2 Literature Review Arlenn Campos Department of forensic psychology Northcentral University PSY- 6510 V3 : Capstone in forensic psychology Dr. John Mitchell October 20, 2022 Introduction The Efficacy of Psychological Treatments for Violent Offenders in Correctional. A. Who Are the Treatments for In a Correctional Facility? In terms of its consequences on victims, the life quality for violators, and the financial impact it places on correctional facilities, the healthcare system, and society as a whole, violence is a serious global public health issue. According to research, a very small percentage of habitually aggressive people is liable for a disproportionately large number of violent episodes.  These individuals are often jailed or, in the case of those with mental illness, confined in secure facilities for the goal of incapacitating and rehabilitating them. Up to 70% of prison inmates, hospitalized offenders, and felons under supervision in the community in affluent countries are violent offenders, as well as clinical psychologists are frequently depended upon to handle the rehabilitative requirements of those deemed at danger of future violence. In recent years, there has been a global explosion in the creation and execution of programs addressing offender behavior (Bartol & Bartol. 2019). These efforts are the result of comprehensive meta-analytic as well as primary research demonstrating that these programs may significantly lower a criminal's likelihood to commit more offenses. Widely referred to as the "what works" or risk-need-responsivity model to offender rehabilitation, the most effective programs conform to core, empirically proven service delivery criteria (Andrews & Bonta, 2010). 1. Drug Addictions Definition "A curable, chronic medical condition involving intricate interactions amongst neural pathways, genetics, the surroundings, and a person's life experiences," is how the American Society of Addiction Medicine describes addiction. Addicts abuse drugs or engage in activities that quickly become obsessive and, most of the time, continue doing so despite the fact that they are having negative effects on their lives. Many individuals, although not all, start taking drugs or participating in activities freely at some point in their lives. On the other hand, addiction has the potential to diminish one's capacity for self-control. 2. Offenders’ Definition The criminal justice system labels violent offenders among the most serious criminals because they have been apprehended, found guilty, and even incarcerated for felony crimes like robbery, aggravated battery, sexual violence and spousal abuse, rape, and even murder (Woody, 2019)). Offenders who committed violent crimes either possessed, owned, or utilized a firearm or other potentially lethal weapon, which resulted in the victim's death or significant physical damage. According to the findings of a study (Conis & Delisi, 201.

1. 2
Literature Review
Arlenn Campos
Department of forensic psychology
Northcentral University
PSY- 6510 V3 : Capstone in forensic psychology
Dr. John Mitchell
October 20, 2022
Introduction
The Efficacy of Psychological Treatments for Violent Offenders
in Correctional.
A.
Who Are the Treatments for In a Correctional Facility?
In terms of its consequences on victims, the life quality for
violators, and the financial impact it places on correctional
facilities, the healthcare system, and society as a whole,
violence is a serious global public health issue. According to
research, a very small percentage of habitually aggressive
people is liable for a disproportionately large number of violent

2. episodes. These individuals are often jailed or, in the case of
those with mental illness, confined in secure facilities for the
goal of incapacitating and rehabilitating them. Up to 70% of
prison inmates, hospitalized offenders, and felons under
supervision in the community in affluent countries are violent
offenders, as well as clinical psychologists are frequently
depended upon to handle the rehabilitative requirements of
those deemed at danger of future violence. In recent years, there
has been a global explosion in the creation and execution of
programs addressing offender behavior (Bartol & Bartol. 2019).
These efforts are the result of comprehensive meta-analytic as
well as primary research demonstrating that these programs may
significantly lower a criminal's likelihood to commit more
offenses. Widely referred to as the "what works" or risk-need-
responsivity model to offender rehabilitation, the most effective
programs conform to core, empirically proven service delivery
criteria (Andrews & Bonta, 2010).
1.
Drug Addictions Definition
"A curable, chronic medical condition involving intricate
interactions amongst neural pathways, genetics, the
surroundings, and a person's life experiences," is how the
American Society of Addiction Medicine describes addiction.
Addicts abuse drugs or engage in activities that quickly become
obsessive and, most of the time, continue doing so despite the
fact that they are having negative effects on their lives. Many
individuals, although not all, start taking drugs or participating
in activities freely at some point in their lives. On the other
hand, addiction has the potential to diminish one's capacity for
self-control.
2.
Offenders’ Definition
The criminal justice system labels violent offenders among the
most serious criminals because they have been apprehended,
found guilty, and even incarcerated for felony crimes like
robbery, aggravated battery, sexual violence and spousal abuse,

3. rape, and even murder (Woody, 2019)). Offenders who
committed violent crimes either possessed, owned, or utilized a
firearm or other potentially lethal weapon, which resulted in the
victim's death or significant physical damage. According to the
findings of a study (Conis & Delisi, 2011), individuals who
commit violent crimes have personality traits that are more
psychopathological in essence.
B.
Psychology Treatment for Offenders
Background History
Presently, there is a lack of standardized evaluation measures,
and comprehensive evaluation is instead dependent on clinical
expertise and tradition (CSC, 1995). Questions are adapted from
a person's early life and growth to the specifics of the most
recent crime. The offending chain or problem behavior process
(Ward et al. 1995) serves as the organizational framework, with
assessment subjects organized around the purpose of
comprehending the function of cognitive, affective,
developmental, social/contextual, and behavioral factors and
interrelations as they impact the offending in question and as
each offending pattern continues to unfold over time
(Polaschek, 2019). There are, nevertheless, a number of
alternative helpful evaluation frameworks exists. The purpose
of these assessment is to create a personalized case synthesis
for the offender that can be used to evaluate the offender's
rehabilitation progress and outcomes in light of their evaluated
treatment needs, if the offender is receiving treatment
independently, as part of a group "package," or some combo of
the two. Assessment is now driven by medical practice,
research, and conjecture regarding the applicability of needs
assessment along with other offending groups to violent
offenders, but no empirically generated criminogenic needs
evaluations have been undertaken for this population (Howells
et al. 1997).
Psychological Interventions for Individuals with a past of
violent crime are talk-based programs that employ

4. psychological concepts to interfere in the participants' ideas,
emotions, and actions. These treatments are intended for adults
who have a history of committing violent crimes. Adults who
have a history (either self-reported or recorded by law
enforcement) of violent crime, including sexual assault and
domestic violence, are the primary target population for these
types of therapy. The purpose of psychological therapy is to
bring about a reduction in aggressive, violent, or antisocial
conduct.
Ii. Treatments In a Correctional Facility
Several different types of organized psychotherapies make up
the psychological therapy arsenal. Programs that aim to reduce
violence comprise those that use cognitive-behavioral therapy,
anger management techniques, dialectical-behavioral therapy,
schema-focused therapy, and other similar approaches.
Correctional institutions, community corrections programs, and
parolees all get these treatments, as do inmates at forensic
psychiatric hospitals and patients seen in outpatient clinics.
There is considerable flexibility in the treatment timetable,
which may last anywhere from 16-300 hours.
According to Travers et al. 2013, enhanced thinking skills is
one such initiative. Inmates at medium to high risk, as well as
those at extreme risk, are the focus of this cognitive-behavioral
skills training program. Its goal is to reduce recidivism by
improving its participants' ways of thinking and memory.
Various mental processes, including impulse regulation,
cognitive flexibility, value as well as critical reasoning, moral
reasoning, relational problem-solving skills and social
perspective taking are all directly or indirectly addressed in the
therapy.
III. Effect on Offender in Correctional Facility
A.
How Each Treatment Works for Each Person in
Correction
Offender
Many of the claims that "nothing works" are debunked by

5. current meta-analyses of prisoner rehabilitation programs,
which also provide useful advice on the basic concepts
associated with successful correctional programming. In an
influential review of the research on correctional rehabilitation,
Cullen and associate (1989) verify that differential association,
cognitive models, social learning theory, skills training and
behavioral systems, along with family counseling, are among
the most efficacious theoretical bases for initiatives. Anti-
criminal role models, problem solving, tapping into available
community resources, fostering strong interpersonal bonds,
enforcing rules firmly but fairly, promoting a sense of self-
efficacy and competence, and preventing relapse are all vital
parts of any successful intervention. There was a strong
correlation between unsuccessful intervention strategies and
non-directive techniques, punishment models, disincentive, and
medical model strategies (Wylie et al. 2018).
The systematic development and evaluation of treatments to
reduce violent crime have not historically received the same
level of financing as those aimed at reducing sexual offenses
against minors. Even while violent offender programs are
springing up all over the world, notably there aren't many
outcome analyses to help shape their future growth, and many
of them have methodological flaws (Hernandez-Garcia, 2019).
But a few of research in both the adolescent and adult fields
provide pointers for creating effective treatment programs.
Studies with better methodology, programs that seem to be
focusing on high-risk instead of low-risk offenders, and
programs with more than one therapy component have been
given preference here. Programs like this are often delivered in
a group setting, or in a hybrid setting that combines group and
individual elements. Browne and Howells provide a method for
treating violent offenders that is solely dependent on the details
of each case (1996). Guidelines for evaluating programs are
provided by Van Voorhis et al (1995).
Programs for Troubled Youth Secondary and tertiary preventive
programs for violent or at-risk kids show promise. Anger

6. management, social skills, and empathy training are only few of
the topics included in the comprehensive behavioral skills
program designed by Goldstein and his associates. For a wide
variety of individuals and settings, such as imprisoned violent
youths and teenage gangs, numerous evaluations, as reported by
Goldstein and Glick (1994), recommend that Aggression
Replacement Training (ART) does have the potential to
influence improvements in participants on a variety of
applicable outcome indices. The EQUIP programme (Gibbs,
Potter, & Goldstein, 1995) is a more recent approach that
combines a peer-helping group context with social and cognitive
information processing skills drawn from Goldstein's ART and
Prepare (Goldstein, 1988) curricula, and Yochelson and
Samenow's (1977) collaborate.
Psychological help for adult offenders who use violence is often
tailored to each offender's specific needs (Browne & Howells,
1996), or it focuses on the correlation between aggression and
resentment (Hollin & Howells, 1989). To make matters worse,
there has not been a good enough conceptual framework to
guide the construction of theoretically consistent programmes.
Even though there is a lack of evidence on the effectiveness of
inmate violence treatments, low impact anger management
(AM) sessions have been available in New Zealand prisons for
over a decade. This pattern has also been seen in other
incarcerated groups. Most of these programs adhere to the stress
inoculation-coping skills model proposed by Novaco (1975,
1977). This may be due to Novaco's extensive theoretical
foundation for anger and aggressiveness (Novaco & Welsh,
1989).
Substance Abuse
MI was created by Miller and Rollnick (1991) as a method for
inspiring transformation in alcoholics and other addicts. This
method employs techniques that promote showing empathy,
minimizing arguing against the need for change, and addressing
any lingering reluctance about making the desired adjustments.
Multiple systematic reviews (e.g., Vasilaki et al.) and individual

7. studies all lend credence to the efficacy of MI both as a primary
therapy and as an adjunct to more intense programs (2006).
Interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) is a comparable method that
has shown promise in treating drug abuse outside of the
criminal justice system. When it comes to helping people
overcome addiction, interpersonal skills training (IPT) and
mediation training (MI) are quite comparable.
Outcomes Of the Treatment
Robinson (1995) reports outcomes on a sample of 2125
prisoners who had been undergoing community supervision for
at most a year after their release from prison. The offenders
were all subject to the supervision program. Out of these
individuals, 67.9 % had successfully completed the program,
14.2 % had left the program, and 17.8 % were controls who had
not been treated. In the first year after completing the program,
there was a readmission rate of 44.5 % for program graduates
and 50.1% for those on the waiting list. There were no changes
in terms of technical parole breaches between untreated and
treated individuals; however, there was a 20% decrease in
formal reconvictions for program completers. With the
exception of robbers, for whom the rates of recidivism remained
steady, the number of violent criminals who were reconvicted
decreased by around 35 percent. The program was most
successful with low-risk offenders, and Robinson came to the
conclusion that this was due to the fact that only reasonably
high-risk offenders are alluded to the program.
As a result, even the inmates with the lowest risk who were
included in the sample were still considered high-risk offenders
in comparison to the rest of the community corrections
population. The Vermont Department of Corrections offers a
cognitive-based program called Cognitive Self Change (CSC)
for both male and female violent offenders. Attitudes, ideas,
and ways of thinking that justify violent acts are the ones this
addresses. Inmates and parole officers get specialized training
to facilitate the program's three stages, during which they lead
groups. Results from the last several years show that program

8. participants who stick with it for more than six months see a
dramatic drop in parole violations and re-arrests. At 3 years,
45.5percent had relapsed, relative to 76.75% in the untreated
group.
What Can We Do to Improve the System with Treatments?
After looking at the current alternatives for violent offenders,
RN-R stood up as the most beneficial for both the victim and
the offender (Kurjata, 2019). When compared to other
approaches to psychological care, CBT places a greater
emphasis on evidence (Jeglic, 2015). According to Long et al.
(2019) forensic psychologists have shown that CBT techniques
are more helpful for trauma victims because they alleviate
symptoms of despair and anxiety. Offenders seem to make
better progress in programs that employ a psychoeducational
approach. This allows individuals to see things from a new
perspective by allowing them to respond to aggression in a
manner other than they typically would. Treatment programs for
ex-offenders should be made available since they may help
minimize the likelihood of recidivism (Long, 2019).
Why Incorporates TIC
Enhanced resilience and empowerment for a better quality of
life are achievable outcomes of learning to include evaluations
and implementing TIC in a range of contexts, including state
education, healthcare systems, and penal institutions (Bartlett et
al., 2018). The promise of TIC to empower individuals,
societies, and families worldwide and to enable people who
have endured trauma to alter their anticipated paths is immense.
To maintain equilibrium in the face of life's inevitable
disruptions, people need to develop adaptive skills like TIC.
Dana (2021) states that for individuals incarcerated, TIC
provides a solid groundwork for development, integrity, and
future paths. If helping people is really the primary goal, then
the patients should be given the opportunity to grow from their
experiences with trauma and error with the help of TIC.
Moreover, integrating TIC, which is based on research and
reading comprehension, may help us create more efficient and

9. useful programs as per Gifford (2019) findings.
Conclusion
In summary, a number of promising approaches for expanding
programming to address violent crime have been identified via
analysis of current initiatives. The vast majority of these
interventions are cognitive-behavioral and include a variety of
strategies to combat violent tendencies, including the correction
of erroneous beliefs and the development of more realistic
perspectives. Management or an independent relapse prevention
process could be included, as well as preemptive treatments to
boost motivation and treatment responsiveness. There is still
have a long way to go before correction facilities can create
interventions for violent offenders. Assessment batteries (self-
report survey questions, vignette and role-playing) that are
adequate to evaluate treatment variations and scientifically
associated with reoffending; violent offenders' comprehensive
needs assessments; risk measures that distinguish between
overall reoffending and violent recidivism are all areas that
require improvement for this diverse population (Long, 2019).
Lastly, as more studies are conducted, it becomes clearer that
TIC is essential for all inmates, not just those on probation.

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