Criminal Justice

Case: Probationer Jonas, Indecent Sexual Behavior with a Minor

Jonas has been placed on probation for indecent sexual behavior with a five-year-old boy. This is his first felony offense, with two prior misdemeanor offenses as an adult—one count of indecent exposure and one count of misdemeanor theft. Jonas is now 20 years of age and lives with his maternal aunt, who was his guardian from when he was the age of 12 until he turned 18. Jonas has never been to prison.

Jonas suffered emotional and sexual abuse from his stepfather and mother for the first six years of his life, when he became known to Social Services investigating his case. This investigation resulted in his stepfather being charged with Indecency with a Child, and Jonas was placed in foster care. While in foster care over the next several years, Jonas was adjudicated numerous times for fire setting and cruelty to animals, for which he was finally sent to juvenile detention. While in detention at the age of 12, he tried to hurt himself and was removed to a padded cell for further assessment. Testing revealed that Jonas had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and was prescribed Ritalin. He remained out of the system from the age of 12 until the age of 18, when he was arrested for indecent exposure.

His IQ was recently assessed using the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI test) and estimated to be 70 (verbal IQ was 72 and performance IQ 73). His current communicative and daily living skills are equivalent to that of an eight-year old boy, and his socialization domain is equivalent to that of a seven-year-old. He has a reduced capacity to learn new information and to solve problems. He has a fourth-grade education and cannot read very well. He has not yet registered as a sex offender in the state. The PSIR recommended some form of cognitive-behavioral treatment.



Assume that conditions for sex offenders include one or more of the following:

1. No contact with any minor child if victim of sexual crime was a minor or no contact with minor at all even if the victim was of adult age.

2. Contact with minor children approved only if parole officer approves another supervising

adult o be present at time of contact.

3. No possession of sexually explicit material – written, audio, or visual.

4. If the offense involved the use of the Internet or a computer, cannot have a personal computer

and cannot work where access to Internet is allowed, or in some jurisdictions can have no

computer access at all even if offense did not involve computer usage.

5. Notification to neighbors and employers of offender’s sexual offense history and supervision

status.

6. Mandatory participation in sexual offender treatment or aftercare programs.

7. Mandatory routine polygraph exams as part of treatment or supervision.

8. If offense involved filming or pictures of victim, no camera or video equipment access

allowed.

9. Cannot work in any employment that would allow access to children or victim-aged groups;

cannot be self-employed.

10. Cannot live within a certain distance of schools, playgrounds, public parks, or other places

where minors congregate.



Which supervision conditions are pertinent to these sex offenders? Which additional conditions should be imposed on the offender in terms of his or her offense, and what challenges of community supervision does each case present?