Reducing Recidivism

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Reducing Recidivism Rates In order to reduce recidivism rates, many US states have changed perspectives from punishing criminals to helping them. Reports from Colorado, Connecticut, and Georgia provide evidence that providing individualized therapy can reduce recidivism rates by up to 20%. Psychologists base individualized therapy off of social needs, likelihood of reoffense, requirements for supervision, and mental health. Although the plurality of states recommend utilizing specialized therapy to reduce recidivism rates, other states such as Pennsylvania and Rhode Island have found success in offering incentives for acceptable behavior and punishments for inappropriate, criminal-like behavior. The incentives and punishments technique, as …show more content…
Every offender has different motives for committing a crime, and psychiatrists in prisons need to take those motives into consideration while rehabilitating the prisoners. For example, two people may have committed murder in a similar manner, but if one has a sexual motive and the other has a vengeful motive, the two cases need completely different treatment to reach the root cause of the crime and prevent their criminal ways of thinking. The RNR model, an evidence-based practice, individualizes prisoner therapy to each offender’s risk, needs, and responsivity. First, the criminal’s dynamic criminogenic needs should personally target antisocial attitudes, inappropriate social behaviors, poor quality of family/peer relationships, lack of employment or education, and drug abuse. Next, the risk principle concludes that the risk level of offenders needs to correspond with the amount and strength of treatment. An individualized risk basis qualifies the need for a more high-risk offender, such as a murderer, to receive more intense therapy than a low-risk offender, such as someone with a minor traffic violation. Finally, the responsivity factor takes into account the prisoner’s personality, education, and cultural background. Implementations of the RNR model prove its effectiveness over other prison therapy programs and strongly discourage a generalized prison therapy system. Even though only 16% of …show more content…
Without adequate therapy during incarceration, offenders have little chance of making a change to a non-criminal lifestyle. Serious crimes, such as murder and armed robbery, can lead someone to remain incarcerated for decades but released on parole, such as in California. Judges can release thousands of high-risk criminals thinking that they have changed throughout decades of incarceration. However, in reality, a combination of toxic prison conditions, isolation from society, and dwindling criminal intentions results in a released offender who poses the same danger to committing a crime as before incarceration. All of the various states that have taken the initiative to prevent a criminal way of thinking through therapy and reentry programs have reported successful results in reducing prisoner reentry rates by 20-50%. In addition, the overall community in each successful district has reported changed behaviors and attitudes of ex-offenders for the better (Reducing Recidivism: States Deliver Results, 2014; Roadmap to Reentry: Reducing Recidivism Through Reentry at the Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2016). Motive-based individualized therapy starting before or during incarceration, effective psychiatrists, and statewide reentry programs may be costly and time-consuming, but will result in an ultimately safer society with fewer crimes and fewer
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