1st Edition

The Future of Correctional Rehabilitation Moving Beyond the RNR Model and Good Lives Model Debate

By Ronen Ziv Copyright 2018
    234 Pages
    by Routledge

    234 Pages
    by Routledge

    In the aftermath of Martinson’s 1974 "nothing works" doctrine, scholars have made a concerted effort to develop an evidence-based corrections theory and practice to show "what works" to change offenders. Perhaps the most important contribution to this effort was made by a group of Canadian psychologists, most notably Donald Andrews, James Bonta, and Paul Gendreau, who developed a treatment paradigm called the Risk-Need-Responsivity (RNR) model, which became the dominant theory of correctional treatment. This approach was more recently challenged by a perspective developed by Tony Ward, Shadd Maruna, and others, called the Good Lives Model (GLM). Based in part on desistance research and positive psychology, this model proposes to rehabilitate offenders by building on the strengths offenders possess. GLM proponents see the RNR model as a deficit model that fixes dynamic risk factors rather than identifying what offenders value most, and using these positive factors to pull them out of crime.

    Through a detailed examination of both models’ theoretical and correctional frameworks, The Future of Correctional Rehabilitation: Moving Beyond the RNR Model and Good Lives Model Debate probes the extent to which the models offer incompatible or compatible approaches to offender treatment, and suggests how to integrate the RNR and GLM approaches to build a new and hopefully more effective vision for offender treatment. A foreword by renowned criminologist Francis T. Cullen helps put the material into context. This book will be of much interest to scholars and students studying correctional rehabilitation as well as practitioners working with offenders.

    CONTENTS

    LIST OF TABLES

    FOREWORD:  Francis T. Cullen

    ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

    PART I. BEYOND NOTHING WORKS

    CHAPTER 1: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE REHABILITATIVE IDEAL

    The Discovery of the Rehabilitative Ideal

    The Dominance of the Rehabilitative Ideal

    The Decline of the Rehabilitative Ideal

    Conservative and Liberal Attacks

    Martinson and the Nothing Works Doctrine

    Conclusion

    CHAPTER 2: REAFFIRMING REHABILITATION

    Narrative Reviews

    Palmer’s Reanalysis

    Gendreau and Ross’s Two Reviews

    Meta-Analyses

    Overall Effect Size

    Heterogeneity in Effect Size

    Two Approaches to Knowing What Works

    Lipsey’s Inductive Approach

    The Canadians’ Theoretical Approach

    Drawing Conclusions on What Works

    Conclusion

     

     

     

     

    PART II. THE RISK-NEED-RESPONSIVITY MODEL

    CHAPTER 3: THE THEORETICAL FOUNDATION OF THE RNR MODEL

    The Psychology of Criminal Conduct (PCC)

    Understanding Human Behavior: The GPCSL Perspective

    Bringing in Criminology to the GPCSL Perspective

    Differential Association Theory

    Psychodynamic Theory

    Social Bond Theory

    General Strain Theory (GST)

    The PIC-R Perspective: Criminality in the Immediate Situation

    Basic Operations of Behavior

    The Directions and Magnitude of Effects on Behavior

    Other General Issues Suggested by the PIC-R

    PIC-R and Offender Assessment

    PIC-R and Crime Prevention

    Introduction to the Risk-Need-Responsivity Principles

    Beyond Mainstream Criminology

    Searching for Factors That Matter in Offender Rehabilitation1

    Preservice Characteristics of Offenders

    Characteristics of Correctional Workers

    Practice Factors

    Program Factors

    Setting Factors

    Intermediate Outcomes

    Conclusion

    CHAPTER 4: THE PRINCIPLES OF EFFECTIVE CORRECTIONAL

    TREATMENT: THEORY AND TECHNOLOGY

    The RNR Model of Correctional Assessment and Treatment

    Principle 1: Respect for the Person and the Normative Context

    Principle 2: Psychological Theory

    Principle 3: General Enhancement of Crime Prevention Services

    Principle 4: Introduce Human Service

    Principle 5: Risk

    Principle 6: Need

    Principle 7: General Responsivity

    Principle 8: Specific Responsivity

    Principle 9: Breadth (or Multimodal)

    Principle 10: Strength

    Principle 11: Structured Assessment

    Principle 12: Professional Discretion

    Principle 13: Community-Based

    Principle 14: Core Correctional Staff Practice

    Principle 15: Management

    RNR-Based Technology of Treatment

    RNR-Based Assessment Tools to Predict Criminal Behavior and Classify Offenders

    The Importance of Assessment

    The Level of Service-Revised (LSI-R)

    RNR-Based Assessment Tools to Predict the Quality of Correctional Programs

    The Development of Assessment Tools

    The Ideal Capacity of Correctional Programs

    The Ideal Content of Correctional Program

    Conclusion

    PART III. THE GOOD LIVES MODEL

    CHAPTER 5: THE THEORETICAL FOUNDATION OF THE GOOD

    LIVES MODEL

    Beyond Deficits: Building on the Positive

    Humanistic Psychology

    Positive Psychology

    Strength-Based Approach

    The General Assumptions of the Good Lives Model

    Assumption 1: As human beings, "offenders share the same inclinations and

    basic needs as other people and are naturally predisposed to seek certain

    goals, or primary human goods"

    Assumption 2: "rehabilitation is a value-laden process and involves a variety of

    different types of value."

    Assumption 3: correctional interventions that address both goods promotion and

    risk reduction will produce better outcomes than intervention that neglect either

    of these aims

    Assumption 4: the process of rehabilitation requires a construction of adaptive

    narrative (or personal) identity

    Assumption 5: "Human beings are multifaceted beings comprised of a variety of interconnected biological, social, cultural and psychological systems, and are interdependent to a significant degree"

    Assumption 6: Risk is a multifaceted and contextualized concept

    Assumption 7: "A treatment plan should be explicitly constructed in a form…[that]

    take into account individuals’ strengths, primary goods and relevant environments,

    and specify exactly what competencies and resources are required to achieve these goods"

    Assumption 8: Rehabilitative efforts that secure the offenders’ human dignity are protected and promoted by offenders’ human rights

    The Etiological Assumptions of the Good Lives Model

    Etiological Assumption 1: "individuals seek a number of primary goods in their offending"

    Etiological Assumption 2: criminogenic needs are "internal or external obstacles that frustrate and block the acquisition of primary human goods"

    Etiological Assumption 3: "there are different routes to offending, direct and

    indirect"

    Conclusion

    CHAPTER 6: BUILDING GOOD LIVES THROUGH CORRECTIONAL

    INTERVENTION

    Domain 1: Program Aims and Orientation

    Principle 1: "The aims of the treatment program include both risk reduction and well-being enhancement"

    Domain 2: Offender Assessment

    Principle 2: Treatment programs should assess the offender’s level of risk, therapeutic needs (i.e., treatment targets), and responsivity factors

    Principle 3: GLM-informed assessment should identify offender’s heavily weighted primary goods

    Principle 4: Correctional interventions should assess the full aspects of primary

    Goods

    Domain 3: Intervention Planning

    Principle 5: Correctional interventions should construct individualized

    intervention plans

    Domain 4: Intervention Content

    Principle 6: All program components/modules/assignments should "attend to goods promotion alongside risk reduction." The end product of the therapeutic process should be a future-oriented Good Lives Plan

    Principle 7: Program content should "attend to the full range of primary goods"

    Principle 8: Programs should promote offenders’ "social capital through attending to [their] social ecology"

    Domain 5: Program Delivery

    Principle 9: Therapists should "approach clients in a manner that acknowledges their status as fellow human beings, of equal intrinsic value"

    Principle 10: Therapists should deliver programs with a "collaborative and transparent approach to assessment, intervention planning, and intervention

    content"

    Principle 11: The "intensity, content, and process of intervention [should be] individually tailored"

    The Empirical Status of the GLM

    Evaluations Without Any Comparison Group

    Evaluations With a Comparison Group

    Conclusion

    PART IV. THE FUTURE OF REHABILITATION

    CHAPTER 7: THE RNR-GLM DABATE

    The Chronicle of the RNR-GLM Debate

    The Incremental Value of the GLM’s Theoretical Framework

    Controversial Issue 1: The Role of Offender Motivation in Rehabilitation

    Controversial Issue 2: The Role of Values in Offender Rehabilitation

    Controversial Issue 3: The Role of Needs in Offender Rehabilitation

    Controversial Issue 4: The Role of Risk in Offender Rehabilitation

    Controversial Issue 5: The Role of Contextual Factors in Offender Rehabilitation

    Controversial Issue 6: The Role of Personality in Offender Rehabilitation

    Controversial Issue 7: The Role of Human Agency in Offender Rehabilitation

    The Correctional Framework of the RNR-GLM Debate

    The Psychological Theories within the RNR-GLM Debate

    Domain 1: The RNR-GLM Debate and the RNR’s Core Principles

    The Provision of Human Service within the RNR-GLM Debate

    The Adherence to the Risk Principle within the RNR-GLM Debate

    The Adherence to the Need Principle within the RNR-GLM Debate

    The Adherence to the General Responsivity Principle within the RNR-GLM

    Debate

    The Specific Responsivity Principle within the RNR-GLM Debate

    Domain 2: The RNR-GLM Debate and the RNR’s Key Clinical Issue

    The Breadth Principle within the RNR-GLM Debate

    The Strength Principle within the RNR-GLM Debate

    The Structured Assessment Principle within the RNR-GLM Debate

    The Professional Discretion Principle within the RNR-GLM Debate

    Domain 3: The RNR-GLM Debate and the RNR’s Organizational Principles

    The Community-Based Principle within the RNR-GLM Debate

    The Core Correctional Staff Practice within the RNR-GLM Debate

    The Management Principle within the RNR-GLM Debate

    Conclusion

    CHAPTER 8: BEYOND THE RNR-GLM DEBATE: TWO FUTURES FOR OFFENDER REHABILITATION

    The First Future: Independent Models

    When the Theoretical Frameworks of the RNR Model and GLM Hold Opposed

    View of Offender Rehabilitation

    When the Correctional Frameworks of the RNR Model and GLM Hold Opposed

    View of Offender Rehabilitation

    The Second Future: The RNRM Integrated Model

    Overarching Principles

    Principle 1: Respect for the Person and the Normative Context

    Principle 2: The Major Goal of Correctional Rehabilitation Is to Improve

    Offenders first by Reducing Their Recidivism and, second, by Enhancing Their

    Well-Being

    Principle 3: Psychological Perspective and Theories

    Principle 4: General Enhancement of Crime Prevention Services

    Core RNRM Principles and Key Clinical Issues

    Principle 5: Introduce Human Service

    Principle 6: Risk

    Principle 7: Need

    Principle 8: General Responsivity

    Principle 9: Specific Responsivity

    Principle 10: Breadth (or Multimodal)

    Principle 11: Offenders’ Personal Strengths

    Principle 12: Structured Assessment

    Principle 13: Release Process and Continuity of Care

    Principle 14: Professional Discretion

    Organizational Principles: Settings, Staffing, and Management

    Principle 15: Community-Based

    Principle 16: Core Correctional Staff Practices

    Principle 17: Management

    Conclusion

    REFERENCES

    SUBJECT INDEX

    NAME INDEX

     

     

    Biography

    Ronen Ziv, PhD, is a research fellow of the University of Cincinnati Corrections Institute and a teaching fellow in the Department of Social Sciences, School of Criminology, at the University of Haifa, Israel. He received his MS (2012) and PhD (2016) in criminal justice from the University of Cincinnati. Previously, he received his LLB (2005) and LLM (2006) in Law from Tel-Aviv University and worked as a criminal defense lawyer. His current research interests are in developing and testing the evidence-based approach to correctional rehabilitation, the integration of motivational theories in correctional intervention, and the capacity of correctional agencies to implement a promising correctional framework that aims to rehabilitate offenders.