Adaptations and Developments in Treatment Programmes for Offenders with Developmental Disabilities

Abstract

This article reviews the development and evaluation of treatment programmes for offenders with intellectual and developmental disabilities (ID). Prevalence studies have shown that a significant percentage of individuals in the criminal justice system have ID and that around 50% of those individuals, if untreated, will go on to re-offend. Over the past 15–20 years, adaptations have been made to assessments that are relevant to offending issues. These include assessments for anger and aggression, a range of psychiatric symptoms, sexual offending and criminal thinking. Generally, the results have been positive, with assessments showing good reliability, internal consistency and the integrity of the factor structures. Adaptations to treatment methods include simplification of communication and the methods of cognitive therapy, alterations in the use of recording and assessment techniques and promoting motivation in participants. A review of a range of treatment interventions showed that successful case studies have been reported in the fields of anger and violence, inappropriate sexual behaviour, fire-raising and social problem-solving/criminal thinking. Controlled trials have produced robust results in showing the effectiveness of programmes for anger and violence. Controlled comparisons also suggest the effectiveness of sex offender treatment programmes, although the integrity of these studies is not as good as that of the work on anger and violence. In other areas there is a dearth of experimental controlled validation of the effectiveness of programmes. With regard to long-term follow-up, sex offender programmes and anger management programmes have been shown to produce significant reductions in offending up to 12 years after referral.