Treatment Programs for Offenders
Prison time may be part of the price paid by the offender whose conduct is seen as a deviation which calls for recovery. If there has been no litigation, and thus no prison time, it is possible the clergy-offender has been placed in a treatment program. The question is the same, whether the offender has been incarcerated for a time, or not. How can the victim survivor and members of the faith community begin to rebuild trust in the recovering offender as part of the restorative process for the entire congregation?How can offenders begin to demonstrate that they have dealt with problem behaviors and the issues related to their misconduct? Those commissioned to make a decision about the recovering clergy-person's future are very reticent to take the person from intensive residential treatment and place the person in even a very restricted and monitored ministry for fear of a relapse. Is there any method or approach that might help restore some trust and confidence in the recovery of the cleric? The more difficult question is whether clerics are able to be placed back into even some form of safe ministry once they complete the course of primary treatment?
Once there is an initial determination that boundaries have actually been transgressed and the clergyperson sexually violated another person, the cleric may be incarcerated through a criminal trial. Even without a criminal trial, the cleric is typically sent away for evaluation and intensive residential treatment. More recently, offenders have entered out-patient intensive treatment programs consisting of individual counseling, group work and support meetings to address the causes which led to the abusive conduct.
Recovery Process for the Offender
Providing the recovering clergy-person an extended period of managed recovery has helped rebuild confidence both in the program and has assured those responsible for the cleric that some form of safe ministry is possible following the intensive treatment experience. A transitional residence allows the recovering person to integrate recovery skills under the supervision of support staff and other recovering peers.Accountability to others becomes an essential component of the recovery process. Besides intensive personal therapy, there are weekly in-house Twelve-Step meetings to address addictive issues. Weekly family-house meetings address community dynamics and peer accountability issues. The offender-cleric learns to makes habitual a reliance on external and identified social supports in maintaining recovery.
After an agreed upon period in a residential managed recovery, or at the end-phase of long-term, continuing out-patient treatment, the recovering person might seek re-assignment in some form of safe and monitored ministry. In the case of team-ministries, the team can form a support group calling the cleric to accountability in following all recovery protocols.
In cases where clerics have no hope for any form of faith-related ministry, they are assisted in seeking an alternative life style and occupation. While under supervision and committed to recovery, these clerics are in some cases trained in new employable skills so they can enter self-supporting occupations.
Faith communities, when informed about these managed recovery programs, recognize that clergy-offender external support systems are in place and that the recovering offender is accountable to supervisors and peers. Faith communities should know what treatment programs are available to clerics and what forms the on-going monitoring system takes after their sexual misconduct.
This knowledge is essential to restoring, building and maintaining public trust in the likelihood that well-supervised treatment programs can both reduce the likelihood of the cleric's relapse and assure members of the faith community of their safety.
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