# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Characteristics associated with rape attrition and the role played by scepticism or legal rationality by investigators and prosecutors

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Mike Smith is a sex offender who served a 10-year jail sentence for abuse he carried out within his family. On release, he was sent to a hostel in London, under the supervision of the probation service.

"The only people I associated with," he recalls, "were other sex offenders. Some of them were child sex offenders. Some of them were rapists of adults. They were the only people I could relate to who were not judgmental, which is difficult because they are not appropriate people to be mixing with."

Not appropriate in the sense that Smith - who doesn't want to give his real name or any details that could lead to him being identified - made a sincere commitment as part of his intensive rehabilitative therapy in prison not to reoffend. And he wanted desperately to keep to it, but it was made harder when he felt rejected by the rest of society and so thrown back on the company of other sex offenders.

"I find it difficult to make new friends," he admits. "When do you tell somebody about your past? I want to be honest."

There are 11,000 sex offenders like Smith in our jails, roughly 12% of the total prison population. In a week that has seen the jailing of Gary Glitter for sexually abusing three young girls, and further revelations about the depravity of Jimmy Savile, there is a temptation to lump together all sex offenders as paedophiles. But, of that 11,000, 10% are serving sentences for gross indecency with children.

The picture is further blurred because reports from individual prisons suggest that the number of paedophiles behind bars is increasing due to Operation Yewtree, the police investigation set up in 2012 after the Savile scandal. It encouraged other victims who had remained silent about abuse for years, in the belief that they wouldn't be taken seriously, to speak out. It also brought high-profile names including Rolf Harris, Stuart Hall and Max Clifford to justice for sexual offences against children.

While there can be little sympathy for these men - and they are mostly men, with recent academic research from the Dunkelfeld Project in Germany estimating that about 5% of men admit to having a sexual attraction to children - the hardest fact to face is that the vast majority of them will one day be released. And, as taxpayers (it costs an average of £44,000 a year to keep someone in prison), as individuals who may one day be their victims, and, in relation to that 10% of the 11,000, as parents of young children, it is in all our interests that, once released, they don't offend again.

Yet we have no confidence this can be achieved. While public opinion may just about accept that some burglars, drug dealers, even murderers may be able, after spending a long time behind bars, to turn over a new leaf, when it comes to sex offenders, especially when regarded en masse as paedophiles, conventional wisdom is that reoffending is inevitable. They can't help themselves.

On Wednesday, at the Palace of Westminster, that prejudice will be challenged with the award of the annual Robin Corbett Prize for prison rehabilitation, established in memory of the campaigning Labour MP, who died in 2012, and administered by the Prison Reform Trust. This year it is going to the Safer Living Foundation.

Based at HMP Whatton in Nottinghamshire, where all 841 inmates are convicted sex offenders (70% of them for offences against children), the foundation has been pioneering a new approach to rehabilitation, working with probation staff, academics from Nottingham Trent University, police and Circles UK, a not-for-profit organisation with Quaker roots.

Smith is one of those who has been helped by Circles UK. Since 2007, at 14 locations around the country, it has quietly produced an 83% reduction in reoffending rates among the sex offenders it takes on.

Like all those the organisation engages with, Smith was assigned one of its Circles of Support and Accountability (CoSAs). Made up of four or five trained volunteers, with professional supervision, they meet regularly with the sex offender (known as the "core member") to hold them accountable for their behaviour and to support their transition back into the community.

The twin elements are of equal weight and, as Smith recalls of his first meeting with his CoSA, the group was no soft touch. "I had to give a very frank and detailed explanation of my behaviour. Also part of the pattern that led me on to the course of offending was that I came from a very seriously abused childhood, both sexually and physically. I began to repeat the pattern of my own experiences."

Thereafter the questions put to him by his circle have been, he says, very challenging. "Without going into details: where do I get my sexual relief from? What do I fantasise about? How do I maintain appropriate behaviour? Sometimes it feels like I am being interrogated, and it is uncomfortable, but that's par for the course."

Balancing that, though, has been encouragement - to join in with activities that make him feel no longer a pariah. "I have an interest in art, and reading: I have been out to the British Library, art galleries, we've met up for coffee. I can't express how valuable that has been for me."

What makes the Safer Living Foundation unique is that it is the first example in the country where the circles' process has been taken behind bars with sex offenders who are coming up to release. Elsewhere, the CoSAs (which receive Ministry of Justice funding) only start once the core member is through the prison gate, but it can take time to establish when experience teaches that the first 90 days after release is the peak period for reoffending.

"People can be very frightened about going out into the community," says HMP Whatton's governor, Lynn Saunders. "At least when they are in prison, they say to me, someone cares whether I am dead or alive. Outside nobody cares."

In other words, because the rest of us categorise sex offenders as irredeemable, and so isolate them on release (by denying them housing, job opportunities and even running vigilante campaigns to get them moved on), our fears about their reoffending risk becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Sarah Blackner, a 23-year-old graduate in forensic psychology, is one of the community volunteers at HMP Whatton. Her training took place over three full days - plus an interview - but it was, she feels, worth it.

"In the four meetings we have had so far with our core member, I can already see progress," she says. "He's very insightful about his emotions, sometimes so much so that he makes me realise how un-insightful I am about mine. That has enabled me to see the human being, not just the offences he has committed."

Some might regard recognising the humanity in a sex offender as a sign of weakness, or even of letting them off the hook. It goes against the grain. What Circles UK and the Safer Living Foundation do is move beyond such instinctive reactions. There is nothing in their work that seeks to excuse the damage done by sex-offending. Neither does it hold out the prospect of a "cure". If an adult is sexually attracted to children, that cannot be wiped clean by a circle. But what these brave initiatives do show, statistically and unemotionally, is that many sex offenders can manage their impulses and behaviour, see how harmful they are, and learn how to identify and tackle the risk factors and triggers that have led them to offend over and over again.

We may not want to hear this - and, curiously, the Ministry of Justice that funds Circles UK appears to do little to make its work better known - but we shouldn't ignore it and leave our prejudices unchallenged. Again it comes down to self-interest.

The two reports published this week on Savile's crimes recommended a raft of measures to protect the vulnerable from sex offenders. How much more effective, though, if we could also open our minds to the idea that offenders can be helped to help themselves? "No more victims," says Smith. "That's one of the things Circles is about. I totally support that."
Peter Stanford is director of the Longford Trust for prison reform

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Their crimes provoke repulsion but it is our duty to rehabilitate sex offenders

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Mike Smith is a sex offender who served a 10-year jail sentence for abuse he carried out within his family. On release, he was sent to a hostel in London, under the supervision of the probation service. "The only people I associated with," he recalls, "were other sex offenders.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
PERCEPTIONS OF SEX OFFENDER REGISTRATION COLLATERAL CONSEQUENCES AND COMMUNITY EXPERIENCES

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Dosage of Treatment to Sexual Offenders- Are We Overprescribing?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In 1982, Roger Graef's documentary A Complaint of Rape shocked the nation and shook up the way the police dealt with rape. And 24 years on, a look at what has changed.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
On the Effectiveness of Sexual Offender Treatment in Prisons- A Comparison of Two Different Evaluation Designs in Routine Practice

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
'The sex offenders' register has existed since 1997. Since that time it has helped the police to protect the public from these most horrific of crimes.

Requiring serious sexual offenders to sign the register for life - as they do now - has broad support from across this House.

However, the Supreme Court ruled last April that not granting sex offenders the opportunity to seek a review is a breach of their human rights - in particular, the right to a private or family life. These are rights, of course, that these offenders have taken away from their victims in the cruellest and most degrading manner possible.

The government is disappointed and appalled by this ruling - it places the rights of sex offenders above the right of the public to be protected from the risk of re-offending - but there is no possibility of further appeal.

This government is determined to do everything we can to protect the public from predatory sexual offenders. And so we will make the minimum possible changes to the law in order to comply with this ruling.

I want to make clear that the Court's ruling does not mean that paedophiles and rapists will automatically come off the sex offenders' register. The Court found only that they must be given the right to to seek a review.

The Scottish government has already implemented a scheme to give offenders an automatic right of appeal for removal from the register after 15 years. We will implement a much tougher scheme.

Offenders can only apply for consideration of removal after waiting 15 years following release from custody - in England and Wales there will be no automatic appeals.

We will deliberately set the bar for those reviews as high as possible. Public protection must come first.

A robust review, led by the police and involving all relevant agencies, will be carried out so that a full picture of the risks to the public can be considered.

The final decision of whether an offender should remain on the register will be down to the police, not the courts, as in Scotland - the police are best placed to assess the risk of an offender committing another crime, and they will rightly put the public first.

There will be no right of appeal against the police's decision to keep an offender on the register. That decision will be final.

Sex offenders who continue to pose a risk will remain on the register and will do so for life, if necessary.

Where we are free to take further action to protect the public, we will do so. We will be shortly launching a targeted consultation aimed at closing down four existing loopholes in the sex offenders register

We will make it compulsory for sex offenders to report to the authorities before travelling abroad for even one day. This will prevent offenders from being free to travel for up to three days as they are under the existing scheme

We will force sex offenders to notify the authorities whenever they are living in a household with a child under the age of 18

We will require sex offenders to notify the authorities weekly as to where they can be found when they have no fixed abode

And we will tighten the rules so that sex offenders can no longer avoid being on the register when they change their name by deed poll

Finally, I can tell the House today that the Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary will shortly announce the establishment of a Commission to investigate the creation of a British Bill of Rights.

It is time to assert that it is Parliament that makes our laws, not the courts; that the rights of the public come before the rights of criminals; and above all, that we have a legal framework that brings sanity to cases such as these.

I commend this statement to the House.'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The sex offenders register: statement by Theresa May

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
'The sex offenders' register has existed since 1997. Since that time it has helped the police to protect the public from these most horrific of crimes. Requiring serious sexual offenders to sign the register for life - as they do now - has broad support from across this House.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Legal and Ethical issues when using anti androgenic pharmacotherapy

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Dominic Casciani
Home affairs correspondent

The main sex offender treatment programme for England and Wales has been scrapped after a report found it led to more reoffending.

Researchers found prisoners completing the programme were slightly more likely to offend than a control group.

The Ministry of Justice (MOJ) replaced the scheme in March after research confirmed evidence of its weaknesses.

The main programme to psychologically treat the highest-risk offenders has also been replaced, the ministry said.

The MOJ confirmed the change in treating sex offenders following publication on Friday of its own study which suggested the Core Sex Offender Treatment Programme (SOTP) could be making the situation worse.

The scheme, designed to challenge the behaviour of male sex offenders with psychological techniques to change their thinking, was first approved in 1992.

Researchers followed what happened to 2,562 prisoners who took part in the 180 hours of group sessions before their later release from prison.

They then compared their behaviour over the following years with more than 13,000 comparable offenders.

"More treated sex offenders committed at least one sexual re-offence [excluding breach of conditions of release] during the follow-up period when compared with the matched comparison offenders (10% compared with 8%)," said the study.

"More treated sex offenders committed at least one child image re-offence when compared with the matched comparison offenders (4.4% compared with 2.9 %).

"The results suggest that while Core SOTP in prisons is generally associated with little or no changes in sexual and non-sexual reoffending ... the small changes in the sexual reoffending rate suggest that either Core SOTP does not reduce sexual reoffending as it intends to do, or that the true impact of the programme was not detected.

"Group treatment may 'normalise' individuals' behaviour. When stories are shared, their behaviour may not be seen as wrong or different; or at worst, contacts and sources associated with sexual offending may be shared."

It's not clear why it failed

An earlier version of the scheme, in place in 2000, had appeared to reduce the offending of medium-risk men.

But a study seven years later, after Core SOTP had been expanded, suggested the sessions had become too generic and based around a "detailed manual", rather than tailored to each offender.

Treatment programmes for sex offenders

Sex offenders can receive therapy in prison and in the community

Core programme devised in 1992 - but revised over years as evidence of effectiveness complex

Main SOTP scheme rolled out to more prisons in 2000s - but now found to have failed

Two new schemes have been accredited as replacements, having been devised from latest research

The Ministry of Justice began to review the schemes in 2010 amid emerging evidence of what was working - and concerns about SOTP's effectiveness. On Friday it confirmed it had replaced Core SOTP in March - a decision that was not announced at the time - and the extended version of the scheme for high-risk offenders in March.

Offenders who would have originally taken part in those schemes were now on programmes called "Horizon" and "Kaizen". While the new schemes still involve group sessions, the inmates are no longer required to discuss their own offences.

Horizon, aimed at medium-risk offenders, aims to teach them "to manage unhealthy sexual thoughts and behaviours" and make other positive changes to their lives.

Kaizen, a Japanese word used in business to refer to continual improvements in performance, is focused on the highest risk offenders.

"We keep treatment programmes under constant review to reduce reoffending and protect the public," said the statement.

"The treatment of sex offenders is a complex issue, subject to international scrutiny and research. In the UK, we have been evaluating our Sex Offender Treatment Programmes since before 2003.

"We have discontinued two of the eight programmes and replaced them with new courses as part of this process. These new programmes will be monitored closely."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Sex offender treatment in prison led to more offending

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Dominic Casciani Home affairs correspondent The main sex offender treatment programme for England and Wales has been scrapped after a report found it led to more reoffending. Researchers found prisoners completing the programme were slightly more likely to offend than a control group.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In the article below we said Ian Huntley, convicted killer of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, was a 'caretaker at the girls' [primary] school'. This is the second time we have made this error (see For the Record, 28 December 2003). Huntley was a site manager at Soham Community College, a secondary school.

David jabs his tongue violently into his cheek and nervously repeats my question. 'How long would it take me to turn my back on all the therapy and rehab and abuse a kid again?' he mutters, rocking backwards and forwards in his seat. 'I know exactly how long it would take.'

It is seven years since David sexually abused a child and 18 months since he was released from prison for the second time, in order to live anonymously in the community.

The police officer responsible for David's risk management, Constable Longstaff, has never asked David this question. Earlier, however, she had estimated that it would take at least two to three months for the 33-year-old to first gather the courage and then engineer a situation in which he could attack a child.

Seconds later, we discover the truth. 'It would take me between 30 seconds and a minute,' David says quietly. There is no boastfulness or doubt in his voice. When asked to elaborate, he details his plan. It is completely convincing.

'There is a bridge I cross every day when I come home from the shops. Boys play in the field there. They're the sort who always come up to me, asking for cigarettes. Underneath that bridge it is dark. That's where I'd take them,' he says.

Longstaff briefly closes her eyes in despair. David continues. Now he is almost pleading: 'I'm scared, because if I reoffend I will lose my flat and I don't want to lose my flat. But every day there's a risk I will lose control. I never mean to stop on the bridge but sometimes I find myself watching boys and I don't know how long I've been standing there.'

David has been convicted of numerous indecent assaults on children over the past decades. He was finally imprisoned in 1993 and, after his sentence expired, was placed on the sex offenders' register. In 1999 he reoffended and was returned to prison. When he was released for the second time, he returned to Humberside, where he was born.

But the police continue to have concerns about the level of danger he still represents to the community. They have graded him as being at 'high risk' of reoffending; the second highest category. 'Being considered high risk sounds serious, doesn't it?' Longstaff had said before David arrived at the police station to meet us. 'In reality, it means I spend an hour in his flat every three to six months, chatting to him about what he's been up to. You can't get much information out of these people on these visits. It's only if they choose to talk to you or accidentally let something slip.'

David, however, is one of the more communicative offenders on Longstaff's list. It is chilling how candidly he admits the power his sexual perversions continue to hold over him.

'If I had kids, I would not want someone like me to be out in the community,' he admits. 'I would be afraid and angry if I knew someone like me was living with the freedom I have.'

There is intense public feeling about the process of law that lets paedophiles and other dangerous offenders out into the community after their prison sentences are complete. This widespread paranoia and anxiety explodes into national panic when such people do reoffend. In such a climate, it is almost impossible to have a balanced and open political discussion about how these people should be managed.

This was why Humberside agreed to give The Observer exclusive and unique access to the heart of the multi-agency public protection arrangements, or Mappa. Under Mappa, every violent and sexual offender has his or her panel of experts. Ranging from police, probation and social services to housing and health experts, these panels decide how offenders should be supervised and managed in the community.

Humberside not only has the highest proportion of registered sex offenders in the country; it was also the region that came under severe criticism for the handling of intelligence regarding Ian Huntley, who went on to murder 10-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.

For two weeks The Observer attended panel meetings usually barred to journalists and the public, at which all the agencies openly discussed their fears about the risks posed by offenders living locally and drew up action plans that gave the public as much protection as possible.

We watched as senior officials worked together, deciding every detail of the lives of offenders living in their area. Where should they live, for example - how near to the schools, parks and playgrounds? What jobs could they take? And what - if anything - should landlords, neighbours and employers be told about their past? We were privy to discussions at which experts revealed their belief that specific offenders were in danger of reoffending.

The dilemmas faced by the public protection team were chilling: what should be done about the paedophile who has completed his prison sentence but is showing signs of returning to his offending behaviour? What about the sex offender whose behaviour is becoming increasingly unreliable but who is still on licence? Delaying his recall for a moment too long could mean the murder of another child. But returning him to custody unnecessarily is not just an abuse of his human rights but highly expensive and damaging to any hopes of eventual rehabilitation.

In another case, panel members struggled to decide what to do about the violent offender with mental health problems and a history of knife attacks, whose parents had recently given him a samurai sword. Medical experts monitoring his behaviour said that, if he continued taking his medication, he was a risk to no one. But if he stopped taking his pills, he could be a severe danger to the public.

In yet another case, the experts tried to decide what should be done about the offender about to be released from prison, who had asked to be sent on an £80,000, year-long, residential therapy course. This man, said his probation officer, continued to represent a high risk to the public. She argued strongly that he should be sent on the course, which would delay his return to the community and place him under constant supervision. But health experts on the panel were less convinced: the course was expensive and had only a limited chance of successfully rehabilitating the offender, they argued. For the same money they could fund a year's treatment for three people with Alzheimer's. Why, they asked, should this offender's needs be given priority?

Perhaps the most astonishing experiences were the conversations we had with the offenders themselves. We asked how successful they felt this multi-agency approach was at preventing them reoffending.

Their replies were often terrifying.

James is one offender who was recently identified as being on the cusp of reoffending. He was convicted of abusing children in 1972 and has been in and out of prison ever since. He is now monitored by Police Constable Jeff Smith, with whom he has a close, if tense, relationship.

'I have had these feelings since I was 12 years old,' admitted James. 'Over the years I have developed a pattern. I make friends with lonely single mothers or older people who look after their grandchildren and who either need help or are just friendly people.'

Smith recently discovered that he had yet again begun the process of grooming a family to gain access to a girl. The policeman moved quickly. The family was warned to break all contact with him, and Smith raised James's risk category, meaning his contact with the offender was increased.

'I am glad someone saw what I was doing and reported me,' James said. 'I didn't start off intentionally grooming that family but I can see now that I was building up towards that.

'I can't say that I'll never reoffend again,' he added. 'I'm like this and I can't help it. It's not an addiction; it's how I am. It's just a case of remembering what I was told on the rehabilitation courses I have done in prison.'

Mappa was set up by the Home Office in 2001 to build on good practice and to counter the professional suspicion that existed in some areas between police, probation and social workers. The lack of co-ordination between services created a stand-off that had left many offenders free from effective supervision, enabling them to slip through the net and reoffend.

Instead of operating in isolation, Mappa panel members were instructed to work together to assess and deal with the risks posed by the most dangerous and violent offenders living in the community, pooling intelligence and skills. It is difficult and expensive work: the panels must decode the chaotic and unpredictable lives led by the most dangerous people in their communities. They must anticipate and identify often minute changes in their lives that could tip the balance in these people's behaviour and trigger a fresh offence.

Inevitably, mistakes do happen. It was not long after Christmas two years ago that Peter Voisey snatched a six-year-old girl in north Tyneside from her bath and raped her, although he was supposed to have been monitored in the community.

More recently, the family of a three-year-old girl abducted and raped by Craig Sweeney were left asking how details of his behaviour had not been shared between agencies in Gwent and Avon and Somerset.

Some of those tragedies were caused by failures and mistakes from which lessons could be - and were - learnt but, as John Godley, Mappa co-ordinator for the Humberside area pointed out, the system is beset by other problems that are less easily solved.

'Managing these people is not as straightforward as the public like to think,' he said. 'When a criminal reoffends, the public cry out that those charged with managing them should have anticipated it and stopped it before it happened.

'But although the public protection system is vastly better than it was, it is still not perfect,' he admitted.

The public, said Godley, assume that there are a few violent and sex offenders in any community and many agencies able to supervise their behaviour. 'In reality,' he said, 'it is absolutely the other way round.'

According to Visor, the violent and sex offenders' register, there are 860 individuals who pose a significant risk to the public in Humberside, and 306 others who are no longer on the sexual offences register but are still listed on Visor.

Humberside has the highest proportion of registered sex offenders in the country: 81 for every 100,000 of the population. Nationally, there are 45,737 live cases on Visor and 10,861 others not being actively managed.

The level of management and supervision offenders receive can be well over minimum levels but, said Godley: 'The simple, if disturbing, truth is that no region in the country has a bottomless pit of staff and resources.'

Home Office research showing the probability of sex and violent offenders reoffending is terrifying. Offenders believed to be 'very high risk' have more than a 90 per cent chance of recidivism. Around half of all high-risk offenders will reoffend, and up to a third of medium-risk offenders will commit another crime.

It is hard for any system to triumph over such entrenched offending behaviour but the level of supervision of sex offenders, set nationally, seems astonishing to an outside observer. While Humberside has one exceptional case where an offender is being visited three times a day by three separate agencies, other offenders are monitored at the minimum level suitable to their level of risk as set by national guidance.

Under minimum standards, registered sex offenders considered to be low-risk are visited by a police officer once a year, while medium-risk offenders are seen every six to nine months. High-risk offenders, like David, receive visits once every three to six months. Those deemed to be at very high risk of reoffending are visited once every three months.

'With lots of these men, we can all see that, slowly but surely, they're back on a path to reoffending,' admitted Longstaff. 'All we can do is hope that we're around at the specific moment they do something concrete enough to recall them to jail.

'The truth is that I would not want the public to realise exactly how little I can do in law,' she added. 'Some of these offenders have done things so horrible and dangerous that, if the public knew they were out and walking round the streets, there would be uproar.'

Despite the risks and difficulties, however, Mappa does seem to be working. According to the most recent figures from the Home Office, there are now almost 30,000 offenders on the national sex offenders' register - or an increase of 4 per cent on the year before. Yet in 2005 just 250 serious crimes were committed by offenders in the programme.

An idea of how many crimes were anticipated and prevented can be gleaned from the fact that 1,640 of the 13,783 offenders in the two most serious categories of risk were found to have breached their licences or Sexual Offences Protection Order, both of which impose conditions on offenders, such as staying away from playgrounds or schools. All were returned to custody immediately.

The risk of a criminal reoffending haunts those whose job it is to minimise all risks. In another exclusive piece of access, The Observer attended a training day for the most senior probation officers in Humberside.

'I find it hard to contain the sheer disgust, fear and revulsion I feel towards these men,' said one officer. 'I feel repulsion towards them. I feel hatred.'

John Godley, who carried out the training, says that, although these feelings may not be politically correct, it is healthy to acknowledge them. Another officer said: 'If you don't privately admit the feelings you have when working with, for example, someone who has raped a two-year-old, you can't deal with them professionally in public.' The need to control such feelings is central to the success of the parole officer. It is only by getting close enough to the offender to gain their trust that the layers of fantasy and worrying behaviour can be laid bare.

While hoping that offenders do learn a degree of self-control from rehabilitation courses and therapy, many feel that the only way these people can be properly monitored in the community is by putting them under 24-hour surveillance.

But this is not the catch-all solution it appears. 'If I asked for 24-hour surveillance for half the people I thought deserved it, I would be told I wasn't doing my job properly because I wasn't being realistic about the protection we can offer the public,' said Longstaff. 'And they'd be right to say that: you need dozens of officers to keep a round-the-clock on an individual. You tell me how we can afford to pay for that.'

Experts have other complaints about the limits of their power: case managers have no legal right of entry into the house of an offender, for example. 'If I go round to talk to an offender in his home, he can refuse to let me in and there's nothing I can do about it,' explained Longstaff.

'We also need greater sentences for sex offenders. You can get life for rape, but virtually no one ever does.' Even the other so-called 'solution' to the problem of violent and sexual offenders in the community, - the naming and shaming known as 'Sarah's Law' - creates deep divides among professionals. 'From the parents' and public's point of view, I see why Sarah's Law seems so attractive,' said one police officer. 'If we lived in a nation where we could trust people to use the information sensibly, I would support its introduction. But the truth is that we have a significant minority who would use that information to attack offenders, which would drive them underground. That would be the worst thing: at least if we know where these people are and they trust us enough to talk to us, we have a chance of stopping them reoffending.'

Detective Chief Superintendent Gavin Baggs, Humberside Police head of CID, is candid about the likelihood of ever creating entirely safe communities for our children to grow up in. 'The public have to accept there is no such thing as a completely risk-free environment,' he said. 'The truth is that we, as a nation, are not prepared to accept the constraints on all our lives that would require.'

Baggs points to the furore sparked by the reported decision of some schools to ban parents taking photographs of children during plays and sporting events. 'There is a risk that some of those photos will be being taken for the wrong reasons, but it's a such a small risk,' he said. 'But where do you stop? Where do you draw the line?'

Even if the public did decide that the risks to their children were so high that it was acceptable to lock up everyone even suspected of having the potential to commit a violent offence, or if they agreed to pay the taxes necessary for their 24-hour surveillance, the safety of our children is not guaranteed.

Statistics show that we should be less worried about offenders we know about and monitor and more concerned by those others - neighbours, uncles and friends we have grown to trust - who have never been convicted of a crime.

'The public would not stand for the level of Big Brother controls that would be necessary to stop all offenders, both known and unknown,' said Angela Montgomery, senior manager for risk and child protection at Humberside probation service. 'We have to get the message across that we're not going to eradicate risk, no matter how hard we work. The public need to realise that sex offenders will always exist. There will always be a risk that you live next to one, or have one in your family. Society needs to be more mature and take responsibility for the reality of the world we live in.'

Names of sex offenders have been changed.
Four who slipped through the net
By Paul Gallagher
Peter Voisey
During Voisey's three-week trial last October, the jury heard he had a previous conviction in 2001 for molesting a 12-year-old girl in a Macclesfield leisure centre for which he was given two years and placed on the sex offenders' register. Four years later and under a low level of monitoring, Voisey snatched a six-year-old girl from her bathroom in Tyneside before raping her. The 35-year-old was given three life sentences at Newcastle Crown Court last month and told he was to serve a minimum of 20 years.

Stuart Campbell
Campbell, an Essex builder, was obsessed with teenage girls. After his conviction for murdering his 15-year-old niece Danielle Jones in 2002, it emerged that he had a history of abusing girls stretching as far back as the 1970s. Danielle's body has never been found.

Craig Sweeney
Details of Sweeney's previous convictions were not shared between South Wales and Avon and Somerset forces. Sweeney kidnapped and sexually assaulted a three-year-old girl last January two days after his licence expired for a previous conviction. He was sentenced to life in June, but can apply for parole after five years and 108 days. A report into his case revealed he had been accused of making inappropriate comments to three children and of touching one of them on her bottom while on licence in August 2005. Sweeney was not sent back to prison after the allegation was examined by probation officers. The report concluded that it would have been 'prudent' to review the risk Sweeney posed before he was freed from licence.

Ian Huntley
The Soham killer was sentenced to 'a minimum of 40 years in prison' for murdering Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, both 10, on 4 August 2002, after they walked out of a family barbecue. Huntley managed to secure work as a caretaker at the girls' school in the Cambridgeshire village, despite having been accused of sex with underage girls and of rape several times before he moved to the village. Huntley was only ever charged with burglary - a case that was dropped before it came to court - but this was the only charge that was placed on the national police computer. The Bichard report on the murders heavily criticised Cambridgeshire and Humberside police for failing to share evidence on Huntley's case history and for deleting vital files that highlighted the risks that Huntley posed.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Focus: How should we deal with sex offenders released from jail?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
How should society deal with sex offenders once they have been released from jail? The Observer was given unprecedented access over several weeks to top police and probation officers managing paedophiles in the community. The results will shock and disturb.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Does treatment work with internet sex offenders Emerging findings from the Internet Sex Offender Treatment Programme i SOTP

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Film-maker Rex Bloomstein investigates how sex offenders are treated and rehabilitated.

The film-maker Rex Bloomstein, who pioneered a British prison television documentary, gains unprecedented access to the largest sex offender prison in Europe, HMP Whatton in the UK. Since the revelations surrounding high profile figures in the UK entertainment industry, there are more sex offenders in English and Welsh prisons than ever before, around 11600 out of a total population of 86000.

HMP Whatton, with its capacity of 841 prisoners, is a specialist treatment centre for sex offenders - 70% of whom have committed offences against children, the rest against adults. Bloomstein explore the methods used to get prisoners to confront their offending behaviour and to prepare them to go back out into the world. Their re-offending rate, 6%, is surprisingly low compared to 50% for the general prison population.

Bloomstein then travels to the Netherlands to examine how it manages men who have not committed contact sex offences, that is the downloading of child pornography, in the community. He gains access to the clients and staff at the clinics of de Waag, the oldest and largest centre for outpatient psychiatry in the country. He discovers that the Dutch police often refer men who they arrest in possession of child porn straight to de Waag before they go on to trial.

Bloomstein also hears about the work of the helpline Stop it Now!, which through its publicity campaign, aims to encourage men with a sexual interest in children to come forward for treatment before they commit an offence.

(Photo: Indian police officers escort Ravinder Kumar, who is accused of murdering and sexual assaulting a six-year-old girl, 2015. Credit: Sajjad HussainAFP/Getty Images)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
BBC World Service - The Documentary, Treating the Sex Offender

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Film-maker Rex Bloomstein investigates how sex offenders are treated and rehabilitated. The film-maker Rex Bloomstein, who pioneered a British prison television documentary, gains unprecedented access to the largest sex offender prison in Europe, HMP Whatton in the UK.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Mandatory life sentences for serious sex offenders in England and Wales tough but intelligent too

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Louis has gained access to Coalinga Mental Hospital in California, which houses more than 500 convicted paedophiles who have been deemed unsafe for release.

Louis has gained access to Coalinga Mental Hospital in California, which houses more than 500 of the most disturbed criminals in America, convicted paedophiles. Most have already served lengthy prison sentences, but have been deemed unsafe for release. Instead, they have been sent here for an indefinite time. Spending time with those undergoing treatment, Louis wrestles with whether he can ever allow himself to believe men whose whole history is defined by deception and deceit.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
BBC Two - Louis Theroux, A Place for Paedophiles

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Louis has gained access to Coalinga Mental Hospital in California, which houses more than 500 convicted paedophiles who have been deemed unsafe for release. Louis has gained access to Coalinga Mental Hospital in California, which houses more than 500 of the most disturbed criminals in America, convicted paedophiles.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Accuracy of Recidivism Risk Assessments for Sexual Offenders- A Meta-Analysis of 118 Prediction Studies

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
discussion about digital strip search (post rape investigation) on Victoria Live

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
By Kieran McCartan, Ph.D. and David S. Prescott, LICSW

Across the UK, but especially in England and Wales, the response to crime and management of those who break laws (especially those who sexually abuse) is shifting. The Conservative government has recently instituted changes to the management of offenders across the board with its transforming rehabilitation agenda . This agenda shifts the offender management landscape significantly, with one of the most contentious issues being the privatisation in the management of all low and medium risk offenders to Community Rehabilitation Companies on a payment-by-results model, with all high risk offenders remaining with a downsized, specialized probation service. Interestingly, this approach does not apply to all low and medium risk offenders. Sex offenders - regardless of their risk level - will be managed by a downsized probation service. In other words, all sex offenders are considered high risk regardless of the actual risk they pose.

In addition to these practical changes, there have been significant changes in policy and practice around sex offender treatment programmes. Up until recently, the cornerstone of sex offender treatment in the UK was linked to risk level, required that those entering treatment first admit guilt, and used cognitive-behavioural approaches. While there had always been a degree of scepticism about the impact and utility of sex offender treatment programmes, there was a view that programmes needed to be evidence based ( ; Ministry of Justice, 2010 ) - or at least based on sound science - and that doing something was better than doing nothing. The Ministry of justice argued that:

While some may argue with the Ministry of Justice's perspective on sex offender treatment programmes in general, it was nonetheless respectable and defensible. However, this blog's concern is that the demand for a solid evidence base seems to have started to dissolve. The swing from left to right with the conservative government, an increase in ideological (as opposed to science-based) policies, austerity and privatisation has brought about changes, but not necessarily what the Ministry advocated. What we have now is a change in the treatment of sexual offenders that might have its roots in research, but is not evaluated, evidenced based or necessarily coherent. Only time will tell; exit the "Sex Offender Treatment Programme" (SOTP) and enter "Horizon" and "Kaizen".

Earlier this year (in March) the Ministry of Justice rapidly introduced two new sex offender treatment programmes: Kaizen (for high risk, high need, high priority offenders) and Horizon (for medium risk offenders) to replace existing SOTP programmes. Initially, it came as a surprise to many in the field, although there had long been murmurs of a change of direction, but recently it has emerged that there were issues relating to recent programmes and a related report was apparently suppressed ( Daily Mail, 2017 ).

At first glance and on paper, the two new programmes look good enough. They appear to be strengths-based, positively orientated and focused on ideas found in the Good Lives Model and related approaches; this is certainly a welcome change from approaches of the past. The idea is that they build on and adapt the recently jettisoned SOTP - they are an update and remodelling of existing practices. As with previous versions of sex offender treatment in the UK neither Horizon or Kaizen are aimed at low risk sex offenders, but unlike previous programmes they have capacity for "Deniers"/"individuals who are maintain their innocence" which is a welcome shift. Both programmes are based on the sex offender treatment literature and pull together material from a range of sources.

Kaizen is based upon Risk, Need and Responsivity; multidimensional views of needs and interventions to be holistic, therefore incorporating biological, psychological and social aspects; strengths based approaches; desistance; and adaptive, appropriate and easy to engage with approaches to learning.

Horizon is based upon criminogenic needs and the recognition that sex offenders and non-sex offenders are similar and therefore addresses poor problem solving skills, poor self-regulation and relationship problems.

While these two new programmes are purportedly evidence based, it may be better to say they are evidence informed. In the pure research/evaluation/piloting sense they are not evidence based, having not been tested rigorously. This is ironic given the Ministry of Justice's need for rigorous evidence in other areas of sex offender treatment/support (i.e., Circles of Support and Accountability). From our perspective, there are further ironies. New models often attract doubt and even scorn in the professional literature. There can be a paradox of putting down unproven innovation at the same time as there can be nothing proven until there is innovation. While we applaud the development of these new models and hope that they are successful, it is nonetheless strange to see that the Ministry of Justice's complaints about unproven methods has led to more unproven methods being championed.

Therefore we need to make sure that the treatment, rehabilitation and (re)integration is fit for fit for purpose, publically accountable, transparent and not directed by "political"; especially in the arenas of sex offending given the increased public, media and political visibility the issue has. As Ruth Mann observed in , the evil twin of evidence-based policy-making is policy-based evidence-making. It is for exactly this reason that we need more dialog and debate and not less.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
By Kieran McCartan, Ph.D. and David S. Prescott, LICSW Across the UK, but especially in England and Wales, the response to crime and management of those who break laws (especially those who sexually abuse) is shifting. The Conservative government has recently instituted changes to the management of offenders across the board with its transforming rehabilitation agenda .

# data[].attributes.headline
The high cost of failure to rehabilitate sex-offenders

# data[].attributes.subject
The high cost of failure to rehabilitate sex-offenders

# data[].attributes.body
David Charbonneau