Community treatment for offenders with personality disorder

Although there are sound theoretical and practical reasons for providing treatments for offenders with personality disorder in the community, many practitioners are reluctant to do so, instead concentrating their endeavours in specialized inpatient units. This is both iniquitous and an ineffective way of delivering treatment. Although there are a number of impediments that discourage practitioners from working with this patient group in the community that will be discussed in this contribution, these need to be overcome if the treatment needs of this population are to be properly met. Specifically, there needs to be a consensus on both the objective of the intervention and how this can be achieved. We propose a model that considers both of these issues. A more open and critical approach to our current service provision needs to be adopted if the very radical transformation of current service provision is to occur.