I simply don't believe this. Is this an Onion article?
No.
They don't believe in punishment, because it gives them the willies. For the most obvious of reasons - they know they deserve heaps. So they instead think the purpose of "corrections" (notice that term?) is not a just and proportional penalty for a crime, but a clinical intervention to reprogram or heal, not the victims or the community or the society as a whole, but precisely the criminal. As far as this liberal judge is concerned, he is a doctor prescribing treatment for a patient. And the state says "counseling X for released sex offenders", because the state imagined they would have already done hard time but still need watching. The judge only wants said treatment, so he hits the fast forward button.
Besides the stupidity in the philosophy behind it, you have to be gob-smacked by the world-historical arrogance in utterly ignoring both the law and the rest of the state, let alone the people, involved. His own pet theory of things simply overrides all. Why? Because otherwise he'd get the willies at night thinking he might have been mean to somebody. Nevermind how mean he is being to all the girls in his state, indirectly. Only the direct stuff gives him the willies. And his willies, don't you know, are what all of this is about. That's the real secret.