Substance Related Offending Behaviour Programme (SROBP): an exploration of gender responsivity and treatment acceptance issues for female prisoners

Substance-related offending poses a considerable problem for society. In response, criminal justice agencies have widely delivered cognitive-behavioural interventions, such as the Substance-Related Offending Behaviour Programme (SROBP), to both male and female offenders often based on assumed gender neutrality. Developing a systematic and ideographically relevant understanding of the treatment efficacy and acceptability issues may help ensure the responsivity of such interventions to the needs of female offenders. Semi-structured interviews were administered to 15 female prisoners who had participated in SROBP and transcripts were analysed using interpretive phenomenological analysis. Three main themes emerged from the analysis: (1) important aspects of recovery, (2) supportive therapeutic processes, and (3) disruptions to therapeutic processes. The benefits of being able to disclose traumatic and adverse life events as well as improvements to motivation were particularly noted. Group functioning and emotional safety concerns were also reported as impacting on these benefits