Treatment programmes for rapists fill gaping hole in prison system

New Zealand jails have launched two treatment programmes for rapists, filling a long-standing gap in the prison system.

The intensive nine-month treatment programmes started this year at the new Spring Hill prison south of Auckland and at Waikeria near Te Awamutu, after being trialled at Auckland's Paremoremo.

A third unit will open next year at Christchurch Prison.

But a proposal by the Taskforce for Action on Sexual Violence for a community-based treatment programme is still waiting for a Government decision.

Until now, the only treatment programmes for sexual offenders, in prisons and in the community, have been for offenders against children.

Nick Wilson, the Corrections Department psychologist who set up the new programmes, said adult rapists were given lower priority for years because they were less likely to reoffend sexually than child sex offenders.

A 1998 study found that only 14 per cent of sexual offenders against adults were convicted of another sexual offence within nine years after release from jail, compared with 21 per cent of child sex offenders.

However, overseas studies showed sexual offenders against adults were much more likely to commit other kinds of crime. One Canadian study found 61 per cent of adult rapists, but only 31 per cent of child sex offenders, committed new offences of some kind within seven years.

"When you are dealing with rapists, they have a higher rate of personality disorder than child sex offenders," Dr Wilson said. "There's a higher rate of psychopathology - about 10 per cent among convicted child sex offenders and 36 per cent for rapists."

Dr Wilson has developed a screening system, based on each prisoner's criminal history, to select adult rapists who are most likely to reoffend sexually without treatment.

With 10 beds in each unit, the programmes will treat 30 people a year from about 400 rapists in jail.

"That's enough, since it's also only for those that are prepared to engage in treatment and they often have very long sentences," Dr Wilson said.

A rapist who was released from jail this year after doing one of the pilot courses at Paremoremo said it changed his whole outlook.

"I was very angry, in denial, until near the end of the course I started seeing the pattern, how my life played out from when I was a kid," he said.

"I was very reactive during the course. I threatened to punch some guy out because they were bringing up stuff that was deep-down stuff.

"I do blame it on my upbringing, a lot of it. But I am responsible for my own actions and I know that what I did back then wasn't the go [for his victims]. They don't deserve it."

The sexual violence taskforce recommended in October that a pilot treatment programme also be started in the community for offenders released from jail or convicted of minor offences such as exposing themselves, and for people seeking voluntary treatment.

A detailed proposal for a two-year pilot for about 20 offenders against adults has been developed by WellStop, a Wellington agency that already treats child sex offenders.

Justice Minister Simon Power is to decide on the recommendations in the next few months.