On the Sex Offender Unit

by Susan Kruglinski

July, 2001

[Names have been changed]

Normal, I have come to learn, is a relative thing. It is strange how certain unimaginable situations in life can become quickly "normalized." When I was assigned to be a mental health worker on a hospital unit for adolescent male sex offenders, I assumed I would have difficulty, to say the least, adjusting to this group. In my mind, there is not a more horrifying act than a sexual attack. I will not even go to a movie with a rape scene.

But this was a tightly run unit with an enthusiastic staff and a therapist who had designed a truly effective program for the boys. Fellow staff member Ms. Mills and I were to be the only females to interact full-time with these boys, and I understood what I was up against. Yet I immediately felt safe and confident when I observed the marine-like protocol and strict enforcement of rules. Certainly the hospital had its faults. The pay for mental health workers, who spent, by far, the most time with the clients, was scarcely equal to the advertised pay at the Dairy Queen up the street, which meant that there was high turnover in a barely experienced staff.

Despite this, the sex offender unit had an excellent record of success. Each boy spent almost a full year in the program, generally after having served his time in juvenile detention. To graduate, the boys had to thoroughly examine and get perspective on their own lives. Most had been through torturous childhoods; all had been sexually abused, often by family. For many, the concept of a life without abuse was as alien as life without school or TV, and being locked up was their first taste of freedom from the mistreatment. Understanding that it is not normal to be abused was an epiphany. Learning this lesson under our watch -- my watch -- was essential.

One of our most important roles as staff members was to be surrogate parents for these clients who expected only neglect and harm from authority. This meant not only providing discipline and rules, but also caring and bonding. Playing dominoes with a kid was as important as sending him to his room or making him write an essay on why he shouldn't pick a fight.

As the only female staff, Ms. Mills and I represented the mom, the sister, the teacher, and in some cases the female victim. It was crucial for us to command respect and authority, both for our success in our jobs and for the boys in their development. The crux of this was to bond with the boys while simultaneously keeping strict boundaries. It was quite a balancing act. In one day, I would have to comfort a boy who had just had a nightmare, rejoice in his success when he wrote his first poem, and enjoy with him a lively round of hearts, all the while maintaining physical and emotional parameters and discerning between his affection toward me and predatory behavior.

Ms. Mills was even more daring a tight-rope walker than I. A young, attractive woman, fluent in the talk and attitude of the street kids of the group, she was known as one of the toughest disciplinarians on the unit. A small offense, such as talking too loud during meals, could mean an evening of exclusion or loss of precious gym time. This was an agonizing punishment for a teen living in a tiny, locked-down building, where for months he may see only the same twenty-five faces within the same dull blue cinder block walls. The boys walked on eggshells around Ms. Mills.

And at the same time, they were her biggest fans. Her flip-side was "the girlfriend." When it was time for games, TV and downtime, she could be the boys' best friend. She spoke their language, gossiped and joked, and occasionally would cross the line a little. Sometimes she'd speak in a quiet, intimate manner with a boy. Sometimes she'd sit rather close to someone at the card table. There were knowing glances, secret smiles, and playing favorites. But this was a complicated profession, and it does not take long for a person to feel affection for a charming 15 year-old who has had a tragic life, and who seems to be trying his best to become a better person. It is easy to set the horror of the crime aside and focus on the evolving child. Things quickly become "normalized."

I felt some resentment when Ms. Mills' connection with the boys interfered with my own "milieu" work. For some kids, their loyalty to Ms. Mills was so fierce that it was impossible to reach them. I thought it was positive that they revered a strong, empowered woman, and yet it seemed the emotional connections she established were unstable. Certain kids would worship her one minute, then explode with rage toward her the next. Considering the histories of these clients, I thought Ms. Mills was treading dangerous ground.

Sadly, eventually, that which we could not have imagined happening on our meticulously run unit became our reality. One of the boys divulged everything in an emotional session with the therapist: Ms. Mills had been molesting the boys, and had been encouraging them to touch her. Charges were not pressed. It was up to the boys to do this, and as in most cases of psychiatric patients who have been abused, they chose not to. Ms. Mills immediately resigned and disappeared from our lives. The effects of her crimes, however, remained with us for quite some time. The boys acted out violently, fighting and becoming highly aggressive with the staff, often needing to be physically restrained and locked in "security" rooms. One of the boys who had been abused by Ms. Mills, the youngest boy on the unit -- only twelve -- could not finish the program, and in the end was dragged away in handcuffs by the police.

Trust in the staff was decimated. Their surrogate parents hadn't protected these boys, hadn't kept them safe from harm, had even abused them. Our tiny unit had become a place where sexual violation took residence and loomed as a real threat. And for the boys in our care, this was a quick trip back to normal.