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The criminal justice system uses a range of risk assessment tools to identify the level of risk and treatment targets for offenders. Bonta (1996) describes that there has been three generations of risk assessment tools used to identify the level of risk for violent and sexual offenders. The first generation was the unstructured professional opinion.

“Grief that cannot be openly expressed because the death or other loss cannot be publicly acknowledged.” (Doka, 1989)   Throughout out our lives we will all experience some form of loss and grief. Hopefully, during this time we are all provided with the support, love and understanding to help us during this difficult time. However, there are

In my previous blog regarding the historical overview of risk assessment tools utilised within the criminal justice system I focused mainly on the assessment tools that are used. In this blog I will be focusing on the theoretical frameworks that have been used to underpin the assessment and treatment process  These theoretical frameworks are the Risk/Need/Responsivity Model

In my previous blog I spoke of disenfranchised grief and how people who are close to us and those in the community experience may at some stage experience some form of loss which is not acknowledged or recognized. When people experience a loss they often go through a range of thinking processes and emotions. The theoretical framework

Group therapy is a form of psychotherapy which involves one or more therapists working with several people at the same time. As Cartwright and Zander (1968) explain a group is a collection of individuals who have relations to one another that make them interdependent to some significant degree. Therefore according to this definition, these individuals

In my previous blogs I discussed disenfranchised grief and provided the framework of the stages of grief and loss in which people progress through when it comes to coping with any form of loss. When it comes to coping with loss it is important to remember that each person’s journey is unique and coping techniques may differ from person

Punishment within the criminal justice system remains the cornerstone and is one of the primary objectives of sentencing in all western countries (Ward and Salmon 2009). As Foucault (1995) explains, the prime purpose of punishment is based around reducing the desire that makes crime attractive and to make the penalty to be feared. The process

In my previous writings I spoke about group work and in particular group based intervention whereby I identified the benefits and limitations of using this approach within a therapeutic setting. When facilitators or therapist are delivering group based interventions there are a number of processes and dynamics that take place as the group progress through the various

In previous writings I described what is group based intervention and the benefits and limitations of engaging in group based therapy. This blog will focus more on individual therapy and speak about some of the benefits and limitations of this approach. Individual therapy is sometimes called psychotherapy or counselling where clients work one-on-one with a trained therapist