The development of an offender personality disorder strategy

Abstract

This article explores the development of an offender personality disorder strategy for the Department of Health (DH) and National Offender Management Service (NOMS). The strategy has two strands: offenders who present a high risk of serious harm to others, and workforce development. This article primarily considers the first of these. The strategy builds upon the learning so far from the Dangerous and Severe Personality Disorder (DSPD) programme and democratic therapeutic communities in prisons. This indicates the need for NOMS and the NHS to take joint responsibility for the assessment, treatment and management of this population and to deliver services, where appropriate, through joint operations. A greater focus is required on the early identification of personality disordered offenders who present a high risk of serious harm to others, leading to an active pathway of intervention predominately based in the criminal justice system (CJS).

Editorial: Whither research on ‘high‐harm’ offenders with personality disorders?

“…Under the new strategy, the planning and delivery of services for offenders with PD will be based on a ‘whole systems pathway’ approach across the criminal justice system and the National Health Service (NHS; Figure ; Joseph and Benefield, ; ). This community‐to‐community pathway recognises the various stages of an offender's journey from conviction and sentence, and sometimes detention in prison or hospital, to community‐based supervision and re‐settlement.…”

“…The personality disordered offender pathway (Joseph and Benefield, ). Note: PIPES = psychologically informed planned environments; NHS/NOMS = National Health Service/National Offender Management Service; PD = personality disorder…”

A more promising architecture? Commissioners’ perspectives on the reconfiguration of personality disorder services under the Offender Personality Disorder (OPD) pathway

“…Responding to criticisms of DSPD assessment procedures, case identification and case formulation represent key elements of the pathway (Joseph and Benefield, 2010). n t a l H e a l t h R e v i e w J o u r n a l Approximately 20,000 offenders were originally estimated to be eligible for the pathway (Benefield et al, 2015) but by June 2016 36,459 (37% of the National Probation Service (NPS) caseload) had been screened into the pathway (Skett, Goode and Barton, 2017).…”

Case formulation in personality disordered offenders: Views from the front line

“…The recent UK government's PD offender strategy emphasises the need for joint working between the NHS and the criminal justice system (Joseph and Benefield, ; Department of Health, ). The strategy is aimed particularly at PD offenders who are perceived to pose a serious risk of harm to others; the strategy involves the identification of this particular group and subsequent joint working between criminal justice and health agencies to provide treatment in the most appropriate setting (predominantly within the criminal justice system (Joseph and Benefield, ). As mentioned elsewhere, CF is a core tool in the strategy as it provides a psychologically informed understanding of an offender's problem behaviours and ‘a rationale for the sequence and dosage of interventions across the pathway’ (Völlm, ).…”