Jason Davies

Swansea University | SWAN · Department of Psychology

Models of offender motivation to change exist, however there is a lack of theory-driven psychometric tools that measure motivational constructs to support offenders in positive life goal pursuits. This research extends the Personal Concerns Inventory (Offender Adaptation), presenting a Goals and Plans tool that supports users to: identify and prior...

Forensic mental health, custodial and community forensic services provide care and treatment to individuals with complex histories and needs including the presence of trauma. With increased attention being paid to delivering trauma informed care, this paper presents a framework for supporting safe and effective service delivery. It details ways in...

Purpose Domestic abuse (DA) is a major issue with serious psychological, social, societal and economic impacts. Consequently, there has been an increased focus by policymakers and multiple statutory and third-sector agencies on addressing harms associated with DA and fostering healthy intimate and domestic relationships. This paper details the deve...

The Offender Personality Disorder Pathway (OPDP) was co-commissioned in 2011 to better manage high-risk offenders likely to have a personality disorder. Within the OPDP, forensic case formulation is used to develop a psychological understanding of each offender’s criminal behaviour, clinical problems, and criminogenic needs. Each formulation conclu...

Forensic case formulation (FCF) is a key activity within the Offender Personality Disorder Pathway (OPDP), performed by OPDP specialist offender managers (OMs) and psychologists. Although FCF training is provided to OMs, there are a number of questions about the adequacy and effectiveness of this training. Furthermore, it is unclear whether psychol...

The effect of medium secure care on reoffending is unknown; adequate control groups cannot be identified and exposure to reconviction may be confounded by onward placement and by legal restrictions. Retrospective analysis of convictions for an England and Wales National Cohort of adults discharged from 35 medium secure services during 1997/8. Data...

The Offender Group Reconviction Scale 2 (OGRS-2) excludes social and clinical factors that are known to be associated with offending risk in people with mental health problems, but shows similar predictive validity to structured professional judgment tools that include them. The aim of this study was to determine whether the predictive validity of...

Introduction Gypsies and Travellers have poorer physical and mental health than the general population, but little is known about mental health service use by Gypsy and Traveller children and young people. Finding this group in routine electronic health data is challenging, due to limited recording of ethnicity. We assessed the feasibility of using...

Expressions of sexual disinterest vary in assertiveness, consistency, and clarity. The high prevalence of predominantly male-on-female sexual harassment suggests sex differences in understanding and/or accepting rejection. Persistence is a defining yet understudied aspect of sexual harassment, one that can turn a sexual interaction into harassment....

In response to the challenges experienced by staff and organisations in the face of COVID-19 and it’s management, the importance of staff wellbeing has been recognised. Consequently, many services have introduced facilitated and self directed opportunities for staff to engage in personal reflection, self care and support. This paper argues that the...

Background: There is increasing interest in measuring wellbeing and mental health in a range of settings and services outside conventional mental health care settings. However, ensuring that measurement does not intrude on the primary service activity whilst promoting inclusion through minimizing literacy demands, requires ultra-brief and easy to...

Purpose South Wales Police Mental Health (MH) Triage service was initiated to meet the Welsh Government MH priority of early intervention to prevent MH crisis. Community Psychiatric Nurses, based in the control-room, provide advice to police and control room staff on the management of MH-related incidents. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate t...

Using an outcome expectancy framework, this research sought to understand sex differences in the underlying beliefs that influence harassment perception. One hundred and ninety-six participants (52% women) read a series of vignettes depicting common examples of digital male-on-female sexual harassment. They were asked to what extent they thought ea...

Purpose This paper aims to provide practitioners with a brief but comprehensive review of the current evidence base for psychological treatment approaches used in the UK that may be useful for stalking therapies. Design/methodology/approach A rapid evidence assessment was conducted on papers (post the UK Protection from Harassment Act, 1997) that...

Development & Validation of a Measure of Reproductive Coercion in Male & Female Victims

This study is the first to explore the relationship between domestic violence perpetration and suicidal behavior in prisoners in England and Wales. The nature of this relationship is unclear, however, under-standing and reducing suicide in prisons is a critical issue for front-line staff and policy makers. Eight participants with a history of suici...

This chapter outlines the potential psychological impacts of cancer on patients, carers and healthcare staff working in a cancer setting. It explores the benefits of using cognitive analytic therapy (CAT) to understand the impact of cancer and to work therapeutically with individuals and groups to facilitate relational thinking and more adaptive co...

Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a prevalent and dangerous behavior. Those with a history of NSSI often report high levels of self-critical rumination (SCR), a form of negatively-valenced introspective self-referential processing. It is plausible that this overly analytical style of relating to the self might hinder the ability to process interoce...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore women’s experiences of criminal justice systems to inform the development of guidance on working with women. Design/methodology/approach A two-part, independent samples and qualitative study using semi-structured interviews incorporating both interpretive phenomenological analysis and thematic analys...

Background: Internet-initiated sexual offences against minors (i.e., online grooming (OG)) is a communicative process of entrapment used by adults to entice minors into sexual activities. Yet, research exploring how the language used by such individuals might reflect their psychological world is scarce. Interestingly, researchers have largely assu...

Sadism, as with other dark personality features, is generally considered to be a relatively stable trait. However, there has been little examination of the extent to which sadism may also be a state dependent characteristic. This research examines the extent to which sadistic interest or tendencies can be influenced through a specifically developed...

Objectives This article presents two studies assessing the impact of mindfulness in prison (prisoners and staff) and non-custodial settings. Method Study 1—prisoners ( n = 17) and staff ( n = 15) in a UK prison completed a mindfulness program; 16 individuals acted as a single time point comparison. Data were collected using self-report, computer b...

Within criminal justice settings, staff supervision, as a distinct area of practice and expertise, has been largely overlooked with little research published in this area. This chapter considers the role of supervision in facilitating staff learning and development, staff wellbeing and resilience and the role of supervision in the maintenance of pr...

Background: The positive impact of the outdoors on physical and mental health is increasingly being evidenced. However, the impact on vulnerable and disadvantaged individuals engaging in group based sustainable building construction has not been examined. Aim: To provide the first pragmatic examination of the impact of engaging in a brief (8 days o...

In the past decade, forensic case formulation (FCF) has become a key activity in many forensic services. However, the evidence base for FCF remains limited. This integrative review aimed to identify and evaluate all FCF research conducted since the lack of understanding within this field was highlighted by several academics in 2011. A rigorous lite...

The aim of the evaluation was to find out what impact the group-based psychological and emotional support courses had on individual attributes that would help people be better prepared for later life transitions; what changes people make as a result of the courses; and what practice, resources or processes in the organisations are important in ensu...

Individuals with a diagnosis of personality disorder (PD) face negative attitudes and are often deemed harder to care for than individuals with other diagnoses. To improve care and engagement with services, it is essential to understand the ways general psychiatric nursing staff approach this client group. This research aims to examine the ways inp...

The process of transitioning from custody to the community can be a time of increased risk of reoffending and heightened anxiety brought on by uncertainty of future plans and unfamiliarity of new surroundings. This period can be particularly problematic for those experiencing complex needs or suffering with mental health difficulties. To address th...

Objective: Understanding the functions and outcomes of psychological consultations provided to probation officers as part of the Offender Personality Disorder Pathway. Design: Qualitative cross-sectional data from open-ended feedback forms were analysed using conventional content analysis. Method: Through integrated research within the Wales OPD P...

Psychological therapies have become a key element in the quest to manage risk and reduce reoffending. This chapter draws on the more extensive literature within general psychotherapy research to examine individual and group treatment delivery. Individual therapy provides a one‐to‐one context within which psychological treatment can take place. It o...

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is the deliberate and direct injury of one’s own body tissue without suicidal intent. As the known risk factors for NSSI predispose to a range of psychiatric disorders, there is a limited understanding of the specific individual differences that result in NSSI. Therefore, in three studies, a multidimensional approach...

Background: Mindfulness has received increased research attention in recent years and has been shown to have a positive impact on stress and impulsivity. This paper presents two studies assessing the impact of mindfulness in prison and non-custodial settings.Method: Study 1 - prisoners (n=44) and staff (n=25) in a UK prison attended a mindfulness p...

Objective: Understanding the functions and outcomes of psychological consultations provided to probation officers as part of the Offender Personality Disorder Pathway. Background: Consultation with psychologists and OPD specialist probation officers forms the core work of the OPD Pathway service delivery. This research was carried out to establish...

The process of transitioning from custody to the community can be a time of increased risk of reoffending and heightened anxiety brought on by uncertainty of future plans and unfamiliarity of new surroundings. This period can be particularly problematic for those experiencing complex needs or suffering with mental health difficulties. To address th...

Much of the work undertaken in forensic settings, such as diagnosis, formulation and judgements about treatment and placement are based on information gathered through clinical forensic interviewing. Despite this, the evidence base on which clinical forensic interviewing is founded is extremely limited. This paper is divided into two sections; the...

The probation and prison services within England and Wales are undergoing change, which is argued will enhance rehabilitation. One aspect of this change is the introduction of the Enabling Environments (EE) standards into Approved Premises and many prison establishments. This article examines the progress toward this goal across seven sites (four A...

Adult forensic mental health services provide care and treatment to individuals with complex offending and mental health histories. However little attention has been paid to the parents of those receiving care within them. This research explored the experiences of parents with an adult son or daughter with mental illness in a medium secure mental h...

There has been increasing acknowledgement of the need to address the specific difficulties experienced by women offenders in the criminal justice system. Whilst various areas of need have been highlighted, little work has been done to examine priorities and how these might best be met. This paper reports three related studies which seeks to examine...

The Enabling Environments (EE) award, developed by the Royal College of Psychiatrists, is a quality mark given to sites that can demonstrate best practice according to 10 core standards which reflect everyday interpersonal factors. The Wales OPDP Research and Evaluation team has been evaluating the impact of introducing EE standards to four main si...

Background: In England and Wales, 'approved premises' offer 24-hour staffed accommodation for high-risk offenders, most of whom are returning to the community from prison. With a move towards a standardised operating model, it is essential to be able to measure outcomes. Aims: Our aim is to collate and evaluate 'benchmarks' for approved premises...

Objectives: consultation is a central feature of the Offender Personality Disorder Pathway (OPDP) within probation settings. This paper seeks to develop a detailed understanding of aspects of the consultation service, specifically offender manager’s needs, actions generated and their views of the service. Design: a mixed methods approach using con...

Objectives: to understand the baseline functioning and outcomes of Approved Premises using self report and routinely collected probation service outcome data prior to the launch of a major service revision (E3: Effectiveness, Efficiency and Excellence). Design: a quantitative approach using self report data from staff and those living within the p...

Purpose: to examine the evidence for making choices about therapy models, who delivers treatment and the modality of delivery (individual, group or combined). Background: in the last 30 years psychological interventions have become a mainstay for risk reduction and improving wellbeing in forensic settings. Whilst there has been a major research f...

From the ‘nothing works’ maxim of the 1970s to evidence-based interventions to challenge recidivism and promote pro-social behavior, psychological therapy has played an important role in rehabilitation and risk reduction within forensic settings in recent years. And yet the typical group therapy model isn’t always the appropriate path to take. In...

Background: Routine assessment of individual change in forensic mental health services is increasingly recognised as important. However, existing tools have been criticised and their periodic use make them unsuited to directly measure the impact of interventions. This paper describes the initial evaluation of the Global Review Form (GRF) as a frame...

Women's secure hospitals are often considered to be stressful and demanding places to work, with these environments characterized as challenging and violent. However, the staff experience of working in this environment is not well represented in the literature. The present study is the first to examine the 'lived experience' of seven nurses working...

Women’s secure hospitals are often considered to be stressful and demanding places to work, with these environments characterised as challenging and violent. The staff experience of working in this environment is however not well represented in the literature. This study is the first to examine the ‘lived experience’ of seven nurses working in the...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to outline the work of a service provider, service user and carer group created to develop a strategy for service user and carer co-production. Design/methodology/approach A reflective narrative account is given of the process through which the group formed and began to develop a working model aimed at shaping...

The impact and burden of working with people that hoard is largely unexplored. Aim: To explore professionals’ varied experiences of engagement and intervention with this client group. Method: Five semi-structured interviews were initially conducted with professionals with detailed experience of working with people that hoard. A thematic analysis...

Purpose – The restrictive nature of low secure mental health settings and the issues associated with risk management and safe practice raise numerous challenges which need to be overcome for individuals to engage in community-based programmes. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – Two community-based schemes are des...

This qualitative study explores the experience of hepatitis C virus treatment for people with pre-existing mental health problems within a large city hospital. Four men and four women with pre-existing mental health problems who had received hepatitis C virus treatment took part in semi-structured interviews which were analysed using interpretative...

Aims This research aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the GRF and its feasibility for routine use as an outcome measurement tool. Specifically this research sought to a) evaluate the GRF's stability over time & sensitivity to change, construct validity, and the use of the tool for individual change measurement and b) ascertain its fea...

The aims of this study are to: • get a thorough understanding of the experiences and attitudes of offenders in a single Approved Premises • gauge the perceived impact of the AP through residents' experience of transitioning back to the community • establish potential areas for development within AP Participants All AP residents in a single Approved...

The development of family psychoeducation programs within low secure forensic mental health settings is limited. This paper describes the development, content, and structure of a family psychoeducation program piloted within a low secure forensic mental health setting. Additionally, the feasibility, acceptability, and resource implications are eval...

Forensic practitioners work in a diverse range of settings, with a wide variety of groups and with a large number of agencies. Their work, whilst rewarding, is challenging, demanding and often undertaken in highly stressful situations. Ensuring that the workforce is trained and supported is essential in order to maintain skilful, knowledgeable, res...

Purpose ‐ The purpose of this paper is to describe the development, content and structure of an intensive group-based intervention designed to address a range of needs common to individuals within low secure forensic mental health settings. Additionally, the feasibility, acceptability, resource implications and levels of participation and understan...

Forensic case formulation, of increasing interest to practitioners and researchers raises many ethical, theoretical and practical issues for them. Systemic, contextual and individual factors which need to be considered include the multitude of staff often involved with any one individual, the pressure to 'get it right' because of the range of risk...

The aim of this study was to provide preliminary findings on the cross-cultural validation and reliability of the Brief Child Abuse Potential Inventory (BCAP) developed by Ondersma et al. (Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 2005). A community sample of 324 parents was recruited through schools from a range of socioeconomic areas i...

This study investigated how compulsive buyers make sense of their excessive shopping behaviour to explore possible sources of heterogeneity between compulsive buyers. Twenty female participants met 'caseness' for compulsive buying (CB) on the CB Scale (CBS), prior to completing a Q-sort specifically related to their experiences of shopping. Partici...

This article outlines the development of a group on a long-stay 'Rehabilitation and Recovery' inpatient ward for male adult service users with complex and enduring mental health needs. Initial outcomes, reflections on facilitation and implications for service provision are presented.

This review explores literature relevant to understanding the psychological well-being of people who have an interest in sexual sadomasochism (SM). It focuses on evaluating the traditional psychiatric and psychodynamic perspectives of SM, which conceptualize SM practitioners as being psychologically unwell. The empirical information reviewed is inc...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe a not‐for‐profit (third sector) social care facility designed to provide tenancy and high‐relational support and report an initial multi‐method evaluation of service inputs (what staff provide/facilitate); tenant outcomes; and views of the service. Design/methodology/approach Data were gathered usin...

Negotiation forms an important part of the response to serious incidents in prison, yet staff attitudes toward negotiation have been subject to very little formal investigation. This article presents the first research into a new scale, the Beliefs About Negotiation Scale. Preliminary investigation suggests that the scale has promising psychometric...

This article critically examines the clinical utility of redesigning a nursing practice model within the Intensive Support and Intervention Service, a new low secure mental health facility in the United Kingdom. Specifically, the "team nursing" approach to care delivery has been adapted to consist of multidisciplinary team leaders as opposed to nur...

Individual Change in Forensic SettingsOffence Paralleling Behaviour: Special ConsiderationsA Framework for Outcome AssessmentConclusion References

General approaches to individual evaluationConclusion Author's noteAcknowledgementsReferences

Sadistic personality disorder (SPD) has been underresearched and often misunderstood in forensic settings. Furthermore, personality disorders in general are the subject of much controversy in terms of their classification (i.e., whether they should be categorical or dimensional). The Sadistic Attitudes and Behaviors Scale (SABS; Davies & Hand, 2003...

Within the UK, low secure mental health services provide care and treatment to individuals with a view to supporting their return to life within community settings. With the expansion of services in this area it is essential that effective models of care are articulated, delivered and evaluated. This paper describes the philosophical underpinnings...

The topic of offender rehabilitation has been subject to much research over the past decade. Numerous meta-analytic reviews of offender treatment, particularly group treatment based on cognitive behavioural principles, have been reported. Together with the ‘triad of principles’ — risk, need and responsivity — they have formed the foundation upon wh...

Screening for potential child abuse is an essential component of work in many child and family services. The Child Abuse Potential inventory (CAP; Milner 1986) is one measure developed to help in this task. The primary aim of this review is to critically evaluate studies reporting psychometric information of the CAP. A previous paper by Milner (Cli...

Evidence suggests a complex relationship between substance misuse, mental health, and violence in forensic populations, however, the majority of existing research and interventions focus on these factors individually. This paper reports an evaluation of the first module of an integrated poly-substance misuse group delivered within a medium secure m...

Individuals being treated in medium secure hospitals have typically engaged in some form of offending in other service settings or while in the community. Although psychological treatment for addressing such behaviour in medium secure hospitals is beginning to be developed, at present there is a lack of evidence of ‘what works’. This paper reports...

Ensuring the validity of individual responses to psychometric tests is important in a wide range of psychology practice and research. This study compares a number of methods for detecting test faking on a measure not designed with explicit validity checks. A total of 270 students took part in two related studies, one using a standard ‘pencil and pa...

The aim of this research was to explore young women's experience of living with type 1 diabetes. Nine young women aged between 18 and 24 took part in semi-structured interviews. Data were analysed using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis. Four main super-ordinate themes emerged; ;the relationship with the body', ;personal challenges', ;the impa...

Supervision is generally considered to be an important part of practice in psychology and is one activity that is recognised by the British Psychological Soceity as a source of continued professional development. Despite the range of material available to guide and support supervisory practice, there has been little formal focus on supervision skil...

Although unemployment is common among those diagnosed with psychotic illnesses, few studies have looked directly at the experience of those who have gained competitive paid employment subsequent to being diagnosed. This study explored the experiences of people diagnosed with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder in relation to paid employment....

Internet-mediated research is becoming an increasingly viable option for forensic researchers, allowing some of the limitations of traditional approaches to be overcome. Many advantages are evident in this approach, such as the ability to access large, diverse samples and specialist groups. However, there are limitations and ethical issues that res...

The rapid development of new forensic mental health services and treatments has created a demand for research and evidence relating to the effectiveness of interventions. Unfortunately, the literature on outcomes of treatments for mentally disordered offenders is sparse, compared with the substantial ‘what works’ literature regarding non-disordered...

Sadistic behaviour is not uncommon in offender populations, especially in some groups of violent and sexual offenders. However, little research has been conducted on sadism in a non-offender group who are not part of a sadomasochistic culture or club. Twelve undergraduates, six of whom considered themselves sadistic and six who did not, completed a...