ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief overview of the history of the treatment of offenders, drawing on literature from criminology and psychology. We discuss the shift in policy as criminal justice professionals moved from thinking of offenders as rational actors who must be punished, to regarding them as maladjusted individuals who could be treated. We then explain how psychologists, using meta-analyses, developed evidence-based principles for practice in working with offenders in prison. Finally, we explore the extent to which rehabilitation efforts were underpinned by a principle of ‘What Works’ in custodial settings, and we discuss a wide range of treatment programmes from their first incarnation, Reasoning and Rehabilitation (R&R), to the suite of programmes now delivered under the Sex Offender Treatment Programme (SOTP).
