Mental wellbeing, but not prison climate, mediates the association between autistic traits and treatment readiness among men with sexual convictions

Vinter, LP, Harper, CA ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3172-0129, Dillon, G ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3934-3815 and Winder, B ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9118-679X, 2024. Mental wellbeing, but not prison climate, mediates the association between autistic traits and treatment readiness among men with sexual convictions. Journal of Sexual Aggression. ISSN 1355-2600

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Abstract

Research suggests that autistic individuals have qualitatively unique experiences of prison social environments, and that these experiences may have implications for autistic prisoners’ mental wellbeing and engagement with offending behaviour interventions. However, this has yet to be quantitatively tested. Using a sample of 177 adult prisoners from two UK prisons that exclusively house individuals with sexual convictions, this study tested a hypothesised double-mediation model, to investigate associations between autistic traits and prisoners’ readiness to engage with treatment, and whether this was mediated by experiences of the prison social climate and mental wellbeing. Results indicated that prisoners with higher levels of autistic traits had poorer experiences of prison social climates, which, in turn, predicted higher levels of anxiety and depression, which subsequently predicted reduced level readiness to engage with offending behaviour interventions. Implications for research and practice are discussed, emphasising the need for increased autism-related awareness and support provisions in prisons.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Journal of Sexual Aggression
Creators:	Vinter, L.P., Harper, C.A., Dillon, G. and Winder, B.
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
Date:	22 July 2024
ISSN:	1355-2600
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1080/13552600.2024.2378022 DOI 1910802 Other
Rights:	© 2024 the author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Laura Ward
Date Added:	08 Jul 2024 08:35
Last Modified:	19 Aug 2024 15:32
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/51703

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