Sex offenders need community support

8-15-2008 Global:

Sex offenders may be more likely to re-offend if they are forced away from the community after leaving prison according to award-winning research by a PhD student at the University of Canterbury.

Gwenda Willis, 24, has won the Science and our Society category of the 2008 MacDiarmid Young Scientists of the Year Awards, which is sponsored by the University of Auckland and Auckland UniServices, for her study of how pre-release planning affects rates of recidivism in the five years after sex offenders rejoin the community.

Her research is the first published study to show a link between quality of planning for community reintegration and sex offender recidivism. It contributes to a growing body of knowledge based on research sponsored by the Department of Corrections, together with overseas studies, that highlight the importance of pre-release planning and offender reintegration processes.

The MacDiarmid Awards are presented by the Foundation? for Research, Science and Technology with Fisher & Paykel Appliances as principal sponsor.

Participants in Gwenda’s research had completed a prison-based treatment programme at the Kia Marama Special Treatment Unit at Rolleston Prison near Christchurch, for men convicted of sexual offending against children.

She studied 39 men who had re-offended since their release and 42 who had not, measuring the quality of release plans for both groups. The groups were matched in terms of time since release and risk for reoffending. She measured planning for accommodation, employment, social support and setting pro-social goals related to their values.

Her findings were validated by a subsequent study of sexual offenders released from Te Piriti Special Treatment Unit at Auckland Prison.

Results showed that, overall, sex offenders with good planning had a six per cent re-offending rate, compared to 17 per cent for those with poor planning. Having a place to live organised when they got out of prison was shown to be particularly important.

Gwenda presented her research to an international conference on the treatment of sexual abusers in the United States last year and was awarded the prize for best paper by a postgraduate student.

“A lot of research in this field has concentrated on changing the attitudes or mind set of offenders but few people have realised the importance of the environment they are being released into,” says Gwenda. “My work shows that more careful planning, which is a relatively inexpensive thing to do, can make a real difference providing communities co-operate and help sex offenders make the transition.” ..News Source.. by Research, Science, Technology

Gwenda Willis' paper "The Quality of Community Reintegration Planning for Child Molesters" is available for purchase through Sage Journals.

Abstract:
Research on the causal factors underlying sex offender recidivism has not considered the success or failure of the reintegration process by which the offender rejoins the community after prison. The authors developed a coding protocol to measure the quality and comprehensiveness of reintegration planning for sex offenders. The protocol was retrospectively applied to groups of recidivists and nonrecidivists who were matched on static risk level and follow-up time. The protocol demonstrated adequate reliability. Compared to nonrecidivists, recidivists had significantly lower scores relating to accommodation, employment, and the Good Lives Model secondary goods, as well as lower total reintegration plan scores. ANCOVAs showed that when IQ and level of sexual deviance were controlled for, accommodation (a place to live) was significantly related to sexual recidivism and the Good Lives Model—secondary goods was significantly related to any recidivism. These results suggest that poor reintegration planning may be a risk factor for recidivism.