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Written question asked by Claire Curtis-Thomas (Labour) on Tuesday, 5 June 2007, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 7 June 2007. It was answered by Gerry Sutcliffe (Labour) on Tuesday, 12 June 2007 on behalf of the Ministry of Justice.

Prisons: Sex Offender Treatment Programme

Question
To ask the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice if she will make a statement on the effectiveness of the Sex Offender Treatment Programme (SOTP) for (a) high, (b) medium and (c) low risk offenders; and what the subsequent reconviction rates are for offenders from each of these categories who took part in the SOTP since its inception.
Answer

The most robust evaluation of the Sex Offender Treatment Programme (SOTP) in England and Wales (Home Office, 2003) examined the impact of the prison-based programme. This compared two-year reconviction rates for prisoners who participated in the programme with those who did not.Findings indicated that the SOTP had an impact on reconvictions for sexual and/or violent offences (as a combined measure). An explanation for this effect could be that a proportion of violent reconvictions were sexually motivated offences. Sexual reconvictions were combined with those for violent offences because sexual offenders (in the absence of intervention) are reconvicted for sexual offences at a very low rate—less than 5 per cent. over two years. Any decrease in this rate as a result of treatment is therefore unlikely to be statistically significant.For combined sexual and violent reconviction, the treatment group showed a statistically significantly lower rate of reconviction overall than the comparison group (4.6 per cent. and 8.1 per cent. respectively, see Table 4 in Home Office Research Findings No. 205). Treatment participants in the medium-low and medium-high risk groups showed a statistically significantly lower rate of reconviction than respective risk groups in the comparison sample (see Table 4 in HORF 205).For general and sexual reconviction rates, the treatment group showed lower rates of reconviction than the comparison group although differences were not statistically significant (see Tables 5 and 3 respectively in HORF 205). No statistically significant differences were found among risk groups.These findings relate to offenders who completed the SOTP between 1992 and 1994. A programme of research is planned to examine the impact of the prison-based SOTP delivered to offenders post-1994 in terms of both short-term change in relation to treatment targets (e.g. victim empathy) and longer-term change in terms of future re-offending.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
461 c952-3W; 141289
Session
2006-07
Subjects
Prisons Rehabilitation Sexual offences Sex offender treatment programme
Link
View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk