The Peaks: Assessing Sex Offenders in a Dangerous and Severe Personality Disorders Unit

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to detail the strategy being used for the assessment of sexual offenders within the Peaks, a specialist unit for the treatment of personality disordered individuals within a high security hospital setting. As such it is important to have an understanding of the type of population that is likely to be treated within the unit;a conceptual understanding of how factors related to personality disorder and risk are addressed within the unit and then how the strategy for assessing the needs of sexual offenders fits within that context. Within England and Wales the provision of forensic mental health services for individuals who have a personality disorder has been very limited. Historically, classification as ‘psychopathically disordered’ under the Mental Health Act (1983), often with a corresponding label of ‘untreatable’, has led to an exclusion from services rather than a route to provision. It is only during the past five years that there has been the political impetus to develop specific services for those with a personality disorder. The guidance Personality disorder: No longer a diagnosis of exclusion published by the National Institute for Mental Health in England (2003) has acted as the basis for the development of non-forensic services for people with personality disorders. At the same time, the Dangerous and Severe Personality Disorder (DSPD) Programme had been the focus of recent Home Office developments relating to personality disordered individuals within forensic settings.