Treatment of People in Custody Convicted of Sexual Offences


Treatment of people in custody convicted of sexual offences

In 2009, the Sex Offender Management Policy: ‘Reducing Re-offending, Enhancing Public Safety’ was published. The policy aimed to bring about changes in offenders’ lives that reduce the risk of re-offending and enhance public protection.  It forms an integral part of the wider range of interventions by criminal justice and community-based agencies.

Following the emergence of updated research evidence, practise-based evidence, discussions with field experts, new Council of Europe recommendations, and the new National Strategy on Domestic, Sexual and Gender-based Violence, the Irish Prison Service has developed a new model of intervention for people convicted of sexual offences. This model, called ‘New Chapters’, will now offer a broad range of evidence-based treatment programmes to people in custody who are convicted of sexual offences. This model will be delivered by a team of psychologists who have specific clinical expertise in the assessment and treatment of men convicted of a sexual offence, and will offer a broad range of programmes targeting the needs, risks and strengths of a much larger number of people in custody.

Each programme in ‘New Chapters’ has been designed to help people to make positive changes in their lives, to address the known risk factors relevant to sexual offending, to prevent re-offending and/or to prepare people for release. ‘New Chapters’ will be rolled out initially in the Midlands and Arbour Hill Prisons, where programmes will be introduced on a phased basis in accordance with staffing levels.

Prison-based therapeutic interventions with individuals convicted of sexual offences also include one-to-one interventions, interventions by approved in-reach services, and interventions available to prisoners generally.