A Quaker project working with paedophile offenders is, so far, winning plaudits as a way of helping to safeguard children. Christian journalist Catherine Butcher tells the story.

John has been released from prison. His wife has divorced him. He has no contact with his daughters. If he visits a church he must be kept away from the Sunday school. He should not be invited to a home with children. John (not his real name) has a long history of abusing and abducting children. Contact with children contravenes the conditions of his release. Even if you have no children, John is still likely to keep himself to himself, hiding from the horror of being exposed. In fact, other paedophiles are among the few people who accept him, once they know his background. Loneliness and isolation seem certain – factors that increase the likelihood that he will re-offend.

In 2001, after the murder of eight-year-old Sarah Payne by a convicted paedophile, a million people signed a News of the World petition demanding that parents be given access to information about paedophiles and potential sex offenders living in their community – a right known in the United States as ‘Megan’s Law’. Prompted by public outrage at another convicted paedophile, Craig Sweeney, last month, the News of the World upped its campaign for the establishment of a proposed UK version, ‘Sarah’s Law’. ‘’It’s time to put the victims, not the criminals first’’, said the newspaper’s website. This summer, the Home Office Minister, Gerry Sutcliffe, visited the US to see how the system works there. Paul Whitehouse, the former Chief Constable of Sussex Police which covers the area where Sarah Payne was murdered, doubts whether Sarah’s Law would work. The NSPCC says ‘’there is very little evidence to substantiate claims that community notification enhances child safety’’.

More than 60,000 sexual offences are recorded by police in England and Wales each year. Prisons are already at full capacity. One in ten inmates has been convicted of sex crimes. Permanent imprisonment is not a realistic solution. So what is the answer?

In an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Mr Whitehouse, now vice-president of NACRO, the charity that deals with the rehabilitation of criminals, said that offenders being released from prison needed support from programmes like the Quaker-run ‘Circles of Support and Accountability’ to reduce offending.

The NSPCC also called for more effective prevention strategies, citing the ‘Stop it now’ project run in the UK and Ireland by a child protection charity, the Lucy Faithfull Foundation (which also runs a Circles of Support and Accountability project).

Circles of Support began in Canada in 1995, when a high-risk child abuser was released from prison. Where this became known, there was picketing, with angry calls for political intervention. This led to heightened media attention and 24 hour police surveillance. In response to the offender’s pleas for assistance, a Mennonite pastor formed the first Circles of Support and Accountability. A group of churchgoers offered the offender both humane support and a realistic accountability framework. After a similar intervention with another offender a few months later, the Mennonite Central Committee of Ontario agreed to sponsor a pilot project. The Circles of Support and Accountability was born.

Several British activists visited the Canadian project to see its workings at first hand, among them Helen Drewery, Assistant General Secretary of Quaker Peace and Social Witness. Impressed by the positive effect on all involved – offenders, community volunteers, affiliated professionals and the wider community - Ms Drewery approached the Home Office and won support for a pilot project in the Thames Valley area.

Now, after five years, none of the 23 offenders provided with a Circle has been convicted of any new sexual offence, even though most of them were classified as ‘high-risk’ when they started with the project. The success of Circles of Support and Accountability in preventing further crime means the initiative is beginning to expand nationally.

Dr Donald Findlater of the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, who also visited the Canadian project, sees Circles as part of the answer to demands for Sarah’s Law, as the project actively involves members of the community in monitoring the behaviour of sex offenders in their midst.

Circles volunteers are ordinary men and women of all ages drawn from a variety of backgrounds. Faith communities have proved to be a successful recruiting ground for volunteers, who are trained to provide offenders with support, while holding them accountable to the community and their commitment not to reoffend.

Normally, from four to six volunteers work with each offender. In the high-risk phase, just after release, offenders have informal contact with someone for the group every day. Contact then becomes weekly, from at least the next year. The Quaker project employs five staff, based in Didcot, who screen and train the Circles volunteers. Each group support the offender – called the core member – in his efforts to live an offence free life and challenges him if he shows any signs of slipping back towards risky behaviour. The Quaker Peace and Social Witness team is now getting four Circles going in Hampshire.

Chris Hargreaves was a volunteer in the Circle that supported John. Like more than a quarter of Circle volunteers, it is his faith that motivated his involvement in the project. ‘They’re human beings, and God loves them. The things they have done I absolutely do not support. However, God doesn’t exactly support everything I’ve done. How can I judge them? I’ve not gone down the sex offender route, but I’m as much a sinner as they are.’ Mr Hargreaves has been involved in five circles so far. He says he gets far more out of Circles than he puts in. ‘It’s amazingly rewarding. There are setbacks when you don’t make the headway you expect, but Circles really works.’

John was the first core member Mr Hargreaves supported, together with other members of the Circle. After his third offence against young girls, John’s wife divorced him, and he was banned from seeing his daughters. Once the Circle was up and running, the volunteers supported him as he moved from a probation hostel to a flat in sheltered accommodation. They also helped him find permanent work.

The Circles monitoring system was tested when John began to befriend three girls and didn’t contact the Circle as required, to alert them to the temptation he was facing. But the circle had briefed the warden of his accommodation, and he contacted them. No offence had been committed however, and when John went back to court, he was returned to the more secure environment of the probation hostel – still supported and monitored by his circle. John is now back in the community, and still sees Mr Hargreaves each week. When Mr Hargreaves and his wife invited John to their home for Christmas Day, John said it was the best Christmas he had ever had.

Mr Hargreaves says that he is often the most compassionate member of the Circle, qualities balanced by more cynical members. Together they have a powerful impact on the ex-offender, as they are there because they want to give their support freely, not because they are paid professionals. Abuse victims have also been members of circles, and make a valuable contribution, confronting the offender with the impact of their abusive behaviour, though victims are carefully screened to ensure they have worked through the difficult issues of their own experiences.

The most recent project to be established is in Manchester. Here, the Greater Manchester Community Chaplaincy has spent 18 months setting up its circles: carefully recruiting and training volunteers and selecting core members who can best benefit from the support that Circles offer.

As Circles are developed nationally, Ms Drewery has some concerns about the future. ‘Should we encourage the setting up of informal Circles, even though they may lack the careful selection, training and support which we offer to our Circle members? Can we, and should we, provide resources such as manuals and training events to help faith groups to do ‘Circles’ as well as possible? Is the risk of something going wrong too great – or would the risks of not offering support be greater?’

David Pearson, Executive Director of CCPAS is positive about the development of circles. ‘Society and the Church don’t have an option when it comes to engaging with offenders. It’s a major child protection issue. We ignore it at children’s peril. Churches are amongst the best-placed groups to be involved in forming Circles. Where else would you find an established group of accepting people?’

Nevertheless he shares Ms Drewery’s concerns. ‘Offenders can be plausible, manipulative individuals, and naïve group members can be dangerous. Circles so far have been properly resourced. The danger will come from churches who feel they can adopt the model of working without the resources, preparation and professional back-up which have been a feature of these projects.’

CCPAS has pioneered ways of working with sex offenders in churches. Its model contract developed many years ago in relation to an offender in a church has since been used as the basis for their policy guidance. Research carried out in 2005 suggested that 12% of church leaders in England knew of attenders at their churches who could pose a risk to children on the evidence of past offences. Of those, 83% were using a contract based on the CCPAS model.

In an average week, eight churches contact CCPAS for help in supervising and supporting a sex offender who has just come into the church. As a result of this demand, CCPAS has developed resources for churches, which include a DVD – ‘SOS: Supporting Offenders Safely’ made with the Lucy Faithful Foundation.

Mr Pearson says that Circles must not be seen as an alternative to proper professional support and supervision when resources are scarce. Also, if the core member attends the church providing the Circle, the church’s separate system of supervision must not be compromised.

Nevertheless, Mr Pearson believes Circles can and do offer support to offenders, ‘making it less likely that suitably motivated offenders will re-offend.’

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