Transcript Psychology and Crime

Treatment Programmes
Aim:
To examine the use of an offender treatment
programmes and its effectiveness
Learning Objectives:
By the end of these sessions you will be able to:
Describe and evaluate Ireland’s (2000) study
Describe and evaluate anger management
treatment programmes
After a Guilty
Verdict Treatment
Programmes
Anger
Management
Breakdown of Sessions
12 x 1hour over 3 days
•Session 1 : Content of sessions, rules of the course. Importance of
using anger diaries.
•Session 2: Triggers for angry behaviour, understanding the
consequences of temper loss. Anger Management Therapy With
Young Male Offenders 183
•Session 3: Cycle of angry behaviour, importance of body language
in signalling anger.
•Session 4: Replacing aggressive body language with nonaggressive body language.
•Session 5: Importance of thoughts. Using ‘non-angry’ thoughts. The
parts of an angry incident i.e. before, during and after.
* Session 6: Using non-angry thoughts before, during and after angry
incidents. Importance of self-praise following avoidance of angerloss.
•Session 7: Importance of bodily arousal in relation to
angry behaviour. Learning how to wind down.
•Session 8: Relaxation techniques to help cope with
feeling wound-up.
•Session 9: Choosing how you behave towards others.
•Session 10: Learning to express anger assertively.
•Session 11: Recognising and dealing with criticisms and
insults. Peer group pressure and how to deal with this.
* Session 12: Identifying high-risk situations and
lapse/relapse
Aim
To assess whether anger-management programmes work
within a group of young male offenders
Procedure
Quasi experiment - Two groups
Experimental Group
(50 participants)
Received CALM anger
management programme
Control Group
(37 participants)
No intervention or
treatment programme
Procedure
Each participant was measured on the following...
1. Their responses to a cognitive behavioural interview
2. Wing Behavioural Checklist (WBC) - Completed by
prison officers rating 29 angry behaviours
3. Anger Management Assessment (AMA) - A selfreport questionnaire on anger management with 53
items completed by the prisoners themselves
Sample
 50 prisoners who had completed an anger
management course and a control group of 37
prisoners who had been assessed as suitable for such a
course but had not actually completed one.
Results: There was a significant reduction in prison wing-based
aggression in the experimental group but not in the control group.
Prisoners who had completed CALM rated themselves lower on the
AMA questionnaire and were rated lower on the WBC by the prison
officers.
There was no significant reduction in either of these measures in
the control group.
92% of the treatment group showed improvements on at least one
measure of aggression, 48% showed improvement on both measures.
8% showed no improvement or deterioration on both measures.
Conclusion
The CALM programme seemed effective and prisoners
appeared to be helped by the programme.
However, there is no re-offending data so it is unclear
whether these programmes have a long-term effect.
Also, the fact that 8% of prisoners appeared to get
worse requires investigation.
Method – Quasi Experiment
This allows a cause and effect relationship to be inferred
as we can assess the offenders’ aggressive behaviours before
and after the intervention
However, there is a lack of control over other extraneous
variables which may have affected inmates’ anger such as
relationships with other inmates, news from family, etc.
Some ecological validity as carried out in the institutional
setting, however it is unclear whether these results apply
when prisoners are released
Method – (cont’d...)
It wasn’t possibly to randomly assign participants to each
group, so they couldn’t be matched on variables such as
age or offence type
There are inherent difficulties in using self-reports in a
forensic setting where there may be clear incentives for
individuals to appear successful following treatment e.g.,
for parole purposes
Sample
The sample comprised all male young offenders (mean
age of 18-19 years) in a young offenders’ institution serving
sentences of less than 3 months on average.
Therefore, the results cannot be generalised to other
settings and groups such as female offenders, released
offenders or those in a prison.
Reductionism vs. holism
This study is reductionist as only looks at the effect that
the CALM intervention has on aggressive behaviour. Many
other factors can potentially influence aggressive behaviour.
Situational vs. individual explanations
This study suggests that completing the CALM programme
will reduce aggressive behaviour. Is it the prison situation
that causes this effect due to prisoners wanting early
release? Or has the individual’s behaviour changed for
good? Unsure, as there is no re-offending data.
Results (cont.)
 Quantitative data:
 70% reduction in drug related incidents from six
months pre treatment to six months post treatment.
 41% reduction in serious incident reports.
 42% reduction in positive drug testing results
(mandatory).
 33% reduction in positive drug test results (voluntary).
Watch the Louis Theroux clip
and design a treatment
programme to improve the
conditions of living in Miami
County Jail.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px2kTQKZaSU
Evaluate the effectiveness of
your proposal.