Sex offenders to get lessons in intimacy and help with self-esteem

• Angus Sinclair, 64, serial rapist and murderer, currently serving life for the killing of Glasgow teenager Mary Gallacher. He is a prime suspect in the World's End murders. Picture: Donald MacLeod

As part of a new approach to rehabilitation, sex offenders will be taught the appropriate social skills to attain friendship and self-esteem. Some offenders including rapists and paedophiles will also be offered prescription drugs, including anti-libidinals to suppress their sex drive, and anti-depressants such as Prozac in order to allow them to better engage with group therapy sessions.

The new programme, called "Good Lives" will expand on previous programmes which taught prisoners which situations to avoid but will now acknowledge that they share common human needs and aspirations with the rest of society.

Under the new regime, Scotland's imprisoned sex offenders will be dispersed from Peterhead prison, which currently operates a sex offender programme described as a "world centre of excellence" to prisons across the country. This is because Peterhead, which was built in 1888, will be closed in 2014 and replaced by a new prison, HMP Grampian.

The new "Good Lives" system will replace the Sex Offender Treatment Programme (SOTP) as it is now considered outdated and too rigid because each part of the programme can last up to eight months. Based on a scheme developed in New Zealand by Tony Ward, a clinical and forensic psychologist, the new programme will involve groups of eight men working with psychologists and prison officers to address the cause of their offending behaviour.

Allyson Campbell, senior psychologist at Peterhead said: "Typically, sex offender programmes were based around risk and how to avoid certain risks but people become sex offenders because they are trying to achieve the same things as the rest of the population but don't have the skills to get what it is they need. Someone who commits offences against a child might have intimacy needs that they don't know how to meet. We want to see how we can develop their skills so they can approach adults."

Peterhead Prison currently holds 300 sex offenders serving four years or more, including Robert Foye who raped a 16-year-old girl in 2007 after absconding from Castle Huntly open prison.

Offenders can refuse to participate in sex offender programmes but the new system is expected to involve more inmates as it works in short modules. Since 2000, 430 offenders have finished the SOTP programme which can take years to complete.

Bill Aitken, the Tory justice spokesman, raised concerns about the new programme. He said: "I am concerned about certain aspects of these proposals. Sex offenders are very devious and they could be training them in how to establish contacts with potential victims.

"They also have the capacity to reoffend and we need to be very careful – many might feel that whilst cutting reoffending is vitally important, protection of potential victims is a greater priority."

A spokesman for the Scottish Prison Service said: "The new scheme will begin in July."

Analysis: We must find the root cause of their behaviour

Adrianna Irvine

IF we wish to stop sex offenders from committing further heinous abuses, we need to find out what went wrong with them in the first place. The environmental disaster in America is apparent from the hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil lapping darkly upon the shoreline, but in order to fix the problem, BP needs to drill down miles beneath the surface to fix the leak. If they don't do that, they will continually be forced to deal with the end result.

It is the same with sex offenders. Unless we spend the time, money and resources drilling down into their psyche to find the root cause of their behaviour, we will continually be forced to deal with the end result: more victims. The new sex offenders programme in Scotland acknowledges such criminals have common needs and will look at offering them the appropriate social skills to attain intimacy, friendship and better self-esteem.

Psychologists have treatment programmes for sex offenders that go some way towards helping but don't necessarily peel back all the layers and start at the beginning and help re-educate them completely.

Sex offending comes from a sex addiction. The problem is an attachment disorder – something went wrong in the family of origin, usually sexual abuse, and at a very early age. This is not an excuse, but a reason. What one wants is to help them integrate these incredibly difficult feelings into their lives. Their behaviour has become a problem for society, but to the offender this behaviour will be a solution to his own needs that have remained unmet.

Will it work in prisons? I certainly think we can try, but there are no guarantees.

• Adrianna Irvine is a psychotherapist in private practice who has also worked in prisons.