Allowing Lester Nadeau to continue experimental treatment in 1988 rather than sending him to prison for molesting a boy might have seemed like a bad sentencing call, especially when he later showed up in court for a similar offense.

But the five-year prison term that resulted from that 1989 probation violation didn’t do much good either: Within months of his early release last May for “good time,” he molested yet again, offenses to which he has pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing.

He also was charged more recently with approaching a teen-age boy despite a probation condition forbidding him from having any contact with juveniles. In the face of shaky evidence, the charge was dismissed last week.

Nadeau’s criminal history predates that risky 1988 sentence, to assault charges for fondling two teen-age boys in September 1983 and February 1984.

That experience ruined his career as executive director of the University of Maine General Alumni Association, a non-profit organization that operates independently of the university. Less than a year later, he was in court in Caribou pleading guilty to multiple counts of unlawful sexual contact.

Until recently, his offenses have followed a pattern: He would call a boy to his car and ask for directions. Once the youth was inside, he would spread a map across the boy’s lap as a pretense to fondle him. Authorities fear that the most recent events suggest his behavior is worsening.

Nadeau’s history illustrates the sentencing dilemma Maine courts face when presented with sex offenders, who make up 30 to 40 percent of the state’s prison population: Do we put them behind bars, where they receive little treatment or education about their problems, or allow them to remain in society under supervision?

Psychologists and social workers who deal with sex offenders seem to suggest the supervised freedom.

“Punishment won’t help,” said Dr. John Edwards, director of the sex-offender program at the Downeast Correctional Facility in Bucks Harbor. “But treatment can help.”

The frustration in dealing with repeat offenders is evident as Deputy District Attorney Michael P. Roberts considers what punishment to recommend for Nadeau, who is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday on a misdemeanor sex offense that carries a maximum penalty of one year in prison.

He also pleaded guilty to a companion charge of possession of a firearm by a felon, which is punishable by as many as five years in prison.

Nadeau has requested that he be sentenced to the Intensive Supervision Program, which would incarcerate him at home. Roberts is willing to try that, pointing out that Nadeau would be supervised closely.

“Nothing else has worked,” he said. “We could sentence him to the maximum five years, but he’d be out in three and he’d be worse off than he is now.”

Roberts has suggested to Rep. Sean Faircloth, D-Bangor, that penalties for repeat sex offenders be made harsher, similar to charges that boost potential sentences for habitual traffic offenders or thieves.

Faircloth has attached an amendment to that effect to a bill that addresses a different, but related, issue: It would increase penalties for people who molest young teens when there is an age difference of 10 years or more.

Now, said Faircloth, “Grandpa could have sex with his grandson and it would be a misdemeanor.”

Types of offenders

Psychologists generally divide child sex offenders among three categories — regressed, fixated and rapist — each with a different motivation, behavior, and likelihood of responding to treatment.

Most are men, and experts say offenders who weren’t abused either physically or sexually in childhood are in the minority. They may be trying to regain power they lacked as a child at the hands of a molester, or are sex addicts, or are unable to express themselves sexually with other adults.

By some estimates, a molester may have as many as 100 victims before he is caught.

Regressives mostly commit incest, usually prefer adults, and are heterosexual, turning to children only when under stress, researchers say. They are most receptive to treatment.

Fixated child molesters, who repeatedly abuse children outside their own homes, are sexually attracted to children and are considered less treatable than regressives. They often hold good jobs, are well-known and respected in the community.

According to psychologists, offenders in this category genuinely care for children and wouldn’t harm them physically, but are unable to perceive the danger in their own actions.

Least helped by treatment are rapists. They consistently display the highest repeat offense rates.

Obstacles to treatment

Treating sex offenders is not an exact science, and research presents obstacles not faced in other areas of scientific scrutiny.

Most research into potential treatments has yielded imperfect results: Even if recidivism lessens, it often still hovers around 25 to 30 percent over several years of followup.

Results can be deceptive. A program that uses subjects who want treatment, for example, is more likely to show good results than one that draws from an involuntary population.

Additionally, even allowing for distinctions in the three classifications, each molester’s deviancy, or pedophilia, is individual and must be identified before it can be treated.

“Everybody has their own particular sexual preferences,” said Jim Jacobs, a psychologist at Kennebec Valley Mental Health Center in Waterville.

Sometimes the real deviancy can remain hidden; a man might be convicted of molesting a boy of a particular age when his real attraction might be for boys of a different age level.

Ethical questions can enter into research. Psychological experiments typically involve a control group, consisting of a class of people not receiving treatment, to measure against the group that is receiving treatment. A control group of convicted sex offenders, for example, might present researchers with the dilemma of returning them to society without treatment, knowing they are likely to re-offend.

Research often relies to some extent on self-reporting by molesters who, knowing they may be incarcerated for previously unreported offenses, might be less than truthful.

And those who are the best risk for treatment often are not at highest risk for re-offending.

The most encouraging results seem to occur in programs that use multiple treatments. Mixing cognitive and behavioral psychological techniques has shown success, as has combining libido suppressants with psychological treatment, according to a recent survey.

Generally, the longer the followup treatment, the lower the re-offense rate.

A common factor in most programs is the use of the penile plethysmograph, a device that has become controversial in Maine because of its intended use in the case of Old Town police officer Norman Harrington.

In his continuing dispute with the Penobscot County District Attorney’s Office over sexual-abuse allegations that implicated him, Harrington refused to take the test, which measures the response of the penis to erotic pictures showing people of varying ages and both sexes.

The intimate nature of the test aside, critics argue, it wouldn’t prove that he committed a particular offense no matter what the results were. And Harrington was never charged with a crime.

Researchers and treatment professionals embrace the test as an accurate method of identifying a molester’s pedophilia and, when necessary, breaking through his denial.

One success story

A few studies around the United States and Canada have shown promise. Experts in Maine have been particularly excited about one corrections-based program close to home, in Vermont — a state similar geographically and sociologically to Maine — as a model that might be best adapted here.

The 11-year-old Vermont Treatment Program for Sexual Aggressors — VTPSA — combines cognitive and behavioral psychological techniques.

Incarcerated participants receive residential treatment, with a focus on group therapy. They move toward outpatient status as they meet criteria and receive approval from the rest of their group. Outpatient treatment is available to those sentenced to probation.

Therapy focuses on issues such as recognizing and dealing with anger, accepting responsibility for offenses, and empathizing with victims.

Treatment also incorporates relapse-prevention techniques adapted from those used to treat people with compulsions such as substance abuse or gambling. It requires the offender to recognize when he is in a situation in which he is likely to offend again, and to cope better with such risky circumstances or to avoid them.

Another feature of the VTPSA that has won the admiration of its Maine supporters is the way it creates a network of treatment professionals and probation officers, rather than treating them as separate functions. The probation officers become involved as facilitators in some of the group treatment.

An outside network consisting of family members, employer, co-workers and friends is expected to flag inappropriate behavior once the offender is released.

The Vermont program deals with offenders who progress too slowly, and screens out those who either do not want treatment or deny responsibility.

A group of researchers in Canada and New Zealand gave it high marks in their survey of treatment research. The VTPSA reports a recidivism rate of 6 percent overall, with the lowest rate of 3 percent occurring for incestuous offenders and “hands-off” offenders such as exhibitionists and peeping Toms.

Lack of money

In Maine, those who deal with sex offenders limp along with sharply curtailed institutional and probationary programs.

Not long ago, the Bucks Harbor facility offered an array of programs and, according to Edwards, was “moving toward” a complete program when state budget problems hit. A similar program at Maine Correctional Center in Windham was eliminated.

Today, the offerings have shriveled to what exists at Bucks Harbor: an educational program that teaches inmates about their deviancy, but does not treat them, and a single group that provides only basic counseling.

“These aren’t really full-scale sex-offender treatment programs,” said Mark Caton, who runs the Downeast Correctional Facility. “It’s almost a joke.”

Funding for community-based programs to deal with offenders on probation has been reduced also. Barry Stoodley, director of the Probation and Parole Office in Bangor, said the state once spent $40,000 to $50,000 annually for Community Health & Counseling Services to treat 40 to 60 offenders in four counties.

“Even then we had waiting lists,” said Stoodley.

The current allotment is one-tenth of what it used to be, and 25 molesters are being served, said Stoodley. Treatment is more dependent on the offender’s economic situation: Those who are able to pay “a substantial portion” are going to get the treatment, he said.

Enlisting public support for public funding of treatment programs is difficult.

No matter how great the success rate, no program now in place can predict which offenders will respond to treatment. Some may re-offend, but less frequently. Society often is unwilling to spend money without a guarantee.

“People want that sort of surety, especially when we’re spending scarce dollars,” said Hartwell Dowling, a social worker who works with Edwards at Bucks Harbor.

The public also perceives treatment as less harsh on offenders than incarceration. Edwards and Dowling say that isn’t the case, that treatment is actually a very painful process.

They and their colleagues point out that it costs far less to treat the offender in the first place than to treat the victim later on, especially when the probability of multiple victims is high.

And if sexually abused children are more likely to become sex offenders themselves, add the costs of future prosecution and incarceration for victims left untreated.

“When we talk to the offenders themselves and get them past the stage of denial … what they tell us is that without the treatment they would go out and re-offend,” said Edwards.

A 1988 study by researchers in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania estimates that “for every 1,000 child molesters released from prison, the cost to society over a five-year period would be nearly $68 million greater for offenders who received no treatment prior to release.”

Even the experts don’t suggest indefinite treatment for someone who doesn’t respond. Those who repeatedly place the community in danger should be locked up.

“At some point, these type of folks are going to have to be locked up and put away,” said Caton.