Allen sentence fuels the conspiracy theorists, but they miss the plot

By Ronan Mullen

1. Should Tim Allen have gone to jail? Yes, although the sentence imposed by Judge Michael Patwell 240 hours of community service in acknowledgement of a large donation to a children's charity was well within the range of options open to him under the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act of 1998.

It is common enough for judges to suspend sentences, or to give convicted offenders the Probation Act, depending on the conduct of the abusers and their likelihood of re-offending. But the issue here is that justice must not only be done, it has to be seen to be done. And in Tim Allen's case, people have got the impression that if you are rich enough you can avoid incarceration. "Money talks, and yesterday it kept a child porn pervert free of even a soft suspended jail term," fumed last Friday's Star. "Allen had the wherewithal to mount a snazzy defence, pay a hefty fine and reap the benefits of employing a top PR guru."

The courts, of course, should not pay too much attention to the media when handing down prison sentences. But perception counts nevertheless. For one thing, the public must have confidence in the criminal justice system, and people need to feel equal before the law. Secondly, potential future offenders must see that, no matter how rich or well-connected they are, they will not escape justice for their crimes.

There is another reason why Judge Patwell should have opted for a prison term, however short, as part of Allen's sentence. In coming weeks, a circuit court judge will face similar charges of possessing child pornography.

Allen's light sentence has fuelled the rumblings of the conspiracy theorists that if the judge is found guilty, there will be a nice soft precedent to save him from jail. The theory is crude and unfounded. But it does point to the need for a level of consistency in sentencing policy, particularly in the emotive area of child sexual abuse, which does not exist at present.

2. Is prison the best place for sexual offenders? One irony of Tim Allen's case is that he might have faced less ill-will among the public had he been seen to pay his debt to society by going to prison. Another irony is that he is more likely to be treated for his illegal impulses outside of prison rather than inside. In Ireland, we seem to be fixated on the symbolic importance of punishment through imprisonment.

Prison is, after all, meant to serve four main purposes the punishment of wrongdoers, the protection of society for the duration of the offender's prison sentence, the rehabilitation of offenders and deterrence of future wrongdoing.

The results under these four headings are decidedly mixed, especially where sex offenders are concerned. Yes, prison punishes, but it is not at all clear that wrongdoers are being deterred. And the system as it stands is utterly incapable of rehabilitating people.

This may be due to a refusal by the Irish state to see its prisons as places where prisoners are reformed. On RTÉ's Questions and Answers last Monday night, the Minister of State for Health and Children, Brian Lenihan, could give no credible explanation why only 10 to 15 places are on offer for the treatment of over 350 sex offenders in Irish prisons. Lenihan argued, limply, that there is no certainty 'in the literature' about whether the treatment of sex offenders can work. But this view is disputed by Marie Keenan, a registered psychotherapist with 27 years of experience in treating sex offenders and victims, and now a lecturer in UCD.

Keenan cites research done by Dr Carl Hanson for Corrections Canada, part of the Canadian justice system, which reviewed all the scientific literature on treatment of sex abusers. "The literature demonstrates without question that treatment is effective in reducing offending," she says, although she accepts that certain types of offenders respond better than others. "What is important is not the content of the treatment programme but the quality of the therapeutic relationship," she says.

Keenan also attacks the myth that sex offenders are all devious types who don't want to be treated. Last week, after appearing on RTÉ's Today with Pat Kenny, she was contacted by two men, both of whom asked for help with their addiction to child pornography. Such men are not well served by a media that is only interested in branding them as perverts. But a criminal justice system which does nothing to rehabilitate them is no help either.

Irish politicians are not interested in treating sex offenders because they rightly sense a lack of support among the public for treatment programmes. Yet politicians in Canada were similarly reluctant until research by Prof Bill Marshall, a Canadian-based expert on sex abuse, showed that the most cost-effective means of dealing with sex abuse and its many fallout problems were treatment and prevention.

3. Is our society becoming addicted to pornography? Last Friday's Star carried a front-page headline, "You're rich, you're free, but you're still a sick pervert," while on its inside pages it carried ads for sex chat lines. It was typical tabloid hypocrisy condemning the obvious offenders while feeding the culture which makes all this happen. Of course, child pornography is much more evil than any kind of pornography using consenting adults. But research on the effects of pornography shows there may be a link. One clinical psychologist, Dr Victor Cline, who has treated 350 sex addicts, says that after the first step of 'addiction,' when porn consumers get hooked, there follows the 'escalation stage,' during which addicted people need ever-more deviant kinds of sexual material to give them their kicks. The third stage is 'desensitisation,' when the addict is no longer shocked by things that repulse other people.

The final stage is 'acting out sexually' when the pornography addict engages in sexually deviant behaviour, including the abuse of children. Yet, despite the possible risk to children and others, there seems to be an ever-greater demand for pornography in Ireland. In Dublin yesterday evening I visited one Centra shop with an enormous array of pornographic magazines, some with references to teenage girls, e.g. 'barely legal' and '18 high-school hotties,' on their front covers.

The adult pornography industry has no problem with exploiting the weakness of pornography consumers, even those on the margins of illegality. It seems hardly acceptable to characterise adult pornography as a matter of choice while characterising users of child pornography as 'perverts.' What we are doing, in fact, is letting ourselves of the hook. Child sex abusers become the modern scapegoats with all of society's ills heaped upon their heads while a deeper sickness grows by stealth.

In Tim Allen's case, severe punishment will follow because of his high profile and his spectacular fall from grace. Already he has had to cease involvement with his family's business, and his name will go on the sex offenders register. Worse than that, he now becomes one of Ireland's most tragic personalities, his name a byword for infamy. Shame and disgrace will follow him everywhere.

Does he deserve all this? Of course he does, for now. But what happens when he comes to terms with his wrongdoing? What if he masters his illegal impulses? Will a society that has no sense of its own guilt have the capacity to forgive him?