NCJ Number
132045
Journal
Corrections Today Volume: 53 Issue: 5 Dated: (August 1991) Pages: 96,98,100
Date Published
1991
Length
3 pages
Annotation
For more than 10 years, the Arizona Department of Corrections has contracted with a private nonprofit agency to provide a therapeutic community for 86 inmates in a unit at Rincon, one of four separate prisons in the Arizona State Prison Complex.
Abstract
The physical facilities are ideal for a therapeutic community as they permit inmates to be housed together and to eat, study, and recreate as a group. Inmates are screened into the program based on their motivation to change. The program accepts a cross-section of inmates; most are substance abusers. The staff consists of two employees of the nonprofit agency, a correctional program officer, several correctional officers, and inmates who work as peer counselors. Program goals are to provide inmates with social control that facilitates adjustment to confinement, to provide an environment in which inmates and staff do not perceive one another as enemies, to teach inmates how to change their negative lifestyles, to develop a community geared for learning, to train inmates to become teachers and counselors, and to help inmates become socially productive. Each inmate is assisted in the development of an individualized contract that takes approximately a year to complete. Treatment groups encompass substance abuse, academic education, vocational training, sexuality, behavioral control and change, journal writing, and recreation. Although no independent studies have shown that the program contributes to successful adjustment after release, it has facilitated prison adjustment.