The responsibility for assessing and managing convicted child sex offenders in the community in England and Wales is shared by the police, probation and prison services acting as the Responsible Authority within the statutory Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA), The Responsible Authority must work together with other agencies, such as local health, social, educational and housing services to produce and monitor a risk management plan. Generally speaking, the Probation Service would be the lead agency in carrying out the plan while the offender is subject to probation supervision and the Police would lead once any period of supervision has expired but the offender remains a registered sex offender.
The Government are committed to protecting the public and are determined to ensure there are robust arrangements for dealing with sex offenders in the community. The Criminal Justice Act 2003 created new sentences aimed specifically at sexual and violent offenders. These new sentences are designed to protect the public, and will ensure that dangerous sexual and violent offenders are subject to assessment by the parole board, and in serious cases not released from prison where their level of risk is deemed too high.
Through Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA)—statutory requirements for the police, probation and prison services to co-operate in managing potentially dangerous offenders—the way in which child sex offenders are managed in the UK has been revolutionised. It is our intention to look carefully at how this can be built on and strengthened.
Community Notification is an important tool which already exists within the current MAPPA system through the police and naturally we want to explore whether the lessons from other countries, might have value in the UK.
The phased introduction of the NOMS Offender Management Model is improving the way in which sentences are organised and delivered across the probation and prison services, but paedophiles are already subject to robust arrangements.
There is a statutory requirement upon the police, probation and prison services, acting as the Responsible Authority in each of the 42 areas in England and Wales, to establish and monitor multi-agency public protection arrangements (MAPPA) in order to manage the risk posed by sexual and violent offenders. The Act also placed a range of other local agencies, such as health, educational, social and housing services, under a duty to co-operate with the Responsible Authority. The agencies work together to identify relevant offenders, share information, conduct more comprehensive risk assessments and therefore draw up better risk management plans. The plans are monitored via multi-agency meetings for as long as is required.
Generally, the police or the probation service will have lead responsibility in monitoring the offender, with assistance from other agencies, although youth offending teams and supervising psychiatrists and social supervisors will take or share a lead monitoring role in some cases.