i posted this in the juvenile forum but haven't gotten a response so i thought i'd try here:

We, as I'm sure most of y'all do as well, use polygraphs as part of our sex offender treatment program. At its core, it's a therapeutic tool but often some pretty disturbing stuff comes out after these tests. It's often information that could certainly result in new criminal charges or a modification of probation or a change from deferred registration to full registration. Do any of you have policies regarding what you can or will do with information gleaned in such a fashion?

Interesting question. We had a 14 year old come back from sex offender treatment and tell us about 20 victims we didn't know about in his registration hearing, none of which he would name or give details about, but somehow the judge didn't think he was a high enough risk for public registration!! ( different story, but the treatment felt like public registration would be bad for him, so the judge agreed)

Anyway, I think the first question is this: if he's back and successfully completed treatment, and you now want to charge new offenses, you have wasted the 30 grand (or more) your county spent on sending him to treatment. Because you would probably decide to go punitive this time and send him to TYC, or certify, or go determinate.

This is a really interesting question, and I bet there are a broad range of opinions about it---is he rehabbed, and confessing was part of his rehab, so trust that he is "cured" and don't investigate new info....or decide he might be rehabbed, but he still did a lot of bad things and should face consequences for those, too?

In the case I spoke of earlier, I would have liked to have had more info to go on and prosecute the others, because I thought that kid was dangerous enough that he needed to be locked up somewhere--anywhere to protect other kids from him. And other than that hearing, he sure wasn't talking to me or the police. But there are probably some success stories from sex offender treatment?

Thanks for your reply. In our case, we did not send him off for treatment. He has been part of our in house sex offender treatment program. And you're exactly right it's a tough question to answer. We are certainly happy that he is disclosing all of this as part of his treatment and don't want to take action that will dissuade other members of our program from disclosing. However, this kid is a true danger and does not seem to be benefitting from the program. He is still acting out sexually in really bizarre fashion. He has acted out with any household item you can imagine: plunger, curling iron, turkey baster, shop vac, household pets, etc. He's taking "bathroom" breaks during counseling and prior to polygraphs to masturbate. He's also exposed himself to some young children. But, this is all information we have come across as part of his treatment. Any other input out there?

Has he identified any other victims or participants in his self-reported conduct? Seems to me that if you do not follow up with a full investigation, you run the risk of having some very traumatized victims that need help and may not be reporting the offenses committed against them, plus the risk that you have other offenders that may have victimized this juvenile. I see the polygraphed admissions as a mitigating factor to be considered in disposition, but the reported offenses should be investigated and, if prosecutable, adjudication sought as you would any other reported crime.