Sex Offender Programmes: Do They Work?
| Published date | 01 March 1994 |
| Date | 01 March 1994 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/026455059404100108 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
31
PRESARCH
Sex
Offender
Programmes:
Do
They
Work?
Eddie
Proctor,
Senior
Research
and
Information
Officer
with
Oxfordshire
Probation
Service,
reports
an
evaluation
of
a
cognitive-behavioural
group
programme.
After
years
of
ad
hoc
provision,
built
around
the
initiatives
of
individual
practitioners,
most
Probation
Services
now
run
regular
sex
offender
programmes.
Sources
such
as
HM
Inspectorate
of
Probation,
Warwick
and
Barker
and
Morgan’,
report
on
numerous
community
schemes
spread
throghout
the
country.
In
some
Probation
Areas
such
as
Avon,
Hampshire
and
Nottinghamshire,
these
date
back
over
ten
years,
although
in
most
cases
sex
offender
programmes
are
a
more
recent
development.
In
the
last
few
years
the
onus
on
most
Services
has
been
to
establish
and
resource
programmes.
Very
few
sex
offender
schemes
have
sought
to
evaluate
the
success
of
their
’treatment’
in
changing
attitudes
and
patterns
of
offending
behaviour.
The
majority
of
research
into
the
effectiveness
of
sex
offender
treatment
has
taken
place
m
the
USA
and
Canada
Nevertheless,
whilst
North
American
studies
are
informative,
they
may
not
be
relevant
to
the
British
experience
In
Oxfordshire
we
have
been
trying
hard
to
build
a
structure
of
monitoring
and
evaluation
into
our
sex
offender
programme,
known
locally
as
the
’Cherwell
Group’.
We
believe
that
evaluating
the
effectiveness
of
work
with
sex
offender
is
critical
if
Probation
Services
are
to
improve
their
practice,
maintain
the
support
of
courts
and
probation
staff
and
secure
sufficient
resources
to
run
future
programmes.
The
Cherwell
Group
is
a
cognitive
behavioural
programme
for
convicted
sex
offenders
encompassing
ten
groupwork
sessions
of
6
hours
each,
followed
by
a
minimum
of
ten
individual
counselling
sessions.
The
main
aim
of
the
Group
is
to
reduce
the
risk
of
further
sexual
offending.
Over
the
last
four
years
63
men
have
completed
the
programme.
These
were
split
fairly
evenly
between
probationers
and
parolees.
Most
had
been
convicted
of
offences
against
children
such
as
indecent
assault,
mcest
and
buggery.
A
minority
had
either
raped,
indecently
assaulted
or
exposed
themselves
to
adult
women.
The
evaluation
focused
on
three
main
questions,
the
results
of
which
are
summarised
below.
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The
attitudes
of
offenders
who
had
been
through
the
Cherwell
Group
were
compared
with
those
who
were
waiting
to
come
onto
the
programme.
We
developed
an
instrument
called
the
Sex
Offence
Attitudes
Questionnaire
which
measures
the
distortion
levels
of
offenders’
beliefs
about
offending
The
results
indicate
that
the
group
was
very
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