Fascinating Article on "Circles" (Prison, Paedophilia, Society)

[NotQuiteCockney]

There's a lovely piece in today's (Saturday's) Guardian about a Canadian program, in which particularly difficult ex-cons (paedophiles, in the case discussed) are given new volunteer "families". \link{http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1799618,00.html\Here}.

The ex-con has dinner at a different house every night of the week, and on the 7th night, everyone has dinner all together. The families make sure he is taking his meds. They help him sort out housing etc. They provide support and guidance.

Apparently this program has reduced reoffending rates by 60%, in a group of people very likely to reoffend. And those who do reoffend tend to reoffend for lesser offences.

It's a fascinating idea, although the article doesn't provide any contact info on the UK circles which are apparently starting up ...

I do see it changing someone's behaviour, if not their desire, and the behaviour is the main thing. In a very banal comparison, when my dad stayed with us for 4 days, I lost about 7 lb because I couldn't hang about in the kitchen on my own late at night eating (he was sleeping downstairs which is all one space). Likewise I imagine it is easier to stay sober or off drugs if you do not spend every day hanging out with old friends who are constantly wasted. If you have somewhere to go, people to see who are actively trying to distract you from whatever your vice is, you are less likely to allow yourself to drift back into old patterns. Makes sense to me. I like to think I would do it, but not until ds is quite a lot older, like 16.

Yes, me too.

haha, I must come across really po-faced!

I don't have any answers, just some knowledge from working indirectly with these offenders.

Some things work with some offenders.

Some offenders will never allow themselves to be helped no matter what you do until they themselves are ready to be helped (if ever).

Good post acnebride. Just wait until your ds is about 20 maybe?

I wonder how this discussion would go if we were talking about other kinds of sex offenders, rapists, for example. Or would it depend upon the exact nature of their crime?

I'm curious now, what is your job mrsbang?

My sister works in a London prison (in the medical unit). She's not as much of a woolly liberal now as she used to be :-S

Based on the case studies in the longer document, it seems that mostly the offenders involved had had treatment, while in prison. And some of them certainly didn't see anything wrong with what they'd done, at the start of the circles program. But it sounded like the program helped them come to terms with it, a bit.

I think this program could help some offenders as other posters have mentioned but others will also require physical(castration)and psychological intervention and monitoring for the rest of their lives...will families be willing to do this?

I do agree that living a solitary secretive life will not benefit society or the offenders but it does seem naive to put these people (both the offender and public) into such a precarious position...I live in hertfordshire and very close to my home there is a sex-offenders half-way house placed into an area filled with young families it just doesn't make sense to me!!?? of course offenders need to be intergrated back into society but at what cost and to whom?

I don't think this is being suggested as a fix for all sex offenders. And from the longer article, it sounds like the volunteers are very much individuals (who may have children), not families, per se.

Unfortunately, there isn't anywhere to put people where there aren't families. It does sound like the circle program keeps them, and everyone around them, safer.

This programme definitely has individual volunteers not their families . In fact it is clear from the case studies I read that those with young children definitely don't introduce the "core member" to them.

As time goes on increasing numbers of convicted sex offenders are going to be around because more victims are coming forward and the big internet cases are producing huge numbers, so realisitically something has to be done to absorb them back into society.

The quakers involved in this scheme do however express some anxieties however at the idea that uninformed or naive groups might be set up through local churches and these might lack safeguards. On the other hand there are sex offenders in communities and attending churches and colleges etc and it would be better to identify them and help them rather than leave their presence unacknowledged.

The training sounded good. It also sounded like a lot of the people involved were professionally related in some way (therapists, social workers, etc).