State standard seen as lengthy, costly

Price high considering lack of data proving its merits, critics say

Lou Kilzer, Rocky Mountain News

Published February 9, 2005 at midnight

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The 36-week minimum for court-ordered batterer treatment in Colorado has created a quandary for some counselors and for the families of offenders.

Some worry that the cost, roughly $40 a session out of offenders' pockets, burdens victims as much as offenders and can discourage families from calling police again if the abuse continues.

At the same time, some providers and court officials question whether research supports the state's emphasis on 36 weeks, which is among the longer treatment periods in the country.

Colorado's regulations do allow for shorter treatment of 24 weeks, but only in rare cases that meet 10 specific conditions.

Though many providers have a sliding scale for those who are poor, the state allocates no money for the program. If offenders don't finish treatment, their probation can be revoked. In that case, jail awaits.

Guy Meyer, community corrections director in Glenwood Springs, worries about the financial toll.

"You look at the working guy making $10 to $15 an hour, look at the impact. And what I have frequently heard from the victims of the cases, the spouses, is, 'If I had known, I would have never reported it.' Because this has created such an impact on the family trying to pay off these costs."

Steve Carter, who retired as a Garfield County judge last year, said, "How many millions of dollars are we requiring to spend on this thing with what appears to be very little scientific basis to say it is effective? It really bugs me. That is one issue. There is a huge amount of money transfer to a large group of treatment providers."

Jonathan L. Walker, a deputy public defender in El Paso County, served on the state's Domestic Violence Offender Management Board until his term expired in 2003. The board oversees the standards and curriculum for offender treatment.

Walker said he tried to remind advocates and providers that roughly 80 percent of offenders qualify for public defender assistance. That means they probably are making less than $1,000 a month.

They go into mandatory counseling resenting it from the get-go.

"I think it lessens the chances of success," Walker said. "If it's so darn important, why don't we give it to them?"

Cheryl Davis, administrator for the offender management board, said she sees a positive correlation between length of treatment and reduction in violence. She pointed to a New York study that said men in a 26-week treatment course were less likely to reoffend than those in an eight-week course.

Some studies have found no benefit to longer treatment, and others have found treatment marginally effective to counterproductive at preventing repeat offenses.

"I think that research is very preliminary on domestic violence offender treatment because there hasn't been a lot of funding to do it," Davis said. "And so the research that we've seen thus far is not answering all of our questions. What research often does is creates more questions."

Greeley District Judge Gilbert A. Gutierrez, a member of the management board, recalls struggling with the 36-week treatment minimum. To prepare for an interview with a reporter, he went through mounds of documents, making handwritten notes, looking for an answer.

In the end, he said, he found "no empirical basis" for it.

Some offenders need more treatment, he said, and the state rules allow for that. But some need less, he said.

El Paso County Chief Deputy District Attorney Doug Miles agrees. He said his district had programs about three years ago that allowed 36, 12 or six weeks of treatment. "I did have a concern about the one-size-fits- all approach," he said.

But Davis told him that counselors who participated in the shorter programs would be decertified, so those options were eliminated. Davis argues that the General Assembly gave the offender management board, not prosecutors, the authority to determine length of treatment.

Not everyone agrees that 36 weeks is too long. Some providers say Colorado's system doesn't go far enough.

Robert McBride, a former domestic violence perpetrator who has earned advocates' respect for his work with offenders, requires most of his clients to stay longer. He believes true recovery takes two to five years of therapy.

The criminal justice system is designed to intervene, which is crucial, he said. But the state's standards are too narrowly focused on messages that don't work for many men, and the time frame is barely enough to scratch the surface, McBride said.

He estimates that 65 percent of the 2,000 men he has counseled had drug or alcohol problems and 20 percent were victims of sexual abuse.

"Stabilization — that's probably the best you can get in 36 weeks," he said. "If they don't have the awareness or the skills, how can they be accountable?"

Staff writer Sarah Huntley contributed to this report.

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