Prison Climate and Rehabilitation of Men with Sexual Convictions: The relationship between prisoner-staff relationships, readiness and compassion

• In Event: Prison Working Group: Prison climate and quality of life

Abstract

Prison-based treatment for men with sexual convictions is contested. Mews and colleagues (2017) found the rate of overall sexual reoffending was larger in treated men with sexual convictions. This is perhaps not surprising, especially for prison-based interventions, given that prison may not be the ideal place for rehabilitative work. This presentation will unpack a series of empirical studies that have explored rehabilitative prison climate and its impact on intervention. It explores the relationship between prisoners and staff, treatment motivation and readiness and beliefs about change. A key finding is that rehabilitative climate mediated the relationship between prisoner-staff relationships and readiness for treatment. The implications for this and for the ideal conditions for prison-based interventions are discussed. The core argument in this presentation extends the recent focus of compassion-focused therapy in forensic interventions (see Hocken & Taylor, 2021; Kolts & Gilbert, 2018) and argues that a possible way forward for correctional practice more broadly is to adhere more closely to principles of compassion in order to promote more meaningful self-change (Blagden et al, in 2023).

Author

• Nicholas Blagden, University of Derby