Circles South East

Abstract

This article describes the first 10 years of the implementation of Circles of Support and Accountability (Circles) in the management of sexual offenders in South-East England by Circles South East (CSE). The Circles of 71 core members are reviewed in detail, with reference to demographic data, offense and sentencing histories, risk assessment data, and considerations regarding Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements. A group of 71 comparison subjects who were referred to CSE and deemed suitable for but did not receive the service was identified. Follow-up behaviors of both groups are examined (including all forms of reconviction, breach of orders, and prison recall). Over a comparable follow-up period of 55 months, the incidence of violent and contact sexual reconviction in the comparison group was significantly higher than for the Circles cohort. Comparisons are made between expected and actual levels of sexual reconviction, with the Circles cohort showing lower than expected rate of sexual reconviction but not to a statistically significant degree.

Learning from research: Adapting interventions for sexual offending to improve outcomes

“…Two large Canadian matched control studies also favoured Circles: Wilson et al (2007;N = 120 in two groups) found that CMs were significantly less likely to become sexual recidivists (5.0% vs 16.7%); for all types of recidivism figures were 28.3% versus 43.4% over a mean follow-up period of 54 months. In the United Kingdom, the largest cohort study (N = 142 in two groups) found significantly lower sexual reconviction rates (4.2% to 16.9%) over a mean 55-month follow-up (Bates et al, 2014).…”

“…Desistence theory (Bates, Williams, Wilson, & Wilson, 2014) requires that individuals want to change. A key role of volunteers is to maintain this motivation, supporting individual needs and coping strategies.…”

“…The outer circle is made up of professionals, including police officers, probation staff, and related services (Mccartan et al, 2014). Whilst the volunteers work with these statutory agency members, mainly to share essential risk-related observations, Circles remains a distinct, nonstatutory, voluntary programme (Bates et al, 2014;Elliott & Beech, 2013).…”

Putting the “community” back in community risk management of persons who have sexually abused.

“…In a recent study, British CoSA researchers (Bates et al, 2013) followed 71 core members for an average period of 55 months, comparing them to a group of comparison subjects using a matching protocol similar to that used in the Wilson et al (2007aWilson et al ( , 2009a) studies, described above. Although several core members experienced behavioral difficulties related to sexual offending, resulting in enhancements in their supervision schemes or a return to custody, only three of 71 core members (4.2%) were subsequently charged for sexual or violent reoffending.…”

A prison-model of CoSA: the potential to offer “through the gate” support and accountability

“…For example, research in Canada has demonstrated significantly lower reoffending rates in Core Members when compared to similar individuals who were suitable but did not receive a CoSA (Wilson, Picheca, & Prinzo, 2005Wilson et al, 2009). In the UK most recently, a comparison study similarly reported that Core Members reoffended sexually or violently at a lower rate than those who were suitable but did not receive a CoSA (Bates, Williams, Wilson, & Wilson, 2014). Although the quantitative research of CoSA has been criticised generally (see Elliott & Zajac, 2015, for more detail on this), results such as these do demonstrate promising and encouraging evidence of the effectiveness of the providing pro-social support through CoSA.…”