La unidad de la teoría del silogismo simpliciter

The previous sections explore how important risk management is for helping the relapse prevention of adolescents who display harmful sexual behaviour. It is also clear that a key part of risk management is to protect the public, but there are also wider contextual factors that need to be considered.

Considering risk reduction

The issue of risk reduction and risk management not only includes restrictions but also includes risk management structures, such as the reviewing and monitoring processes and multi-agency meetings. The issue of reviewing restrictions was raised by Professional P13 who made reference to being able to remove restrictions if risk reduces and the restrictions are no longer felt needed, they stated:

‘The focus needs to be on protecting the public and if we need that initial restriction to protect until we have witnessed and observed their behaviour then absolutely we should have that in place, with the caveat that we can remove it if the person does not need it, but in the initial thing then the protection of the public is the main focus’.

164 Professional P18 spoke about how they believe that risk assessments can negatively affect the outcome for young people, they stated:

‘You have to provide them with appropriate levels of support and monitoring if necessary. I think one of the big things we don’t do regularly is reviewing risk, I don’t think we do it regularly enough and I don’t think we do it consistently enough. It’s one of the things I think we really don’t do is pragmatic risk assessments, we don’t do risk assessments that we stick by and say actually I stand by my risk assessment, I’m not being risk averse, I am saying that at this point in time this is what is happening and I do think that we should be able to take risks ourselves with risk assessments, as long as we can quantify it and can evidence that we are doing it safely and we are monitoring and supporting people, I think we have to have practitioners who are confident to be able to risk assess, but confident in being able to down grade a risk assessment, I think that is what people suffer with they become risk averse because they are worried about getting into trouble or ending up on the front page of a paper, I think that paralyses people and makes people suffer. I think you can do very good work with very small resources as long as your people are trained enough, I think support networks are dissipating’.

There appears to be limited ability for professionals to review and amend restrictions and risk assessments. The process of amending restrictions links to the professional anxieties, if amendments are made and an individual goes on to offend then there is a sense of professional blaming. The change in structure provided by the ARMS, J-ARMS and AIM 3 frameworks allows for there to be a clear plan of review and reflection. This provides evidence to adjust and amend the risk management plan should situations change. This may reduce some of the professional anxiety and provide clear reasoning and evidence for changes in restrictions.

Professional P8 spoke about the forum for considering risk they stated ‘I think it needs to be considered, I think it needs to be monitored and I know this happens. I know through MAPPA meetings that actually levels can be decreased or increased’. The MAPPA process was also mentioned by Professional P19:

‘I think monitoring is massively important. I have a slightly odd view about the monitoring that does take place, we talk about people being MAPPED [MAPPA

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Process] and registered [sex offender registration], that by applying those two factors or a SOPO [Sexual Offences Prevention Order] that that will keep them safe and I think it goes far beyond that, it goes to whether they are actually monitored and I can’t believe that if someone chooses to avoid those restrictions that they can’t because there isn’t going to be a police officer or a monitoring officer on their doorstep the whole time’

There was a degree of disagreement by professionals about the ability to reduce risk. Professional P15 commented ‘It depends what it is. I like people to move from their past, but you can’t move on from something serious’. Professional P14 countered this stating ‘for some people were there is evidence of a continued presenting risk but certainly not when it’s is a young person going into adulthood’. This was the area that had the most polarised responses from professionals, with significant disagreement about the potential a young person has to change. Ward and Maruna (2007) explored the issue of rehabilitation and change stressing the importance of looking at strengths. Burrowes and Needs (2008) explore the readiness for change; they suggest that the individual’s internal context, the catalyst for change and the environment for change are all crucial in understanding how to promote change. This coupled with the recidivism rates for young offenders and the knowledge about child development would suggest that professionals should view the idea of change more positively.

There was consensus that restrictions needed to be monitored and reviewed through multi- agency meetings. There appears to be a lack of clarity about the process. It is likely the lack of awareness of child development and harmful sexual behaviour reinforces this ambiguity about the ability to change. If professionals are holding views that offenders cannot be changed, this is likely to have an impact on the way they relate to that offender, their risk assessment and subsequent risk management plans.

Terminology and Inflation of risk

Two professionals took a different approach to answering the question, thinking about broader factors. Professional P21 questioned the terminology used stating: ‘I guess my problem is with the word restrictions, I guess there needs to be more structures around an individual, whereas restrictions sounds as if you are caging someone in and I don’t necessarily think that is the way it should be looked at, I think there needs to be boundaries’. The response provided by this professional appears to promote the idea of change and support

166 rather than control. The second professional P7 spoke about the over inflation of risk and how professional anxiety may be a factor:

‘I guess there are definitely cases that need restrictions to protect them and others. I think sometimes peoples risk can get over exaggerated and then there is panic from the professionals, that’s increased and then to decrease their anxiety if there are things [restrictions] in place it makes them feel better, so sometimes I think it is misplaced, but I definitely think they have got a place in some cases’.

The issue of inflating risk was mentioned again, Professional P20 commenting ‘I think sadly the police often, particularly with sex offenders there is this upping the ante and people are more likely to inflate the risk and not be entirely proportionate about it, they disregard other services because they can’t get away from thinking about the risk’.

The definition of restrictions has negative connotations of controls, restraints and limits rather than the more therapeutic sense of boundaries. Whilst the sense of enforcement feels appropriate within the context of the legal mandates, it may negatively impact on a therapeutic approach with the young person. There are a variety of issues raised when considering whether it is appropriate to place restrictions on an individual because they have offended sexually. Some of the emerging themes were around the offender’s behaviour and severity of offending, the need to protect the public and the offender from further offending and the process of monitoring and reviewing risk and the potential over-inflation of risk.

Protecting the Professionals

It would seem logical that restrictions are placed on an individual in order to keep themselves and others safe. The process of risk management is complex and there are wider issues that need to be considered. It is clear that restrictions play a useful part in the risk management of adolescents who display harmful sexual behaviour, but do restrictions also have benefits for the professionals who manage them. A theme that emerged when exploring the reason for restrictions was the issue of professional fear, P21 stated:

‘the court has these types of restriction and you see sometimes that the court doesn’t know what to do so they just put all of them on there, is that helpful I question? It is out of fear rather than what would keep someone safe’.

167 The focus so far has been on protecting the public from the risk posed by the offender, however within the professional interviews it was questioned whether there was an element of protecting the professionals or the organisation. Professional P10 questioned whether the fear around restrictions is held by professionals in relation to organisational and professional risk:

‘So they are quite generic and do not relate to the individuals circumstances and there is a bit about protecting the organisation. We have become so worried about blame, it’s a blame culture, which now we have these restrictions that if you don’t blanket these restrictions on to somebody then you aren’t doing your job properly and you’re not protecting the public well enough and I don’t think that they always do fit, because there is certain licence conditions you can’t mould them to fit that individual you just blanket them, all of them on there, so yeah I would say that, it is to do with that blame culture’.

This issue was echoed by P19 who stated ‘‘I think sometimes they come from a position of social fear, I think they come from a position of watching your own back, so that people become risk averse, rather than working with risk to enable, so you could uses those tools to enable people to do things, instead I think it closes people right down’. Within the literature review the issue of professional anxiety (Menzies, 1960), risk aversion (Rabin & Thaler, 2001, March & Shapira 1987), together with the professional blame culture (Giddens, 1999, Munro, 1999) was raised. The link between risk assessment and risk management is complex and the process of managing high risk sexual offenders carries a degree of organisational responsibility. This responsibility creates anxiety about the potential for further offending and that enforcing restrictions on an offender may act to mitigate this anxiety for organisations.