Centre of excellence

[Coldicote]

I see on the news that Maidstone Prison is to become a centre of excellence for the treatment of sex offenders. Does anyone know what this means in practice? It sounds to me like changing leopards' spots.

[Buenchico]

Many sex offenders don't receive any form of 'treatment' until after they leave prison. They may then be required, as a licence condition set by by the Probation Service (or through a court order made at the time of sentencing) to participate in the 'Thames Valley Project' (or similar) . However such programmes can usually only take place for a few hours each week. (That's partly due to allowing ex-offenders to re-start their lives by taking on employment, but probably just as much to do with the Probation Service's time and staffing constraints).

Starting 'treatment' at an earlier stage (i.e. in prison) is more likely to be effective since it starts closer to the offence and, more importantly, it can be far more intensive. It's such a policy which HM Prison Service (together with other relevant agencies) is seeking to use at HMP Maidstone.

Chris

[Coldicote]

Thank you Buenchico. My question as I'm sure you realise arose from trying to understand something that seemed incredible. I've done a Google search on the Thames Valley Project - masses of words, agencies and cost, but so-called 'treatment' seems little if anything more than a matter of supervision and psychological pressure. Can't say I have confidence in it being any better than a straight forward prison sentence.

[kinell]

At least now when an inmate is freed from maidstone nick with his black bin liner we wont have to guess if he is a nonce in order to kick the crap out of him.