Targeting repeat sexual offenders through Operation Ratify

Operation Ratify aims to identify repeat sexual offenders and prevent further offending. The initiative is an offender-based operation with the following objectives:

• to identify subjects shown as repeat offenders within recorded crime reports and believed to pose a continuing risk to vulnerable sections of the community
• to adopt these nominals in a priority-based hierarchy to allocate resources to take ownership of each subject
• to create 4P plans (pursue, prevent, protect, prepare) using the skills and opportunities provided by partner agencies
• to use lawful and proportionate tactics in line with the agreed 4P plan to focus on these subjects so that their harmful activity is mitigated or it is shown that their alleged offending is unfounded or has ceased
• to consider the use or criminal and civil orders that restrict the subject’s opportunities to offend and give police powers to mitigate offending behaviour 
• to feedback to the Operation Ratify oversight board to share best practice and maintain a peer review process

The initiative intends to reduce repeat offending of nominated individuals, specifically rape offences. The intention is to take a holistic offender-centric approach. This includes increased: 

• arrests
• charges
• preventative orders 

The initiative also intends to prevent future rape offences. 

Subjects are identified through intelligence analysis and managed through local tasking. The criteria for using Operation Ratify measures are:

• Tier 1: Suspect named 6 or more times for sexual offences including at least one rape, where there is at least 1 offence reported (not necessarily charged) in the last 18 months and the offender is not currently in prison. These offences can be committed in any area, at any time.
• Tier 2: Suspect named 4 or more times for sexual offences including at least one rape, where at least 1 offence was reported in the last 18 months.
• Tier 3: Exercise of professional judgement to enable any officer or partner agency to nominate an offender of significant concern. This nomination is made through the detective chief inspector for consideration by a panel. This procedure has evolved. The panel was previously a bespoke Operation Ratify board, currently incorporated into a local tasking and coordination group (TCG), but this will change to an offender management board. Admittance is based on professional view to capture those who do not meet the Tier 1 and 2 thresholds. Partner agencies are aware of this mechanism through engagement and representation at relevant local partnership meetings (multi-agency child exploitation panels).

Once adopted, Tier 1 subjects are allocated a single owning officer who is a Rape and Serious Sexual Offense (RASSO) specialist. They are responsible for completing a 4P plan (pursue, prevent, protect, prepare) and required to provide updates on activity to actions set at the TCG. These include seeking preventative orders, Sexual Harm Prevention Orders (SHPOs)/Sexual Risk Orders (SRO) and intervention pathways.  

Diversion opportunities for the nominated individual are available through Phoenix Futures, an intervention service provider for a range of issues including alcohol and drugs. Diversion opportunities provide supplementary pathways while investigations are ongoing.

The subjects are then assessed and, if a reduction in risk is observed, they are moved to 'monitoring status' and may become 'archived'. Monitoring is undertaken by intelligence analysts. If further offending occurs, subjects are reactivated into the system. This is also the case for offenders who are imprisoned: they remain archived, and are monitored on release, for example, those managed under Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA).

Essex Police are currently rolling out Athena (CONNECT) Problem Management Profile (PMP), using the Scanning, Analysis, Response and Assessment (SARA) format to track and direct this activity.

Tier 2 subjects are actively monitored by Crime and Public Protection (C&PP) intelligence analysts and included in six-monthly reporting/data trawls.

Tier 3 subjects are archived but re-opened if a new offence is reported.

Since it started, 88 subjects have been adopted into the process. These subjects were responsible for committing an estimated 1165 sexual offences. 59 of those are currently 'archived' with no further reoffending, a positive result. These will be reopened in the event of any further offending.

15 subjects are Tier 2 and have ongoing monitoring.

13 are Tier 1, with a single owner responsible for developing a 4P plan and pursuing prevention and intervention opportunities. Monthly updates are provided over the course of the intervention, covering activity and the number of subjects charged or having SRO applications, as well as referrals to intervention programmes. 

The outcomes, including sexual harm prevention orders and convictions, provide opportunity for subjects of concern to be submitted for risk analysis under the Tier 3 referral mechanism for a holistic offender-centred approach. This is currently being developed and includes:

• intelligence products
• details of charges
• positive outcomes
• the capture of civil orders
• prevention activity.

This practice is subject to ongoing evaluation through intelligence analyst data capture with governance through the offender management board.

The use of Athena/CONNECT PMP as the method for storing, profiling and capturing activity has proved more efficient and effective than having to trawl systems to identify background information. 

Having adequate intelligence and analytical support to complete the research and having a well-considered data capture, tracking and evaluation method has been beneficial. We adopted the use of Athena PMP over a year into the process and it would have been advantageous to have this in place from the outset. 

Force buy-in was not an issue and was quickly incorporated into the standard operating procedure. There were some initial challenges with local and tactical buy-in and securing meaningful single officer ownership, however over time this became business-as-usual activity. 

There was no additional cost to the force of using pre-existing Athena PMP functionality. Besides additional analytical and intelligence support, there were no additional resources required for the implementation.