Rehabilitative Culture in Prisons for People Convicted of Sexual Offending

In this chapter we will describe and discuss some practical ways of creating rehabilitative cultures in prisons housing people convicted of sexual offences. Our interest in prison culture began in 2002 when we conducted a study of why some men in prison deny their sexual offending (Mann, Webster, Wakeling, & Keylock, 2013). Before we began that study, we expected to find individual psychological explanations for denial, such as shame, or family factors, such as family support for denial. These explanations certainly existed, but more notably we found that men talked about feeling unsafe, feeling stigmatised, and feeling humiliated by other people in prison and also by staff. The overall finding was that when men convicted of sexual offences felt psychologically and physically unsafe in prison, their personal resources were consumed by finding ways to feel safe, and denial of their offences was one useful way to reduce their anxiety.