Forensic Psychologists working within the Prison Service

1
Forensic Psychologists working within the Prison
Service

• Joanne Williams and Kaye Thomas
• Psychologists in Training
• HMP Cardiff

2
Aims of the presentation

• Define Forensic Psychology
• Overview of the job
• Life sentence prisoners
• Accredited Offending Behaviour Programmes
• Risk Assessment
• Case Study
• How to become a Forensic Psychologist
• Questions

3
What is Forensic Psychology?

• Forensic Psychology is devoted to psychological
  aspects of legal processes in courts. The term is
  also often used to refer to investigative and
  criminological psychology applying psychological
  theory to criminal investigation, understanding
  psychological problems associated with criminal
  behaviour, and the treatment of criminals (BPS
  website)

4
What do Psychologists do?

• Suicide and self harm prevention
• Hostage Negotiation Advisor
• Training
• Effective Regime Interventions
• Research
• Anti-bullying
• Critical Incident Debrief
• Working with vulnerable prisoners

5
Working with Life Sentence Prisoners

• Life V. Determinate sentence
  sentence
• What is the difference?

6
Lifers Facts Figures

• Number of lifers up by 70 in last 10 years
• On February the 28th 2005 there were 5, 792 life
  sentenced prisoners in England and Wales
• 5, 606 were Men
• 186 were Women
• 186 were Young offenders

7
Types of life sentence

• Mandatory the only possible sentence if
  convicted of murder.
• Discretionary given when the risk of
  re-offending is so grave that the judge decides
  only a life sentence is appropriate (Other
  serious offences, e.g. Manslaughter, rape,
  Attempted Murder, Armed Robbery, Arson some
  drug-related offences

8
Imprisonment for Public Protection

• New sentence applies to offences committed on or
  after 4th April 2005.
• Indeterminate sentence, which applies to
  offenders who are
• - convicted of a specified sexual or violent
  offence carrying a maximum imprisonment of 10
  years or more
• - considered by the court to pose a significant
  risk to members of the public.
• Judge sets minimum terms in open court
• Release at discretion of parole Board based on
  risk assessment
• 10 years after release can apply to have licence
  terminated ( at yearly intervals thereafter)

9
Psychology Lifers

• Risk assessment Management
• - Analysis of index offence dynamic risk
  factors which contributed to offence
• - Use of clinical risk assessment tools.
• Preparation of Life Sentence Plan
• Offending behaviour work
• - Accredited group-based programmes
• - 1-to-1 interventions
• Preparation for release resettlement

10
Accredited Offending Behaviour Programmes

• Accreditation
• What works literature
• Programmes run within the Prison Service
• Enhanced Thinking Skills (ETS)
• Controlling Anger and Learning to Manage it
  (CALM)
• Prisons Addressing Substance Related Offending
  (P-ASRO)
• Sex Offender Treatment Programme (SOTP)
• Cognitive Self Change Programme (CSCP)
• Healthy Relationships Programme (HRP)

11
ETS

• Consists of
• Self control
• Creative thinking
• Problem solving
• Social perspective taking
• Social skills
• Effective thinking

12
CALM

• Consists of
• Module 1 building awareness of anger and
  aggression and motivation to change
• Module 2 understanding and monitoring arousal
• Module 3 develop understanding of how thoughts
  affect emotions and how emotions can lead to
  distorted thoughts about a situation
• Module 4 assertive communication
• Module 5 other emotions
• Module 6 relapse prevention

13
PASRO

• Consists of
• Enhancing motivation to change
• The Personal Scientist
• Relapse prevention
• Lifestyle change

14
Psychologists and Programmes

• Treatment Management
• Assessment of risk and need
• Facilitator
• Supervise
• Monitor and evaluate psychometric testing

15
Risk Assessment

• Why do we complete risk assessments with
  offenders?
• Characterise the risk an offender poses
• Identify treatment targets
• Improve accuracy and consistency of decisions

16
Risk assessment

• STATIC and DYNAMIC RISK
• Unchangeable factors such as Age Offending
  history.
• Features can change such as emotional regulation,
  cognitive style

17
Types of Risk Assessment

• ACTUARIAL RISK ASSESSMENT
• Focus on static and stable factors
• Designed solely to predict an outcome
• STRUCTURED ASSESSMENTS
• Violent offending HCR-20 (Assessing Risk for
  Violence), SARA (Spousal Assault Risk Assessment
  Guide)
• Sexual offending SARN (Structured Assessment of
  Risk and Need- sex offenders), RISK MATRIX 2000
• PCL-R (Psychopathy Checklist-Revised)
• WAIS III (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale)
• CLINICAL JUDGEMENT
• Functional Assessment (Antecedents, Behaviours
  Consequences)
• Intervention recommendations
• Assessments for interventions/referrals (Semi
  Structured Interviews, clinical interview)
• Collateral Information Gathering

18
Case study

• Frank is 32. He has been convicted of ABH, and
  has a long history of offending which began when
  he left school at 13. Previous convictions
  include drunk and disorderly, common assaults and
  possession of a class A drug. Frank regularly
  gets drunk with his mates and ends up fighting at
  the end of the night. He states that he gets
  angry because people look at me in the wrong
  way. He comments that he behaves impulsively
  and that the majority of his offending has been
  unplanned stating they just happened.

19
Case study

• What are the problematic behaviours for Frank?
• What treatment does Frank require?
• How will you know it made a difference?
• What problems do you think there may be when
  working with someone like Frank?

20
How can you become a Forensic Psychologist?
Degree that has Graduate Basis for Registration
(GBR) with the British Psychological Society(BPS)
1
3yrsmin
Employed by HM Prison Service (Psychological
Assistant or Probation Service Officer)
2
1yrmin
Trainee Psychologist (via promotion)
3
3yrsmin
Stage 1 BPS Forensic Diploma MSc or
exams/research
Stage 2 Supervised practice (3yrs total)
4
5
CHARTERED PSYCHOLOGIST
21
Work experience

• Youth Offending Teams
• Working with people with learning difficulties
• Working with people with behavioural difficulties
• Voluntary groups, for example, organisations
  working with people with autism

22
Useful Contacts

• British Psychological Society Website
  www.bps.org.uk
• Prison Service Website
• www.hmprisonservice.gov.uk
• What Works Reducing Re-offending
• McGuire, J. (Ed) (1995) Chichester Wiley

23
Any questions?