Essentials of Criminal Justice 9th Edition by Larry Siegel ,John Worrall

Exercise 1

Treating Probationers with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a correctional treatment approach that focuses on patterns of thinking and the beliefs, attitudes, and values that underlie thinking. The therapy assumes that most people can become conscious of their own thoughts and behaviors and then make positive changes. A person's thoughts are often the result of experience, and behavior is often influenced and prompted by these thoughts. In addition, thoughts may sometimes become distorted and fail to reflect reality accurately.
When a probationer is placed in a CBT program, the goal is to restructure distorted thinking and perception, which in turn changes a person's behavior for the better. Characteristics of distorted thinking may include immature or developmentally arrested thoughts; poor problem solving and decision making; an inability to consider the effects of one's behavior; a hampered ability to reason and accept blame for wrongdoing; or an inability to manage feelings of anger. These distorted thinking patterns can lead to making poor decisions and engaging in antisocial behavior to solve problems.
Recently Patrick Clark reviewed the existing literature on cognitive behavior. He found that, unlike other approaches, CBT places responsibility in the hands of clients while supplying them with the tools to solve their problems, focusing on the present rather than the past. People taking part in CBT learn specific skills that can be used to solve the problems they confront all the time as well as skills they can use to achieve legitimate goals and objectives. CBT first concentrates on developing skills to recognize distorted or unrealistic thinking when it happens, and then on changing that thinking or belief to mollify or eliminate problematic behavior.
Program Effectiveness
CBT is one of the few treatment approaches that has been broadly validated with research. Unlike other traditional and popular therapies, CBT has been the subject of more than 400 clinical trials involving a broad range of conditions and populations. For example, Sesha Kethineni and Jeremy Braithwaite found excellent results when they evaluated a CBT program used with juvenile probationers. CBT has shown to be reliably effective with a wide variety of personal problems and behaviors, including substance abuse, antisocial and aggressive behavior, and mood disorders, all of which have been linked to criminality.
Evidence of the treatment's effectiveness has been produced by Mark Lipsey, who examined the effectiveness of various approaches to intervention with offenders. His review analyzed the results of 548 studies from 1958 to 2002 that assessed intervention policies, practices, and programs. Lipsey found that interventions based on punishment and deterrence actually increased recidivism. On the other hand, therapeutic approaches based on counseling, skill building, and multiple services had the greatest impact in reducing further problem behavior. In a recent review of correctional treatment, Lipsey, along with Nana Landenberger, found that CBT significantly reduced recidivism. The greatest effects were found among more serious offenders, perhaps because CBT's enabling, self-help approach increases program participation and is therefore most effective with clients who shun or resist other approaches. The therapy is also more effective in reducing further criminal behavior when clients simultaneously receive other support, such as supervision, employment, education and training, and other mental health counseling.
CRITICAL THINKING
If changing or altering disruptive thinking patterns is key to changing behavior, does that mean that crime is more of an individual problem than a result of poverty, social inequality, and disorganization? Is the logical conclusion, then, that if crime is more common in poor neighborhoods and communities, affluent people have better cognitive skills than the poor?