Nadine McKillop

The purpose of this project was to undertake a focused study to consolidate the 30 year history of the Stop It Now! movement - a child sexual abuse (CSA) perpetration prevention initiative - documenting main achievements, as well as identifying factors that shaped its development and expansion. Findings are drawn from the experiences of professional stakeholders across respective Stop It Now! sites, including the United States, across the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland), Ireland, Netherlands, Belgium (Flanders), and Australia. Proposed areas for future consideration and discussion questions, derived from study findings, provide a platform from which to share innovative practices, increase collaborations, grow, and learn from one another, and plan future directions for Stop It Now!

Research Background
This original research was commissioned by the two international non-government agencies, Lucy Faithfull Foundation (UK) and Stop it Now! US (and funded by the OAK Foundation). The authors were commissioned to undertake a focused study to consolidate the 30-year history of the Stop It Now! movement - a child sexual abuse (CSA) perpetration prevention initiative - documenting main achievements, as well as identifying factors that shaped its development and expansion.

An integrated qualitative analysis was undertaken of stakeholder (n = 20) interviews representing the eight jurisdictions (United Kingdom [England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland], Ireland, Netherlands, Belgium [Flanders], and Australia) globally in which Stop It Now! has been implemented. Findings from these interviews were supplemented with a desktop review and analysis of published and unpublished (e.g., newsletters, internal memos, speeches etc.) documents (n = 173).

Research Contribution
Given the global expansion of the initiative, this is a significant body of research that provides an historical – and current – snapshot of the evidence-base, successes and barriers to implementation. Proposed areas for future consideration, derived from study findings, are now a platform from which the commissioning bodies can share innovative practices, increase collaborations, grow, and learn from other jurisdictions, and plan the future direction of Stop It Now!

Research Significance
This research was commissioned by the OAK foundation as a competitive process and the report was peer-reviewed by Lucy Faithfull and Stop it Now! UK as well as a leading researcher in this field – Joan Tabachnick. Findings from this research was disseminated to all stakeholders, via a global online prevention seminar, where the authors were invited keynote speakers. This publication is now available open access through UniSC research repository for dissemination, on request of commissioning bodies.

This present study falls under QCS Strategic Research Priority 4 (Rehabilitation and Reintegration of Prisoners and Offenders) and aims to identify the most successful pathways from rehabilitation to reintegration for males convicted of sexual offences in Queensland.

An underlying principle of case-management strategies for offenders is ‘throughcare’, which ideally begins at initial reception into custody and continues at least until transition into the community. Since 2016-2017, new prisoner re-entry programs have been implemented in Queensland providing ‘inreach’ (i.e., within custody) and ‘outreach’ (i.e., in the community) support to promote successful transitions from prison. These services are available for male (i.e., CREST and Borallon Throughcare) and female (i.e., MARA) prisoners, to address some of the identified unique needs within the offending population that might optimise successful reintegration.

As such, the present project uniquely studies pathways through rehabilitation to successful reintegration, for sexual offenders, exploring combined effects, in order to inform best-practice. The findings will help identify areas of strength and areas for enhanced effectiveness for offence-specific rehabilitation and reintegration programs to support prisoners who have offended sexually to reintegrate successfully into the community and reduce their recidivism.

Report to the Criminology Research Advisory Council. Grant: CRG 30/13-14. There are important gaps in knowledge regarding factors contributing to the onset of child sexual abuse at different stages of the lifespan. The present study aimed to identify common and unique developmental, ecological and situational risk factors associated with the onset of sexual offending in adolescence and adulthood to determine what responses are required to effectively prevent its occurrence. The findings of this study reinforce that adolescents and adults, for the most part, are two distinct groups who may be motivated to sexually abuse for different reasons, and that their offending is influenced by different opportunity structures, constraints and experiences that characterise these life-stages. Findings reinforce the need for prevention efforts to be tailored across the lifespan. Emphasis should be placed on primary and secondary prevention efforts that are currently less developed in Australia, compared to tertiary responses.