T.H.E. | About Teaching Humane Existence

The Problem
One out of every three girls and one out of every six boys is sexually abused before the age of 18.

There is no "Cure" for sex offenders. They cannot be locked up forever, and simple solutions like castration do not work.

Sexual abuse is a widespread public health problem. Society has a mess on its hands and lives are being ruined; we are paying a high price and the management of these predators has to change.

What's Been Tried so Far?
The criminal justice system and mental health professionals have been giving perpetrators one or two years of probation and therapy hoping to impart "tools" that the offenders may choose to use to control their abusive behavior. Recently, as a result of T.H.E.'s influence, all community treatment programs are now required to give routine six-month polygraph tests to all offenders under supervision.

Why This Does Not Work?
When a sex offender is caught, usually he does not go to prison - he goes back into the community leading a largely unchanged life. The offender pays for and freely selects his own therapy program.

Despite the fact that there is no cure, most treatment programs base their operations on an implied or stated promise to the offender that he will be allowed to "graduate" (i.e., conclude therapy and live an unsupervised life) within a few years. The promise of short-term treatment makes these programs popular with offenders and with those desiring simple solutions.

This is a disastrous practice with sex offenders. The control over the offender's life is limited to what can be done by probation officers with hundreds of sex offenders to manage. Additionally, polygraph failures, like treatment noncompliance, receive no meaningful consequences in most programs. What's worse, all treatment outcomes studies show that the effects of treatment wear off. Current treatment models leave the community vulnerable to being molested and raped again. Intervention has led us to believe we are safe when we are not

The Solution: What Is Needed?
We must take complete control of sexual predators.

To accomplish this, we must first admit that we are failing under the present system. Since there is no cure and sex offenders are predators, we need to let them know that when they are caught there will be a new approach. If they want to live in the community, they will be on probation for life. It should be the offender's job to prove that he is worthy of living in the community under supervision.

Paradoxically, controlling sex offenders is the only way to manage them. At T.H.E. we call this the NoCure Solution, It can be implemented only if the leaders of our community back it. It is up to the leaders of our community, who in the past have reasonably relied on the criminal justice system, to now stand up and say, "We are not being served and we are going to get in involved." Because sex abuse is such an ugly business, offenders have been able to count on people not wanting to have anything to do with them; this must no longer be the case.

What Has T.H.E. Accomplished?
Since 1983, Greig Veeder, Executive Director of T.H.E., and T.H.E. Board members have consistently introduced new methods of treatment and sex offender management: