Rehabilitating Offenders Flashcards
Adolescent-Limited Offender
A person who commits crimes during adolescence but stops during adulthood
Four Correctional Goals
1) Retribution
2) Deterrence
3) Rehabilitation
4) Incapacitation
Retribution
Revenge; Eye for an eye
Non-utilitarian
Aims to restore moral balance; degree of punishment based on degree of moral outage
Deterrence
Punishment to outweigh rewards of crime.
General and specific deterrence.
Utilitarian - Aims to prevent crime by deterring both offenders and others
Incapacitation
Removal of restraint of offender; Imprisonment.
Utilitarian - Aims to prevent further crime by restraining offenders.
Does not involve punishment - based on risk rather than deservedness.
Rehabilitation
Identifying and re-mediating causes of criminal behaviour.
Utilitarian
General Deterrence
Aims to deter the wider community from committing crime; instills fear into community that they will receive same/similar punishment if they commit same/similar crime as offender
Specific Deterrence
Aims to deter individual offenders from recidivism.
Jeremy Bentham
English rationalist, penal reformer, and designer of the Panopticon
Panopticon
A hexagonal prison; Jeremy Bentham.
Aims to ensure that prisoners can be watched from all angles of the prison
Hollin (1999)
Principles of effective rehabilitation:
1) Indiscriminate targeting is counterproductive - - Select medium/high-risk offenders - - Target criminologenic needs
2) Program type = important
3) Most successful programs behavioural - - but should include cognitive component
4) Programs should engage high level of responsivity
5) Community-based programs more effective than prison-based
6) Effective programs have high treatment integrity
Andrews & Bonta (2003)
Principles of effective rehabilitation:
1) Risk principle
2) Needs principle - - Rehab should target criminogenic needs
3) Responsivity principle - - programs should march offender characteristics (intelligence, readiness etc)
Risk Principle
Priority given to high-risk offenders.
Highest risk offenders should receive highest intensity program - - intensity vary according to risk
How is risk measured?
- Clinical risk assessment
- Actuarial risk assessment
- Empirically-guided assessment
Clinical Risk Assessment
Assessor considers information from range of sources, and estimates risk according to their professional experiences and knowledge of field.
Tends to over-estimate risk.
Structured or unstructured.
Actuarial Risk Assessment
Based only factors known to be statistically related to recidivism
Three types of risk factors - Actuarial
1) Static
2) Dynamic
3) Situational
Static Risk Factors
Historical (ie, age, criminal history etc).
Most reliable, but don’t tell whole story
Dynamic Risk Factors
Changeable individual characteristics (ie, attitudes, psychological etc).
Less reliable
Situational Risk Factors
Less empirical attention.
Dispositional bias? Controversies about moral agency?
Critical for risk management
Strengths of Actuarial Assessment
- Reduces subjective biases
- Risk factors empirically derived
- Risk scales can be tested for reliability and predictive validity
- Generally more accurate than clinical prediction
Limitations of Actuarial Assessment
- Current risk models concentrate on probability
- Lack of theoretical attention
- Problems extrapolating from group-based data to make individual-level predictions
- 4 possible outcomes (true positive, false positive, true negative, false negative)
Sensitivity (Limitation Actuarial Assessment)
The accuracy of the measure in predicting who will reoffend
Specificity (Limitation Actuarial Assessment)
Accuracy of the measure in predicting who will not reoffend
Static 99
A risk assessment tool designed to assist in the prediction of sexual and violent recidivism among adult male sex offenders.
Risk Management Involves…
- Understanding the circs in which risk is increased or decreased
- Investing resources to maximise chances of offender’s success
The Needs Principle
- Treatment should target criminogenic needs
Criminogenic Needs
Factors known to be statistically or theoretically related to recidivism
Non-Criminogenic Needs
Factors which may be commonly observed in offenders but which are not associated with recidivism - - some are targeted in treatment programs
The Responsitivity Principle
Treatment programs and processed should aim to engage high levels of offender responsiveness
- Matching interventions with offender characteristics
- Consider cognitive abilities, literacy, cultural differences, readiness.
- Programs highly structured
Treatment Integrity
Treatment as designed = treatment as delivered