A controlled evaluation of a prison based sexual offender intervention programme

The effectiveness of a prison-based cognitive behavioral program designed to modify
psychological risk factors associated with sexual offending was evaluated. The Irish
Prison Service Sexual Offender Intervention Programme, is a manualized 10-month
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy [CBT] program involving three 2-hour group sessions
per week, which are facilitated by a team of clinical psychologists and probation
officers. Improvements in 38 consecutive referrals to the program were compared
with the status of 38 untreated offenders who were similar in marital status, age when
they left school, occupational status prior to imprisonment, offence type, presence of
previous convictions, and current sentence length. All research participants completed
the same assessment protocol, which evaluated psychological factors associated with
sexual offending at times equivalent to pre- and postintervention. Compared with
the untreated control group, program participants showed statistically significant
improvement on some but not all self-report measures of cognitive distortions,
empathy, interpersonal skills, self-regulation, and relapse prevention. Motivation
to change among the untreated control group was not associated with change in
psychological functioning in the absence of the assistance of the treatment program.
Implications for sexual offender intervention delivery are considered.