Other behaviorists pointed out that for sexual acts to be fully gratifying for some individuals, they must be tied to aggression and violence.
But Lawrence Freedman, professor of psychiatry at the University of Chicago, observed: "Mass killings in this country are usually not related to sexual activity . . . The most common mass murders are committed by killers frustrated with society and venting their frustrations against a general populace by killing strangers." He added, revealingly, that "persons who commit mass murders often wish to be liked and admired."31
There has been a tendency by behaviorists pondering factors that cause people to become criminals to blame society as the villain. This can make reformers feel very good, but it is counterproductive because it merely provides the lawless with ready-made excuses for their actions by tracing the genesis of their criminality to fathers, mothers, broken homes, poverty, or some other individual or condition. It seems that no one ever thinks of blaming the criminal himself. Nevertheless, it seems possible that some people are so vicious and devoid of feeling for others that they become thieves, murderers, and rapists merely because they choose to.
Certainly more could be done to protect society from sex criminals. Many sex crimes could be prevented if once offenders were caught they were either executed, sentenced to long-term imprisonment, or provided with effective treatment and rehabilitation—depending on the severity of their crimes and their ability to respond to therapy.
All the approaches have been attacked at one time or another by civil libertarians as, among other things, violating the U.S. Constitution by inflicting cruel and unusual punishment.
The death penalty has been repeatedly assaulted on both constitutional and humanitarian grounds as illegal and barbaric. When John A. Spenkelink was electrocuted in Florida in early 1979, protestors sang civil-rights songs outside the prison and screamed that society had no right to take his life, even though he was a killer with a long criminal record. No one marched outside the house on Summerdale Avenue or protested violation of the rights of the boys and young men who were murdered and buried there or discarded in Chicago-area waterways like so many sheets of soiled tissue.
It is also cruel punishment to make someone spend his life locked behind bars without freedom of movement or association. But who deserves the pity? The individual who has proven he is unfit to walk freely in society because he is dangerous to others, or potential victims who have caused injury to no one?
Castration or treatment with such large doses of female hormones that the sex drive is virtually obliterated might also lessen the dangers from sex offenders. But these approaches can be ruled out for humane reasons too.
There is so much concern for the civil liberties of sex criminals that it is almost illegal to try to protect women or children from them. Emphasis has too often been centered on helping the child molester or rapist, when common sense should dictate that efforts be concentrated on protecting the public. Unfortunately, the law does not deal in common sense.
A complete overhaul of society's approach to dealing with the sex criminals among us is needed. This includes judicial and correctional attitudes as well as initiation of bold new approaches to treatment. There is no reason why the tremendous power of the law cannot be focused on the more effective detection and apprehension of people who sexually prey on others who are weaker than them as well as on treatment and rehabilitation.
When treatment is provided for sex offenders, individual counseling and group therapy has frequently been resorted to. But it doesn't work very well. Sexual aberration, like narcotics addiction, is one of the most difficult medical and behavioral problem to cure.
Narcotics addicts usually drift from one treatment program to another until they finally overdose and die, if they don't first lose their lives by some other means. Sex offenders charm their therapists, confess that they have been bad boys, and walk out of mental hospitals and prisons by the thousands every year, looking for new victims.
Only a few states make serious attempts to provide treatment for sex offenders that have any chance of seriously altering their behavior before they are freed from custody. And some states that do have special programs for the sexually dangerous, bar murderers from participation. But murderers are not necessarily barred from parole.
Illinois has a single treatment program for sex offenders at Menard Psychiatric Center, which is voluntary and handles about twenty prisoners at a time. There is a small waiting list.
Only a handful of states have separate institutions for the study and treatment of sex offenders. There are an enlightened few states, however, that are making significant efforts to deal with the problem. And a few brave and imaginative behaviorists have devised innovative and promising programs utilizing aversion therapy to modify the behavior of sex criminals and other violent felons. Not surprisingly, they have been attacked by civil libertarians and government agencies more concerned with safeguarding the civil rights of men with long records of sadistic abuse, than with protecting the persons and lives of innocent victims.
Aversion therapy is basically an attempt to change behavior or to cure by punishment. Electric shock and drugs that cause nausea or vomiting or brief periods of muscle paralysis and interruption of breathing have at times been employed as essential components of the treatment programs.
Programs utilizing the muscle-relaxing drug were pioneered at The California Medical Facility at Vacaville and at the Atascadero State Hospital. Electric-shock aversion was also used on homosexuals and child molesters at Atascadero. Both programs were halted after a flurry of bad publicity and outraged cries of brainwashing and legal torture.
A nausea-producing drug was used in a program at the Iowa Security Medical Facility at Oakdale near Iowa City, before the courts ruled that the activities were unconstitutional.
At the Connecticut Correctional Institution at Somers, child molesters were reportedly cured after twelve weeks of treatment. The process involved the administration of electrical shocks on the inner thighs as the convicted sex criminals watched series of pictures of naked children. The treatment was reinforced with hypnosis, which was used to associate sexual thoughts of children with things the patients feared such as snakes or heights. The American Civil Liberties Union joined with three convicts, suing the prison and claiming that paroles were denied if the child molester didn't participate.
The Wisconsin Correctional Institution at Fox Lake also instituted a voluntary program of aversion therapy for child molesters, employing electric shock treatment. Prisoners are alternately shown slides of children and of adult women in G-strings or provocative clothing. If the inmates hesitate too long over the slides of children before switching to pictures of adult women they are given electrical shocks. The treatment modalities may appear to be extreme. But so are the costs in lives and emotional trauma for the victims of sex criminals.
No one, of course, has a miracle cure that will suddenly eradicate sex crimes as totally as smallpox. Sex crimes can be reduced materially, however, by providing effective treatment or long-term incarceration for them and boys who have already run into trouble with the law because of sexual misbehavior and assaults on others.
But it is too late for new laws, shock treatment, or nausea-inducing drugs for someone who has murdered thirty-three young men and boys. For this person, there can be only two intelligent alternatives: life in prison—or death in the electric chair.
Footnotes
30WLS-TV—Channel Seven, February 14, 1979.
31 Chicago Tribune, December 26. 1978.
PHOTOS
Wedding photo of John Gacy and his second wife, Carole Hoff, taken in June 1972. (Courtesy Chicago Tribune)
Gacy (left) dressed as George Washington, presiding over a July 4, 1976 bicentennial party at his home. The man on the right was one of Gacy's business associates. (Courtesy Chicago Tribune)
Gacy modeling clown suit for publicity shots taken at his home in December 1976. (Professional clowns s
ay that the corners painted at the edges of the mouth should be rounded—in order not to frighten children—rather than sharp, as Gacy painted them.) (Courtesy Chicago Tribune)
First Lady Rosalynn Carter autographed this photo for Gacy, taken at a private reception honoring her when she visited Chicago in 1978. The man at the right is believed to be Mrs. Carter's advance agent. Gacy is wearing a security clearance button, issued by the Secret Service.
Authorities found a batch of business cards such as this one in Gacy's Des Plaines, Illinois home. (Wide World Photos)
Gacy asked photographer Martin Zielinksi to take this photo of him shaking hands with former Chicago Mayor Michael Bilandic at a senior citizens facility ground-breaking ceremony in the spring of 1978. (Courtesy Chicago Tribune)
An area Gacy frequently cruised: North Broadway in the New Town section of Chicago, sometimes referred to as Gaytown. (Photo by Clifford Linedecker)
Gay Rights Parade, June 24, 1979, on North Broadway, New Town section of Chicago. (Photo by Junko Ri)
Gay Rights Parade, June 24, 1979, on North Broadway, New Town section of Chicago. (Photo by Junko Ri)
Gacy is led through the Des Plaines, Illinois police station, hiding his face with manacled hands, before his transfer to the hospital in Chicago's Cook County Jail. (Wide World Photos)
Cook County Sheriff's Police remove the remains of at least four victims from the crawl space beneath Gacy's home. (Wide World Photos)
Cook County Medical Examiner, Dr. Robert J. Stein, identifying skeletons of bodies found under Gacy's home. (World Wide Photos)
I.D. photo of Gacy taken at the Cook County Jail Hospital. A guard at the hospital resigned after jail officials threatened to suspend him for the removal of this photo from jail files. (Courtesy Chicago Tribune)
Billy Carroll, Jr., got into a car one evening with several friends, told his parents he'd be back in about an hour, and was never seen again. (Wide World Photos)
John Butkovich was another youth employed by Gacy's construction company. He disappeared the day after a heated argument with Gacy concerning his paycheck.
Russell Nelson walked outside of a bar with a friend while vacationing in Chicago. Distracted by a group of people, the friend turned away for a moment. When he turned back around, Nelson had disappeared.
Martin Zielinski was a young free-lance photographer whom Gacy befriended and hired on several occasions to take photographs. (Courtesy Chicago Tribune)
Gregory Godzik disappeared after taking his date home for the evening, just a few months before his high school graduation. (Courtesy Chicago Tribune)
Frank Wayne "Dale" Landingin, Jr. Nine days after his disappearance, Landingin's body was pulled from a marina on the Des Plaines River.
Wreckers tear down roof of Gacy's home, April 11, 1979. (Photo by Chicago Sun-Times)
Diagram of Gacy's property in Des Plaines, a suburb of Chicago. (Wide World Photos)
The Man Who Killed Boys Page 24