Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: To Make A Positive Change On Inmate

Thats why some people argue rehabilitation over punishment.Until the mid-1970s, rehabilitation was a key part of U.S. prison policy. Prisoners were encouraged to develop occupational skills and to resolve psychological problems--such as substance abuse or aggression--that might interfere with their reintegration into society. Indeed, many inmates received court sentences that mandated treatment for such problems.In many prison systems, psychologists are the primary mental health care providers, with psychiatrists contracted on a part-time basis. Psychologists provide services ranging from screening new inmates for mental illness to providing group therapy and crisis counseling.They also provide rehabilitative services that are useful even for prisoners without serious mental illnesses, says Fagan. For example, a psychologist might develop special programs for substance abusers or help prisoners prepare for the transition back to the community.Another constraint is the basic philosophical difference between psychology, which is rehabilitative at heart, and corrections, which is currently punishment-oriented.Right now there's such a focus on punishment--most criminal justice or correctional systems are punitive in nature--that it's hard to develop effective rehabilitative programs .(http://www.apa.org/monitor/julaug03/rehab.aspx)

Yes, I feel that inmates should be released back into society following a long stay in solitary confinement so that they can get back to completing their sentence and hopefully return a better person. However, I feel that the inmate should receive some type of counseling that will allow the inmate to share their experience and to document if any type of psychological illness may have occurred. Therefore, prisoners in solitary confinement are frequently deprived of telephone calls and contact visits (Bohm, R. & Haley, K.) which can be fatal to inmates who depend on their family and loved ones for prayer, hope, and encouragement. Nevertheless, if an inmate is restricted from making contact on the outside they may lose focus on trying to rebuild

This paper explores the topic of mental health within prisons and how it affects the inmates. The report of my findings were through research of twelve articles, two credible website sources, and a published textbook.

Community corrections is continually changing and has been for the past one hundred years. From the early to mid-twentieth century onward it has used three major models, the medical model, community model, and the crime control model. The major turning point for the American community corrections system that led to corrections as we know it today was in 1974 when What Works? - Questions and Answers About Prison Reform by Martinson was published. The system changed practically overnight across the nation. The notion of rehabilitating offenders was dismissed and a more punitive “lock them up and throw away the key” mentality took over. Presently the corrections system is still working in the crime control model, but professionals are trying to restructure how we deal with criminal offenders during and after incarceration. The difficulty in the restructuring is finding the balance between punishing criminal offenders proportionate to their crime, but also rehabilitating them to be productive members of society once they are released so that they do not recidivate.

The way the criminal justice system should handle crimes has always been a debated subject. For over the last forty years, ever since the war on drugs, there are more policies made to be “tough on crime”. From then, correctional systems have grown and as people are doing more crimes, there are plenty of punishments for them. In the mid 1970’s, rehabilitation was the main concern for the criminal justice system. It was common that when someone was convicted of a crime, they would be sentenced to prison but there would also be diagnosed treatments to help them as well. Most likely, they would have committed a crime due to psychological problems. When they receive treatment in prison, they can be healed and would not go back to their wrong lifestyle they had lived before. As years have gone by, people thought that it was better to take a more punitive stance in the criminal justice system. As a result of the turnaround of this more punitive criminal justice system, the United States now has more than 2 million people in prisons or jails--the equivalent of one in every 142 U.S. residents--and another four to five million people on probation or parole. The U.S. has a higher percentage of the

As the imprisoned population in the United States grows and American culture changes, rehabilitation is becoming popular among these alternatives to a standard prison system. Rehabilitation when referring to criminal justice are programs and methods used to assist prisoners in reforming themselves in order to avoid the habits that placed them in prison in the first place. These programs are becoming more popular due to the high cost of imprisonment and a change in American culture. Each prisoner costs forty thousand dollars each year to keep in prison(Weissmueller). This is money that is coming out of the taxes paid by United States citizens who aren’t even in the prison system. Alongside this, American culture is changing to be supporting of rehabilitation efforts as Americans see the effectiveness of criminal justice systems that include it. This was seen on a trip to Europe by U.S. prison officials; once they had seen the effectiveness of German and Dutch prison rehabilitation, they wanted to bring similar programs to their prisons (“People, not prisoners”). A rehabilitation based criminal justice system in the United States is gaining popularity, and as it does so it is earning the attention it needs and deserves.

The current prison and criminal justice system has not proven to be helpful in rehabilitating offenders and preventing recidivism. To successfully alter this situation it is important to understand what steps and measures are available to assist those who find themselves imprisoned. The techniques used in cognitive behavioral therapy have proven to be effective in treating depression, anxiety and drug addictions among other things. Analyzing the techniques developed in cognitive behavioral theory and applying them to psychotherapy in prison environments can assist in making improvements in the prevention of criminal activity, rates of incarceration and safety and security of the general population. The literature shows that the use of

In a fight to reduce overcrowding, improve public health and public safety, and reduce the costs of criminal justice and corrections, federal, state and local leaders are constantly looking for alternatives to incarceration. A number of strategies have been put in place to save public funds and improve public health by keeping low-risk, non-violent, possibly drug-involved offenders out of prison or jail while still holding them accountable and securing the safety of our comminutes. These programs have been put in place to help those who don’t necessarily need to be in jail, get their priorities straight while also holding them accountable for their actions. They have been put in place to help reduce incarceration rates, but also help those who may have mental health issues or substance abuse issues that have caused them to make bad decisions (Treatment Court Divisions).

Treatments are provided for the inmate’s best interest and what may improve their mental and physical health, even though mentally ill inmates have their rights in denying treatment they

Correctional treatment programs have long been thought not to be effective in lowering the recidivism among criminals; Martinson (1979). Researchers have done countless studies and surveys only to find out that many of these studies and programs work and nearly the same number of programs do not work, depending on what component was or was not a part of the studies. Knowing that all programs does not work for all criminals is a no brainer, however, finding a good mixture of what does work and for what percentage of criminals is a beginning to duplicate that program with a few minor adjustments in the programs.

Some prisoners are plagued with Post Incarceration Syndrome, a combination of psychological problems. These problems are institutionalized and antisocial personality traits, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,

The client is currently on step 8 of MRT. The client has taken MRT seriously and had sought assistance from his counselor and group members. The client expressed that his biggest failure was "being in jail". The client has expressed that his criminal thinking and behaviors revolves around getting and using drugs. The client discussed goals of remaining sober, receiving aftercare, and maintaining a good relationship with probation. The client discussed and developed an awareness that he needs to no longer associate with old friends. The client expressed a need to explore and change his criminal thinking and negative behaviors. The client has developed insight into his criminal thinking and has developed more prosocial thinking patterns. The client will continue to work on building empathy, identifying and avoiding criminal triggers, and changing those distorted thinking patterns and replacing them with rational thinking patterns.

The theme of the session will focus on young offenders and the use of CBT interventions to help with rehabilitation while in prison. The structure of the session will inform the class about the rates of young offenders, and the constant cycle of incarceration and the issues these young offenders deal with. Thus, the session will focus on how strategies such as CBT can be used to help provide intervention for these youth, in order to move in a positive direction upon release. This particular article was chosen as it analyzes three different types of interventions and subsequently shows that CBT had the biggest impact on the inmates. This article also sheds light on ‘group’ CBT interventions, and how to use CBT in a group versus an individualized

Your discussion introduced valid points regarding the CBT approach and its outreach to juveniles offenders, their behavior and the interventions for reinforcement. In my opinion, as a juvenile not accepting nor readjusting the thinking process are the reasons they are involved in criminal acts. Today in society, juveniles appear to become resistant to change and better judgement. I've seen where you mentioned about Thinking for a Change (T4C) which is an effective program if the facilitator can positively engage the juveniles enrolled. I once facilitated this material to adults in a correctional setting, they enjoyed the program, some stated that the material was quite interesting and pointed out certain steps that normally would be skipped

Lastly, but not least is CBT. It combines the elements of cognitive and behavioral treatments in addressing psychological problems and abnormal behavior, in this case sexual offenders. The Good Lives Model-Comprehensive (Ward & Gannon, 2006) is a good representitive for CBT, as it combines the original Good Lives Model of Offender rehabilitation and the Integrated Theory of Sexual Offending. Both of which have been the prior use to helping sexual offenders. However, not all of these treatments are effective and have limitations. (Maletzky & Steinhauser, 2002) conducted a 25 year follow up on 7275 sexual offenders who were in a CBT. The results show the treatment generated long-lasting, positive results by reducing recidivism and risk to the community. Now that the types of treatments have been explained, the next section goes into the existing literature of those treatments on sexual offenders and what’s the best/worst.