Dangerous and severe personality disordered patients' engagement in education: extent, rationale and developmental impacts

This thesis explores the extent of rationales for developmental impacts ofpersonality disordered offenders’ engagement in education. The studyinvestigates the educational experiences of a sample of twelve personalitydisordered offenders receiving interventions in a high secure hospital unit.Engaging offenders in education in prison is challenging as manyoffenders have apprehensions, apprehensions about joining educationwhich stem from previous negative educational experiences. Manyoffenders share a common profile, they come from disadvantagedbackgrounds, fail to engage at school and leave education with low levelsof attainment and poor personal and social skills. Lack of skills andqualifications often leads to a pattern of repeat offending. The combinationof previous experiences, offending histories and mental disorder poseparticular problems for personality disordered offenders in relation to theirengagement in education. A qualitative case study research method isemployed to understand the educational experiences of the twelveparticipants, which are compared to existing theories on offendereducation. The findings of this research reveal that in addition to previouslearning experiences, emotional, behavioural and social difficulties createbarriers to learning. In particular mental health issues are found tonegatively influence personality disordered offenders’ engagement ineducation. Although there are barriers that negatively impact on learningother factors are identified as encouraging engagement in education. Thereason why individuals start education is not necessarily the reason whythey continue. Therefore factors that initially engage offenders ineducation as well as factors that maintain offenders’ continuedengagement in education are explored. Whilst there are some interrelatingfactors that engage offenders in initial and continued education additionalfactors are also realised. Engaging personality disordered offenders ineducation is important as education has the power to enrich, change anddevelop people (Meek et al, 2012). The findings determine that as well asdeveloping academically, the outcomes of personality disorderedoffenders’ continued engagement in education are increased social skillsand self-awareness, the greatest agent for change. The final conclusionsindicate that personality disordered offenders’ engagement in educationcan be explained through the concept of ‘gradualness’.