Rep36 Understanding Personality Disorder

3.3.3 Summary
The last decade has seen a large expansion of
interventions for offenders in criminal justice
settings in the UK. This has been strongly
influenced by the international What Works
literature, which has successfully overtaken the
previously widespread view that ‘Nothing Works’
in changing offending behaviour. This literature
has been helpful in drawing attention to the
general principles needed to implement effective
interventions (structured, multi-modal
approaches that target criminogenic needs) and
in providing guidelines for policy and practice. It
is likely that many offenders who participate on
offending behaviour programmes in forensic
settings meet the criteria for at least one type of
personality disorder. There is suggestive evidence
(cited above) from positive changes in
psychometric test scores that the programmes
may be beneficial in meeting some of their
treatment needs. Further research is now
required to understand how different types of
personality disordered offenders respond to
current treatments and to investigate whether
these approaches need to be developed to take
account of their needs. Further work is also
needed on the conditions that are necessary to
sustain improvements following completion of
treatment for these offenders, given the chronic
nature of their disorders.

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