Establishing a compulsory drug treatment prison: Therapeutic policy, principles, and practices in addressing offender rights and rehabilitation

A Compulsory Drug Treatment Correctional Center (CDTCC) was established in Australia in 2006 for repeat drug-related male offenders. Compulsory treatment law is inconsistent with a therapeutic jurisprudence approach. Despite the compulsory law, a normative offender rehabilitation framework has been established based on offender moral rights. Within moral rights, the offender rehabilitation framework addresses the core values of freedom (supporting autonomous decision-making) and well-being (supporting support physical, social, and psychological needs). Moral rights are underpinned by a theory or principle which, in this instance, is a humane approach to offender rehabilitation. While a law that permits offenders to choose drug treatment and rehabilitation is preferable, the article discusses the establishment of a prison based on therapeutic policy, principles, and practices that respond to participants as both rights-violators and rights-holders. The opportunity for accelerated community access and a therapeutic alliance with staff has resulted in offenders actively seeking to be ordered into compulsory drug treatment and rehabilitation.     

Why do mental health courts work? A confluence of treatment,support & adroit judicial supervision

The article contributes to the understanding of ‘what works’ in mental health courts (MHCs). There are now almost 400 MHCs in the US and more worldwide. A substantial body of evidence demonstrates that MHCs can succeed in reducing recidivism among offenders who suffer mental disorders. This article argues that MHCs succeed when they have achieved the right confluence of essential elements, including providing evidence-based treatment and psychosocial supports and using adroit judge-craft. After a brief review of some of the studies demonstrating MHC success, this article discusses the research into the necessary foundations of rehabilitation programs. It is argued that, although treatment and psychosocial services should be supplied within an evidence-based framework, neither of the two leading conceptual models – Risk–Needs–Responsivity and the Good Lives Model – are empirically proven with offenders who suffer from mental disorders. Despite the absence of proof, the Good Lives Model is argued to be appropriate for MHCs because it is normatively consonant with therapeutic jurisprudence. The MHC judge is another essential element. The judicial role is assayed to elucidate how it functions to promote the rehabilitation of offenders with mental disorders. It is argued that the role of the MHC judge during supervisory status hearings is to establish a therapeutic alliance and practice motivational psychology with each MHC participant.     

Motivating offenders to change in therapy: An organizing framework

Objectives. Motivating offenders to change in therapy is an important aspect of effective offender treatment, yet despite this, offenders' motivation to change has received little close attention in the academic and professional literature. This situation is a result of an over‐emphasis on the risk management model of rehabilitation, and a consequent failure to construe motivation within an overarching theory of offender rehabilitation. Method. We present a social cognitive model of offender motivation — the Good Lives Model (GLM) — that provides a framework for incorporating factors that have been shown to be of importance in enhancing offender motivation. This is based upon the notion that all humans strive to achieve primary goods that are intrinsically rewarding and essential to well‐being. Where offenders are concerned, criminogenic problems relate, not to the goods offenders seek, but to the way they seek them. Any treatment approach should take this into account and focus positively on equipping people with the skills required to achieve goals rather than simply look to manage risk. The motivational construct that we use here is that of goals. In the GLM, goals are the less abstract depictions of primary human goods and it is with these that people are typically engaged in their day‐to‐day activities and lives. Looking at therapeutic goal‐setting, methods and styles of therapy, and therapist approaches, we derive theoretically‐based key issues in motivating offenders to change in therapy. Conclusion. In conclusion, we present a summary of 12 strategies and techniques that will not only help practitioners enhance their therapeutic effectiveness, but hopefully also act as a catalyst in the development of research on offenders' motivation to change.     

Developing a theory of dynamic risk

ABSTRACT

The Propensities Model is now the dominant applied conceptualization of dynamic risk factors for sexual offending. In this paper five important limitations of this model are identified: it asserts causality but does not explain it; it does not represent human agency; it offers no account of what is involved in the development of propensities; it does not explain stable change in risk; and its account of the operation of static factors is a theoretical leap not supported by the evidence. A more elaborate theoretical framework is developed by integrating ideas from Ward's Good Lives model, Beck's account of schema modes, and Fishbein and Ajzen's Theory of Reasoned Action. This more elaborate framework incorporates the Propensities Model in a way that mitigates its limitations. Implications for research, assessment, and rehabilitation are explored.     

Therapeutic jurisprudence and responsivity: Finding the will and the way in offender rehabilitation

Correctional systems worldwide are currently undergoing a shift towards rehabilitation. Underpinning rehabilitation are the principles of risk, need, and responsivity. Responsivity includes internal responsivity (offender characteristics) and external responsivity (staff and setting characteristics). The responsivity principle has been neglected in the literature. While contemporary psychological theories of offender rehabilitation address internal responsivity, they do not address external responsivity, particularly in relation to the impact of the law. Therapeutic jurisprudence as a legal theory provides the opportunity to complement psychological theory and to address responsivity in offender rehabilitation. Therapeutic jurisprudence utilizes psychological knowledge to determine ways in which the law can enhance individual well-being. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate a psycholegal approach to offender rehabilitation. Psychological approaches can be applied to motivate offenders and provide them with the opportunity to make informed decisions about participation in rehabilitation programmes. However, this approach will not succeed without harnessing correctional staff as legal actors and potential therapeutic agents. A cognitive--behavioural model of an organizational culture change towards rehabilitation is proposed. In this endeavour “the will and the way” in both offenders and staff can be harnessed to maximize the therapeutic effects of the law.     

SOCIAL WORK AND CORRECTIONS Comments on an Uneasy Partnership

This paper offers a summary of social work contributions to correctional treatment and provides a refutation to charges that social work in corrections is ineffective and adds a therapeutic veneer that prolongs the life of an outmoded, deficient system. Fundamental theories and practices of social work are consistent with the shifting emphasis from punishment to rehabilitation and community integration through focusing on the client within a social framework, attempting to influence the functioning of the social system, and coordinating new resources to met emerging needs. Postponing access to social services until after discharge from prison prevents the most rootless and disorganized among the prison population, with the highest probability of recidivism, from receiving necessary services, which might help to break the vicious cycle.     

Alienation-reduction as a paradigm for delinquency reduction

It is suggested that agencies adopt the concept of alienation-reduction as the paradigm for designing and coordinating juvenile delinquency programs. Existing theory and data are consistent with the view that delinquency is associated with alienation and most existing rehabilitation approaches can be viewed within the framework of alienation-reduction. Adoption of the paradigm offers three important advantages: (1) it defines the problem in terms of the individual's relation to his environment; (2) it can facilitate communication among diverse youth-serving agencies; (3) it provides a logical basis for action and decisions regarding prevention, diversion, and treatment programs.     

吸毒行为的法律定性

目前,针对吸毒行为的定性主要有"犯罪说"、"违法说"、"合法化说"、"疾病说"及"受害说"等观点。基于现有研究及国外有关政策,明确吸毒者兼具病人、违法者、受害者三重社会属性,提出我们应正确对待吸毒人员,各部门应形成合力采取有效且人道的戒毒措施,保障戒除毒瘾者的合法权益。     

国家赔偿：代位责任还是自己责任

国家赔偿责任,究系代位责任还是自己责任,乃学术界向有争议的问题。寻求此问题的答案,当关注代位责任说和自己责任说之间的真正分歧,当关注合理的国家赔偿制度所欲实现的四个目标,当关注特定境域中为实现这些目标而建构的国家赔偿具体制度,当关注不同学说对不同境域国家赔偿制度的解释力和逻辑自洽力。因此,代位责任说、自己责任说以及它们的理论变体,在本质上是解释论而非规范论。在具体境域中,首先需结合本境域特定条件打造合理有效的国家赔偿制度,而后才是选择与该制度相契合的学说。国家赔偿责任是代位责任还是自己责任的问题,也就不存在放之四海而皆准的答案。     

Rehabilitating serious violent adult offenders: an empirical and theoretical stocktake

Extensive meta-analyses of the correctional programme evaluation literature have generated developments in the technology of programme design. However, the risk, need and responsivity principles do not constitute a rehabilitation theory and cannot answer specialist offender programme design questions. After more than a decade of involvement in programmes for seriously violent offenders, we decided to reassess the empirical evidence underpinning violence rehabilitation in adult men. We focused on both mixed and violent offender samples, reviewing the outcome data from nine evaluations of cognitive–behavioural interventions. Despite a plethora of methodological difficulties, it appears that most of the programmes had small to large effects on violent and non-violent recidivism. Little could be concluded from these evaluations about the most promising theoretical framework for future programme development. Most programmes contained only scant information on their underlying theory base. None referred to multivariate aggression or crime theories. We conclude that there is a pressing need for additional evaluative research, and theory development. To date, the case for specialist violent offending programmes has not been made.     

A human rights-based practice framework for sexual offenders

Abstract

Human rights create a protective zone around people and allow them the opportunity to further their own valued personal projects without interference from others. In our view, the emphasis on community rights and protection may, paradoxically, reduce the effectiveness of sex offender rehabilitation by ignoring or failing to ensure that offenders’ core human interests are met. In this paper we consider how rights-based values and ideas can be integrated into therapeutic work with sex offenders in a way that safeguards the interests of offenders and the community. To this end we develop a rights-based normative framework (the Offender Practice Framework: OPF) that is orientated around the three strands of justice and accountability, offender needs and risk, and the utilization of empirically supported interventions and strength-based approaches. We examine the utility of this framework for the different phases of sex offender practice.     

Violations of out-group and in-group regulations in the eyes of ordinary and protected prisoners: an instance of judgmental modularity

According to the functional theory of cognition, everyday life blaming for wrongdoing reflects individuals' functional morality. The judgments of normative people were found to be modular, that is, changeable as a function of the social role taken at the moment of the judgment. This article presents several empirical indications that prisoners' functional moral judgments are modular as well. These studies were conducted within the experimental framework of functional measurement, which was chosen due to its ability to bypass prisoners' suspicion and resistance to out-group investigations. The studies focus on delinquents' core moral issues such as eyewitness testimony and informing to out-group authorities. As expected, the judgments of ordinary and protected inmates were modular. It is claimed that these findings are applicable to offender rehabilitation and correction and to offender therapy.     

Examining the predictors of juvenile probation officers' rehabilitation orientation

According to the importation model, individual attributes such as gender and race influence correctional orientation. In contrast, the work/role model contends that differences in correctional orientation are due to work experiences and environment. The purpose of the present study was to explore whether individual attributes, work-related experiences, and perceptions of one's own cultural competency and juveniles' social supports predicted rehabilitation orientation for one hundred juvenile probation officers working within an organization framework that favored a balanced approach to juvenile justice. Multiple regression results indicated that the importation variables were not predictive of rehabilitation orientation, either as a set or individually. The work/role model and the perception variable sets predicted rehabilitation orientation. Employment type and perceptions of social support were most strongly related to rehabilitation orientation. The study's unique contribution stems from its use of unordered sets analyses to examine the relative validity of theoretical grounded sets of variables.     

论20世纪40年代中国共产党的是主立国思想

中国共产党自“二大”提出建立民主共和国的主张以来,就一直致力于将马克思主义的民主思想与中国革命的实际相结合,在实践中创造性地发展了马克思主义的民主学说,创立了民主立国思想。主要包括民主建国论,代表式的民主体制和自治性的民主治理结构的构想,以及民主立国的原则与框架的创设等。这些思想作为中国共产党集体智慧的结晶,为新民主主义的胜利和中华人民共和国的建立奠定了坚实的理论基础。在今天。它仍有重要的政治导向意义,是当代中国民主政治发展中宝贵的思想资源。     

法官受制定法约束的理论谱系及其评价--基于德国法学方法论视角的考察

自19世纪以来,法官受制定法的约束问题成为法学方法论研究的主要问题之一。概念法学的理论追求是将法官视为"涵摄机器";自由法学理论则强调法官具有造法的权力,将法官视为"法官王";纯粹法学理论提出了"可能框架"模式,法律规范只是为法官的裁判提供一个可能的框架范围。评价法学理论将"法官受制定法的约束"转变为"法官受价值约束"的"价值导向"模式;在20世纪末,法律论证理论提出了一种"理性商谈"模式,尝试解决这一     

Four forms of ‘offender’ rehabilitation: Towards an interdisciplinary perspective

This paper aims to advance the case for a more fully interdisciplinary understanding of offender rehabilitation, partly as a means of shedding light upon and moving beyond contemporary ‘paradigm conflicts’. It begins with a review of current arguments about what a credible ‘offender’ rehabilitation theory requires and by exploring some aspects of current debates about different theories. It goes on to locate this specific kind of contemporary theory building in the context of historical arguments about and critiques of rehabilitation as a concept and in practice. In the third part of the paper, I explore the nature of the relationship between desistance theories and rehabilitation theories, so as to develop my concluding argument; that is, that debates about psychological rehabilitation have been hampered by a failure to engage fully with debates about at least three other forms of rehabilitation (legal, moral, and social) that emerge as being equally important in the process of desistance from crime.     

A general theory of crime and computer crime: An empirical test

Computer crime has become a global issue and continues to rapidly grow; however, few studies had examined the applicability of a general theory of crime in explaining computer deviance. Using a panel of 2,751 Korean youths, the current study examined whether low self-control theory can be useful as a theoretical framework for explaining computer crime. The results indicated the applicability of low self-control theory in explaining both illegal download of software and illegal use of others’ personal identification online. Consistent with the theory's prediction, opportunity variables, especially hours of computer use, were found to be significant predictors of computer crime. The shortcomings of the current research and the directions for future research were discussed.