The Parole Fallacy
David Gorman highlights problems repeatedly faced by those sex offenders labelled as deniers in obtaining parole.
For years, I have read numerous letters in Inside Time about the problems sex offenders labelled as 'deniers' face in getting parole. Claims that have often been robustly refuted by the parole board. I would like to share my own experiences.My hopes were initially raised when the then Home Secretary David Blunkett stated that .. "We now have a wonderful, accurate, objective risk assessment tool called OASys which will allow the parole board to come to informed decisions regarding the risk of re-offending an individual poses." Marvellous I thought; something that negates the subjective opinions of those in the prison service who often have their own agendas and axes to grind. So imagine my surprise and consternation when my outside probation officer’s parole report stated: ‘The problem with OASys is that it takes no account of contextual and dynamic risk factors which could indicate imminent offending. As such, you should not put too much reliance on a low OASys score’.
Those of you who have been refused parole because your OASys score was too high may be somewhat surprised by this attitude. Perhaps it might be better explained when you consider that my score was 17, i.e. very low risk of re-offending. So if your OASys score says you are a high risk it's a wonderful tool; if it says you’re a low risk its inaccurate. What the parole board appear to be doing is selectively choosing when to accept the results of these risk assessment tools. A choice dependent upon the individual concerned allied to their own agenda.
To assist my parole application, my solicitors instructed a highly qualified independent Clinical Psychologist to do a full risk assessment on me. The battery of tests and interviews took two days, and the subsequent report confirmed that I was a very low risk of re-offending. This report was disclosed to the prison psychology department, who proceeded to ignore it and sent it to the parole board who concluded that it was .. ’problematic for the board to reconcile the findings with the nature of the offence’. Obviously a report by a highly qualified independent psychologist doesn’t carry the same weight as one by a trainee prison psychologist.
My family watched the parole board at work in a three-part documentary series on BBC2 (pictured) and noted the constantly repeated mantra .. "We have to base our decision on the risk of re-offending within the parole period". So, with an exemplary prison record, an honours degree in Psychology achieved on education, no adjudications, a very low OASys score and independent professional confirmation of my low risk of re-offending, we keenly awaited the good news.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, I was turned down. The parole board acknowledged my low risk but refused parole because of ‘the lack of evidence of any factor which has reduced that risk’. In other words it doesn't matter what level of risk you are, if you can't demonstrate how you achieved that level and, surprise, surprise, the only way to do so is to admit guilt and do the SOTP, you are doomed to failure.
It seems the Oyston court ruling is rendered meaningless if the parole board still refuses parole only on the grounds of denial; circumventing the ruling by simply changing the words it uses. What you get are parole decisions guided by the establishments’ desire to reaffirm the infallibility of the court system, and a fear that giving parole to a ‘denier’ who has done no offending behaviour courses might encourage others to maintain protestations of innocence.
I find myself wondering about the validity of the whole parole process. My personal officer quite openly stated: "I don't recommend anyone for parole because I'd feel bad if they re-offended". Likewise, both my probation officers refused to recommend parole because I had not admitted guilt, which made me ineligible for the SOTP. Given that it is illegal for the parole board to refuse to recommend solely on the basis of denial of offence, you wonder why the same does not apply to probation officers.
My independent Clinical Psychologist told me that under no circumstances should I allow the psychology department to do a risk assessment on me. He said: "They just play at being psychologists and once they have written a bad report on you it is almost impossible to get it changed".
Strangely, after eight years of the psychology department stating that they could only assess my risk if I did the SOTP, out of the blue they wanted to conduct their own risk assessment. By coincidence, it was shortly after receiving the independent one. Unusually, the risk assessment they wanted to do was not the normal objective risk assessment the prison service use but one where the psychologist 'interprets' my responses. Needless to say I refused.
For me it's another round of Judicial Reviews. I have now got used to those in authority who continue to let personal prejudices and cognitive distortions about sex offenders in denial influence their professional judgement. Unfortunately it's my wife and children who really suffer, because of course they just don't understand how corrupt the system really is.
It would be nice to have some honesty permeate through the system. I suspect that the real reason I didn't get parole was that the board thought two and a half years was too long to ‘knock off’ my sentence. I have observed that the parole board highlight the approximate parity between paroled sex offenders admitting guilt and those ‘in denial’. I think this is a clever manipulation of the figures, as those ‘in denial’ only seem to get the last few months on parole. Perhaps the parole board could give us the average parole period for both groups and we can see if this parity holds true.
It is a fallacy to suggest that parole is achievable based on the risk of re-offending. The parole board will argue that they have to make a decision based on balancing the risk of re-offending with the risk of harm. As risk of harm is based upon the nature of the offence it is a static risk and never changes. What does change is the risk of re-offending. Given that the board was presented with evidence that my risk of re-offending was as near to negligible as it is possible to get, the only conclusion that can possibly be drawn is that the refusal was due to my continued protestations of innocence.
Perhaps Mr. Blunkett’s multi-million pound risk assessment is not what the prison and probation services now want. What they want is a return to the subjective assessments that allowed free reign to their prejudices and personal agendas.
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