Prison was not always the appropriate treatment for sex offenders or the best way of protecting victims or potential victims, the Psychological Society of Ireland conference heard. Ms Olive Travers, senior clinical psychologist with the North Western Health Board, said the prevailing, comforting "out of sight, out of mind" attitude towards sex offenders needed to be challenged. "No account is taken of the fact that the sex offenders who are convicted and who receive prison sentences represent only the tip of the iceberg - some would claim as low as 2 per cent of all sex offenders. Even less account is taken of the fact that most sex offenders will remain in prison only for a few years and that few avail of the limited treatment facilities presently available in Irish prisons." Only 10 places were available for 259 sex offenders.
Paedophile was a blanket term synonymous with the image of a monster in the eyes of the public. The reality was that most abuse was perpetrated by non-fixated offenders but it was the fixated offenders who obtained most publicity and media attention, said Ms Travers.
She stressed that the views she expressed were her own and not those of the health board. Community-based treatment of certain types of sex offenders was not a soft option, she said, but rather a more efficient and cost-effective approach to the prevention of child sex abuse. "Prison is society's way of avenging itself on the abuser, but there is a great deal of denial around the effectiveness of this. Sexual offending against children is motivated by many factors. Some, but not all sex offenders can gain control over their abusive behaviours. There is no cure for sex offending . . . control is the goal of all work done in reeducation and training."
Many men attending a treatment programme confronted the reality of their sexually-abusive behaviour and the damage they had done to children. They had emerged from treatment with insight and a level of personal development which rendered them not just safer in relation to children but also more complete human beings.
To her knowledge, only 3 per cent of the 100 or so offenders treated in the community-based project in the North Western Health Board had re-offended.