Report of the Review Group on the Future Management of Sex Offenders Within Scottish Prisons
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Report of the Review Group on the Future Management of Sex Offenders within Scottish Prisons 28 June, 2002 REPORT OF THE REVIEW GROUP ON THE FUTURE MANAGEMENT OF SEX OFFENDERS WITHIN SCOTTISH PRISONS Report of the Review Group on the Future Management of Sex Offenders within Scottish Prisons To Jim Wallace, QC, MSP, Deputy First Minister and Minister for Justice, and Dr Richard Simpson, MSP, Deputy Minister for Justice Dear Ministers, I am pleased to send you the Report of the Review Group on the Future Management of Sex Offenders within Scottish Prisons. We have completed our work within the tight timescale given in order to facilitate your decision making on the Estates Review of the Scottish Prison Service. I trust this has been accomplished without disregard to any important issues. We are convinced that setting up an effective environment is a challenging task, yet it is one which has been achieved with success at Peterhead. We are confident, also, that it can be replicated elsewhere provided there is strong commitment and support for the project. Indeed, creating an improved facility, compared with the physical conditions which currently pertain at Peterhead, will enhance the chances of the new centre for addressing the offending behaviours of sex offenders achieving even higher standards. Working with sex offenders is a demanding and complex undertaking. We believe that the suggestions and recommendations contained in this report will assist SPS (or anyone else contemplating the organisation of intervention programmes for sex offenders) in their task. All members of the group have worked extremely hard to complete the review in such a short time-frame, and I express my gratitude to them. For one of our members from Peterhead Prison the task has presented added pressures; his ability to retain a balanced and objective view has been invaluable. I would also like to thank David McKay our Secretary, and Julie Pickles for her administrative support in facilitating the arrangements of the group. Yours sincerely, ALEC SPENCER 28 June, 2002 1 REPORT OF THE REVIEW GROUP ON THE FUTURE MANAGEMENT OF SEX OFFENDERS WITHIN SCOTTISH PRISONS Membership of the Review Group on the Future Management of Sex Offenders within Scottish Prisons ALEC SPENCER (CHAIRMAN): Director of Rehabilitation and Care, Scottish Prison Service. STUART CAMPBELL: Prisoner Programmes Manager, HMP Peterhead. DR DAVID COGHILL: Senior Lecturer in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, University of Dundee. Honorary Consultant, NHS Tayside. DONALD FINDLATER*: Deputy Director, The Lucy Faithfull Foundation and Clinical Manager, Wolvercote Clinic. PROFESSOR ROISIN HALL: Head of Psychological Services, Scottish Prison Service. DAVID McKAY (SECRETARY): Care and Opportunity Training Manager, Scottish Prison Service College. JANE MARTIN: Service Manager, Criminal Justice Services, Fife Council. PROFESSOR KEVIN POWER: Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of Stirling. Head of Clinical Psychology, NHS Tayside. RONA SWEENEY: Deputy Governor, HMP Barlinnie. * HILARY ELDRIDGE: Director, The Lucy Faithfull Foundation; Member of the Accreditation Panel for HM Prison Service and Probation Service, England and Wales; worked in close co-operation with Donald Findlater. 2 REPORT OF THE REVIEW GROUP ON THE FUTURE MANAGEMENT OF SEX OFFENDERS WITHIN SCOTTISH PRISONS CONTENTS Page Chapter 1: Introduction 4 Chapter 2: Scoping the Problem – The Numbers 8 Chapter 3: Assessment and Intervention in SPS 14 Chapter 4: Implications for Programme Provision 20 Chapter 5: The Environment for Programme Delivery 24 Chapter 6: The Likely Risks 28 Chapter 7: Throughcare 32 Chapter 8: Young Offenders and Females 36 Chapter 9: Staff Training and Support 39 Chapter 10: CONCLUSIONS 44 Annexes Annex I Other Complementary Programmes and Interventions 47 Annex II Factors to be taken into account in designing or 49 creating a new facility for sexual offenders Annex III The supporting environment for the effective delivery 51 of programmes. Annex IV The Recommendations from the Cosgrove Expert 58 Panel on Sex Offending Annex V The Past: A review of Peterhead’s history and the 61 move towards working with sex offenders. Annex VI The development of work with sex offenders in SPS. 64 Annex VII Experiences from other sex offender treatment 65 environments (extracts from ‘Sourcebook of Treatment Programs for Sexual Offenders’). Annex VIII The Provision at various prison sites 70 3 REPORT OF THE REVIEW GROUP ON THE FUTURE MANAGEMENT OF SEX OFFENDERS WITHIN SCOTTISH PRISONS 1. INTRODUCTION Context 1.1 The Scottish Executive published a Consultation document on the Future of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) Estate1 on 21 March 2001 as part of a consultation exercise. Contained within a discussion on HMP Peterhead at pages 34-36, (and also similarly in the SPS Estates Review document2) was the following: Proposal: HMP Peterhead HMP Peterhead has a long history and in recent years has delivered excellent work with sex offenders. It is however not well located to carry this work on and the buildings are at the end of their useful life. The prison should close and the work be transferred to prison(s) elsewhere in central Scotland without loss of effectiveness. … 1.2 On 18th April, Jim Wallace, Deputy First Minister & Minister for Justice stated in the Parliamentary Debate on the Estates Review Consultation: “I can announce today that Richard Simpson and I have instructed the Director of Rehabilitation and Care, Alec Spencer, to conduct an additional review of the future management of sex offenders” (Col. 10941). In concluding the Debate, Dr Richard Simpson, Deputy Minister for Justice stated: “I confirm what my colleague Jim Wallace said at the start of the debate. He and I have instructed the SPS – specifically, Alec Spencer, who set up the programme at Peterhead prison and is now the Director of Rehabilitation and Care – to examine the future of sex offenders in the Prison Service with the assistance of outside advice. The review will not be just internal; it will be external. If there is a decision at the end of the consultation period to move to a central prison, we will carefully consider how that will be done with the least disruption.” (Col. 10995). Remit 1.3 The task of the group has not been to recommend on whether Peterhead should close or not. Rather, we have been asked to provide advice on whether it is possible to move the STOP programme, what disruption might ensue as a consequence, whether that presents a danger (or an increased danger) to the public, how throughcare would be affected and, how we see the future of the provision of interventions to address the offending behaviour of sex offenders being developed within SPS. 1 The Scottish Executive’s Consultation on the Future of the Scottish Prison Estate: Consultation Paper (21 March 2002). Edinburgh: The Scottish Executive 2 The Scottish Prison Service Estates Review (21 March 2002). Edinburgh: The Scottish Prison Service. Pages 38-41 and Appendix C. 4 REPORT OF THE REVIEW GROUP ON THE FUTURE MANAGEMENT OF SEX OFFENDERS WITHIN SCOTTISH PRISONS 1.4 In essence we have been required to provide Ministers with advice on practical issues and implications, as they relate to the successful delivery of programmes to address sexual offending behaviour surrounding any proposed transfer of sex offenders from Peterhead, so as to enable Ministers to take account of such matters in reaching decisions on the SPS Estates Review. The Terms of Reference as agreed with Ministers were: 1.5 To provide Ministers with advice on the practical issues and implications which will have to be taken into account to enable a fully informed decision on the future of Peterhead to be reached. In particular the group should pay regard to: the best advice on the ‘monoculture’ or mixed population argument; whether there is any scope for a range of accommodation: to provide dedicated accommodation for only those currently undertaking programmes or for the population at large, and/or to provide some other configuration of accommodation to meet the different categories or sentence lengths of sex offenders; to make an assessment of the likely disruption caused by the moving of prisoners from Peterhead, and whether and how it could be managed without reducing the effectiveness of the programme, taking into account staffing and training issues and transitional arrangements; to consider the impact that such a proposed transfer would have on the throughcare process and any other public protection matter. The Group is to report to the Deputy First Minister & Minister for Justice, and the Deputy Minister for Justice, by the end of June 2002. Methodology 1.6 The group met on four occasions including two full day sessions. In considering the way to proceed the group decided to pose a number of questions examining the past in terms of questions about the context in which the provision for sex offenders had been delivered and how it might be delivered in the future. Additionally, we considered what research evidence there is in this area and how it might contribute to future planning, what the likely benefits and/or drawbacks were to any proposed transfer and the options for delivery of sex offender programmes across Scotland. 1.7 We then went on to consider what the scope of the problem was in terms of the numbers of offenders and likely volumes of throughputs. The demands placed on SPS were likely to influence the shape of what had to be delivered. We considered the 5 REPORT OF THE REVIEW GROUP ON THE FUTURE MANAGEMENT OF SEX OFFENDERS WITHIN SCOTTISH PRISONS nature of the interventions currently available and proposed. This is dealt with in Chapters 2 to 4. 1.8 In considering what had to be delivered we also took the opportunity to examine the environment in which such programmes should be delivered and the best environments for holding sex offenders in a way that would encourage engagement by them.