Circles of Support and Accountability: Engaging Community Volunteers in the Management of High‐Risk Sexual Offenders

TLDR

Releasing sexual offenders into communities often triggers intense media coverage that forces them to hide or relocate, perpetuating scapegoating and isolation, which fails to enhance safety or accountability and may increase the risk of new victims. The article proposes a restorative risk‑management model for high‑risk sexual offenders in Canada that employs professionally facilitated volunteer support. The model, called Circles of Support and Accountability, emerged from a faith‑based response in South‑Central Ontario and relies on volunteer circles to provide support and accountability. A twelve‑year pilot demonstrates the model’s sustainability and its spread across Canada and internationally.

Abstract

Abstract: The release to the community of a sexual offender is frequently accompanied by intense coverage in the news media. Too often, the type of coverage these releases receive serves only to force many offenders into hiding or out of one community and into another. Forced to move to another community, the scapegoating process starts all over again. It is well known that secrecy and isolation are critical elements in sexual offending behaviour. Thus, forcing offenders into hiding does nothing to increase community safety or offender accountability and, arguably, increases the risk that new victims will be created. The most problematic releases are those in which sexual offenders arrive in a community with few or no links, and with little access to appropriate treatment and supervisory services. This article outlines a restorative approach to the risk management of high‐risk sexual offenders in Canada using professionally‐facilitated volunteerism. The Circles of Support and Accountability model grew out of an ad hoc, faith‐based response to a situation much like that described above in South‐Central Ontario, Canada. The resultant pilot project has since reached its twelfth anniversary and the model has proliferated both nationally and internationally.