Hurt people hurt people: using a trauma sensitive and compassion focused approach to support people to understand and manage their criminogenic needs

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to argue that to address those factors that contribute to the probability of offending, the origins of such factors should be understood, and interventions that recognise the functional aspects of criminogenic capacities should be developed. Design/methodology/approach The paper provides a theoretical basis for trauma sensitive practice by providing an evolutionary understanding of human harmfulness alongside a summary of the impact of adversity and abuse on the developing child. Findings The paper proposes an overarching framework that uses compassion-focused therapy for risk reducing interventions with men who cause harm to others. Practical implications This paper encourages forensic practitioners to develop a trauma aware approach to intervention design and delivery. The paper provides an overview of a compassion-focused therapy as approach to intervention that conceptualises criminogenic capacities within a more holistic and functional framework. Originality/value Forensic interventions have been slow to assimilate evidence from adverse childhood experience research and have therefore been limited in their ability to address the functional origins of criminogenic need. This paper offers a framework that allows practitioners to address risk while also allowing individuals to process their own trauma and adversity.

Healing trauma in a traumatising environment with young adult men

“…Relationships with service users are developed from the foundational belief of redeemability [33], which inspires hope and encourages the keywork team to focus on strengths rather than problematic behaviour. From this stance, PCNS staff consider the question "what happened to you and how did you make sense of this", rather than, "what's wrong with you" [4], acknowledge that hurt people hurt people [34,35], and so look behind presenting behaviour to understand individual needs and experiences. As such, the approach within the PCNS understands that presenting problems and apparent resistance may be symptoms of difficulties in past relationships.…”

Compassionate Recovery and Neurological Empowerment (CRANE): A trauma focused pilot intervention for women in prison with complex needs who engage in self-harm

“…There has been recognition of the need for greater clinical insight when addressing challenging behaviours in forensic settings (Byrne & Ni Ghrada, 2019). Initial findings have also suggested that Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) could be a particularly useful and clinically acceptable approach to addressing high levels of trauma in forensic services (da Silva et al, 2020;Taylor, 2017, Taylor & Hocken 2021. Cleare et al ( 2019) have indicated that this may also be the case for the treatment of self-harm.…”