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AT ANY ONE time there are between 400 and 450 people convicted of sexual violence in custody in Irish prisons.
Yesterday one of those individuals, former sports journalist Tom Humphries, was released from Midlands Prison after serving 22 months of a two-and-a-half year sentence for child sex abuse offences.
He pleaded guilty to six offences dating from 2010 and 2011 including sexual exploitation and defilement of a child.
During his time in prison, Humphries declined to participate in the Building Better Lives programme, a rehabilitation service for sex offenders, despite meeting many of the conditions.
These criteria include a prison sentence of longer than 18 months, full admission of the offence, robustness of personality to withstand the challenge of the group and some literacy capacity.
Participation numbers since the launch of the programme in 2009 have remained consistently low. Last year, just 31 offenders engaged in all or part of the scheme, which has three modules.
The first stage of the programme, which is run by a team of psychologists and probation officers, focuses on motivation and identifying treatment targets for the offender.
The second module involves more than 60 sessions of in-depth therapeutic and risk relevant work. Stage 3 includes what is described as “a high degree of challenge and support for participants” and can be delivered as a group or individually.
It can include family meetings and the development of a risk management and resettlement plan for the offender’s release.
Kieran McCartan, an associate professor of criminology, said one of the biggest challenges around prevention and rehabilitative work is that the criminal justice system is “traditionally a punitive one”.
“This means it’s easier to get money for more prison places and police officers than money for treatment and interventions or community outreach work.”
McCartan is on the board of Nota, an organisation that supports professionals working to prevent sexual abuse in the UK and Ireland.
“What we end up seeing is that there is investment in prison and probation programmes but a lot of this work is being picked up by third parties or charities.
It’s not that the governments don’t believe in it, it’s just difficult to justify funding for it – as opposed to increased sanctions and more prison places.
‘Categorical deniers’
The Irish Prison Service told TheJournal.ie that this programme is “only one of a number” of intervention pillars for people convicted of sexual violence.
An IPS spokesperson said the service has engaged with an international expert in relation to “the ongoing challenge faced in the treatment and management of ‘categorical deniers’”.
The preliminary findings from a ‘deniers’ programme run in another jurisdiction are positive and I understand the IPS Psychology Service sees this approach as the next critical step in the treatment and management of sexual violence in custody.
He said reasons sex offenders do not engage with the Building Better Lives programme include denial, lack of motivation, insufficient time in sentence, lack of suitability due to an appeal of their conviction and complexity of case.
“Approximately 75% of the sex offender population are not suitable to engage in the programme for these reasons.”
There are no incentives such as early release directly attached to the programme.
While Humphries did not engage with treatment or rehabilitation services in prison, he did reportedly take Spanish classes and there was speculation he would leave Ireland soon after his release. The judge in his case declined to impose a post-release supervision order.
These orders can be imposed by a judge as part of a sentence and will mean the offender will have a period of supervision following their release from prison.
A judge can also suspend all or part of a sentence for a specific period on the condition the offender stays under the supervision of a probation officer for that time.
Last year, some 393 sex offenders were supervised in the community.
A multi-agency approach called Soram (Sex Offender Risk Assessment and Management) is used in many cases and involves teams in all 28 garda divisions consisting of personnel from the Probation Service, Tusla, the HSE and the Irish Prison Service as well as gardaí.
One of the requirements for this ongoing assessment is that an individual is deemed to be at a medium or higher risk of re-offending. These teams meet regularly to review risks and develop case management plans for individuals convicted of sexual violence who are residing in the community.
Working with offenders in the community
There are other programmes and initiatives that have a focus on treatment, rehabilitation and support for sex offenders when they are released from prison.
The Pace organisation, a registered charity that provides accommodation and support to ex-prisoners, has three separate programmes that work with people who pose a significant risk of re-offending:
Kieran McCartan said this type of work after an offender has left prison and is back in the community can often be left to non State-run bodies.
“We’ve seen this week in the UK Boris Johnson talking about more money for prisons and for police on the ground and that’s what people want to to hear. One of the things we need to think about is how to prevent this [these offences] from happening, by the time they’ve ended up in prison the damage is already done.”
Organisations and professionals who work for support or rehabilitation services for sex offenders can face a backlash and this has become more of a concern here in recent times.
In July last year there were multiple protests outside a clinic in Sallynoggin, Dublin, run by a company that offers psychological services to sex offenders.
Activists locked the gates of the premises with bicycle locks and broadcast videos on social media of them confronting staff who were attempting to get to work. Gardaí were called to one of the protests.
Eileen Finnegan is Clinical Director of One In Four, an organisation that provides counselling to adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse. The service also works with offenders.
Speaking to TheJournal.ie, she said these kinds of incidents create fear among those who are working with these offenders.
“After that incident I found services providers were terrified to say they were providing that risk management. There is a different thing now where staff are thinking ‘what will happen to us?’
What people in Ireland need to realise is that sexual offending is not necessarily the stories they read in the media involving strangers or members of the Catholic Church. This is happening more in families.
When someone in the family has offended we need to ensure it doesn’t happen again and begin to look at how we talk about it and also look at how we’re educating our young people. There are children that are in school now who could end up either on a programme because they are a victim or on a programme because they are acting out sexually [as an offender].
She said the activity of vigilante groups can add to the stress for families where the offender and the victim are related, particularly if the person who offended is also a juvenile.
“They think: ‘What if someone hears about this?’ That silences families and ultimately silences the victim and the person who offended.”
There are a small number of organised vigilante groups operating in Ireland, posting content on social media about offenders in communities.
In February this year a man was assaulted after a ‘paedophile hunter’ group broadcast a life video confronting him about alleged inappropriate contact with a decoy teenage girl.
A serial sex offender was also recently set upon by a group of locals in north Dublin after it emerged the convicted rapist was living in the area.
McCartan said Nota has engaged in the past with some vigilante groups in Northern Ireland about the “unintended consequences” of their actions.
“They are doing it to keep people safe, but we were asking them had they thought about the fact that this person’s mother still lives in the community, their victims still live in the community and what they are doing is having an impact on them as well.
“There was never that recognition, they were so focused on getting rid of that person.”
He pointed out that between one in four and one in eight people are affected by sexual abuse at some point in their lives.
“They [the offenders] can’t all be these erratically abnormal hyper-deviant people, it’s too common for that. It says something about society that we still think about sex offenders as being radically different to the rest of us but the figures don’t stack up to that.”
McCartan referenced research by Canadian psychologist Karl Hanson who demonstrated that over a 20 year period people who were very high risk could drop to low risk and live in the community offence free.
However the research found that in order for this to happen, there needed to be a supportive environment and social inclusion.
“When treatment or intervention goes off the rails, when people aren’t engaged or motivated or feel they have to be careful around everything they do they are more likely to re-offend.”
We hear people saying ‘lock them up castrate them’, and sure, that will reduce their libido but it doesn’t take the interest away. It just takes away the capacity to do something like that. We need to get people to change the way they think.
Eileen Finnegan said One in Four’s work with offenders stemmed from conversations with victims, who were starting to ask why they were the only ones there.
She said the victims began talking about the need to prevent further harm and to look at what motivated their offenders to commit those acts.
“That took me out of my comfort zone. I was quite married to the idea that they wouldn’t want anything to do with their offenders.
As a professional, it is easier to have empathy for someone who has been harmed, but you have to dig deeper to have empathy for someone who has harmed.
One in Four has done some work around restorative justice, which gives victims a chance to ask questions of their offenders and explain to them the impact of their actions.
“We did some work within the Church which was very successful.”
She said the organisation does this work with juvenile offenders, but as a general concept it has not “taken off” in Ireland.
“Before anything can take off, we need to be having healthy conversations about it like this.”
Impact of the housing crisis
In Pace’s most recent publicly available annual report, for 2016, the organisation said the biggest struggle for its Foothold service was the sourcing of suitable safe accommodation.
The charity said an already difficult situation was exacerbated by the ongoing housing crisis and decisions made by Tusla with regard to the sourcing of temporary accommodation. Pace said this resulted in seven clients becoming homeless immediately.
“Prior to this decision Foothold had been able to work in partnership with Dublin City Council to source temporary accommodation that was paid for by Dublin City Council,” the organisation said in the report.
“Once the payments ceased, we were no longer in a position to assist with sourcing temporary accommodation and the placements ended resulting in homelessness.
The nature of the offences means that accessing emergency accommodation can be unsafe both for the clients and other service users. This meant that sleeping rough became a reality for four clients over the summer period.
Sex offenders have to register where they are living and as part of their monitoring role gardaí will assess whether this is suitable accommodation.
If they believe it is not appropriate, for example if there are multiple other sex offenders living there, or if it is too close to schools and creches, they usually advise them to look elsewhere.
However gardaí can not force them to leave that accommodation if the offender chooses not to take their advice.
A 2017 report by the Garda Inspectorate about An Garda Síochána’s response to child sex abuse referenced the responsibility of gardaí to conduct home visits and the limitations of their power in this area.
The frequency of the visits depends on the risk. Most offenders are compliant and participate in a risk assessment process, however, a smaller number are non-compliant and difficult to engage. Gardaí have little power to deal with those unwilling to participate. In some cases, people will not open the door and, in the absence of legislative powers, there is some ambiguity as to the authority of visits by gardaí.
Security sources believe family or community settings are most appropriate as offenders feel less isolated. Issues can also arise if offenders congregate in hostels or in deprived areas as they are more difficult to monitor and they can “validate” each other and begin to minimise the harm of their offences.
Pace said the motivation of offenders to engage with services is substantially reduced if they cannot source accommodation and the risk of them disengaging and re-offending increases substantially.
Two clients stopped working with Foothold during 2016. One of these left the country due to his continued homelessness and the need to sleep rough and his inability to find suitable accommodation here. His departure was a concern because his level of need is very high and leaving the country increased his vulnerability and risk level.
The charity said a better outcome would have been the provision of the appropriate supported accommodation in Ireland “reducing the need to sleep rough, providing stability and reducing risk”.
Unfortunately, in the current setting it was not possible to provide any of this. This case highlighted the limitations of Foothold and any other supports when suitable accommodation is not available.
Pace said 40% of the Foothold service users had intellectual disabilities or other behavioural disorders that impacted on their ability to live independently and integrate fully into the community.
Preventative work
Finnegan said work to figure out why people commit these offences and how to prevent them before they happen needs to be prioritised.
A helpline called Stop It Now in the UK was established so people who were having sexual feelings for children or thinking about harming children in this way could seek help before they acted on it.
There was an attempt to expand this service into the Republic of Ireland but it has not yet been successful.
“I believe in people taking responsibility for what they’ve done and for the whole system to know. These services are a pathway to ensuring they do not do it again,” she said.
They’ll never be someone who hasn’t offended, but they can be somebody who never re-offends, that is as much as we can do with them. They need to show people they will for the rest of their lives do everything within their power to ensure it does not occur again.
Finnegan said there are factors other than an attraction to children that motivate offenders and that can be addressed, such as mental health issues, isolation and trauma from their own childhood abuse.
Not everyone who offends will ever want to look into this very dark mirror and talk about how, in order to feel better, they needed to sexually harm a child.
“I can understand where people are coming from, the opposition to this, I am a person in society and I have children and grandchildren,” Finnegan said.
“But when I think about my work I think about the children who are out there now and working to prevent people wanting to harm them, that’s the reason for me as a professional.
“We can’t do anything about what happened in the past, but the information from the people who have the courage to tell us what motivated them to offend and what allowed them to offend can help us stop it in the future.”
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Brexausted.
Just get on with it.
The world will continue.
Too much drama.
@Trevor Hayden: So sorry for your troubles. Maybe have a sit-down and a cup of tea while the economic, social and political future of our home is decided by a shower of faithless opportunists to whom we are either an inconvenience or a means to an end. “Getting on with” is getting back to a century of shite that no-one wants.
@Tordel Back: The EU will throw us under a bus to protect their coffers.
We are merely an insignificant little plot of land on the edge of Europe, no matter how many times leo or simon tell us we have the backing of our EU counterparts.
@Tordel Back: I agree with you, but I also agree with the sentiment expressed by @Trevor Hayden.. We, well most of us, agree that what is finally agreed upon has repercussions for Ireland, but, at this stage I have to admit that I am imagining a group more like what you’d expect at the Mad Hatters tea party than a group of seasoned politicians.
@Trevor Hayden: call me naive, call me blindingly hopeful, but I have hopes that this will not happen.
@David Stapleton: Me too David, but we have to look back at the bailout, when Mr Sarkozy said we have to give up our corporation tax to get a bailout and we still need oir budgets approved by the EU before going ahead with them.
I hope I’m wrong too but I can see the EU telling Ireland they fdo not get involved in “personal matters” and to sort it ourselves similar to the water charges fiasco.
We’ve been a drain on the EU coffers since the bailout and are still taking the “Oliver Twist” approach every year with begging bo
@Trevor Hayden: bowl.
@Trevor Hayden: Trevor, you’re missing that we had the EU by the short and curlies when it came to the bailout. The EU banks were so heavily invested in our banks that if our banks had gone under it would’ve started a domino effect across Europe and sunk the EU. The idea that the EU isn’t glad to pay us off for not sinking them is a stretch, considering we have to pay back the bailouts anyway. The crap deal we got is down to the incompetence of Cowen and Lenihan.
What’s happening with the UK is that the EU are dumbfounded by the sheer buffoonery of the Tories and are aghast at the backwardness of the DUP. They see us as part of the club, an attack on us is an attack on them. We’re a poster boy as far as the EU are concerned. If we get treated badly in this and the UK are seen as getting a good deal, it will set off whispers of dissent in other countries over what use is there being in the EU. They simply won’t let that happen.
@Trevor Hayden: Our politicians ha e sold out all our resources to the EU like ,sugar,oil, gas, electricity,and fisheries. Most of our food comes from the UK including milk, butter, sugar, meat and flour and not forgetting electricity. Our Irish corrupt government and politicians don’t want to leave the gravy train of the EU richmans club
DUP say they don’t want a hard border but then they also say they want Northern Ireland to be treated like the rest of the UK which will have a hard border.
Theresa May wants to keep the EU/Ireland happy so they will sign off on the deals.
Boris wants to go back on a prior agreement, probably because if Theresa May pulls this off she has done the impossible.
@Stephen Devlin: The British Government have proven time and time again that their word is worth nothing.
Bit deluded that they think they can establish their own bi-lateral trade agreements in compettion to the EU as well as WITH the EU no?
The world won’t trust them even as far as you can throw them.
@Colm A. Corcoran: In regards to the backstop the EU wants it in legal form, not an agreement.
@Stephen Devlin: I think everyone will want everything in Legal form when dealing with the British in future.
Sad really, economics works best in a climate of trust. Attitudes like what the British are displaying seem to be becoming a thing lately and if thats true then we’re hurtling fast towards a world depression. It takes a couple of years to recover from bad financial decisions, it will take at least a generation to dispell the unilateral “Why can’t I have my cake and eat it?” attitudes that are growing.
@Stephen Devlin: Thought the backstop was already in legal form as per paragraph 45
@Joe Johnson: No it’s just a draft agreement I don’t think it can be held to account legally, it specifically states that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.
@Stephen Devlin: When did the DUP say they never wanted a hard border?
If the EU accept a deal with UK so they can keep some kind of advantages with Europe,then many other countries will just do the same.
This can not be accepted.
They wanted out they are out.
The last hope of agreement is to accept another referendum in UK.
And because this is a European matter allow the European in UK to vote as well. If the No wins the matter is over. If it is a yes then off they go. But they cannot be allow to have a special treatment.
@Dominic Leleu: http://flip.it/IQJP5I
Trying to put a border up north again is going to be interesting to watch.
@Sean Conway: we can pull it down
It’s a method by which political and regulatory policy over NI can be removed from London and placed with Brussels and Dublin.
The status changes are such that the main requirement of the rest of the UK to NI will be continued subsidy by the Barnett formula.
All without having to ask the people. A messy business that the EU would rather do without.
Effective reunification of Ireland without the mess of cost and democracy.
Gosh, I wonder what the EU will want in return for all this help.
@Damocles: We ARE the EU, it’s not them and us. We even have more influence proportionally to our population then Germany or France in the EU.
But let’s put that aside for the moment. What do you propose to resolve the NI situation, outside also leaving the EU that is because I get a bit of a whiff of euroscepticism from you.
And by the way, leaving the EU would instantly mean rejoining the UK if we’re to have ANY chance of establishing bilateral trade agreements. Technically you’d solve the NI issue but I don’t think it’s worth it.
@Colm A. Corcoran: I think it would be terrible for Ireland to leave the EU. The formula for Ireland is a low corporate tax rate and in Europe. Break that and you’d be stuffed.
As for joining the UK. You have to ask, after this shindig would the UK have you? And if they did, on what terms? Hiding to nothing if you ask me.
I’ve made plenty of suggestions as to how the NI border could be resolved. But it’ll need political will and cooperation from Dublin. Which I would have thought would be in the spirit of the GFA, but seems not to be forthcoming.
And yes, you do seem to have a fair amount of influence in Brussels right now, but quid pro quo.
@Damocles: Hahaha! The notion of joining the UK. Look what’s happened to NI under U.K. rule from being the economic powerhouse on the island of Ireland to being an economic basket case, which can’t govern or pay its own way and requires subvention from England. The Republic exports €100 billion, the UK exports €6.5 billion. The Republic has emerged into a modern, liberal European society with a broad economic base, while NI’s main city has shrunk in size along with its economy set in a society that is riven with division.
@Damocles: The GFA doesn’t absolve Britain from making a decision that so obviously puts it in danger. In the realm of sanity the situation calls for Britain to take responsibility and solve the challenge to the GFA, that they introduced, themselves.
This could all have been resolved if the Briitish Government agreed to regulatory alignment in the north with increased customs controls between NI and Britain. A solution I’d bet that would be supported by the majority of NI.
We’re only in this situation because the Tories value their jobs over the good of their nation.
@Colm A. Corcoran: There’s an underlying sense of a need for cooperation within the GFA of different parties putting aside their differences to work together for a common good.
That’s being ignored in any attempt to resolve this new dispute.
I think that’s a shame.
I don’t think a spirit of “You caused this, you sort it out.” would have ever led to an end to the Troubles.
@Damocles: If the parties involved didn’t take responsibility for their own actions then the GFA could be misused as a means of economical warfare.
No matter how you sell it you can’t convince me that Ireland should pay for Britain’s irresponsibility.
I really can’t believe how so many people are happy that their country is fast earning the reputation of being dishonourable, ungrateful and distrustable.
The six counties are effectively beyond the realistic reach of Brexit, because no one there wants to go back to a hard border, with customs posts & ancillary security, the Brits cannot afford the costs involved even if they had the will or resources for it, & the Republic can comply with any external trade & immigration controls at its own ports.
The sea oh the sea, is brea geal mo chroi!
When this is over the words brexit and backstop should be eradicated from the planet
Independence for the UK is simply not allowed.
@Martin Lintzgy: they have independence, they’ve always had it.
I assume you are incorrectly using the word and instead referring to UK leaving EU, they UK can leave. Nobody is stopping them.
They however cannot have the benefits of being in the EU without being a member of the EU. It’s that simple.
The UK is like a person quitting a gym membership but then demanding the gym still allows the person to use its equipment etc but without following its rules or paying for the use.
It’s been agreed, it’s simple.
BACKSTOP MEANS BACKSTOP.
@Peadar Farrell: Remarks: This report is put forward with a view to the meeting of the European Council (Article 50) of 14-15 December 2017. Under the caveat that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, the joint commitments set out in this joint report shall be reflected in the Withdrawal Agreement in full detail. This does not prejudge any adaptations that might be appropriate in case transitional arrangements were to be agreed in the second phase of the negotiations, and is without prejudice to discussions on the framework of the future relationship.
Note: The caveat
The problem with the backstop, from a UK perspective, is that it isn’t a backstop. It isn’t an insurance policy in case other means fail because it appears that it has already been decided that those means will fail.
It is not beyond the ken of reasonable people working together in good faith to come up with a solution that would work on this island, within the WTO, that would remove the need for a hard goods border. This is doable and only requires political will and cooperation from both sides of the border.
However reasonable suggestions so far have been dismissed out of hand without the slightest sign of will or cooperation.
So it is inevitable that the backstop would become the permanent default.
It is felt that the EU and Ireland are not negotiating in good faith here.
@Damocles: it’s not a negotiation. The UK is leaving the EU. There are agreements to be made to arrange for that but don’t fool yourself that the UK has any leverage at all.
@Colm A. Corcoran: there’s that spectacular lack of good faith again.
You talk about not trusting the UK but the EU and RoI are displaying a spectacular lack of ability to act in good faith here.
Trust has to go two ways.
Too many tea parties with Boris.
have your say