Treatment in the Maelstrom: The Challenge of
Working with Paedophiles in the Community
- Adrian G.
Smith
I have no doubt that all
of those working in the UK’s Criminal Justice System share a deep commitment to
achieving the twin goals of reduced recidivism and greater protection for the
public. Yet it would seem that the reactive policies of successive Governments
and their administrations have served to weaken the resolve and efficacy of
practitioners, during the past 15 years.
Public protection can
only be achieved by either locking people up and throwing away the key, or
alternatively, by effecting a positive change in offender behaviour. Of course
it’s not feasible, nor desirable to lock everyone up, so it’s important to find
a way to help offenders rehabilitate and learn to lead more pro-social lives.
Fortunately, Probation workers, psychologists, therapists and social workers
have long had plenty of ideas based on firm research and experience about how to
go about achieving this. What is not so fortunate however is that it has become
increasingly difficult to develop and deliver these approaches within the
current criminal justice environment. This is not simply to do with limited or
fragmented resources (undoubtedly a factor) but is more a reflection of an
increasingly risk-averse and inflexible operating environment. The level of
shut-down is even greatest when it comes to addressing sexual offending and in
particular sex crimes against children.
The ‘moral panic’ that
fed all this can be traced back to the turn of the Millennium with the News of
the World’s ‘name and shame’ campaign aimed at outing paedophiles, following the
tragic murder of Sara Payne. Two weekends of published lists of alleged
paedophiles complete with ‘mug-shots’, quickly resulted in major riots on the
Paulsgrove estate in Portsmouth and an increasingly volatile national public
opinion. The newspaper’s actions fuelled fear and paranoia and made it very
difficult for practitioners or public commentators to express a rational and
considered outlook. Suddenly the public were seeing examples of deviant
behaviour and potential paedophilia almost everywhere they looked. The national
media found that they could easily feed an increasingly prurient and angry
readership by trawling for local stories which could become national outrages.
This had value in raising readership and winning new subscribers enjoined in
moral outrage. A series of high profile documentaries on the main television
channels quickly added to the angry reaction and further stirred the maelstrom.
Sadly, modern UK
Governments seem to find it impossible to risk being seen to look for proper
perspective and to listen to expert advice about how they should respond.
Instead, the administration current at the time quickly embraced knee jerk
responses to each identified new case. The Probation Service for example was
tasked with developing a system for reviewing each case that had resulted in a
serious further offence (SFO), which it did (not untypically) with integrity,
honesty and some degree of naivety.
The pattern was set.
Each time an offender was charged with an SFO (whether they were convicted or
otherwise) a full review of the way in which the case had been managed would be
conducted by the Probation Service. Findings were identified and actions put
into place, designed to ensure that similar failings would not be repeated.
This rapidly became an
industry in itself and in London alone, following just one case, (Hanson and
White)
over 80 separate actions were implemented. The many hundreds of aggregated
learning points and actions across the total of SFO cases eventually had the
effect of increasing the level of bureaucratic red tape, with multiple targets
and controls which bogged down the practitioner and slowed practice. Ironically
the pitch was set for a less mindful form of case management which was led by
rote and routine. Offender managers for their part began to develop practice
that was underpinned by caution, defensiveness and slavish adherence to rules
and procedures. This was not the environment to explore new approaches and
initiatives that might address sexual offending.
So by the mid-noughties,
we had a community justice model which was overwhelmingly focussed upon a
defensive strategy. Instead of developing treatments and positive
interventions, the task was to identify, classify and manage the level of risk
posed by the individual. A new industry of multi-agency public protection
arrangements (MAPPA) was designed to control and restrict the movement of
potentially dangerous offenders. Whilst it would be churlish to ignore some of
the excellent partnership-based working and quality of risk-management and
control procedures that were now in place, the space for innovative treatment
work was nonetheless being squeezed to death! So rather than attempting to be
hard on the ‘causes of crime’ and seeking to rehabilitate, in line with Tony
Blair’s early mantra, policy was instead focussed upon controlling and managing
crime (see Kemshall 2003).
Little has happened in
society to change that approach since then and this is hardly surprising when
one considers the hard line, that media and Government has taken, when faced
with apparent failures by those practitioners and managers charged with the
unenviable task of protecting society. As David Millar put it at a recent
Loudoun Trust Symposium,
‘we don’t have the power to make the guilty feel guilty, so we make the innocent
feel guilty instead!’ Wendy Fitzgibbon (2011) has described this process in
alarming detail, noting in the case of Baby P, how The Sun newspaper invited its
readers to sign a petition calling for the sacking of social workers and
managers responsible for the child’s welfare. Of course the relevant Minister,
Ed Balls, was quick to oblige with the dismissal of Director of Children’s
Services Sharon Shoesmith. Fitzgibbon also highlighted another cause celebre of
the time, that of the murder of two French students by Dano Sonnex, which
resulted in the enforced resignation (by Jack Straw) of the Chief Probation
Officer of London, David Scott. She noted the knee jerk reaction of
Government:
‘...Ministers pay
increasing attention to the media rather than the political process. This
dictates a quick high profile reaction to events.’ (ibid. p.85)
Add to the mix the more
recent scandals of historical abuse by celebrities (Jimmy Saville, Rolf Harris
and others) and it is no wonder that the public has run out of tolerance and
fear paedophilia in particular, as something suddenly endemic and out of
control. We seem to have developed a perfect storm or maelstrom in which
society lurches between outrages, resulting in our collective exhaustion and
sense of crisis.
What price then, for
calm and rational delivery of appropriate treatments for such perpetrators? It
is not easy to face the media or the public at large with proposals for
interventions, which might work (or might not), and even then, can only be
effective if given sufficient time and resourcing. Yet surely it is the patient
and skilled implementation of effective interventions, that will reap the
greatest rewards for society - ultimately leading to a reduction in further
offences and consequently, to the protection of the public.
In the past, the
Probation Service had been more encouraging of its practitioners to develop
techniques and methods, with a view to changing the behaviour of sex offenders.
Notably during the 1980s this was based upon psycho-dynamic techniques and
delivered to groups of offenders rather than individuals. This approach was
something which was cutting edge at the time, as most work was still undertaken
on a one to one basis. Programmes such as the Berkeley Group, Avon and Pier
Groups were able to take a number of calculated risks, experimenting with
desensitization techniques and adopting a psycho-dynamic approach. The Pier
Group, which ran successfully in Kent from the mid 80s into the 90s was even
supported by the Portman Clinic, which was famed for its reputation as leading
exponents of Psycho-analytic methods.
The problem for such
programmes was that they required time to achieve change and this was measured
by the Portman as within years, and certainly not months. The delivery of
treatments for sex offenders in the community was simply too slow-moving and
difficult to measure in terms of efficacy, for the increasingly urgent needs of
the Probation Service. Something that brought this dilemma into sharp focus was
the emergence of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) which began to be imported
from North America. These approaches seemed to offer the potential for
relatively short interventions (measured in 20-30 sessions) to achieve realistic
and targeted movement in attitudes and thinking processes. The systematic
delivery of this manual-based approach provided practitioners with a methodology
that could be justified in terms of ‘scientific’ concepts such as measured
dosage, sound targeting of needs/risk and programme integrity
(McGuire 2000). It was possible for practitioners to claim a principled position
and point to research-based evidence supporting rehabilitative approaches.
Cognitive Behavioural
programmes were soon developed for use with sex offenders and were formally
accredited by a national panel for use in both prison and probation settings.
These programmes have continued to be developed or revised over the years to
meet specific identified needs. There is for example, now an adapted version for
offenders with learning difficulties, and programmes specifically targeted at
internet offenders, as well as specific modules for prisoners and for those in
the community.
Two of the main packages
delivered by Probation Services, Community Sex Offenders Group Programme (CSOGP)
and Thames Valley Sex Offender Group Programme (TVSOGP) use similar methods of
intervention and follow modular paths, which are timed to meet offender needs
and status. Both programmes are intended to provide challenge to offenders’
thoughts, attitudes and emotional responses linked to their offending
behaviour. This involves exercises aimed at increasing self awareness,
addressing problematic thinking processes (cognitive distortions) and
confronting ideas and perceptions.
The introduction of
individual action plans or offence focused targets reflects the assumption that
whilst a cure is not feasible, it is possible to introduce elements of self
control within the individual. Thus this rational approach implies that the
treatment goals of the programme are far more achievable, giving hope to the
practitioner and offender alike.
A chief difficulty
however, is that even these modular CBT programmes are highly resource intensive
and are not always immediately available. It is also necessary for offenders to
be subject to sufficient length of sentence (either of imprisonment and/or
supervision in the community) for these programmes to be completed. NAPO, the
Probation Officers’ own union was sufficiently worried about this, that it used
the media to raise concerns, pointing out that ‘sentences allow no time for
rehabilitation, increasing the risk of reoffending’
Even where the length of
community sentence appears sufficient, the slightest delay, legitimate or
otherwise can soon play havoc with schedules and stretched resources.
A convicted paedophile abused a girl of
five after treatment he was ordered to take was delayed – because he was
away on holiday.... The trip away delayed the start by a year... but the
scheme was again postponed because of “insufficient resources”.
Daily Mirror April 2013
These cognitive
behavioural sex offender programmes are normally delivered by trained
specialists who operate outside of the normal offender manager role. This of
course has the advantage of ensuring that such practitioners are properly
skilled and experienced. The downside however is that the offender manager (OM)
who has most of the long term contact with a paedophile or other type of sex
offender, is often less skilled and experienced and tends to rely heavily on the
specialist programme to provide the effective intervention. In an ideal world,
the OM will seek to build on the learning and experience of the offender who has
attended the programme but all too often, this is affected by a dearth of skills
or experience in working with sex offenders.
The recent privatisation
of two-thirds of the Probation Service, has served to leave higher risk cases in
the management of the public sector service (by definition, most sex offenders)
which may increase the relevant experience of the OMs holding the cases,
although this still remains to be seen, as new systems bed down. The corollary
of this however, is that 2/3rds of the former service (Community Rehabilitation
Companies) will be operating with minimal knowledge and expertise in
identifying, challenging and managing risky behaviours amongst their charges.
Paedophilia, general sex
offending, violence and domestic abuse is invariably well hidden within families
and the general population; it is certainly not confined to offenders who have
previously been defined as ‘high risk’. OMs working within the Community
Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) must be alive to this and able to recognise
warning signs. The private companies owning CRCs will need to invest in
appropriate training and support for their officers, though they may well argue
that the need for this was never made explicit in the contract specifications
for which they had tendered. An organisation charged with identifying and
escalating concerns about risk to the public sector National Probation Service,
will necessarily require its staff to hold sufficient skills and knowledge, if
it is to carry out this activity satisfactorily.
Since the middle of last
year, the National Probation Service (NPS) has been busily implementing a
complementary risk management system for Offender Managers working with male sex
offenders. ARMS (Active Risk Management System) is designed to address the fact
that previously there has been no approved structured framework for working with
male sex offenders within the NPS. ARMS had been successfully piloted in two
former Probation Trusts and within two police areas. Practitioners working with
the model reported it useful in providing structure to supervision and aiding
the identification of dynamic risk factors. The intention is to complement
existing risk assessment tools, by enabling an assessor to recognise, prioritise
and organise information into a suitable framework. This can be shared within
Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA) and has the added advantage
of providing an assessment held in common and in shared language with police
forces.
One potential benefit of
ARMS is that it seeks to take account of ‘protective’ factors which research
studies have linked to successful desistance from offending. This could
therefore encourage more of a collaborative strength-based approach to offender
working, which fits well with the some of the cognitive behavioural programmes
for sex offenders delivered within the organisation. Potentially this can help
OMs to work more collaboratively and proactively with the specialist providers
of sex offenders’ group programmes for their supervisees. So far though,
research evidence is limited and the actual implementation on the ground is
still in the early stages. The focus also remains determinedly on risk
management and containment; there is little indication that NOMS is seeking to
encourage a stronger focus on rehabilitation and change beyond limited CBT
techniques for encouraging self-control and self-management by the offender. I
fear that the statutory services in the UK will not be taking a more expansive
and prioritised approach to treatment anytime soon!
It doesn’t have to be
this way however. In November 2014 Channel 4 screened ‘The Paedophile Next
Door’ which featured Berlin’s Institute for Sexual Medicine. This is a
treatment centre which enjoys considerable backing from Angela Merkel’s ruling
Christian Democratic Party (CDU). The Institute’s unique programme of therapy
provides voluntary treatment to paedophiles and guarantees confidentiality about
anything that happens during sessions. This means that potential offenders have
somewhere they can go, in order to address their paedophilic tendencies without
the risk of being arrested or named and shamed. After Channel 4 screened the
programme the Institute was inundated with calls from British Paedophiles
desperate to seek treatment, many of whom had never been convicted for any
offence.
Last November, The
Guardian featured the Institute and quoted the family of April Jones, the five
year old Welsh girl murdered by Mark Bridger in 2012, who had appealed for help
for paedophiles who seek it.
‘It would be better to
try to help them before they ruin someone else’s family’
Germany is no different
to the UK in having a worrying level of sexual offending. Indeed there are an
estimated 250,000 individuals in Germany with paedophilic tendencies, yet the
state is prepared to think more expansively in order to find solutions. Why is
this? What is it about the UK that predisposes it to knee jerk and short term
responses? Could it be down to a dangerous mix of media-induced moral panic and
weak reactive Government?
In order to lessen the number of attacks
by paedophiles or other sexual offenders, it is necessary to provide
treatment and challenge which goes beyond simply monitoring and control.
That’s not to say there is anything wrong with monitoring and control;
indeed most of us should feel comforted by the quality of surveillance and
multi-agency working between and within our UK agencies. We need more than
this however; the default mode of restriction and control can only achieve
so much. Meaningful and effective treatments should be an essential part of
the armoury of community interventions.
References:
Fitzgibbon W., (2011)
Probation and Social Work on Trial: Violent Offenders and Child Abusers,
Palgrave Macmillan
Kemshall H., (2003)
Understanding Risk in Criminal Justice, OU Press
HMI Probation (2006)
Serious Further Offence Review: Damien Hanson and Elliot White
McGuire J., (2000)
Cognitive Behavioural Approaches, Home Office Publication
Probation Instruction
15/2015, Implementation of the Active Risk Management System (ARMS): National
Offender Management Service