As their eyes stare at people from the pages of Connecticut's Sex Offender Registry Web site and the state seeks stiffer penalties against sexual predators, there is mixed reaction from psychologists as to whether sex offenders can be rehabilitated or should be isolated.

Psychologists who work with sex offenders say some offenders can curb their behavior after treatment but others are beyond the reach of psychology.

Certain traits that contribute to the psychological make-up of a given sex offender make it difficult for counselors to treat the offender. However, psychologists believe they can treat sex offenders if the offender admits he or she has a problem.

"For some people, three years of treatment followed by supervision and probation is going to be all they need," said Eileen Redden, health services administrator for sex offender program at the University of Connecticut.

If a court refers an offender to counseling against his will, providing psychological treatment for the offender can become a daunting task, according to Redden.

"Of course, the people on the other end, who are just dangerous, they would be appropriate for lifetime (sex offender) registration," Redden said.

As a term of their probation or parole, sex offenders are often sent to counselors contracted by the state for evaluations along with personal and group therapy.

"When clients leave prison and they go to probation, probation accepts everyone," said Redden "The treatment provider (for probation) organization is called 'special services.' Special services takes deniers and admitters."

Redden does not counsel court-mandated patients but, instead, treats individuals who are self-referred or are referred by prison, school or mental health staff. In order to get treatment, offenders must admit they have a problem.

"For someone to gain entry into the program, they have to admit to problem sexual behavior," said Redden. "They don't have to admit to everything that's on a police report or from a police investigation, but they need to acknowledge they have an issue that they need to work on."

William Grodman, a clinical psychologist and associate professor of psychology at Norwalk Community College has counseled offenders referred to him for probationary reasons.

"They're very hard to work with, typically," said Grodman. "I don't think it's untreatable, but certainly, it's very difficult to treat."

Grodman said the offenders are typically "highly unmotivated," as the state forces the perpetrator to see a psychologist and the offender feels "tremendous shame" for his action.

"Many times when people have this experience, they're very defended and it's very painful for them," said Grodman "They don't want to address it and that's part of the problem."

Each sex offender is different, according to Redden. Most offenders can be treated but others must be segregated from society, Redden said.

For instance, some pedophiles cannot halt their attraction to children, and must be carefully and closely supervised, according to Redden.

"What I think is the best intervention for a pedophile is to just make sure they're never around another child," she said.

Most offenders have been offended themselves, often as a child, according to Grodman. This characteristic is unique to sex offenders, as almost all other mental ailments are not contracted this way, Grodman said.

"That's what makes the underpinnings, or the ideology of it particularly unique, in that you almost always have someone whose had that experience," he said. "That's not true of most other things. If someone has depression, they probably have a family history, but it's not as if they had to experience depression, themselves, earlier."

Redden said the majority of offenders abuse alcohol or drugs and a fair amount of offenders come from extremely dysfunctional backgrounds.

Grodman and Redden agree most sexually abused persons do not abuse others if they receive proper psychological treatment for sexual abuse.

"If a young child has been abused and there's intervention, support and counseling and a recognition that they have been abused, that kid is going to be much better off than a kid who has never ever had somebody intervene and protect them," Redden said.

Offenders often become hyper-sexualized through being molested or being highly exposed to pornographic depictions of sexuality, according to Redden. This exposure creates thought patterns that make it easy to sexually offend, Redden said.

"If you think about how someone's psychological framework is developed, it starts when we're really young," she said, "and if you have a mother who is a prostitute and if you have a father who is sexually molesting your sisters...that shapes the way you think about things."

The offender also tends to be disconnected from his own sexual abuse experience, emotionally distancing himself from the violation, according to Grodman.

"They don't think about it a lot," he said. "They're not aware of it and that's problematic. There's evidence that, when a person is more connected to the experience and remembers the experience, they can empathize with others and, so, they're less likely to act out."

The offender must be assessed continually to ensure they are not hurting anyone else, according to Grodman. The psychologist has the duty to warn authorities or intervene in the situation, said Grodman.

Redden and Grodman said counseling for sex offenders is an ongoing process. Redden said counselors must look at all the circumstances that made the offender abuse another person and instill pro-social behaviors in the offender to ensure the abuse does not happen again.

"If someone has been in our program for an extended period of time, they obviously buy into the idea that treatment is a good thing," said Redden. "If they did it while they are in prison, they will do it while they are in the community."