Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the pilot projects in five regions in England on the use of polygraph tests on sex offenders who are being managed in the community.

In April 2009 the National Offender Management Service commenced a pilot of mandatory polygraph examinations on sexual offenders in nine former Probation Trusts. Operating under legislation introduced in the Offender Management Act 2007, provision was made for all adult sexual offenders sentenced to 12 months or more for a sexual offence and released into the pilot areas to be required to comply with polygraph testing as one of their licence conditions. The pilot involved 332 offenders who were subject to the polygraph licence condition and 303 in a comparison group who were not.

The independent evaluation of the pilot concluded that sexual offenders subject to testing made more than twice the number of clinically significant disclosures than those in the comparison group who had not been subject to polygraph testing. In particular, the evaluation showed that polygraph testing increased the likelihood of preventative actions being taken by offender managers that would contribute to greater protection of the public from harm. The full report is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-evaluation-of-the-mandatory-polygraph-pilot

In response to the positive outcomes of the pilot, provisions of the Offender Management Act 2007 were commenced in 2014 to impose the polygraph on all high risk sexual offenders released on licence. With effect from August 2014, all high risk sex offenders on licence are subject to polygraph tests conducted by specially trained staff in the National Probation Service.