Paedophiles 'need treatment, not prison'


Guardian Unlimited


Jim Gamble says not all offenders should go to jail. Photograph: Frank Baron


"Viewing" paedophiles should be treated in the community rather than be sent to jail, the head of the national police child protection unit said today.Jim Gamble, head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), said too many people were being convicted of child sex offences to be dealt with in the criminal justice system.

He proposed that lower risk offenders, such as those convicted of downloading abusive images of children, should receive a police caution and then be managed in the community.

"We shouldn't be sending everyone that ever commits an offence - particularly of the viewing kind - to prison," Mr Gamble told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
Mr Gamble said he was not suggesting that paedophiles who committed violent offences, such as raping a child, should escape jail. But someone caught looking at child ****ography who had not directly abused a child could be dealt with in a different way.

"[If] someone is at the beginning of the spiral of abuse, where there is evidence to indicate during the investigation that this person may well benefit from a police caution and be managed, then of course that needs to be done," Mr Gamble said.
The CEOP was set up last year to tackle child sex abuse in the UK, and the information flow on paedophilia since its launch has increased enormously.

Michele Elliott, director of children's charity Kidscape, said not jailing paedophiles because there was not enough room in the prison system for them was "crazy".
She said the proposal risked sending out the message to paedophiles that their crimes were not serious.

"I agree with him that these people need treatment, however to treat them in the community sends a message that what they have done is not very serious," Ms Elliott said."I believe that if you download child ****ography, you are just as guilty as the people who are taking the photographs. You create a market because you want to view child ****ography, therefore a child is abused for your pleasure. As far as I am concerned, that means prison."

Can they be treated though? Are pedos successfully turned around?