Almost all of 600 sex offenders behind bars refuse to go into rehab
JUST over one per cent of the State’s near 600 sex offenders currently behind bars completed a rehabilitation programme this year, the Irish Mail on Sunday has learned.
Figures provided by Justice Minister Helen McEntee in response to parliamentary queries from Fianna Fáil TD Éamon Ó Cuív confirmed a total of 598 convicted sex offenders are currently serving a wide variety of sentences in prisons across the country.
But despite the high recidivism rate among sex offenders, just 11 inmates had completed the Building Better Lives (BBL) rehabilitation programme up to the end of October this year.
Now Minister McEntee has vowed to introduce a new programme which aims to tackle low participation rates and increase the numbers seeking treatment.
She said the new programme ‘will include engaging with people who deny their offences’.
In her response to Deputy Ó Cuív,
Ms McEntee provided a detailed statistical breakdown of prisoners sentenced for sexual offences between 2018 and the end of last month.
The figures reveal there was a significant rise in the number of sex offenders sentenced over the five-year period, from 172 in 2018 to 258 last year.
In 2019 the number rose by 15 to 187. This fell significantly during 2020, when certain periods of the year were subjected to Covid-19 lockdowns, before rising to 189 in 2021.
Of those sentenced last year, just three received sentences of three months or less.
Fifty-five received sentences of there to five years, and a further 58 were handed down five-to-10-year terms.
Twenty-six sex offenders received a sentence of 10-years or more.
Despite the rising prison population, the number of inmates who completed the rehab programme for sex offenders has fallen dramatically since 2019, when just 21 prisoners finished the course.
The number dropped dramatically to just nine in 2020, with nine again completing the rehab programme the following year.
Last year the number fell to just seven, before rising to 11 for the first 10 months of 2023.
In her response to Mr Ó Cuív, Ms McEntee said that the Building Better Lives programme ‘is currently undergoing a major review’ by a Canadian expert, Professor Liam Marshall.
She added ‘a final report is expected in the coming weeks’.
Ms McEntee said the BBL programme delivered in Irish prisons ‘is based on the Canadian Rockwood Model and jointly delivered with the Probation Service’.
This is currently provided to sex offenders over two stages.
Part one is called ‘Exploring Better Lives’ and lasts 12 weeks. The second part, ‘Practising Better Lives’ lasts for between 60 and 70 sessions.
However, following receipt of Professor Marshall’s report, the minister said: ‘A new model of treatment for sexual violence will be developed to incorporate a multi-trajectory, person centred and trauma informed approach to the understanding and treatment of sexual violence.
‘This will directly address current low participation rates and will seek to increase the numbers accessing treatment.’
Ms McEntee said additional funding secured this year will also allow
‘New programme to tackle low rates’
‘New approach to focus on early intervention’
‘an additional senior psychologist and principal psychologist specialist to be recruited to support the delivery of this expanded sex offender treatment programme’.
She added that a new approach will focus on early intervention.
Ms McEntee said: ‘This will include engaging with people who deny their offences, those who are at low risk of re-offending, and/or those on short sentences who were previously excluded from the BBL programme.
‘These changes should result in a significant reduction in the barriers to treatment, thereby significantly increasing access to sexual violence treatment.’