9:30pm Tuesday, March 23 on TV One
TV ONE’s local Real Crime documentary, The Worst Offenders – Can They Change?, takes a look at child sex offenders (tonight at 9.30pm on TV ONE). Their crimes are so abhorrent that most people would prefer to lock the perpetrators out of sight, out of mind. But a groundbreaking programme at Christchurch’s Rolleston Prison is proving there is a better way.
This documentary takes viewers inside the Kia Marama rehabilitation unit following actor Colin Moy (In My Father’s Den), as he takes on the psyche of a child sex offender. With unprecedented access to the inmates, whose identities are protected for their own and their victims’ sake, viewers gain first-hand knowledge of their distorted thought patterns, and of how expert psychological treatment, combined with blunt feedback from their fellow offenders, helps bring them out of denial for their actions and into the process of rehabilitation.
Producer Virginia Wright says she has wanted to make a documentary about the work at Kia Marama for a long time, but had concerns about the subject matter. “[It] is potentially so off putting, it needed the right treatment to make it work. There’s not a child in sight in this documentary. Thanks to Colin we start to get to know the men and how strong their motivation for change can be once they’re forced to face up to what they’ve done.”
Psychologists at the unit help create Moy’s character ‘Terry’, based on common threads they see in offenders who’ve passed through Kia Marama. Re-enactments from Terry’s past give insight into the mind of a child sex offender, particularly the grooming of victims, and subterfuge that surrounds this crime. However, as Terry passes through the different modules at the rehab unit, viewers see how this programme has the potential to change thought patterns and stop the cycle of abuse.
Actor Colin Moy and father of two, says taking on this role was a huge challenge. He was filled with apprehension going into it, but describes learning about the programme and meeting the offenders as a massive revelation. “I feel better now about who that sex offender living on my street might be,” he says.
It is the belief in the human capacity for change that drives staff at the unit and if the statistics are anything to go by, it’s working. The re-offending rate in the 1980s before there was any treatment in New Zealand was around 22 per cent. Latest figures show the re-offending rate for the men treated at Kia Marama is around five per cent.
With 70 rehabilitated child sex offenders released in New Zealand every year, this documentary puts a human face to the worst offenders within society and asks the question can they change?
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