Suchergebnisse

Personality disorder (PD) is highly prevalent in offender samples and is an aggravating factor for risk assessment. Working with PD may be particularly challenging and requires specific staff competencies. However little is currently known about probation staff's competency for working with this group. Self report methodologies were used to investigate probation staff's competency for working with PD, their team climate and the relationship between the two factors. Probation staff's competency was not found to be significantly different to a sample of voluntary sector housing workers. No significant difference was found between probation public protection unit (PPU) and non-PPU staff or between qualified and unqualified staff. Two facets of team climate were associated with improved competency for working with PD, but probation staff obtained low scores for one of these facets (team vision). There is a need for staff competency development in this field. A model for improved service delivery is proposed.

Personality difficulties provide challenges to offender management, particularly in regard to risk and diagnosis. No provisions exist for identifying personality disturbance in probation services, despite a political emphasis on the need for specialist knowledge of this group in the criminal justice system. This article reports on a pilot project where mental health professionals collaborated with probation services to develop methods of identifying personality disturbance in a London sample. There was a disproportionately large ratio of Black/Black British individuals identified in this study. There was a high prevalence of personality problems in probation caseloads. Different sampling methods identified separate groups of high risk personality disturbed offenders. All individuals identified carried a high risk of re-offending, based on static risk assessments. Emphasis was given to the importance of using developmental variables to help identify adult personality disturbance. The study discovered a potential gap in the method by which data is collected by the national offender management service, omitting lifer custody cases in their assessment of dangerous and severe personality disorder individuals. Ideas for future research were provided.

Sexual Offending and Mental Health draws together theoretical, clinical and mental health issues for the range of professionals working with sex offenders and those who have behaved in sexually inappropriate ways. The book describes current influential models of sexual offending and the developmental, psychological and social factors involved