Community-based sex offender management: combining parole supervision and treatment to reduce recidivism.(Statistical Data Included)

Introduction

Few topics elicit the level of emotional response raised by discussion of releasing sexual offenders back into the community. There is very little objective information available on the outcome of managing sex offenders in the community. Community-based sexual offender treatment is a relatively recent innovation largely prompted by recommendations made in response to tragic reoffenses in the community in the last ten years (e.g., Pepino 1990).

A number of legislative and practice initiatives within the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) have been undertaken to address concerns about managing offenders. Motiuk, Belcourt, and Bonta (1995) have outlined general principles for managing offender risk: 1) assessment and reassessment of offender risk, 2) targeting for intervention those factors specifically related to criminal behaviour, 3) appropriate monitoring of activities in the community, and 4) appropriate sharing of information among collaterals and treatment and parole supervisory staff. The risk management process we will outline in this paper applies each of the principles to the management of sexual offenders.

The first principle outlined by Motiuk et al. (1995) requires valid risk assessment and periodic reassessment throughout the sentence. The requirement for risk reassessment reflects the dynamic nature of risk in the community. Acknowledging that risk is dynamic allows for a more fluid determination of the level of service or supervision required to manage the risk. Theoretically, the highest risk offenders should require maximum supervision in the form of longer or indefinite periods of incarceration.

Within the criminal justice system particularly, high-risk sex offenders are unlikely to achieve conditional release (i.e., community supervision prior to the end of their sentence) due to the influence of a number of processes. First, many of these offenders are screened out through the imposition of life sentences or a dangerous offender designation. Almost all (92%, see Bonta, Harris, Zinger, and Carriere 1996) offenders designated as dangerous offenders are sexual offenders, most of whom have histories of multiple sexual offenses. Receiving such a designation virtually assures that the offender will not return to the community. Since the 1977 addition of the dangerous offender designation (essentially, an habitual offender clause resulting in indeterminate sentencing) to the Criminal Code of Canada, very few such offenders have been released. Second, those high-risk sex offenders who do not receive life sentences or a dangerous offender designation may also be screened out of community release by the process of detention. Detention allows the National Parole Board to recommend that offenders remain incarcerated beyond their parole eligibility dates, potentially to the end of their sentences. A study of high-risk offenders confirmed that 48% of those detained were sexual offenders (Motiuk et al. 1995). Finally, those higher risk sex offenders not subject to the aforementioned screening processes may be held until the two-thirds point of their sentence when they are statutorily released to community supervision. Lower risk offenders are more likely to achieve conditional …