'Treating' What Comes Naturally

11 June 2012 Last updated at 18:30

Sex offenders in pilot drugs trial

"The BBC's June Kelly has been given exclusive access to some of those participating in the scheme

Whatton Prison in Nottinghamshire is a jail with a difference.

Every one of its 840 adult male inmates is a sex offender - and 70% of them are paedophiles [actually or 'BBC-paedos'? ... note, the video states otherwise, then fails, later]. It is Europe's largest sexual offender rehabilitation centre.

Rehabilitation is at the core of this category C prison. Only those who have agreed to treatment [sic] get sent here, although they might face a wait of up to three years to get on the courses they need.

Most prison sex offender treatment [sic] programmes take the form of group psychological therapy [sic] sessions. But a more controversial experiment is going on at Whatton - the use of drugs to suppress sexual thoughts and urges.

Lynn Saunders, the governor, has worked with sex offenders for 20 years and says she loves her job."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18402203

Tuesday 12 June 2012

Sex offenders being released from prison without accessing treatment [sic] programme

"Too many sex offenders are being released from prison without having access to a treatment [sic] programme at all, inspectors said today. Some 46 inmates at the category C Whatton prison, which holds more than 840 sex offenders in Nottingham, were released last year without having completed a sex offender treatment [sic] programme (SOTP) [sic] at all, the Chief Inspector of Prisons Nick Hardwick said.

One in four sex offenders had waited more than a year for a programme and another one in four had a wait of more than two years, a survey by the prison showed.

It was “concerning that not all sex offenders who required it were receiving the treatment [sic] they needed [sic] ” before being released, Mr Hardwick said.

“In the interests of the individuals concerned and the communities to which they were returning, this was a matter that needed to be addressed,” he added."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/sex-offenders-being-released-from-prison-without-accessing-treatment-programme-7843641.html

13 Jun,  2012

Treating [sic] the Sex Offender

"It’s also a bit uncomfortable for the non-offender. If being an offender is attributable to brain-chemistry, why would being a non-offender be different? That is, if brains take away the blame, don’t they also take away the credit? (Maybe we would want to say that free will is a characteristic of healthy brains, and its absence a pathology. But that would require argument; it’s at least possible to say it’s all about the neurochemistry.)

On the other hand, such worries do look moralistic. If sex-offending is indicative of a certain dysfunctional brain-state, then the fact that this challenges certain intuitions about offenders is neither here nor there. More work needs to be done on establishing the link between pathology and behaviour, but we should follow the science where it leads us.

We would then have to confront questions about whether it really is desirable to punish at least some offenders, and about whether treatment with drugs could ever be banked against time served in prison – and about whether public protection might give us a reason to treat other people identified as having the “wrong” sort of brain-chemistry, possibly by force, before they get the chance to offend."

http://blogs.bmj.com/medical-ethics/2012/06/13/treating-the-sex-offender/