Denial

Reading the latest edition of 'Inside Time' I was particularly struck by a piece concerning prisoners in denial at HMP Wakefield and written by Paul Sullivan. The article refers to the recent HMI report by Chief Inspector Nick Hardwick and his observation that:- 

‘The most significant concern we identified at our last inspection in 2009 remained. Almost half the men at Wakefield were in denial about their offence – to some degree refusing to take responsibility for their offending. There were no programmes available at Wakefield to tackle the behaviour and attitudes of men in denial and, as a consequence, little effective work was done with them.’

Actually I'm not sure there are any programmes specifically designed for prisoners in denial within the prison system, but no doubt I will be corrected if I'm wrong. Anyway, Paul Sullivan  suggests that it is beyond the legitimate remit of the Inspectorate to be 'publicly trying to discredit' prisoners who are in denial and that by raising the issue it 'impugns their integrity.' 

I have to say this is a somewhat brave stance to take talking as it is about a Category A maximum security prison containing 750 men, most of whom have been convicted of the most serious sexual crimes it is possible to imagine. Most will be serving life sentences and therefore at such time as their tariff has been reached, judgements will have to be made by the Parole Board as to whether it is safe for release to be considered. 

Particularly in relation to sexual offending, in my experience denial and minimisation are quite normal. In order to try and effect sentence progression, and in the end to be able to afford the public a degree of protection if release is granted, it is the legitimate business of probation and the prison authorities to challenge denial intelligently, but carefully. Of course history shows that there may be some innocent men wrongly convicted, but the vast majority simply do not want to confront their offending for what ever reason. The article goes on:-

"With the removal of the need for evidence in trials for alleged sexual offences (1994 Criminal Justice Act), the payment of massive compensation to accusers (even if there is no conviction or even trial), the burgeoning of police trawling and allegations of historic abuse, for which there is no defence or alibi after many decades, and the recent concerns of helpful evidence going ‘missing’ and failure to disclose evidence that would help the defence, the window for innocent men being convicted and locked up is open wide and, despite mountainous hurdles placed in the way of any men trying to have a conviction overturned many hundreds do succeed each year, - although NOMS will not admit to having a figure many support groups keep track."

Just as we are all still coming to terms with the sheer scale of Jimmy Savile's sexual offending and historic prosecutions of others may begin, although perhaps not intended, this article appears to verge on being both naive and apologistic towards sex offenders. HMI Nick Hardwick is spot on in drawing attention to this extremely challenging group within the prison system who cannot be allowed to simply deny their offending, 'do their time' and hope to be released to possibly offend again.