By Kieran McCartan, Ph.D., & David S. Prescott, LICSW
One of the main challenges that professionals working in the broad
field of sexual offending is funding; namely, how much there is and where you
can get it! We have previously written about the challenges of identifying and
truly knowing the extent of sexual offending that there is in society, and
therefore the number of resources needed to respond to it both from a victim and
perpetrator perspective. This complex mathematical, and very human, the problem has
been made challenging of late as we have started to think about the prevention
of first-time offending in the same breath as preventing re-offending. This
means that we need to make a small pot of money go a lot further and do a lot
more. But how can we achieve balance with this?
Quite often one hears from colleagues in the sexual abuse
prevention, treatment, and activism fields that times are tough and that there
is not enough money to go around to fund the services that they need to (not
even close to what they want to) deliver. For all the political hyperbole
around sexual offending and its impact on individuals as well as communities it
is underfunded, and when push comes to shove it is always first in the queue
when additional cuts need to be made. This is particularly relevant when you
consider the scale of sexual abuse, between one in four and one in eight
people being impacted by it at some point in their lives. Sexual abuse, therefore,
is not a one-off offense that randomly strikes at small groups of society. With
figures like this, sexual abuse is a pandemic with a potentially greater hit
rate than COVID-19. This leaves us with a paradox: we know it's common and it traumatizes
people with a long-lasting effect and yet we still do not fully fund efforts at
preventing and treating it! It is important to state that we are not just
talking about services for people convicted of sexual offending, although the
punishment side of the equation is better funded than the rehabilitation side,
but also victims of sexual offenses who have also had funding cuts, and services
reduced. It is across the board!
So, what do we do about it? This is a challenge because we often
hear that budgets are stagnant and that there can be no more investment. Often
this is tied up with politics, governance, media discourses, and public mood,
which means that asking for money at the right or wrong time can result in a
feast or a famine. This is unsustainable and is often reversed later in the
funding cycle or in the next funding cycle. We need a more sustained funding
strategy rather than just a reactionary one. A more sustained funding strategy
allows more innovation and positive adaption, rather than cutting or squeezing
existing budgets to do small, underfunded projects. So where does the “new”
money comes from to support ongoing work in, and develop innovative work in,
sexual abuse?
One solution, as discussed by Wilson Wong in a piece about defunding the police, is that we move and reallocate the existing pot of money to use
it better. The argument here is that the best and most suitable organizations
should be the ones that deliver the services and, in this instance, maybe the
police are not the best ones to respond to, support, and manage those impacted
by sexual offending. That work could instead be done by third party
organizations and charities. In addition, it reinforces the broader move in the
sexual abuse field at the minute to be more trauma-informed and service user
lead. Following on from this, if we broaden our remit around sexual offending
and continue to incorporate elements of health, public health, education, and
local communities we can open more funding pots. With various organizations and
statutory bodies funneling monies into a combined project then not only will we have more funding, but we will also have more buy-in and impact. Additionally, the
way that broader society, both corporate and private, funds sexual abuse
support/treatment organizations is important. If sexual offending is an
epidemic, then where is the national fundraising drive or the equivalent
corporate response? Sexual offending research and practice are not funded the
same as cancer research, or HIV/AIDs research, but the impact that sexual
offending has is the same.
We need to change the funding formula with respect to sexual
offending, both in terms of victims and people who commit it, so that its fit
for purpose. So while the defund the police movement has thrown up a suggestion
on how to tackle the funding challenge in sexual offense work maybe it’s more
“refund”, “change funding” than
“defund”? Funding sexual offense work should not be a deficit, it should not be
taking the funding away from other sources to support it, but rather should be
a reallocation to make existing practices work better.
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