behaviorally dysregulated, and sexually deviant. These individuals obviously represent a risk to public safety. On the other side of the spectrum, there are CP possessors who are not generally antisocial or sexually deviant, and have relatively intact self-regulatory mechanisms. Although both offenders commit the same crime (i.e., possession of child pornography), they are vastly different in terms of their risk to public safety. Understanding CP offenders requires comprehensive study of the individual offenders, the crimes, and the contextual variables in which the crimes occur. Focusing on only the extremes of a subject matter obscures the truth, inhibits rational dialogue and scientific inquiry, and sometimes results in uninformed public and criminal justice policy decisions. (*pp. 3-4) For example, while residency restrictions, community notification, sex offender registration, and civil commitment laws may be noble attempts to increase public safety, the impetus for these laws was a handful of tragic (and extreme) cases that acquired national attention (e.g., Megan Kanka, Dru Sjodin, Jacob Wetterling, Adam Walsh, Jimmy Ryce). In my opinion, many of the laws passed in the name of these victims indeed have merit. However, they also foment the (unsupported) notion that most sex offenders are skilled and violent predators who assault their victims in parks or near schools. In the interests of keeping our children safe, these laws have proliferated and, while they remain popular among legislators, politicians, and concerned citizens, the scientific evidence supporting their efficacy or positive impact is weak and arguably counterproductive (see Levenson & Cotter, 2005).

At the center of this debate of extremism is the question of the nexus between online and offline (contact) sexual offenses involving children. Some studies have reported a noteworthy co-occurrence of contact sexual offenses among CP offenders entering the criminal justice system or in clinical settings (Hernandez, 2000; Wolak, Finkelhor & Mitchell, 2005; Seto, Cantor & Blanchard, 2006; Bourke & Hernandez,2009). However, the actual co-occurrence of online and offline sexual offenses in the larger population of CP users is unknown. The number of individuals who are apprehended by law enforcement for committing CP offenses represents a small proportion of the population of individuals collecting, trading and producing child pornography worldwide. Although child pornography crimes are clearly abhorrent and show visual evidence of child abuse and exploitation, the strong emotional reactions experienced by individuals enforcing child pornography laws frequently fuel the extreme argument that all of these offenders are dangerous monsters. Some individuals have misused the results of Hernandez (2000) and Bourke and Hernandez (2009) to fuel the argument that the majority of CP offenders are indeed contact sexual offenders and, therefore, dangerous predators. This simply is not supported by the scientific evidence. The incidence of contact sexual crimes among CP offenders, as we reported in our studies, is important and worthy of considerable empirical examination. However, it is not a conclusive finding that can be generalized to all CP offenders. Notwithstanding, some individuals in law enforcement are tempted to rely on a biased interpretation of our study (i.e., to prove that the majority of CP offenders are child molesters). Some law enforcement personnel are horrified at the thousands of tragic images of child abuse and exploitation they review on a regular basis. These “crime scene” images depict terrible child exploitation, sexual violations, and emotional suffering in unimaginable quantity. The emotional reactions of those who investigate and prosecute these crimes are understandable. The reasonable person investigating or prosecuting these crimes may ask, “How is anyone in their right mind able to collect and derive sexual pleasure from the victimization of innocent children, and how can these people not be dangerous offenders?” Some may also believe that the only way to ensure public safety is by placing CP offenders in prison. While I empathize with the emotional issues and moral dilemmas experienced by those who investigate and prosecute CP crimes, I believe we cannot prosecute or incarcerate our way out of this problem. The answer to complex problems requires complex and rational solutions. The scientific evidence informing the relationship between the online sexual exploitation of children and contact sexual crimes against children is in its infancy. The field of psychology has recently begun to recognize that CP offenders present with a unique set of paraphilic, criminogenic, and other psychological characteristics (e.g., Seto, Cantor and Blanchard, 2006; Elliott, Beech,Madeville-Norden, and Hayes, 2009; Paul and Linz, 2008; Webb, Craissati, and Keen, 2007; Quayle and Taylor, 2002). Still, many questions about these offenders remain unanswered.

Overview of “The ‘Butner Redux’ Study”

The impetus for my empirical study of CP offenders was my clinical work within carcerated online sex offenders. In 1997, there was little information about this criminal population and many individuals in the criminal justice system viewed these offenders as mere “computer criminals.” During their participation in treatment, however, I began to observe more similarities than differences between the so-called online and offline sex offenders. One dimension in which the two groups appeared similar was their history involving undetected contact sexual offenses. I found that CP offenders in treatment routinely disclosed previously undetected contact sexual offenses, mimicking patterns frequently observed in research involving contact sexual offenders(Alhmeyer et al., 2000).In the Butner Redux study, we examined the relationship between online and contact sexual offences among a group of male incarcerated sex offenders participating in a residential treatment program. We posed the question: “Are offenders who collect and/or distribute child pornography merely collectors of child abuse images, at little risk for engaging in hands-on sexual offenses, or are they contact sex offenders whose hands-on behavior involving children has gone undetected?” Our sample was comprised of 155 sex offenders who volunteered to participate in a prison-based sex offender treatment program. The subjects were convicted of possession, receipt, and/or distribution of child pornography. We compared their documented criminal sexual history (i.e., the number of victims of sexual abuse peroffender) with their self-reported sexual history as disclosed in treatment. The purpose of our study was to determine how many of the CP offenders without a documented history of contact sexual crimes subsequently self-reported contact sex offenses. To validate the accuracy of self-report, treatment participants received a sexual history polygraph examination. Approximately half (52%) of the study sample received a polygraph examination; the remainder did not for various reasons, including premature termination or withdrawal from the treatment program.

In our first analysis, we compared the incidence of documented contact sexual crimes with the incidence of self-reported contact sexual crimes upon completion of treatment. At the time of sentencing, 40 subjects (26%) had documented histories of abusing a child via a hands-on sexual act, totaling 75 victims, or an average of 1.88 (SD =1.88) victims per offender. By the end of treatment, 131 subjects (85%) admitted they had at least one hands-on sexual offense, a 59% increase in the number of subjects with documented hands-on offenses. The total number of reported victims known at the end of treatment, among all offenders disclosing such history (n = 131), was 1,777, an average of 13.56 (SD = 30.11) victims per offender. When analyzed separately, we found that the40 subjects who had documented histories of hands-on sexual offending at the time of sentencing disclosed an average of 19.4 victims during their treatment period. Incomparison, the 115 subjects with no documented histories of contact sexual crimes ultimately disclosed an average of 8.7 victims. In other words, the online sex offenders in our sample with a known or documented history of contact sexual crimes reported committing more than twice as many contact sexual crimes than those whose contact offenses had remained undetected by the criminal justice system.

In our second analysis, we explored “crossover” of offending, a concept that refers to sexual offending across gender, age groups, and relationship to victim (Heil etal., 2003). In this analysis, we used a subset of 131 offenders who, at the end of treatment, acknowledged they had committed at least one act of hands-on abuse. We found that a significant percentage of subjects in our sample crossed age bands and gender categories. Offenders who reported targeting male victims were significantly more likely to engage in crossover behavior by gender when compared with subjects whoonly reported targeting female victims. By the end of treatment, 67% of the admitted hands-on offenders (n = 131) acknowledged abusing both pre-pubescent and post-pubescent children, a 47% increase from what was known at the time of sentencing. With respect to gender, the percentage of these offenders who admitted both male and female victims increased from 15% to 40%. Of all subjects in our sample (n = 155), nearly two-thirds admitted during treatment they had abused both pre- and post-pubescent victims, an increase of 52% from what was documented prior to sentencing. Similarly, the percentage of subjects who acknowledged abusing children of both genders increased by25%. Among the offenders who did not have any documented contact victims at the time of sentencing, 24% indicated during treatment that they had victimized children of both genders and 48% said they abused both pre- and post-pubescent victims.

In a third analysis of the data (not reported in Bourke & Hernandez, 2009), we examined the age of onset for online and offline (contact) sexual crimes among a subset(n = 42) of the sample who had committed contact sexual crimes after 1990. The purpose of this exploratory analysis was to shed light onto the issue of developmental pathways for CP offending. We examined whether the CP offenses were preceded by contact sexual offenses, or vice versa. The median age for the onset of contact sexual crimes was16 years, and the median age for the onset of online child pornography crimes was 24years. The vast majority of our subjects indicated they committed acts of hands-on abuse prior to seeking child pornography via the Internet. The results indicated that in 41 of the 42 cases examined, hands-on sexual crimes preceded CP offenses. Although this observation is noteworthy, readers are cautioned against over-interpretation. At this time, these findings should promote the formulation of hypotheses and further scientific inquiry.

While the findings reported in Bourke and Hernandez (2009) have received considerable attention, the conclusions articulated in the article are limited by the fact that subjects were volunteer participants in a sex offender treatment program. Our subjects were predominantly Caucasian (95%), spanning the ages of 21 to 71 years, and well-educated relative to the overall prison population (i.e., the modal level of education was “some college”). While the demographic characteristics of our sample were similar to large national samples (e.g., Wolak et al, 2005), the degree to which the results of our study are generalizable to all CP offenders is unknown, and this important question will only be answered with additional scientific inquiry.

Conclusions of Bourke and Hernandez (2009)
A substantial percentage of offenders in our study who initially claimed to be at low (or no) risk of harm to children because they exclusively collected child abuse images and allegedly never molested a child, subsequently indicated they had committed acts of undetected child sexual abuse. In fact, the Internet offenders in our sample were significantly more likely than not to have sexually abused a child. The findings also indicate that the offenders who abused children were likely to have offended against multiple victims, and that the incidence of “crossover” by gender and age was high.

The findings suggest that online criminal investigations, while targeting so-called “Internet sex offenders,” likely have resulted in the apprehension of concomitant child molesters. Had it not been for their Internet criminality, these offenders may other wise have escaped detection by law enforcement. This raises the question of whether the advent of the Internet has created a new type of sex offender, or if it merely provides additional outlets for sexually deviant individuals. In other words, are we faced with a new type of offender, or a new type of offending? The results of this study suggest the latter: Internet child pornography offenders may be undetected child molesters, and the use of child pornography may be an adjunctive behavioral manifestation of their preexisting paraphilic orientation.

Our study did not address the questions of how, and under what circumstances, exposure to Internet child pornography affects individuals. Juxtaposing the documented and self-reported sexual offending histories of CP offenders (i.e., 26% vs. 85% incidence of contact sexual crimes) was an important objective of our study. In the context of a criminal justice system that is frequently driven by extreme opinions (i.e., “CP offender are not at risk of harm to children versus CP offenders are all dangerous sexual predators”), we believe the results of our investigation will provide the basis for much needed empirical work. We seek to promote additional scientific and disciplined study of this subject matter.

Future Directions
In order to understand a new phenomenon, it is helpful to draw upon the knowledge base that stems from related areas of study. For example, the scientific inquiry into the psychological impact of exposure to (adult) pornography represents an important building block that may inform the empirical study of individuals who are exposed to child pornography. Although the results of some studies in this area have yielded mixed and equivocal results (e.g., Fisher and Grenier, 1994), there are some conclusions that we can more confidently draw from the scientific literature. One such finding is that exposure to (adult) pornography appears to have a negative impact on the viewer, especially if the content of the pornography is violent and the individual being exposed has preexisting psychological factors that place him at risk of offending (see Malamuth et al, 2000). Regarding the use of pornography by sex offenders, Abel, Mittelman, and Becker (1985) found that adult pornography use was common (88%)among their sample of pedophilic child molesters, and Bernard (1985) reported that 74%of a sample of pedophiles reported possessing visual images of nude children. There is also evidence showing that the frequency of use and type of (adult) pornography correlates with criminal and violent recidivism in sex offenders (Kingston et al, 2008).Williams et al. (2009) found that, while deviant sexual fantasies are common, behavioral acting out on those fantasies is largely mediated by personality characteristics such as psychopathy. These findings, while they are most relevant to the impact of adult pornography, may be extrapolated to guide our study of child pornography and its psychological and behavioral impact on those who view the material. The evidence appears to suggest there is a complex and perhaps reciprocal relationship between adult pornography and sex offenders; that is, sex offenders use pornography and pornography negatively affects sex offenders.

Another promising area of study focuses on the motivational pathways to offending behavior (Ward & Siegert, 2002; Ward et al, 2004) in CP cases. While CP offenders’ motivations for engaging in deviant sexual and criminal behavior varies considerably and appears complex, the pathways and self-regulatory styles may be very similar to those of contact sexual offenders. Ward and Siegert (2002) propose four pathways for sexual offending. Each pathway is characterized by interpersonal and psychological skills deficits (i.e., intimacy deficits and emotional dysregulation), faulty cognitions (i.e., distorted sexual scripts and antisocial cognitions), and sexual deviance. Middlleton, Elliot, Mandeville-Norden and Beech (2006) found that sixty percent of Internet offenders in their sample could be assigned to one of the pathways. The majority of the subjects belonged to the Intimacy Deficits and Emotional Dysregulation pathways. In comparing Internet offenders with contact sexual offenders, Elliott, Beech, Mandeville-Norden and Hayes (2009) examined a number of psychological dimensions related to offense-supportive beliefs, empathic concern, interpersonal functioning, and emotional management. They found that Internet sex offenders had less entrenched cognitive and victim empathy distortions and lower frequency of attitudes and beliefs supportive of child sexual abuse. These two studies are very promising, as they high lightthe complexity and multi-factorial nature of Internet sexual offending. Further study of the application of the Pathways Model to CP offenders is likely to reveal similarities and differences as compared to contact sexual offenders.

One of the questions that frequently baffle mental health and criminal justice professionals alike is whether it is possible for sexual deviance, such as pedophilia, to emerge later in life. In fact, it has been a common experience to encounter CP offenders who are apprehended well into their 40s, 50s and, in some cases, their 60s. Many of these offenders report that their sexually deviant interest and behavior began late in life. Some have stated that it was through their exploration of sexual themes and adult pornography that they became increasingly aware of their deviant sexual interests, and that the child pornography available on the Internet awakened preexisting sexual deviance. Other CP offenders assert that had it not been for the images available on the Internet, they would have never developed pedophilic interests, fantasies or urges, and would have never committed a sexual crime (i.e., possession or distribution of child pornography). For other CP offenders, the Internet represented a long awaited bridge to something they always wanted to explore and satisfy, but were afraid, inhibited or unskilled to try. These different “points of entry” into child pornography crimes also deserve scientific study. Regardless of the point of entry into CP crimes, the vast majority of offenders engage in deviant fantasy. Their fantasy life is frequently revealed by the volume and content of their collection, the time spent online, the content of their communication with others online, and the frequency of their masturbatory behavior. Among clinical samples, it is quite common for CP offenders to report spending several hours per day engaged in viewing, fantasizing and masturbating to child pornography. Although deviant sexual fantasies among sex offenders are common, the incidence of deviant sexual fantasies among non-criminal individuals is also common (Langevin, Lang, and Curnoe, 1998; Briere and Runtz, 1989; Abel and Harlow, 2001). However, the cumulative effect of hundreds of hours engaged in such behaviors is unknown and the dynamics involved in predicting behavioral acting out are complex (see Malamuth et al.,2000). Deviant (and normative) sexual interests and arousal patterns usually develop by the end of adolescence or early adulthood (Abel et al, 1987), however, it is unclear whether or how deviant sexuality develops outside the normal window of psychosexual development (i.e., adolescence to early adulthood). As applied to CP offenders, it is not clear how sexual deviance may develop or become further refined strictly as a result of exposure to child pornography. It may be that, for some offenders, exposure to child pornography images is the triggering mechanism that unravels preexisting sexual fantasies, urges and interests. It appears equally plausible that tolerance develops as a result of immersion in pornography and, consequently, more deviant stimuli are required over time to achieve the same level of arousal or satiation.

Social learning theory provides an insightful framework for understanding how exposure to deviant pornography may create a nexus with deviant sexual behavior. This theory posits that deviant sexual behavior depicted online can be learned through modeling (even in the absence of behavioral performance). This form of vicarious online learning takes place in a highly charged visual context (i.e. the images of child pornography) that highlights the positive valence of child sexual abuse and conceals its negative consequences (Taylor & Quayle, 2003), thus creating a strong probability that the behavior may be repeated or performed. Moreover, this form of vicarious learning takes place within a socio-cultural milieu that endorses, validates, justifies and rationalizes various aspects of child-adult sexual contact. For individuals who frequently feel marginalized, unaccepted, and ostracized by society for their sexually deviant urges and cognitions, the Internet provides a powerful context to explore, validate and satisfy their deviant sexuality. It also acts as a social medium with which to connect with a network of like-minded individuals and satisfy their psychological need for group affiliation. From this perspective, online sexual crimes against children are sexually and socially motivated.

In a seemingly synergistic relationship, sexual and social factors create a powerful context that underlies online sexual crimes. While the images of child sexual abuse and exploitation seek to satisfy the sexual appetite of the CP offender, the subculture of individuals who traffic in child pornography satisfy his need for group affiliation. This is often revealed by the CP offender’s communication with like-minded individuals, such as sharing written stories and fantasies of child sexual abuse or sexual contact with minors, exchanging and promoting political views and “scientific” evidence supporting the normalcy of pedophilia, etc. (Durkin & Bryant, 1999). The negative social influence that results from associating with criminal associates is a well-supported criminological risk factor (Hanson & Bussiere, 1998).

It may be that the CP offender’s social identification with and “immersion” in the deviant subculture may further influence his behavior through a process of deindividuation. Zibardo (1969) proposes that factors such as anonymity, loss of individual responsibility, arousal, sensory overload, novelty, and consciousness-altering substances (e.g., drugs and alcohol) contribute to a state of deindividuation and behavioral disinhibition where established norms of conduct may be violated. Contemporary views of deindividuation expand the theory by proposing that decreased self-evaluation (or self-awareness) and evaluation apprehension (or fear of getting caught) causes disinhibition of behavior and transgression of general social norms (Postmes & Spears, 1998). As it relates to online child pornography, virtually all the elements necessary for deindividuation are present: the perception of privacy and anonymity, highly charged visual images, intense sexual arousal, increased “tolerance” to images which creates a seemingly insatiable drive to consume (and produce) more images, and the context of an industry that remains largely unregulated and meagerly policed. Understanding these social aspects of Internet child pornography and the dimension of cultural “immersion” may further expand our understanding of CP offenders and online offending.

Concluding Comments
The relationship between online and offline sexual offenses, and the sociocultural and technological context in which they occur, require much more empirical study. The nexus between these two forms of sexual offending is complex and multidimensional. The fact that we know that some CP offenders commit contact sexual crimes and some do not is only a small piece of the puzzle. We will begin to see a more complete picture as we attempt to understand who, why and under what circumstances CP offenders commit contact sexual crimes. Interdisciplinary dialogue and intellectual exchange, as evident in this Global Symposium between academicians, clinicians, criminal justice professionals, and public policy officials, is essential to guiding our empirical and public policy efforts.