Rumbold v General Medical Council - Essay Example

Question 4 Select one of the case studies below and write an essay of not more than 2000 words in length. 2. All submitted work must be word processed and adhere to the following guidelines: • All typed work should be in Arial 11 or Times New Roman font size 12. • Please state the number of words used at the end of the assignment. • Assignments more than 10% in excess of the word limit will be penalised • All work used within the assignment should be appropriately referenced • Please use the Harvard Referencing System. This assessment requires you to choose one of the case studies below, and address the following questions: Part One (500 words) a. what are the issues raised in the case study in respect of risk, and suitability for a community sentence? b. What might be the impact of imprisonment? c. What sentence would you consider to be appropriate and why? Part Two (1,500 words) d. What is the background to the sentence you consider appropriate in terms of legal framework, and evidence on effectiveness drawn from academic reading. You should ensure that you make reference to academic sources in both parts of the assignment. Case Study Two Mr A has entered a guilty plea to the offences of downloading indecent images of children on the internet. Mr A denies that he deliberately intended to find indecent images of children on the internet, claiming in his own words that he “came across the sites inadvertently” when browsing other forms of legal adult pornography. He maintains that he then decided to have a look “to see what all of the fuss was about”. Despite the police investigation finding in excess of 30 images from a range of sources at various times, he is adamant that he was motivated by curiosity rather than sexual gratification, and that he has no specific sexual interest in minors. At interview Mr A found it difficult to appreciate the severity of the offences for which he appears before the court, viewing himself more as a victim of modern technology rather than as an offender. He had clearly given little consideration to the harm caused to children by the production or distribution of such images, although when this was discussed with him, he did admit that he was beginning to realise the harm that this could cause. Mr A is a 44 year old man, who is married with two young children aged 8 and 10. He has no previous convictions. As a result of this conviction his partner has ended their 15 year relationship and he now resides with his parents in a household with no children. He currently has no access to his children, a matter which is being dealt with by social services and the civil courts. Whilst he understands the reasons for this he tells me that he is profoundly depressed as a result of the breakdown of his family. He is adamant that he has never posed any risk to his family. Mr A left education following a degree in public sector management, and until his conviction work as a manager for the local authority. He is currently suspended from work pending the outcome of his sentence. Mr A tells me that he has never had any issues relating to alcohol or drug dependency, however his level of alcohol use has increased in recent months as a result of his anxiety relating to these proceedings. Mr A continues to make a financial contribution to support his ex-partner and their children. Recommendations of appropriate sentence In the case study above it is stated that the amount of images was relatively small. There is no indication of the level of the images and therefore it is not possible to give a definitive answer as to whether a community sentence is appropriate. It is therefore necessary to discuss the outcomes in the terms of assuming the images were level 1 and 2 images as a community sentence would not be appropriate if the level of the images was higher than this. Assistance in the determining of an appropriate sentence can be gleaned through an analysis of case law in this area. In the case of Rumbold v General Medical Council [2007] EWHC 2569 the defendant was appealing against his suspension by the GMC after he had pleaded guilty to downloading indecent images. At the trial Rumbold was ordered to serve a 3 year community rehabilitation order and a treatment programme. The sentence handed doe to the defendant reflected the low level of the images downloaded as well as the previous good character of the accused. The suspension was upheld as it was believed that he posed a significant danger to the child patients he might be treating. This case can be contrasted with the case of R. v Hirst [2007] EWCA Crim 1468 in which the accused had significantly more images then in the first case and also the images found contained level 5 images. In this case the court was duty bound to issuing a custodial sentence due to the level of images found on the system. A prison sentence in these circumstances is only likely to make things worse for the accused who has already lost contact with his children and wife. Research has shown that the use of custodial sentences does not address the potential for re-offending and someone sentenced to prison is more likely to re-offend in the future then someone who is treated in the community and made to attend a treatment programme. The case of R. v Ripley (Jonathan) [2007] EWCA Crim 417 goes against the general sentence guidelines. In this case the original sentence of 2 ½ years was replaced with a community sentence despite some of the images that had been downloaded where level 4 images. The court had regard for the pre sentence report which described him as a vulnerable young man who had been subjected to sexual abuse as a child. The appeal court felt that the community sentence and attendance of a sex offenders programme was more appropriate in the circumstances. Although the accused did not initially realise the harm caused by his actions he has now started to accept the harm caused and is therefore unlikely to access such material in the future. The recommended sentence under these circumstances would be a community rehabilitation order and a treatment programme as mentioned in Rumbold above. This would enable the accused to address the reasons why he had accessed these sites as well as being punished through the community rehabilitation order. Suitability of Community Sentence for a Sex Offender When considering the suitability of a community sentence the court will take into account the seriousness of the offence, the previous character of the accused and any mitigating circumstances. In the instance concerning the downloading of child pornography the courts will consider the amount of images discovered on the accused’s computer, any previous charges or allegations against the accused for similar behaviour and the images themselves. In child pornography cases images are rated by various levels starting from child nudity which would probably be classed as a level one image to bestiality or torture of a child which would be rated at level 5. Community punishment orders will generally only be considered if the images found are level 1 and level 2 images only. If all the images were level 1 images the accused might only incur a conditional discharge and a fine. Sex Offender Treatment Programme In order to prevent recidivism the courts will generally order the accused to attend a Sex Offender Treatment Programme. These are run by the Probation Service and are designed to assist offenders from re-offending. The main thrust of the programme is to help the offender understand why he thinks and feels the way he does and to reassure the offender that they can change their behavioural pattern. Within the programme, those involved, attempt to show the offenders a set of self-control devices that will hopefully assist them in modifying their behaviour. The length of the treatment will be geared to the individual. The offenders will be assessed in order to establish the right treatment for them. Offenders will have to attend group sessions with other offenders who have committed similar offences. The courts will generally instruct the number of hours that the offender will be ordered to do within the programme. Some offenders could be ordered to do 240 hours of groupwork which would take in excess of 2 years to complete. Others might only be ordered to do 100 hours of groupwork which might be completed within a year. Alongside the groupwork the offender will have appointments with their appointed probation officer. These meetings will take place either before or during the group programme. Each offender will be required to spend one 2 ½ hour session with their probation every week whilst they are attending the programme. An offender that misses more than one session will have to do the whole programme again. If the reason given for non-attendance is not deemed to be genuine by the Probation officer the accused can be referred back to the court for sentencing and will not be offered the opportunity to undergo the programme again. Success of Sex Offender Treatment Programme In research carried out by Dr Jayne Allam from Birmingham University over a 5 year period she noted that the programme had been particular effective in the treatment of child sex abusers and rapists. The Treatment Programme was initially piloted by the West Midlands Probation Service but is now in use nationally. Mark Farmer who is the head of the Probation Service in the West Midland’s said that "Dr Allams research shows that this is now a proven method of working with offenders that is achieving excellent results. Most of the offenders featured originally went through the programme in 1996, and they are considerably less likely to commit new offences of any kind than untreated offenders." In her report she found that of those tested only 8.2% of child sex abusers were reconvicted within the 5 years research programme compared with a recidivist rate of 18.4% for those who had received no support. With regard to rapists the reconviction rates where higher but there was a marked difference between those that had undergone treatment and those that hadn’t with the reconviction rate being 15.4% and 34.6% respectively. In compiling the results 150 offenders were selected of which 122 of these where child sex abusers. These offenders were compared with 107 similar offenders who had originally been recommended for the programme but had been given alternative sentences. The research from Dr Allam found that the programme was less effective with exhibitionists with practically this entire group continuing to offend in some manner. Dr Allam defended the programme as being effective as the reconviction rates between child sex abusers who had been treated and those that had not being significantly different. In a study carried out by the Home Office similar results were reported with regard to the reconviction rates of those that had been on the programme and those that had not attended any programmes. Their figures were taken from the Offenders Index as well as from PNC records. Conroy (2000) argues that there is no conclusive evidence that sex offender treatment works whilst also admitting that there is no conclusive evidence that it does not work. There has been a degree of difficulty in testing the effectiveness of treatment since the organisations fear reprisals from those who are denied the treatment for claims in negligence (Barbaree, 1997). The most that can be gleaned from recent studies is a comparison of the rates of recidivism for those who have undergone treatment and those who have not (Maletsky and Steinhauser, 2002). The lack of a control group makes the results unreliable. There is also the argument that those that have been selected for treatment are usually the less likely group to re-offend (Hanson, and Bussiere, 1998). A further criticism of the research into this area is that the treatment of the offender is not uniform, even with similar offences. One research study showed that such programmes were effective for child molesters, however, the sample tested were given widely different treatments despite the similarity of their offences (Marques, 1999). Rice (1997) actually discovered that psychopathic offenders were actually more likely to offend following treatment. Hanson and Bussiere (1998) demonstrated in their research that over a 15 year period the recidivism rate was 13.4%, whilst Barbaree (1997) conducted her research over 5.9 years and discovered a recidivism rate of 11.3%. Although there is no conclusive proof that such programmes are effective in stopping recidivism, in the case above there would be little to be gained by imprisoning the accused as he has never shown a prevalence towards such offences in the past and the amount of data recovered from his computer is minimal. Given his depression at present at being separated from his family the further isolation and stigma of prison is likely to worsen his condition. As he would only be likely to be given a minimum sentence if he were to be imprisoned there would be inadequate time for him to be placed on a course of treatment to help him address his offending behaviour and therefore he could be more likely to re-offend when released. The positive results from some of the research shown above indicates that the treatment of such offenders through these programmes is likely to do more good than harm and therefore regardless of being able to prove that such treatment will on will not benefit the accused, it is preferential to try this method in the first instance. Given that the accused is desperate to be able to have contact with his children in the future he is likely to co-operate in ensuring he gets the maximum possible help from the programme provided. It is likely that he would not re-offend without the treatment, however, due to the seriousness of the charge it would be blatantly wrong to offer no treatment at all. Bibliography Allam, J. (1998). Community-based treatment for sex offenders: An evaluation. Birmingham, UK: University of Birmingham. Allam, J. (1999). Effective practice in work with sex offenders: A re-conviction study comparing treated and untreated offenders. West Midlands Probation Service Sex Offender Unit. (Available from Jayne Allam WMPS SOU, 826 Bristol Road, Selly Oak, Birmingham, West Midlands, B29 6NA). Ashworth, A (2003) ‘Sentencing’, in Maguire, M, Morgan, R and Reiner, R (Eds), The Oxford Handbook of Criminology, 3rd Ed, Oxford University Press, Oxford Ashworth, A, (2000), Sentencing and Criminal Justice’ 3rd Ed London: Butterworths Barbaree, H.E. (1997). Evaluating treatment efficacy with sexual offenders: The insensitivity of recidivism studies to treatment effects. 9 Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, 111 128. Bonta, J. (1997). Offender rehabilitation: From research to practice (R-01). Ottawa, Ontario, Canada: Solicitor General of Canada. Burnett, R. (1992) The Dynamics of Recidivism, Oxford: Centre for Criminological Burnett, R. (1994) ‘Recidivism and imprisonment’, Home Office Research Bulletin, 36, 19–22. Conroy, M.A. (2000). Assessment of Sexual Offenders, in Van Dorsten, B. (Ed.) Forensic Psychology from Classroom to Courtroom, Plenum, N.Y., p. 232 Hanson, R.K. & Bussiere, M.T. (1998). Predicting relapse: A meta-analysis of sexual offender recidivism studies. 60 Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, pp 348-62. Killias, M, Aebi, M F, Ribeaud, D, “Does Community Service Rehabilitate better than Short-term Imprisonment? Results of a Controlled Experiment”, The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, 39/(2000) 40-57 Maletsky, B.M. and Steinhauser, C. (2002). A 25-year follow-up of cognitive/behavioral therapy with 7,275 sexual offenders. 26 Behavior Modification 2, pp 123-147. Marques, J.K. (1999). How to answer the question: “Does sex offender treatment work?” 14 Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 437-451. Rice, M.E. (1997). Violent offender research and implications for the criminal justice system. 52 American Psychologist 414-423. Taylor, R, (1999), Predicting reconvictions for sexual and violent offences using the Revised Offender Group Reconviction Scale, Home Office Research, Development and Statistics Research Study No 104, London, Home Office Read More