Post Edited (AndyH) : 05/08/2011 09:26:16 (GMT+1)

Post Edited (forever changes) : 05/08/2011 11:11:53 (GMT+1)

Post Edited (AndyH) : 05/08/2011 14:45:15 (GMT+1)

Can I bring in something here from the perspective of one who hasn’t been convicted of any type of sexual offence, or will you take offence? (pun).

It seems you are all in deep agreement with one another and that’s pretty reasonable, given that you all face the same, or added restrictions. I’m open to criticism here, but I think you’re all slightly missing the point. The added restrictions, (some of which I think very strange if not pointless), are that they are a reaction to an unanswerable question. The question is; ‘Why did you commit the offence(s) that you did’? We now enter the world of what you have done about it, the various courses you’ve been on, statistics etc; none of which answer the question.

In opposition to financially related offences, or those of jealousy, or unemployment . . . . . there is a sort of ‘closed shop’ approach to valid reasons concerning sexual offences. Hence the control and restrictions put on the SOR instead of a rehabilitation emphasis that was once the norm for financially related offences. I think that the suggestion in many of your replies is that you tend to align yourselves with a lack of recidivism and finding ways in which to counter arguments for increased control without focusing on the causal effects of the original offence(s). You could of course suggest that crime is prelevant across all classes, but the difference here is the excuse factor. Once that’s known you have a reason for the action – homelessness, unemployment, simple greed . . . . . and also a point at which to begin to address the problem. This isn’t apparent in sexual offences and although there are probably a variety of factors involved, they aren’t known and what you don’t know you can’t control and it’s that which makes people fearful. In other words society could bring down crime to 1% tomorrow by giving everybody 1m GBP but it wouldn’t however address sexual offending.

So in effect you’re blaming society for its opinions and the government for its restrictions to which you are unable to offer a response to, except to say they are harsh and undeserved. You are not able to address the central issue of the cause(s) and so provide a solution.

Andy made a long and well researched post. The suggestion is that the majority of people who commit sexual offences abroad are not on the SOR, or the offences in some cases can’t be proved. This still goes back to the original point of my saying that you can’t stop people committing these types of offences if you don’t know who they are and they are not on SOR’s. The point then appears to be one of, ‘if people on SOR’s don’t commit offences, then why the restrictions’? I’ve no doubt some do and as no one can say what the reasons for doing so are, the ban is then a comprehensive one. It’s like saying everyone should be on the CRB because they have the potential to commit crime. The reason for the further restrictions is that some have shown the ability to have actually done so and it is this actuality that separates the have’s from the have not’s. Also the European culture is different to the Asian one; the cases you read about are the high profile ones. Generally, the people who have an unhealthy interest in children here are easily and quickly spotted and kicked out of the country without any fuss or publicity and after paying a big fine to the families involved. So the argument appears to revolve around, ‘why do some do it when not on a register’ against the ‘I’m on a register but wouldn’t do it.’

I don’t know how this is going to go down amongst the praise that’s being showered around but I do think that generally you’re all getting hold of the wrong end of the stick and approaching this from the wrong angle. Now if someone did research as to why people commit these types of offences it would carry a lot more weight than talking about restrictions. You are trying to find reasons as to why you ought not to be restricted and the simple argument put forward is that people who commit these types of offences are not on registers, or in effect, there’s more of them than us, because some surely will be.  I have my own theory as to why it’s happening and the causes, but I think we’ll stop here and wait for the reaction.    

Per aspera ad astra!

Post Edited (AndyH) : 06/08/2011 10:17:33 (GMT+1)

Hi Andy,

Yes of course there are many reasons why people offend, but when this is applied to the specifically mentioned offences the reasons are vague or non existent. My point being that if rehabilitation is the outcome, then success can’t be measured except in numbers or time periods,  because the motive wasn’t clear in the first place. So you could measure individually, but in basic criminological terms you couldn’t ask the question, ‘why do people offend?’ because you wouldn’t know. So you wouldn’t be able to evaluate something that isn’t apparent using the normative standards of housing, drug addiction, unemployment, greed or anything similar. The restrictions then become part of the rehabilitation process – a medical model if you like, as opposed to the various other models such as punishment, retribution, deterrence . . . . As far as I’m aware, it’s the only offence which carries with it compulsory behavioural courses as part of the punishment aspect. I don’t know whether you have noticed the differences in terminology, but you’ll often find the words ‘stopping’ some offenders and ‘curing’ others. You will have noticed as well on the posts and on numerous occasions people saying, ‘I’ve done this course and that one’, with the implication that they have been cured by cognitive therapy instead of a change of circumstances. It’s this distinction between cure and change, rehabilitation through control and behavioural techniques that differentiates between types of offences.  

Yes, I entirely agree, cold fear. Not unreasoned though and not entirely all government sanctioned. The government merely feed off public reaction and this missing ‘why’ word is something the public don’t understand. Others too have restrictions, curfews, tagging . . . but the purpose behind those types of restrictions are thought out and reflect the type of crime committed and have an intended outcome. That people don’t go on to commit further sexual offences merely reflects the restrictions that are put forward and to increase them. So in effect the government would say, ‘the more we restrict the less offences there are’ and the more you use figures to prove a low rate of re-offending, in a way you reinforce the government’s argument about low detection rates. The low detection rate you mention can also be used to reinforce the perception that it’s an epidemic. So without an explanation of the ‘why’ word you’re in a continual catch 22 situation.

The BCS is inherently flawed and always has been . You could use it as a predictive scale, a guage, but not much else. Remember that the SOR is a relatively new concept, take away the internet offences for instance, which is also a relatively new phenomenon and watch the figures crash. In the same way as you won’t find the ‘conspiracy’ offence anywhere prior to WWI, because it didn’t exist.

 The SOR’s purpose is to reduce re-offending by restrictions and monitoring and how big does it have to get? Well, there are 9.3 million on the CRB, so plenty of scope there? They won’t stop adding to it and the more they add the bigger the ‘problem’ and the more they have to add? In a way I feel sorry for the government and not just this one, for the mess they’ve got themselves into. They can’t just suddenly backtrack and say to the public that it’s OK now – they’re forced to continue down the ‘bogeyman’ path and the more they add the bigger the perceived problem. In the same way that immigration and diversity has been lauded by the government as a positive thing, (in sharp contrast to what people actually think), they can’t now go back on it and can now only partly backtrack and talk of ‘reducing numbers’.

The comparison between different countries isn’t really possible. That’s because the laws are different and the interpretations of an offence vary so widely. You could probably do one for Europe and the U.S but after that cultural values would get in the way. You have noticed that the offences we speak of are largely committed in Europe, by Europeans, or by travelers from Europe to other parts? It isn’t coming the other way? Now why would that be? The ‘why’ word again. In all research that’s been done sexual offences are seen as an unexplained deviancy that has no direct link to circumstances or class. It’s a loose cannon; so really my point is what causes it and again, you can’t intervene in something that you can’t explain, hence the control.     

Per aspera ad astra!

You can’t really compare opposites unless you have something in common to measure by; a reference point. Your registration would produce one set of results against another having no registration, but that wouldn’t tell you whether registration worked or not. You would have to say that the level of offending is similar in both countries for it to work. You would also have to factor in cultural differences and laws; for instance in many countries, (moderately), beating your wife is not a criminal offence and neither is internet porn surfing, or chastisement of a child, (smacking). Other measurements, such as in the field of medicine are standardized because the outcome is an exact science, it never is in the social sciences because there are too many variables.

The problem is that there is an absence of causation. In your analogy of drowning the ice cream component is missing as being consumed in periods of hot weather. So you have a spate of drowning accidents, in a particular place, but with no idea of why people would gather at that spot at a particular time and what caused them to drown. The association aspect of the hot weather and ice cream is missing in a register analogy and the question revolves around something happening, but with no explanation as to why.

Yes, the government could say A causes B and you can say those on registers don’t, (often), re-offend. In effect you both agree. What the government would say is now go and prove C, D, E and F, or rather the ‘why’ factor. Now if you could do that and say that C, D, E and F are the causal factors, then those are reference point to focus on and you wouldn’t need registers. This happens in non sexual type offences, a causation factor in crime having a correlation with the amount of offending. The registers are the C, D, E and F’s. Yes, it could be that the SOR is spurious, but in the absence of proof to the contrary you could only suggest that there are other variables involved and would then have to set about proving that.   

There is something to come out of all this and you can now prove that the next scandal will only involve those who have no previous convictions. Now, you might say that it proves that those on registers are not responsible. The government on the other hand would argue that it’s thanks to their restrictions and CRB checks that it doesn’t happen even more often. You’re both right, but the government can say there is a correlation between the register and low rates of offending, whilst you could only suggest that there are external influences. The problem here I think is the use of the social to explain the physcological and is where the behaviourism comes into it, rather than the material.

Per aspera ad astra!

Thanks for your reply ‘Changes’. Yes, this is the type of research I think should be going on; the word addiction being the ‘why’. Loneliness, isolation, low self-esteem = addiction = offence. It could have been crack cocaine or heroin?! Who me? Don’t laugh, it’s how the downward spiral begins for many. I sat for many years and pondered the age old question – how on earth did I get from there to here?! I think that’s a basic starting point that is missed by many who focus on the immediate rather than the cause and what led them to offend. In sometimes a rather harsh and unforgiving manner, (I’ll admit), this way of thinking and self-reliance is what influences my posts.  

I don’t want to take over the post with my ramblings, I just thought it might be an idea to put forward views from the perspective of someone totally unconnected with sexual offences and give an outside perspective.  

Per aspera ad astra!

Post Edited (AndyH) : 07/08/2011 23:37:30 (GMT+1)

Fascinating and really interesting to a "Systems Mechanic" like me, although I am of the Checkland Methodolgy School of Interation when it comes to testing hypotheseses. But that as you rightly say is all about collecting and comparing data which really seems to be the root of the problem in the case of the efficacy of the current SOR system.

We all have our personal experiences which shape our views and opinions and as I for one have come to realise as I've grown older, there are few "simple" answers and compromise is the norm. My reading of the results of theory testing and studies across a wide range if issues simply go to confirm my view.

However, in the case of the SOR, it seems that there is a populist hegemony at work - promulgated by those involved in the management of the system (who of course have their own vested interests), politicians and the media which all acts on public perception and opinion. If you have followed the current debate on Twitter (nearly forgot - and the Mail on Sunday) regarding support for an e-petition to reintroduce capital punishment you might be led to believe that there is huge support. However, a quick look at the Government's e-petition site shows that e-petitions in opposition to reintroduction is currently well ahead - 64% to 36% - but the supporters campaign has become newsworthy and controversial so has been given airtime by the media.

In relation to the SOR I have no doubt that a measured calm debate where the facts are researched and considered openly without prejudice or storms being whipped up by an ill informed or circulation (money) driven media might well allow us all to examine cause, effect and management issues.

It all comes down to your final sentence "At least that way we'd have some reliable evidence on whether spending loads of money monitoring 35,000 people for years on end is worthwhile" and that is about the only thing that the current political orthodoxy of cutting the size of the state and its spending and debt that will engage them in such research.

Finally, thanks for the excellent mental workout.

Chris

Phew! Overuse of obscure and technical terms Andy. You’re in danger of being reported and convicted by the ‘Plain English society’.

The point I believe you’re trying to make is that we are able to measure and compare the statistics used by other countries using different

 types of analysis. That by the way, takes me back to my ‘Durkheim’ days of, “Consider social facts as things”. Discredited, because it

 counted rather than explained.

The problem with registers is that they too count. The problem with counting is it tells you how much you have, but not how much is missing

 or just as importantly, it only gives you a comparison if other people too are counting, so let’s simplify it. By the way, research needn’t be

 boring or nerdy it can be interesting as well, but an overuse of terminology can make you lose an audience and can also bog you down in

 complexities.

You have a theory that offenders themselves produce low offending rates and that restrictions aren’t needed? Forget the analysis for a

 moment and let’s concentrate on how you’d go about proving this. You would have to find a country in the western world that has no

 registers or restrictions whatsoever and also with an extremely low or a near zero re-offending rate. Anything more than this would

 reinforce the need for registers. In other words, you’d have to go below the reconviction results of the UK to suggest that registers aren’t

 needed. You would then need some kind of evidence to suggest why it is that people on registers have such a low re-offending rate and so

 why the registers aren’t needed.  Is it because the registers are so strict that people go else where to commit offences? Is there some kind

 of ‘natural law’ that makes this group less likely to re-offend? In other words, you now have to show that pre registration re-conviction

 rates were lower than they are now or roughly increasing/decreasing at the same level and so registration itself has no impact or bearing on

 reducing re-offending.   

You list a range of countries that do have registers or restrictions, but comparing these is only comparing one register with another, or types

 of restrictions against others. We would already know the outcome, wouldn’t we? The more restrictions you place on someone the less

 likely they are to get the chance to do anything, until you get to the point of having to stand in front of a camera 24 hours a day and then

 your re-offending would be zero.

Research methodology is about measurement and the various instruments used. To measure something though you need to have a clear

 idea of what it is you are measuring and to what purpose. Your objective doesn’t seem to be clear on this – is it simply the different

 countries registers you’re measuring against one another and how would this show that registers have no effect? To truly measure the

 effects of registers, or indeed their non effects, you would have to discontinue them for perhaps a year and then you could statistically

 measure the post rates of re-offending. Plainly, that isn’t going to happen, but I can’t see any other way of measuring them, or perhaps

 better to say apart from an exercise in statistics, what ‘body of knowledge’ would it produce?

Another problem I can immediately see with the ‘registers’ is this. You have the whole weight of public opinion against any change. Some

 character on a recent blog said, ‘the only people who want to get off these registers are the sex offenders themselves’. This sort of makes

 logical sense in that if you weren’t on them you would have no need to try to get off them; a bit like saying that 100% of people on a

 smoking cessation course want to get off the smoking habit. Now, not having found a common cause to offend, the offending based on

 unexplained behavior and the registers intended purpose being to monitor and provide compulsory behavioural courses; the public are

 asking why it is that you might want to get off them. You would say that they don’t work and it’s this that you need to explain and to do that

 you have to completely disprove the idea of registers. Even if your conclusion says that the register works for some, you’ve lost. It’s the

 ‘some’ that they will say it’s intended for and if you can’t then define who the ‘some’ are to exclude the others, again you wont be able to

 say a register is not needed.   

Medicine: There are a set of variables to be measured and this occurs in the pre clinical trials. Do they have side effects? Long term effects?

 Does the medicine actually work? They are scientifically measured. Depression is physcological in its origins rather than knee pain which is

 physical, so the measurements are different, but yes, depression can be measured and it’s why we have severe, chronic etc. It’s just a

 different type of measurement based on severity.

Per aspera ad astra!

Post Edited (IanC) : 08/08/2011 15:02:01 (GMT+1)

Post Edited (AndyH) : 08/08/2011 16:23:47 (GMT+1)

Sentences for breaching plain English laws? From what I’ve heard it’s up to 6 months of writing out my lesson plans every week and two semesters of grammar exam

preparation! The ‘Durkheim days’ I refer to was one of my second year sociology core subjects.

It’s not really proving a negative because the two items you mention aren’t related. One is a belief system, (God), which you can’t prove or disprove and the other is scientific, (the teapot), which you can prove or disprove. Along the lines of the earth which was believed to have been flat 500 years ago but now has been proved to be round. Public opinion has always influenced politicians, it’s how they get elected in a ‘democratic’ society.     

The police and politicians though don’t have to prove their point. As you say, they mention the monitoring, congratulate themselves on the success rates and carry on getting paid, (and very nice pay it is too). Why would they want it to change? It’s not just the Daily Mail readers Andy, you yourself saw the depth of feeling recently on the BBC blog – it’s a view that is held across the majority of society. I’ve said before, sexual offences are the current scapegoat of society. There are ‘no, no’s’ within society and currently, amongst others is racism, religious intolerance, (except Christianity), immigration . . . and sexual offences.

OK, so you do a study and say that three years prior to 1997 and the introduction of registers, sexual offences went up or down. It’s now 2011. The further registers continue the harder it is to prove anything. Who knows what the re-offending rate would be if registers hadn’t been introduced, up, down or static, no one will ever know – so you’d be left with, ‘if the register hadn’t been introduced re-offending might now be . . . ’?

“What you need to do is look at, for example, the UK and see if sexual recidivism dropped significantly after 1997 when the register was introduced”.

If it did then people would say the register worked. If it didn’t, (but is now), they would say the same. My point is, it no longer matters if the rate dropped all those years ago, it’s history. What people are looking at is now and as the rate is low they will say it’s thanks to the register, which as you say, you can’t prove or disprove. What I think you might be trying to say is that if the U.S figures rose after the introduction of a register and those in the UK didn’t, it might show that it isn’t the register that is stopping re-offending but it’s something else. My answer to that is that you will probably find that re-offending drops every time a register is introduced and that’s because monitoring, control and restrictions are bound to have an effect on re-offending. If you did found a pattern of high rates of re-offending on the introductions of registers in the west, you can bet your life we wouldn’t now have registers but something else. This will have been looked at by the government, bet your life on it and buried deep down in the HMSO publications I’ve no doubt you’ll find all the statistics you need.  

The original point of the thread was that registers are of no use because sexual offences have a low recidivism rate and the implication was that the registers didn’t stop re-offending. My view is that no one is able to prove that. I’d compare it to, ‘what would the UK have been like if Blair hadn’t been elected’? Interesting, but we’ll never know. In the same way we would know what happened to recidivism in a comparative study but it would be a statistics exercise. It wouldn’t tell us if the register was responsible, or just as importantly and my original point, why the figures went up, or down.

Medicine: The placebo is just one of a large series of tests that are carried out pre-trial and part of a series of, ‘does it work’ tests. If you have raging toothache Andy, I think you will quickly know the difference between an injection of novocaine and that of a saline solution. But an interesting thought; is the recent introduction of science simply an extension or a replacement of the belief system.  

Per aspera ad astra!

Just thought a short explanation and a few thoughts might be of interest, or not. Tone down the discussion to involve a larger audience and see what people think.

In my lifetime and I’m not a doddery old sod yet, I’ve seen society change beyond all recognition to when I was young. All societies change granted, but this is a complete transformation and I voice my displeasure with my feet, in other words emigration. I sincerely believe that what I’m witnessing is the downfall of the western world. Some might say, ‘just as well’, others who are older will probably look back with nostalgia to what we consider ‘better days’ and yes, with all their faults.

In all civilizations that undergo major changes before collapsing there precedes a period of massive instability. Crime rockets, high unemployment, financial meltdown, people riot, there are wars and first and foremost there have to be scapegoats. The Romans threw Christians to the lions, Hitler killed the Jews and communism blamed the wealthy. The UK? We don’t kill, we put you on the CRB list or a register; we exclude rather than remove altogether; in doing so we warn others.

This ‘downfall’ started at an exact period and I can remember it. The Brady and Hindley era, which was when suddenly we youngsters were forbidden to go out and just run around as we had been doing previously. It preceded the rise of liberalism, the ECHR, political correctness and the other nonsense that we now have. These are simply ‘add ons’ that logically follow down the road of stupidity to get us where we are now. I watch London burning on the internet, I see the UK near bankruptcy, the NHS near meltdown, massive unemployment and a country awash with binge drinkers and drug addicts. A corrupt police, a corrupt media run by corrupt politicians. I listen to the same politicians that tell me it’s OK, that things are under control and what we need is yet more diversity, that we need to give ‘ da youf’ better opportunities; that marriage, the family and a belief in religion is outdated and the EU is the new ‘God’. I see people worshipping the new ideologies of global warming and fed an endless diet of Jeremy Kyle and bursting into hysterics at ‘Come dancing’ – all this with one finger on the keyboard as they spout nonsense on facebook and twitter . . . . .  

That’s what the UK has become and the ‘register’ is just a part of it all. It’s a necessary evil that isn’t going to go away no matter how much research is carried out. I remember a time before the register, before the CRB and before political correctness. Days when you didn’t need others to decide your ‘human rights’ for you as you already had them. When the police enforced the law and used a common sense approach instead of a doctrine and a punishment was something you were given, accepted and moved on.

I don’t know whether to call this a trip down memory lane or a rant. I’ll leave you to decide.

Per aspera ad astra!

Per aspera ad astra!

I do personally hate what has happened and have no sympathy for the rioters. You have no idea to the extent this has damaged the reputation of the UK abroad. I also have sympathy for the government too; it didn’t matter who got in power, financial cuts would have come from any government. After every Labour government there has to be cuts because Labour spend like there’s no tomorrow and throughout successive terms of office always leave the country in a financial mess. What I found ironic was the government’s stance that people should rise up and protest in other countries, but not in ours.

The people that rose up weren’t part of a popular uprising, it wasn’t even the ‘working class’. Now here might be a chance for statistics to play a part; how many book shops were looted against and how many clothes shops and tobacconists, (and pharmacies)? Of the ‘class’ that rioted how many were actually ‘working’ and some questions. At what point in the evolution of democracy did stealing become ‘wealth distribution”? When did arson become a measurement for ‘dissatisfaction’ and when did ‘community leaders’ replace local government? In fact at what point did the police start to ‘police with consent’ and not simply be there to uphold the law? You reap what you sow and what you’re seeing are the results of years of political correctness, diversity and mass immigration.

Freedom and democracy. You have the right to vote, to travel, medical care, education, housing, unemployment benefits . . . . . exactly what was this ‘rioting’ about and what on earth did it achieve? There follows lots of blame, hand wring, millions pumped into inner city areas and . . . back to normal to await the next ‘peoples’ uprising.          

Per aspera ad astra!

Post Edited (AndyH) : 11/08/2011 09:55:04 (GMT+1)

Yes, a lot of the rioters are marginalised, but there again a lot of marginalised people aren’t rioters. It’s a sub-culture on a massive scale and has been left to fester for years and shoved onto council estates that no one ever went near to see what was happening. It just happens that there are enough now to cause a bit more than chaos. Amongst them you have the criminals, drug addicts/dealers, anarchists . . . it’s all there waiting to explode.

When you have immigration you get ghetto’s; when you have mass immigration you get mass ghetto’s. Add to that diversity, where you are actively encouraged to be separate from the indigenous population and you get societies within societies, each with their different rules, laws and customs. Throw into that the sheer weight of overload on the public services such as hospitals, schools and housing and in the end things start collapsing. Finally add on the worst recession in living memory . . . there isn’t enough of anything to go round.

I’m looking at the pictures of the rioters on the internet and I somehow don’t think that the vast majority of them were regular customers of any jobcentre. The little guys with the hoodies on their undersized bikes – they’re not part of any society; they’re the lost generation we refer to, together in many cases with their parents.    

Per aspera ad astra!