| Popis: |
The intent of criminal justice policy is to guide offender rehabilitation efforts to include the most effective and efficient programming, while reducing recidivism and maintaining public safety. Research over the past several years indicates that the use of cognitive-behavioral approaches to offender rehabilitation tend to have the greatest efficacy in terms of lowering recidivism rates. The focus of many cognitive-behavioral programs for offenders is the identification of and reduction of thinking errors. While cognitive-behavioral programs have been found to be more effective, why some offenders appear to be more responsive to cognitive-behavioral programming is less understood. The issue of responsivity has garnered much interest in recent years. Utilizing a longitudinal design, race and gender differences in terms of thinking error were analyzed for 527 offenders prior to and following involvement in a cognitive-behavioral intervention. Differences in the degree of change from pre to post intervention were also analyzed. Further, thinking error and the responsivity variables of race and gender were analyzed to assess their ability to predict unsuccessful completion in a community-based correctional facility for 926 offenders. Results indicate that important race and gender differences exist prior to and following participation in a cognitive-behavioral intervention. The responsivity to cognitive-behavioral interventions may be influenced by gender and race. As such, cognitive-behavioral programs may need to be revised to account for these differences and provide more effective intervention, thus further reducing recidivism rates. Results are discussed in terms of their importance to correctional rehabilitation efforts and criminal justice policy. |
