Good Lives sexual offender treatment for mentally disordered offenders

Abstract

Purpose

The main aim of this paper is to describe the content, structure and preliminary evaluation of a new Good Lives sexual offender treatment group (SOTG) for male mentally disordered offenders.

Design/methodology/approach

As evaluation and work on the SOTG is necessarily ongoing, case study descriptions of each patient who attended the SOTG and of their progress throughout SOTG are described.

Findings

Overall, the case study progress reports suggest that mentally disordered male patients made some notable progress on SOTG despite their differential and complex needs. In particular, attention to each patient's life goals and motivators appeared to play a key role in promoting treatment engagement. Furthermore, patients with lower intelligence quotient and/or indirect pathways required additional support to understand the links between the Good Lives Model (GLM) and their own risk for sexual offending.

Research limitations/implications

Further evaluations of SOTG groups, that incorporate higher numbers of participants and adequate control groups, are required before solid conclusions and generalisations can be made.

Practical implications

Practitioners should consider providing additional support to clients when implementing any future SOTGs for mentally disordered patients.

Originality/value

This is the first paper to outline and describe implementation of the GLM in the sexual offender treatment of mentally disordered male patients group format. As such, it will be of interest to any professionals involved in the facilitation of sexual offender treatment within this population.

Citation

Gannon, T.A., King, T., Miles, H., Lockerbie, L. and Willis, G.M. (2011), "Good Lives sexual offender treatment for mentally disordered offenders", The British Journal of Forensic Practice, Vol. 13 No. 3, pp. 153-168. https://doi.org/10.1108/14636641111157805