The Historical Emergence and the International Spread of CoSA
In 2014, exactly twenty years after the first Circle of Support and Accountability (CoSA) had been established, over two hundred representatives from twenty-four countries gathered at the Cosmo Caixa in Barcelona, as the founding father of CoSA took to the stage to open the first international CoSA conference. In 1994, the Reverend Harry Nigh and a small number of volunteers from his congregation in the town of Hamilton (Ontario, Canada ), offered support and protection to a lifelong recidivist child sex offender, known as Charlie Taylor . He told the conference of how this support was not without personal consequences, as public fear and panic, fuelled by a high-profile media campaign at Charlie’s release from prison, led to threats of personal violence and damage to property. The courage and mediation shown by those volunteers, who became known as Charlie’s Angels, created a better way of ensuring the protection of children in a community that became Charlie Taylor’s home until his death in 2011. The story of Charlie Taylor and the first CoSA is extensively documented (Wilson, Cortoni, & McWhinnie, 2009; Wilson, McWhinnie, & Wilson, 2008) and for many at that event in Barcelona, it was a story they knew well. Yet it remained a profoundly moving moment for all, to hear the story directly from the Reverend Nigh himself. He told of how Charlie had been institutionalised all his life, subjected to the care system as a child and then the prison system as an adult. A man with an intellectual disability who, prior to his CoSA was never able to sustain any prolonged period of release from prison before reoffending . The conference was also reminded of the courage needed when conviction requires action and that action is contrary not only to prevailing public opinion but the opinion of the statutory agencies charged with the risk management of individuals convicted of a sexual offence. He told how the CoSA had to navigate the complexities of a risk management model that at times would appear devoid of compassion and care. In an attempt to reduce Charlie’s sense of isolation and loneliness, the CoSA volunteers had supported his acquisition of a cat, believing that caring for a living creature would give Charlie a focus and purpose, a sense of responsibility that would generally improve his wellbeing. The statutory agencies however could not see beyond Charlie’s new pet as a means to entice children for the purpose of sexual offending, insinuating that the volunteers were being complicit in their support and advocacy of his ownership of a cat. What is significant and discussed later in this chapter, is that within a period of a decade the prevailing theoretical orthodoxy as how best to manage the risk of someone like Charlie had moved significantly from that of control , which focused upon criminogenic factors, to that which centred around personal agency and factors relating to the desistance of further reoffending . The story of Charlie’s cat was certainly a timely reminder to the conference of the restorative nature of CoSA, and that common sense, humanity and care were the more likely ingredients that would help Charlie desist from further offending. This is a perspective now shared by many criminal justice professionals who have worked collaboratively with CoSA and is evidenced by Thomas when he states, “The CoSA model was considered a good model by all stakeholders and was seen as adding an extra dimension to the work that they themselves could do with sex offenders. However, CoSA also offered something different from the professional’s contribution. There was broad agreement that the use of volunteers is good and volunteers were regarded positively by all respondents. Many of the stakeholders noted the levels of commitment displayed by the volunteers and the common-sense views which volunteers could bring to the role, which is unencumbered by professional training” (Thomas, Thompson, & Karstedt, 2014, p. 18).
Those persons fortunate enough to have been part of that first international conference held in Barcelona were able to celebrate a truly international movement with projects now established across Canada , Europe , the United States of America, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, China and Japan, making CoSA one of the best known “restorative based reintegrative schemes for sex offenders” (McAlinden, 2007, p. 168).
Mennonite History Behind CoSA
Building upon a historic tradition by the Canadian Mennonites of facilitating restorative projects, including work specifically focused upon the use of community support in cases of sexual harm, CoSA became part of that tradition when a Mennonite Pastor, the Reverend Harry Nigh originally conceived of the concept. Its success led to the Mennonite Central Committee supporting the development of CoSA as a community reintegration project based upon restorative principles.
The Mennonite’s historic tradition of such work within the criminal justice system was born in 1974 from a restorative experiment in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, initially facilitated by Mark Yantzi, a probation officer from the Kitchener probation office. The experiment was essentially one of victim -offender mediation , whereby the victim was actively encouraged to be involved in decisions relating to reparation and restitution. Known as the Victim /Offender Reconciliation Project (VORP) , it was immediately supported by both the local courts and the probation service. However, its development was greatly influenced by the thinking of the Norwegian criminologist Nils Christie (1977) and his assertion that the state had stolen people’s conflict and was monopolising the criminal justice system. The importance of Christie’s influence was the way in which the VORP attempted to de-professionalise the system by using community volunteers to undertake both the casework and facilitation of victim -offender mediation . It is at this point in the Mennonite tradition that the structural differences between the earlier Canadian and later British and European development of CoSA can be identified, in that, for the latter, the coordination of each CoSA, volunteer supervision and agency liaison remained with professionally qualified and paid staff.
By 1982, VORP began to develop and deliver additional victim services designed to support those who were victims of rape and incest. This work was again supported by Mennonite Central Committee and led to the creation of the Victim Services Programme which, over a number of years developed a raft of restorative and communitarian based services for those people whose lives had been blighted by sexual abuse, including direct work with individuals convicted of a sexual offence. These services included sexual offending treatment programmes, working with the partners of those individuals convicted of a sexual offence and the use of community volunteers to create networks of support for those individuals released from prison and returning to their families. The foundations therefore had been laid for the Mennonite Central Committee to give unequivocal support to the Reverend Harry Nigh and his congregation when, a decade later he and others like him would seek the Committee’s support in the development of CoSA.
The timing of the first CoSA in Hamilton Ontario, coincided with a notable and significant change in public perceptions and hardening of attitudes towards those who committed sexual offences, particularly those who committed offences against children; the latter being regarded as the most loathsome group of all offenders. It was the recognition of such that led the Reverend Harry Nigh to conceive of the need for a community of care that would not only hold Charlie accountable, but also protect a community becoming increasingly fearful and intolerant of such offenders. Like Canada , the climate of public concern in the UK at the turn of the new millennium, created by a number of high profile cases of child abduction, sexual assault and murder had turned that concern into a tangible fear, resulting in numerous incidents of public disorder. CoSA, based as it was on restorative principles and community engagement spoke to the...