Needs assessment and design of the intervention for high risk sex offenders social reintegration

Abstract

This research studies the needs for social reintegration after prison of sex offenders in Catalonia and how these needs can be addressed using a model that has already worked in other countries: Circles of Support and Accountability (CoSA from now). The goal is to understand how does CoSA work and what are the requirements to adapt this model to the correctional services in Catalonia. To achieve this goal, a quantitative analysis of the main features of the Catalan prison population of sex offenders has been made. Furthermore, the literature on the model CoSA has been reviewed and the application of this model in the UK has been analyzed in depth. Finally, the opinions of the experts and professionals that work with offenders in Catalonia were collected and some sex-offenders on conditional release were interviewed. Although in Catalan prisons there are programs to promote rehabilitation for sex-offenders, the research highlights the important role of social support as the key to reduce recidivism, as well as the importance of maintaining specialized treatment in the community. Circles model optimizes the effect of these processes, and combine both the public protection and the reintegration of sex-offenders. The research conclusions show the key questions of the CoSA model that need to be adapted to establish this experience in Catalonia and a description of the implementation process.