Circles of Support and Accountability is at the heart of the shifting landscape of sexual abuse prevention
Guest blog by By Professor Kieran McCartan, Chair of the Board of Trustees, Circles South West
Circles of Support and Accountability (CoSA) is a well-established, evidence-based intervention for individuals convicted of a sexual offence. CoSA has been operating internationally for approximately 30 years now and is ingrained in the criminal justice, health and social welfare systems of many countries, particularly England. England has a rich history of engaging with and commissioning CoSA, as evidenced most recently by ongoing Ministry of Justice contracts.
Over the years of its existence, the sexual abuse landscape has shifted. In the early days of circles in Canada, and upon introduction to the UK, it was seen as original, insightful and an innovative approach to a wicked problem: how do you integrate people convicted of a sexual abuse conviction into the community in a prosocial, trauma-informed and inclusive way? Over the years, CoSA has demonstrated, through research and practice, how to do this and has become part of the third sector approaches to reducing reoffending. Its originality was in its inclusivity with the community, its focus on restoration and its belief that people can be supported to change. It fits with, and still contributes to, the established literature on desistance, community integration, rehabilitation, and risk management. It was seen as a form of risk management.
However, the social justice, socio-political, and welfare landscape has shifted in the UK and internationally towards all forms of prevention, not just relapse prevention. This shift in England has been spearheaded by the Home Office and in Europe by the European Union, using the Epidemiological Criminology (EpiCrim) framework. EpiCrim is an approach to understanding social problems through a public health and criminal justice framework. It sees antisocial and criminal behaviour as arising from the bio-psycho-social makeup of individuals and from how they interact with others at the interpersonal, community, and societal levels. It believes that problematic behaviour is preventable at different points in its trajectory: pre-offending (primary), early offending (secondary), and post-offending (tertiary and quaternary). This means that interventions can be targeted in the most effective way, with the relevant populations, to prevent all iterations of sexual abuse.
Traditionally, CoSA was seen as tertiary prevention (relapse prevention), but with the introduction of quaternary prevention (ongoing harm reduction, risk management, and desistance), it is better aligned with that. Although, at its core CoSA is quaternary prevention, Circles South West is engaged at all four stages of prevention, delivering primary prevention (i.e., community outreach and volunteer training), secondary prevention (i.e., the development of Project Guardrail for men at risk of committing child sexual abuse), tertiary prevention (i.e. work in prison with men convicted of sexual abuse to prepare them for release and Through-The-Gate CoSA) and quaternary prevention (i.e. the core/traditional CoSA programme).
CoSA has positioned itself at the heart of CSA prevention. With the policy and practice reframing of sexual abuse as preventable and not inevitable, playing to the organisation’s strengths and core aims. The landscape may have shifted, but CoSA remains relevant and is embracing the socio-political reframing of sexual abuse in its work to reduce victimisation.
