Bermudians are being urged to lobby their MPs in an effort to secure a specialised treatment programme for the Island's convicted sex offenders.

Despite Government's expressed willingness to support such an idea, "Bermuda still has no treatment programme for convicted sex offenders,'' wrote two members of the Women's Resource Centre in the group's spring newsletter.

Mrs. Susan Boyd and Ms Celia Luthi said there had been a plan in 1993 to send two or three prison officers to a Canadian prison for the purpose of studying its sex offender treatment programme. The officials were to stay for three months and apply the expertise they would acquire to the creation of a similar programme in Bermuda.

Because of staff shortages and the demands of the prison building project, however, the plan was severely curtailed.

"Instead, two prison nurses went overseas for an abbreviated three weeks of training,'' Mrs. Boyd and Ms. Luthi said.

The nurses who received the training are currently developing a proposal for a Bermuda-oriented treatment programme with Prisons psychologist Dr. Derek Binns. The proposal, which encompasses "assessment, treatment and relapse prevention,'' will require the approval of both the Prison Department Committee and the Ministry of Social Services.

In the meantime, potentially dangerous sex offenders are being released into society without receiving rehabilitative treatment, Mrs. Boyd and Ms Luthi said, adding that such individuals had "notoriously high'' repetition rates.

The lack of an effective treatment programme may also be perpetuating a growing problem on the Island. According to Mrs. Boyd, who spoke on domestic violence at the Princess Hotel this week, the documented level of violence against Bermudian women has skyrocketed since 1990.

As a significant portion of that violence involves sex, the Women's Resource Centre has urged Bermudians to take up this campaign.

"If you believe, as we do, that a sex offender who has `graduated' from a rehabilitative counselling programme will be less dangerous to the public than a sex offender who has merely served time, contact your MPs and express your support for the proposed sex offenders' treatment programme.''