Do sexual offenders with learning disabilities benefit from sex offender treatment programmes?

Abstract

Accessible summary This article is about sex offender treatment programmes in prison. It compares the experience of sex offenders with and without a learning disability through the experience of a man who has been called Sam. It is much harder for an offender with learning disability to finish the programme. Different types of learning disability need different approaches. It will be much harder for an offender with learning disabilities to be released from prison because of changes in sentencing. SummaryThis article discusses some of the clinical and practical issues in relation to sex offender treatment in prisons and compares, through the experience of one offender who has been called Sam, how the experiences may differ between offenders with and without learning disabilities. It gives a brief overview of how programmes have developed in prisons and describes differences between the Sex Offender Treatment Programme and the Adapted Programme. It highlights how offenders with learning disabilities are severely disadvantaged by the programmes and how current sentencing practice will discriminate against this group in terms of not being able to demonstrate reduction of risk, resulting in offenders with learning disability remaining in prison for ever extending periods.