Although driven principally by concerns about the management of male offenders assessed as representing a high risk of serious harm to the public through sexual and violent offending, the development of the Offender Personality Disorder (OPD) Pathway has significant implications for the treatment of women in custody. This article examines how the OPD Pathway has been tailored to deliver services to a wide sector of women prisoners, despite the fact that few of them meet the dangerousness criteria specified for men. It sets out the major objections that feminist criminologists have made to the provision and delivery of psychological treatment in and reviews the extent to which the OPD women’s prisons Pathway for Women has responded to these critical observations. It is argued that although important lessons have been learnt, there remain significant concerns about psychologically intrusive programmes that foster individualised and of female offenders, ‘pathologised’ understandings particularly where these operate in a legal and ethical framework of uncertainty about the duty of care owed to the women prisoners who participate. Notwithstanding these reservations, the need for therapeutic services amongst women prisoners is undeniable. That much of this existing demand would be best met in the community is also beyond doubt. Nonetheless, there remains a population of women in custody who have a legitimate and
Although driven principally by concerns about the management of male offenders assessed as representing a high risk of serious harm to the public through sexual and violent offending, the development of the Offender Personality Disorder (OPD) Pathway has significant implications for the treatment of women in custody. This article examines how the OPD Pathway has been tailored to deliver services to a wide sector of women prisoners, despite the fact that few of them meet the dangerousness criteria specified for men. It sets out the major objections that feminist criminologists have made to the provision and delivery of psychological treatment in women’s prisons and reviews the extent to which the OPD Pathway for Women has responded to these critical observations. It is argued that although important lessons have been learnt, there remain significant concerns about psychologically intrusive programmes that foster individualised and ‘pathologised’ understandings of female offenders, particularly where these operate in a legal and ethical framework of uncertainty about the duty of care owed to the women prisoners who participate. Notwithstanding these reservations, the need for therapeutic services amongst women prisoners is undeniable. That much of this existing demand would be best met in the community is also beyond doubt. Nonetheless, there remains a population of women in custody who have a legitimate and