Why punishment doesn't fit the crime

The reality, says Kerry Daynes, a forensic psychologist, is very different.

Most people hadn't even heard of the job until Robbie Coltrane bounced along as the enigmatic Fitz in TV's Cracker. Suddenly, every police force in the country was supposed to use offender profiling - a psychological portrait of the criminal summed up by forensic psychologists - but the real work is very different, she says.

Daynes, a single twentysomething, has done her fair share of dealing with serial killers and offenders who have committed serious crimes, but she mostly works closely with people who have committed a crime because they are mentally ill.

Locking them up and punishing them doesn't work, she says, but proper treatment can be effective and helps to steer them clear of their old ways.

Daynes wasn't personally involved with the convicted murderers of Liverpool toddler James Bulger, but says the case of Robert Thompson and Jon Venables is a prime example of the positive impact forensic psychologists can make.

"All offenders have the right to rehabilitation. These boys will have undergone intensive treatment and therapy and will be closely monitored by professionals. It is a sensitive case and the public must also be reassured that rehabilitation takes place in an environment that protects the public, and the safe houses where these two teenagers have probably gone, is part of that long-term treatment."

The unit where Daynes works in the North West treats mentally-disordered offenders. There are similar ones across the country, including a number in the North-East. She says it is a "medium-secure psychiatric unit" for people with mental disorders who need secure conditions while they are treated.

Its ethos is that offenders can change through successful rehabilitation and education. She says: "Offenders are quite often also victims if you look back in their history. Also, the social circles that they mix in makes them more likely to be victims, or offenders. But the issue is more complex than that. You cannot just simply divide people into victims and offenders. What we do is apply scientific approaches, stepping back from the emotional arguments and, as scientists, look at the facts. And the facts show that imprisonment doesn't work, while, scientifically, we know that treatment can reduce offending."

This should not be seen as taking a soft approach, says Daynes, just a more practical one. Flawed research in the 1970s in Britain and America strongly argued that nothing could be done to reduce what was seen as a "powerful tendency" for offenders to continue criminal behaviour. But new methods developed in the 1980s overturned that view, enabling psychologists not only to demonstrate treatment can reduce offending significantly, but also to identify the most effective treatments.

"What doesn't work is punishment," says Daynes. "There is no scientific evidence to support it. Without rehabilitation, prison can actually increase offending by 25 per cent. Neither are the psycho-dynamic approaches - of Sigmund Freud, for instance - or drugs to reduce aggression or sex drive, effective."

What can work, she says, are special group therapy programmes, where people are made to confront the consequences of their behaviour, and adjust the way they see themselves and others.

"These are more likely to be effective if the offender is treated in the community rather than in a prison or a secure unit, but obviously that is not possible for some cases, such as the people I treat," says Daynes.

"Some treatments of this type have resulted in up to 50 per cent cuts in future offending. That is why, over the past ten years, the Government has invested significantly in developing this type of programme, with the collaboration of prisons and the probation service."

She acknowledges the approach is not effective for all offenders. "Of course, it would be nave to assume that every offender can change. For some people, treatment doesn't lessen the risk they represent to the public. Some will have to remain in prison - those serving life sentences, for example - and some must remain in secure hospitals.

"But for others, whom we do not have the power to detain unless they have committed a crime, we must attempt to manage their risk in the community. That is where forensic psychologists come in."

Daynes trained at Sheffield and Leicester Universities and is currently studying for a phD at Cardiff University. Her firm commitment to rehabilitation and education started when she studied psychology at A-level. "I straight away realised this is what I wanted to do. It wasn't inspired by Silence of the Lambs or anything ridiculous like that."

The public outcry over naming of paedophiles and amendments to the law on sex offenders, dubbed "Sarah's Law", after the murder of eight-year-old Sarah Payne, in West Sussex, last year, illustrates the danger in taking simplistic approaches to complex problems, says Kerry.

'Sarah's Law is similar to Megan's Law in the US, which doesn't actually work. What it does is force people underground so we can't supervise them. I think we should be putting more of that money into treatment of people we know have got paedophile tendencies. There are real potential benefits to that approach.

"Similarly, the introduction of legislation concerning people with severe personality disorders is demanding more treatment programmes. You can't simply lock these people up indefinitely."

Where to draw the line is also a problem. "One in four people will suffer from a mental illness at some point in their life. If they were all dangerous, we would have problems. I just happen to work with a minority group of people who have both mental disorders and offending behaviour," she says.

"The work we do is not a 'get out of jail free' card, by any means. Those involved often go through painful processes of addressing the realities of their criminal behaviour, and take an active part in learning alternative ways of behaving, such as better anger management or controlling substance misuse."

Of course, offender treatment programmes need big spending to ensure effectiveness. "There really is not a case against the treatment of offenders. We have to balance financial costs of providing therapy to offenders against the financial cost, in terms of policing, court hearings and prison, plus the incalculable human costs of not providing that treatment," she says.

"Some may argue crime prevention is better than a cure. I don't disagree, but treatment of offenders is not like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.

"Once a person has engaged in an offending behaviour, they become statistically more likely to repeat it. So it makes sense that treating people who have offended will significantly reduce future offence rates."