There are two types of predictors for recidivism: static predictors, such as criminal history, and dynamic predictors, such as antisocial values. Those predictors that can be changed are the predictors that should be targeted by rehabilitation programs. The dynamic factors that can be changed are: antisocial/procriminal attitudes, values, beliefs, and cognitive-emotional states, procriminal associates, isolation from anticriminal others, antisocial personality factors, and dysfunctional family relationships. Those are the factors that should be targeted in rehabilitation programs. Second, is the responsivity principle. The responsivity principle provides that treatment services should be behavioral in nature, because of the efficacy of cognitive-behavioral and social-learning interventions in changing human behavior, particularly those behaviors that are linked to recidivism. "Reinforcements in the program should be largely positive, not negative. And the services should be intensive, lasting three to nine months and occupying 40% to 70% of the offenders' time while they are in the program" (Gendreau, 2011). Third is the...
The risk principle suggests that treatment interventions should be used with higher-risk offenders, and target their dynamic risk factors for change. The prevailing view is that low-risk criminals are a better object for rehabilitation because they may be less invested in criminal behavior, but high-risk offenders can change, and rehabilitation for high-risk offenders offers the best savings for society. Moreover, high-risk offenders have more risk factors to change. The fourth principle is not actually a principle, but simply the idea that other considerations, if addressed, can help increase the effectiveness of a rehabilitation program. These principles include: community-based interventions when possible, well-trained staff, follow-up treatment after the rehabilitation program is completed, and matching the treatment program to an offender's learning style.
Walker (2011) did find, however, that drug courts, which are a new type of diversion program, are yielding promising results. In the end, according to Walker (2011), it is a problem of prediction. As Walker (2011), states "some programs work for some offenders" (p. 277). The problem is accurately identifying which programs work for which offenders. Whereas Walker was concerned with recidivism, Worrall's (2008) definition of rehabilitation includes "intervention that is
Although penologists disagree about how best to achieve the outcome, there is a general consensus that identifying optimal strategies that facilitate offender rehabilitation represents a valuable and timely enterprise at all levels of the criminal justice system. Various models for this purpose have emerged in recent years, including most especially the good lives model and the risk/need/responsivity model. This paper provides a critical analysis of three primary journal research papers
While its goals may be commendable, restorative justice is nevertheless a disaggregated model. Uniting relational justice, participative or consensual justice and changing or improvement justice, restorative justice has become a concept that has something for everyone (Wilson, 2012). The Case for Rehabilitation The Attack on the Rehabilitative Ideal A premise that has endured all through the history of American corrections is that labors should be put forth to reform those who commit
Difficulties Empirical research is necessarily designed to provide a workable framework through which a researcher may test a hypothesized explanation for observable phenomena, but the two primary branches of scientific inquiry differ greatly in terms of the analytical scope and style employed throughout an experiment. While quantitative research is capable of recording, sorting and analyzing voluminous amounts of numerical data, from credit card usage rates for various tax brackets to
Punishment Compared With the Effectiveness of Rehabilitation For most people within the criminal justice system, as well as society at large, rehabilitation and punishment are two choices which must be taken, rather than taking their synonymous meanings. They give the impression to be like possible synonyms or ways to refer to same processes. Is punishment rehabilitation? Or alternatively, is rehabilitation punishment (McNeill, forthcoming)? The supporters of rehabilitation view offending etched in
Rehabilitation for Juvenile Offenders Discipline, punishment and prisons are in many ways as old as the history of humanity. Nearly every society has had some form of confinement or some method of punishing those who break the laws of society. The modern world, however, has experimented heavily with the concept and notion of discipline and punishment, along with the programs and methodologies inherent within these two things. However, the issue
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