Detector test finds paedos lying low
MORE than 20 paedos and rapists have been sent back to jail under a scheme to make sex offenders take lie detector tests.
In the first 17 months of the government scheme, 352 criminals out on licence from prison were hooked up to the machines.
A total of 23 were returned to jail because of what was revealed in the polygraph tests.
The £4,000 machines monitor the breathing, blood pressure and heart rate as subjects answer questions.
Among those returned to prison were people who had originally been convicted of rape, sexual activity with a child, sexual grooming of underage girls and possession of indecent photographs of children.
As well as sending people back to jail, if the lie detector tests spark alarm, officials can also change the way they monitor people with a view to reducing their risk of reoffending.
Officials say criminals are not sent back to prison for “failing” the polygraph but if they give what is termed a “significant response” to a question then probation workers can factor that into a risk assessment.
This can end up with them being MATTHEW DAVIS locked up again. Probation officers have to undergo a 12-week training programme to qualify as polygraph examiners under the guidance of Don Grubin, Professor of Forensic Psychiatry at Newcastle University.
He has said: “Previous studies have shown that polygraph testing both facilitates the disclosure of information and alerts offender managers to possible deception, allowing them to work with offenders in a more focused way.”
David Spencer, research director at the Centre for Crime Prevention, said: “Reoffending rates in the UK are still at scandalously high levels and any means by which potential reoffenders can be identified has to be welcomed.
“Now that it has been proved that polygraph machines have kept 23 potential sex offenders off the streets, it is high time that the technology was rolled out more widely.”
A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “Polygraph tests play an important and successful role in the monitoring of high-risk sex offenders.
“Any offender who fails to comply with the conditions of their release risks being returned to prison and further punishment.”