SOTP
Definition
UK Sex Offender Treatment Programme, the largest structured sex-offender treatment system in England and Wales, withdrawn in 2017 after a Ministry of Justice meta-analysis found null-to-adverse reconviction outcomes.
- Full name
- Sex Offender Treatment Programme (UK)
- Jurisdiction
- England and Wales
- Status
- Withdrawn in 2017
- Reason
- Ministry of Justice meta-analysis found null-to-adverse reconviction outcomes
Common questions
Why was a large, established programme like SOTP withdrawn rather than reformed?+
The 2017 evaluation compared treated and untreated groups and found no reduction in reoffending, with some analyses suggesting slightly worse outcomes in certain subgroups, which was serious enough that the Ministry of Justice discontinued the programme rather than continue delivering an intervention shown not to reduce risk.
What replaced SOTP after its withdrawal?+
UK correctional services moved toward newer risk-need-responsivity and Good Lives Model informed programmes designed and evaluated with more rigorous outcome methodology, reflecting a broader shift in sex-offender treatment away from the older cognitive-behavioural group model SOTP represented.
Related terms
- ATSA
- Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (US); their 2014 practice standards set the international benchmark for assessment, treatment programme design, and...
- Criminogenic Need
- A dynamic risk factor that is causally linked to reoffending and that changes in response to intervention. Distinguished from non-criminogenic needs that...
- Good Lives Model (GLM)
- Tony Ward's strengths-based treatment framework, holding that offending reflects maladaptive pursuit of universal human goods. Effective treatment builds prosocial routes to those...
- Moral Reconation Therapy (MRT)
- Greg Little and Kenneth Robinson's manualized group programme targeting moral reasoning development through structured workbook exercises. Widely used in US corrections; evidence...
- Risk-Need-Responsivity (RNR)
- Andrews and Bonta's three-principle framework for corrections: match treatment intensity to risk level, target criminogenic needs, deliver in a responsive way. The...
- Static-99R
- A 10-item actuarial sex-offender risk instrument; the -R denotes the age-at-release weighting adjustment. Scores map to relative-risk labels (Below Average through Well...
- SVP Civil Commitment
- A US legal mechanism (following Kansas v. Hendricks, 1997) that allows indefinite civil detention of convicted sex offenders assessed as likely to...