A damning report into the treatment of sex offenders in prisons has found that many are finishing their sentences without having received any treatment to change their behaviour.
There was a scary and disturbing situation where work to reduce the risk posed by criminals after their release was not happening to any meaningful extent in many jails, the prisons and probation inspectorates said.
Fears that prison staff were being groomed or intimidated by gangs and high-risk sexual and violent offenders also meant greater supervision should be offered by managers, the report added.
The report, which said opportunities to reform inmates were being missed, found there were no plans to deliver treatment programmes to one in three sex offenders who needed one.
Chief inspector of prisons Nick Hardwick said the report made for a "very disturbing read".
"What's happening on the ground now in terms of offender management is too poor in too many places and needs to be galvanised," he said.
A number of sex offenders were leaving prison having received inadequate treatment
"On the face of it, it is just really disturbing.
"Sex offenders are being released without adequate interventions to reduce the risk that they will reoffend.
"However you juggle the priorities, that ought to be somewhere near the top."
Ken Clarke, the Justice Secretary, called for an urgent revolution in rehabilitation for sex offenders in 2010, claiming that simply locking up sex offenders with no focus on rehabilitation was bad value for taxpayers.
Treatment too often depended on what was available rather than what was necessary, the group said
Liz Calderbank, the Chief Inspector of Probation, said the analysis of 220 cases across 11 prisons showed 148 offenders needed an accredited programme, but there was no plan to deliver this in one in four cases.
"Some prisoners, and most worryingly, some sexual offenders, are not always able to access the treatment they need to change their behaviour before their release," she said.
Plans to manage offenders were also "too often based on what was available in prison rather than what was actually needed".
She added that those convicted of serious sexual, violent or gang-related offences "can be very adept at controlling their environment and within an institutional setting will often seek to influence those staff working with them, either by grooming or by intimidation".
While some staff were given guidance, some felt inadequately trained and there was a "low level of management oversight offered to prison staff working with high-risk offenders", she said.