Parental Sexual Offending: Managing Risk through Diversion

1. Parental sexual offending: Managing risk through diversionProf Jane Goodman-Delahunty & Kate O’Brien Manly Campus, Bldg 4, North Head Sanctuary School of Psychology &Australian Graduate School of Policing and Security

2. BackgroundThis project was supported by a Criminology Research Grant provided by the Australian Institute of Criminology. Findings will be published by the Australian Institute of Criminology. The views expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Council.

3. Parental child sexual offending • Enduring, devastating effects on victims and families; “substantial oppressive costs” (Broadhurst 1992) • Under-reported, diminishing numbers prosecuted, few convictions, short sentences, incarceration rare • Research to identify high risk sex offenders in prisons predominantly extrafamilial, few intrafamilial • Risk profile of parental sex offenders underdeveloped • Criminogenic needs, protective/risk factors unclear • Risk instruments insensitive to this sub-group • Initiatives to manage parental offending hindered no evidence-based policy for lower risk offenders

4. Custodial treatment ineffective • Policy focus on high risk extrafamilial sex offender assessment, treatment, registration, detention Inhibit disclosure, reduce reporting, less prosecution • Test as low risk (score 0-1 STATIC-99R) • Shorter sentences preclude treatment • Seek protective custody, excluded from treatment • Group treatment aimed at extrafamilial offenders Negligible effect on low risk offenders (Andrews & Bonta, 2006) Exposure to higher risk offenders increased recidivism in low risk offenders (Wakeling et al 2012) • No evidence of effective custodial treatment benefit most from less intensive interventions

5. Managing risk of parental sexual abuse • ‘Low risk’ not ‘no risk’; consequences for victims • Under-researched sub-type of child sex offender • Policy deficit, need to assess alternative options • Viability of community-based diversion unknown • Few diversion programs, formal evaluations rare • Exception NSW Pre-trial Diversion Program (1992; 2009) • Dynamic risk key to management • Risk instruments insensitive to dynamic factors in parental sex offenders • Violence Risk Scale – Sex Offender Version(VRS-SO)

6. VRS-SO (Wong, OlverNicholaichuk & Gordon 2003) • Third generation actuarial risk assessment • Clinical scale with static (7) and dynamic (17) items, empirically derived, Stages of Change • Dynamic = criminogenic needs, cognitive distortions, deviant preferences, intimacy deficits • Validated in heterogeneous incarcerated offender sample, included child sex offenders Interrater reliability, concurrent and predictive validity • Tested in NZ incarcerated intrafamilial sample • Untested in community-based parental sample.

7. Research aims 1. Develop profile of parental sex offenders dynamic factors risk factors 2. Examine predictive validity of the VRS-SO to: • assess risk of reoffending in a sample of parental sex offenders • distinguish offenders most likely to benefit from community-based treatment based on risk scores (low vs high)

8. Method and Procedure

9. NSW Pre-trial Diversion Program • Legislation 1985, NSW DOH, opened 1989 - present • Primacy to victim needs, service to families, non-offending parents, offenders • Referrals by DPP, screened, accepted if in best interests of the child victim • Plead guilty, attend 2-3 year community treatment program • Treatment completion precludes further sentencing Cedar Cottage

10. Participants • 215 referrals to Cedar Cottage 1989-2003 • All men in a parental role (father, stepfather) • Mean age at referral = 39.7 years (23-68 yrs) • Majority had stable employment = 68% • Most in a long-term relationship: 64% married; 22% with de facto • Assessed for diversion over 8 week period 44/54% diverted; 56/46% declined • Follow-up period 4-19 years, M = 9.1 years

11. Design and Procedure • Retrospective review of clinical assessment and treatment files: • manual coding of VRS-SO dynamic risk items ICC 0.95 • excluded 41 participants with >3 missing items, N = 172 • static items extracted from existing database • Pre-treatment scores end of assessment period • Post-treatment scores for diverted group, ICC 0.94 • Reoffending data following last contact with program from NSWPF COPS and BOCSAR ROD • Offences resulting in official police record or action: • official police reports, charge, arrest, conviction • coded as sexual, violent, general

12. Results

13. Common misconceptions about parental sex offending • Most parental offenders have no biological relationship with victims. • Most victims are post-pubescent. • Boys are primary victims. • Most offenders were abuse victims. • Extra-familial children are at risk. • Abuse is typically an isolated event. • Penetrative offenses are rare. • Similar to other child sex offenders. • Offenders commit only sexual crimes.

14. Nature and frequency of index offence behaviors

15. VRS-SO descriptive statistics • High proportion had a prior criminal record 47% • few past sexual (5%) or violent (13%) offences • Mean pre-treatment VRS-S0 score = 39.0 • very low static scores M = 2.7, SD = 2.6 • high dynamic scores M = 36.6; SD = 8.0 • exceeded comparable SO samples (Beggs & Grace 2011) • Divided into 3 risk categories low (0-30): 21.5% moderate (31-40): 33.3% high (41-72): 45.3%

16. Diversion and treatment completion • Scores of declined group significantly higher than diverted group (M = 44.8 vs 33.9, p <.001), no difference in static scores, only dynamic • VRS-SO risk categories predicted diversion: 100% low risk, 66% moderate, 25% high risk; logistic regression X2 = 58.37; p>.001 • VRS-S0 scores • predicted treatment completion (X2 = 48.6, p<.001) • 79% low risk completed treatment, 57% all • correlated significantly with time in treatment (r = -.45, p<.001) ( M = 932 vs 432 days; p <.001)

17. VRS-SO pre-treatment risk by diversion and treatment completion

18. Predicting reoffending with VRS-SO • Inclusive reoffence definition: • official police reports, charges, arrests, new convictions • Overall reoffence rate = 32%, nonsexual = 20% • 12% sexual reoffences; 10% violent reoffences • VRS-S0 risk category pre- and post treatment significantly predicted overall, not sexual offences Low base rate for sexual reoffending • High risk offenders recidivated significantly faster than low and moderate risk offenders for overall and violent, but not sexual offences.

19. Sexual and violent recidivism rates by VRS-SO risk level and diversion

20. Sexual recidivism rates for low risk offenders by diversion

21. Interaction of diversion and risk • Divided sample by pre-treatment VRS-SO score low risk (0-38) vs high risk (39-72) • Examined reoffending by risk band and diversion • For low risk offenders, diversion • delayed reoffending, 4.6 x slower than declined (X2 = 4.73, p<.05) • reduced sexual reoffending by 80% 4.7% vs 23.5% in declined group (X2 = 6.04, p<.05) • significantly reduced VRS-SO dynamic risk • For high risk offenders, diversion reduced sexual recidivism by 29%, ns (only 2 completed treatment)

22. Sexual, violent and overall recidivism rates by VRS-SO risk level and diversion

23. VRS-SO change scores by pre-treatment risk category (means)

24. Discussion

25. Implications for practice • Static factors underestimated risk in this sample. • VRS-SO reliably distinguished high from low risk parental offenders. • Dynamic risk factors reliably predicted diversion, treatment completion, and low risk reoffences. • VRS-SO useful to assess treatment needs, responsivity to interventions, compliance and treatment completion by parental sex offenders. • VRS-S0 recommended to assess and manage risk in a community sample of low risk offenders.

26. Benefits of diversion • Victim and family support, intensive monitoring of offender progress, expanded disclosure of past offending • Strengthened protective factors: ongoing connections in community, retained employment, financial support for victims and family members • Avoided costs of incarceration • Allowed more informed allocation of resources • Increased offender desistance and victim protection

27. Strengths and limitations of study Strengths • Multiple sources of information on sample and offending Victim, family members, non-offending parent, offender, clinicians • Extensive information available on diverted group • Follow-up period and reliable reoffence data Limitations • Restricted power due to missing data in declined group

28. Policy implications • Vital to match risk with treatment intensity (RNR, Andrews & Bonta 2006): apply more control (incarceration) to offenders more likely to reoffend • Successful treatment of low risk parental sex offenders by diversion and community containment: Reoffending by low risk parental offenders was more successfully prevented and managed in the community than by standard criminal prosecution and incarceration. • Sep 2012, NSW Attorney-General adopted policy that all sex offenders must go to jail, commenced dismantling and closure of Cedar Cottage, reassigning low risk offenders to prisons.

29. Axe for sex offender treatment program "The community rightly expects those who engage in child sex assault to receive a custodial sentence” NSW Attorney-General Greg Smith As a result of changes made by the NSW Attorney-General, persons charged with relevant offences after 1 September 2012 are no longer eligible for diversion. "This will increase the likelihood of sex offenders reoffending in NSW" Greg Barns, Australian Lawyers Alliance "We need to consider whether by abandoning the program we would harm the interests of those we wish to see assisted" Prof Tony Vinson

30. Conclusions • Diversion substantially reduced threats to the welfare and safety of young children and families. • Diversion is an effective preventive intervention for parental sex offenders. • Community-based treatment is consistent with the therapeutic jurisprudence aim of the criminal justice system, not punitive populism. • Community containment of low risk parental child sex offenders is an evidence-based policy and practice.

31. Questions? Thank you for your attentionjdelahunty@csu.edu.au