Community Sex Offender Group Programme

G-SOGP aims to reduce offending by adult male sex offenders.

John says

"I completed the adapted Sex Offender Treatment Programme while I was in prison. I also finished the Better Life booster module. I went on the adapted programme because I am dyslexic and I thought I would struggle with a lot of writing.

"There was the old me and now there is the new me. I live at a hostel in the community and I am on the Sex Offender Register.

"The course taught me an awful lot about me and what lead up to my offending. Before, I could not understand why I did what I did.

"I have never talked about issues from my childhood and how they impacted on the way I was living. To get something out of this programme, you have got to want to change your life. I wanted to do that and change my outlook. I didn't want to make any more victims.

"The staff in the prison were brilliant. I think about all the stuff they have to listen to day after day. The programme runs in blocks of work. Everybody dreads block seven. We call it the hot seat session. You sit there and talk about what you have done. That's difficult but each member of the group has got to do it.

"I've completed about 360 hours of work on the programme. I had never spoken about what happened to me as a child. My Dad battered me ‘black and blue'.

"My brother was sexually abusing me. I never told anyone about what happened at home. If you had a problem, you dealt with it yourself. I just left home as soon as I could.

"What I went through is no excuse for what I did to my family.

"Looking back I hid behind a mask. I never settled in one place, or managed to hold onto a job or a relationship.

"I know that things just don't happen. I understand better what I did. I have no contact with my family and I have moved away so they don't bump into me when they go out."