[Reader-list] (fwd) Quality time with paedophiles

[sanjay ghosh]

Quality time with paedophiles 

Child abusers in Canada who have been befriended by groups of volunteers rarely reoffend. Could the same happen here? 

David Wilson
Thursday November 18, 2004
The Guardian 

How do we protect our children from the threats posed by predatory paedophiles? As a criminologist specialising in this issue, and as a father of two young children, I am often asked what steps I take to ensure my own children's safety. Reminding questioners that, on average, only six children per year are abducted and murdered by strangers, and that far more children are murdered and sexually abused within the family, offers no consolation. "But what if it was your child that was one of those six?" comes the inevitable reply. 

It is then that I mention a Canadian scheme that challenges our assumptions about what we should do to prevent more children becoming victims - a project which has been shown to reduce the predicted rate of reoffending by more than 70%, compared to the UK Prison Service's sex offender treatment programme, which, on average, produces reductions of just 10%-15%. 

The scheme, Circles of Support and Accountability, was started 10 years ago in Ontario by Pastor Harry Nigh. Its guiding principle couldn't be further from the "naming and shaming" this country seems to favour. It actively includes released paedophiles within the community, rather than excluding them from it, and offers them support from members of the public, which in turn alters their behaviour. 

The idea behind the scheme is counter-intuitive, but simple and effective. Each Circle has seven members: six volunteers and one released paedophile, who is known as the core member. The volunteers give up some time once a week to meet the paedophile, perhaps over coffee or lunch, just to chat to find out how he is doing, whether he has taken his medication, attended his job interview, spoken to his counsellor and so forth. And, on the seventh day, everyone gets together to share a meal and celebrate a life without committing further crimes against children. 

Could you do this? Could you give up your time to a paedophile who has often caused untold damage, through his abuse, to many children's lives? Canada has had just as many appalling child abuse scandals as we have had, and some of the country's most notorious "public enemies" have become core members on Circles. 

Gord Stuckless, who admitted 572 sexual acts against boys while working for the Toronto Maple Leafs, a top ice hockey team - think Manchester United or Arsenal - is now on a Circle, having left jail six years ago. 

"The worst thing would be to come home to nothing," he says. "No support. [You] just sit there and watch TV. Crazy ideas come into your head and after a while you say: 'To hell with it'. You throw up your hands, and that's when another victim happens. But if you have your Circle to talk to, well, there you go." 

So what is it that is at work here? Eileen Henderson, the indefatigable organiser of the Toronto Circle project, explains: "We are a ready-made family. If they abused again they would feel they were letting us down. These men are no different from the rest of us. 

"They need to know that they fit in, that they belong, that they have a place with a group of people who say that there are certain things you need to do to help change your behaviour, and we're here to help you do it." 

What's all the more remarkable is not only the idea of including a group of people within the community who have done damage to it and who, common sense says, should be kept out of it, but also the fact that Eileen and her many volunteers do not come from any specialist psychological or psychiatric background, but are just ordinary members of the public who are prepared to give up their time. They do get training now, but they didn't in the early days: Harry Nigh formed the first Circle as a result of "accidental courage", from the belief that someone had to do something positive. 

But why, 10 years later, do people volunteer? Eileen, a mother of two children herself, explains that Canadian communities have begun to recognise that by working together they can ensure their own safety, "not by pushing people to the margins, not by pushing people underground and then trying to convince themselves that they are safe and have done a good thing, but by allowing people to come into our community and finding ways to walk with them and support them". 

Wendy Leaver, a friend and fellow volunteer, says: "I want to establish a relationship with a released paedophile on a Circle because, if it ever came to the point that he has a relapse and might want to abuse a child, the thought will go through his mind to call me and say: 'I need to talk'. 

" What keeps me going is that this works. There are no more victims because we support paedophiles in the community; they haven't reoffended. What else can produce that sort of result? Not your vigilante groups. What I'm doing is stopping future victims." 

Of all the schemes and programmes that already exist in this country to alter a paedophile's behaviour - which are largely cognitive-based and managed by psychologists - could it be that something that started as a community initiative, initially with no specialist or expert input, that sought to include, rather than to exclude, this notorious group of offenders has, in fact, found a means of preventing more children from being abused? 

The Canadians certainly think so, and there are now pilot projects in this country to see if the success of these Circles can be replicated here. Those projects need more volunteers to survive, and the question you have to ask yourself is whether or not you would be prepared to give up your time to make sure that your community is safer for your - and everybody else's - children. 

· David Wilson is professor of criminology at the Centre for Criminal Justice Policy and Research at UCE in Birmingham; his film about the Circles project, No More Victims, will be shown on BBC4 on November 24 

david.wilson at uce.ac.uk 
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