NCJ Number
226280
Journal
The Prison Journal Volume: 89 Issue: 1 Dated: March 2009 Pages: 79-98
Date Published
March 2009
Length
20 pages
Annotation
This article summarizes findings from an evaluation of a cognitive-behavioral treatment program, with attention to whether offenders’ responsivity characteristics significantly influenced outcomes for the attitudes and distorted perspectives underlying their criminal behaviors.
Abstract
The study found that although the characteristics of individual responsivity alone were not related to whether the program was effective in reducing criminal behavior, individuals with a combination of significant responsively characteristics (e.g., low intelligence, low self-esteem, and a history of sexual abuse) were less likely to benefit from the cognitive-behavioral treatment. This suggests that the impact of responsivity characteristics on cognitive-behavioral treatment may be cumulative, meaning that as the number of responsivity factors that undermine positive change increases, the more likely they are to undermine the positive impact of cognitive-behavioral treatment. Study participants were adult male felony probationers who were sentenced to a community correctional center in Ohio. Offenders at this facility receive approximately 120 hours of Corrective Thinking. This program teaches offenders how to recognize their “barriers in thinking” and attempts to replace them with appropriate “correctives.” The curriculum consists of a series of exercises aimed at teaching the offenders the nine barriers in thinking and the nine correctives. The first offenders in the sample entered the treatment program in April 2000. The last offenders included in this study entered the programs in September 2001. The total sample consisted of 257 men. The responsivity variables measured were personality, IQ, self-esteem, depression, and abuse. The outcome measure was the difference in pretest and posttest scores for the How I Think Questionnaire (Barriga and Gibbs, 1999). 10 tables and 26 references