What Works_DCJS edits -11-15
1. Module 01b - What Works in Correctional Intervention_2 (FORMATTED 4.13.15)
1.1 What Works
Notes:
Welcome to the e-learning training module on What Works in Correctional Intervention. In this module you will be introduced to the characteristics of effective correctional programs. We will be discussing what types of correctional practices are most likely to succeed in reducing offender behavior.
1.2 How to Use This Module
Notes:
Before we begin, please take a few moments to review how the presentation works. The core concepts and visuals in this module are intended for use with accompanying in-depth explanations of each slide topic. The in-depth information can be accessed in 3 ways, depending on learner preference: Module Notes, Audio, and Module Script. Each option contains the same information. Once the audio for each slide has ended, use the navigational buttons located at the bottom of the module presentation window to advance to the next slide.
1.3 Table of Contents
Notes:
As you can see from the Table of Contents, the module compares effective programs (those most likely to reduce offender recidivism) to ineffective ones (those which either do not change offender behavior or those which may even increase the offender’s likelihood of committing new offenses). We will also explore the types of offender problems which programs should be most concerned with.
Section 1: Introduction to What Works In Corrections: Why Consult Research?
Section 2: Correlates of Criminal Conduct: Who Should be in Our Programs?
Section 3: The Principles of Effective Correctional Intervention
Section 4: What Doesn’t Work with Offenders?
Section 5: Summary of What Works in Programming
Section 6: Review of Learning Objectives
1.4 Learning Objectives
Notes:
Over the course of these slides, we hope to:
1. Review the latest research methods and research findings on effective correctional interventions
2. Review the correlates of criminal conduct, including major risk factors
3. Learn the importance of the risk, need, and responsivity principles
4. Learn the components of cognitive behavioral interventions
5. Develop a clear understanding of what does not work with offenders
6. Learn the characteristics of effective correctional programs
1.5 Section 1
Notes:
Section 1: Introduction to What Works in Corrections: Why consult the research?
How do we know what types of programs and practices work best to reduce offender recidivism? Clearly, effective agencies do not implement a new intervention before they have seen evidence of its effectiveness. They do not follow hunches, politically driven panaceas, or other vague notions. Instead, they consult the research on correctional effectiveness.
Program Directors are much more confident when they use correctional practices that are known through research to reduce recidivism rather than when they operate according to practices which have no evidence of effectiveness.
This section describes the types of research that we need in order to obtain the most rigorous forms of evidence.
1.6 Are Correctional Programs Effective?
Notes:
While research is crucial to correctional decision-making, one of the problems with research is that we can often find a study to support just about anything.
For example, if we believed every study about what food is bad for us, we would be overly fearful of most, if not all, of the food we consume.
The problem of course is that studies often conflict with each other, and as a result we often don’t know what to believe.
People ask, “Do halfway houses reduce recidivism?” “Does treatment for sex-offenders work?” and so on. There are some halfway houses that reduce recidivism, and some that don’t. The same is true for sex offender programs, as well as for many of the different types of rehabilitation programs that we operate for offenders. As you will learn, who we place in the program, and what the program targets also play a big role in reducing recidivism. The third part of this equation is the “how” we target these factors. As it turns out, some approaches are more effective than others.
1.7 Reviews of Research
Notes:
Given all the research that is conducted and the contradictions that occur sometimes in the findings, what do we know about efforts to reduce recidivism? Looking at just one study can be a mistake, and besides, there are often limitations to research, especially evaluations that are conducted in the real world (limited sample size, lack of adequate control groups, program changes over time, etc.). One of the ways we attempt to address these problems is by looking at a body of knowledge. For example, most of us believe that cigarette smoking is bad for our health. How do we know this? You might answer “Research”; but don’t you think that given the hundreds of studies that have been conducted, there aren’t studies out there that say that cigarette smoking is not that bad? These few studies may have been funded by the tobacco industry, but if you wanted to justify smoking based on research, you can probably find these studies out there. The reason that most of us believe that smoking is harmful is because there is a body of knowledge concerning smoking and health that says that if you smoke you increase your chances of cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and so forth. We also have a pretty good body of knowledge surrounding correctional interventions, and as it turns out, there are some pretty good ways to summarize large bodies of research.
There are three ways that scholars summarize research: literature reviews, ballot counting, and meta-analysis. You likely are all familiar with literature reviews; read all the studies you can find and attempt to summarize the research. This is the most common approach, and obviously it has some limitations (studies chosen to review, bias of reviewer, no quantifiable summary statistics, etc.). Ballot counting is where you find all the studies you can on a particular subject and then count the results; if more show negative results than positive then you have a winner. This is the approach that Martinson used in the 1970s to declare, “nothing worked” in correctional rehabilitation. This approach is also problematic for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it more or less ignores the studies that do show a positive effect. The third approach is called meta-analysis.
1.8 Advantages and Limitations of Meta-Analyses
Notes:
Meta-analysis is now the favored approach to reviewing large numbers of studies. In contrast to literature reviews and ballot counting, meta-analyses are tests which statistically summarize a body of research. Researchers collect all of the controlled studies that they can find on the topic of interest. Controlled studies are where the results of the experimental group are compared to a comparison group of similar participants. These studies comprise the sample and the meta-analysis computes an effect size that summarizes all of the studies. Some of the advantages and disadvantages of this approach are listed on this slide. Meta-analysis is very helpful in summarizing the research, and since it yields an “effect size”, it can show the relative strength of the intervention or subject under study. Meta-analysis is a blunt instrument since it cannot correct deficiencies or limitations in original research, but it can point us in the right direction. The purpose is not to go into this technique in detail, but rather to show you how it can help us review the research. For example, the “file drawer” problem suggests that if unpublished studies were included in the meta-analysis, the effect size estimate would be smaller.
1.9 Criminal Sanctions vs. Treatment
Notes:
Here is an important example of the value of meta-analyses.
This graph shows a meta-analysis that demonstrates the overall effect size of criminal sanctions or official punishment, such as jail time or mandatory arrests versus treatment. As you can see, just punishing offenders produces a slightly negative effect size, while treatment shows a reduction in recidivism with a positive effect size of .15. This result is similar to what other scholars have found in studies from Europe and North America.
What do we take from these results? That a statistical summary of a large body of research (154 studies), shows us that punishment without programming, does nothing to change offender behavior. Of course, policy makers may continue to feel that punishment is an appropriate response to crime, but if they value reducing future crimes something more is needed. The goal of changing offender behavior is best achieved by the treatment programs we plan for offenders. We can place a lot of confidence in these findings.
1.10 Behavioral vs. Non-behavioral
Notes:
The next graph shows what happens when treatment is divided into two basic types: non-behavioral and behavioral. The effect size of non-behavioral treatment is .07, but jumps to .29 for behavioral programming. This is clearly the direction we want to head when we develop correctional intervention programs. Unfortunately, many of the programs we operate in corrections are non-behavioral (i.e. drug education).
1.11 Behavioral Programs
Notes:
So what are behavioral programs? Behavioral programs have several important characteristics. First, they focus on the present not the past-they target and change current risk factors that influence behavior. Second, they are action- rather than talk- oriented. Offenders learn and practice new prosocial behavior and skills to replace the antisocial ones they have learned. Third, they include techniques to reinforce appropriate behavior and extinguish or punish inappropriate behavior.
So the first piece of the “what works” puzzle tells us that correctional programs can have an appreciable effect on recidivism, and that behavioral programs are the most effective.
1.12 Section 2
Notes:
Section 2: Correlates of Criminal Conduct: Who should be in our programs?
In designing effective correctional practices it is also important to think about what types of offender problems to address in treatment programs.
Importantly, we will not reduce offender recidivism unless we target a problem that is a risk factor or correlate of crime. Risk factor and correlate, in this case, mean the same thing---that the offender problem or characteristic increases the offenders’ risk of future offending. Sometimes, we will also use the term “predictor.”
1.13 Risk Factors
Notes:
Factors correlated with criminal conduct are also known as risk factors. How are risk factors identified is a critical question and one that criminologists have been wrestling with since criminology began. The first person to study criminals scientifically was Cesare Lombroso, who wrote Criminal Man in 1876. Lombroso had personally studied over 5,000 Italian criminals and based on his studies, believed that about one-third of all offenders were “born” criminal or were what he called “atavistic throwbacks”. Lombroso believed that the born criminal could be identified through a number of factors: excessive hairiness, sloping foreheads, tattoos, solitary line in the palm of the hand, and other attributes.
Despite the popularity at the time of this theory, Lombroso was wrong and his work was flawed. The reason he is important, however, is that he was the first person to try to study criminals scientifically. Since Lombroso, there have been hundreds if not thousands of studies. Of course this is part of the problem. If you start reading this literature it will take years and when you are done you will be just as confused as when you started. For every study that says something is a risk factor there is another that says it isn’t. So what do we believe? Fortunately, through the use of meta-analysis, researchers have been able to review large numbers of studies and determine effect sizes (how strong factors are in predicting risk).
What we do know is this:
Risk factors with larger effect sizes are better at predicting potential risk of future offending behavior, and;
Factors such as lower social class and personal distress are less predictive of recidivism than factors such as antisocial attitudes and antisocial associates.
Let’s review some studies.
1.14 Factors Correlated with Risk
Notes:
The table on this slide shows a meta-analysis of the predictors of adult offender recidivism. The factor is the predictor, the mean r is the average correlation, and the n is the number of studies included in the analysis. For those of you who have not had statistics, the r is a value that shows the strength of a correlation between two or more variables. The higher the value, the stronger the relationship. The highest it can be is 1, and the lowest is 0, so a .3 is stronger than a .2 and so forth. If we look at lower class origins (the side of the tracks you were born on), we can see that there were 97 studies, which produced an r of .06 when averaged together. This doesn’t mean that you can’t find a study among the 97 that found a stronger relationship between lower class origins and risk, but when taken all together, it appears that lower class status is a relatively minor predictor. On the other hand, antisocial attitudes and associates is much stronger.
1.15 Meta-Analysis of Factors
Notes:
Here is a similar analysis. As can be seen in this table, the family factor is broken into two areas, family structure/parental problems and poor parent-child relations. While family structure is positively correlated with risk, the relationship is not very strong (.07). Conversely, poor parent-child relations is about three times stronger (.20) of a predictor. This means that while family structure (e.g. coming from a single parent family for instance) is correlated with delinquency, it is not nearly as important as coming from a “bad” family. The order of factors in this study was very similar to the last example.
1.16 Major Set of Risk/Need Factors
Notes:
This and other research has led Andrews and Bonta to identify a major set of risk factors. This slide and the next show the eight major risk factors, or correlates of criminal conduct, starting with antisocial or procriminal attitudes, values, and beliefs. This risk factor manifests itself in several important ways: negative expressions about the law, about conventional institutions, about self-management of behavior, and a lack of empathy and sensitivity toward others. In addition, offenders often minimize or neutralize their behavior. Neutralizations are a set of verbalizations, which function to say that, in particular situations, it is okay to violate the law. Neutralization techniques include: Denial of responsibility - where criminal acts are due to factors beyond the control of the individual (i.e. I was drunk, some dude told me I could borrow his car, etc.). The denial of injury - where the offender admits responsibility for the act, but minimizes the extent of harm or denies any harm was done (i.e. yeah, I beat him up, but he only went to the hospital so he could collect unemployment). Denial of the victim - which reverses the role of the offender and victim and blames the victim (i.e. she knows not to nag me, I’m really the victim here). System bashing - those who disapprove of the offenders act are defined as immoral hypocritical or criminal themselves (i.e. everyone uses drugs, I just got caught) and appeal to hire loyalties - where the demands of larger society are sacrificed for the demands of more immediate loyalties (i.e. me and my boys have a different set of rules we live by).