Community Treatment in the United Kingdom

Abstract

The 1990s has seen a rapid expansion in the provision of community sex offender treatment programs in the United Kingdom. A number of factors—societal, professional, and legislative—contributed to this expansion. At a societal level, as in North America, the women’s movement had raised cultural awareness as to the role of women and challenged the economic, social, and personal disadvantages and discriminations that flowed from this. As this awareness developed, so increasingly did the focus encompass the physical and sexual victimization of women and children and society’s response to it. In 1986, Childline, the national, confidential counseling and advice telephone service was opened. This followed a television program focused on the hidden nature of child abuse. It invited viewers’ responses and jammed the British Broadcasting Corporation telephone lines with calls from children, many of whom had been sexually abused and had never disclosed before. The 1980s also saw increasing public and professional concern highlighted by high-profile child abuse enquiries (e.g., Butler-Schloss, 1988), which exposed high levels of pervasive hidden child sexual abuse within communities. These, together with evidence emerging from North American studies as to the prevalence of child sexual abuse (e.g., Russell, 1983) and rape (e.g., Koss, 1989), provided the impetus for changes in both professional and judicial responses to sexual assault. In 1979, 20% of convicted sex offenders received immediate custodial sentences. By 1989, this figure had risen to 33%. As a consequence, the number of male prisoners in custody convicted of sexual offenses rose from 4.7% in 1980 to 7.5% in 1989. The increased likelihood of receiving a prison sentence or extended probation order for a sexual offense received greater impetus under the Criminal Justice Act of 1991, where special provision was made for the sentencing and management of sex offenders.