Professor Theresa Gannon

Theresa's main research interests are in the areas of arson or firesetting and sexual offending.

Over the past few years Theresa has developed two empirically based standardised treatment programmes for offenders who have set fires: The Firesetting Intervention Programme for Prisoners (FIPP) and the Firesetting Intervention Programme for Mentally Disordered Offenders (FIP-MO). The FIPP is being run across prisons in England and the FIP-MO is being run nationally across the UK within private hospitals and the NHS. The long-term results of the FIP are currently being evaluated to examine whether they reduce firesetting behaviour. In 2016, Theresa and team were awarded the ESRC's outstanding impact in society award.

Theresa has recently published the first theory dedicated to explaining the development of pedophilia, the Compositional Explanatory Theory of Pedophilia (CEToP). She is interested in research examining the origins of pedophilia and the associated treatment implications. Theresa is also interested in treatment effectiveness. In 2019, she published a large meta-analysis with colleagues examining the effectiveness of offence specific treatments of individuals who have engaged in sexual offending, general violence and intimate partner violence. Theresa is passionate about research with the aim of improving treatment effectiveness in individuals who have offended.

Over the years, Theresa has conducted research examining both male and female sexual offending. She has examined offence supportive beliefs and cognitions within these populations and has also developed methods of increasing honest disclosures in men who have sexually offended. In 2010, she and her CORE-FP colleagues won a Ministry of Justice tender to evaluate mandatory polygraph testing for individuals who had sexually offended and were released on license in the UK. As a result of their research, new legislation was passed to allow polygraph testing for men who had sexually offended in the UK. More recently, Theresa co-led a team to evaluate polygraph testing implemented by the police for individuals either suspected of or convicted of sexual offences. The police crime, sentencing and courts bill will be enacted in November 2022. Currently 14 police forces are using the polygraph in their supervision of individuals.

• Arson and firesetting
• Sexual offending and pedophilia
• Rehabilitation and treatment of individuals who have offended
• Applied cognitive experimental psychology

Anything that falls under Theresa's research interests above. 

Current research students

• Becky McNeill (1st Supervisor) - Biological or Environmental? An exploration of the validity of the Compositional Explanatory Theory of Paedophilia (CEToP)    

Past research students

• Lea Kamitz (2024) - The intimate partners of people who have sexually offended

• Victoria Lister (2023) - Investigating the offense pathways, risk factors and correlates of voyeuristic behaviour

• Katie Sambrooks (2023) - Using virtual reality technology with fire setters   

• Dr Samuel Hales: Reducing sexual aggression in male university students: A study of self-help inventions (2022) (ESRC Funded)    
• Dr Helen Butler: An investigation of fire expertise, fire scripts, and fire interest in male incarcerated firesetters (2018)
• Becky Wyatt, MPhil: The development of a risk assessment for mentally disordered firesetters (2018)
• Dr Katarina Mozova: Towards a social psychology framework of youth group membership: An exploratory study (2nd supervisor) (2017)
• Dr Emma Barrowcliffe: Identifying and assessing the characteristics of unapprehended fire setters living in the general population (2017)
• Dr Magali Barnoux: Qualitative investigation of firesetting in male prisoners (2015)
• Dr Nichola Tyler: An evaluation of mentally disordered firesetters (2015)
• Dr Emily Blake: The social cognitions of rapists and rape prone men (2013)
• Dr Kirsten Keown (Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand) obtained her PhD in 2009. Kirsten’s PhD investigated the offence-supportive beliefs (or cognitive distortions) of male child molesters using cognitive-experimental tasks such as the lexical decision task. Email her to find out more: keownkirs@student.vuw.ac.nz.

• Registered Forensic Practitioner Psychologist, Health Professions Council (Registration Number PYL06748).
• Chartered Forensic Psychologist (C.Psychol Forensic), British Psychological Society, UK.
• Consultant Forensic Psychologist, Kent Forensic Psychiatry Services, UK.
• Elected fellow of the ATSA
• Elected fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences

Grants and Awards over £50,000

Editor Roles

Editorial Board Member