An Academic Said She Was Bullied At The Ministry Of Justice After Revealing It Was Running A Programme That Made Sex Offenders More Likely To Reoffend

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Kathryn Hopkins’ study of the controversial Sex Offender Treatment Programme, believed to be attended by rapist John Worboys among others, found it made prisoners more likely to offend again.

www.buzzfeed.com/emilydugan/kathryn-hopkins-moj-sotp-john-worboys

In court documents, the manager said she considered “the problem was competence on [Hopkins’] part, as she did not appear to understand or be able to act on my and others’ concerns and/or a refusal to consider any other point of view except her own.”

Except she was right, wasn’t she? The re done study found exactly the same thing. She was just unlucky to have found out something her managers really didn’t want to know, and to feel too strongly about it to let it go

for Kathryn. I hope you win

Absolutely horrifying treatment of that poor woman. I really, really hope she wins her case.

The thing is, though, this is not a completely new finding. I read about a similar thing happened in a study in California, although I don't think that was on sex offenders. In that case the programme appeared to be making no difference overall. It was only when they separated out the prisoners with high psychopathy scores that they realised that it was decreasing the offending of the non-psychopaths, but making the psychopaths worse (which was why the effect averaged out at zero). They concluded that it was because it helped the psychopaths improve their skills at deception.

The point is, you cannot "reform" a psychopath by appealing to their consciences. But there has been a huge resistance to the whole concept of psychopathy even existing for many years, unfortunately coming primarily from the left. We really need to investigate the degree to which the category of prolific sex offenders are made up of psychopaths, and begin to think about the implications of that.

I worked on this team, Kathryn is an exceptionally intelligent, conscientious and just lovely woman. She was treated very shabbily, and those results were sat on for years with everyone knowing the implications. Hope things have changed since I left

"The MoJ had a solicitor and barrister appearing in court for them. Hopkins is making her case with no lawyer and began giving evidence on Tuesday".

Really is David versus Goliath.

Women’s safety was secondary to maintaining an illusion that something was being done about sexual violence

And surprise surprise, a woman is punished for making that clear

That Ministry of Justice - well know for its magical and 'rigorous' risk assessments that aim to free the likes of Warboys and place every male rapist and paedophile that demands it into the female estate.
Good luck to her.

It's been picked up by the BBC

Danny Shaw
‏**@DannyShawBBC**
I think this has the makings of a bit of a scandal: sex offender treatment scheme was allowed to continue for 5 years despite research showing it didn’t work. Credit to ⁦*@emilydugan*⁩ for uncovering it:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48613132

ben goldacre
‏*@bengoldacre*
More ben goldacre Retweeted Danny Shaw
This is very concerning. Is there a way to access the papers presented in this case, or is the information only accessible via reporting of the oral hearing? @DannyShawBBC

Brilliant

Public policy should be data driven. This looks like a prime example of adherence to preconceived ideas preventing policy makers from taking the data seriously. It bloody should be a scandal

What the heck should be done about all the increasing numbers of men who get off on looking at child rape on the internet? This is a genuine question. The numbers of men doing this are rising and the police are swamped. There's not enough officers to find them all, arrest them all, and prosecute them all. There's not the space to hold them in prison. The 'rehabilitation' programmes do not work, and can make them worse (as this research found). Why are so many men so disgusting, and how as a society should we deal with them? I get really down thinking about all this tbh.

And to Kathryn too. Please pass that on if you can @inthekitchensink

Now we hear from Emily. She's incredible. The MoJ are a total shower.
www.buzzfeed.com/amphtml/emilydugan/ministry-of-justice-rejected-research-inconvenient

Thanks to Katherine Hopkins for standing firm and Emily Duggan reporting. Will be interesting to see the outcome of the case.

Kathryn should hear this week, fingers crossed for the right outcome.

That comment by Sarah Morton - one of her managers in the MoJ!! Kathryn became quite upset and said to me ‘how can you sleep at night? You’re responsible for children being molested because of your decisions, how would you feel if it was your children?

Funny how inured people working in the MoJ are to the abuse of women and children - offended at having it pointed out that the MoJ's actions were enabling abusers by failing to act? It really makes one wonder about the quality of management - and of course explains why they so easily capitulated to the organisations promoting the rights of predators to access women in prison

This case has now concluded...

Kathryn Hopkins didn't win as such because she was out of time for compensation and there were technicalities involved but as she pointed out the case is one of those where the judgment detail was the important thing.

It was absolutely damning for the MoJ and ruled they she had indeed been right all along, her research standards were absolutely up to standard, acted with integrity and been marked down for whistle blowing.

It therefore says, in effect, that the MoJ allowed a scheme which made sex offenders worse and tried to keep it despite evidence to the contrary and tried to silence someone who pointed this out.

It also opens up possible legal cases against the MoJ too from offenders who weren't on the programme.

BuzzFeed have written a very good and detailed piece on the ruling.

www.buzzfeed.com/amphtml/emilydugan/kathryn-hopkins-moj-verdict?bftwuk=&utm_term=4ldqpgm&__twitter_impression=true
The Ministry Of Justice Marked Down One Of Its Analysts Because She Called Out Problems With Its Sex Offender Programme
Exclusive: An employment tribunal seen by BuzzFeed News has found the MoJ gave Kathryn Hopkins a mark of “must improve” in her midyear review as a result of her whistleblowing.

It's worth pointing out how Kathryn Hopkins represented herself against the MoJ and whilst she technically hasn't won, she certainly has defended her reputation, highlighted unfair treatment by the MoJ, a culture which was unprepared to listen to academic research which pointed out one of their key policies was doing more harm than good and poor whistleblowing handling.

It's a really great ruling and hats off to Kathryn Hopkins for seeing it through to the bitter end and getting a ruling which demonstrates she really did have cause to complain even if it wasn't quite the ruling she would have liked. I'm sure that the judgment makes her feel very vindicated all the same.

The guilty feminist calls that mansploring - not accepting info from a woman but going off to find it for yourself.

This is so frightening. Patriarchy is thriving.

Well done, Kathryn Hopkins. A win in spirit if not in letter. I'm in awe of your persistence.

So, perhaps now we can wonder exactly how long it will take before anyone at MoJ concedes that their subsequent programme of treating sex offenders with anti-androgens has resulted in almost half transitioning - with all the implications for the female estate and the vulnerable women incarcerated within it? (See: @jennyrossity on Twitter.)

Lang Cleg have you seen the thread about the MoJ decision to stop requiring 'non serious offenders' who have had sentences of over 4 years including sex offenders from being required to disclosure their conviction to employers in an effort to combat 'the stigma' of being a criminal.

They will still be required to for working in sensitive areas Inc working with children.

But the whole minimising of a sex offender not being regarded as serious even though they've had at least a four year long sentence boogles my mind.

There might be a low reoffending rate but this also takes no account of low reporting or conviction rates for sex offences, which should be on the MoJs radar.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3636727-MoJ-decision-about-criminal-disclosure

Lang Cleg have you seen the thread about the MoJ decision to stop requiring 'non serious offenders' who have had sentences of over 4 years including sex offenders from being required to disclosure their conviction to employers in an effort to combat 'the stigma' of being a criminal.

Yes. Not commented yet due to conflicting thoughts not having ironed themselves out.

I''m certainly a big supporter of anti-recidivism efforts and employment is such a big factor in reducing recidivism. We need more employers like Timpsons. But safeguarding trumps everything so far as I am concerned and it's clear this will create loopholes.

Our great and good are blind to loopholes if they may affect the safety of women and children, it seems.

I think I could get behind this if it was limited to non violent or non sexual crimes. But not as the proposals appear to stand.

(I'll put this as a holding comment on the thread and see how it develops.)

Whistleblowers are usually women I've noticed

I am so glad Kathryn Hopkins has been vindicated, even if sadly she's outside the time limit for compensation.

From way up thread: It was only when they separated out the prisoners with high psychopathy scores that they realised that it was decreasing the offending of the non-psychopaths, but making the psychopaths worse (which was why the effect averaged out at zero). They concluded that it was because it helped the psychopaths improve their skills at deception.

That's very interesting because it tallies with my experience. Had contact with the police a while back about a distant rellie who had been convicted of CSA (this was in the context of safeguarding my own children). The police sergeant I talked to was very sympathetic and very clued up. He said "Confidentiality stops me telling you the exact details, but if you ask him, I can then confirm whether he's telling you the truth. But be careful - one of the things that happens as a result of therapy in prison is offenders become very adept at therapy speak - they get very good at using the language of therapy to excuse and explain away their behaviour, or minimise their likelhood of reoffending." He was absolutely spot on - this is exactly what rellie tried to do in the ensuing phone call. I am now absolutely no contact.

one of the things that happens as a result of therapy in prison is offenders become very adept at therapy speak - they get very good at using the language of therapy to excuse and explain away their behaviour, or minimise their likelhood of reoffending."

Exactly. It's one of the reasons why the idea of psychological screening of sex criminal self-id trans prisoners being an appropriate gate-keeping process for access to women's prisons is so naive.

I was working on an evaluation adjacent to this one and the behaviour of the MOJ around it was atrocious, the day it was published I went for a meeting about it and they lied to my face that it was "only two small parts of the SOTP that was affected"...yeah, the two main parts, the core and extended. I went back to the office and read the report and the lies were so obvious.

A few months later I started talking to a woman in a bar who turned out to work for the MOJ, and I asked her about the SOTP evaluation and she said they'd all been briefed that it was low quality research, bad research, not valid, which shocked me. They haven't learned.

As for the psychopaths/non psychopaths, by the MOJ's own measurement around half of the male prison population as qualifying as having a personality disorder traits. So its just more obfuscation. They were desperate to find a way that SOTP to not be a catastrophe. It makes me very distrustful of its successor being fundamentally different and not just SOTP with the serial numbers filed off.

Well done to Kathryn Hopkins for getting a result. She's an inspiration, and a damn good researcher.