§ Mr. McNamaraTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many prisoners are undergoing treatment on a sex offender therapy programme; how many prisoners have been recommended for treatment on such a course in the past year; and by how much demand for places outstrips supply; [110082]
(2) what is the average time between recommendation for treatment on a sex offender therapy programme and placement on such a course. [110083]
§ Mr. BoatengRecords are kept centrally of the number of sex offender treatment programmes running at any one time, but not of the number of offenders participating in them. However, given that there is an average of eight inmates attending each of the 48 programmes currently in progress, about 384 prisoners will be receiving treatment at the moment.
No records are kept centrally of the number of prisoners who have been recommended for a place on the programme and this information could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. The programme is open to all adult male prisoners who have been convicted of a sexual offence, to those whose index offence appears to have had 539W a sexual motive and to those who have been convicted of a sexual offence in the past and are assessed as needing to participate in the programme. Candidates must be assessed as suitable for participation in the programme and they must be willing to participate in it.
There are considerable variations between the dates on which individual prisoners are assessed for participation in the programme and the commencement of treatment. It would not be feasible to make places available on demand for all prisoners who need to undergo it, and the Prison Service, therefore, operates a waiting list system. For determinate sentenced prisoners, the order of priority is determined by an assessment of risk of re-offending balanced against time left to serve; for life sentenced prisoners by their tariff date, or by proximity of the next parole review if the tariff has expired or none was set. In addition to that, programme treatment managers need to ensure that each group has a balance of different types of offender. This means that a prisoner at the top of a waiting list may not necessarily be selected for the next programme. For these reasons, average waiting times between assessment and participation have little significance and are not recorded centrally.
§ Mr. McNamaraTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what action he has taken in response to the report by HM Inspector of Prisons into Wymott Prison; and what plans he has to increase the provision of sex offender therapy programme places there. [110084]
§ Mr. BoatengIn accordance with the protocol for handling inspection reports, the Prison Service produced an action plan within 30 working days of publication of the report. All but three of the 104 recommendations have been accepted, and an updated action plan showing the progress made will be produced in April 2000, nine months after publication of the report.
Additional resources have been made available under the Government's Comprehensive Spending Review and the number of sex offender treatment programmes is set to increase as follows: 48 places in 1999–2000, 56 places in 2000–01, and 72 places in 2001–02.