Experts back radical plan for sex offenders

THERAPISTS have backed a controversial plan to cut prison time for sex offenders who take part in treatment programmes - despite admitting offenders will only enrol for selfish reasons.

Senior psychologist Olive Travers, who set up the pioneering Cosc programme for offenders in the community in the Health Service Executive North West Region, said most of the men who took part initially did so to try to get themselves out of trouble rather than out of a sense of wrongdoing. But ultimately they saw the error of their ways.

“It’s usually very self-serving when they come in the door. They rarely come in and say I have a genuine understanding that I did wrong. But what’s important is getting them in through the door.”

Justice Minister Michael McDowell is planning new legislation which will offer partial suspension of prison sentences as an incentive for convicted sex offenders to attend rehabilitation programmes.

Critics have argued the proposal will allow offenders manipulate the system by playing along with the idea of getting treatment when their only real concern is getting out of prison earlier.

Ms Travers, however, described the move as “common sense” regardless of the motives of the offenders. She said the men least genuine about changing their behaviour were the most important men to get into programmes because they were most likely to continue offending.

“The big onus is to get the least-motivated men in. It is really a very sensible proposal that you would give men in prison some sort of incentive to go into programmes. Getting them in there first is the priority because then you get a chance to work with them,” she said.

Ms Travers acknowledged there was scepticism about treatment programmes for sex offenders as there was an argument that the best way to deal with them was to exclude them from the family home and community, a view she dismissed as fantasy.

“Protection by exclusion is a fantasy solution, like there is some sort of parallel universe you could put all these men into and not have to think about them any more,” she said.

“These men are out there in our communities presenting a risk and we are doing the children in our communities a disservice by thinking these men are going to automatically change.”

Ms Travers told the final session of the NOTA (National Organisation for the Treatment of Abusers) in Dublin yesterday that community treatment programmes were all the more important because the majority of offenders were not dealt with by the courts and prison service as they were not reported to gardaí.

Lengthy delays in cases coming to court, the ordeal of going to court, the stigmatisation of the family and often shattering impact on marriages and relationships, all made it very difficult for victims to disclose their abuse formally to the gardaí.

“It is often an additional burden on the victim to take on the consequences of disclosure,” she said. “You can be left with a victim who thinks if only I had not told, everything would be okay. As a result of me telling, everything is falling apart.”

Ms Travers called for additional supports for families, of the victim and the abuser, noting that very often this was one and the same family.