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CHAPTER FOUR : 

CHILD-MOLESTERS RESPONSE TO COMMUNITY-BASED SEX OFFENDER TREATMENT 

ANTHONY BEECH, RICHARD BECKETT AND DAWN FISHER

This chapter describes some data gathered for the Sex-Offender Treatment Evaluation Project (STEP) funded by the Home Office to evaluate the efficacy of treatment programmes being provided by or for the Probation Service. 

After a national survey of treatment programmes, six probation programmes were selected for detailed evaluation on the basis that they were well established and represented the range of treatment programmes available. 

In addition, the only English private residential specialist treatment programme for sex offenders was included in the evaluation because it had a high national profile, was a significant influence on the development of treatment programmes and training courses for probation officers, and because many of its clients were funded by probation services. 

In terms of measuring treatment change the evaluation investigated four areas: 

Denial and Minimisation; 
Distorted Thinking about Offending; 
Awareness of Damage to Victims; 
Lifestyle and Personality

This chapter looks at the impact on these areas of shorter and longer amounts of treatment for men who differed in their prior level of deviancy.

METHOD 

Subjects

52 child molesters who completed a comprehensive set of questionnaires and interviews both before and after at least 50 hours treatment. 

Measures 

The questionnaires covered 

inadequacy 
(low self-esteem. Emotional loneliness, underassertiveness, personal distress), 
general personality 
(locus of control, perspective-taking, empathic concern, over-assertion), 
distorted thinking 
(victim empathy distortions, cognitive distortions etc), 
emotional congruence with children, and
denial 
(both general denial and denial of planning, victim harm, and future risk etc). 

Details of these measures are in Beckett. Beech. Fisher, and Fordham (1994).

RESULTS 

A hierarchical cluster analysis of pre-treatment scores suggested two large overall clusters, of which could be labeled high deviancy and the other low deviancy.

Although these clusters were derived on the basis of personality and attitude variables, they differed strikingly on a number of offence variables. The high deviancy group having many more victims, more male victims, more extra-familial victims, and a greater probability of having a previous conviction for a sex offence.

A similar hierarchical cluster analysis was carried out on post-treatment scores. One of the clusters now had what was essentially a normal profile, being similar to a non-offender sample, while the other clusters all retained profiles which were in some way deviant.

The group with a non-deviant profile after treatment had showed significant change on thirteen scales. These changes can be summed up as follows:

Significant improvements in personality measures towards the normal range and away from levels related to the "inadequate personality";
Owning more responsibility for their actions;
Decreases in levels of distortions about children;
A decrease in levels of justification about offences;
A decrease in fixation on children; and
Decreases in levels of denial.

In contrast the men who did not fall in this cluster showed no change on any scale except a reduction in denial.

Table I shows the numbers of men achieving this normal, non-deviant profile according to how deviant they were before treatment and how much treatment they had received.

Table 1 - Percent Normal (Non-Deviant) Profiles after Treatment
 

Treatment

Higher deviancy before treatment

Lower deviancy before treatment

Long term

 60% 80%

Short term

 18% 62%

 

Long term treatment produced a greater impact, especially with the men who were more deviant before. Short term treatment was only sufficient for men who began with relatively non-deviant profiles.

CONCLUSIONS

It was possible to identify child abusers in terms of deviance on the basis of a number of psychometric measures.

High deviancy men showed

poor levels of social adequacy,
a lack of accountability for their actions,
high levels of distortions about their victims,
high levels of fixation and
sexual obsessions about children.

The low deviancy group had scores that although still deviant, were closer to the non-offending range of scores.

External validation of these clusters was found when looking at the offence demographics, the high deviancy group tended to be more serious offenders.

Over half the sample appeared to have benefited from treatment in that after treatment they had scores on twelve of the measures which were similar to non-offenders. This group had shown significant improvements on thirteen scales. The remaining subjects showed no significant change on most measures although they did show improvement on one of the denial measures.

This finding indicates that changes in denial do not necessarily equate with treatment change.
Longer treatment was found to be an important variable in effecting treatment change in the higher deviancy men. Long term treatment had a 60 % success rate with these men, short term treatment a success rate of under 20%. This finding suggests that it is possible to treat highly deviant men but that this treatment requires a lot of therapeutic input.

REFERENCES

Beckett, R.. Beech, A. Fisher, D. & Fordtham, A.S. (1994) 'Community-based Treatment for sex offenders : an evaluation of seven treatment programmes.' London: Home Office.

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