Simon Bailey, the head of Operation Hydrant, which investigates historical cases of child sexual abuse, says police are being overwhelmed by the number of cases. He believes that alternative approaches must be found for dealing with “less serious offenders” – including paedophiles who look at images of child abuse online – and argues that “low-risk” offenders should not be imprisoned. He knows, he says, that people will find this pragmatic approach difficult to hear. He’s right about that.

But what’s really difficult to hear is an argument in favour of greater resources being put into combating child sexual abuse. Bailey appears to accept that cloth must be cut according to its width. He understands that people won’t want to accept that there isn’t enough money to deal with this problem. But he refuses to make an argument for more money himself. Bailey’s solution to this blight is dispiritingly bureaucratic. He wants some of the strain to be moved elsewhere.

Number of child sexual abuse claims overwhelming police, says lead officer Read more

Bailey’s idea is that more emphasis should be placed on “rehabilitation”. Yet such rehabilitation barely exists, inside or outside the criminal justice system.

A 2015 BBC report on HMP Whatton in Nottinghamshire – Europe’s largest prison for sex offenders – estimated that its capacity of 841 inmates was dwarfed by the number of sex offenders in the criminal justice system – 11,700.

The charity StopSO UK, which aims to prevent sexual offending through therapy, declares on its website: “Practically no NHS services are available for this group. Most therapists do not want to work with these clients.” The charity says that most of its clients come through self-referral. They find the charity by searching online for assistance themselves.

The fact is that if the police aren’t going to make a case for greater investment in this troubling area, it’s difficult to see who else has the clout to.

Social care generally, after all, has well-publicised troubles already. Another BBC report published this morning suggested that “more than 23,000 allegations of abuse by home care workers against elderly and vulnerable people were made in the last three years, yet just 15 people were prosecuted as a result”. Just 700 cases draw involvement from the police at all. Is “rehabilitation” the answer for people who inflict physical or psychological abuse on those they are supposed to care for as well?

“Rehabilitation” has become one of the great non sequiturs of our time. It’s always a wonderful idea. Calling for rehabilitation, as Bailey has done, sounds humane and engaged. It sounds like the compassionate argument is being made, not the punitive one. Yet, in reality, a gigantic raft of our social problems exist precisely because there is such a lack of the psychological support of which rehabilitation is a particularly challenging part.

Anyone who has ever sought help for a troubled teenager, for instance, knows that those troubles have to be pretty serious before sustained help is forthcoming. Anyone who has gone to the doctor suffering from depression knows that a prescription for drugs, not therapy, is the treatment most likely to be valorised. Bailey lives in a fools’ paradise if he really believes that mental health services are better equipped to deal with child sex offenders than the police force is.

This is a society that is struggling – more than struggling, failing – to protect children, older people and disabled people. This is a society, therefore, that has lost touch with the reason why humans are social beings. We hear endlessly about the crisis of care. What needs to be grasped is that this is a crisis of human values.

We have the knowledge to help ourselves. Good therapy – good rehabilitation – changes lives and we know better now than ever before what good therapy is. But calling for it doesn’t make it appear. Only a commitment to financial and intellectual investment in the development of high-quality and responsive mental health services can ever do that.