rehabilitating rehabilitation - neurocriminology

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By Robert R. Ross

and James Hilborn

© COGNITIVE CENTRE OF CANADA

[email protected]

Suite 204, 200 Rideau Terrace Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K1M0Z3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transcribed, in any form or by any means - electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise – without the written permission of the Cognitive Centre of Canada Printed in Ottawa, Canada, 2008 ISBN 978-1-896310-05-3 Typesetting by: FLIX Desktop Services 1880 Arizona Avenue Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1H 6Z6

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We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring

will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

T.S. Eliot

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 1

A ―TEACHING HOSPITAL‖ FOR THE STUDY AND TREATMENT OF ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR ...................................................................... 21

RESURRECTING EFFECTIVE PROGRAMS .............................................. 31

REASONING AND REHABILITATION ......................................................... 37

INTERNATIONAL EVALUATIONS ............................................................... 41

IMPULSIVITY ................................................................................................ 47

CONSEQUENTIAL THINKING ..................................................................... 53

RISK-TAKING AND SENSATION-SEEKING ............................................... 59

THE TWO "MINDS" ....................................................................................... 65

ATTENTION DEFICIT HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER ................................. 73

CRITICAL REASONING ............................................................................... 77

PUNISHMENT AND DETERRENCE ............................................................ 83

PROBLEM SOLVING .................................................................................... 93

INTERNAL-EXTERNAL LOCUS OF CONTROL ........................................ 107

COGNITIVE RIGIDITY VS. ALTERNATIVE THINKING ............................. 111

INFORMATION PROCESSING .................................................................. 115

THE EMOTIONAL BRAIN ........................................................................... 121

SOCIAL SKILLS .......................................................................................... 129

SOCIAL VALUES ........................................................................................ 131

MORAL EMOTIONS ................................................................................... 135

WHICH VALUES? ....................................................................................... 141

EMPATHY ................................................................................................... 145

EGOCENTRICITY ....................................................................................... 151

LEARNING TO CARE ................................................................................. 159

NEUROSCIENCE AND EMPATHY ............................................................ 169

PROSOCIAL MODELLING ......................................................................... 181

PROSOCIAL ROLE-PLAYING .................................................................... 189

PROSOCIAL EXPERIENCE ....................................................................... 197

RETHINKING THE COGNITIVE MODEL ................................................... 213

RETHINKING THE R&R PROGRAM .......................................................... 223

REASONING AND REHABILITATION 2 .................................................... 253

CONCLUSION ............................................................................................ 267

REFERENCES ............................................................................................ 269

ABOUT THE AUTHORS ............................................................................. 313

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Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

Rehabilitation of delinquents and offenders - they said it couldn't be done. Many say it still can't be done. Some say it shouldn't be done. But it can be done. It has been done. It is being done. We hope it will continue to be done. The question we address in this book is: can it be done better?

NOTHING WORKS?

More than thirty years have passed since professionals involved in the treatment of juvenile and adult offenders were brought to their knees by Robert Martinson‘s (1974) conclusion that his review of research on programs for the rehabilitation of offenders demonstrates that ―in the treatment of offenders, almost nothing works”. Martinson‘s widely publicized indictment of rehabilitation were echoed by the conclusions of several others (e.g. Brody, 1976). They ‗informed‘ the criminal justice system, the government, the media, the politicians, the general public (and probably the offenders themselves) that rehabilitation is not possible. The research, it was asserted, indicated that offender treatment ―is impotent―. In keeping with the socio-political tenor of the times, rehabilitation fell into disrepute. Many rehabilitation naysayers think it should remain there.

Martinson did not say "nothing works". He said ―almost nothing works‖, but the ―almost‖ was almost always ignored. Martinson almost never corrected the statement that was wrongly attributed to him. Almost no one read the book that presented the research evidence that Martinson relied on as justification for his ―almost nothing works‖ proclamation (Lipton, Martinson & Wilks,1974). Almost no one has read his swan-song article in which he later recanted his proclamation (Martinson, 1979). His recant had almost no impact on almost all of the rehabilitation critics.

Many offender rehabilitation advocates bemoaned the impact of the ―almost nothing works‖ proclamation. Some referred to it as the ―death knell‖ for rehabilitation programs. Martinson was dubbed the "funeral director".

The evil that men do lives after them.

The good is oft interred with the bones. Mark Anthony

In their rush to bury Martinson, rehabilitation advocates failed to praise him. As the adage reminds us, ―it‘s an ill wind that blows nobody any good‖. Albeit unintentionally, Martinson spawned a virtual

Rehabilitating Rehabilitation

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explosion of research on the efficacy of offender rehabilitation programs. The rapid growth of ―evidence-based practice‖ in the field of criminal justice was seeded in large measure by reactions to Martinson‘s edict.

Two of the wounded rehabilitation advocates rushed off in frustration to the library to search for studies of successful programs that Martinson had missed (or ignored). They then sought to counter the "nothing works" doctrine by trying to get as much publicity for these successful programs as Martinson had obtained for the lack of successful programs. They were no match for the newsworthy Dr. Martinson.

The rehabilitation die-hard duo published an article documenting the successful programs under the title "Bibliotherapy For Cynics" (Gendreau & Ross, 1979). The article had almost no noticeable therapeutic effect on Martinson or his disciples. However, it helped set in motion an enthusiastic (some critics would say evangelical) "What Works" movement that aimed to persuade criminal justice academics, practitioners, managers, and politicians that offenders can be rehabilitated. The "What Works" movement would never have seen the light of day without Martinson‘s ―contribution‖.

Somethings Work…Sometimes...Somehow

More than forty years of pre and post-Martinson research has established that there are, indeed, a substantial number of programs that have achieved success in reducing recidivism. Many controlled studies have found positive outcomes for some rehabilitation programs that have been conducted in some institutional or community settings with a large number and a wide variety of types of adolescent and adult offenders.

There are no panaceas. Programs which work with some types of offenders may be dismal failures with other types of offenders. Programs which are successful in the community may be inoperable, unproductive, or even harmful in an institution (and vice-versa). A program that is beneficial when implemented by well-qualified, well-motivated and well-supervised staff may be an impressive waste of resources when implemented by other less capable, less enthusiastic or poorly managed staff. Programs that have been demonstrated to be effective when implemented in a social, political, or economic environment that is supportive of the program's philosophy, goals, practices and facilitators may be doomed to failure or have a very short shelf-life in a non-supportive context. Programs which fail to respond to the psychological, ecological, situational or cultural factors that are functionally related to the participant's antisocial behavior are unlikely to be a good investment of taxpayers' dollars. Programs that are effective when conducted in

Chapter 1: Introduction

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the presence of their program developer may become ineffective in his/her absence. Attempts to implement otherwise effective programs on a system-wide basis have seldom been successful (Gendreau, Goggin, & Smith, 1999).

Whether a program does or does not work seems to depend on who does what to whom, why, where, when, how often, and for how long.

Unsuccessful programs are by no means uncommon. There are too many qualifiers about programs that are sometimes successful to enable us to confidently state that rehabilitation "works". However, an abundance of research has enabled us to state one firm conclusion: ―it depends‖.

Sometimes some programs work; sometimes they fail; sometimes they make things worse. Some programs when delivered by some practitioners, to some offenders, in some settings, reduce re-offending somewhat, sometimes, somehow.

This book is primarily concerned with examining the somehow.

Somethings Work…Somewhat

The enthusiasm for the ―What Works‖ message is waning. It has become known that the effects that have recently been obtained through implementation of many programs that had previously been demonstrated to "work" are often not as great as they were expected to be (and in some cases, promised to be). A substantial number of analyses point to a positive treatment outcome (e.g. Andrews & Bonta, 2006; Antonowicz & Ross, 1994; Aos, Miller & Drake, 2006; Lipton, 1998; Lösel, 1995; McGuire, 1995). However, the range of the magnitude of reductions in recidivism they have achieved vary greatly – from zero (sometimes less than zero) to above 50% (Lipsey & Cullen, 2007). The average magnitude of the positive outcomes is considerably less than rehabilitation advocates would wish. Although Lipsey and Cullen's (2007) investigation of nineteen statistical analyses of programs found some reductions above 50%, eight of the nineteen found less than 20% reductions; nine reported reductions in the 20% range; but only two persuasive studies found reductions above 20%.

The most optimistic interpreters of the literature estimate that when appropriate interventions are applied, effects sizes above 0.30 can be expected. This translates into between 10 to 15% differences in recidivism rates between treated and untreated controls (for example, 40% recidivism rates as opposed to 50% or 55%).

McGuire, 1995


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From "What Works" to "Which Work"

These results indicate that the "What Works" enthusiasts who have been viewed as the Elmer Gantry's of rehabilitation should stop talking about averages. Averages reflect not only good programs but also the many poor programs which should never have been expected to succeed. They should go beyond asking whether rehabilitation works and ask which programs work best? Many have done precisely that.

There is no shortage of studies that have examined the characteristics of programs that have been most successful in reducing recidivism. They have been identified using the statistical technique of metanalysis. Metanalysis is a technique that has enabled researchers to aggregate, integrate and quantitatively analyze the practices and outcomes of more than two thousand program evaluations of rehabilitation programs in order to ascertain the principles and techniques that are most strongly associated with success and failure. Considerable progress has been made in our understanding of what we should do and, equally important, what we should not do in attempting to decrease offending behavior. We will discuss most of these principles in this book, however, we are primarily concerned with one principle: good programs are based on good theory.

Let Your Science be Your Guide

If you don't know where you are going, you will end up somewhere else.

L. Peter How one attempts to change antisocial behavior is

determined, or should be determined by how one accounts for antisocial behavior. A conceptual model of antisocial behavior can serve as a guide for program planners and practitioners by identifying the appropriate targets for their program efforts - the particular factors known to be associated with such behavior that can be changed in order to prevent the persistence of the behavior. Programs which derive from faulty conceptualizations of antisocial behavior are unlikely to have much impact in reducing such behavior.

Everybody has a theory of crime and what needs to be done about it. Many are based on gut reactions or arm-chair philosophizing. Most are based only on political platforming. The focus of the present book is a critical examination of recent research on one of the few empirically-based models: the cognitive behavioral model.


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THE COGNITIVE MODEL

The "cognitive model of offender rehabilitation and delinquency prevention‖ was first presented in the early 1980‘s (Ross, 1980; 1982a; 1982b) and later elaborated in the book, ―Time To Think‖ (Ross & Fabiano, 1985). The model proposed that a reduction in offending among juvenile delinquents and adult offenders could be achieved by training them in cognitive skills and values that are antagonistic to antisocial behavior and are essential to prosocial competence.

The cognitive model was based on the findings of a long-term research project that began in the 1960‘s, continued throughout the subsequent forty years, and is still ongoing. The project was designed to yield programs that could be effective in the rehabilitation of antisocial adolescents and adult offenders. The research project has been, and continues to be conducted in a field-theoretical, multi-stage research design in which the results of programs conducted in each stage yield hypotheses that suggest both the program model and the intervention techniques that should be used in revisions to those programs and in the development of new programs that are then delivered and tested in subsequent stages. The model and the programs are also informed by reviews of the research literature on the treatment of antisocial behavior and by reviews of empirical studies that have identified factors associated with antisocial behavior that might be amenable to intervention.

Rehabilitating Rehabilitation presents the findings of the most recent stage of the research project. The research indicates that the cognitive model needs to be substantially revised.

The original cognitive model was based on two bodies of empirical research:

1. Research that indicated that a key to the success of programs that

had been demonstrated to be effective in reducing re-offending was their use of techniques that could lead to improvement in the offenders‘ cognitive functioning. Almost every successful program shared one characteristic in common: some technique which could be expected to have an impact on the offenders' thinking. They improved the offenders‘ sensitivity to the consequences of their behavior; taught them to stop and think before acting; increased their problem solving skills, and their social skills; broadened their view of the world; helped them to develop alternative interpretations of social rules and obligations; and helped them to comprehend the thoughts and feelings of other people.

2. Research that indicated that many juvenile and adult offenders evidence inadequate development in the cognitive and behavioral


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skills that are required for prosocial competence: self-control; social perspective-taking; problem solving; critical reasoning; creative thinking; social skills; and values.

The Cognitive Behavioral Monopoly

Recent research, including a substantial number of metanalyses, have since established that most programs that have been successful in reducing the recidivism of offenders have been based on a cognitive/behavioral model (e.g., Pearson, Lipton, Cleland & Yee, 2002; Andrews, Zinger, Hoge, Bonta, Gendreau & Cullen, 1990; Garrett, 1985; Gottschalk, Davidson, Mayer & Gensheimer, 1987; Izzo & Ross, 1990; Lipsey, 1992; Gendreau, Goggin, & Paparozzi, 1996; Losel, 1995; McGuire, 2002; Redondo, Sanchez-Meca & Garrido, 2002). In fact, over the past twenty years there have been very few competing models.

Cognitive-behavioral programs are more likely to reduce re-offending than are non-cognitive behavioral programs. They also can yield greater reductions in recidivism than the 10-20% average for all programs. For example, Lipsey, Chapman & Landenberger (2001) found that the likelihood of offenders recidivating was 55% lower for those treated in a cognitive behavioral program than for control groups. Pearson, et al., (2002) found that cognitive-behavioral programs yielded a average recidivism reduction of about 30%. More recently, Wilson, Bouffard & MacKenzie (2005) found recidivism reductions of 20-30%. Lipsey, Landenberger & Wilson (2007) reported that their systematic review found an average recidivism reduction of 25%.

Here A Program, There A Program, Everywhere A Program …

The metanalyses have led some 'What Works" gurus and government appointed program Accreditation Panels to tell us that cognitive behavioral programs are treatment of choice. However, we believe that the enthusiasm for cognitive behavioral programs has ―gone over the top‖1. "Cognitive behavioral‖ has become a buzzword for the widespread marketing of a motley variety of offender programs. Programs need only be labeled ―cognitive behavioral‖ to make them appear respectable.

Many programs that are touted as "cognitive behavioral" are only cognitive – one searches in vain for the behavioral part (Roth & Fonagy, 2005; Butler, Chapman, Forman & Beck, 2006). A plethora of programs labeled ―cognitive behavioral‖ have entered the

1 Wilson has suggested that cognitive behavioral programs have become so

popular that it is now difficult to find a control group against whom to compare the results of a cognitive behavioral program (Wilson et al.,2005).


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‗rehabilitation marketplace‘ that are cognitive-behavioral in name only. Many are actually neither cognitive nor behavioral.

Autopsy Before Mortification

The average re-offending rate for offenders released from prison or after completing a community sentence in the U.K. is approximately 58% (Cuppleditch & Evans, 2005; Cunliffe & Shepherd, 2007). Thus, the achievement of an average reduction of ten or twenty or even 30% per cent by cognitive behavioral programs is not only statistically significant but fiscally significant in terms of the cost of criminal justice processing2. It is also socially significant in terms of the suffering of potential victims. However, it may not be good enough to be politically significant. Good news is seldom as newsworthy as bad news. It has not escaped the attention of many academics, criminal justice bureaucrats, journalists and politicians that many programs marketed as "cognitive behavioral" have failed. It is also no secret that a reduction of 30% in recidivism means there is 70% recidivism left. Even though many cognitive behavioral program results have been positive, they have not been positive enough to stem a growing backlash against the ―What Works‖ movement (cf. Marlowe, 2006; Rhne, Mawhorr & Parks, 2006). We cannot metanalyze critics. Surveys have indicated that there remains a positive attitude to rehabilitation at least among the public (Cullen, 2007). However, we are not likely to be to be able to appease anti-rehabilitationists by asserting that some programs work sometimes, somewhat... We need to go beyond the "What Works?" question and ask how we can increase ―some” to ―many” and ―sometimes” to ―often”. First, we need to focus less on "what?" and more on "how?"

Are We There Yet?

You're not going to get anywhere if you think you are already there.

Anonymous

2 The cost-benefit of even small reductions in recidivism is quite significant. An analysis by the Washington State Institute for Public Policy of the findings from 25 well-researched cognitive behavioral treatment programs for adult offenders found that, although on average, these programs reduced recidivism rates "only" by 8.2 percent (i.e. from 49% to 45% over an eight year follow-up), implementation of such programs could avoid a significant level of future prison construction thereby saving taxpayers about two billion dollars (Aos et al.,2006).


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Metanalyses have yielded clear and persuasive evidence that offender rehabilitation can be achieved sometimes with some offenders through the application of some cognitive behavioral programs in some settings when delivered to some offenders by some staff – a qualified conclusion that bears repeating. However, too often it has been naively and mistakenly assumed that the conclusion of the metanalyses is that ―cognitive behavioral programs are the whole answer‖. They are all that is required. Unfortunately, in spite of the limitations of metanalysis (e.g. Wormith, Althouse, Simpson, Reitzel, Fagan & Morgan, 2007), the experts' message has too often been misread as ―this way is the only way‖. The research we review in this book raise some serious doubts about the adequacy of relying only on a cognitive behavioral approach to offender rehabilitation.

Metanalysis was designed to open doors to knowledge, not to close them. More than fifty metanalyses have yielded a great deal of knowledge about which programs "work". Many practitioners and program managers feel that they have been told that "we now know all we need to know…so get on with it". However, we still need to discover more about what works best for whom; who is best to do what for whom; how to ensure that those who need the program take the program; how to make sure they complete the program; and what we should do when the program fails. We need to learn how to implement effective programs effectively on a system-wide basis. We also need to learn how to effectively treat the co-morbid problems and deal with the environmental shortcomings that most offenders experience both before and after treatment.

Metanalysis can only yield information about the characteristics and the efficacy of current and past programs. However, the results indicate that we need to go beyond the past and the present and seek knowledge that will enable us to develop more effective programs in the future. The development of more effective programs requires more than more metanalyses3. It also requires increased knowledge about the ecological, psychological and, we will argue (with some trepidation), the neural factors associated with offending behavior that should be targets of programs for prevention and rehabilitation.

TIME TO THINK AGAIN

It’s a bad plan that can’t be changed Publilius Syrus

3 Eric Schwitzgebel (not entirely facetiously) describes metanalysis as ―a way of doing math instead of thinking‖(www.faculty.ucr.edu.)


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Many years have passed since the research was conducted on which the cognitive model was based. The model has never been revised to accord with the substantial body of research that has been conducted since 1985. Rehabilitating Rehabilitation seeks to correct this 'deficit' in the cognitive model.

Beyond Offending

Our review of research published over the twenty years since the cognitive model was introduced indicates that inadequate development in the cognitive skills that the pre-1985 research indicated were associated with offending behavior are also associated with a variety of other behaviors – behaviors that may not be criminal but are undoubtedly antisocial.

Research we will review indicates that a lack of competence in such skills has been found to be a characteristic of a variety of other antisocial individuals: aggressive children and adolescents; conduct-disordered children and adolescents; school bullies; adolescent substance abusers; vandals; firesetters; delinquent college students; antisocial children; adolescents and adults with symptoms of attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder who also evidence antisocial behavior; adolescent and young adults involved in violent dating; child abusing parents; abusers of the elderly; alcohol and drug abusers; pathological gamblers; sexual deviates; mentally disordered offenders; suicidal adolescent psychiatric patients; aggressive adolescent and adult psychiatric patients; ice hockey hooligans; and cyber-saboteurs. They are also common among many individuals with whom we share the road on a daily basis: antisocial drivers - individuals who frequently drive in a manner that disregards the rights of others to be treated courteously, fairly and safely (Ross & Antonowicz, 2004).

As in the case of offending behavior programs, studies have indicated that some intervention programs are producing consistent reductions in ―externalizing‖ behaviors among some antisocial but non-offender populations (e.g. Guerra, Attar & Weissberg, 1997; Lochman, Coie, Underwood & Terry, 1993). However, as in the case of programs for offenders, the magnitude of the benefits from most of those programs has been small (Kazdin, 1996; 1997). Many children treated in such programs continue to remain outside the range of normative behavior relative to their same age peers (Kazdin & Crowley, 1997).


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NEUROCRIMINOLOGY

Rehabilitating Rehabilitation reviews research that has been published between 1985 and 2007 in the following areas

research on the relationship between antisocial behavior and cognition

research on the relation between cognition and emotion

research on the role of emotion in prosocial competence

research on moral reasoning and values

research on ―emotional values‖

research on empathy

research on desistance from a criminal lifestyle

research on the development of prosocial competence

research on ―automatic thinking and feeling‖

research on social cognitive neuroscience.

Our aim is to present and analyze the findings of each of the foregoing domains of research and their implications for intervention in the following chapters. Some readers may prefer to examine the implications of each of the subjects reviewed then skip ahead to Chapter 29 in which we integrate those implications into a model for the development of programs for the treatment and prevention of antisocial behavior that we have labelled "neurocriminology" - a term that we believe is appropriate given the research that we present in the early chapters.

Neurocriminology is Not Phrenology

We anticipate that our neurocriminology model will raise the hackles of those who view any suggestion of a relationship between biological factors and criminal behavior as neo-Lombrosian. We wish to make it clear that the model is not based on the relationship between antisocial behavior and neurological dysfunction or neurological disease. Its focus is not on brain damage, nor on functional abnormalities, nor on defects in the brains of antisocial individuals, nor on the relation between crime and genetics; nor on biochemical abnormalities (e.g., serotonin or hormone dysfunctions); high levels of testosterone; pathophysiology, poor nutrition, head injury; premature birth; perinatal trauma; fetal alcohol syndrome; food or chemical sensitivities; or environmental contaminants (e.g. smoke; lead; manganese; mercury; and pesticides). We do not deny the possible relevance of such risk factors for antisocial behavior. However, we wish to make it clear that, although the interventions we propose can enable many individuals with such problems to acquire


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prosocial competence, our neurocriminology model is not a "faulty brain" theory.

Nor do the interventions proposed by our neurocriminology model include neurosurgery, psychopharmacology, genetic tampering or some kind of 'criminectomy'. The model is based on social science and neuroscience research that indicates how noninvasive prosocial cognitive, emotional and behavioral skills training; prosocial role-playing; simulation training; imaging; meditation; neurobic brain training exercises; and prosocial experiences can foster neural and social development.

The neurocriminology model is compatible with the view that antisocial or criminal behavior is a function of a host of biological, psychological, social, environmental, economic, situational, and personal choice factors. Accordingly, we talk about "neurocriminology" rather than "biology and crime" since our model is based not only on biological or neurological factors, but on a host of other factors that are the subject matter of criminology. When Hilborn and Leps (2005) introduced the term, "neurocriminology" they did so in preference to the cumbersome, "biopsychosociological criminology".

An Intervention Model Not A Causal Model

Our model is not an explanatory theory of crime or antisocial behavior. Antisocial behavior is much too complex a phenomenon to allow one to think that biological factors alone could provide an adequate conceptualization of the causes of crime. The neurocriminology model is an intervention model for prevention and rehabilitation. Its basic assumption is that developing prosocial thinking, feeling and behaving skills and prosocial values can both motivate and enable otherwise personally, socially, academically, vocationally, environmentally and/or economically disadvantaged individuals to avoid or desist from anti-social or illegal behavior; develop a prosocial identity; and choose a prosocial life-style.

Social Cognitive Neuroscience

Social cognitive neuroscience is an interdisciplinary field that combines the tools of neuroscience with knowledge from various social sciences such as developmental and social psychology. Social cognitive neuroscience research is yielding new knowledge of the brain at a remarkable pace that has major implications for our understanding of how biological, environmental, and experiential factors sculpt the brain's architecture in a way that can lead to the development of an antisocial life-style.


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Until relatively recently, our knowledge of what is happening in the 1.4 kg. labyrinth of inert, wrinkled, wet, jelly-like, fat and protein matter under our skull that constitutes our brain was limited to studies of individuals during brain surgery or after death. However, the availability of structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) in the 1990s has enabled neuroscientists to obtain detailed images of the anatomic structure of the brain. More recent technological advances such as positron emission tomography scanning, and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), electroencephalography, magnetoencephalography, near infrared spectroscopy, and single photon emission computed tomography have increased neuroscientists' ability to measure changes in brain activity and have enabled them to measure and actually visually observe human brain function during mental activity. Neuroscience has not just produced pretty pictures of the brain. Neuroscientists can now correlate what is happening in the brain with many behaviors at the precise time that these behaviors are going on. Functional MRI (fMRI) enables us to obtain a picture of the neural mechanisms associated with complex human activities including cognition. Neuroscientists can even study the function of parts of the brain by temporarily inactivating that part of the brain so they can observe how behavior changes. However, neuroscientists still cannot precisely identify the content of thoughts. The neuroscientists' brains have not yet fully figured out the brain. Neuroscience is 'a work in progress' (as all research should always be). Conflicting interpretations of laboratory findings are by no means rare. Moreover, there are substantial conceptual and methodological challenges in interpreting such findings (e.g. Petersen, 2003). What we now know about how the brain works is still rudimentary relative to what we need to know. What we have not yet learned about the complex organ is probably much more important than what we have learned. However, the findings of social cognitive and affective neuroscience are already contributing to our understanding of the mind, emotions and behavior (Camerer, Loewenstein & Prelec, 2004).

Development of an Antisocial Brain

Throughout our lives, our brains register our experiences, our observations, our thoughts and our feelings by forming new connections among neurons in our brain. Neurons are highly specialized, electrically excitable nerve cells that send and receive signals from other neurons by means of chemical transmitters that travel across synapses and axons that connect the neurons. These neural connections, without our awareness, determine how we perceive, how we interpret, how we feel about and how we react to


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our physical and social environment. How one feels, how one thinks, and how one behaves both reflects and creates the connections among neurons in the brain. The patterns of connections between the neurons form paths that guide our journey in life. The particular networks of connections that are shaped in our brain by our history of interaction with our environment give rise to our own unique thoughts and feelings, our unique personality and our unique self-identity. They form the script for the story of our life that tells us who we are and what roles we will play, should play, and even must play. Because there are billions of neurons in our brains, the possible number of connections among them is close to infinite and is, literally, mind-boggling. Ten neurons alone can yield more than three million interconnections. Neuroscientists are making rapid progress in determining both how those neurons are formed and how they become connected to other neurons to form our unique brains. Many neuronal networks are developed early in brain develop-ment in childhood. During the formation of every individual's brain, his/her genes control the formation of neurons (at a rate of 50,000 every second throughout development in the uterus). During the development of the fetus, the genes also shape the connections that are formed between these neurons. However, the development of our brains is dependent not only on our genes but also on the environment in which our genes operate. For example, the environment in which the brain is developing can have considerable and lasting effects on the growing embryo (such as the mother's use of alcohol or tobacco, the social economic and health stresses she encounters, and her mental health). There is abundant evidence that neurodevelopment is an experience dependent process. Many, perhaps most of our neural connections are created by our social experiences. These connections continue to direct our emotions, our thoughts and our behavior unless and until alternative connections are developed. Our neuroanatomy is formed by what happens to us. Our neuroanatomy is also activity dependent – it is formed by what we happen to do. Our neuroanatomy is also observationally dependent. All the observations we make create neuronal connections in our brain. Networks of brain cells store and integrate information from those activities, experiences and observations. Environmental and experiential factors continue to impact the development of the brain during childhood, during adolescence and, indeed throughout life. Our brain is a unique record of our past. Unfortunately, although neuroscience has made great strides forward, it is a record that we cannot read like a history book (or a criminal record). Neurocriminology is not craniometry. Neuroscience has not led to the invention of a crimomometer.


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Neuroscience studies have determined that the adverse effects on the developing brain of being exposed to adverse socio-environmental conditions can be long-term. Their impact is not simply cognitive, emotional or behavioral. Inadequate nutrition, poverty, low social status, abuse, deprivation, neglect, victimization, oppression, racism, social isolation, alienation, and other cultural, ethnic, racial, class influences that have been identified by many studies as criminogenic risk factors can permanently impact the development of the brain and the functioning of particular neurotransmitters and their receptor sites (Farah, Noble & Hurt, 2006). The brains of children who, for example, are raised in a socially toxic environment of isolation; poverty; rejection; hostility; neglect, abuse and maltreatment; or who experience consistent failure in school or in their interpersonal relations have those experiences seared in their brains in neural networks that can trigger deep feelings of anxiety, fear, anger and hostility that can engender antisocial behavior (Dahl, 2004; Pedersen, 2004; Pollak, 2003; Lewis, Granic, & Lamm, 2006). Enduring antisocial patterns can be developed deep in the brain early in brain development in childhood and adolescence. Changing such deep-rooted patterns is more complicated than we thought.

Plasticity

However, the brain is malleable. The brain is like the foundation of a house that is continually being built but is never finished. New connections are continually being created as our observations and experiences strengthen old connections or form new connections and confirm our identity or revise it. As Ramachandran (2003) suggests, "your brain is already being replaced every few months". Social cognitive neuroscience has developed an understanding of how such new neural connections are formed; an understanding that can enable us to guide the formation in a prosocial direction.

Development of a Prosocial Brain

Research conducted over the past 20 years has identified not only factors that put the individual at risk of developing an antisocial lifestyle - the risk factors (e.g. Nagin & Tremblay, 2005; Depue & Lenzenweger, 2005). It has also has identified protective factors that lead individuals to refrain from or desist from antisocial behavior – what we refer to as "prosocial growth factors". They include not just cognitive factors but also environmental, social, familial, educational, emotional and neural factors. We are going to discuss the implications of such research for understanding how we can help antisocial


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individuals develop new neural pathways that will engender not antisocial but prosocial feelings, thoughts, attitudes, values and behaviors.

The brain's plasticity and its potential for life-long development means that although early criminogenic risk factors launch a trajectory toward an antisocial life-style, experience dependent plasticity can yield a change in the direction of brain development. Experiential factors can impact the development of the brain such that the trajectory is re-directed toward a prosocial life-style and what we refer to as a "prosocial brain" (cf. Laub & Sampson, 2003). Our review of the neuroscience research indicates how that can be achieved by particular forms of program interventions designed to influence brain development such that even individuals with long histories of anti-social and criminal behavior can be led to acquire prosocial competence and a prosocial identity.

Cognition is not Enough

Imaging studies have found that when people are exposed to situations where they might consider or actually engage in antisocial behavior such as aggression or violence the heightened activity is not only in the neo-cortex. It is not just in that area of the brain where we consciously and rationally make decisions. It is also deep in the brain. This suggests that antisocial behaviors may not be readily amenable to the rational discourse strategies we take as a basis for much of our way of dealing with antisocial individuals - our cognitive way. The growing neuroscience evidence that our actions are rooted not so much in our conscious rational thoughts as in our deeply embedded automatic thoughts and feelings raises serious questions about the wisdom of relying on cognitive behavioral treatment alone.

Automatic Thinking and Feeling

We like to think that we are in control of our thoughts, that we are rational beings. However, research has made it clear that we do not always operate in a deliberative manner. Much of the time we function on autopilot – in an automatic default mode which is neither deliberative nor even conscious. More than cognitive training is required to strongly influence the automatic antisocial thoughts and the automatic emotions that are triggered in brain areas deeper than the prefrontal cortex.

Emotions Matter

Emotions are a way of thinking Marvin Minsky


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A major challenge to the cognitive model comes from neuroscience research on emotion. The central thesis of the cognitive model is that what you think determines what you feel and how you behave. In spite of the Salovey & Mayers' (1990) and Goleman's (1995) well known work on "emotional intelligence", most cognitive-behavioral offender rehabilitation programs are still predominantly, or even exclusively cognitive. Many cognitive-behavioral programs emphasize thinking and reasoning and ignore emotion or view emotions as factors that oppose the rational part of our nature. Neuroscience has seriously challenged such a narrow view by demonstrating that our thinking and feeling systems are fundamentally intertwined. We never do just one or just the other (Damasio,1994). Our thinking and feeling systems are bi-directional with emotions impacting thoughts as frequently and as strongly as thoughts impacting emotions. Understanding emotions as well as understanding thoughts and the relationship of both to our behavior is essential to our understanding of the growth process whereby people come to desist from an antisocial life-style and develop a prosocial identity. Indeed without emotion our personal narrative has little if any meaning.

We are not a thinking machine, we are a feeling machine that thinks.

Antonio R. Damasio

It's Not All In Your Head

A systemic view of antisocial behavior recognizes that such behavior is influenced by a whole range of internal and external factors. Antisocial behavior occurs within a predisposing social context and is responsive to situational and precipitating events. Therefore, cognitive training alone is unlikely to be effective unless applied in concert with other interventions that address such predisposing and precipitating conditions. As Pollak (2003) noted, it is not only what is in their heads, but what their heads are in.

Cognitive-Behavioral and Beyond

The neurocriminology model may not seem to fit the prevailing cognitive behavioral zeitgeist. However, we believe that incorporating the findings of neuroscience can embellish and refine the cognitive-behavioral model. It does not reject it. It does not replace it. It extends it.

The neurocriminology model does not assume that executive functions are unimportant. Our executive functions monitor and can


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exert significant, though not complete control of our thoughts and actions, including self-regulation, planning, cognitive flexibility and response inhibition. The development of cognitive skills enables some "top-down" control of our behavior and our feelings. Top-down control mechanisms in the brain can control unconscious processing somewhat even though we have no awareness of what is being controlled.

Changing Brains

It may seem to be a considerable cognitive leap to assume that we can change the brain by treatment programs. However, there is evidence that we can. Thanks to neuroimaging, there is persuasive evidence that psychotherapy does change the brain (Kumari, 2006; Roffman, Marci, Glick, Dougherty & Rauch, 2005; Gabbard, 2000; Liggan & Kay, 1999; Linden, 2006). Indeed different psychotherapies may change different parts of the brain (Etkin, Pittenger, Polan & Kandel, 2005). Cognitive Behavior therapy has been shown to change the brain in some cases of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Depression and to do so in different ways than pharmacotherapy (Butler et al.,2006; Goldapple, Segal, Garson, Lau, Bieling, Kennedy & Mayberg, 2004; Chambless & Ollendick, 2001; Gloaguen, Cottraux, Cucherat & Blackburn;1998). Cognitive-behavioral programs in which participants learn to think about their thoughts differently can help "rewire" the brain.

Thinking Allowed

The cognitive behavioral model is based on the principle that our thoughts shape our behavior. That principle also underlies the neurocriminology model. However, the neurocriminology model is based on additional principles. The cognitive model assumes that the mind can be studied in terms of its cognitive operations independently of the brain and body. This premise is now being challenged by the model of "embodied cognition" that rejects the separation of the body and the mind. Our brain shapes our thoughts. Our thoughts also shape our brain. Our brain and our thoughts also shape our behavior. Our behavior also shapes our thoughts and our brains. No longer should we think of the brain only as a logic driven computer. The interplay among thought, emotion, brain and environment must be studied to understand cognition. These principles underlie the interventions that we propose in this book for the prevention and rehabilitation of antisocial behavior.


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Crime and Biology

Almost 30 years ago, C. Ray Jeffery called for a criminology that was a synthesis of the behavioral, social, and biological sciences (1977). His call appears to have fallen on deaf ears. It was summarily dismissed without a hearing by many criminologists who heard only the 'B word' (Biology) and declared that crime is a complex phenomenon that cannot be explained (or explained away) by simple-minded or single-minded biological explanations (even though biology was only one of the disciplines to which Jeffery's proposal referred). However, the relationship between a host of biological factors and crime has now been thoroughly reviewed in recent books (e.g. Anderson, 2006; Glicksohn, 2002).

Criminology has long touted itself as multidisciplinary. It has claimed to rest on an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approach to explaining crime and reducing crime; one that taps and integrates the knowledge of law, sociology, psychology and other disciplines. That has been easy to say, but not so easy to achieve. Many Departments of Criminology share a common characteristic – a somewhat myopic adherence to one or another ideological viewpoint that focuses on one aspect of the human being and society to the exclusion of other views. Many departments tend to reject anything but their own party line and decry the viewpoints and possible contribution of other disciplines that do not jibe with their own. Criminology has been multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary, but usually in name only.

Social cognitive neuroscience seeks to understand the interactions between the environmental, social, cognitive and neural levels of analysis (Ochsner & Lieberman, 2001). One might think that that would spark the interest of criminologists. However, the social cognitive neuroscience movement seems to have passed criminology by. Understanding crime and reducing crime is certainly not a 'no-brainer'. Dare we say that Criminology is 'brainless'?

"My Amygdala Made Me do It"

The neurocriminology model we propose assumes that antisocial and criminal behavior are a function of interactions among multiple neurocognitive and neurobehavioral systems that are shaped by environmental, situational and experiential events. Thus, the model does not hold brains or neurotransmitters or synpases responsible for antisocial behavior. We hold individuals responsible for their behavior as do other explanations of criminal behavior such as psycho-dynamic, socioeconomic or social learning models. We have free will but we also have "free won't…our brains don't just 'make us do it',


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they also have specialized systems for stopping us from doing it" (Farah et al.,2006). We are not automatons. The neurocriminology model does not assume biological determinism. There are many factors outside the brain that influence how we behave. We are not prisoners of our genes. Our genes do not simply predetermine our neuroanatomy so that it unavoidably ripens like blossoms on a tree. Our genes do shape our neural development, but we do not simply inherit criminality – "what children inherit are toxic environments" (Pollak, 2003). We still can choose to behave prosocially even though our environment, our experience or our inadequate neurological development severely limits the nature, number, variety and quality of prosocial alternatives from which we can choose. Unfortunately, even when they have choices many antisocial individuals have not learned, or do not choose to make the best ones.

REASONING & REHABILITATION

One of the programs that was based on the cognitive model that must be substantially revised in the light of the recent research we review in this book is the Reasoning & Rehabilitation Program (R&R) (Ross, Fabiano & Ross, 1986; Ross & Ross, 1988).

R&R was designed to teach cognitive skills and values to offenders that could enable them to withstand pressures toward antisocial behavior and to achieve success in legitimate pursuits. It is a cognitive-behavioral program that was created through a major revision of a program developed in the mid-sixties (Ross & McKay, 1979), then field-tested with high-risk probationers in Canada. A revised version subsequently became the core curriculum for rehabilitation programs in forty-seven penitentiaries across Canada for the nation's most serious offenders (Ross & Ross, 1988). The program has since been delivered to more than seventy thousand juvenile and adult offenders in twenty countries around the world. Its efficacy in reducing re-offending has been demonstrated in several international independent evaluations. As we shall indicate in the following chapters, the international research documents the success of many applications of the R&R program but also indicates several factors that have limited or prevented its success.

R&R2

Rehabilitating Rehabilitation presents a description of a new edition of the R&R program that, applying our best creativity, we have titled ―R&R2”. The new edition is based not only on the research that led to the development of the original R&R program, but on the more recent research that we report in this book; on the international evaluations conducted over the past decade; and on feedback


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provided over the past sixteen years by several hundred R&R Trainers around the world who have been delivering R&R in a variety of community and institutional settings. R&R2 operationalizes the neurocriminology model by incorporating specific techniques that our review of neuroscience research indicates can foster prosocial neurodevelopment. The new edition provides several versions that, in accord with the need for differential treatment ("different strokes for different folks"), are specifically designed not only for particular groups of offenders but also for youths and adults who engage in antisocial behavior but have not (or not yet) engaged in offending behavior. Each of the R&R2 program versions are described in Chapter 31:

R&R2 for Adults

R&R2 for Antisocial Youth

R&R2 for Youth and Adults With Mental Health Problems

R&R2 for Girls and Young Women

R&R2 for ADHD Youths and Adults

R&R2 for Families and Support Persons

R&R2 For Firesetters

R&R2 for Antisocial Drivers

A RESEARCH JOURNEY

You got to be careful if you don’t know where you’re going

because you might not get there. Yogi Berra

Before describing the post-1985 research, it is essential that we explain how the cognitive model and the original R&R program developed in order to explain the development, the empirical basis and the rationale of the neurocriminology model and the new R&R2 programs. It is an unusual story that speaks loudly not only about the achievements but also the frustrations that can be experienced in attempting to rehabilitate offenders.

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Chapter 2

A “TEACHING HOSPITAL” FOR THE STUDY AND TREATMENT OF ANTISOCIAL

BEHAVIOR The research project that led to the development of the cognitive model and the R&R program began in 1963 when Dr. Richard Walters was appointed Chairman of the Department of Psychology at the University of Waterloo in Canada. Walters had published a book with Albert Bandura describing their research on adolescent aggression (Bandura & Walters, 1959) and sought to pursue this research with the senior author of the present book. Walters and Associate Professor Robert Ross, a Chief Psychologist in the provincial government's Department of Corrections, persuaded the government to establish an affiliation between the university and a local institution for high-risk adolescent offenders.

The collaboration led to the development of the first "Teaching Hospital in Corrections" wherein faculty and graduate students from the university provided assessment and treatment services for the residents in a setting that simultaneously enabled doctoral candidates in clinical psychology to obtain training and experience in working with antisocial adolescents and stimulated research on delinquency and its treatment. It was hoped that by bringing the resources of a major university to bear on the problems of adolescent antisocial behavior, the Centre might yield developments in understanding and treating delinquency similar to the developments in medicine that had been yielded through the teaching hospital model. The government worked together with the university to provide psychiatrists, social workers, criminologists, psychiatric nurses, recreational therapists, pastoral counsellors, special education teachers, and psychologists who spent close to a decade attempting to treat the adolescents through various intervention techniques. Usually without success.

The psychologists‘ role was that of practitioner/researchers who conducted studies to increase knowledge of the causes and treatment of antisocial behavior while delivering programs based on such research. The psychologists adopted the principle that programs would be adopted or terminated on the basis of objective evidence that indicated whether or not they were effective. The research represented one of the earliest attempts to determine ―best practice" in the rehabilitation of offenders.

It was rare in the pre-Martinson days for rehabilitation programs to be subjected to the kind of evaluation that would enable one to determine whether they were helpful or harmful. Programs


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were usually adopted on the basis of "common sense" or popularity. The research project was designed from the outset to implement treatment programs that the literature at the time indicated might be effective in reducing antisocial behavior and then evaluate them to see whether they actually were effective (Ross,1967).

Over the years, the project directors4 were alternately elated and depressed as they experienced short periods of enthusiasm when they were encouraged by the initial promise of each program that they implemented, and then discouraged by the subsequent failure of most of those programs.

A Multi-Stage, Field Theoretical Research Project

The treatment-research project focused on two units of the institution that housed thirty to forty, 12-16 year old adolescents most of whom had been admitted to the institution following a long history of delinquent or ―unmanageable‖ behavior. Truancy, alcohol and/or drug abuse, and chronic disruptive behavior at home or in school were characteristic behaviors in their backgrounds. Many of them also had records of theft, assault, substance abuse and vandalism and had presented major management problems in other institutions. They were typically described as antisocial, emotionally labile, hedonistic, manipulative, and resistant to treatment. A sequential, multi-stage research strategy was established in which programs implemented at each stage were conceptualized on the basis of the available literature and the results of programs implemented in previous stages. Each stage yielded hypotheses which were tested with new residents in the following stage.

STAGE 1 : PSYCHODYNAMIC APPROACH

When the project began, the institution's "treatment" regimen was based on the view that delinquents were in need of a ―structured and caring living environment‖ that would replace the typical haphazard supervision and discipline and the absence of affection in the delinquents‘ homes; that delinquents needed ―external controls‖ to foster the development of ―internal control‖; that they needed to learn ―good work habits‖, ―obedience‖, ―good manners‖ and ―morals‖. Superimposed on those notions was counselling and social casework provided by counsellors who sought to help the adolescents with their problems and to provide close personal relationships which had seldom been available to the adolescents in their home environment. Such ―principles‖ had governed the ambience of institutions for adolescent offenders for decades.

4 R.R. Ross and H.B. McKay.

Chapter 2: A “Teaching Hospital” for the Study & Treatment of Antisocial Behaviour

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However, in the 1950‘s and early 1960‘s, the criminological literature suggested that antisocial behaviors are not simply ―conduct problems‖ but are symptoms of underlying psychopathology. Offenders needed treatment, not just training. Therapy would reduce their pathology and, therefore, ―cure‖ the delinquency. Accordingly, individual and group psychotherapy in a ―therapeutic milieu‖ became the model in the first stage of the research project. This model directed the institution‘s best efforts to treat the adolescent‘s ―emotional disturbance‖.

Based on the psychodynamic model, the staff were helped to understand the psychodynamics of the adolescents‘ antisocial behavior and encouraged to interact with them in an empathetic and supportive manner. Each adolescent participated in group therapy and was seen by an individual therapist at least once a week.

The model was impressive; the results were not. Data that were collected on their everyday activities indicated that this approach failed to improve the adolescents‘ behavior. On the contrary, it led to a marked increase in the frequency of their antisocial acts.

Time To Think Again

On reflection, it was felt that by focusing on their presumed pathology, the professionals were feeding it. One adolescent remarked, ―you treat us as patients, so we act like patients‖.

The residents had learned that by misbehaving they could manipulate the staff to attend to them. They quickly realized, for example, that if their misbehavior was sufficiently dramatic or severe it could earn them a visit to their therapist (and an hour or so out of school). In an otherwise boring environment, ‗acting-out‘ in flagrantly antisocial behavior served as a form of entertainment. Almost nothing they could do yielded as much attention, or created as much excitement in their environment as "acting-up". Their antisocial acts earned them the respect of their peers. Moreover, the adolescents realized that antisocial behavior was what the staff expected from them and they acted accordingly.

The results of the first stage of the University of Waterloo‘s project failed to yield support for the extravagant claims of the potential of a psychodynamic approach to offender rehabilitation. If anything, the approach appeared to augment rather than ameliorate problems. Research on offender rehabilitation programs that has been published over the ensuing forty years has also failed to find evidence of the efficacy of a psychodynamic-oriented therapy approach to offender rehabilitation (e.g. Andrews & Bonta, 2006).

The abject failure of the psychodynamic approach that had been viewed at the time as "treatment of choice" for delinquents led


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the psychologists to retreat to their offices to lick their wounds and ask themselves ―what went wrong?"

STAGE 2: THE FIRST BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION PROGRAM

At the time that the behavior of the adolescents was deteriorating under the psychopathology-focused model, a new model was rapidly gaining ascendance in the educational and mental health fields – the behavioral model. The behavioral model had captured the hearts and minds of psychologists who believed that people could be both understood and changed simply by manipulating the consequences of their behavior and that psychology need not (indeed could not) concern itself with people‘s hearts and minds – they were unobservables. The science of psychology could only deal with observables (or so it was thought at that time).

A growing number of reports were being published about the remarkable success of behavior modification in institutions for developmentally delayed children and adolescents and in hospitals for chronically regressed schizophrenics. These programs were applying the well established, laboratory-derived reinforcement principles of Skinner to the modification of institutional behavior problems. The model was based on the notion that problematic behaviors should be viewed not as symptoms of some presumed underlying psychopathological state, but simply as behaviors that had been learned through environmental contingencies which rewarded their performance. Prosocial behaviors, it was suggested, could be encouraged by the deliberate and systematic application of rewards.

Behavior modification, which is now standard fare in a multitude of institutions for adolescent offenders, was at the time an untried approach to the treatment of offenders. However, encouraged by the reports of the success of behavior modification in psychiatric settings, a behavioral program was developed - a ―token economy‖ within which the adolescents could purchase rewards and privileges using credits from their "behavioral bank accounts" which they earned through good behavior and lost through poor behavior. The staff were also thoroughly trained in the principles and techniques of behavior modification which encouraged them to avoid reinforcing innapropriate behavior and to reward good behavior by their attention and praise.

This first token economy in a correctional institution was both simple and elementary. However, it was highly successful. Within a few weeks of the initiation of the program, dramatic and lasting improvements were found in the adolescents' behavior. Most major behavior problems disappeared. The improved behavior continued until the adolescents' release from the institution several months later. Their adjustment in the community following their release was much


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better than predicted. Unfortunately, no control group was available. However, the positive results justified expansion of the program and subjecting it to a stringent evaluation to ensure that the results were attributable to the behavior modification program. Subsequent events proved that they were not.

STAGE 3 – SUCCESS BREEDS FAILURE

A generous research grant from the Ontario Mental Health Foundation made it possible to implement and evaluate a second, much more sophisticated behavior modification program than the program implemented in the initial study5. The program incorporated several levels with increasing freedom and privileges through which the adolescents progressed as they earned return to community living through their performance of specified behaviors. An extensive variety of rewards were made available that could be purchased through credits that were earned by performing specified prosocial behaviors and lost by exhibiting antisocial behaviors. The behavior modification procedures were phased out during the final level in order to provide a gradual transition from the token economy to community life. The program was the first "manualized" program in the offender treatment field - each staff member and each girl received a manual that described in detail every aspect of the program. The program was exemplary. Except in its results.

The behavior of the adolescents in the program became markedly worse than that of matched groups who had received only the usual institutional programming. Moreover, recidivism following their graduation to the community was almost twice as high for the treated adolescents as that for a matched comparison group.

Time to Think Again

Faced with the apparent failure of this program, the psychologists again retreated to their offices and asked themselves: why was the initial program – an elementary behavior modification program - so successful and this more sophisticated program so unsuccessful? What was wrong? Why was it such a failure?

5 The research grant made it possible to compare the behavior of matched groups who received the behavioral program with a group that had earlier received only the traditional institution program (no behavior modification). Data on the adolescent's behavior in the institution was obtained on a daily basis. Their adjustment in the community was also investigated for nine months following their release using official records and information obtained by a research assistant who interviewed and tested the adolescents in the community after their release.


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It was reasoned that providing negative consequences for the adolescents‘ negative behavior simply replicated their experiences in their homes and other settings (e.g. foster homes; group homes; schools and other institutions) where the focus of disciplinary efforts had typically been on controlling their poor behavior by means of punishment and threats of punishment. The sophisticated token economy, it was hypothesized, provided punishment but in a much more formal, systematic and consistent way.

Equipped with the knowledge obtained through subsequent years of research on punishment, we might think that the psychologists should have known such an approach would fail. As we shall discuss in Chapter 12, research has established that the effect of intervention programs that attempt to reduce re-offending by relying on punishment is far from encouraging (e.g. Andrews & Bonta, 2006; Miethe and Lu, 2005).

Skinner had achieved considerable success in teaching new behaviors by application of the principle that if you wish to strengthen behavior and increase the likelihood of its occurring, you should reward it. Skinner was not as enamoured with punishment as are many of the folks who raise delinquents, or the folks who try to change them. Behavior modification provides an impressive technology for instituting systematic punishment regimens. The program conducted in the 1960‘s reflected what was (and still is some forty years later) the widespread view of many parents, many social organizations, and many politicians who believe that the best way to stop adolescent misconduct is to punish it. As we shall see, it is not.

STAGE 4: ACCENTUATE THE POSITIVE AND ELIMINATE THE NEGATIVE

The negative results led the psychologists to modify the behavior modification program so that only prosocial behaviors were rewarded.

The revised "positive" behavior modification program led to a marked reduction in the adolescents misconduct in the institution. However, their adjustment in the community after release was much worse than for the ‗untreated‘ group. The program was associated with almost twice as high a recidivism rate. Another retreat to the office.

Time To Think Again

Meticulous and detailed records were kept throughout the project on each resident's daily behavior and all the events that transpired during the history of the project were diaried. The psychologists looked back at their data and their diaries and what they found led them to hypothesize that the success of the initial


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behavioral program was attributable to factors other than behavior modification. Shortly before the marked improvement in the adolescent‘s conduct, a committee had been established in which the senior staff met once a week to discuss the behavior of the girls and to decide whether their behavior over the previous week merited group rewards (in keeping with the reinforcement principle of behavior modification). The meetings were attended by an ‘elected‘ representative of the girls - Melinda (a pseudonym). Melinda was a bright, charming and persuasive ‗wheel‘ (ringleader) in the unit who prided herself in her ability to control her peers. Through attending the meetings she had become enthused about the power of behavior modification techniques for interpersonal manipulation and had learned enough about the reinforcement techniques from the psychologists to add the techniques to her repertoire of ways to influence people. Through the leadership of this adolescent offender the adolescents began to use reinforcement techniques to control each others‘ behavior. They even used the techniques to shape the behavior of the staff - when the staff treated them well, they reinforced them by behaving well.

The adolescents had developed a behavior modification program of their own!

STAGE 5: "PEER THERAPISTS"

Accordingly, the psychologists terminated the behavior modification program and implemented a new program that they labeled the "Peer Therapist" program. The power of the peers in promoting prosocial behavior had been recognized from the beginning of the research project (Ross, 1967) and had previously been frequently enlisted to help reduce misconduct. In Stage 5, these interventions were implemented in a more structured manner. The adolescents were encouraged to assume the role of ―therapists‖ for their peers. In group sessions, they were taught how to analyze the antisocial behaviors of their peers in behavioral terms - identifying what was reinforcing their behavior. They were also trained in a social skill that enabled them to encourage prosocial behavior among their peers – using positive reinforcement to increase the frequency of their peers' prosocial behaviors.

The results of the program were remarkable. In a controlled evaluation it was found that among the adolescents who acted as "Peer Therapists", major behavior problems in the institution (e.g. assault, vandalism, flagrant disobedience, self-mutilation) were almost eliminated. Their post-institutional adjustment was also exceptional. During a nine-month follow-up period their rate of return to the institution for antisocial behavior was only 6%. In contrast, the rate for a matched group which had received behavior modification was higher than 60%


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and the rate for those who only received the regular institution program was 33%. 6 7

IMPLICATIONS FOR INTERVENTION

The "Peer Therapist"" program could be viewed simply as another behavior modification program but one which the adolescents thought of as their own rather than one that had been imposed on them by adults and one in which a much more powerful reinforcer was employed: peer approval - a powerful reinforcer for adolescents. However, the researchers explained the success of the program in terms of a number of social psychological principles:

Prosocial Role-Playing: The changes in the adolescents' behavior from antisocial to prosocial was explained at the time by the theory of self-perception which suggests that one can become committed to a position through advocating it (Bem, 1967). When they were engaged in playing the role of a "therapist" the adolescents came to attribute to themselves the prosocial characteristics that they viewed as characteristics of therapists - concern for others.

Helper-Therapy: The change in the adolescents' behavior was also attributed to the ―Helper Therapy‖ principle which states that therapy is often more beneficial to the helper than to the helpee (Riesmann, 1965). All adolescents began their stay in the institution as the "patient" of one of the "Peer Therapists". They were later trained to be 'therapists" themselves. Interestingly, being the "patient" of an adolescent "Peer Therapist" was not the key factor in engendering an improvement in behavior. It was not until an adolescent actually was trained, appointed as a "therapist" and began treating others that that individual's antisocial behavior ended.

The foregoing assumptions were obviously ad hoc. It was not possible to test them through additional research on the peer

6 A more complete description of the genesis of the program and its

techniques is presented in a book (Ross & McKay, 1979). 7 More recently, another program also achieved a major reduction in

recidivism with male delinquents using a remarkably similar approach to the "Peer Therapist" program used in the Canadian research project in the 1960's. In this U.S. program, juvenile offenders were taught social skills which they used as helpers for their peers. The program in two residential settings for antisocial adolescents with a history of aggressive, disruptive and antisocial behavior achieved significant reductions in their antisocial behavior and their re-offending. In a 12-month post-release follow-up, recidivism for these adolescents was only 15% compared to recidivism of 40.5% for the control group (Gibbs, 1995).


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program. That was because the program was terminated shortly after its success became known. There are many reasons for the termination of successful programs - a phenomenon that is very common in the field of offender rehabilitation. One is that a program may have a short shelf-life if it does not accord with the conceptual model of other professionals. The "Peer Therapist" program was inconsistent with the treatment model of other professionals in the institution who were enamoured with a psychodynamic model (or had no model but naively believed that their personal skills were all that was required). They resented a program that did not require their services - a program that did not focus on the adolescents' psychopathology. Some felt that the adolescent 'therapists' were encroaching on their professional territory. The termination of the unorthodox "Peer Therapist" program illustrates the importance of attending to system variables when implementing programs (Gendreau, Goggin, & Smith, 2001).

An alternative explanation of the success of the peer program was suggested a few years later based on research conducted in the next stage of the long-term research project. We describe that research in Chapter 4. We also revisit the "Peer Therapist" program in later chapters when we describe neuroscience research that confirms the value of applying the principles of prosocial role-taking and "Helper Therapy" – in programs for the treatment of antisocial behavior.

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Chapter 3

RESURRECTING EFFECTIVE PROGRAMS

The assumption that had initially stimulated the long-term research project was that antisocial behavior can be changed. As we indicated in the Introduction, that optimistic assumption was jolted in the 1970‘s by the widely proclaimed conclusions of a number of reviews of the literature on the effectiveness of offender rehabilitation programs that were almost uniformly negative about the possibility of reducing re-offending by programs that focused on changing the behavior, attitudes, values, skills or personal characteristics of offenders.

STAGE 6: BIBLIOTHERAPY FOR CYNICS

The negative reviews were based on studies which had been conducted before 1967. Reasoning that much progress had been made in programs and in program evaluation since the 1960's, a new review of the literature was conducted, focusing on the period, 1973 to 1978 (Gendreau & Ross, 1979). In marked contrast to the earlier negative reviews, this review found many well-controlled studies which demonstrated that a considerable number of programs had been highly successful. More than one hundred independent studies involving a substantial number of offenders (as many as 2,000 offenders in one study) with follow-up periods as long as 3 to 15 years after treatment, had found significant reductions in recidivism. A later review of the research literature published between 1980 and 1985 revealed even more evidence that some programs can be effective (Gendreau & Ross, 1987). A substantial number of reviews and metanalyses have since established that there is ample evidence that offender rehabilitation is possible; the evidence is too compelling to ignore. However, effective programs are truly exceptional. They are exceptional statistically - in their numbers. Effective programs are well outnumbered by correctional programs which have failed. They are also exceptional in their nature, as was learned in the next stage of the long-term research project.

STAGE 7: SUCCESS VS. FAILURE

The research task in the next stage of the project was to study the nature of the difference between programs which succeed, programs which fail, and programs which make things worse. Through this study it quickly became apparent that among the successful programs a variety of different treatment modalities had


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been used, but all effective programs were multi-faceted. However, analysis revealed that almost every successful program shared one characteristic in common: they included some technique that could be expected to have an impact on the offender's thinking.

Effective programs included as a target of their intervention not only the offenders' feelings or their behavior, but their cognition: their reasoning, their attributions, their self-appraisals, their expectations, or their understanding and evaluation of their world. They included some technique which could increase the offenders' reasoning skills, improve their sensitivity to the consequences of their behavior, teach them to stop and think before acting, increase their interpersonal problem solving skills and their social skills, broaden their view of the world, help them to develop alternative interpretations of social rules and obligations, and help them to comprehend the thoughts and feelings of other people.

The importance of cognitive factors in effective programs was first recognized through simple inspection of the characteristics of a large number of programs (Ross, 1980). This initial observation indicated that successful programs could be differentiated from unsuccessful program by the presence of cognitive factors in the successful programs. That conclusion was later corroborated through a metanalyses (Izzo & Ross, 1990) which found that most programs that included a cognitive component worked; most that did not, failed. That finding was confirmed by a study conducted later in the project in which it was found that among the highest quality evaluation studies in the offender treatment literature, 75% of successful programs included a cognitive component, compared to 38% of unsuccessful programs (Antonowicz & Ross, 1994; Antonowicz, Izzo & Ross, 1995).

The foregoing research had indicated that improving the offender's cognitive functioning decreased their offending behavior. That conclusion led to the research question for the next stage of the project: is there is something about offenders' thinking which might account for their criminal behavior?

STAGE 8: COGNITIVE "DEFICITS"

A search of four decades of research literature indicated that offenders were likely to evidence what were referred to as "cognitive deficits‖ - developmental delays in the acquisition of a social cognitive skills essential to social adaptation. The available empirical research indicated that criminal behavior is associated with the following:

Impulsivity. Many offenders appear to fail to stop and think before they act. When they get an idea or a desire, they immediately respond without stopping to consider whether they should act or not. They do not reason, they respond. Many also

Chapter 3: Resurrecting Effective Programs

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fail to think after they act. They do not reflect back on their behavior and its consequences. Therefore, even when they experience punishment, they may not learn to modify their behavior.

Externality. Many offenders are externally oriented. They believe that what happens to them depends on fate, chance, or luck. They believe that they are powerless, that they cannot control what happens to them, that they are controlled by other people and circumstances beyond their control. Given the environments in which many of them have been raised, this is not surprising. However, such thinking makes them feel that there is no point in trying to succeed. Therefore, they may lack ambition and persistence. Their pessimism and hopelessness reflect the ―learned helplessness‖ that Seligman (1975) described. They come to believe that there is nothing that they can do to change their lives.

Concrete Thinking. Many offenders are very concrete in their thinking. Their lack of abstract reasoning gives them major difficulties not only in school but also in understanding the concept of justice and the reasons for rules and laws. Moral reasoning requires an ability to conceptualize at the abstract level. Thus, they may not be able to view laws except as methods people use to control them personally. They may be unable to comprehend the broader purpose of law as a vehicle for social order or social control. They are likely to be concerned only with the here-and-now because abstract thinking is required to foresee the longer-term outcome of their actions. Moreover, a limited ability to think abstractly may also prevent them from developing a meaningful philosophy of life or a clear sense of purpose and goals. Lacking a relatively clear perspective on who they are and where they are headed, their behavior may be only temporarily and situationally determined.

Moreover, lacking adequate analytical ability to engage in self-reflection or critical examination of their thoughts and feelings, their lack of abstract reasoning gives them difficulties in understanding the thoughts and feelings of other people - an essential skill for successful interpersonal relations.

Conceptual Rigidity. The thinking of many offenders is inflexible, narrow, rigid, intolerant of ambiguity, and dogmatic. Because of this, many continue to engage in behaviors which yield them few rewards and frequently get them into trouble.


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Interpersonal Cognitive Problem Solving Skills. Many antisocial individuals have ―deficits‖ in interpersonal cognitive problem solving - the thinking skills which are required for solving problems in interacting with other people. In their interpersonal relations, offenders often fail to recognize that a problem exists or is about to occur. They fail to calculate the consequences of their behavior on other people, and they do not (or cannot) consider alternative solutions to such problems. Moreover, they may not understand the cause and effect relationship between their behavior and people's reactions to them.

Egocentricity. Many offenders see the world only from their own perspective and have not learned to consider how other people think or feel. Their lack of awareness or sensitivity to other people's thoughts or feelings severely impairs their ability to form acceptable relationships with people. Offenders may lack an appreciation of an important factor in the inhibition of illegal behavior: its effects on other people. Moreover, offenders encounter frequent interpersonal problems because they do not think about how others will feel. Their egocentricity may cause them to be ostracized and alienated.

Values. Lacking social perspective-taking skills, they may fail to develop beyond self-serving values. In deciding what is right, they may consider only how it affects themselves, not how it affects other people. They think, "If it is good for me, it's good."

Critical Reasoning. The thinking of many offenders is frequently illogical and lacks self-criticism. As a result, they may be too easily influenced by thoughts which are presented to them by others, and by themselves.

The research demonstrated that many offenders are action-oriented and unreflective. They are less likely to think about problem situations than to react to them. They often ―act out‖ without adequately analyzing the situation, or calculating the consequences of their action. Advice, warnings, or punishment often have little impact on them because they fail to reflect on their past behavior and its effects. Many offenders have never acquired critical reasoning skills and they evidence a host of thinking errors. Many lack interpersonal problem solving skills. Many offenders have not progressed beyond an egocentric stage of cognitive development. Lacking the ability to take the perspective of other people, they misread social expectations and misinterpret the actions and intentions of others. Their lack of

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awareness of other people‘s thoughts or feelings severely impairs their ability to form acceptable relationships with them. It was pointed out that such inadequacies in social reasoning do not necessarily reflect a lack in general intelligence. They may be a result of a wide variety of environmental, familial, or cultural factors including abusive, overcontrolling, or undercontrolling parents; or a lack of exposure to individuals who model prosocial problem solving skills. The foregoing conclusions about the relation between cognition and crime were based on studies published before 1985. We review studies reported in the two decades since 1985 in the following chapters. The review indicates that the 1985 conclusions need to be reconsidered.

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Chapter 4

REASONING AND REHABILITATION

The next stage of the research project was stimulated by the realization that the highly effective treatment program that had been conducted with adolescent offenders many years before - the "Peer Therapist" program - was in fact, a cognitive behavioral program. It had not been viewed as such at the time even though it provided training in social cognitive skills. For example, the program provided training in interpersonal problem-solving. The "Peer Therapists" were involved in guided group discussions on how to change the problematic behavior of their peers. The program also trained them in social skills - reinforcement techniques that they could use to improve the behavior of their peers. It helped to move them from egocentric thinking to thinking about the needs of others by engaging them in the role of "therapist". The adolescents changed their view of themselves as antisocial problem-ridden individuals lacking in self-efficacy and came to see themselves as competent, prosocial problem-solvers.

Following the publication of the foregoing research, the government asked Ross to develop a cognitive program that could be delivered by probation officers. It was agreed that the program should not smack of ‗therapy‘ or "treatment" since the ―Nothing Works‖ advocates had declared them passé. Rather, it should be one that emphasized training – training offenders in skills the lack of which were associated with their offending behavior. Moreover, in order that it might be delivered to a large number of offenders it should be one that would not require the services of highly trained mental health practitioners but one that could be delivered by line probation officers.

STAGE 9

Accordingly, in the next stage of the research project, a comprehensive program, the Reasoning and Rehabilitation (R&R) program was developed for teaching the cognitive skills required for prosocial competence8. R&R was created by combining the best techniques from many rehabilitation programs which research had found to be effective in reducing recidivism (Gendreau & Ross, 1979; Ross & Gendreau, 1980). Additional techniques were added which other research had indicated were effective in teaching cognitive skills.

8 The acronym ―R&R‖ does not stand for ―Rest & Relaxation‖. It stands for

―Reasoning & Rehabilitation‖. It is also the initials of the orginal authors: Robert Ross and his daughter, Roslynn Ross (coincidentally, of course!).


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Techniques and exercises were then modified and combined into a 35 session (70 hour), multifacetted, highly structured, manualized group program.

Program Components

Because the program was designed to be delivered in community settings with probationers who were discouraged from associating with other offenders, the peer group aspects of the original program could not be implemented in a formalized or systematic way. However, the offenders were trained in the other essential aspects of the "Peer Therapist" program: interpersonal problem solving, social skills and social perspective-taking. Those skills and other skills that the research literature indicated contributed to successful program outcome were combined into a multifaceted program that teaches the following skills and values:

Self-Control. To combat their impulsivity, participants are trained to stop and think before they act; to consider all the consequences before making decisions; to formulate plans; to use thinking techniques to control their behavior.

Critical Reasoning. Participants are trained to think logically, objectively,and rationally without distorting the facts or externalizing the blame.

Social Skills. Based on the assumption that offenders may act antisocially because they lack the skills to act prosocially, R&R teaches a large number of skills that will help them achieve positive reinforcement rather than rejection in social situations (e.g., responding to criticism; apologizing; negotiating instead of demanding).

Interpersonal Cognitive Problem solving Skills. R&R teaches offenders how to analyze interpersonal problems, how to understand and consider other people's values, behavior and feelings; how to recognize how their behavior affects other people and why others respond to them as they do.

Creative Thinking. To combat their conceptual rigidity, a number of techniques are used to teach offenders alternative thinking with the goal of enabling them to consider prosocial rather than antisocial ways of responding to the problems they experience.

Social Perspective-taking. Throughout the program emphasis is placed on teaching offenders to consider other people's views and feelings and thoughts.

Values Enhancement. A number of group discussion techniques and some commercially available games are used to teach values; specifically, to move the offender from an egocentric world view to a consideration of the needs of others.

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Emotional Management. An offender's success in social adjustment depends on his/her ability to avoid excessive emotional arousal. In designing the R&R program, anger management techniques used by psychologists were adapted so that they could be delivered by trainers who are not psychologists, and so that they could be used with other emotions such as excitement, depression, fear and anxiety which may be equally or more problematic for many offenders.

STAGE 10: THE PROBATION PROJECT

Although R&R was based on more than one hundred studies that had been proven to be effective in reducing recidivism, it was essential, in keeping with the research project's principle that programs be evaluated, that the efficacy of the new program be assessed. This was done in 1985 in a controlled study with high-risk, late adolescent and adult probationers.

The program was delivered by five probation officers in two probation offices in Ontario, Canada. The officers were trained in the program techniques through a seminar before program initiation and each received video-taped feedback after each of his/her program sessions with probationers. A full-time research assistant provided ongoing supervision in collaboration with the managers of the probation offices. This supervision was designed to ensure program integrity.

The evaluation consisted of a true experimental study entailing random assignment of high-risk male probationers to the R&R group or to a control group. Information on the illegal behavior of each offender was obtained from Canadian Police services for each group in terms of the number of offenders convicted for a new offence during a nine-month follow-up.

Recidivism for a regular probation group was 69.5 %. In contrast, recidivism for the Cognitive group was only 18.1%. This difference was statistically significant (x² (1)=12.024; p=0.001) (Ross, Fabiano & Ewles, 1988).


A common component of effective correctional programs is an intervention technique that can be expected to have an impact on the offender's thinking. Qualitative analyses, component analysis, several metanalyses and an analysis of the best evaluation studies have demonstrated the importance of including cognitive techniques in rehabilitation programs.

The importance of role-playing and modelling has also been indicated by all of these analyses. Role-playing and modelling are employed in some of the modules in the R&R program to teach cognitive and behavioral skills and in the predecessor to the R&R


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program - the "Peer Therapist" program in which adolescents assumed the role of 'therapists' for their peers.

We shall indicate in succeeding chapters why role-playing and modelling are key elements in the neurocriminology model for the treatment of antisocial behavior.

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Chapter 5

INTERNATIONAL EVALUATIONS

In order to make further dissemination and evaluation of the R&R program possible, in the next stage of the research project a detailed three-volume program manual was developed in 1986: Reasoning and Rehabilitation: A Handbook for Teaching Cognitive Skills (Ross, et al.,1986). A special version of the program was developed for application in Canadian penitentiaries (Ross & Ross, 1988). The Handbook provided step-by-step instructions, lesson plans and materials for delivering the program. The Handbook was laboriously detailed and fully scripted to enable the creation of a program manual which would ensure, as far as possible, that practitioners who carefully followed the instructions would be able to maintain integrity with both the principles of the program and its practice. Moreover, the program procedures were described in detail in the Handbook in order that the practitioner's colleagues, supervisors and program evaluators would be provided with a clear and objective basis for determining whether the practitioners were actually conducting the program in the manner in which it had previously been found to be effective. The aim was to have the program disseminated widely without sacrificing quality control or program integrity. Throughout the history of corrections, too many programs which have been demonstrated to be effective in reducing re-offending have been distorted, diluted or bastardized because practitioners have failed to adhere to the program's principles or procedures. Evaluations of such programs have then indicated that they did not work. A more appropriate conclusion would be that they were not really tried.

STAGE 11: PROGRAM DISSEMINATION

The Handbook has been translated in ten languages and the R&R program has been implemented for over more than twenty years in an extraordinary number of settings around the world. It has been conducted in many prisons, in hospitals for mentally disordered offenders, and in a variety of community-based services for juvenile delinquents and adult offenders. It has also been used in prevention programs for children at risk of delinquency in community schools or in the care of social agencies. R&R has been conducted with high-risk adolescent and adult offenders in community agencies and/or institutions in eighteen countries including Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, England, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Holland, Ireland, Latvia, New Zealand,


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Scotland, Spain, Sweden, Venezuela and Wales. It has been delivered in county, state and federal prisons in the U.S.A. and in probation services throughout the U.S.A. including Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Colorado, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Washington. The R&R program has been applied across the spectrum of offender types: "pre-delinquent" children in schools; adolescent gangs; chronically recidivistic adult offenders; alcohol and drug-abusing offenders; violent offenders; property offenders; car thieves; child and spouse-abusers; sex offenders; white collar criminals; mentally disordered offenders; and ―learning disabled‖ offenders (I.Q.< 70).

DISSEMINATION VS. CONFIRMATION

It should not be assumed that the popularity of the R&R program is testimony to its adequacy. In the field of corrections, popularity often serves as a substitute for efficacy. Enthusiasm readily trumps empiricism. Field-testing with controlled evaluation research has long been and continues to be a cornerstone of the R&R program. R&R is one of the most frequently evaluated programs in the criminal justice field. Its efficacy has been examined in a remarkable number of international evaluations not only in Canada where it was developed, but also in California; Colorado; England; Georgia; Texas; Germany; Scotland; Spain; Sweden and Wales. Its efficacy in reducing re-offending has been demonstrated in several independent evaluations (for reviews see Allen, MacKenzie and Hickman, 2001; Antonowicz, 2005; Tong & Farrington, 2006, 2007). For example, the review by Antonowicz (2005) concluded:

It is clear that the cognitive model and the R&R program that it spawned has been well received in the criminal justice community for more than 18 years - a remarkable achievement given the typical short shelf-life of many if not most offender treatment programs. This review would indicate that the enthusiasm has been reinforced by evidence of its efficacy in a variety of settings, with a variety of types of offenders in a variety of countries.

A comprehensive review including metanalysis of studies on the efficacy of R&R concluded as follows:

Sixteen evaluations (involving 26 separate comparisons) were located in which experimental and control groups were compared. A metanalysis showed

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that, overall, there was a significant 14% decrease in recidivism for programme participants compared with controls… It was effective in community and institutional settings, and for low risk and high-risk offenders. Smaller and larger evaluation studies, and older and newer studies, concluded that the programme was effective (Tong & Farrington, 2006).

A later metanalysis of nineteen evaluations (involving 32

separate comparisons) again found that overall, there was a significant 14% decrease in recidivism for program participants compared to controls… It was effective in community and institutional settings, whether given on a voluntary basis or not, and for low risk and high risk offenders (Tong and Farrington, 2007).

Cost-Benefits

The Washington State Institute for Public Policy identifies the types of programs that can reduce criminal offending in a cost-beneficial way. They focus on studies published in the last twenty-five years which use sound research methods. Standard economic outcome measures are calculated: net present values, benefit-to-cost ratios, and rates of return on investment. The Institute studied six evaluation studies on the Reasoning and Rehabilitation program and concluded:

the cost per participant is low, about $300 per offender… effect sizes, coupled with the low cost of the program, produce attractive … economic bottom lines of about $2,400 in net taxpayer-only benefits per participant and about $7,500 in net benefits per participant when the crime victim perspective is added (Aos, Phipps, Barnoski., & Lieb, 2001).

Time To Think Again

Although the R&R program has yielded significant reductions in recidivism in several independent international studies, it certainly has not done so in all such studies (Tong & Farrington, 2007). Moreover, whereas the results of the evaluations of R&R in Canadian penitentiaries indicate that the benefits of R&R in terms of reconvictions can be maintained over several years; other studies indicate that the benefits may erode over time and suggest the need


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for more emphasis on relapse prevention, ‗throughcare‘ or ‗booster sessions‘ (e.g. Raynor & Vanstone, 1996; Cann, Falshaw, Nugent & Friendship, 2003; Falshaw, Friendship, Travers & Nugent, 2003, 2004; Wilkinson, 2005). R&R is no panacea.

Rather than just accepting the ―I told you so‖ sneer on the faces of the ―nothing works‖ naysayers, it may be helpful to conjecture about why in some applications, R&R ―works‖ while in others (the more recent ones), it does not. It is easy to dismiss the disappointing results as implementation failures rather than a program failure. For example, some program evaluators have drawn attention to the failure of program staff to adhere to the carefully articulated principles and practices that are presented in the R&R program Handbook. They suggest that failure to ensure program integrity may be the factor that may account for the difference between the early success of R&R programs and the lack of success of some more recent implementations. There are many other factors.

A Bridge Too Far

Loss of program effectiveness may occur when an attempt is made to implement a program on a system-wide basis without ensuring that quality control is not compromised (Falshaw, Friendship, Travers & Nugent 2003). This problem applies not only to R&R but to most programs (Gendreau et al.,2001; Wilson, Allen, & MacKenzie, 2000).

R&R requires enthusiastic, trained staff with good cognitive and social skills who are working in an environment which is supportive of their program efforts and who maintain program integrity in their program delivery. Treatment personnel, program managers and researchers must identify and implement methods through which program integrity and staff enthusiasm and support can be maintained when the agency attempts to extend R&R from a small, controlled intervention to a large scale enterprise (Van Voorhis, Murphy, & Johnson, 1999).

The remarkably rapid and wide proliferation of the R&R program in many jurisdictions in many countries was stimulated by the publication of the positive outcome of several studies that indicated that the program had achieved success with a variety of types of offenders in both community and institutional settings. Those publications led to its rapid adoption and system-wide implementation as many enthusiastic agencies ―jumped on the bandwagon‖ and rushed to have many (often too many) staff trained in its delivery. For example, an extraordinarly large number of staff were quickly trained when R&R programs were implemented throughout the country-wide prison and probation system in England and Wales in a centrally-driven move that often replaced

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other established programs. When the initial enthusiasm waned and the 'honeymoon' ended, the program and its benefits suffered.

A Bridge Too Frail

The rush to adopt was unintentionally stimulated by the England and Wales ―Accreditation Panel‖ which named R&R as one of the first accredited programs. Ross had long stressed that managers must ensure that continuing agency support and enthusiastic and supportive supervision be provided for R&R Trainers. The motivation of Trainers is just as important as the motivation of the offenders they train. However, that principle may have been compromised by government demands for highly unrealistic completion rates. These demands led many jurisdictions to push offenders through the R&R program at a rapid rate whether or not they were suitable candidates for the program and whether or not the "Coaches" or Trainers were motivated to join in the enterprise. The system-wide implementation of R&R was heralded with grandiose expectations and exorbitant promises of its likely impact. Given the reality of the criminal justice system environment, such promises were bound to broken. "Panaceaphilia" can be a debilitating disease.

The Program is a Non-Starter?

Another factor that must be considered is the fact that, for a variety of reasons, many of the offenders who were referred to cognitive behavioral programs never started them. Many who did start them never completed them. It should not surprise us that such individuals did not benefit much from the programs since they never really received them. It should also not surprise us that when the recidivism for such individuals are included in the calculation of the overall results for the program they significantly reduce the apparent benefits of the program. It is easy to explain or explain or explain away their non-completion and the resulting poor outcome as a reflection of the offenders' lack of motivation. However, one must question whether it is reasonable to blame their lack of motivation to change for the failure of programs that are designed to change them.

The Honeymoon Is Over. Now We Need To Get To Know Each Other

One can readily point the finger of blame for cognitive behavioral program failures or weak results at implementation shortcomings, lack of integrity, innaprorpriate program assignment, or the offender's lack of motivation. However, there is another possible


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reason: shortcomings in the programs themselves and the cognitive behavioral model on which they are based. Such shortcomings were made apparent to us by our review of research that has been conducted over the past decade that indicates that both the cognitive model and cognitive behavioral programs (including R&R) must be revised in order to make them responsive to recent research on the relation between cognition and antisocial behavior, research on emotion, research on automatic thinking, research on desistance, and research on social cognitive and affective neuroscience. The research is described in the following chapters.

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Chapter 6

IMPULSIVITY

The early worm gets caught Author unknown

The empirical studies reviewed in the 1985 book, Time To

Think indicated that many delinquent youths and adult offenders are impulsive – they frequently act quickly and impetuously with little consideration of the consequences of their behavior. When an idea or a desire strikes them, many immediately respond without stopping to consider whether they should respond or how they should respond. When faced with a problem, a temptation, or a conflict they are less likely to think about the situation than to react to it. They often fail to delay their response to give themselves time to calculate the best possible course of action or to consider the likely consequences of their behavior. The general conclusion of such studies was that many offenders fail to think before they act.

Research conducted since 1985 adds to the empirical evidence of an impulsivity/offending behavior link. The relationship between impulsivity and delinquency has been found across a wide age span in many countries (Osuna & Luna, 1989). The research includes several longitudinal studies. Studies have found that impulsivity is related to offending both in early adolescence and later adolescence (e.g. Lynam, Caspi, Moffitt, Wikstrom. Loeber & Novak, 2000). For example, a study of 400 boys found that the relationship between impulsivity and delinquency is apparent both at 10 years of age and at ages 12 through 23 (White, Moffitt, Caspi & Bartusch, 1994). A study of inner-city boys from kindergarden to age 13 found that teachers‘ ratings of their impulsivity was the single best predictor of their self-reported delinquency at ages 10-13 (Tremblay, Pihl, Vitaro & Dobkin,1995). The impulsivity/crime connection has been found to be particularly salient among the most serious delinquents (Tremblay et al.,1995; Daderman & Klinteberg,1997); among violent offenders (Klinteberg, Andersson, Magnusson & Stattin, 1993; Luengo, Otero, Carillo-de-la-Pena & Miron, 1994); among incarcerated, severely conduct-disordered juveniles (Daderman, 1999); among male felons (Royse & Wiehe, 1988); among male parolees (Cherek, Moeller, Doughery & Rhoades, 1995); and among psychopathic offenders (Serin & Kurychuk, 1994). Research has also established that self-control is a protective factor against possible criminogenic influences. The relationship between impulsivity and delinquency has been found to be much


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stronger in poorer neighbourhoods (Lynam et al.,2000). However, boys who are not impulsive have been shown to be at no greater risk of delinquency whether they live in poor or ―better-off‖ neighbourhoods.

BEYOND OFFENDING

A large body of empirical studies indicates that impulsivity is a common characteristic not only of offenders but also of other types of antisocial individuals. Indeed, impulsivity has been found to be related to the development of stable, long-term and serious antisocial, though not necessarily criminal behavior (Buikhuisen, 1988; Gorenstein, 1982). It has been identified as a significant factor in antisocial behaviors such as pathological gambling in both men and women (e.g. Blaszczynski, Steel & McConaghy, 1997; Steel & Blaszczynski, 1996); hooliganism among sports spectators (Arms & Russel, 1998); suicidal behavior in adolescent psychiatric patients (Horesh, Gothelf, Ofek, Weizman & Apter, 1999); and firesetting (Kolko & Kazdin, 1991). It has also been found that aggressive children and adolescents exhibit more impulsive social problem solving strategies than their nonaggressive peers (e.g Fraser, 1996; Lochman & Dodge, 1994; Pakaslahti & Keltikangas-Jarvinen, 1996). Impulsivity in childhood and adolescence is associated with the subsequent development of substance abuse and is a direct predictor of heavy drinking in later life (Klinteberg et al.,1993). A longitudinal study of more than 1,000 twelve to eighteen year old adolescents indicates that impulsivity is also positively correlated with drug abuse (Luengo, Carillo-de-la-Pena, Otero & Romero, 1994).

The relationship between impulsivity and antisocial behavior is found across educational level and social class. For example, a study of 296 undergraduate college students found that males who were low in self-control reported significantly more property offences. Lack of self-control was also shown to be associated with their interpersonal offences (Pfefferbaum & Wood,1994). Impulsivity is also prominent in many disinhibitory psychiatric disorders, such as alcohol or substance-related disorders, conduct disorder, attention-deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD), antisocial personality disorder, bipolar disorder, and other impulse control disorders (Chen, Porjesz, Rangaswamy, Kamarajan, Tang, Jones, Chorlian, Stimus & Begleiter, 2007). It is also associated with borderline personality disorder (Siegle, 2007).

MISCELLANEOUS UNDERLYING FACTORS

There are a number of underlying factors that have been implicated in the impulsivity of antisocial individuals:

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Frontal lobe dysfunction: Some studies have found that antisocial individuals perform poorly on neuropsychological tests of frontal lobe functioning and have indicated that antisocial behavior may sometimes be linked to deficits in executive functioning that are associated with such frontal lobe dysfunction (e.g. Smith, Arnett & Newman, 1992). Executive functions are the processes that monitor and control thought and action. They include self-regulation, planning, cognitive flexibility, response inhibition, and resistance to interference (Eslinger, 1996). Reduced frontal lobe activity has also been found to be associated with impulsivity in disinhibitory psychiatric disorders (Chen et al.,. 2007). However, other studies have failed to find such frontal lobe deficits in antisocial individuals (e.g. Hare, 1984). Many individuals with frontal lobe damage do not evidence antisocial behavior (e.g. Trauner, Nass & Ballantyne, 2001; Miller & Cohen, 2001).

Inattention: The impulsivity of offenders may reflect not their inability to withold their response to stimuli, but their failure to adequately attend to the stimuli in the first place. It is not likely that an individual will heed a warning sign if their inattentiveness prevents them from realizing that there is a warning sign.

Selective Attention: Aggressive children attend to fewer social and situational cues, and when they do identify cues, they miss important ones. They tend to make use only of more stimulating cues (Fraser,1996).

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: There are many antisocial individuals, including adolescent and adult offenders, whose impulsivity is a function of underlying physiological or neurological factors. Recent research has drawn attention to one such factor: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). We discuss this research in Chapter 10. In Chapter 31 we describe a version of R&R2 that is specifically designed for youths and adults whose antisocial behavior is associated with some or all of the problems associated with ADHD.

Emotional factors: Many offenders make ―hurried, almost haphazard, decisions to offend while in a state of emotional turmoil" (Wright & Decker, 1994). Although they are thinking, their rapid decision-making may be engendered by their anxiety, fear, anger, depression or excitement. Hair trigger emotion and a hair trigger gun are not a good mix.


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Verbal factors: The offenders‘ impulsivity may indicate that they have not learned to use verbal mediation or "self-talk" to regulate their behavior, i.e. they do not appear to think through their response verbally, or intentionally rehearse it before taking action (Feindler & Ecton, 1986). However, they do talk to themselves. They can hardly avoid doing so (as anyone who has tried to do so quickly realizes). The problem is rather that they may not pay much attention to what they say – in a sense, they talk to themselves but they do not listen to themselves. They do not think about what they think about. If you do not pay attention to what you say to yourself you are hardly likely to inhibit your behavior. Indeed, you are unlikely to be able to inhibit your behavior.

Frustration Tolerance: Their apparent impulsivity may reflect that they have not learned coping techniques that would enable them to tolerate the frustration which arises from delaying gratification. Reacting may be considered by many offenders to be less anxiety-provoking and more rewarding than reasoning.

Self-image: Some may not wish to admit to their peers (or to researchers) that they do think. They may behave impulsively and "confess" that they do so in the interest of maintaining their 'macho, devil-may-care' image.

Substance Abuse: There are many possible explanations of the strong association between substance abuse and criminal and other antisocial behaviors. For example, the ability to think well may be compromised by the temporary or permanent effects of frequent and/or intermittent but excessive ingestion of alcohol and drugs. Judgment may be also impaired by cravings for these substances. Furthermore, alcohol may be used to dampen the inclination to think of potential aversive consequences.

Neuroscience research has found evidence supporting the link between impulsivity and addiction. Specifically, it has been found that alcoholics evidence reduced activity in the orbital frontal cortex compared to non-alcoholics when given a choice between immediate and delayed reward (Boettiger, Mitchell, Tavares, Robertson, Joslyn, D'Esposito & Fields, 2007). It is interesting that these researchers also point to the role of lower levels of dopamine in alcoholics. This may help account for the tendency of offenders to think only of the rewards and not the negative consequences of their antisocial acts – thinking of

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rewards is much more likely to yield chemical pleasure from increased dopamine than is thinking of aversive consequences

Problem Solving: The preschool period and the early years of school are critical in the development of long-term antisocial and aggressive behavior (e.g., Campbell, 1994; Gagnon, Craig, Tremblay, Zhou, & Vitaro, 1995). During these early years, a child's impulsivity is likely to delay his/her acquisition of social cognitive skills and many other skills. However, some research indicates that it is not impulsivity but poor social problem solving that contributes most to poor interpersonal interactions in adolescence (McMurran, Blair & Egan, 2002). In fact, many individuals who acquire good social problem solving skills achieve social competence despite their impulsivity. As we shall indicate later, many adolescents lack the cognitive skills that are required for effective problem solving. As a result, they may have benefited little in the past from delaying their responses – why would you stop and think if your lack of problem solving skills has prevented you from increasing your chances of achieving satisfactory outcomes by delaying? Their impulsivity may have been the primary factor in preventing them from acquiring adequate problem solving skills in the first place. Their lack of adequate problem solving skills may underlie their persisting in impulsive behavior.


Research has identified impulsivity as one of the key criminogenic factors that predict future criminality. Impulsivity is the cornerstone of several theoretical accounts of offending behavior (e.g. Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990; Lynam, 1996; Moffitt, 1993; Newman & Wallace, 1993). The conclusion of a survey of criminologists found that among all the psychological factors that have been implicated in juvenile delinquency and crime, impulsivity is the one warranting the most research attention (Ellis & Walsh, 1999).

However, although the relationship between impulsivity and offending behavior is both well recognized and well established, the nature of and the reasons for the impulsive behavior are not so well understood. Impulsivity is not a simple concept. Recent neuroscience research that we discuss later indicates that in order to determine how best to reduce the impulsivity of antisocial individuals we need to address several perplexing issues about the nature of the offender‘s impulsivity. However, first we must review research on other factors that are closely related to impulsivity: consequential thinking, risk-taking and sensation-seeking.

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Chapter 7

CONSEQUENTIAL THINKING

The wise man avoids evil by anticipating it. Publilius Syrus

Another characteristic of offenders that is frequently taken as a

concomitant of impulsivity is their failure to think about the consequences of their behavior. Much of the research literature categorizes consequential thinking as a component of problem solving and we will discuss it as such in the Chapter 13. However, for the moment we wish to review recent research on consequential thinking as a distinct factor. Our review raises some important questions about the assumption that offenders and other antisocial individuals do not think about the consequences of their behavior.

It Won't Happen To Me

The literature is replete with anecdotal evidence that indicates that offenders seldom think about at least one of the possible consequences of their antisocial behavior – the possibility that they might get caught. For example, in a ten-state survey of prison inmates, offenders were asked how often they "personally thought about the possibility that they might get caught when they were getting ready to do a crime" (Wright & Rossi, 1985). Among the 1,038 prisoners surveyed, 47 percent answered "seldom" or "never thought about it". Data collected in another study of imprisoned burglars revealed that 49 percent of them reported that they did not think about the chances of getting caught for any particular offense during their last period of offending (Bennett & Wright, 1984).

The Thoughful Offender

The conclusion that offenders do not think of the consequences before they act is based on the observation that they react quickly to problems and to temptations and do so in spite of potential negative consequences. However, it is important to go beyond appearances. Recent research indicates that offenders may not be reacting without thought. Offender self-reports suggest that they do think before they act. The following exemplify the responses of offenders to questions by investigators:

You don’t think about getting caught, but you do think about how in hell


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you’re going to do it without getting caught. The only thing you're thinking about is looking and acting and trying not to get caught.

The Negative Power of Positive Thinking

Offenders may, indeed, consider possible consequences before they act. However, their thinking may be designed to enable them to avoid considering negative consequences and to enable them to focus only on the potential positive consequences. For example, in a study in which subjects were asked to rank the importance of factors in decision making, the amount of gain offenders expected to receive was "the most important dimension", whereas the certainty of punishment was ranked as least important (Carroll, 1982). Another study found that offence rates are related only to offenders' perceptions of the benefits to be derived from crime (Peterson, Braiker & Polich, 1981). Yet another study found that offenders do engage in active and deliberate decision-making; however, instead of thinking about the potential negative consequences of their actions they focus their thoughts on the money that committing a crime may yield and how they will use it (Wright & Decker, 1994). Their thinking appears to have a magical quality – "because the best outcome is what I most desire, then it must happen".

The following first-person accounts of offenders exemplifies a common characteristic of their thinking (Carroll, 1982):

"I didn't think about nothing but what I was going to do when I got that money, how I was going to spend it, what I was going to do with it, you know. ...Because you're just thinking about money, and money only. That's all that's on your mind, because you want that money. And you throw, you block everything off until you get the money. I wasn't worried about getting caught or anything, you know. I was a positive thinker through everything, you know. I didn't have no negative thoughts about it whatsoever".

The general conclusion of the Rand Corporation‘s survey of 624 prisoners in five California prisons was that offenders do think, but they think almost exclusively about ―for what we are about to receive” (Carroll, 1982). They made no mention of “make us truly thankful”.

Thus, offenders may not be acting without thinking. Their impulsivity may indicate only that they employ a different calculus in assessing the benefits and risks of consequences.

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Violence Pays

Aggressive children are also more likely to believe that their negative behavior will yield positive consequences for them (Perry, Perry & Kennedy, 1992). Aggressive delinquent youth are more likely to believe that their behavior will lead to increased self-esteem and will help them to avoid a negative image in the eyes of their peers (Slaby & Guerra, 1988). Such "positive thinking" has also been found among violent delinquents. Compared with their nonaggressive peers, aggressive adolescents anticipate fewer negative consequences of aggression of any kind including negative emotional reactions (Guerra & Slaby, 1989). High-risk delinquents may believe that even serious delinquent behavior will result in positive consequences for them (Hains & Miller, 1980; Slaby &

Guerra, 1988; Border, Earleywine & Huey, 2004).

Don't Stop Thinking

There are many other factors that must be considered when assessing the nature of consequential thinking among offenders and aggressive youths:

Thinking of the near future: Offenders who think about the potential consequences of the illegal behavior they are considering committing tend to think of the immediate consequences rather than the longer-term consequences. Similarly, aggressive adolescents tend to take only short term consequences into consideration (Huesmann & Eron, 1989). Their thinking may be so focused on the short-term positive consequences of their potential response that they are not even aware of the more long-term negative consequences. We need to remember that the legal and academic or career consequences of antisocial behavior for adolescents are often so remote that they may not consider them to be of much concern to themselves.

Failure to Think or Denial? Wright and Decker‘s (1994) investigation of active burglars noted that their thinking was consciously and deliberately designed to neutralize their fear of sanctions. The most common neutralization technique involved a steadfast refusal to dwell on the possibility of being apprehended. The offenders reported that: ‖you can wipe it away…you just blank it out‖.

Thinking or Judging: There may also be differences between offenders and non-offenders in the judgments they make about the potential consequences of their actions not only with


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respect to the likelihood that they will experience them, but also with respect to their importance. For example, high-delinquent adolescents are much more likely than their low-delinquent peers to hold beliefs that minimize the importance and severity of the consequences of deviant behavior (Slaby & Guerra, 1988).

Peer pressure:The offender‘s thinking may be influenced by group dynamics that push whatever prosocial concerns they may have out of their attention (Cordilia, 1986). They may choose to ignore the possible negative consequences of their illegal acts in order to enjoy the camaraderie of their ―buddies‖. Thus, they may think about the immediate rewards of group acceptance rather than the longer-term negative consequences of their actions (Cordilia, 1986). It has been demonstrated that peer pressure toward antisocial behavior compromises individuals' sensitivity to the consequences of their antisocial behavior (Buck, Hakim, Sagi & Weinblatt, 1989).

Motivation: Many offenders commit offences for ―expressive reasons‖ such as hostility, anger or revenge. Although they think about the potential negative interpersonal consequences of their actions, these consequences have a positive valence for them. Thus, they have little motivation to delay.

Risk assessment: The beliefs of delinquents with respect to the low probability of negative consequences strongly influence their consequential thinking. Many are sublimely optimistic; they believe that they will not be caught; if caught, not convicted; if convicted, not sentenced; if sentenced, not imprisoned; if imprisoned, quickly released. Their beliefs may not be unrealistic.

Social isolation: Offenders may think about the negative consequences of their intended behavior but not care about them. For example, many offenders are isolated from prosocial significant others. Thus, they may have few interpersonal constraints on their behavior. Having no one who truly cares for them, they may conclude: ―What’s there to think about?

Egocentricity: Many offenders may think only about the consequences for themselves, not the consequences for others. Many offenders are egocentric and have little motivation to delay their actions for fear of harming other individuals (including their victims). Their egocentric thinking means that they are unlikely to register the consequences of physical suffering, financial loss or emotional damage for their victims or

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the far-reaching effects on society such as the fear or anxiety that their antisocial behavior may engender in others. However, that is not simply impulsive behavior; it is ‗care-less‘ behavior.

Sticking To No Plan

―I’m lost but I'm making record time‖. A Pilot (somewhere over the Pacific)

The offender‘s criminal acts may not indicate a lack of

thinking. It may indicate a lack of planning. For example, forty-seven percent of 1,199 men accused or convicted of robbery, burglary, theft, or auto theft said they "never" or only "sometimes" "worked out a plan" before they committed crimes (Peterson, Chaiken, Ebener & Honig, 1982). Even on occasions when they successfully avoid arrest, ―the criminal planning and follow-through of most persistent thieves have a distinct improvisational quality‖ (Wright & Rossi, 1985). Many offenders lack the cognitive skills for long-term planning or even for short-term planning. Their thinking is not for years ahead, sometimes not even for minutes ahead. They are 'prisoners of the moment'.

Prison Lawyers

Offenders who spend countless hours in the prison library planning their next appeal may be among the many exceptions to the foregoing. However, although some appeals may bear fruit, such planning is typically both overly simplistic and unsuccessful.


The typical response of the criminal justice system to the apparent failure of offenders to think about the potential negative consequences of their antisocial behavior is to attempt to bring such consequences to their attention: to promise to catch them when they transgress; and to reinforce the promise by punishing them when, and if, they are caught. Such "punishment promising" strategies (Andrews & Bonta, 2006) sound reasonable. However, as we shall indicate in Chapter 12, there is very little objective evidence of their efficacy. The proponents of such deterrence approaches may be just as unrealistically optimistic as the offenders they seek to deter.

The impulsivity and lack of consequential thinking of antisocial individuals is so multi-determined that it is unlikely to be prevented by such simple solutions. That conclusion is also indicated by recent research we review in the following chapters on risk-taking and sensation-seeking. The research suggests that another solution needs to be considered.

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Chapter 8

RISK-TAKING AND SENSATION-SEEKING

Another factor that has been viewed as a concomitant of offenders‘ impulsivity is risk-taking behavior. It has been established that the best predictor of being convicted of delinquency as a juvenile (age 14 to 16) is having a history (at age 8 or 10) of being "daring" (Farrington & West, 1990).

Many adolescent and adult offenders evidence a failure to recognize the potential consequences of their behavior. They are risk ignorant. However, many others engage in risk-taking behaviors even when such behaviors frequently yield negative consequences for them and they are fully aware that they do so.

Many underestimate the likelihood of risks, and/or overestimate their ability to handle risks safely. Redl & Wineman (1951) reported that "they have a delusion of exceptionalistic exemption from the law of cause and effect.‖

There is a variety of factors that play a role in risk-taking behavior:

Catch Me If You Can: Many offenders believe that there is little risk to think about because the chances of getting caught for illegal activity are so low as to be insignificant. In fact, as many offenders assume, the odds of being arrested for any specific criminal act are not great (Felson, 2006). Ironically, the offence histories of many juvenile and adult offenders are replete with examples of their underestimating the risks involved in illegal acts for which they have frequently been arrested.

Intermittent Reinforcement Effect: It should not be surprising that offenders downplay the risks of apprehension. Their judgment that there is little risk in their illegal activity is intermittently reinforced by their frequent experience of ‗getting away with it‘. The more frequently one offends, the more probable it will be that punishment will not be forthcoming for any one offence. Thus, committing crime can become self-reinforcing (Pogarsky, 2003).

Offenders may be playing odds that are heavily stacked in their favour. The criminal justice system operates much like a slot machine at a casino. Those who operate the criminal justice system are reinforced now and again by the successful prosecution of some minor offender, or the highly publicized


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trial and conviction of some media-grabbing offender. However, on the vast majority of crime occasions there is no ―pay-off‖ for the crime-fighters. Many courts provide a revolving door through which the majority quickly enter and then exit after each of their 'final warnings'. Many offenders have told us that the real risk-takers are the police and the prosecutors.

With a Little Help From Their Friends: Offenders may see little reason for curbing their illegal behavior in spite of the risks because, with ‗tips‘ from their criminal peers, they come to learn avoidance strategies that encourage them to believe that crime is a low risk enterprise and a lucrative one. They quickly develop confidence in their ability to avoid arrest (McCall, 1994).

The Prison As a Teacher: Even concerns about the risk of prison appear to abate over ‗time‘ for many offenders as their prison experience ‗teaches‘ them that they ―can handle it‖. Accordingly, they become less fearful and better prepared for their next trip ‗up the river‘ (Martin & Sussman, 1995).

Image Enhancement: Offenders' risk-taking may represent a deliberate attempt to appear spontaneous, independent, and resourceful. Their risk-taking behavior may enable them to maintain their macho image or to view themselves as a ―hero beating the bureaucratic system‖ (Walsh, 1986). Such thoughts often precede and stimulate their apparently thoughtless actions.

Careful Risk-Takers

It must be noted that not all risk-takers are offenders. Moreover, not all risk-takers are as nonchalant about the potential consequences of their risk-taking behavior. Many high-risk athletes, for example, go to great lengths to minimize the dangers associated with their "on the edge" sporting activities.

SENSATION-SEEKING

Another characteristic of offending behavior that has long been viewed simply as impulsivity is sensation-seeking. Sensation seeking refers to a tendency to engage in high-risk activities for excitement or stimulation. Unlike risk-takers who seldom think about the potential negative consequences of their risk-taking behavior, sensation-seekers are actually motivated by thinking about the risk of such consequences.

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Many offenders evidence an excessive attraction to immediate reward as they search for novelty and thrill. Delay may be deliberately and consciously eschewed in favor of enjoying the more risky pleasures of the moment (Persson, 1981). Although many are indifferent to risks, some thrive on risk.

Acting in an apparently impulsive manner does not necessarily indicate that the individuals are failing to stop and think. On the contrary, their stopping to think may be what stimulates them to take the risk. Even just thinking about engaging in a risky behavior or a criminal act can earn them the pleasure of an adrenalin rush.

Risk is something we would expect most individuals to avoid or minimize. Not so. There are many "adventurous pleasure seekers" (Andrews, 2000) who think that prosocial behavior is boring. Many offenders engage in illegal activity because it is 'fun'. Many get a ‗kick‘ out of flouting the law. Prosocial behavior may yield little satisfaction to juvenile and adult offenders who think there is not enough excitement in obeying rules.

Many offenders evidence a penchant for activities that involve thrill and excitement. Many view danger as exciting. Many view aggression as a way to yield them an image of ―hyper masculinity‖.

The Risk-takers Among Us

Sensation-seeking is associated with a variety of offending behaviors including multiple convictions for impaired driving and convictions for drunk driving (e.g. Dahlen, Martin, Ragan & Kuhlman, 2005; Jonah, Thiessen, & Au-Yeung, 2001). College students who admit to having been being involved in property delinquency and substance abuse evidence a penchant for situations and activities that involve high excitement (Pfefferbaum & Wood, 1994). Evidence of high sensation-seeking has also been found among severely conduct-disordered 14-21 year old male juvenile delinquents (Daderman, 1999). It has also been found to be associated with drug abuse (e.g. Daderman & Klinteberg, 1997); and with smoking (Jonah, 1996; Zuckerman, 1994). Indeed, the combination of sensation-seeking, impulsivity and inattention is a key risk factor for both substance abuse and delinquency (Klinteberg, Andersson, Magnusson & Stattin, 1993).

Many antisocial individuals lack tolerance for repetitive, routine, or structured tasks and seek to 'cope' with feelings of boredom by engaging in high-risk activities that are illegal but exciting. Regrettably, their activities are often just as exciting for the media.

Crime Menu

Although impulsivity and sensation-seeking have both been associated with delinquency, each may be associated with different


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types of delinquency. Thus, among 14-18 year olds, one study found that impulsivity is more likely to be associated with more serious delinquent acts such as aggression and theft; whereas sensation-seeking is more closely associated with what some researchers consider to be less serious offences, such as drug consumption and rule-breaking (Luengo et al.,.,1994). Similarly, a study of college undergraduates indicated that risk-taking males who were also low in self-control reported having been involved in significantly more property offences whereas interpersonal offences were more likely to be associated with lack of self-control than with risk-taking (Pfefferbaum & Woods, 1994).

Neurobiological Factors

Sensation-seekers and risk-takers may behave recklessly not only to show off or to compete with their ‗buddies‘, or to confirm their ―reputation‖, or to feel they are ‗somebody‖, or to prove they are invincible, or to maintain their ―Macho‖ image. Their behavior may also be designed to yield an increase in their physiological or cortical arousal. There may be a neurobiological component involved. Findings of studies on resting skin conductance and heart rate indicate that many antisocial individuals evidence autonomic underarousal suggesting that their sensation seeking and risk-taking may be engendered by their need for stimulation (Raine, 1996).

Neurodevelopment

Reckless antisocial behavior among adolescents may also be attributable to the fact that the brain development of their socio-emotional system occurs more rapidly than that of their more rational cognitive control system which develops gradually over a much longer period of time. Thus, as Steinberg (2007) points out, their behavior is more likely to reflect emotional arousal than rational judgment.


There is very little to be gained by consistently or dramatically bringing to the attention of sensation-seeking offenders the risks they face in terms of possible punishment for their risky antisocial behaviors. They are unlikely to listen to our warnings. If they do, they are unlikely to believe us. Moreover, our warnings may ‗educate‘ them in terms of what behaviors are most likely to satisfy their oppositional motives. As one antisocial adolescent requested: "Tell me the rules so I can break them". Our warnings may, in fact, be more likely to motivate many of them to engage in such behaviors because they remind them of the risks they seek to enjoy.

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We suggest an alternative approach - teaching them the value of satisfying their needs for sensation or novelty through prosocial activities. Our suggestion is based in part on research in social cognitive neuroscience which we discuss in the next chapter.

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Chapter 9

THE TWO "MINDS"

Before concluding that the offenders‘ impulsivity simply indicates that they do not think before they act, we need to ask another question: is the offender‘s impulsivity different from the impulsive decision-making that most of us exhibit most of the time?

An assumption that is frequently made about offenders is that, in contrast to antisocial individuals, prosocial individuals 'stop and think' and engage in careful reasoning before they act. The simple truth is that when faced with problems, most of us, most of the time, appear to behave in the same way as offenders. We seldom delay our response while we carefully analyze the problem, consider the short and long term consequences of each, and think of a variety of alternative solutions before we take action. On the contrary, we usually react automatically without appearing to engage in any thinking at all.

Most of the time we all engage in "Automatic Thinking" (AT) (Reber, 1993; Sternberg, 2000). Although we may not have any awareness that we are involved in any thinking or reasoning process, our reactions are frequently preceded by cognitive processing that is automatic, rapid, and apparently effortless.

Neuroscience research has made it clear that much, perhaps most of our 'thinking' is neither thoughtful nor deliberately nor even consciously considered - many if not most of the decisions that we say we "reach" or "arrive at" seem to be "snap judgments" (Gladwell, 2005). Although we may think, we usually do so without pausing to reason.

The phenomenon of automatic thinking has major implications for the cognitive behavioral model and for the design of interventions that seek to achieve the rehabilitation of antisocial individuals.

DUAL PROCESSING

In general, we’re least aware of what our minds do best

Marvin Minsky

Neuroscientists refer to the concept of "dual processes" in

accounting for the fact that people are able to a lot of things without conscious thought. They note that we have one body and one brain but at least two information processing systems. These information processing systems can be described as two neural systems, or two "minds" that are differentially responsible for automatic and controlled social cognition (Epstein,1999). Human beings operate by both of


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these two "minds" that Epstein refers to as: 1. the "experiential mind", which learns directly from experience, is preconscious, operates automatically, and is intimately associated with emotions; and 2. the "rational mind", which operates according to logical inference, is conscious, deliberative, controlled, rational, and relatively emotion-free.

Lieberman (2007) has called the one system "the X-system", named for the ‗x‘ in reflexive, and the other "the C-system", named for the ‗c‘ in reflective. The X-system is largely responsible for processes that are automatic and the C-system is responsible for processes that are controlled. The 'c' system is involved in higher cognitive processes that enable some control over the 'x' process

The two systems develop separately; however, they function in an intertwined, hand-in-hand manner. It is important to note that both of these distinct systems process information, reach decisions, and direct our actions. Thus, they both involve thinking.

A variety of other labels and acronyms have been used to demarcate the two systems. We prefer to refer to one system as "AT" for automatic thinking and to the other as "RT" for rational thinking. Most of us, most of the time operate using the AT system.

The Brain does More than Reasoning

We like to think that our behavior is controlled by our rational mind. Neuroscientists have demonstrated that often – most often – it is not. Our automatic system is much more powerful and is the one that, usually without our awareness, is most responsible for our everyday behavior and for our emotions. Neuroscience research has established that most of our daily actions (about 97%) are automatic (e.g. Bargh, 2006).

Social psychologists have been talking about dual-process models of automatic and controlled social cognition for more than a decade (e.g. Wegner & Bargh 1998). Social cognitive neuroscience now indicates that the two systems are a function of two distinct neurocognitive systems9. AT thinking is rapid and emotional and is

9 The AT system involves the neural regions of the amygdala, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, the lateral temporal cortex, the basal ganglia. and the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex; whereas the RT system involves the lateral parietal cortex, the medial parietal cortex, the lateral prefrontal cortex, the medial prefrontal cortex, the medial temporal lobe, and the rostral anterior cingulate cortex.

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more likely to yield immediate action compared to RT thinking which is slower, more logical and likely to yield more delayed action.

The Same but Different

We like to believe that our behavior is controlled and directed by our rational thinking. However, we all engage in Automatic Thinking much more often than in Rational Thinking. Are we any different from the offenders we urge to stop and think and whom we criticize for failing to do so? Yes, we are. However, the difference is not simply that we think whereas they do not as is implied when we say that "they do not stop and think". The information processing systems of many antisocial individuals have two important characteristics that differentiate their AT and RT systems from those of prosocially competent individuals: 1. a failure to think well and 2. a tendency to think antisocially:

A Failure to Think Well: The impulsivity of many antisocial individuals may not reflect a lack of thinking but a lack of adequately skilled thinking (ST). They may fail to think carefully and they may make judgments about what to do without adequate analysis of the situation and how best to respond. Many offenders have not developed the skills that would enable them to benefit from inserting a pause between temptation and action. Without the requisite skills, pausing to think, reason or reflect may not be of much value. There is little point in stopping to think if you do not think very well. It may not be time well spent. It may be time wasted.

Antisocial AT Thinking: However, the antisocial behavior of many may reflect not an inability to think well but an acquired AT that leads them to respond not only impulsively but also antisocially.

The AT system is pylogenetically old (estimated at seven million years - give or take several million years), whereas the RT system is relatively new (less than five thousand years). The RT is also older that the AT in each individual's neural development. Neuroscience research demonstrates that the AT mind draws heavily on the right hemisphere of the brain and the emotion generating limbic system, whereas the RT or rational mind draws more on the left hemisphere which does not 'come on line' until around a year and a half. Before that development occurs, the child's early experiences specifically impact the non-verbal right hemisphere (Schore, 2001 a,b).

Because of their adverse experiences, the AT mind of maltreated children is likely to be predisposed to seeing the world in the most negative, threatening and pessimistic terms. Their experiences can foster their development of an AT Mind consisting of


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a preconscious collection of antisocial emotions, attitudes and values that lead to automatic antisocial thinking and action.

EARLY LIFE EXPERIENCE

Children whose early family environment entails abusive, punitive, conflict-ridden, or unstable parenting are likely to evidence mental health problems throughout their lives (Repetti Taylor & Seeman, 2002; Lundberg,1993; Walker, Gelfand, Katon, Koss, Von Korff, Bernstein & Russo,1999). Neuroscience research has pointed to neural mechanisms that link such adverse environmental conditions to their subsequent adverse effects.

Emotion

The neural mechanisms associated with emotional regulation and threat detection are particularly salient:

Emotional Reactivity: Risky family environments have been shown to lead to heightened physiological stress reactivity including elevated autonomic responses (Taylor, Eisenberger, Saxbe, Lehman & Lieberman, 2006). The offspring of such families overreact to stress and respond aggressively to moderately stressful circumstances (Reid & Crisafulli, 1990; Repetti et al.,. 2002). Chronic or extreme adverse early life experiences can lead to such effects by increasing the child's or adolescent's hypothalamic-pituitary adrenocortical responses to stress (e.g., Flinn & England 1997; Chorpita & Barlow 1998; Repetti et al.,2002; McEwen 1998). The automatic response of individuals reared under such conditions is likely to be associated with an emotional overeaction to problem situations that may trigger impulsive, antisocial behavior.

Emotion Regulation: Offspring of adverse family environments have also been shown to evidence shortcomings in their emotion regulation skills (e.g., Camras, Ribordy, Hill, Martino, Spacarrelli & Stefani,1988; Dunn & Brown 1994), particularly difficulty in their managing their emotions in the face of problems (e.g., Brody & Flor 1998; Repetti et al.,. 2002). Emotional Arousal: The RT mind can sometimes override the AT mind when it is leading the individual into engaging in antisocial behavior. However, it can do so only under some conditions and circumstances. The RT system functions best at low to moderate levels of emotional arousal, whereas the AT system functions better at higher levels of arousal. Thus, the ST system is less able to regulate the AT system when emotion is high as is likely in individuals who have been reared under conditions of stress and maltreatment.


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Antisocial Schemas

Individuals who have experienced the world as malevolent, hostile and threatening may develop a view of the world which reflects their negative and antisocial experiences. Our experience creates personal schemas which are formed and maintained in our AT system and serve as the habitual means by which we assess and make sense of our world. Our schemas include personal narratives, beliefs, values and motives that guide our behavior without our awareness that they are doing so. They determine in large measure how we interpret and react to our experiences.

The schema of children whose early life has been characterized by neglect and physical or emotional abuse is unlikely to be prosocial. It is much more likely to be antisocial. Such antisocial AT schemas continue to determine their view of the world and their automatic antisocial reactions to people and events over a long period of time. For example, antisocial schemas enable them to judge a situation to be hostile before paying much attention to situation-specific cues which would inform them that the situation is not hostile.

Antisocial schemas are AT conceptual systems that are highly resistant to change. This is partly because they are 'preconscious' and the individuals are not aware of them or are not aware of their influence on their behavior. It is also partly because the individuals do not realize or consider that their (often hostile) view of their world reflects their subjective organization and interpretation of their environment. They assume that their view is objective.

The antisocial individuals' antisocial schemas are also resistant to change because their schemas are what enables them to feel secure in their understanding of the world and changing their schemas would be anxiety provoking. Even though their antisocial schemas may not reflect reality, they provide the antisocial individual with the security of an organized view of the world. Challenges to that organization are likely to be viewed as threatening.

CONSCIOUSNESS

Our AT mind is responsible for a wide range of functions including high level functions such as social attitudes and evaluations, emotions, impression formation, and motivation. All such functions can occur without our awareness.

Freud argued that the conscious mind is only the tip of an iceberg and that the vastly larger unconscious mind that lies under the surface is what largely determines our thoughts and actions. However, more recent research has indicated that consciousness is more like a small snowball sitting on top of the iceberg (Bargh & Chartrand, 1999; Bargh & Ferguson;2000; Dijksterhuis & Bargh,


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2001; Bargh, Gollwitzer, Lee-Chai, Barndollar, & Troetschel, 2001; Bargh,2006).

If so much of our social life does not require conscious deliberative processes why do we even have consciousness? Why do we need a conscious rational mind? After all, most of the time most people do not use their RT and when they do, it is usually to rationalize the actions of their AT. Moreover, most people are not that good at ―rational‖ thinking (van den Brink-Budgen, 2000; Kuhn, 2005). As Albert Ellis once quipped, ―it is possible to get people to be rational, but it is not natural‖.

Why do humans have consciousness? Why did it evolve? One possible answer is that the purpose of consciousness enables the assemblage and integration of complex unconscious skills. Thus, the ―rational‖ ST mind exists to develop the ―experiential‖ AT mind. It is possible that one purpose of consciousness is the creation of ever more complex unconscious automatic processes that fit each individual's idiosyncratic environment, needs, and purposes (Bargh, 2006). Our RT has a very limited capacity. Therefore it is adaptive that it is deployed only when needed (as William James argued as long ago as 1890). Conscious processing may save RT resources by making learned skills as automatic as possible (Bargh, 2007). We will return to this hypothesis when we discuss the principles underlying our suggestions for rehabilitation programs for antisocial individuals.

A second reason for having both AT and RT is that ―two minds are better than one mind". It may seem ironic, but decisions about simple issues can often be better tackled by conscious thought (RT), whereas decisions about complex matters can be better approached with unconscious thought (Dijksterhuis & Nordgren, 2006). Before making a decision about a complex issue it is suggested that one first employ the RT to prime the ―unconscious‖ with a detailed, rational examination of as much information as possible then ―sleep on it‖. Once primed and directed toward finding a solution, ―sleeping on it‖ gives the whole brain/mind system time to come up with the best solution using both the AT and RT together (Benson & Proctor, 2003; Dijksterhuis & Nordgren, 2006).

There is a third reason for a conscious RT mind. Although our AT is not readily available to awareness and we may think and act in a conditioned and automatic manner most of the time, we are also able to use our RT to exert some control over our AT. Thus, we still have ―free will‖ and responsibility for our actions.


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Rethinking Thinking

AT thoughts are typically preconscious and therefore not readily amenable to rational RT control. However, many cognitive programs for the treatment of antisocial behavior target only the rational or RT ―mind‖. Since the rational mind is only a small part of the whole system and most of the time all of us are not that conscious or deliberately rational, such programs are treating only a small part of the person.

Prosocial thinking and the prosocial behavior it engenders requires the development not only of a prosocial RT but also of a prosocial AT. We need to develop both the AT and the RT systems, but we also must bring them into balance with each other so they can work collaboratively in an automatic but skilled manner.

We suggest that programs designed to treat antisocial individuals must first teach them how to recognize and attend to their AT rather than placing exclusive emphasis on teaching cognitive skills that might enable them to control their AT. We need to help antisocial individuals realize that they are frequently controlled from within – that much of their thinking that leads them to act in antisocial ways occurs automatically, without their awareness. We need to teach them to become aware of the preconscious thoughts that trigger their emotions that may lead to their antisocial behavior. We also need to teach them they are the originators of these emotions and not, as they may be wont to believe, just the victims of them.

The goal of the new R&R2 programs we describe in Chapter 31 is to help participants move beyond unskilled Automatic Thinking (AT) by developing both more skilled Automatic Thinking and more skilled Rational Thinking (RT). Programs should, and can, teach skilled thinking (ST) in both the automatic and rational modes.

Moreover, although we need to teach antisocial individuals to better manage their destructive AT, we also need to teach them that when they control their negative AT, doing so yields them some concrete benefit. Otherwise we will simply reinforce their belief that trying to control their old AT is not worth the effort. Why would they try if their efforts in doing so do not increase their chances of achieving a satisfactory outcome?

We also need to develop both RT and ST in the direction of prosocial thinking. Training antisocial individuals to use their RT to think about their AT thinking and feeling is essential, but it is unlikely to be sufficient to change an antisocial AT to a prosocial AT.

One's AT and personal schemata are developed primarily through experience. An antisocial AT mind and antisocial personal schemata are a likely consequence of exposure to hostile,


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malevolent, rejecting or abusive experiences. We will argue that the antisocial AT of antisocial individuals may be modified or replaced by the development of a prosocial AT if the individuals are engaged in prosocial experiences.

Determining how best to teach prosocial Skilled Automatic Thinking (SAT) and prosocial Skilled Rational Thinking (SRT) requires that we also examine research on other factors that are known to be required for skilled thinking: critical reasoning; creative thinking; and problem solving. We discuss these in the following chapters.

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Chapter 10

ATTENTION DEFICIT HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER

The impulsivity, sensation-seeking and risk-taking of many

antisocial individuals may be a function of an underlying neurodevelopmental factor: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

It is well known that ADHD is a concern for parents and teachers of ADHD children and adolescents because their core difficulties in attention and concentration may lead to academic and behavior problems (Young & Brahmam, 2007). It also is a concern for the justice system (or should be) (Young & Gudjonsson, 2006). Court records indicate that ADHD youths are four to five times more likely to be arrested and to have multiple arrests and convictions (e.g. Mannuzza, Klein, Abikoff & Moulton, 2004).

The association between ADHD and antisocial behavior is not limited to school age children or adolescents. ADHD symptoms may be present not only during individuals‘ formative years and adolescence but throughout their adult life. ADHD has been found among many adult offenders. Studies of prison populations in several countries (e.g. USA, Sweden, Canada and Norway) suggest that between 22% and 67% of inmates had childhood ADHD. Moreover, as many as 30% of them continue to be symptomatic in adulthood and 16% are only in partial remission of their symptoms (Eyestone & Howell, 1994; Dalteg, Lindgren & Levander, 1999; Rasmussen, Almik & Levander, 2001; Vitelli, 1995).

The relationship between ADHD and a variety of antisocial behaviors is now well documented in the research literature (Young, 2000). ADHD has consistently been reported in studies of antisocial behaviors with incidence ranging between 25% and 60% (Young, 2007).

COMORBIDITY

Comorbid antisocial disorders are also commonly associated with ADHD in children and adolescents including:

Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD). Children and adolescents with ADHD are at increased risk for ODD, which is characterized by a persistent pattern of "negativistic, hostile, and defiant behavior lasting at least six months." The symptoms include frequent loss of temper, arguments with adults, and/or annoyance of others. ODD children are often


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angry or resentful. They frequently refuse to comply with or actively defy adult requests or rules. These behaviors may result in clinically significant impairment in social and/or academic functioning (Adesman, 2003).

Conduct Disorder. Among the comorbidities associated with ADHD the one with the worst psychosocial prognosis is conduct disorder which is characterized by a "repetitive and persistent pattern of behavior involving violations of the basic rights of others or of major age-appropriate societal norms or rules". Youth with conduct disorder are more likely than their peers to be sexually active at a young age, smoke, drink, use illegal substances, and engage in other risky behaviors. They are at markedly increased risk of academic suspension or expulsion, social ostracism, physical injury from fighting, and legal problems (Adesman, 2003).

Antisocial Personality Disorder: ADHD symptoms have also been found to be prevalent among individuals who evidence some of the most extreme antisocial behaviors: adults diagnosed with Antisocial Personality Disorder. This diagnosis has been reported to be up to ten times more likely to be present among adults with ADHD (e.g. Young et al.,2003). ADHD comorbid with Personality Disorder has been reported to range between 13% and 45% (e.g. Young, Gudjonsson, Ball & Lam, 2003). Seventy-eight per cent of male offenders with a primary diagnosis of personality disorder detained in secure services self-report difficulties consistent with childhood ADHD. Twenty-nine percent were classified as retaining some current symptoms and this group had a significantly greater number of recorded critical incidents of aggression than the non-symptomatic group (Young et al.,2003).

COGNITIVE SKILLS

Children, adolescents and adults with ADHD are likely to evidence shortcomings in problem solving and other cognitive skills that are similar to those found in other antisocial groups. For example, they frequently make decisions based on inadequate information, resulting in fundamental errors in judgment. They may evidence diffi-culty in the concentration that is required for following through a train of thought in a logical fashion. Their lack of impulse control may lead them to appear to act without thinking. They seldom think ahead or consider the negative consequences of their actions. They may evidence an excessive attraction to immediate rewards. They tend to make decisions and important choices without consideration of small

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details or planning. Such cognitive and behavioral characteristics may lead them to become increasingly involved in antisocial and criminal behavior. Their offenses are typically opportunistic and unplanned.

INTEPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS

Another characteristic of ADHD individuals is poor interpersonal relationships. They may be unaware of the impact of their behavior on others and misinterpret the behavior of others (including their non-verbal behavior) and fail to understand or misappraise social situations including family situations (Barkley, Fischer Edelbrock & Smallish, 1991).

They frequently experience difficulties interacting with others and establishing or maintaining relationships. Part of the problem is that their inattention and distractibility may be perceived by others as an inability to listen or as a lack of interest. Their inattention and impatience may be misinterpreted as rudeness when, for example, they interrupt conversations. Their failure to follow instructions, their frequent mood swings and their unpredictable emotional responses may be perceived by others as obnoxious behavior. They may fail or be unable to recognize social cues. Consequently, they may encounter frequent rejection and may become socially isolated or ostracized. Many feel misunderstood by others and have long-term interpersonal relationship problems. Moreover, they may fail to acquire adequate knowledge of social rules, roles, manners and routines including the the fundamental "rules" of friendship (Whalen & Henker, 1992).

EMOTIONAL MANAGEMENT

Individuals with ADHD may also evidence difficulties in managing their emotions. They are likely to frequently experience depressed feelings. Many are hyperaroused individuals who evidence a tendency toward angry outbursts and violence. They may quickly respond with anger in the face of minimal provocation or they may build up frustration over a long period of time. They may vent their frustration and angry feelings by lashing out at others.

SELF-ESTEEM AND SELF-EFFICACY

Just as in the case of many offenders with inadequately developed cognitive skills, the ADHD individual who has experienced failure in many of his/her academic and social endeavours is likely to evidence low self-esteem and self-efficacy. They may come to anticipate continuing failure in their everyday activities. Their common underlying schemas are "I can't cope" and "I'm useless". Individuals with ADHD tend to catastrophize or exaggerate negative experiences and focus only on the negative without viewing things from a positive


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perspective (Young, 2002). They tend to think in ‗all-or-nothing terms‘ and jump to conclusions. Then when something does not immediately go very well, they give up rather than try some alternative response. Many individuals with ADHD become rigid and inflexible in thought and behavior.

Many individuals with ADHD experience a gradual improvement in some of their symptoms with maturation; however, in spite of these improvements, many of the "survivors" of the syndrome are left with significant personal, social, and occupational problems (Young, 2002). Although they are no longer symptomatic and their ability to attend to information and remain on task has improved, they are likely to have acquired a sense of helplessness that has been re-inforced by years of failure. They may come to assume that they do not have the ability to succeed or even to cope. They may view many situations as unmanageable and experience considerable anxiety when faced with even minimal challenge. Their anxiety and low self-esteem may lead them to avoid many situations including treatment programs. Even if their ADHD is still apparent, their avoidance behavior may be misinterpreted as poor motivation or even hostility.


Many treatment programs have difficulty engaging antisocial individuals who evidence ADHD related symptoms. Their behavior in groups is likely to be disruptive. Impulsivity is not the only problem that they present. They may not pay adequate attention to the program or the facilitator. Their restlessness and their provocative behavior may disrupt other participants; distress them; and/or incite them such that not only the behavior of the ADHD participants, but that of the other participants pose significant management problems for trainers.

Their poor concentration, hyperactivity and inattention may lead to their being viewed as untreatable. They may, in fact, actually be untreatable if trainers fail to recognize the underlying ADHD symptoms and fail to ensure that the program in which they try to engage them is based on an understanding of the underlying neurodevelopment factors.

Antisocial individuals who evidence ADHD symptoms require a specialized program. It requires much greater emphasis on the core dimensions of ADHD (particularly concentration, attention and memory) in order that the participants can become amenable to the training in prosocial cognitive/emotional skills and values provided by R&R training. Accordingly, a special version of the R&R2 program has been designed for youths (13+) and adults who evidence some or all of the symptoms (but not necessarily the diagnosis) of ADHD and also exhibit antisocial behavior. The program is described in Chapter 31.

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Chapter 11

CRITICAL REASONING

The impulsivity and risk-taking of offenders and other antisocial individuals may indicate that they have not yet developed adequate skills in another area which is a key function of the RT mind: critical reasoning. Their behavior often appears to make little sense given the limited gains and considerable losses their actions yield. Their failure to adequately or accurately assess the information they have about the likely rewards and the potential punishments of their behavior may be related to impulsivity or risk-taking. However, it may also be related to their underdeveloped critical reasoning skills or their failure to utilize such skills in decision-making. They may think, but they may not reason; or they may not reason very well.

Thinking can be dangerous when it is unrealistic. Many offenders over-rate their ability to take risks in safety. This "optimism bias" is particularly evident among young offenders (e.g. Matthews & Moran, 1986; Corbett & Simon, 1992). Their unrealistic confidence may be based both on a lack of objective appraisal of the risks and on a faulty assessment of their own skill in coping with risks (Brown, Groeger & Biehl, 1988).

They have a magical belief in their own cleverness, luck, or whatever they call it... One patient expressed to me, as an explanation for committing his offences, his 'sense of gloating' that he got away. I said, somewhat amazed, "But you did not get away, you got arrested several times." In his mind he had managed to deny the fact of the arrests and dwelt only on the occasions when he had escaped.

Schmideberg (1955)

"It Won't Happen To Me"

The problem may not be simply that they do not consider illegal behavior to be a risky activity. The problem may be that this danger may not be perceived as applying to themselves, personally. Many offenders mistakenly conclude that breaking the law is dangerous, but only for others. Although they may have an accurate perception of the magnitude of the risks involved for others, many believe that they themselves do not face the same level of risk because they think that they are more skilled than others (Reason,


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Manstead, Stradling, Baxter & Campbell, 1990). Many, if not most offenders think they are better criminals than they really are.

Experience Is Not Always The Best Teacher

The thinking of many antisocial individiuals may represent a common fallacy in critical reasoning - overgeneralization. Because many of their previous risky behaviors were reinforced by the lack of apprehension, they conclude that they will never get caught.

Rational Choice?

Cornish and Clarke's (1986) ―rational choice theory‖ suggests that, in contemplating a criminal act, offenders weigh the opportunities, costs, and benefits. However, the research we have reviewed indicates that in doing so, their calculations are often unsophisticated, based on inadequate or inaccurate information and reflect limited rationality.

Externalizing The Problem

Many individuals who have worked with offenders have observed that on frequent occasions their reasoning seems to make little sense given their intelligence. Many of the conclusions they reach appear to be illogical. The most frequently recognized of the apparent errors in their reasoning is their tendency to externalize the blame for their misfortunes and their crimes on to others or on to circumstances beyond their control. Such attempts at justifying their behavior may actually be perfectly rational given what we know about their background and the criminogenic influences to which they have been exposed. Often, however, such rationalizations are viewed by others as a "cop-out" or a denial of their personal responsibility for their antisocial acts. Rather than dismissing such statements simply as excuses, it is advisable to consider the possibility that they may reflect shortcomings in their cognitive skills particularly their skill in assessing whether their conclusions make sense given the information they possess.

"I Think It, Therefore It Is So"

Offenders who lack skills in critical reasoning may be very easily misled because they do not adequately assess the messages given to them by other people. However, they are also likely to be misled by themselves because they fail to critically assess their own thoughts. They fail to determine or even ask themselves whether their own ideas make sense. Rather than analyzing their ideas, they accept them.

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"I Believe It, Therefore It Is So."

Many offenders operate on the basis of absolute beliefs rather than hypotheses; they do not make inquiries, they make judgments. Rather than checking or testing their theories, they simply assume them to be correct, then stubbornly cling to them, unaffected by the views of other people or even by their own experiences.

Offenders may think: ―It is true because I believe it‖; or ―it is true because I want to believe it‖; or ―it is true because I have always believed it‖; or ―it is true because it is in my personal interest to believe it‖. Such reasoning can get in the way of their judgment and lock them into persisting in inflexible patterns of behavior.

Offenders, just like everyone else, probably try to make sense out of their life experiences and develop a "theory" to explain what happens to them, or a "philosophy of life" through which they feel they can understand their world. Unfortunately, their "theory" may be highly distorted because it is based on a haphazard collection of information which they have failed to carefully examine and critically assess. Many of the beliefs they hold and the views they express appear to be based on a lack of information. Many reflect a very narrow or limited appraisal of situations. Many reflect fundamental biases, misinterpretations or exaggerations. However, given the environments in which many offenders have lived and the experiences to which they have been exposed, their views may appear to them to be realistic.

"I Feel It, Therefore It Is So"

The behavior of many antisocial individuals appears to be primarily influenced not by their reasoning but by their emotion. Their thinking may be limited to "emotional reasoning" - they assume that their feelings necessarily reflect reality. They may fail to check the facts or assess the source of their feelings. This shortcoming in critical reasoning may also play a part in engendering and maintaining their low self-esteem: "I feel badly about myself, therefore I must be no good".

If you feel you are right, and you think you are right, and you believe you are right, why would you bother to delay to consider whether you are right?

Summary Convictions

Racist, sexist, ageist, and nationalistic prejudices which many individuals evidence may trigger anti-social behavior. Such prejudices may be partly attributable to flaws in critical reasoning. They may fail to critically assess their judgments about people. In fact, they may fail to seek adequate information about people, summarily dismiss non-


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confirmatory data and seek only evidence which reinforces their pre-conceived ideas about them. As a result they frequently make misattributions of the characteristics and the intent of other individuals. In the case of antisocial individuals their negative experiences in the past may result in their always being on guard for hostility. They may become hypervigilant in watching for signs of rejection and presume malevolence when there should have been a presumption of innocence

Individuals who lack adequate skills in critical reasoning are likely to be continually threatened by the contradictory beliefs they are bound to encounter in their interactions with people. A cognitive style which does not consider or tolerate discrepant beliefs is a poor mechanism for social adaptation.

Evidence Or Evident?

Regrettably, there have to date been only a few empirical studies of offenders that have employed well validated measures of critical reasoning ability which can indicate whether offenders have underdeveloped skills in critical reasoning (e.g. Lee & Prentice, 1988). Most of the evidence derives from less systematic assessment of the verbalizations of offenders in assessment interviews or in cognitive therapy sessions where clinicians have frequently observed their exaggerations, distortions, catastrophizing and other ‗thinking errors‘. Need we note that many non-offender clients evidence the same characteristics?


There is testimonial and anecdotal evidence that some critical reasoning programs conducted in institutions for young and adult offenders have been well accepted by the participants and have improved their attitude towards education (e.g. van den Brink-Budgen, 2002). However, we can point to no adequate evaluation research that demonstrates that training in critical reasoning alone has yielded reductions in antisocial behavior. Nevertheless, a critical reasoning module was included in the original R&R program and a modified version of that module is included in the new R&R2 editions.

Our rationale for including such a module is multifold:

it is designed to make participants‘ thinking less automatic and more deliberate.

It leads them to ‗think about their thinking‘.

It is designed to teach them how to think more effectively and more rationally.

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It is designed to teach them to think about their emotions because without such awareness, they are unlikely to change how they think or what they think.

Teaching them critical reasoning involves training them to be aware of the thinking of others which helps to counter their egocentric thinking and to encourage social perspective-taking.

It can help them to avoid being easily misled by others by enabling them, and motivating them, to adequately judge the reasonableness of information and suggestions that are presented to them. It teaches them to withhold judgments and consider facts in a careful and orderly manner before reacting to ideas that are presented to them by others. Attempts to encourage antisocial youths to "say no" to innapropriate suggestions from their peers are more likely to be effective if the youths are able to critically assess those suggestions on their own. There is another benefit that can come from teaching critical

reasoning: it gives the individuals something to think about during the pause that we hope they insert between desire and action in response to our exhortations that they "stop and think".

Teaching critical reasoning can also contribute to their acquisition of social values. Many antisocial individuals reject established manners, rules and laws designed for adequate social regulation and react emotionally and negatively to restrictions imposed by authority figures because they view them only as limits to their personal freedom and as the means other individuals use to control them personally. They often fail to consider or even think about, let al.,one understand or appreciate, the reasons for such rules and the benefits they may bring in the long run both for society and for themselves. We want them to think about how they might balance their own rights with those of others by establishing, respecting and abiding by rules that govern the behavior of both.

Training in critical reasoning can improve the participants' social reasoning. We want them to begin to think of rules (and laws) from a much broader perspective which will enable them to appreciate the advantages or necessity of rules for their own security, freedom and comfort, and that of others. We want them to understand them rather than just reject, oppose, or resent them. It is difficult to appreciate rules and laws if one does not understand their purpose. It is difficult to understand their purpose if one never considers their purpose.

Teaching critical reasoning can also lead them to improve their social behavior - because they come to learn to respond to the statements of others (even contrary statements) consciously rather than automatically and to do so rationally rather than impetuously,


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thoughtlessly or emotionally. It can also help them become more able to reason with others rather than just argue with them. Their tolerance of others may improve as they become more "reasonable" in their response to them.

Those goals characterized the critical reasoning module in the original R&R program. However, in R&R2 an added goal is to help participants recognize and identify their emotions and to realize how those emotions can engender maladaptive thinking that can lead to maladaptive behavior.

The development of critical reasoning is central to the development of the Rational mind. Critical Thinking is "critical" if the RT system is to improve individuals' ability to control and ―educate‖ their anti-social AT thinking mind. In the best outcome, the two ―minds‖ interact in such a way that the strengths of both are utilized in a balance that enables the individual to feel, think and behave in a prosocial manner.

The new R&R2 programs are designed to challenge the particpants' beliefs and not just their critical reasoning skills. Their antisocial beliefs are often neither logical nor realistic, but they may be hard-wired in their brains and strongly influence their emotions and their thinking and their behaviors. Training in critical reasoning can be used to lead them to question erroneous beliefs and unreasonable attitudes which they have acquired and to which they cling stubbornly and rigidly, impervious to advice or counselling. Critical reasoning skills may be required to enable the individual to reflect on his/her antisocial behavior and consider prosocial alternatives.

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Chapter 12

PUNISHMENT AND DETERRENCE

The research we have reviewed on impulsivity, risk-taking, sensation-seeking and critical reasoning raises serious questions about the potential efficacy of the oldest and most popular approach to the prevention of antisocial behavior: the threat of punishment. Punishment has been "treatment of choice" for antisocial behavior since our hairy ancestors first began to cooperate with each other.

According to the classical deterrence model people are rational beings who make choices that maximize their self-interests. Thus, the state must ensure that the costs of anti-social actions are greater than the possible benefits. The criminal justice system hopes to do so by means of sanctions that are sufficiently swift, certain and severe. The threat of such sanctions are expected to act as a general deterrent to most individuals. For those who do decide to commit antisocial acts, punishment is expected to act as an individual deterrent to future crime.

Modern deterrence advocates recommend increasing the powers and/or the resources of police and the courts to augment the probability of apprehension; increasing the probability that arrests lead to convictions; increasing the probability that convictions lead to punishment; and increasing the severity of punishment, e.g. increasing the frequency and length of prison sentences. Such ―Getting Tough on Crime‖ missions; "zero-tolerance‖ policies; and other quick fix solutions that promise to ―turn up the heat on offenders‖ have considerable political appeal (Gendreau & Cullen,1994; Cullen 1995). They have been aptly termed ―populist punitiveness‖ approaches. The issue we wish to address is: do they ―work‖?

Few issues have led to so much argument and so little enlightenment as has the question of whether punishment of the offender is an effective means of curtailing his/her criminal behavior. The long-standing debate has been vigorous if not conclusive. There is a voluminous literature which addresses the question; however, until relatively recently, the combatants have based their arguments on ideology; unsystematic observation; personal experience; and subjective impression. The debate has recently been informed by empirical research…somewhat.


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DETERRENTS TO DETERRENCE

If custody worked we would be pulling prisons down,not building more

Lord Ramsbotham

Research on the efficacy of a punishment model does not justify confidence in this approach to the rehabilitation of antisocial individuals (Gendreau & Ross, 1981; Gendreau, Goggin, & Cullen,1999; Lipsey & Cullen, 2007; Pogarsky & Piquero, 2003). Research on ‗punishment-promising‘ approaches typically yield only weak effects in reducing re-offending (Andrews, 2000). Moreover, the strongest of these weak effects are for minor offences. Very low correlations have been found between crime rate and the certainty of apprehension or the severity of punishment. Sometimes the correlations have been negative, i.e. the greater the chances of being caught and punished, the higher the crime rate!

Both narrative reviews and metanalyses of criminal justice sanctions (fines, restitution, "Scared Straight" interventions, electronic monitoring, drug testing, intensive probation programs, electronic monitoring and Boot Camps) clearly indicate that it is politically expedient but naive to suggest that they will have much impact in reducing recidivism (Andrews, 2000; Aos et al.,2001; Gendreau & Goggin,1997; Lipsey & Cullen, 2007). For example, the popular ―Scared Straight‖ program in which adolescent offenders are grouped together and brought to prisons to be exposed to prisoners who attempt to "scare them out of their delinquent ways" by telling them about the horrors of prison life is considerably less than successful. Seven randomized trials of this program have yielded negative outcomes and indicate that such programs may actually increase offending (Dodge, Lansford, & Dishion, 2006; Petrosino, Turpin-Petrosino & Buehler, 2003; Sherman & Strang, 2004). Delinquency is a little more difficult than the hiccups to stop by scare tactics.

Increasing the length of prison sentences has very little effect on crime rates or recidivism rates (Andrews, 2000). Moreover, increasing the use of prison sentences greatly increases some of the major problems of prisons: overcrowding and spiralling costs.

The cost of increased deterrence in terms of police and court budgets is also staggering; the results far from guaranteed. Moreover, increases in rates of apprehension and rates of conviction are by no means easy to achieve, regardless of budgetary considerations. Increasing the certainty and severity of aversive consequences for antisocial behavior is appealing, but it is a deceptively simple and usually unworkable solution to a complex problem.

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The Invulnerability Effect

The research we reviewed in previous chapters indicates that punishment and deterrence may have little reality or meaning for many antisocial individuals. The fact that many think only of the positive consequences and seldom consider the potential negative consequences of their acts suggests that ―Punishing-Smarter Programs‖ (Gendreau et al.,1999) are unlikely to have much impact on offending behavior among offenders who think there is little likelihood that they will experience the punishment. Anxiety-making scare tactics have little credibility to individuals (particularly adolescents) who think, feel and believe that they are invulnerable.

Limiting interventions to information-giving education (e.g. publicizing the possible consequences of illegal behavior) are unlikely to change their attitudes or behavior. Even if they become aware of them, which is unlikely, they may only yield better informed offenders.

Punishing the Mentally Disordered

Although the issue has seldom been adequately investigated, doubts must be voiced about the deterrent effect of promising punishment to the inordinate and rapidly increasing number of offenders who are suffering from mental health problems and are shunted off to prisons instead of hospitals.

The “Chemical So What” Effect

It is not a simple matter to convince potential offenders that "we mean business". This is particularly the case when their realization of (or concern for) the possible consequences of their behavior as well as their judgment of the aversiveness of the penalties and the risks involved have been temporarily or permanently impaired by their ingestion of alcohol or other substances that are the favourite ingredients in many offenders' diets.

No Pain, No Gain

Many of the punishments which society are prepared to use may not be even mildly aversive to some offenders. Moreover, strong punishment may be a weak deterrent because it provokes anger which can squelch any feelings of guilt that the perpetrator may have felt.

Punishment As Inoculation

Many antisocial individuals have been subjected to so much punishment in their homes and elsewhere that have they become


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almost inured to punishment. Frequent exposure to aversive stimuli builds a high tolerance for punishment with the result that unpleasant consequences come to have little unpleasant effect. Prisoners‘ experiences with the criminal justice system may lead them to feel that, since they have previously survived condemnation; punishment; banishment; or brutality they are tough enough to handle whatever punishment the system might hand them in the future. ―I seen that I'm a man just like they are and I can make it‖ (Martin & Sussman, 1994). Many offenders view their prison tatoos as war ribbons.

Punishment As Reinforcement

Deterrent-based interventions may reinforce the expectancy of a hostile environment and thereby increase reactionary antisocial behavior.

Safe Bets

Deterrence is also unlikely to be effective when offenders believe that there is little likelihood of their punishment being either immediate or certain (Summala,1988). Delayed complex, expensive, and uncertain criminal proceedings are unlikely to be effective. However, rapid processing frequently raises the hackles of civil libertarians and human rights advocates and billing hour lawyers who prefer due processing.

The Punishment Lottery

In many cases, the punishments they have received at home in their early development have been so arbitrary, inconsistent, haphazard and unpredictable that their experience has convinced them that punishment is as predictable as next week's weather. From a psychological perspective, the deterrence approach has little reality or meaning if ‗fear and punishment programs‘ only promise to punish those who happen to be caught breaking the law, but only now and then.

The likelihood of a single criminal act leading to an aversive legal consequence is so low that expecting to be caught and convicted may be as irrational or unrealistic as thinking that one is immune. For example, it takes between 200 and 2,000 repetitions of drunk driving to produce one arrest (Canada Safety Council, 1999). Approximately 28% of offenders in the U.S. admit to drinking and driving within the previous year, but for every drink/drive offence there are 200-300 that do not lead to an arrest (Wanberg & Milkman, 2006). It is not a simple matter to convince offenders that "we mean business."


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No Risk

The efficacy of deterrence is compromised by the risk-taking behavior of many of those we might wish to deter (Nagin & Pogarsky, 2001; Piquero & Tibbets, 1996). As we noted earlier, there are many who fail to recognize risks; many who underestimate risks; and many who overestimate their ability to handle risks safely. It may be that the risk-taking offenders we most want to deter are the ones who are least likely to respond to the punishments we often promise but seldom deliver.

The Intermittent Punishment Effect

The fact that ―cops can‘t be everywhere‖ means that most offences can be committed without legal consequence. It is only on infrequent occasions that an offender is likely to be caught. Even a small number of experiences of ‗apprehension avoidance‘ can lead people to believe that apprehension is highly unlikely. They soon come to believe that they "can get away with it". It has been recognized for several decades that intermittent punishment is as powerful as intermittent reward in determining the persistence of behavior (e.g. Torney, 1973). The intermittent punishment effect may serve to increase rather than decrease the chances that the punished offender will offend again. It also replicates the inconsistent discipline that many have experienced in their homes.

The „Negative Reinforcement‟ Effect

For many offenders, ‗getting away with it‘ is just as enjoyable as the risky behavior that they get away with.

The Positive Punishment Effect

Deterrence advocates believe that individuals who have been caught and punished will be less likely to offend again. However, there is some research that indicates the opposite. Offenders who have been caught and punished may believe that lightning only strikes once. They may believe that their punishment experience insulates them from future apprehension. Such a ―positive punishment effect‖ has been found in several studies of drink drivers (e.g. Pogarsky & Piquero, 2003). For example Piquero & Paternoster (1998) found that drivers who had been stopped at a roadside drink/driving checkpoint were more likely to offend in the future because they believed that the probability of future punishment was lower for them than for drivers who had never been caught before.


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The Gambler's Fallacy

It is a very common error in critical reasoning to think that the occurrence of an unlikely event makes its reoccurrence even more unlikely. Offenders may believe that having been caught once after having frequently offended gives them protection against future arrests. The critical reasoning error is similar to the tendency of lottery players to believe that because our favourite number has not come up for a long time it is bound to come up soon. It is difficult for most of us to grasp the fact, or accept the fact, that the chances of it coming up now or in the future are about the same as the chances of its coming up in the past when it did not come up.

Present Perspective

Many offenders fail to think of the potential negative consequences before they act. Many also fail to think after they act. They do not reflect back on their behavior and its effects and, therefore, even when they experience punishment they may not learn to modify their behavior.

Miscalculation

Interventions that aim to provide offenders with information about the short and long-term consequences of illegal behavior are unlikely to change the behavior of those who lack the thinking skills to critically assess their own behavior and that of others. Frequent warnings and admonitions are not likely to be sufficient deterrents. It is not only their knowledge that needs to be improved. It is also their thinking. Few offenders act like accountants who calculate the plusses and minuses before they make decisions based on whether the possible benefits outweigh the potential risks.

Neutralization

Many offenders believe in punishment for others while simultaneously minimizing or neutralizing their own responsibility for the harm they have done to others.

THE CUMULATIVE DETERRENT EFFECT

In spite of the foregoing, there is some evidence that ensuring that antisocial behaviors have negative outcomes can lead individuals to realize that the more antisocial behavior they exhibit the more likely they are to encounter trouble. Frequent experiences with negative outcomes could lead them to realize that there is a cumulative negative effect that negates the immediate positive effects that their antisocial behavior yields (Cusson and Pinsonneault 1986; Labouvie


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1996; Mulvey and LaRosa 1986; Waldorf 1983). However, it is far from easy for the criminal justice system (or schoolteachers or parents) to ensure that they are subject to such frequent experiences.

Where are the Cops When I need Them?

Deterrence might work if there were major and long-term increases in surveillance, apprehension and conviction. However, the achievement of a substantial deterrence effect would require substantial increases in the powers and technological resources of police. Police and court budgets would be staggering. Moreover, the perceived threat to civil liberties associated with such increased intervention precludes the possibility that surveillance could even approach the required intensity.

Is Deterrence Only A Mirage?

In short, research has indicated that individual deterrence is difficult to operationalize, inordinately expensive, and questionably effective. Rules and laws are essential but there are not, and probably never will be enough police to enforce them on a steady basis. Simply implementing ―get tough‖, or "blitz programs" or "zero tolerance" programs every now and then will not suffice. Our methods must be consistent, powerful and economical. Passing tough laws is easy; enforcing them is not. It is easy to make new laws but not so easy to get those who most need them to know about them or respect them. We need to be more rational in our calculations of the costs and benefits of deterrence than the offenders we hope to deter.

GENERAL DETERRENCE

Before we are punished by the protests of deterrence advocates, we must note that general deterrence can work sometimes for some people. However, it works best for those who need it the least – the ones who do not experience the potential punishment because they do not transgress and have no intention to do so. As Immanuel Kant argued, punishment is justified since such a societal reaction to wrongdoing helps to uphold the social order. However, it is a social glue that often fails to bind.


Our lack of enthusiasm for an individual deterrence model does not mean that we view aversive consequences for antisocial behavior as unimportant.

An essential component of effective treatment programs for offenders is persuading them to consider the consequences of their behavior before they act – short-term and long-term consequences;


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positive and negative consequences; consequences for them and consequences for others. Even if we could persuade them to think about consequences. it would be difficult to persuade them to think of consequences if there are no consequences. Punishment may not be a sufficient response to antisocial behavior, only an essential one.

Metanalytic studies have indicated that sanctions may reduce recidivism, but only when a treatment component is added (Andrews & Bonta, 1996; Gendreau et al.,1994; MacKenzie et al.,1995). It is difficult to engage offenders in rehabilitation programs if the offenders cannot be involved in such programs because they have never been caught and sanctioned.

However, the foremost lesson that deterrence approaches teach is "don't get caught". Deterrence approaches tell the offender what not to do but seldom tell them what to do. Encouraging offenders to insert a temporal gap between temptation and response does not tell them what to do during the interval. It is often assumed that when offenders delay their response they have the skills (and motivation) to engage in thinking of alternative prosocial behaviors. Too often that assumption is wrong.

We recommend a different approach - one that echoes the research that we reported in Chapter 2 where we described the failure to modify the behavior of institutionalized adolescent offenders by behavior modification methods that focused on ensuring negative consequences for antisocial behaviors. That study indicated what Skinner had often told us - it is easier to teach new behaviors than to eliminate old behaviors. Rather than only punishing antisocial behaviors it is essential to adopt a ‗replacement approach‘ by teaching alternative prosocial behaviors. We suggest that rather than only attempting to teach the negative consequences of antisocial behavior, we teach the benefits of prosocial behavior. Rather than teaching them to think about the risks of not delaying their actions, we recommend teaching them the benefits of delaying and the skills that will enable them to benefit from doing so. It is better to train than tether.

Our approach is consistent with research on "Positive psychology" that has been examining the development of the virtuous person, and the quest for the "good life" and happiness (Seligman, 2002: Linley & Joseph, 2005; Ward & Mann, 2004). Positive psychology is a movement in psychology that emphasizes what is right with people rather than what is wrong with them; that focuses attention on the sources of psychological health and well-being rather than on pathology and disease; that redirects psychology from preoccupation with repairing the worst things in life to developing and strengthening the best things (Seligman, 2002). Positive psychology may help the criminal justice system move from its traditional emphasis on punishment to an emphasis on the promotion of prosocial development.


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Many offenders may have the ability to choose not to engage in antisocial behavior but, because they lack the requisite prosocial skills, that choice will often leave them facing consequences that are just as aversive as the consequences we promise will follow their antisocial behavior. Many offenders believe that attempting to pursue a prosocial adjustment is more anxiety-provoking than pursuing a antisocial life-style. Accordingly, they need to learn that prosocial behavior can also yield rewards and they need to be taught the cognitive and emotional skills that can enable them to reap such rewards. They also need to be taught that they are capable of acquiring and applying such skills.

The original R&R program was designed to teach self-control by a cognitive approach based on the assumption that the offenders‘ impulsivity, lack of consequential thinking, lack of planning and risk-taking indicated that they lacked cognitive skills. It was suggested that they may not stop to analyze problems, consider their possible cause and consider alternative ways of responding because, when they have tried to do so in the past, their lack of cognitive skills may have prevented their effort from having any pay-off for them. However, it is now clear that their lack of self-control may involve not just a failure to think before acting (cognitive impulsivity), but situational; emotional; social; motivational; attitudinal; physiological; and neural factors that trigger their impulsive actions (behavioral impulsivity) and must also be targeted by the program.

It is clear that offenders must also be taught verbal and behavioral self-regulation techniques; arousal reduction techniques; attention and concentration techniques; problem solving techniques, self-efficacy, and emotional management. However, just as important that they must be persuaded that delaying their responses and applying both cognitive skills and emotional skills will yield benefits to them and to others. They must also learn that self-regulation of their arousal and their emotions and their behavior is something they can accomplish.

Impulsivity, risk-taking, and sensation-seeking may be a function of attitudinal and value judgment factors and social factors (e.g. peer pressure) that encourage such behavior. It may reflect a disinclination to practice self-control rather than an inability or a "deficit" as was assumed in the original cognitive model. Accordingly, although antisocial individuals need to be taught how to engage in self-regulation in their everyday life, they must also be persuaded that they should do so. They must become motivated to do so in pursuit of prosocial goals. As we shall argue, that requires that they be led to realize that that prosocial thinking and behaving can yield personal benefits. They must learn that "doing good" leads to "being good" and that "doing good" and "being good" "feels good".

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Chapter 13

PROBLEM SOLVING

The 1985 review of the research literature indicated that many offenders have difficulty in the problem solving skills that are required for solving the problems that can be encountered in interactions with other people. For example, the research indicated that they may have difficulty in calculating the possible consequences of their behavior on other individuals. They may also fail to understand the cause and effect relationship between their behavior and people's reaction to them.

There is a growing body of studies that have corroborated the earlier studies of problem solving among both adolescent and adult offenders (e.g. Brezina, 2000; McMurran & McGuire, 2005; Whitton & McGuire, 2005.).

Several studies have found inadequate problem solving to be prevalent among a wide variety of types of offenders and also among many other types of antisocial individuals:

Violent Adolescents: Low levels of social problem solving skills have been found among antisocial aggressive adolescents incarcerated in a juvenile correctional facility for violent offences (assault and battery, robbery, rape, attempted murder, murder) (Guerra and Slaby, 1989).

Adolescent Thieves: Adolescent thieves have been found to evidence a tendency to generate ineffective solutions to hypothetical social problems (Greening,1997).

Aggressive Children and Adolescents: Childhood aggression has been identified as the most important predictor of adulthood long-term unemployment and its personal and social correlates including criminality (Kokko, 2001)10.

10 Unstable employment is a major criminogenic risk factor. Offenders with unstable

employment patterns are at much greater risk of re-offending than offenders with a stable employment history. However, although Farrington, Gallagher, Morley, St. Leger & West (1986) found that property crimes are committed more frequently during periods of joblessness they also found that this relationship holds only for those who are predisposed to crime as reflected by self-reports on earlier criminal activity, and poor moral values. Otherwise spells of joblessness do not induce more criminal offending. Moreover, becoming employed by itself does not reduce crime. It is only stability, commitment and responsibility that may be associated with keeping a

job that has crime reducing value (Sampson & Laub, 1993). Training in the skills taught in programs such as R&R may be necessary.


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Inadequacy in a wide range of problem solving skills has been found to be associated with child and adolescent aggression (e.g., Dodge & Feldman, 1990; Lochman & Dodge,1994; Guerra, 1989; Guerra & Slaby, 1989).

Certain ―deficits‖ in social problem solving have been

identified as factors that reduce aggressive children's and adolescents' abilities to cope efficiently with everyday interpersonal problems (Crick & Dodge, 1994). Limited problem solving skills is also one of the characteristics of conduct-disordered children (Joffe, Dobson, Fine, Marriage & Haley, 1990).

The relationship has even been found among pre-school children as early as 4-5 years of age (Zahn-Waxler, Cole, Richardson & Friedman,1994). A longitudinal study of children followed from age 11 to 18 found that those who were ―permanently aggressive‖ evidenced aggressive problem solving strategies and a lack of constructive alternatives both in their earlier and later years (Keltikangas-Järvinen & Pakaslahti,1999). Aggressive children and adolescents report more aggressive and fewer friendly or effective (e.g., help-seeking and compromising) social problem solving strategies than their nonaggressive counterparts (e.g. Bryant, 1992; Lochman & Dodge, 1994; Quiggle, Garber, Panak & Dodge, 1992; Pakaslahti & Keltikangas-Jarvinen, 1998).

Violent pre-adolescent boys: Low levels of social problem solving skills have been found among violent adolescents and among violent pre-adolescents (Lochman & Dodge, 1994).

Sex Offenders: A number of studies have found inadequacy in social problem solving among sex offenders (e.g. Kear-Colwell & Sawle, 2001; Nezu, D‘Zurilla, & Nezu, 2005).

Adolescent Drug Abusers: Inadequate problem solving has also been found to be common among adolescent drug abusers (McLaughlin, Miller & Warwick, 1996);

Mentally Disordered Offenders: Problem solving inadequacies have been found among mentally disordered offenders including those with personality disorders (e.g. McMurran, Egan & Duggan, 2005).

Child Abusers: Child-abusing mothers have been found to have poor coping techniques for dealing with problems and stresses (Stern & Azar,1998; Cantos, Neale, O‘Leary & Gaines, 1997; Hansen, Palotta, Christopher & Conaway, 1995). Hansen et al.,.(1995) found that ―deficits‖ in problem solving are related not only to physical child abuse but also to parental neglect. ―Maltreating mothers‖ evidence fewer effective strategies for assisting children to cope with

Chapter 13: Problem Solving

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emotionally arousing situations (Shipman & Zeman, 2001). Kelley (1998) has reported finding that substance-abusing mothers evidence inadequate coping behavior and their maladaptive coping behavior is associated with abuse or neglect of their children.

Spouse Abusers: Recent research has found inadequate problem solving among spouse abusers. For example, substance abusing males in an inpatient treatment centre who reported that they had been abusive to their partners evidenced inadequate coping competence (Copenhaver 2000).

Elder Abusers: Maladaptive coping strategies in dealing with conflict have been found among abusive caregivers of elderly relatives (Rahman, 1996).

Substance Abusers: Poor problem solving skills have been found to be prevalent among substance abusers (e.g. Jaffe & D‘Zurilla, 2003).

Substance Abusing Pregnant Women: A study of pregnant inner-city women found that the women who were substance-abusers evidenced less prosocial and more antisocial coping strategies than non-users (Blechman, Lowell & Garrett, 1999).

Drunk Drivers: Drunk drivers have also been found to evidence poor problem solving (Jaffe & D‘Zurilla, 2003). Their poor problem solving may be related to the fact that drunk drivers drive badly even when they have not been drinking (Ross & Antonowicz, 2004).

Problem Gamblers: Inadequate problem solving skills have been found to be associated with problem gambling (Sylvain, Ladouceur & Boisvert,1997).

School Drop-Outs: Blechman & Culhane‘s (1993) research indicates that adolescents who drop out of school may evidence shortcomings in their social coping skills.

Teenage Parents: Adolescents who become parents in their teens evidence shortcomings in their social coping skills – their coping skills tend to be antisocial rather than prosocial (Blechman & Culhane,1993). Among ―unwed mothers‖ poor planning skills is common (Royse & Wiehe, 1988). Inadequate problem solving has also been found to be associated with unplanned pregnancies (Flaherty, Maracek, Olsen & Wilcove,1983).

Violent Dates: The problem solving strategies of college students involved in serious dating relationships found that their involvement in violent relationships was related to their


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inadequate coping skills (Gyrl, Stith & Bird, 1991; Bird, Stith & Schladale, 1991).

Bullies: Inadequate problem solving skills have been identified as a factor in school bullying (Randall 1997; Slee, 1993; Dodge, Pettit, McClaskey & Brown, 1986; Crick and Dodge, 1994; Simons, Paternite & Shore, 2001).

Prisoners: Inadequate problem solving skill negatively impacts the ability of offenders to cope with the stress of incarceration (Biggam & Power, 1999; Gullon, Jones & Cummins, 2000). It has been found to be a characteristic of inmates judged as 'misfits' in prison (Higgins & Theis, 1981). Incarcerated offenders who experience greater stress (as victims of prison bullies) have been found to evidence numerous deficits in problem solving skills (Biggam & Power, 1999; Dodge, Pettit, McClaskey & Brown, 1986; Crick & Dodge, 1994). A lack of problem solving skills has been found among incarcerated male offenders who are assessed as suicidal (Biggam & Power,1999). However, although the evidence indicates that many prisoners have poor problem solving skills, not all of them do. Pugh's (1993) study of imprisoned adult male prisoners (age 21-30) indicated that a substantial number of them have adequate skills. Many inmates cope well under circumstances that would tax the coping skills of many, if not most non-offenders.

Institutionalized Adolescents: Proficiency in problem solving skills - has been found to be associated with good behavioral adjustment among adolescent offenders in a residential setting (Hains & Herman, 1989).

A MULTIDIMENSIONAL VIEW

The evidence that we have reviewed indicates that many anti-social individuals lack skills in interpersonal cognitive problem solving: the emotional, thinking and behavioral skills that are required for solving problems which we all encounter in interacting with people. However, recent research has made it clear that how strongly and, indeed, whether offending behavior is likely to be related to problem solving depends on how problem solving is measured and what particular problem solving factors are examined.

Social problem solving ability, like impulsivity, is not a unitary concept. It is a multi-dimensional construct that involves several different but related skills. It is important to realize that there are a number of sub-skills involved; that each is required for effective problem solving; and that antisocial individuals may lack all, or only some of these sub-skills:


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Problem Recognition: in their interpersonal relations, they may fail to recognize that an interpersonal problem exists or is about to occur. If they do not know they have a problem or are about to have one, they are not likely to be successful in solving it or avoiding it. Inadequacy in the ability to recognize problems may lead the individual to fail to detect or recognize risks – they may simply be unaware of the danger involved.

Information–seeking: aggressive adolescents search for fewer facts in social situations than do their nonaggressive counterparts (Slaby & Guerra, 1988). They make their causal analyses of situations less on the basis of the facts, and more by relying on schemata or their past experiences of similar situations and they often miss situation-specific cues (Dodge & Tomlin, 1987). Aggressive individuals differ from their prosocial peers in terms of the situational cues they extract from the environment (Dodge, 1986).

Problem Identification: if antisocial individuals do realize they have a problem, they may not recognize what it is or understand it and, therefore, will be unable to solve it.

Alternative Thinking: even if they do understand it, they may not be able to think of alternative solutions to it. They may have a fixed solution to all problems. When their one solution does not work, they may not stop to think of another solution or try another approach. They try the same solution again and again regardless of its lack of success - or they give up.

Consequential Thinking: As we indicated earlier, they may have difficulty in calculating the consequences of their behavior (including the long-term consequences) on other people. It is not only that they do not; many simply can not.

Social Perspective-taking: they may not understand the cause-and-effect relationship between their behavior and people's reactions to them. They blame other people instead of seeing that they themselves by their actions or their attitudes may have caused people's negative reactions to them.

PROBLEM SOLVING TRAINING

Further support of the relationship between problem solving and offending has been yielded by metanalyses of large numbers of offender rehabilitation programs that have indicated that training in problem solving is a key contributor to successful outcome (e.g. Andrews, 2000; Lipsey, Chapman & Landberger, 2001; Pearson, Lipton, Cleland & Yee, 2002; Losel & Beelmann, 2005).


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Problem solving skills training has become one of the most popular of all programs for offenders and antisocial children and adolescents. Evaluations of problem solving training programs have indicated that they can be an effective means of preventing and reducing behavior problems in groups of ―at-risk‖ children (e.g. Heppner & Hillerbrand, 1991; Webster-Stratton, Reid & Hammond, 2001); impulsive, acting-out adolescents (Lochman & Curry, 1986; Kazdin, Esveldt-Dawson, French & Unis, 1987); and conduct disordered youth (Hains & Hains,1988). The efficacy of problem solving training programs among such children and youths has been found in metanalyses (Denham & Almeida, 1987; Baer & Nietzel, 1991; Durlak & Wells, 1997).

In most cases, problem solving training has relied on one of two approaches: 1.D‘Zurilla & Goldfried (1971; revised by D‘Zurilla & Nezu in 1982); 2. Spivack, Platt & Shure (1976; revised by Shure in 1992).

The early ―Interpersonal Cognitive Social Problem solving‖ (ICPS) skills model of Spivak, was adopted in R&R because it focused on the cognitive aspects of problem solving. It also emphasized the importance of social-perspective taking. Moreover, the efficacy of the Spivak approach for an offender population had been demonstrated in controlled research with criminal heroin addicts (Platt, Perry & Metzger, 1980). Spivack‘s approach to problem solving involves teaching a number of relatively simple but clearly defined sequential cognitive-behavioral skills:

(a) Alternative thinking: the ability to think of different options

(solutions) that could potentially solve a problem' (b) Means-end thinking: the ability to conceptualize the step-by-

step means of moving towards a goal. (c) Consequential thinking: the ability to think of the possible

consequences of one‘s intended actions. (d) Social cause-and-effect thinking: the ability to understand the

interpersonal interactions that might have precipitated a problem.

(e) Perspective taking: the ability to see interpersonal situations from the perspectives of other involved individuals.

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES

The experience of many R&R Trainers over the past decade has made it clear that some offenders lack some of the foregoing problem solving sub-skills, but not others. Their observations are in accord with the findings of recent factor-analytic studies that support the view that problem solving is not a unidimensional process. Such research has pointed to the necessity of differentiating the following factors (Maydeu-Olivares & D'Zurilla, 1996):


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Problem Orientation

Positive Problem Orientation is a general disposition to view problems as a challenge; to believe that problems can be solved and that one has the ability to solve them; and to believe that success in solving one‘s problems requires time, effort, persistence and a willingness to face problems rather than avoid them. Negative Problem Orientation is a tendency to doubt one‘s ability to solve problems, to view problems as threats and to become frustrated and emotionally upset when encountering them. The problem solving orientation of many antisocial individuals may reflect a history of failure that has led them to make negative, self-defeating statements when faced with problems. Such negative "self-talk" and low self-efficacy may discourage them from attempting to deal with problems. Many aggressive children consider that aggressive impulses are difficult to inhibit and prosocial actions are hard to produce (Slaby & Guerra, 1988). Indeed, McKeough, Yates & Marini (1994) found that behaviorally aggressive boys (aged 6,8 and 10) evidenced difficulty even in forming prosocial views of their environment.

Problem solving Style:

The style concept in cognitive psychology refers to the way an individual filters and processes stimuli; a consistent pattern of organizing and processing information and experiences; stable attitudes, preferences, or habitual strategies that determine a person's typical modes of perceiving, remembering, thinking, and problem solving (Abdennur, 2000)

Avoidance Style: the individual fails to confront the problem or procrastinates as long as possible and/or attempts to shift the responsibility for solving the problem on to others. Impulsivity/carelessness: Problem solving may involve ineffective techniques such as hurried and/or superficial assessment of the problem, a failure to consider more than one solution, a failure to consider the consequences of a proposed solution and a failure to ascertain or evaluate the outcome of one‘s response to a problem. Rational Problem Solving is a deliberate, rational, and systematic application of effective problem solving skills.


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Clearly, both a negative problem orientation and an impulsivity/carelessness or avoidance style are dysfunctional in that they prevent the individual from solving problems or even expecting to be able to do so. Both are likely to be associated with failures in successfully dealing with the problems of everyday life.

An important study in which the foregoing problem solving dimensions were assessed indicated that adolescents‘ antisocial behavior is related more to dysfunctional problem solving attitudes and behavior (i.e. negative problem orientation, impulsivity/ carelessness style, and avoidance style) than to a lack of rational problem solving (Jaffe & D‘Zurilla, 2003). Similarly, a recent study of child molesters found that they had maladaptive scores on a measure of negative problem orientation and impulsivity/carelessness (Nezu, Nezu, Dudek, Peacock & Stoll 2005). However, there were no significant differences between these offenders on ―rational problem solving‖.

EFFICACIOUS ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR

Whereas the 1985 cognitive model viewed antisocial problem solving as a cognitive skill deficit, more recent research has indicated that antisocial problem solving may not simply reflect a lack of problem solving skill or a dysfunctional problem solving attitude. It may also reflect a preference for an antisocial approach.

The antisocial problem solving preference of delinquents and other antisocial individuals may be ineffective and maladaptive in the long-term in view of the negative consequences it has both for them and others such as poor social relationships with parents, teachers, peers, employers, the police and the courts (Agnew 1997; Hagan 1994; Sampson & Laub 1993).

However, the emphasis of researchers and practitioners on the long-term negative consequences of antisocial and delinquent behavior tend to obscure the fact that such behavior yields the individual many short-term positive consequences and, in fact, often represents an effective problem solving strategy for achieving immediate goals.

Brezina‘s (2000) review of the research literature provides considerable evidence that delinquents frequently view their antisocial acts as effective problem solving strategies. Aggressive children and adolescents have been found to expect aggressive behavior to produce tangible rewards and to increase self-esteem (Lochman & Dodge, 1994; Perry, Perry, & Rasmussen, 1986; Slaby & Guerra, 1988). Similarly, conduct-disordered children have been found to be more likely to evaluate outcomes achieved through the use of aggression as positive (Dodge, Pettit, Bates, & Valente, 1995). Their aggression may constitute deliberate goal-seeking behavior.


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Such positive short-term outcome expectations have been shown to be key factors shaping the likelihood of using drugs as a coping ‗strategy‘ (Greenberg & Grunberg 1995; Hittner 1997; Martin, Blum, & Roman 1992) and engaging in interpersonal aggression (e.g. Dodge, Bates, & Pettit 1990; Cuddy & Frame 1991; 0' Donahue, McKay & Schewe 1996),

Antisocial problem solving may represent an alternative means of goal attainment since it may enable the individuals to feel in control of what they perceive as adverse situations. For example, it may enable them to affirm their autonomy and independence by establishing their ability to oppose adult rules (Agnew, 1997; Brezina, 2000; Katz 1988; Moffitt 1993; Tittle 1995).

Violent children may adopt aggressive problem solving because they have learned that aggression provides them with an effective means to control the behavior of others, for example, by terminating negative treatment by family members. It may deter those who might harm them (Anderson 1999; Tedeschi & Felson 1999; Brezina 1999). Aggression may enable them to achieve feelings of power and control and a sense of independence, self-determination and self-actualization. It may enable them to obtain a feeling of ―personal accomplishment, of feeling alive and on top of the world‖ (Wood, Grove, Wilson & Cochran, 1997).

Aggressive children and adolescents have been found to expect aggressive behavior to produce tangible rewards, to reduce aversive treatment, and to increase self-esteem (Lochman & Dodge, 1994; Slaby & Guerra, 1988). In fact, aggressive adolescents anticipate fewer negative consequences of aggression of any kind than nonaggressive adolescents, for example, negative emotional reactions (Guerra & Slaby, 1989). Lochman & Dodge (1994) found that among moderately aggressive preadolescents, aggression represented deliberate goal-seeking behavior.

Greening (1997) hypothesized that when adolescents are frustrated by the length of time it takes to achieve a goal, or are discouraged by the ineffective outcome of their passive solutions, they then consider inappropriate behavior such as aggression or stealing. The hypothesis was supported by the finding that adolescents who exhibited behavior problems were significantly more likely to select aggressive means as their second alternative for solving social dilemmas.

Research has indicated that even adolescent substance abuse may constitute a problem solving ‗skill‘ (e.g. Weiss, Griffin & Mirin 1992). The ingestion of moderate amounts of alcohol and other drugs can temporarily soothe psychological distress and alienation (Lipton 1994; Weiss et al.,1992). Examination of the self-reports of several thousand adolescents found that a common explanation by them for their drug and alcohol use was that they used them to cope


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with their "day-to-day struggles"; ―to escape from my problems"; "to relieve nervousness"; "to relax"; "because I was depressed"; "to get al.,ong in the world"; "to make me more popular with my friends"; and "so people would like me" (Novacek, Raskin & Hogan (1991).

Rather than viewing an adolescent‘s antisocial problem solving as entirely maladaptive, it may be more realistic to view it as temporarily and situationally adaptive since, at least in the short-term, it provides relief from stress (Abrams & Niaura 1987; Silbereisen & Noack, 1988; Tedeschi & Felson 1994; Thoits,1994). It may represent a kind of ‗cognitive self-medication‘.

Instrumental Bullying

Although several studies noted earlier suggest that school bullies are lacking in social-cognitive skills, there is an alternative possibility. At least some bullies are skilled manipulators who need good social problem solving abilities in order to manipulate and organize other students to collaborate in their bullying activities and to inflict the suffering that they seek to engender by methods that enable them to avoid detection themselves (Sutton, Smith & Swettenham, 1999).

Sutton reminds us that there is a variety of types of bullies (e.g. primary ringleaders; assistant bullies, henchmen bullies; individuals who bully by themselves; and bullies who bully only as participants in a group. Instead of viewing all bullies as deficient in problem solving and other social skills and abilities, it is suggested that some bullies may understand their social worlds quite well, and apply their knowledge to their own personal advantage. This may be particularly true among ringleaders and in the more indirect forms of bullying that the authors suggest are more common among girls.

Aggressive responses may reflect not a lack of cognitive problem solving skills, but a simple preference for aggressive responding.

PARENTAL PROBLEM SOLVING

Inadequacies in some of the prosocial skills of delinquents may be related to a lack of such skills in their parents (e.g. Morris, Horne, Jessel & Passmore, 1988). Parents who themselves are lacking in problem solving skills are hardly likely to be able to teach such skills to their children.

Many children and adolescents are seldom exposed to parents or others who can serve as prosocial problem solving models. The parents of many antisocial adolescents are more likely to model ineffective problem solving and inadequate emotion regulation skills. As all teachers who have attended "meet the teacher" sessions know


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too well, many antisocial young students are miniature replicas of their parents.

Antisocial problem solving patterns may be developed through parental modelling (Huesmann, 1988). For example, fathers of aggressive boys have been found to have less effective problem solving abilities than fathers of well-behaved boys and, therefore, are less likely to model effective problem solving strategies to their sons (Morris et al.,1988). Such parents may reinforce their childrens‘ aggressive and ineffective problem solving strategies (Huesmann & Eron, 1989). Moreover, mothers' hostile, biased interpretations of situations and their endorsement of aggressive problem solving strategies have been found to be related to their preschool-aged children's level of actual aggressive behavior (Bickett, Milich & Brown,1996; Pettit, Dodge, & Brown, 1988). Research has established that one marker of an aggressive adolescent is cognitive problems in the parents (Stern & Azar, 1998). Such parents leave their footprints in the child (metaphorically speaking of course… we hope).

Lower levels of parent-adolescent problem solving are also associated with higher levels of adolescents' delinquent behavior (Borduin, Henggeler, Hanson & Pruitt,1995). In a longitudinal study, Klein, Forehand, Armistead & Long (1997) found that poor parental problem solving during adolescence predicted severe delinquent behavior in early adulthood. The home life of boys who are consistently aggressive (at home and at school) has been found to be characterized not only by parental rejection and marital conflict, but also by less effective problem solving (Loeber & Dishion, 1983).

Similarly, the parents of aggressive girls have been found to be less likely to discuss problems with their daughters. Many are indifferent to their daughter's problems or simply reprimand them for their poor and unsucessful problem solving efforts (Pakaslahti, Spoof, Asplund-Peltola & Keltikangas-Jarvinen,1998). That is hardly the best climate for the development of prosocial problem solving competence.

The research of Klein et al.,(1997) on the correlations between mothers‘ and adolescents‘ problem solving strategies points to the similarities between their lack of a deliberate, rational, and systematic application of effective problem solving skills and an impulsivity/careless style of problem solving. However, a study by Jaffee & D‘Zurilla (2003) found that the only relationship between adolescent delinquency and the problem solving of their mothers was that mothers who reported a more negative orientation to problems had adolescent offspring who were more aggressive.


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Modeling Abusive Problem Solving

A lack of adequate problem solving skills in physically abusive parents has been found to be a factor in the abuse of their children (Stern & Azar,1998; Cantos et al.,1997; Hansen et al.,.,1995). ―Maltreating mothers‖ evidence fewer effective strategies for assisting children to cope with emotionally arousing situations (Shipman & Zeman, 2001). The children of such inept parents have been found to be poor in problem solving (Haskett, 1990; Shipman & Zeman, 2001). Their abuse and/or their lack of prosocial modelling leads to the children being unable to generate alternative solutions to problems. They are likely to use negative and aggressive tactics rather than more adaptive reponses in their attempts to solve problems (Haskett,1990).


Problem solving programs for offenders, including the original R&R, have focused almost exclusively on teaching the skill components of problem solving. The research we have reviewed indicates that teaching problem solving skills may be essential, but it is not sufficient. Antisocial individuals must also learn to view problems as a challenge which when solved will yield benefits. They must also learn to exercise patience, skill and perseverance in their problem solving efforts. They must be helped to realize that many problems can be solved if they face them rather than avoid them. They must be led to believe in their ability to solve problems.

R&R2 programs help them to recognize their negative "self-talk" and teach them thinking strategies that can enable them to replace low self-efficacy with positive, rational and realistic ―self-talk‖. The aim is to equip participants with beliefs that combat their pessimism and their destructive emotions by teaching constructive attitudes that engender optimism and positive emotions which can motivate problem solving efforts.

Problems That Don‟t Go Away

The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem.

Theodore Rubin

Offenders, like everyone else, are likely to encounter problems which they cannot solve. The problem solving skills that are taught in many programs will not enable them to solve all the interpersonal problems or the financial, employment, health, housing or the many


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other problems they may encounter. Limiting training to teaching offenders skills in solving problems may not suffice. They must be helped to solve their problems. They must also be taught how to cope with problems even when they cannot solve them. They must be taught skills in reducing or changing the dysfunctional emotions that may be engendered when an unavoidable or unsolvable problem is encountered. In order for them remain motivated to tackle the problems they face it is essential that they be helped to acquire attitudes that will a) enable them to accept that some problems are inevitable; b) enable them to effectively cope with the distress that is associated with these problems.

Many offenders, like many non-offenders, may view problems as situations to be avoided rather than solved. Their experience may have taught them that the faster they act, the faster the problem and the anxiety it creates goes away - at least for the moment. Stopping to think and analyze the situation may only serve to prolong their anxiety, particularly if the offender lacks the ability to use analysis and reflection to think of an adequate solution to problems.

Skills Training – Essential But Not Sufficient

It is reasonable to assume that any individual who does not have an appropriate attitude about their ability to solve problems is not likely to be effective in coping with them. However, a coping attitude by itself will not enable effective problem solving unless one also has problem solving skills.

Moreover, a program that only trains antisocial individuals in problem solving skills is also unlikely to lead them to prefer prosocial problem solving because they may continue to believe that antisocial problem solving serves them better. However, through training in prosocial problem solving they can learn that prosocial problem solving leads to immediate concrete interpersonal benefits.

Successful prosocial problem solving helps to generate ―learned optimism‖ (Seligman,1991) about the potential for a prosocial life which is a critical part of the desistence process. Participants must be led to choose prosocial problem solving because it can serve them better not only because it yields more benefits, but also because it is in accord with the prosocial identity the new R&R2 programs will persuade them to adopt.

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Chapter 14

INTERNAL-EXTERNAL LOCUS OF CONTROL

Individuals can be reliably classified on the basis of their

perceived "locus of control", i.e. on the degree to which they believe that they have some control of their lives (internals) or believe that what happens to them depends not on their own behavior but on people or circumstances beyond their control (externals). Whereas internals perceive that what they get out of life is determined by factors within themselves, such as ability or hard work; externals believe that what happens to them is determined not by their efforts or their skills, but by luck or by external factors such as the actions of other people who have the power to control them.

Some pre-1985 research indicated that many offenders are external in terms of their locus of control (Ross & Fabiano, 1985). However, there was contradictory evidence. Subsequent research has raised further doubts about this relationship. More recent research on this characteristic is highly equivocal – many offenders are external, but many are highly internal. For example, Pugh (1993) found that a substantial number of incarcerated prisoners had an internal locus of control. The relationship may also depend on the type of offence. For example, violent young offenders have been found to be more external than non-violent offenders (Hollin & Wheeler, 1982). Indeed, the whole model of internal-external locus of control may need to be replaced (Lieberman, 2007)

Prosocially External; Antisocially Internal

There is a wealth of anecdotal evidence that many offenders have a perception of themselves as being powerless to achieve success by prosocial means. Many believe that they lack skills, or they lack opportunity, or they lack money, or they lack employment, or they lack social supports... However, that does not necessarily mean that they have an external locus of control. They may well believe that they can succeed quite well in criminal endeavours. They may believe (albeit unwisely) that they can control what happens to them by antisocial means. Similarly, aggressive youth have been found to have a low level of self-efficacy beliefs about behaving prosocially and a high level about behaving aggressively (Erdley & Asher, 1996; Perry et al.,1986; Quiggle, Garber, Panak & Dodge, 1992).


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They Made Me Do It

Many offenders have a remarkable ability to externalize the blame for their misdeeds - to transfer the blame for their anti-social behavior on to others including parents, teachers, spouses, police officers, judges, lawyers and "bad companions", or all of the above. Many offenders appeal to "extenuating circumstances" as an excuse or a defence for their criminal acts. They argue that since their behavior is a result or "luck" or "fate" or other factors beyond their control, then they cannot personally be blamed. The external agent which is most likely to be blamed for the offender's behavior is alcohol. Many believe that it is not they themselves who are responsible for their criminal behavior, it is the alcohol. Under its influence, they claim, they cannot control their behavior and, therefore, they cannot be held responsible for it.

Offenders who deny responsibility for their actions and explain their behavior as being controlled by agents, substances or circumstances beyond their control may not be merely attempting to excuse their behavior. Their "excuses" may reflect not just a "cop-out". They may actually believe that they are powerless. Given the social environments in which most have lived and in which most continue to live, they may be right.

Many offenders believe that they cannot succeed in "straight society" because they never have succeded there in the past. Therefore, they may see no purpose in trying. They may have little motivation for working to succeed in school or elsewhere. It is not simply that they are external. It may be because they believe that their prosocial efforts will be in vain. Many antisocial individuals believe that it is "too late for them to accomplish anything in life" (Shover, 1983).


Programs should strive to equip antisocial individuals not only with skills that can improve their chances of success in the mainstream society but should also help them to develop self-efficacy in order that they may be motivated to pursue success through prosocial activity.

This does not imply that treatment efforts should be focused on improving antisocial individuals' self-esteem. Their antisocial behavior may represent a compensatory attempt to achieve self-esteem some way ... any way! Their antisocial acts may represent a means by which they try to perceive themselves as worthwhile and important. Efforts to increase individual‘s self-esteem have been found to be of little value in preventing undesirable behavior (Baumeister, Campbell, Krueger & Vohs, 2005. Indeed, as Palin

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(1990) pointed out, ―the track record of self-esteem building in education has been one of uninterrupted failure‖.

Enhancing the self-esteem of antisocial individuals without grounding that self-esteem in concrete prosocial action might only leave us with antisocial individuals who feel good about themselves. That may only encourage their antisocial behavior. What is required is teaching them skills, attitudes and values that will enable them to achieve not just self-esteem but prosocial self-efficacy. As we noted earlier, we suggest that programs should emphasize not feeling good but doing good. Feeling good does not yield "doing good" but "doing good" can yield "feeling good".

Moreover, programs should teach not feeling good about oneself but doing good to others. That should be the reference point for feeling good about oneself. Programs should promote not self-esteem but ‗other-esteem’. They can. Some have.

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Chapter 15

COGNITIVE RIGIDITY VS. ALTERNATIVE THINKING

Effective problem solving requires the ability to generate

alternative solutions to problems. The individual who thinks of only one solution is likely to feel frustrated when their one solution does not solve their problem. When their chosen solution does not ‗work‘ and they have no alternative solutions, they may opt for an antisocial or aggressive solution that magnifies the problem.

The pre-1985 research indicated that the minds of many offenders do not work well because they are closed – closed to new ideas or to other people's ideas. Their thinking is often inflexible, narrow, intolerant of ambiguity, and dogmatic. Because of this, they may persist in behaviors which yield few rewards but get them into trouble over and over again. These characteristics may not be simply a matter of temperament. They may reflect a cognitive problem – conceptual perseveration or rigidity: a tendency to maintain the same idea regardless of contrary evidence. They persist in conceptualizing new situations or problems in terms of views that they had developed from former situations without considering the appropriateness, objectivity or adequacy of the old view for the new circumstances. Such perseveration of thinking often indicates basic difficulties in forming alternative conceptualizations.

Delinquents

Research evidence that has been reported more recently indicates that the 1985 conclusion about the relationship between creativity and offending was correct. For example, the inability to generate alternative responses to interpersonal stress has been shown to be associated with elevated levels of delinquency (Compas, Malcarne & Fondacaro,1988; Leadbetter et al.,. 1989). It has been demonstrated that delinquent youths tend to generate few socially competent alternatives (Kennedy, 1984).

Adult Offenders

Chronic criminal offenders who persist in repeating their antisocial acts, may not only be playing the odds against getting caught. Their behavior may actually reflect a basic cognitive shortcoming – a limited ability to think of alternative, prosocial ways of accomplishing their goals. That problem may underlie their resistance to change. Cognitive inflexibility promotes repetitive behavior and may


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be a factor to consider in trying to understand (and treat) the tendency of many offenders to continue to commit offences over and over again in spite of frequent apprehension and punishment.

It may be difficult for counsellors to get offenders to listen to advice because the offenders are 'imprisoned' by their own ideas. They may respond poorly to advice or counselling not only because of poor attitudes or poor motivation, but because their inability to alter their perspective makes them impervious to new ideas - particularly other people's ideas. Therefore, they fail to see the advantages and disadvantages of such ideas.

Aggressive Adolescents

The adolescent who does not have an adequate repertoire of prosocial alternatives is likely to be at risk of engaging in antisocial behavior. For example, Greening‘s (1997) study of male adolescents (aged 13-16) found that those with ―delinquency tendencies‖ as measured by the Jesness Inventory, evidenced a bias for generating ineffective solutions to hypothetical social problems. Greening suggested that when adolescents are frustrated by the ineffective outcome of passive solutions, they then consider inappropriate behavior such as aggression or stealing.

Aggressive adolescents have also been found to generate fewer social problem solving strategies than their nonaggressive peers (e.g. Dunn, Lochman, & Colder, 1997). For example, Akhtar & Bradley (1991) found that aggressive children were able to generate fewer alternative solutions in problem situations and generated less effective solutions to problems. Evans & Short (1991) found that 8-11 year old aggressive boys evidenced poor performance in their ability to generate effective solutions in problem solving. Similar findings have been reported for younger children (Richard & Dodge, 1982). Moreover, a longitudinal study of children followed up from age 11 to 18 found that those who were ―permanently aggressive‖ evidenced a lack of constructive alternatives both in their earlier and later years (Keltikangas & Pakasslahti, 1999).

Aggressive Children

Aggressive children have also been found to lack the ability to generate competent solutions to hypothetical social problem situations and tend to choose aggressive as opposed to prosocial responses to such situations (Deluty, 1981; Fischler & Kendall, 1988). Aggressive children may consider that aggressive impulses are difficult to inhibit and prosocial actions are hard to produce (Slaby & Guerra, 1988),

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Cognitive inflexibility may, in fact, promote aggressive behavior because aggression is an alternative that is one of the most immediately apparent ways to attempt to solve one‘s problems (and the one most frequently modelled by the media). It is much easier to think of an antisocial reaction to one‘s problems than a prosocial one.

Drug Abusing Youth

A study of youths treated for drug overdosing found that they were "unable to think of anything else to do" – they had exhausted their ability to generate conventional solutions (McLaughlin et al.,1996).

Bullies

School bullies have also been found to generate fewer solutions in conflict situations and to lack an adequate repertoire of nonaggressive solutions in interpersonal conflict situations (Slee, 1993). Ireland‘s (2001) research suggests that ―pure bullies‖ (proactive aggressors) in prisons lack a range of nonaggressive solutions to conflict. Many bullies lack alternative ways to achieve power.

One-way Thoughts

The apparent failure of antisocial individuals to think about the possible consequences of their behavior may be because they lack the ability to think of more than one potential consequence. Effective problem solving requires the ability to anticipate all the potential consequences of one‘s intended actions.

Rush to Judgment

Cognitive inflexibility may also cause major problems in comprehending social problems, or complex situations, or changing circumstances. Many offenders are highly judgmental - they have strong biases and fixed notions about what they think is worthwhile and what they think is useless. Because of this, they frequently accept or reject an idea without giving it any more than superficial or momentary consideration.

Stress Intolerance

A failure to think of alternatives may also yield a low level of tolerance for stress. When faced with change in their environment, antisocial individuals who lack the ability to shift their thinking or to synthesize the new information with their former cognitive set may be


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overwhelmed by change and may engage in maladaptive and inappropriate behavior. Flexibility in thinking is essential to success in interpersonal relations.


Many programs have engaged offenders in creative activities such as sculpture, art and writing and there is a plethora of anecdotal evidence of the rehabilitative effects of such activities. However, most are single case studies and there is a lack of adequately controlled research that would justify such claims. In spite of the popularity of these programs, it has not yet been determined whether involvement in the creative arts teaches participants to be more creative in thinking of alternative solutions to problems they encounter in social situations.

Nevertheless, we believe that teaching creative thinking must a central component of interventions that seek to help antisocial individuals to develop prosocial competence. Teaching creative thinking to antisocial individuals may be essential in order for them to learn to challenge their pre-established schemas, to enable them to avoid selectively attending only to information that is consistent with their life-story and begin attending to information that is inconsistent.

Creativity and critical thinking are closely related (van den Brink-Budgen, 2002). Both need to be taught. In the R&R program both have been taught using well established programs. R&R2 bolsters the creative thinking exercises that were used in the original program.

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Chapter 16

INFORMATION PROCESSING

A variety of fundamental sub-skills have been found to be underdeveloped in antisocial individuals that may underly their problems not only in problem solving but in all of their social functioning.

VERBAL INFORMATION PROCESSING

One of the underlying factors may be a limitation in verbal information processing ability. Numerous studies have found evidence to support the idea that delinquents have a weakness in Verbal IQ as compared with Performance IQ (e.g., Cornell & Wilson, 1992). Some studies have associated this PIQ > VIQ discrepancy with re-offending (e.g Haynes & Bensch, 1981) and with violence (DeWolfe & Ryan, 1984; Petee & Walsh, 1987). Several studies have found significant correlations between low Verbal IQ and deficits in social problem solving (e.g. Lochman & Lampron, 1986).

The relationship between low verbal I.Q. and delinquency may point to a relative deficiency in the ability to use verbal skills to accurately interpret social stimuli - an ability that is essential to interpersonal understanding (Wong & Cornell, 1999). Poor ability in verbal information processing leads not only to poor social problem solving (Ellis and Siegler, 1994), but also leads to a lack of ―control self-talk‖ or internalized verbal orders to inhibit behavior. It may also lead to poor assimilation of prosocial rules (Barratt, Stanford, Kent & Felthous, 1997).

There are some basic difficulties in information gathering and processing which some offenders may evidence that may have prevented them from acquiring an adequate repertoire of prosocial skills. For example, they may be unsystematic in ascertaining the facts and may miss important details; they may be imprecise or inaccurate in fact-finding; they may gather facts in an unorganized fashion and, therefore, have only a piecemeal, disorganized collection of information about the problem at hand; they may fail to ascertain the reliability of the facts they do gather; they may fail to discriminate between relevant and irrelevant information and, therefore, may misjudge what is important. More generally, they may be unsystematic and imprecise in their approach to understanding their world.

Competence in information processing requires good short-term memory and attentional skills – skills that are seldom taught in offender rehabilitation programs. They are taught in R&R2 programs.


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SOCIAL INFORMATION PROCESSING

The relationship between poor problem solving and antisocial behavior may be particularly related to an inability to adequately process information in the social sphere. Many antisocial individuals fail to seek enough information before they attempt to tackle problems, particularly interpersonal problems. Many of them fail to obtain sufficient information to enable them to solve the problem or even to understand what the problem is. For example, it has been found that aggressive adolescents search for fewer facts in social situations than do their prosocial counterparts and that their analyses of situations are less likely to be made on the basis of the facts (Slaby & Guerra, 1988). They tend to rely more on their past experiences of similar situations (Dodge & Tomlin, 1987).

The ability to analyze interpersonal situations and to form adequate and objective assessments of people requires seeking enough information to enable that assessment to be made accurately. Even in the first or second year of school, the difficulties some children experience in their ability to form adequate conceptions of other individuals underlies their lack of success in resolving interpersonal relationships (Shantz & Schantz,1985).

Many aggressive children demonstrate biases in their social information processing. For example, Dodge, Pettit, Bates and Valente (1995) assessed the social information processing patterns of children who were displaying symptoms of conduct disorder. They found that this group of children attended to fewer relevant social cues than age-matched controls. Several other studies have found strong evidence of a relationship between biases in social information processing and aggressive behavior in children and adolescents (e.g., Crick & Ladd, 1990; Quiggle et al.,1992; Dodge & Tomlin, 1987).

Aggressive individuals differ from their prosocial peers in terms of the social situational cues they extract from the environment (Dodge, 1986). They evidence shortcomings in their ability to encode relevant social information (Akhtar & Bradley,1991). Similarly, abused children who display symptoms of conduct disorder have been found to attend to fewer relevant social cues than their age-matched controls (Dodge et al.,1995).

The relationship between poor social reasoning and aggression has been found to occur as early as age three (Harvey, Fletcher & French, 2001). The child‘s ability to adequately process social information significantly influences how effectively children respond to provocation even as early as their kindergarten years (Dodge et al.,1986).

Violent adolescent and pre-adolescent boys have difficulty in social information processing and there is a continuum in the severity of such ―social-cognitive deficiences‖ with the more severe violent

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youths evidencing more extreme "social-cognitive deficiencies" (Lochman & Dodge, 1994).

Misattribution

The most frequently studied problem in social information processing among offenders and other antisocial individuals is misattribution - misinterpreting the thoughts, feelings and intentions of others. Accurate attribution involves the perception, processing, and interpretation of subtle behavioral and verbal cues, as well as an evaluation of the social context and of the relationships among individuals. Misattribution may limit an individual‘s ability to effectively cope with social situations particularly problematic social situations and can lead to interpersonal difficulties (Royzman, Cassidy, & Baron, 2003; Griffin, Dunning, & Ross, 1990).

Many adult offenders and many violent youths evidence a ―hostile attribution bias‖ – a tendency to misattribute hostile intent to the behavior of others which is actually ambiguous or entirely innocuous (e.g. Palmer & Hollin, 2000; Wong & Cornell, 1999). Such misattributions may trigger a violent retaliatory reaction by offenders who mistakenly assume that the person they are observing is planning to attack them, whereas the person‘s verbal or nonverbal behavior contains no such threat. The offender reads hostility or disrespect into the person‘s behavior when in reality the person has no such feelings.

Their misattribution of hostile intent may reflect the antisocial individual's limited skills in social information processing (Serin & Kuriychuk, 1994) Their interpersonal understanding may be limited to judging people by concrete, overt characteristics such as appearance and behavior rather than by considering covert psychological characteristics such as feeling and thoughts. Such limited understanding and sensitivity to the feelings and behaviors of others is likely to preclude their chances of establishing close personal relationships. Many adolescent offenders have few if any close friendships (Marcus, 1996; Claes & Simard, 1992).

Violent adolescent boys and even pre-adolescent violent boys have been found to have difficulty in attribution skills (Lochman & Dodge, 1994). A similar shortcoming in attribution skills has been found among conduct disordered children (Dodge et al.,.,1995). Aggressive children have also been found to misattribute hostility to peers (Akhtar & Bradley, 1991; Quiggle et al.,1993) and are more likely to overestimate the aggression of people with whom they interact (Lochman & Dodge, 1998). This is most likely to occur when the situational cues involved are ambiguous (Crick & Ladd, 1990; Graham, Hudley, & Williams, 1992; Lochman & Dodge, 1994).


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Shortcomings in social-processing skills as reflected in difficulties in accurately interpreting the intent of the behavior of their peers has also been found among aggressive children with ―mental retardation‖ (Leffert & Siperstein, 1996). These researchers found that such aggressive children were able to accurately interpret hostile intentions, but experienced difficulty in accurately interpreting benign intentions. Moreover, the children who evidenced such social-cognitive difficulties tended to generate aggressive strategies when viewing video-taped vignettes of social conflict situations involving peers.

Increasing evidence has been found that indicates that many aggressive children and adolescents as well as delinquents evidence a general hostile attribution style. They exaggerate potential hostility directed toward themselves and perceive (more than nonaggressive children and nondelinquents) that other people are intending to harm them (e.g. Bickett, Milich, & Brown, 1996; Graham & Hudley,1994).

A study of substance-abusing males in an inpatient treatment centre who reported that they had been abusive to their partners found that they also evidenced inadequate attribution skills (Copenhaver, 2000). Similarly, ―maltreating mothers‖ evidence less understanding of childrens‘ emotional expressions (Shipman & Zeman, 2001). Furthermore, it has been found that many bullies do not process social information well and tend to make unrealistic judgments about the intentions of others (Randall, 1997).

Development of Hostile Misattribution

The early life experiences of many antisocial individuals may engender pervasive feelings of anger and hostility and stimulate their aggression. The child who has developed such feelings at the hands of uncaring or unstable or excessively harsh, punitive parents or other adults may come to attribute to everyone else his or her own feelings of hostility and anger (Short & Simeonsson, 1986) and lead them to make faulty attributions of hostility to the otherwise innocent behavior of others (e.g. Palmer & Hollin, 2000; Wong & Cornell, 1999).

Chemical Distortion

Many antisocial acts occur when the individual is under the influence of alcohol and/or other drugs. One reason is that alcohol reduces the cognitive processing ability to detect and recognize affective cues that can indicate how others are feeling and what they are intending to do (Curtin, Patrick, Lang, Cacioppo & Birbaumer, 2001; Curtin, Patrick & Lang, 2007).

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Emotional Recognition

Another reason that many antisocial individuals misattribute hostility to innocent noverbal behavior in others is that they lack basic skills in interpreting nonverbal communication cues that are key to identifying emotions in others. Stevens, Chairman & Blair (2001) have demonstrated that children with impulsive and conduct problems have difficulty in recognizing the emotions expressed in facial expressions and vocal tones of sadness and fear. Similarly, Palmer and Hollin (2000) report that young offenders can reliably recognize happiness, anger, and fear; but are less able than non-offenders to identify the facial expressions of sadness, surprise, and disgust. Blair, Budhani, Colledge & Scott (2006) report that boys with psychopathic tendencies also have problems with the recognition of fearful vocal affect.


Antisocial children, adolescents and adults require training in basic interpersonal skills that can enable them to more accurately recognize the feelings of other people and thereby enable them to relate to others prosocially rather than antisocially.

In order to be able to recognize the emotions of others they must first be able to recognize and manage their own feelings. Recent neuroscience research demonstrates that understanding others, and self-understanding involves the same neural networks (Lieberman, 2007). Thus, interventions to develop the ability to understand other's emotions must be tied to the ability to recognize and manage one‘s own emotions.

O wad some Power the giftie gie us

To see oursels as ithers see us! Robert Burns (To a Louse, 1786)

http://www.robertburns.org/works/glossary/773.html

http://www.robertburns.org/works/glossary/769.html

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Chapter 17

THE EMOTIONAL BRAIN

The 1985 cognitive model and the cognitive behavioral programs that it spawned were informed by a research literature that had paid scant attention to the role of emotion in offending behavior.

Those Nasty Emotions

There have been more than two thousand years of thinking in which emotions have been regarded at best as harmless luxuries and at worst as outright obstacles to intelligent action – they get in the way of making intelligent decisions. Consistent with that perspective, many cognitive-behavioral programs have focused almost exclusively on cognition. Those that do have a focus on emotions are usually limited to teaching clients how to control, reduce the intensity of or avoid emotions altogether.

Emotions Are Not Just Cognitions

A core assumption of cognitive behavioral programs is that one's emotions are determined by one's cognitive appraisal of events. This is a very old idea that goes right back to the Ancient Greeks: men are moved not by events but by their interpretations of events (Epictetus, 55 C.E.).

Two people will often have different emotional responses to the same situation. It is plausible to attribute this emotional divergence to their contrasting thoughts, beliefs and judgments about the stimulus event. The assumption is that one‘s beliefs and evaluations - one's conscious cognitions - are the central element of emotion. If emotions are cognitions then, it is reasoned, we can influence emotions by altering our cognitions.

A basic assumption of most cognitive programs for offenders is that what you think determines how you feel and how you behave. Neuroscience research has made it clear that the reverse is more likely: how you feel determines how you think and how you behave.

It has also been thought that emotions are rather simple and primitive things that have come to be replaced, or at least controlled, by our ―higher functions‖ – particularly those made possible by homo sapiens' development of the lateral prefrontal cortex. Neuroscience has established that this view is also erroneous. The emotional process is much more complex than the cognitive behavioral devotees would like to think.


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Getting Emotional About Emotions

Recent research in psychology has increasingly focused on the importance of emotional processing in behavior (e.g. Leahy, 2002). There has also been a great deal of neuroscience research on the role of emotion (e.g. Denham, 1998). We now know that the emotions play a central role in human thinking and decision making, a role that is just as, or even more important than reasoning. Indeed reason and emotion cannot be separated any more than can brain and mind (Damasio, 1994: Ekman, 2003, LeDoux, 2002). Emotional factors are involved in all social-cognitive information processing activities and strongly influence the adequacy of social behavior (Crick & Dodge, 1994; Huesmann & Eron, 1989).

Emotions Have A Mind Of Their Own.

Neuroscience has demonstrated that emotions play a key role in thinking. Emotion often makes our choices and decisions even before our thinking has begun (Forgas, 1995). Moreover, after all our thinking is done, it is emotion that makes our choices and decisions.

Emotions are likely to influence and even control social-cognitive information processing activities (Crick & Dodge, 1994; Forgas, 1995; Lemerise & Arsenio, 2000). For example, aggressive adolescents make inferences about a social situation on the basis of their emotional state more than do nonaggressive adolescents who rely more on the situational facts (Dodge & Tomlin 1987). Negative emotions may restrict the individual's search for prosocial problem solving alternatives (Bodenhausen, Sheppard, & Kramer, 1994; Forgas, 1995; Petty, Wegener, & Fabrigar, 1997).

Emotion Processing

Technological advances over the past twenty years have enabled neuroscientists to follow the flow of a stimulus through the brain from the stimulus processing pathways to the response control networks. Thus, it is now possible to identify the basic neural circuits involved.

It has long been recognized that our emotions are rooted in a set of neural structures known collectively as the limbic system. Most of our strongest emotions originate in the amygdalae, a pair of almond-shaped limbic structures that are located in the anterior portion of the temporal lobe deep in the brain. When an event occurs, before our conscious thinking (ST) brains have a chance to engage, our amygdalae fire off emotional impulses that trigger our behavior.

When the brain detects the stimuli it first does some emotional processing. Then it does some more emotional processing. Then the

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amygdalae and hippocampus work together to determine an emotional response. Only then does the brain produce emotional consciousness. Thus, our feelings are really the conscious consequences of our brain's emotional processing (LeDoux, 2002).

Our feeling is the outcome of the AT process. The process does not occur as a conscious deliberative act carried out by the RT mind. However, it is important to realize that although the AT process is preconscious, it involves activities such as data acquisition, processing, evaluation, and decision making. However, it is only after the AT mind has identified an emotion, that the conscious experience of that emotion occurs. The RT mind enters the picture more slowly, more consciously and more deliberatively.

Thinking will Make It So?

Such research has profound implications for how we can and cannot help our antisocial clients acquire emotional control. Relying only on cognitive strategies is unlikely to suffice. That is because the pathways that connect the emotional processing system with the thinking brain are not equal. The pathways from the thinking brain to the emotional processing system are not nearly as strong as the pathways running in the opposite direction. The ability of the amygdalae to control the cortex is considerably greater than the ability of the cortex to control the amygdalae. Thus, once an emotion is aroused, it is not easy to use thinking to turn it off. In order to do so, the thinking brain would have to find an exceptionally rapid and effective way to combat the hormones and other substances that are released during emotions. It is more difficult for a thought to influence an emotion than for an emotion to influence a thought.

Freezing is often the first thing people and other animals do when sudden danger appears. Predators respond to movement, so freezing is overall probably the best single thing to do first, at least it was for our distant ancestors. If they had to think about what to do first, they'd have been so caught up in the thought process they'd probably fidget around and then get eaten.

Joseph LeDoux, 2002

We are not in control of our emotions as much as we sometimes think we are, or would like to be. Indeed, emotional reactions can be elicited independent of our conscious thought processes. Moreover, the brain often produces emotional responses that are not at all related to what we are thinking about at the time.


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Our Emotional Boss

Emotions are mostly processed without our awareness in the AT mind system. Emotions prepare us to deal with important events without our having to think rationally about what to do (Ekman 2003). For example, conscious feelings of fear are not a necessary step in the link between a dangerous stimulus and an emotional reaction. We often become conscious and aware of the emotions only later.

The foregoing does not mean that our behavior is completely controlled by our emotions. It 'only' means that the emotions propel us to action. However, although we may not be entirely successful in suppressing or controlling our emotions, we can at least to some extent choose how we react to them. As LeDoux suggests, the rapid response of the emotional processing AT system buys us some time to consider how to respond to an emotion triggering situation.

Neuromaturation

It is difficult to understand antisocial behavior without having a better understanding of how emotions are involved in such behavior, particularly in the case of adolescents. As they progress through adolescence, individuals experience a dramatic increase in the number of nerve connections in the prefrontal cortex – the part of the brain that is responsible for assessing social relationships and controlling social behavior. However, the AT socio-emotional system and the RT control system mature a different rates. The cognitive-control system gains strength much more slowly. As a result, too often. and for too long, the adolescent's cognitive control system is out of control (Steinberg, 2007).

Our cognitive-control system weighs the possible rewards against the potential risks of our actions and enables us to make wise decisions, use sound judgment, and assess long-term consequences. However, because cognitive-control is underdeveloped in adolescents, their socio-emotional network is more likely to govern their behavior. Fortunately, emotional control increases in a gradual fashion until it is usually quite well developed by the age of 18-24 (Dahl & Spear, 2004; Sabbagh, 2006). This development may be one of the factors that can account for the fact that most antisocial juveniles including delinquents do not 'progress' to adult criminality. Maturation is smarter than criminologists.

Getting AHead

Brain-imaging studies demonstrate that the amygdalae mellow with age. Moreover, as we age, our experiences shape the prefrontal brain in such a way that we gain better control of our emotions.


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Unfortunately, in many cases this neurological development does not occur at pace. Many "neurodelayed adultescents‖ grow old without growing up.

Emotion And Offending

Although there has been very little research on the explicit contribution of emotion (other than anger) to offending behavior, there is growing evidence of the role of emotion in other forms of antisocial behavior and in some of the factors that are known to be associated with offending behavior. For example, there is considerable evidence of the role of emotion in aggression (e.g. Arsenio, Coopdani & Lover, 2000; Lemerise & Dodge, 2000). Under-regulation of emotion is often a key factor in aggression (Eisenberg, Fabes, Nyman, Bernzweig, & Pinuelas, 1994). Conduct-disordered children have also been found to evidence inadequate development in emotional processing (e.g., Arsenio & Fleiss, 1996; Cohen & Strayer, 1996).

The Others Inside Us

Neuroscience research has established that the nature and quality of children‘s environments shape the brain-behavioral systems underlying their emotions. Abusive, punitive, rejecting experiences become incorporated in our brains in the form of neural connections. When we are repeatedly exposed to such circumstances, our brains form neural connections that engender in us the feelings we previously experienced and we come to behave in accordance with those feelings. This process occurs whether we like it or not.

Examination of children who were reared in social environments where they were deprived of adequate care-giving has provided an understanding of the effects of such early experience on the brain systems underlying the development of emotional behavior. The results indicate that inadequate care-giving experiences influence the development of the brain systems involved in human social behavior that is associated with major social and emotional difficulties (Pollak, 2005). The vasopressin and oxytocin neuropeptide systems, which are critical in the establishment of social bonds and the regulation of emotional behaviors, are significantly and adversely affected by such early negative social experiences (Pollak, 2003).

The maltreatment that many antisocial individuals experienced in childhood or adolescence may lead them to disconnect from their emotions. For example affectional feelings might be supressed by fears of rejection. It is difficult to manage emotions that individuals do not know they have. It is just as difficult for individuals to develop emotional management over emotions when they do not know what they are.


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The People Around Us

How we feel is in large measure determined by how people around us are feeling. Happy people add to our positive feelings (Chartrand, Maddux, & Lakin, 2005). Do we need to suggest how individuals, such as the many antisocial individuals who have been reared in environments populated by hostile, bitter, angry, cold, rejecting, indifferent or depressed people come to evidence persistent negative, hostile, callous and hopeless feelings?

Multimethod studies including electrophysiologic tasks indicate that maltreated children may have a specific problem in their abilities to recognize, express and regulate emotional states, particularly anger (Pollak, 2003). Such children learn to track signs of threat. They identify signs of anger in others on the basis of less sensory input than do non-abused children. They become experts in anger detection – even when there is no anger. Maltreated children often exhibit an underdeveloped ability to recognize and accurately identify others' emotions or intentions. To put it quite simply, maltreated individuals see the world in terms of threat. They expect the worst to happen and their expectations are often self-fulfilling (Pollak, 2005).

Emotional Neglect

It is not only exposure to physical abuse during the formative years that can be damaging to the developing brain. Infants of mothers who are unresponsive to their infants have been found to evidence right frontal EEG asymmetries which reflect increased negative emotional states (Field, 1998).

EMOTIONAL REGULATION

The quality of the parent–child relationship may also influence the development of the ability to regulate emotions (Cicchetti, Ganiban, & Barnett, 1991). Interactions in which parents model and reinforce regulation of emotional responding are likely to yield the development of adequate emotion regulation skills (e,g, Cole, Teti & Zahn–Waxler, 2003; Dumas, LaFreniere, & Serketich,1995). However, offspring of adverse family environments in which such modelling and reinforcement are absent have been shown to evidence deficits in emotion regulation skills including difficulty in identifying and labeling emotions in self and others (e.g., Camras et al.,. 1988; Dunn & Brown 1994).

How Do I Feel?

Poorly regulated emotion may interfere with empathy and prosocial responding. Underegulated emotions may make individuals


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too self-focused to be sufficiently empathic to understand and relate well to others and/or to feel sympathy for the distress of others (Eisenberg, Fabes & Murphy, 1996).

Pay Attention

Emotion regulation is also dependent on the ability to attend to one's emotions (Perez–Edgar & Fox, 2005). Bioneurological factors associated with attention may be involved (e.g. Brenner, Beauchaine, & Sylvers, 2005; Depue & Lenzenweger, 2005; Gray & McNaughton, 2000). For example, poor emotion regulation may be associated with right frontal EEG asymmetry whereas left frontal EEG asymmetry may promote the development of emotion regulation by enabling adequate attention skills (Henderson, Fox, & Rubin, 2001). The combination of such neurological factors and social environmental factors can be a potent force. We shall discuss the importance not only of focusing on emotion but also improving the individual's attention skills when we describe the new R&R2 programs.

Missing Emotions

Although little interest has been expressed in the role of emotion either in explanations of the causes of offending behavior or in programs designed to prevent re-offending, a notable exception is the considerable amount of interest in one emotion – anger.

There can be little doubt about the importance of anger in offending behavior. Many offenders evidence problems in the control of their anger. Accordingly, anger management programs have been a key element in the offender rehabilitation armamentarium. However, anger is not the only emotion with which offenders have difficulty and which can trigger antisocial behavior. Other emotions such as fear, anxiety, sadness, and even excitement can and do create problems for many offenders. In their eagerness to provide treatment for problems of anger, those other emotions have often been by-passed or simply ignored by program developers and practitioners.

Many multi-facetted cognitive behavioral programs (including R&R) provide an anger management module but few provide modules designed to teach offenders how to cope with other emotions. The ―Management of Emotions‖ module in the original R&R was designed such that it could be readily applied to any other emotions in addition to anger with which participants may have difficulty. Unfortunately, very few R&R Trainers have reported actually using the module to teach management of any emotion other than anger.

Although it can be natural, necessary and adaptive (depending on how it is expressed), anger is usually viewed as a negative emotion. There has been little interest in criminology or in programs


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for offender rehabilitation on positive prosocial emotions such as gratitude, affection or compassion.


A wise man rules his passions, a fool obeys them.

Publius Syrus

The foregoing research indicates that programs that are designed to help antisocial individuals acquire prosocial competence must teach not only cognitive competence or behavioral competence but also emotional competence. We must teach 1. emotion recognition (to enable them to recognize their emotions); 2. emotion regulation – (to enable them to manage their feelings); 3. empathy – (to enable them to recognize the feelings of others).

Rather than viewing emotion as the Darth Vader of the human enterprise, the new edition of R&R includes techniques that ensure that emotions, both positive and negative, are a focus of our approach to teaching prosocial competence. Instead of excluding emotions, as is too often the case with the teaching of thinking, a major goal of the new R&R2 programs is to help participants pay attention to them. Rather than excluding emotions we teach participants to attend to their emotions, to identify them and then to use them effectively.

Intelligence ≠ Concern

Being aware of one‘s emotions, and also the emotions of other individuals, and then being able to use our emotions in a constructive manner, is a key part of all the many different and often competing models of emotional and social intelligence (e.g. Bar-On, 2006; Brackett, Lopes, Ivcevic, Mayer & Salovey, 2004; Cherniss, 2000). However, teaching antisocial individuals "emotional intelligence" will not get the rehabilitation job done. Emotional intelligence can readily be used in the service of antisocial goals.

An adequate ability to regulate all of one‘s emotions along with an adequate ability to identify the emotions of others may be essential skills for the development of adequate interpersonal relationships that can serve as a protective factor against antisocial behavior. Emotional regulation is positively related to feelings of concern for others (Derryberry & Rothbart,1988; Eisenberg et al.,1994). However, acquisition does not guarantee performance. We also have to foster the participants' inclination to use these skills for prosocial purposes. Unfortunately, in the treatment of antisocial individuals much more emphasis has been placed on teaching social skills than on teaching social values. In the next chapter we discuss the shortcomings of such an approach.

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Chapter 18

SOCIAL SKILLS

Social skills training is one the most common treatment approaches to the rehabilitation of delinquents and adult offenders. Such training is based on a widely held, but seldom questioned assumption that offending is associated with a lack of social skills. Some evidence in support of that assumption was reviewed in 1985. However, at the risk of being considered sacrilegious, we must point out that our search of the post-1985 research literature found very little evidence to support the assumption of such a relationship or to support the assertion that many antisocial individuals behave antisocially simply because they lack the skills to behave prosocially.

There are some recent key studies that do support the assumption. Thus, Palmer & Hollin (1999) found that in a sample of convicted male offenders (aged 13-17 years), social competence was significantly correlated with self-reported delinquency. Veneziano & Veneziano (1988) found that among 411 male delinquents (aged 11-16 years) in a state training school those who had the lowest knowledge of social skills evidenced a wide variety of behavioral difficulties. Katz (1990) found that social skills ‖deficits‖ predispose adolescent child molesters to commit crimes against children (Katz, 1990). However, the results of other studies raise serious questions about the presumed relationship. For example, no relationship was found between social skills and delinquent behavior in studies conducted by Furnham (1984); Hunter & Kelley (1986); and Renwick & Emler (1991).

Will the Real Social Skill Please Stand Up?

An extraordinary variety of different measures have been employed to examine the relationship between social skill and antisocial behavior. It is difficult to summarize let al.,one synthesize the findings in this literature. Questions must be raised about whether studies that are often cited as evidence of the social skills/offending behavior link actually indicate a relationship not between social skills ‗deficits‘ and offending behavior but between antisocial behavior and other variables. For example, Lee & Prentice (1988) found that in their study of 150 adolescent males, the delinquents evidenced less developed abilities in ―role-taking” than matched nondelinquents. The measures they employed (Piagetian cognitive tasks) were likely to tap not social skills but social perspective-taking. Another frequently quoted study that presumably established that self-reported delinquency and


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hard drug use are related to social skills ‗deficits‘ actually examined self-efficacy (Allen, Leadbetter & Lawrence, 1990).

Social Skills Training

The offender treatment literature does include several well controlled studies of reductions in re-offending yielded by what are referred to as social skills training programs (Hollin & Trower, 1986; Hollin & Palmer, 2001). However, in almost every case these programs were multifacetted and it is not possible to determine whether the positive outcomes obtained were attributable to training in social skills, or to training in other cognitive skills and values, or to some unknown something else. Hollin and Palmer (2001) note that there is little in the way of convincing evidence that social skills training alone has any systematic effect on recidivism. Social skills training is still used as part of many multimodal programs but its use as the sole or even primary means of intervention has decreased markedly.


A social skills component was included in the multi-modal R&R program based on the earlier research on effective correctional treatment that had established that multi-faceted programs are required (Ross & Gendreau, 1980) Social skills may be essential to the development of prosocial competence and the acquisition of a prosocial identity. However, the R&R Handbook made it clear that training in social skills may be useful but it is not sufficient. That conclusion was accepted by Arnold Goldstein when his original program, Structured Learning Therapy (1973) was extended beyond social skills training in the Aggression Replacement program (Goldstein, Glick & Gibbs, 1998) through his addition of program components on values – a topic we discuss in the next chapter.

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Chapter 19

SOCIAL VALUES

One of the assumptions of the neurocriminology model is that teaching offenders skills is not enough to reduce an offender's proclivity for offending. Programs which only teach skills to offenders – cognitive skills, social skills or any other kind of skills – might only yield ―skilled offenders‖.

Any skill can be applied antisocially. Socially skilled offenders can use their newly acquired social skills to 'screw you while they woo you'. A program that can be effective in reducing re-offending must also help offenders develop values. Strongly held prosocial values can have a powerful effect in dissuading individuals from engaging in antisocial behavior.

Moral Reasoning

The criminological literature is replete with studies that have examined the "values" of delinquent and adult offenders. Most of the studies focus on the ―moral reasoning‖ of delinquents in relation to Kohlberg‘s (1984) model of moral reasoning.

There are now a large number of studies that consistently indicate that children make judgments and classify actions in terms of their moral or social implications from a very young age – as young as three years of age (e.g. Smetana, Schlagman, & Adams, 1993; Zelazo, Ilelwig & Lau, 1996). However, according to Kohlberg's model, the moral reasoning of individuals develops gradually and in a sequential manner through a series of stages as they mature in thinking, reasoning and judging moral issues. Kohlberg's model suggests that delinquency is associated with delays in the development of moral reasoning. Delinquents tend to be limited to the first or second stage of moral reasoning (Gavaghan, Arnold, & Gibbs, 1983; Jennings, Kilkenny, & Kohlberg, 1983).

The 1985 review of the early studies of the association of moral reasoning and delinquency revealed conflicting results (Ross & Fabiano, 1985). However, many more recent studies have found support for the moral reasoning/delinquency link (e.g. Palmer & Hollin, 2000; Stams, Brugman, Dekovic, van Rosmalen, van der Laan & Gibbs, 2006). Low levels of moral reasoning have also been found to be associated with self-reported delinquency among high school students (Palmer & Hollin, 2001) and among 18-25 year old undergraduate college students (Palmer & Hollin, 1996). Dettenborn & Boehnke (1994) found that adolescents who behaved well in school had greater ability to use ―complex social reasoning‖ about the


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morality of certain acts and that that their ability increased with age but did not do so in the case of adolescents who were less well behaved.

However, conflicting results are also found in the more recent studies. Although most studies have found differences between delinquents and non-delinquents, other studies have found that offenders have higher levels of moral reasoning than non-offenders (see Palmer, 2003 for a review).

It should be noted that the differences in moral reasoning between delinquents and non-delinquents are usually based on measures of their response to hypothetical moral dilemmas. However, these differences may actually disappear when moral reasoning is examined in response to real-life dilemmas (Trevethan & Walker, 1989).

Moral Reasoning vs. Values

Moral reasoning may not be related to moral values. Knowing that an individual has well developed moral reasoning skills does not indicate that he/she has a well developed value system. One can argue eloquently and convincingly about moral issues but have a personal set of values that is entirely self-serving, hedonistic and antisocial (Romero, Sobral, Luengo & Marzoa, 2001).

The importance of distinguishing between moral reasoning and values was made very clear in a recent study by Tarry and Emler (2007). They tested the ability of 789, adolescent boys to think about the rights and wrongs of different situations (based on Kohlberg's stages of moral development). However, they also asked them about their values, their attitudes to authority and their record of antisocial behavior. Their findings clearly indicated that their moral reasoning was not related to their levels of delinquent behavior. Their values, (e.g. keeping promises and telling the truth) and their negative attitude to authority (teachers and police) was associated with antisocial behavior such as fighting and stealing.

Moral Reasoning vs. Moral Action

Research has shown that the relationship between moral reasoning and moral action is also tenuous (e.g. Smith 1999). For example, a study of sex offenders (rapists, child molesters, and incest offenders) found that they have the ability to understand moral issues but they ignore interpersonal values (Valliant, Gauthier, Pottier & Kosmyna, 2000). Furthermore, some studies find that the apparent relationship between moral reasoning and reported delinquency disappears when verbal ability is partialed out (e.g. Lytton, Maunula & Watts, 1987). It may be that what is tapped by tests of moral

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reasoning is the ability to explain what proper behavior is without having the slightest intention of behaving in a proper manner.

Talking good while acting badly is a 'skill' possessed by many antisocial individuals. To take an extreme example, psychopaths have the ability to tell right from wrong and know full well how to behave appropriately and prosocially (Hare, 1993). Such intellectual awareness has no emotional meaning to the psychopath and therefore no influence on the psychopath's action. The psychopath is unaffected or is detached emotionally from the knowledge that he gains by taking the perspective of the other. Thus, although the psychopath is able to very quickly glean a lot of very useful information during the briefest encounter with another person about what makes that person tick, this knowledge is simply knowledge to be used or not used - as the psychopath chooses. What is missing in psychopaths is the compelling nature of the appropriate affective response to the knowledge gained from putting themselves in another person's shoes in the way that this happens in the normal person. Despite their 'one-way empathic understanding', psychopaths maintain emotional distance. Their knowledge of the harm that they are doing has little influence on their actions. As Cleckley (1941) remarked, 'they know the words but not the music".

Reasoning In Support Of Antisocial Behavior

Additional questions about the significance and meaning of the oft-reported finding that delinquents perform more poorly than non-delinquents on tests of moral reasoning are raised by research that indicates that delinquents are well able to ―justify‖ their antisocial acts by rationalizations that enable them to persuade themselves (and others) that their delinquent actions were warranted or even necessary. For example, Bandura (1996) described how antisocial juveniles frequently justify their harmful acts using several types of ―moral disengagement‖ techniques that enable them to reconstrue harmful behavior to make it appear justified. They misrepresent the injurious consequences of their acts, blame or condemn victims, and obscure their personal responsibility for their actions (cf. Sykes & Mazda, 1957).

Gibbs et al.,. (1995) have identified several categories of ―thinking errors‖ frequently practiced by antisocial youths in order to protect their self-image. They adopt beliefs which allow them to place positive meaning on their actions and enable them to avoid accepting the blame for their crimes. For example, in ―Dehumanization‖ they argue that their victims are the kind of persons who are undeserving of sympathy; in ―Moral justification" they construe their crime as socially appropriate and justifiable; in ―Victimization‖ they blame the


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victim - e.g. ―he made me do it‖; in ―Minimization‖ they deny that the crime hurt anyone – e.g. ―it's O.K. - they have insurance‖.

It is not clear whether delinquents apply such neutralization techniques before or after their antisocial acts. Do they apply them before the act in order to ―neutralise‖ or temporarily suspend their commitment to societal values and provide them with the freedom to commit antisocial acts? Or do they only apply them after the act to justify their behavior or to assuage their guilt or to curry favour with their detractors? We do not know. However, we do know that moral reasoning skills can be used to make criminal acts appear righteous.

Their tongues can open up a wine bottle

Author unknown.


The outcome of programs designed to improve moral reasoning among antisocial youths in the hope of decreasing their antisocial or delinquent behavior has been mixed. Some studies have found improvement in level of moral reasoning and improved behavior (Arbuthnot & Gordon, 1988; Allen et al.,2001); others have found that the obtained improvements in moral reasoning yielded no improvements in behavior (e.g. Gibbs, 1984; Niles, 1986).

Other programs that include Kohlbergian dilemma discussion techniques such as the original R&R and Aggression Replacement Training have yielded positive behavioral outcomes. However, they are multi-facetted programs that teach a variety of social competence skills and the particular contribution of the moral dilemma discussions is not known.

Another multifacetted program, the Equip program yielded improvements in behavior among male institutionalized adolescents (recidivism was 50% lower for the treated group than controls) but no improvement in moral judgment (Gibbs, 1995). The question remains: what if any was the contribution of the moral reasoning component?

It should be noted that the Equip program includes training the adolescents to act as helpers for their peers as did Ross & McKay's "Peer Therapist" program for adolescent offenders we described earlier. We will argue later that it may be the helper activities that engendered the improvement in these interventions. We will also argue that the most effective way to lead antisocial individuals to act in keeping with prosocial values is to engage them in playing, or imagine themselves playing prosocial roles. Our argument will be based not only on rehabilitation research that indicates the value of such endeavours, but on research in social cognitive neuroscience.

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Chapter 20

MORAL EMOTIONS

There is another problem with depending on a moral reasoning approach to modifying antisocial behavior. Recent evidence in social psychology and social cognitive and affective neuroscience suggests that moral judgment and action is less a matter of deliberate reasoning than a matter of affective intuition.

THE NEUROANATOMY OF MORAL JUDGMENT

Psychologists have long disagreed about whether moral judgments are products of reasoning and 'higher' cognition (as in Kohlberg's model) or products of emotional and non-rational processes. Recent developments in neuroscience have provided a wealth of information on the neuroanatomy of moral judgment. The research has suggested an answer to the psychologists' question - neuroimaging studies of moral judgment in normal adults, as well as studies of individuals exhibiting aberrant moral behavior, point to the conclusion that emotion is a significant driving force in moral judgment and moral behavior (Greene, 2003). Emotions and reasoning both matter, but automatic emotional processes tend to dominate not only in judgments on ‗personal‘ moral dilemmas but also in behavior in interpersonal interactions (e.g. Greene, 2003; Haidt, 2007).

The research suggests that moral judgments and moral actions are usually intuitive; not deliberative. We have quick, often immediate "gut feelings" and reactions as soon as a situation is presented to us. We decide within a second or two whether what we observe is good or bad. Our ―gut‖ decisions have an experiential ―rightness‖ about them. We do not see a need to spend much time in reasoning about it. Reasoning occurs only later (if at all) when we are asked to explain our judgment. We then search for arguments and justifications supporting our judgment. First we automatically react. Then we reason.

AUTOMATICITY

From the neuroscience point of view, we’re all determined. By the time you know something, your brain’s already done it. It’s a done deal. Michael Gazzagina

Research in the 1990‘s brought attention to 'automaticity'—the

mind's ability to solve many complex problems including interpersonal


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problems unconsciously and automatically (e.g. Bargh et al.,2001; Casebeer , 2003).

Automatic cognitions, motivations and emotions are what we all use most of the time. However, we also need the RT system's ability to be conscious, to become aware of, to regulate and to even modify these automatic processes when they do not achieve our desired outcomes. The deliberative thinking of the RT mind demands effort and time, so it is only used when we are must use it. The human brain has evolved the RT system to learn new automatic cognitions, motivations and emotions. The RT system evolved in part for the regulation of the AT system (Bargh, 2005; McClure, Botvinick, Yeung, Greene & Cohen, in press). We will discuss in Chapter 30 how we can apply this information in interventions to move the antisocial AT mind in a prosocial direction.

Moral Intuition

The ―social intuitionist model‖ (Haidt, 2007) brings together research on automaticity with research on neuroscience. This model suggests that moral judgment is much like aesthetic judgment - we see an action or hear a story and we have an instant feeling of approval or disapproval. These feelings are best thought of as affect-laden intuitions or moral emotions (Haidt, 2003; Tangney, Stuewig, Mashek, 2007). Moral emotions are those emotions that arise in the context of everyday experiences that bear upon our perceptions of the rightness or wrongness of particular actions or inactions. Human beings are constantly making judgments and experiencing ease or unease in the moral evaluation of life's moment-to-moment activities (Kroll & Egan, 2004). Moral emotions appear suddenly and effortlessly in consciousness, with an affective valence (good or bad), but usually without any awareness of having gone through a process of reasoning.

The Horse After The Cart

Most of our reasoning consists of finding arguments for going on believing as we already do

J. H Robinson

People certainly can and do engage in moral reasoning. However, these processes are typically after-the-fact efforts in support of pre-ordained conclusions and automatic moral judgments. Not only delinquents but most people very frequently and very easily construct post-hoc reasons to justify their actions and judgments (Gazzaniga, 2005; Kunda, 1990).

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A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices

William James

Self-serving Moral Reasoning

The emphasis on quick, automatic, emotional reactions is supported by several studies in social psychology that indicate the following:

people evaluate others and apply morally laden stereotypes to them and do so automatically (Devine, 1989; Schulkin, 2000; Lane, Banaji, Nosek & Greenwald, 2007; Fazio & Olson,2003).

our motivation to defend against ideas that do not jibe with our own automatically biases our judgments and only later motivates our reasoning (Tetlock, Kristel, Elson, Green & Elder, 2000).

Moral reasoning can accompany automatic moral intuition but, given the speed and ubiquity of moral intuition, moral reasoning only rarely has a chance to be developed in an open and unbiased way as is often assumed in moral reasoning programs for offenders. Rather, individuals engage in moral reasoning when motivated by the goal of seeking evidence in support of their initial intuition or to resolve difficult cases when multiple intuitions conflict (Kuhn, 1991).

Thus moral reasoning is often subordinate to, or follows after moral emotion, not the other way around. Moral intuitions and moral emotions come first and directly cause moral judgments (Haidt, 2007). It is usually a matter of "the emotional dog wagging its rational tail rather than the rational dog wagging its emotional tail" (Haidt, 2001).

Moral Intuition is Not Moral Reasoning

People can immediately know that something is wrong without being able to provide reasons for their judgment. They appear to ―just know‖. The neurophysiologist Joshua Greene argues that ―We make moral judgments so automatically that we don‘t really understand how they‘re formed‖. The social intuitionist model helps us to understand why we often say ''I don't know, I can't explain it, l just know it's wrong." (Haidt, 2007). We seldom are aware of performing any moral calculus. Perhaps that is because there seldom is one.

There are moral truths that people acquire not by a process of abstract ratiocination and reflection, but rather by a process in which


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one "just sees without argument that they are and must be true" (Harrison, 1967).

Our moral reasoning may yield moral positions and views that operate in the background as powerful cognitive constructs influencing our emotional response both unconsciously and automatically. However, the cognitive process that is involved when we make most of our moral judgments may not involve very much abstract or very complex moral reasoning. Moreover as Kitwood (1990) observed, "our most basic moral apprehensions are acquired, not as little moral philosophers, but as sentient beings, not yet capable of indirect symbolic communication". To restate Cleckley, we may know the music but not the words.

Two Paths To Moral Judgement

You should no longer say `I think.' You should say, `it thinks me.'

Rimbaud

There are two distinct value processing systems: the conscious, logical reasoning system and the preconscious, intuitive or automatic system. The reasoning system is required for moral reasoning. Such reasoning may stimulate emotions and lead to moral judgments; however, emotions and judgments are more often triggered automatically by environmental stimuli not by logical rational deliberation. Nevertheless, as Schulkin (2004) has argued, intuition need not be contrasted with rationality just as emotion need not be contrasted with cognition. It is really more an issue about how fast the information-processing system operates than about intuition versus reason. Evolution has produced both fast (AT) and slow (RT) mechanisms for decision making. Our AT often has already decided what to do while our RT is en route to the library to get enough information to decide.

The brain places a high value on automaticity because it has enhanced the species survival in the past. Automatic thinking feeling and action may have been essential early in human evolution when a quick response was required when about to step on a poisonous snake. It may be less necessary in times when our greatest fear is stepping on a weighing machine. However, it certainly is required when we are behind the wheel of a car (Ross & Antonowicz, 2005).

Moral Behavior

Moral behavior is also primarily triggered by immediate and intuitive emotions that usually operate automatically and

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unconsciously. Only after that process is completed does the conscious, reasoning system come into play and the assessments we have made about our behavior come into our consciousness. In effect, our moral judgments and our moral behavior are usually made on the fringe of our conscious awareness.

Impersonal or Interpersonal

Greene and his colleagues found that brain areas associated with emotion and social cognition exhibited increased activity while participants were considering personal moral dilemmas, while 'cognitive' brain areas associated with abstract reasoning and problem solving exhibited increased activity while participants were considering impersonal moral dilemmas. In other words, the impersonal case engages our prefrontal cortices that coldly balance costs and benefits, whereas the personal case also engages other parts of our brains that cause us to feel empathy. The two processes can be in conflict.

Not Only How But How Many

The present evidence supports the dual-process model of moral decision-making, that posits both intuitive emotional responses and more controlled ―cognitive‖ processes (Greene, in prep.). However, it is becoming clear that not all of the proposed attributes of the two kinds of processing can be sensibly mapped on to two systems as currently conceived. There are multiple kinds of implicit processes described by various theorists. The human brain and its decision-making processes are much more complex than present models suggest.

The goal of the R&R 2 program is to improve the individual‘s pro-social decision making and that must involve the utilization of the human brain as a whole system. Good moral judgment depends on the development, balance, integration and utilization of both the AT and RT ―minds‖ to deal with the moral demands of a specific situation.

MORAL NEUROANATOMY

Just as there is no single neuron in the brain that triggers such thoughts as Manchester United being relegated to the second division, neuroscience does not enable us to pinpoint a single, dedicated brain region that comprises the 'moral brain centre'. Such areas as the frontal and temporal cortex and amygdala and caudate putamen, are involved in a number of adaptive functions of which moral sensibility and reasoning are only one among others (Schulkin, 2004).


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There is no special or extra dedicated neural area for morality. There are many regions that may be involved. For example, as we noted earlier, many patients with frontal lobe damage never develop antisocial behavior. However, neurological studies of patients with "acquired sociopathy" resulting from injury to various brain sites or from the abuse of alcohol and illicit drugs (Grant, Contoreggi, London, 2000) indicate that acquired sociopathy only emerges as a symptom of brain injury when the damage to the various neural structures occur in certain combinations (Blair, 2004). Many individuals with acquired sociopathy lack the callousness that characterizes psychopaths. Although they may behave in socially inadequate and immoral ways, the antisocial acts of acquired sociopaths are more likely to be a function of impulsiveness than callousness.


The research we have reviewed suggests that a moral reasoning approach to fostering prosocial values has limitations.

The 18th-century Scottish philosopher, David Hume may have been right when he argued that people call an act ―good‖ not because they rationally determine it to be so, but because it makes them feel good. The problem is that many antisocial individuals feel good when they act bad.

The research we review in subsequent chapters suggests an alternative to an exclusively moral reasoning approach. It involves engaging antisocial individuals in activities which can lead them to acquire prosocial moral emotions. However, before we discuss this model we must address another perplexing question about enhancing the values of antisocial individuals: which values should we strive to enhance?

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Chapter 21

WHICH VALUES?

Because of his doubts about the ‗value‘ of basing the R&R program on teaching "moral reasoning", in designing the R&R program, Ross decided to focus the program not on improving offenders‘ moral reasoning but on developing participants‘ values. However, he was faced with two questions: 1. which values to teach and 2. how to teach them.

In Search of Values

In our complex society there is no universally accepted system of values. There is considerable disagreement about even the most fundamental principles or morality and ethics. Values which may be "correct" for one group may be repudiated by other groups. Values are relative to subgroups and even to individuals within subgroups. Values are also relative to place and circumstances and change frequently in a rapidly changing world. So what values should be taught?

In order to answer that question Ross conducted a review of the vast literature on values education in search of a system of values that could be taught without incurring opposition from various groups of offenders and staff and the public who might be committed to different sets of values. He found none.

Concern for Others

However, his review did find that there is one value which most religions and value systems share: concern for other people is good. It is that value that was adopted as the goal of the R&R program.

As Maclntyre (1981) argued, rights and moral principles must be grounded in certain types of relationships among people. Caring is essential to preserving these relationships. Honesty, for example, is a 'cardinal virtue' not simply because it is good to be honest, but because honesty helps to sustain relationships (King, 1986). Concern for others - caring - is essential to social relationships at both the individual and the societal level.

The adoption of concern for others as the value that R&R should strive to foster is now being strongly supported by recent findings in evolutionary psychology (Hauser, 2006; Wright, 2000), and primatology (de Wall, 2008; Katz, 2000). Such research points to the origins of morality in a set of emotions that involve caring about the


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welfare of others (Sober & Wilson, 1998). Our moral emotions are triggered by our recognition of the feelings of other people. When we can and do recognize the feelings that others are experiencing we have an immediate emotional reaction and the emotional reaction in turn determines our moral judgment of the situation (Hauser, 2006; Lamm, Batson & Decety, 2007).

With a Little Help From My Friends

Ross had also argued that close personal relationships can serve as a prophylactic against antisocial behavior. He suggested that the single most potent factor in our decision to not behave in an antisocial manner is a disinclination to hurt the feelings of those who are close to us. Several recent studies have yielded support for that assumption. However, delinquent behavior has been demonstrated to be associated with self-serving values rather than concern for others (e.g. Romero et al.,2001).

Friends in Our Heads

Research has found that having at least one positive, close social relationship is related to a decrease in offending (West & Farrington, 1977). Men are are much less likely to be offending when they are living with a wife (Homey, Osgood & Marshall, 1995). Moreover, staying married and having children is related to decreased offending, while separation from a spouse leads to increased offending (Farrington and West, 1995).

Their lack of close personal relationships has also been found in studies of delinquents. Delinquents have fewer close friends than do nondelinquents (Claes and Simard,1992). Delinquents' friendships are shorter in duration than those of non delinquents (Claes & Simard, 1992). Delinquents' friendships are more unstable (Pakiz et al.,.,1992) Delinquents evidence greater conflict with friends than do nondelinquents (Claes & Simard,1992; Giordano, Cernkovich, & Pugh,1986; Simons, Whitbeck, Conger & Conger,1991). Delinquent friendships involve more arguments, more aggressive and impulsive behavior and poorer reparative skills (Marcus,1996).

Not only official delinquent acts but a wide range of antisocial behaviors among adolescents are associated with a lack of interest in others. They include substance abuse (Goff & Goddard, 1999; Romero et al.,2001; Ludwig & Pittman, 1999); risky sexual behavior (Ludwig & Pittman, 1999); and aggression (Turiel, 1987; Guerra, Tolan & Hammond, 1994). In contrast, high school students who report that they value warm relationships with other people exhibit a low frequency of delinquent behavior or substance abuse (Goff & Goddard, 1999). Turiel's (1987) research indicates that whether or not

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individuals engage in aggressive actions depends upon how they value social relationships.

The acquisition of social reasoning in young children is also linked to their acquisition of values with respect to aggression (e.g. Alexander, Allen, Brooks, Cole & Campbell, 2004). Aggressive boys place a high value on the goals of dominance and revenge whereas the value that they place on close interpersonal affiliation is significantly lower (Lochman, Wayland, & White, 1993). The strong positive relationship between aggressive behavior and the extent to which an individual focuses on, and gives priority to the welfare of others has been indicated in such research. The child who chooses to respond aggressively is more likely to have perceived the situation in terms of the personal domain (his/her rights), whereas the child who responds in a prosocial way evidences a greater emphasis on social reasoning (the importance of not hurting others).


Unfortunately, many antisocial individuals do not have close personal relationships that could dissuade them from engaging in antisocial behavior. The assumption in many programs is that their lack of close relationships is attributable to their lack of social or interpersonal skills that would enable them to acquire such social supports. Many programs, including R&R, attempt to change that by teaching them social skills. That may suffice for the socially inadequate offender who lacks interpersonal skills. However, social skills are not enough for the offender who also lacks concern for others.

If we want offenders to develop close personal relationships we must ensure that they also develop a more fundamental aspect of interpersonal relationships than social skills. They must develop concern for others. How can we do that? How can we lead antisocial individuals to be concerned about others? We examine that question in the following chapters.

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Chapter 22

EMPATHY

Concern for others or caring is a value that is seldom talked about in the literature on offender rehabilitation. Indeed, ―moral philosophers since the Enlightenment have ignored the possibility that caring may be the ultimate ground of morality‖ (King, 1986). However, there is a vast literature on empirical research on a related factor that may help us to understand how caring or concern for others might be promoted. The factor is empathy.

The 1985 cognitive model suggested that offenders often behave in ways that antagonize others and in ways that engender negative reactions towards them that they neither anticipate nor understand because they lack empathy. It was argued that this "deficit" prevents them from being able to acquire adequate interpersonal relationships that might serve to disinhibit their antisocial behavior.

The observation that offenders differ from non-offenders in terms of their empathic abilities was frequently found in the pre-1985 reports of both researchers interested in offenders and of practitioners who tried to rehabilitate offenders. The assumption seemed to be warranted by the available literature in 1985.

Since 1985, many criminologists have asserted that offenders have less empathy than non-offenders (e.g., Burke, 2001; Bush, Mullis, & Mullis, 2000; Farrington, 1998a; Marcus & Gray, 1998). They have postulated that a lack of empathy encourages antisocial behavior and that offenders‘ lack of awareness or their insensitivity to other people‘s thoughts and feelings impairs their ability to appreciate the effects of their antisocial and offending behavior on other people, including their victims (Farrington, 1998a; Miller & Eisenberg, 1988).

Recent research also indicates that there is a relation between a lack of empathy and other antisocial behaviors including aggression and disruptive behavior disorders (e.g. Bjoerkqvist, Oesterman & Kaukiainen, 2000; Pakaslahti, 2000).

Empathy As A Prophylactic

It has long been assumed that empathy engenders prosocial behavior. For example, Blackburn has asserted that the ‗‗ability to imagine the distress of another may inhibit harmful behavior‘‘ (Blackburn, 1993). Many studies support the view that empathy may discourage individuals from behaving in an antisocial manner towards other people (e.g., Batson, Fultz, & Schoenrade, 1987; Bjoerkqvist et al., 2000).


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It has also been demonstrated that empathy plays an important role in friendship formation (Erwin, 1993). Thus, delinquents and adult offenders who lack empathy are likely to evidence limita-tions in the development of interpersonal relationships that might lead them to refrain from engaging in antisocial behavior

Teaching empathy (particularly for their victims) is now a primary goal of many intervention programs (Serin & Kuriychuk, 1994). The assumption that reoffending can be reduced by increasing empathy is very common (e.g. Mulloy, Smiley & Mawson, 1999) although, as we shall see, that is easy to say but not so easy to do (Fernandez & Marshall, 2003).

The evidence from recent studies of possible differences in empathy between offenders and nonoffenders raises serious questions about the relationship. A recent systematic review of this large body of research concluded that whereas some studies have found that offenders have less empathy than non-offenders, others have not (Jolliffe & Farrington, 2004). The results of empirical studies are both equivocal and puzzling.

Which Empathy?

Empathy might be thought to refer to the ability to understand the thoughts and feelings of other individuals. However, it is more complicated than that because there are two components of empathy: the cognitive and the emotional or affective (Eisenberg & Strayer, 1987; Hoffman, 2000).

―Cognitive empathy‖ refers to a cognitive process that involves an ability to understand how others are thinking or feeling without necessarily experiencing their feelings (Zahn-Waxler & Radke-Yarrow, 1990). Ickes (2003) calls cognitive empathy, ―every-day mind reading‖.

―Affective empathy‖, on the other hand, is an essentially emotional experience in which the individual vicariously experiences other individuals‘ emotional state (Mehrabian, Young, & Sato, 1988). Affective empathy functions not by "theoretical deduction but by inner imitation" (Stueber, 2006).

Examining both the cognitive and affective components of empathy is essential to our understanding of empathy (Cohen & Strayer, 1996).

Studies of offenders have yielded inconsistent results regardless of whether cognitive or affective empathy has been studied (e.g., Bush et al., 2000; Cohen & Strayer, 1996; Watt, Frausin, Dixon, & Nimmo, 2000). When measures of both cognitive and affective empathy have been used, inconsistent results have again been found.

It is particularly puzzling that some studies have found that delinquents are deficient in affective empathy, but do not differ from

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non-delinquents on cognitive empathy; whereas other studies have found that offenders score lower than non-offenders on measures of cognitive empathy, but do not score significantly lower on affective empathy. Indeed, a systematic review of the literature found that cognitive empathy has a stronger negative relationship with offending than has affective empathy (Jolliffe & Farrington 2004). In fact, in one study, male offenders incarcerated in the New york city jail system were found to be significantly higher in affective empathy than a control group of students in a New York City general equivalency course (Goldstein & Higgins-D‘Alessandro, 2001).

Which Offenders?

The conflicting findings may, in part, reflect the heterogeneity of the offender population. For example, the empathy deficit in antisocial personality disorder has been ascribed to a neurological dysfunction in the amygdala (e.g. Blair, 2001).11 Individuals with this disorder have generally intact executive functions and can successfully complete theory-of-mind tasks (Hare, 1993). Thus, their lack of empathy is related to disrupted affective processing rather than to an inability to intellectually adopt the perspective of others. People with antisocial personality disorders are often good at assessing others' intentions while disregarding, or being oblivious to the emotional content. The psychopath cannot simulate emotions he cannot experience and must rely exclusively on his theory-of-mind cognitive skills (Mealey,1995). However, by no means are all offenders "psychopaths".

Person or Property?

Although offenders do not tend to specialize in any one offence, it is possible to group offenders into those who commit predominantly person offenses (crimes against another individual such as assault, robbery, and murder) and those who commit predominantly property crimes (such as vandalism, burglary and theft) that do not involve direct contact with another person (their ‗victim‘ is usually not even present at the crime scene). One might expect that person offences would be less likely to be committed by offenders who are low in empathy whereas low empathy would not be such a significant factor among property offenders. Such findings might be expected particularly for affective empathy since, in contrast to

11

Psychophysiological and neuroimaging research indicates that regions of the brain involved

in empathy and emotional processes and in the integration of cognition and affect do not function the same way in psychopathic offenders as in normal individuals (e.g., Blair & Cipolotti, 2000; Raine, 2005; Schneider, Habel, Kessler, Posse, Grodd, & Muller-Gartner, 2000).


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property offenders, 'person offenders' would be more likely to witness the fear, anguish or disgust of their victims.

Support for that expectation might be thought to have been found in the study of incacerated male offenders in New York City mentioned above, since non-violent male offenders evidenced the highest affective empathy, followed by violent male offenders. However, a control group of students were the least empathic. Moreover, low affective empathy is most highly associated not with violence against people, but with vandalism against inanimate objects (Luengo et al.,(1994).

Sex offences are the most obvious ‗person‘ crimes and one might expect that sex offenders would evidence the lowest empathy among the offender population. Some studies have found that sex offenders evidence problems empathising with their victims (e.g. Ward, Keenan & Hudson, 2000). However, overall, the studies have found that sex offenders do not differ significantly from mixed (nonsex offender) groups of offenders on cognitive empathy and the sex offender groups evidence higher affective empathy than cognitive empathy (Jolliffe & Farrington, 2004).

Stages Of Empathy

Based on his extensive research on sex offenders and their treatment, Marshall (2002) has presented a four stage model of empathy with each stage being dependent upon the preceding stage: (1) recognition of another person's emotional state; (2) taking the perspective of the other person; (3) experiencing the same or similar emotion as the observed person; and, (4) taking some action to ameliorate the other person's distress. Individuals differ in their capacity to respond appropriately at each stage. Thus, "Which Empathy?" and at "What Stage?" are questions that must be clarified in order to resolve the conflicting findings.

Metanalysis To The Rescue?

One might hope that metanalysis would contribute some clarity to the debate. It does not. If anything, it complicates the issue even more.

A metanalysis examined thirty five studies of the relation between various measures of cognitive and affective empathy and offending (Jolliffe & Farrington, 2004). The major conclusion of the analysis was that empathy and offending are negatively related but the strength of the relationship depends on whether one measures cognitive empathy or affective empathy and also depends on what kind of offender is studied.

The metanalysis found that in those cases where empathy is related to offending it is not the offender‘s ability to feel what others

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are experiencing that is key, but his ability to understand what they are experiencing. Low cognitive empathy is strongly related to offending, but low affective empathy is only weakly related to offending!

There are at least two other issues that must be considered in trying to account for the markedly conflicting results in the study of the relationship between empathy and offending:

Measurement: A long-standing and frequently fervent debate has raged over the definition and measurement of empathy (e.g., Mehrabian, 1997; Wispe, 1987). Part of the conflict among the researchers and the differing results of the various studies they have conducted may be attributable to the varying definitions of empathy that have guided their research and the different measures that they have employed. Moreover, the instruments typically used to measure empathy have questionable validity (Jolliffe & Farrington, 2004). They may actually assess constructs other than empathy. Few of the tests control for the possibility that the offenders may be motivated to ―fake good‖ – responding in a socially acceptable manner by endorsing statements that would indicate they are empathetic. Clearly we need better measures of empathy.

Abstract Reasoning: The 1985 cognitive model suggested that it is unlikely that individuals can empathize with another person unless they have some understanding of what that person is experiencing – how that person thinks and feels. It was suggested that many offenders have experienced developmental delays in the acquisition of the abstract reasoning ability that would enable them to have such understanding. If they can see, touch, hear or smell something, they can understand it; but if they have to think about something in the abstract (something that is not in their immediate perception), many experience considerable difficulty. It was pointed out that they are not likely to be able to understand what others are thinking and feeling by using only concrete reasoning (judging other persons by their observable behavior). They have to try to figure out what is going on ‗inside them‘ and that requires going beyond concrete observables. It requires abstract reasoning that can enable them to ascertain the perspective of the other person.

Jolliffe & Farrington (2004) have recently suggested that

shortcomings in abstract reasoning, or in the executive functions of the brain that are believed to be involved in abstract reasoning, may be an underlying factor that explains the nature of the complex


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relation between intelligence, empathy and offending. They suggest that such shortcomings may be linked to low empathy because an inability to reason abstractly could prevent the understanding of the emotional state of another person. Thus, if the individual has not developed abstract reasoning ability, it is unlikely that he/she could perform well in cognitive empathy. Research has indicated that delinquency is related to poor executive function (Moffitt, 1993). Moreover, a metanalysis of 39 studies involving more than four thousand participants has shown that there is a strong relation between executive functions and antisocial behavior in general (Morgan and Lilienfeld, 2000). Their inadequacy in executive skills may account for the finding that offenders evidence shortcomings in cognitive empathy.

Empathy: Emotion And Executive Control

However, neuroscience research indicates that empathy involves both emotion and the executive control that can regulate and modulate the emotion (Decety & Lamm, 2006). Each is underpinned by a specific but interacting neural system. Thus. empathy requires the two ―minds‖ – both the emotional AT and the rational RT working together.


A combination of observation, attention, memory, knowledge, reasoning and inference is likely required to yield an accurate assessment and understanding of the thoughts, desires, intentions, and emotions of others (e.g. Ickes, 1997; Lamm, Fischer & Decety, 2007; Decety & Batson, 2007). Thus, if we wish to have antisocial individuals develop cognitive empathy we must teach them cognitive skills that will improve their executive functions. There are now many programs including R&R that can effectively teach such cognitive skills.

However, the development of executive functions by no means guarantees the development of affective empathy or prosocial values or prosocial behavior. Although helping offenders to develop cognitive skills including abstract reasoning may improve their interpersonal understanding or cognitive empathy, it may not lead them to develop concern for other people (cf. Batson, Lishner, Carpenter, Dulin, Harjusola-Webb & Stocks, et al., 2003).

Thus, we need to continue to ask how we can help antisocial individuals acquire concern for other people. Before we attempt to answer that question we point out in the next chapter another difficulty with the research on the relationship between empathy and antisocial behavior that can lead us to confuse empathy with compassion.

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Chapter 23

EGOCENTRICITY

Another difficulty with measuring empathy is that many of the tests that have been used in the research on "empathy" are actually measures not of empathy but of sympathy.

Empathy Vs. Sympathy

Empathy is not the same as sympathy. Sympathy involves additional cognitive appraisals (Eisenberg & Strayer, 1987). It is quite possible to understand another individuals' suffering and even to feel what they are feeling without having or expressing much concern for the individuals or their suffering. In Marshall‘s (2002) four stage model of empathy, the enactment of a compassionate response (sympathy) is the last stage. He points out that it is possible to lack sympathy while empathy is fully intact.

Many offenders can fully understand the consequences of their criminal behavior including their victims' agony and pain but remain unaffected by it or even relish it (Turvey, 2005). For example, in order to derive a perverted kind of sexual pleasure from their victim‘s humiliation or pain, sadistic offenders must first understand what humiliates and frightens, their victims; however, their understanding may be accompanied by a profound ―emotional distance‖ (Turvey, 2005).

It is not only offenders who are able to experience empathy without sympathy. Witness how in spite of incessant media coverage the public can maintain ―emotional distance‖ as we learn about the slaughter of some of the million human beings in Rhwanda or even witness on the television the horrendous suffering of thousands of people in distant lands who are dying of hunger or AIDS, or are disfigured by leprosy..... We may readily understand their predicament and recognize the feelings they must have, or did have when alive. However, our concern may be experienced only fleetingly as we reach for the remote control and switch channels. Particularly in the case of individuals with whom we have no close relationship and no emotional investment, any concern we feel for them can be quickly and easily suppressed or dismissed. We can understand and even feel how others feel and then put those feelings aside when we are motivated to do so. The same reaction may be experienced by the antisocial individual whose behavior is about to, or has already caused the suffering of others.

Being concerned for others is a motivated behavior. Most of the time, it is governed by our values, beliefs, opinions, and personal


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interests. Such factors can lead us to feel concern for others but they can also prevent us from remaining concerned for very long. In fact, such factors may lead us to stifle our concern as military training for combat with "the enemy" may achieve. Accordingly, if we wish to increase the offender's concern for others we must deal with such factors. We will suggest how that can be done later.

First, we must examine another factor that might help explain the conflicting results of research on empathy – egocentricity - a factor that must be considered in explaining how individuals can suppress, ignore or even fail to understand the feelings of other people.

Egocentricity vs. Social Perspective-Taking

The original cognitive model assumed that egocentricity is a cognitive factor that is related to offending behavior. That assumption was based on a substantial body of research conducted before 1985 that indicated that many offenders are egocentric (Ross & Fabiano, 1985). It was suggested that many offenders have not developed cognitively very far beyond the egocentric state of their early infancy during which they (like everyone else) were unable to distinguish between their own emotional states, thoughts, and perceptions and those of other people. They remain blinded by their own point of view. They see the world only from their own perspective and have limited understanding of the perspectives of others. They may simply be unaware of other people's point of view. They many not have acquired social perspective-taking - the cognitive ability that enables us to recognize and to understand the perspective of other people. Social-perspective taking is a requirement for empathy and prosocial competence (Magid & McKelvey, 1987). One reason, perhaps the major reason for individuals' lack of close personal relationships and lack of prosocial behavior is that they are more concerned for themselves than they are for others.

An egocentric conceptual system may limit individuals to viewing their social environment from a strictly subjective point of view. Egocentric individuals may fail to understand the rules and conventions of social interaction or the social purposes of rules and laws, and may view them only as unfair restrictions on their personal freedom - a perspective that is likely to foster opposition to the rules, not acceptance and respect for them.

Ross (1980) argued that egocentric thinking may be the most important cognitive factor associated with anti-social behavior.

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New Evidence, Same Conclusion

The relationship between egocentricity and antisocial behavior has been confirmed by more recent research that has examined the thinking patterns of adolescent and adult offenders (e.g. Erwin, 1993; Lee & Prentice, 1988) and aggressive young persons (e.g. Crick & Ladd, 1990; Lochman et al.,1993). Indeed, the relationship between egocentricity and offending behavior is supported by evidence that tolerance for ―self-interested values‖ is associated with crime rates even at the national level (Halpern, 2001). Roshier (1989) has argued that ―rational self-interest‖ is the key motivational determinant of whether or not we choose to commit crime.

Many aggressive children and adolescents also evidence significant egocentrism (Akhtar & Bradley,1991; Bjoerkqvist et al.,2000; Ohbuchi & Kambara, 1985). Egocentric thinking has been found to be related to engagement in risky behaviors such as substance abuse (Kuther & Higgins-Alessandro, 2000). It has also been found to be associated with drug abuse among adolescents (Ludwig & Pittman, 1999). Furthermore, egocentricity has been found to be associated with vandalism (Luengo, Otero, Carillo-de-la-Pen & Miron,1994) and with sexual offending (e.g. Ward et al., 2000). It is also a predominant characteristic of cyber-sabateurs (Shaw, Ruby & Post, 2001).

The values of antisocial individuals tend to be highly egocentric. In deciding what is right, many antisocial individuals consider only how it affects themselves; not how it affects other people. They think: "if it is good for me, it's good". They are indifferent to others, not only at the behavioral level, but at the cognitive level. Their egocentricity or self-centredness may lead them to view people only as extensions of themselves, or as objects for them to use. Their egocentric thinking may prevent them from developing values which are any more than self-serving. Egocentric individuals may believe that the world revolves around them and that they are not subject to the rules that they believe adults have invented for others. They think they are unique and ‗entitled‘. Such individuals are unlikely to care about others or to develop respect for others, or for community; or for social norms, rules, regulations, laws, or justice.

Most people learn early in life that they have thoughts and feelings which may differ from those of others. However, some individuals are slow to progress through the normal cognitive development stages that lead to acquisition of the ability to understand that others have beliefs, desires and intentions that are different from one's own (Ickes, Gesn & Graham, 2000).

Social perspective-taking requires both a cognitive ability to take the perspective of the other person and an ability to differentiate self and other feelings (e.g., Batson, 1994; Davis, 1996; Decety &


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Hodges, 2006; Ickes, 2003). The development of social-perspective taking is a basic requirement for the development of prosocial behavior, and the development of prosocial competence. It is key to the development of empathy (Batson, Van Lange, Ahmad & Lishner, 2003) and the development of prosocial values (Beeghly & Cicchetti, 1994; Grusec & Goodnow, 1994; Kochanska, Forman, Aksan & Dunbar, 2005; Zahn-Waxler, Robinson, & Emde, 1992).

Socially Skilled Egocentric Offenders

There is no shortage of offenders who commit crimes, including serious ones, but appear to be well adjusted and prosocial. There are many socially skilled, impressive problem-solvers who are highly creative and rational and are able to apply their considerable skills to avoiding apprehension for considerable periods of time. This is exemplified by reports on the fraudulent acts of some very high ranking, otherwise successful accountants and executives, and the acts of some terrorists and ‗warmongers‘. However, many extraordinarily successful people have extraordinarily fragile, or destructive relationships with spouses, partners or business associates. They are actually highly antisocial. However, they appear to lack none of the social cognitive shortcomings we have discussed. Or do they? What about egocentricity and its correlate, narcissism?

Egocentricity is by no means an unusual characteristic in the ‗normal‘ population. Many would argue that it is a common characteristic of individuals who perform well in business, athletic and other endeavors. Some might even argue that it is an essental characteristic for success.

Empathy may be a survival skill that developed during the evolution of the brain because it assisted individuals in hunting for food, in detecting predators, in courtship, and in ensuring reproductive success (Plutchik, 1987). Some would argue that it also is a present-day survival tool (Brothers, 1989). Egocentricity, on the other hand, can be very destructive in interpersonal relationships which require concern for the needs of other people.

Many men can make a fortune, but very few can make a family. J.S. Bryan

Along with their pre-occupation with their personal needs,

egocentric individuals evidence a sense of entitlement that they believe justifies their antisocial behavior. Their needs come first. Their self-centered perspective leads them to view other people not as individuals with their own needs and rights but as objects to be used,


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or objects to be removed, or objects to be circumvented because they get in the way of their satisfying their personal wishes or desires. Their egocentricity does not augur well for the hope that they may concern themselves with the immediate and obvious suffering of others. Their lack of social perspective-taking does not augur well for the hope that they may realize or even think about the far-reaching effects of their antisocial behavior.

Teaching Social Perspective Taking

How can we hope to develop concern for others, sympathy or or even empathy in individuals in whom such values are apparently absent? To answer this question Ross examined the literature on values education including "Character Education"; "Citizenship Training" and "Moral Education". Many criminal justice interventions attempt to inculcate prosocial values in offenders through such approaches. However, the R&R program did not use such techniques because it was felt that they were not likely to be effective. For example, Ross did not recommend telling offenders what society believes are "correct" values since they probably know that already. Such an approach may do little more than repeat exhortations and criticisms from adults to which antisocial individuals have become inured and which they have learned to ignore or reject. Moreover, adopting a censuring or confrontational approach to antisocial individuals is an excellent way to augment rather than reduce their oppositional and/or their antisocial behavior. Clearly, it is essential that antisocial individuals be informed that society does not approve of their antisocial behavior. However, that has probably been done time and time again before they come to participate in a rehabilitation program. They have probably ―heard it all before‖.

Cognitive Development Through Conflict

The R&R program was designed to ensure that participants are engaged in activities that require that they think about the feelings of others. It exposes them to social and cognitive conflict by creating situations in which they find that they are in conflict not only with others but also in conflict with themselves about what is just and fair. Moral dilemmas are used in R&R to involve the participants in discussions in which they come to seriously question and examine their personal values and, more important, in which they are impelled to consider the points of view of other people.

The R&R approach is consistent with social-cognitive theory which suggests that social cognitive development is facilitated by peer interactions that involve a conflict of egocentric viewpoints (Perret-


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Clairmont, Perret & Bell, 1989). According to this view, social cognitive development requires that "individuals face others who contradict their own intuitively derived concepts and points of view, and thereby create cognitive conflicts whose resolutions result in the construction of higher forms of reasoning" (Bearison, 1982). Studies of cooperative learning provide evidence of the role of cognitive conflict in facilitating cognitive growth (Johnson, Johnson, Pierson, & Lyons, 1985).

Stimulating (and skillfully managing) conflict among participants also creates interest and motivates action to resolve the conflict. Fiction writers have long recognized a novel must introduce conflict in the first three pages in order to capture the interest of their readers. Moreover, a guide for the design of TV programs is that conflict attracts attention. If a conflict does not arise within the first thirty seconds, they switch channels. This may be one of the reasons for the long-term success of sitcoms such as Coronation Street.

Empathy: A Skill or An Inclination?

The assumption of the original cognitive model was that the failure of many offenders to evidence empathy represents a cognitive "deficit" – that the egocentric offender simply cannot take the perspective of others and, therefore, is unable to empathize because he/she lacks the skill to do so. Indeed, some may lack such skills. However, we now would argue that the failure of many offenders to empathize or evidence concern or sympathy for others (including their victims) is not only a matter of a lack of skill. It is also a matter of inclination.

Empathy on Demand

Recent evidence indicates that adopting someone else's view is an effortful and self-controlled process (Decety & Grezes, 2006). Many offenders can empathize, but they fail to do so. They suppress their empathy when it interferes with their egocentric needs. Their own self-centered interests and pleasures trump any feelings or concerns for others that they could have, might have or should have. Thus, they may understand the thoughts and the feelings of other individuals (including their victims) and may be able to vicariously feel what they are experiencing, but not care to do so or not care about them unless it is to their benefit to do so. Many may believe that in the environments in which they have been reared, or in which they are placed by our criminal justice system, empathy is a luxury that they can ill afford. Rather than a deficit, failing to concern oneself with others can be a disinclination that cannot be changed by cognitive skills training alone.


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Egocentricity is the antithesis of empathy. Empathy requires the ability to attribute to others independent mental states, such as belief, desires, emotions, or intentions (Gallagher & Frith, 2003) and to accurately assess what others are thinking and feeling. However, concern for others also requires an inclination to apply such cognitive skills and an inclination to focus one‘s attention on another and the inclination to allow oneself to become absorbed in contemplation of that person and an inclination to care about what one realizes the other is thinking or feeling.


The goal of a program that aims to help antisocial individuals to develop prosocial competence must teach social perspective-taking and interpersonal understanding. Accordingly, the executive functions must be a focus of intervention efforts. That principle was operationalized in the R&R program.

The new R&R2 editions of R&R also include guided group discussions on moral issues. However, it is recognized that such interventions only focus on teaching cognitive empathy rather than emotional empathy and are unlikely to foster caring in antisocial individuals who care more about themselves than about others. They may come to understand the needs and wishes of others, but they may not give a hoot about them. Additional interventions are included in R&R2 programs.

R&R2 programs attempt to foster prosocial values not only by continually challenging the participants' egocentric thinking but also by engaging participants in exercises that stimulate them to consider the views, wishes, attitudes and feelings of other people and reward them for so doing. They help participants realize that by under-standing the thoughts of others they improve their relationships with them. They learn that prosocial values have value for others but also for themselves. The programs are designed to promote prosocial behavior by teaching the skills and values that make prosocial behavior not only possible but also palatable. The programs use their egocentricity to combat their egocentricity. Antisocial individuals can learn that caring for others feels good.

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Chapter 24

LEARNING TO CARE

How can we lead egocentric, antisocial individuals to care about others? How can we teach emotional empathy?

The pre-1985 research literature provided few answers to such questions. However, it did indicate that emotional empathy is acquired early in life through close relationships with parents or parent surrogates or through close personal relationships with relatives or teachers or other caring adult figures. Regrettably, many offenders have never had such close personal relationships.

A Two Step Approach

It is unlikely that you can have a close personal relationship with anyone if you do not understand how they think or feel, or if you do not care to try to find out how they think or feel. Ross reasoned that by teaching offenders to attend to and understand the thoughts and feelings of other people (cognitive empathy) R&R would equip them with new skills that would enable them to achieve closer relationships with people through which emotional empathy and caring could develop.

He recommended that after offenders had completed cognitive training, R&R Trainers should engage them in volunteer activities such as working with developmentally delayed children or physically challenged adults or other individuals who were experiencing problems and urge the offenders to apply their newly acquired cognitive skills in befriending and trying to help such individuals. He pointed out that there were many examples of such activities (including the "Peer Therapist" program) that had led many previously egocentric offenders to learn that they could enjoy helping others.

Unfortunately, that suggestion has seldom been followed, primarily because it is usually considered to be too difficult to implement. However, there are many programs that have successfully involved offenders in such helping roles. We describe these in Chapter 28. First, we present evidence from research on the development of emotional empathy that provides an empirical basis for the potential of such interventions.

We will also describe research which indicates that there is a more direct and more practical way to foster not only emotional empathy but also the caring that is required for prosocial competence. The intervention is grounded on research in social psychology, criminology, developmental psychology and social cognitive neuroscience that has provided us with an understanding of how


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some people acquire empathy and caring and why others do not (e.g. Decety & Batson, 2007; Decety & Laam, 2007). It also suggests how the latter group can be helped to develop it. We review that research in the present chapter.

The Development Of Empathy

Infants begin to bond with their caregivers from the moment of birth. Developmental research has demonstrated that very young infants are predisposed to be both sensitive to and responsive to the subjective states of other people (Rochat, 2003; Hoffman, 2000). The development of empathy begins with the mother‘s matching of infant emotional expressions which occurs in interactions around 2 to 3 months of age in which there is a sharing of affect between mother and baby as mothers imitate infant expressions of enjoyment, surprise, sadness and anger. The infants‘ ability to discriminate among different expressions of emotion in others starts at about 10 months of age. It may begin as an active effort by infants to obtain cues from others to assist in their own assessment of uncertain or ambiguous situations (Rosen, Adamson, & Bakeman, 1992).

Imitation

There is a dramatic increase in children‘s empathy during the second year of life. Concern for others first becomes manifested in prosocial behaviors such as helping or comforting around age two. Children have the requisite cognitive, affective, and behavioral capacities by age two to experience and express concern for others including those in distress (Bretherton, Fritz, Zahn-Waxler & Ridgeway, 1986). Children as young as two years old are capable of taking the perspective of another (Smetana & Braeges, 1990; Zelazo, Helwig & Lau, 1996). There is even some evidence of helping and cooperation as early as 14 months of age (Warneken & Tomasello, 2007).

Research also demonstrates the consistency with which children as young as three consider issues of harm to be wrong, independent of rules and authority, and that acts that cause harm are worthy of more severe punishment than any other type of transgression (Harvey et al., 2001). Children not only experience emotional concern for the welfare of others around three but also begin to cooperate with their peers and imitate their activity (Asendorpf, Warkentin, Baudonnière, 1996; Brownell, Zerwas & Balaraman, 2002). They comprehend others‘ difficulties. They react with empathy to victims of distress. They even attempt to provide comfort and help (Zahn-Waxler, Radke-Yarrow, Wagner, & Chapman, 1992).

8

Chapter 24: Learning to Care

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Self Before Others

The development of empathy requires well developed self-awareness. Self-recognition and self-awareness of our own mental states is a prerequisite to our ability to ascribe mental states to others (Decety and Jackson, 2006). Infants can recognize their own mirror image and display self-conscious emotions such as embarrassment by eighteen to twenty months of age (Lewis, Sullivan, Stanger, & Weiss, 1989). The ability to distinguish one's own actions from those of others develops very early when as infants we become sensitive to the relationship between our actions and their consequences (Gergely, 2001).

Other-awareness involves taking the perspective of another person into account. During the preschool years, children not only develop the ability to recognize their own and others‘ mental states but also the ability to recognize when their own and others' perspectives are the same or different (Gopnik & Meltzoff, 1994).

Impediments To Development

How, then, can we explain the failure of many antisocial individuals to progress beyond egocentricity and fail to develop the social-perspective taking that has been recognized as a requirement for empathy and prosocial competence? A variety of environmental, situational and experiential factors may gravitate against the development of empathy.

Inadequate Bonding

Secure, nurturing, close warm relationships are basic requirements for the development of social-perspective taking and concern for others. Childrens' interactions with their nurturing caretakers even as early as in infancy lay the foundation (Beebe & Lachmann, 1988; Stern, 1990). Children who experience secure attachments in their lives are likely to evidence empathy to the distress of others and to become more empathic (Kestenbaum, Farber & Sroufe, 1989). Such secure, stable, nurturing, close and warm relationships are basic requirements for the development of the social-perspective taking and the concern for others that are a requirement for prosocial competence (Magid & McKelvey, 1987).

What happens when the significant others with whom the child and adolescent should form an emotional attachment, and therefore imitate, are absent or are not the adequate caring and pro-socially competent models that the individual needs in order to become a pro-social adult? The learning of prosocial attitudes, beliefs and behavior depends on both the availability and the high quality of parent-child


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relationships. The lack of, or the fragility of the attachments to care-giving figures in the early life of many antisocial individuals may have prevented them from developing the trust in others that could make them willing to forego their own needs in order to obtain the satisfactions that might be obtained by concerning themselves with or responding to the needs of others.

Many children who have been institutionalized in their formative years and lacked such early attachments also experience problems in establishing social bonds and regulating their social behavior (Leite & Schmid, 2004; Raikes & Thompson, 2005).

Short-Lived Bonding

Many of the parents of adolescent offenders are very warm and nurturing when their children are toddlers in arms but the warmth may quickly grow cold or intermittent as the toddler grows more mobile. The child soon becomes an added burden to what often is an already stress-filled life and the attachments become more distant. Such short-lived early attachment may not be sufficient to provide a platform on which to base prosocial development.

When Nurturing Fails (or Fails to Appear)

The early life of many antisocial individuals is characterized by harshness, abuse, and rejection by others – not fertile soil for developing concern for the feelings of others. The early relationships of many are not empathetic, they are pathetic. Their relationships are such that they must concern themselves only with their own welfare. No one else will. Egocentricity may be a survival tactic in a non-empathic environment.

Attachment to parents is significantly related to social competence (Rice,1990). Having a strong attachment to parents is inversely related to self-reported delinquency among high school adolescents (Rankin & Kern, 1994). Self reported delinquency has also been found to be positively associated with perceived rejection by parents (Palmer & Hollin, 1997). It is well documented that parents' lack of warmth toward their children predicts aggressiveness in those children (e.g. Dodge et al., 1995; Holden & Ritchie, 1991; Shaw & Bell, 1993). Insecure attachment has also been implicated in poor social information processing including hostile misattribution (Gomez et al., 2001; Palmer & Hollin, 2000).

The development of social-perspective taking is a basic requirement for the development of moral reasoning and the development of prosocial behavior (e.g., Eisenberg, Fabes, Carlo, & Speer, 1993; Palmer & Hollin, 2000). Unfortunately, the adults to which many offenders are exposed in their developing years fail to


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foster prosocial thinking and behavior and fail to foster other-oriented perspectives and concerns. The developing child's caring about others may not be developed because it is not reciprocated. Caring for others can be risky. Caring risks rejection.

Accordingly, for many offenders, the development of social competence may be delayed. Some never develop it.

The development of neurochemical systems within the brain that regulate aggression such as the oxytocin and vasopressin systems, are strongly influenced by the nature of parental care

received during infancy. Absent or inadequate nurturing may lead to "other means of stimulating reward pathways in the brain, such as drugs, sex, and aggression…becoming relatively more attractive and less constrained by concern about violating trusting relationships" (Pedersen, 2004).

Punishing Egocentricity

Many antisocial individuals may have been exposed in their formative years to discipline that was excessively punitive. Discipline may have been provided by authoritarian and/or unaffectionate 'caretakers' who demanded compliance but failed to provide justification for their demands. Their attempts to control their children may have been limited to ―Power Discipline‖ in which rules are imposed with little explanation of the reasons for the rules such as the protection of others. There may have not been an attempt to help the child understand how others might feel if the rules were broken. When parents or teachers or other adults do not encourage children to consider the feelings of others but simply punish them for misbehavior, their children are unlikely to concern themselves with anyone but themselves.

There is little evidence that punishment for selfishness (physical punishment, withdrawal of privileges, threats, or withdrawal of love) has beneficial effects in terms of the development of empathy. On the contrary, overly frequent use of such "power discipline" may impede prosocial development because it provides children with hostile rather than positive models and is likely to elicit hostility from the child. Feelings of hostility will not motivate children to want to please a parent who has engendered the hostility. Power discipline may communicate to the child that avoiding punishment rather than concern for others is the reason for behaving positively. Threat of punishment is not likely to encourage children to focus on the needs of others.

Parents who do not encourage children to consider the perspective of others but simply punish them for transgressions fail to model prosocial thinking and behavior and fail to foster other-oriented perspectives and concerns. However, children who are encouraged to


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attend to the feelings of others gradually relinquish their egocentricity and adopt their parents' prosocial values and beliefs and develop social-perspective-taking, empathy and concern for others (De Wolff & IJzendoorn, 1997).

Inductive Discipline

The use of inductive discipline or reasoning in which adults point out the consequences of the child's behavior for others increases the probability that the child will empathize with others. There are exceptions, but most research on inductive discipline indicates that it is associated with enhanced prosocial development. Inductive techniques direct the child's attention to the feelings of others and the consequences of their behaviors for others. Such inductions encourage children to cognitively take the role of others (put themselves in the other's shoes) and to empathize with them.

Beyond Parent-Blaming

To make the parent totally responsible for raising a delinquent child ignores not only the many other environmental, economic, cultural, health, schooling and peer influences on the developing child. It also ignores the biogically determined temperament and other characteristics of the child (Spivack, Marcus & Swift, 1986) and the problems and stresses faced by the child's parents. Many delinquents come from economically deprived homes where the parents face constant frustration; where poverty means not only having little money; but also means ignorance, discrimination, degradation, fear, anxiety, depression, and dependence on others or on welfare or on alcohol or on drugs. Children bring such parents little respite from their struggles to survive. Inadequate role-taking opportunities are most likely to be found in the families of temperamentally difficult or hyperactive children whose parents are socially unskilled, economically or socially stressed and lacking in emotional control (Trickett & Kuczynski, 1986).

Hereditary and constitutional factors also play a significant role. The infant‘s qualities determine the interaction just as much as does the caregiver‘s personality and psychological state (Trevarthen, 2001). For example, children with a difficult temperament (e.g., fearlessness, restlessness, proneness to distraction, sensation-seeking) create extra difficulties because of their lack of self-control and/or their lack of behavioral inhibitions (Barkley, 1997). The family is a system that involves interdependent relationships and children may have an active role in contributing to the development of their own aggressive behavior as a result of the temperament that they did


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not seek and cannot control but that profoundly influences parental child-rearing attitudes (Prior, 1992).

Blaming only inadequate parenting for the problems of children overlooks a host of other criminogenic risk factors including genetic, sensory, temperament, environmental, educational and social factors that sometimes alone, but more often in combination, may influence the development of antisocial behavior. Clearly, a multidisciplinary perspective is required to understand the development or lack of development of empathy and caring.

Neural Development

One of the most important factors is age-related neurological development. For example, neuroscience research has established that when adolescents are deciding how to behave, the parts of their brain (the medial prefrontal cortex) that is associated with higher-level thinking, empathy, and assessing other people's motivations is under-used. The parts of the brain that are most likely to be active are those at the back of the brain that are involved in action. Thankfully, adolescents' brains (including their medial prefrontal cortex) continue to develop during later adolescence and adulthood. The neural development of empathy requires time. It is likely to take much more time among adolescents who have been raised in an environment where empathy was not modelled or was actively discouraged.

Risk Factors

Criminological research, especially longitudinal studies has taught us a lot about the early risk factors that are predictive of later antisocial behavior including crime and violence (e.g. Farrington, 2007; Fongay, 2004; Homel, 2005). The immediate social risk factors include being in a school with high rates of delinquency and/or deviant peer groups. They also include personal factors such as uncontrolled temperament observed by age 3; impulsivity; hyperactivity; callousness; low IQ or poor academic achievement; exposure to domestic violence; antisocial behavior in the parent; and a range of childhood psychiatric conditions such as oppositional defiant disorder diagnosed at ages 7-12; conduct disorder diagnosed between ages 9 and 16; and substance abuse between 7 and 12. Developmental criminology is providing us with the necessary knowledge for the early identification of, and possible intervention with at risk youth so as to reduce the probability of future criminal and antisocial behaviors (Farrington & Welsh, 2007).

Our knowledge of such early risk factors needs to be balanced with an appreciation of the many pathways and turning points (both good and bad) that can occur throughout the life span (Laub &


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Sampson, 2003; Smith, 2007). It also has to be balanced against the potential for individual growth inherent in the human brain.

Protective Factors

Historically, most program models for the prevention or treatment of antisocial behavior have assumed that exposure to criminogenic risk factors is how antisocial behavior is acquired. However, recent research is beginning to indicate that we do not have to learn to be antisocial. We have to learn to be prosocial (Bernazzani & Tremblay, 2006). For example, aggression may be present from early childhood – arguably from toddlerhood and perhaps from birth. Antisocial behavior may indicate the failure to move beyond something that occurs naturally.

Without underestimating the significance of the effects of criminogenic risk factors in preventing the acquisition of prosocial behavior, our model for the prevention and treatment of antisocial behavior proposes that we must focus interventions not only on criminogenic risk factors but also on prosocial growth factors. Prosocial growth factors are protective even in the face of risk factors. (Kokko & Pulkkinen, 2000).


The research we have reviewed indicates that protective factors such as empathy and caring for others is developed by bonding with and nurturing by caregivers in early life through which children learn to take the perspective of others because it is of benefit to them to do so. The development is augmented by parenting practices through which the child learns to consider the thoughts and feelings of others.

We certainly cannot provide every offender with two loving parents with whom they can form close attachments through which emotional empathy and caring might develop as it could have if they had had such relationships in their earlier life. Even if we could, some antisocial individuals would distrust the motives of such caring individuals and some might take advantage of the trust and friendship being offered and use them for their own selfish needs. Moreover, many offenders may be so lacking in empathetic ability that they would fail to develop close relationships with even the most nurturing surrogate parent.

There is an alternative. As we examined the research it became apparent to us that

what happened to children who developed empathy is that they were reinforced for behaving in an empathetic and caring manner. They were exposed to caregivers who not only modelled empathy and caring but also encouraged the children to act as caring individuals.


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The children were being led to engage in prosocial activity and by doing so they were becoming prosocial.

However, that is the case for children. What can we do with adolescents or adults who have not had the benefits of such prosocial experiences? Is it possible that there could be some way to engage older antisocial individuals in prosocial activites that could lead to their development of empathy and caring and, thereby, lead them to adopt a prosocial lifestyle? In the following chapters we will present evidence that establishes that it is possible and we will articulate how it can be done, has been done and, we hope will continue to be done.

The evidence we will present derives from our review of social cognitive neuroscience that has identified the neural basis for the development of empathy; from our review of research that has demonstrated that engagement in prosocial activities leads to prosocial development; and from our review of research that has demonstrated that engagement in prosocial activities has decreased the offending behavior of adolescent and adult offenders.

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Chapter 25

NEUROSCIENCE AND EMPATHY

Empathy is not something one needs to learn. Rather, the basic building blocks are hardwired in the brain and await development through interaction with others Decety

Recent research has yielded an understanding of some of the

neurological roots and developmental trajectories of empathy. In 1996, Italian neuroscientists found a brain mechanism that may have added to our understanding.

Mirror Neurons

In Italy, in 1995, the scientists placed electrodes in the frontal cortex of a monkey to study neurons in the brain that specialize in the control of movement – specifically, hand movements involved in reaching for objects. They were using electrophysiological recordings to measure the response of brain neurons to movement. They recorded the activity of a single neuron in the monkey's brain when it reached for a peanut. Their records clearly indicated that the neuron was a motor neuron – a neuron that fires when a movement is made.

One day, one of the researchers just happened to enter the laboratory and reach for a peanut. The monkey was watching him as the researcher reached for the peanut. The same neuron fired in the monkey's brain. It fired again each time the scientist made the reaching movement. The motor neuron fired but the monkey had made no movement. The monkey did not do the reaching, only the scientist did. The monkey only observed the scientist reaching for the peanut, but the same motor neuron was activated in the monkey's brain.

The 'motor' neuron was activated this time not by the monkey's action. It was activated simply by its observation. The monkey's brain was ―mirroring‖ the action it was observing. The researchers labelled this kind of neuron a ―mirror neuron‖. A mirror neuron is a neuron which fires both when performing an action and when observing the same action being performed by someone else. It "mirrors" the behavior of the other person as if the observer were performing the action.


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Subsequently, mirror neurons have been observed not only in primates12 but also in humans.13

Albert Bandura had pointed out years earlier the importance of vicarious learning for humans. An explosion of research on mirror neurons is now beginning to help us learn how imitiation and modeling might "work". The discovery is considered by many to be one of the most important findings of neuroscience in the last decade. Ramachandran (2000) has called mirror neurons the driving force behind the ―great leap forward‖ in human evolution. He speculated that the emergence of a sophisticated mirror neuron system set the stage for the emergence, in early hominids, of a number of uniquely human abilities such as the "theory of mind" - the ability to adopt another‘s point of view.

Unfortunately, the serendipitous discovery of mirror neurons has spawned considerable speculation that goes well beyond our current knowledge base. Much has yet to be learned about the mechanisms through which the mirror system functions (Catmur, Walsh & Heyes, 2007). For example, we cannot be certain that the mirror neurons are directing our empathy since they may be active because we are feeling empathetic - they may be responding to the feeling rather than being responsible for it. We also need to learn more about individual differences in mirror neuron characteristics.

Nevertheless, the discovery of mirror neurons has major implications for our understanding of antisocial behavior and, as we will indicate, for how we can effectively decrease antisocial behavior and foster prosocial behavior. In particular, because it identifies some of the brain mechanisms that underlie the acquisition of empathy, it helps us to understand how empathy can be fostered in those who evidence very little of it.

Imitation

We have discussed the importance of social perspective-taking, empathy and concern for the feelings of others in understanding antisocial and prosocial behavior. The mirror neuron system may be a mechanism that constitutes the basis of individuals' understanding of others. "This mirroring mechanism may underlie the remarkable ability to read others' emotional states from a mere glance" (Dapretto et al.,2006).

12

See Blakemore & Decety, 2001 and Rizzolatti, Fogassi, & Gallese, 2006 for reviews of the evidence. 13

Metanalysis indicates that these mirror neurons are located in various parts of the brain including centers for language, empathy and pain. The neural network involved includes the premotor cortex, the parietal lobule, the supplementary motor area, and the cerebellum (Grèzes & Decety, 2001).

Chapter 25: Neuroscience and Empathy

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Mirror neurons replicate in our brains the posture, movements, the verbalizations and even the emotions of the person we observe. The Italian monkey did not learn only by the researcher modelling the behavior of reaching for the peanut. It appeared to learn by actually imitating in its brain what it observed the researcher doing – reaching for the peanut. The mirror neuron connection was created by the monkey imitating the behavior of the researcher.

Seeing is Doing

The mirroring mechanism involves activation of viscero-motor centers that underlies the experiential understanding of the emotions of others (Burno Wicker et al., 2003). We learn both by doing and by observing. When we do something or we see someone else doing something, we are also doing it in our brains and what we learn can become hard-wired in our brains.

Ramachandran (2003) refers to mirror neurons as "empathy neurons" or "Dalai Lama neurons" because the mirror neurons in our brains enable us to directly understand the thoughts and emotions of others by observing and replicating or simulating them internally14. Like the Italian monkeys, motor neurons in our human brains are activated in a way that simulates the activity that we observe in others without making any overt movement ourselves. We not only watch people behave, we also internally repeat what they are doing in part of our brain. For example, as we watch golfers on T.V. missing short putts, we understand what they are thinking and feeling as if we were missing the same short putts ourselves (even if we seldom do). We internally repeat what they are doing and are thereby enabled to grasp what they are experiencing. This phenomenon occurs not only at the cognitive level, but also at the emotional level as the mirror neurons send messages to the emotional (limbic) system in our brains. We actually feel what the players are feeling. We mimic facial expressions, vocalizations, and movements of another person and, consequently, we converge emotionally with them (Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1994).

The neuroscience research has established a principle that forms the conceptual basis of our treatment model: "he sees it, he does it, he becomes it". We shall return to this principle when we review evidence that indicates the operation of that principle in the

14

However, children with autism who have evidence a lack of empathy and do not adopt other person's point of view may have deficient mirror neurons. While other peoples‘ mirror neurons are active whether they do a task or just watch someone else do it, autistics‘ mirror neurons may only activate when they themselves are doing the task (Ramachandran, 2003).


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success of many effective offender rehabilitation programs including the "Peer Therapist" program we described in Chapter 2, and we will suggest how operationalizing that principle can foster the development of prosociality and thereby enable the prevention of antisocial behavior and the rehabilitation of antisocial individuals.

Imitation - Not Just Cognition

Mirror neurons allow us to grasp the minds of others not through conceptual reasoning but through direct simulation. By feelings, not by thinking.

Giacomo Rizzolatti

It is unlikely that mirror neurons are the only mechanism that underly empathy but they are one of the mechanisms that enable us to acquire prosocial behavior. The acquisition process involves modeling, but it also involves imitation. Imitation is fundamental to becoming human. Research suggests that humans are hardwired to imitate (Bertenthal & Longo, 2007; Horner & Whiten, 2005; Lyons, Santos, & Keil, 2006). Children use imitation even when it is not the most efficient way to learn or solve problems or complete tasks. They "over-imitate". Indeed, it is difficult to get them not to (Zimmer, 2005).

Through the mirror neuron system, our perception of behavior in another individual activates our internal representation of that behavior. Abstract reasoning is not necessary for this representation (Gallese, Keysers & Rizzolatti, 2004). The mirror neuron mechanism enables us to have an intuitive grasp of the thoughts and feelings of other persons. We unconsciously imitate the emotions of others - their tone of voice, facial expression, posture… and we thereby create in ourselves the emotion we see but do not necessarily know we see. The process can occur automatically (e.g. Preston & deWaal, 2002). The mirror neuron mechanism does not even need conscious awareness.

The neuroscience evidence of the intuitive grasp we have of the feelings of others challenges the adequacy of an exclusively cognitive model in which all concepts are abstract.

However, the simulation is not entirely under automatic management. It can be regulated by other neural mechanisms. Mirror neurons, like other neurons, do not work in isolation from the rest of our brain functions. If they did, we would be mired in the feelings we import by observing the feelings of others. Moreover, we can misread the feelings of others. We can be empathetic, but wrong.

Simulating the feelings of others can be initiated in two ways: automatically or intentionally. However, the motivation to accept or


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adopt someone else‘s point of view is both an effortful and controlled process.

PERCEPTION/ACTION COUPLING

The neuroscientists have taken us further. They have found that observing emotion in others stimulates us to reconstruct within ourselves bodily expressions that we associate with the emotion they are expressing (Adolphs,Tranel & Damasio, 2002). When we observe others' facial expression of various emotions, neurological activity is triggered in our neural systems that correspond to the facial representation we observe (Carr, Iacoboni, Dubeau, Mazziotta & Lenzi, 2003).

At least part of our emotion processing is a consequence of our perception of emotion in others that activates the neural mechanisms that are responsible for the generation of our own emotions (Adolphs, 2002b). This imitation phenomenon (absent the 21st century neuroscience evidence) has been long recognized (Gallese, 2001). For example, Edgar Allan Poe (1849) reported:

When I wish to find out how wise, or how stupid, or how good, or how wicked is any one, or what are his thoughts at the moment, I fashion the expression of my face, as accurately as possible, in accordance with the expression of his, and then wait to see what thoughts or sentiments arise in my mind or heart, as if to match or correspond with the expression.

Thinking With Our Bodies

Neurological research enables us to understand the brain functioning involved in this process. Research has demonstrated that when we make a facial expression (e.g. of anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, or surprise) we generate changes in our autonomic nervous system that are associated with feeling the corresponding emotion (Ekman and Davidson, 1993). We resonate with the state of another individual at least in part because of the motor, the autonomic, and the somatic responses that are triggered by our observations.

It is also not a new discovery, but neurological research has confirmed that simply viewing facial expressions of others triggers expressions on our own face even though we are not aware that it is happening. For example, as we watch someone smile the same muscles in our own faces that are involved in producing a smile are activated and we thereby experience the same feeling of happiness of the person we observed (Dimberg, Thunberg, & Elmehed, 2000; Wallbott, 1991). Neuroscience may be providing evidence of the


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hackneyed pop psychology expression, "Fake it to make it" that suggests that we can change our feelings by changing our behavior so that, for example, smiling can overide disgust (Ansfield, 2007; Ekman & Friesen, 1982; Schnall & Laird, 2003).

Although it may be through our bodily activity that we initially register the feelings of others (Gallagher, 2001), that does not mean that executive functions (cognitive control) are unimportant. On the contrary, the development of understanding of others is functionally linked to that of the executive function processes that serve to monitor and control thought and actions, including self-regulation, planning, cognitive flexibility, response inhibition, and resistance to interference (Eslinger, 1996; Shallice, 1988). We are able to reason about others and to use this ability to understand other peoples' thoughts and feelings at the cognitive level.

The development of this cognitive control is related to the maturation of the prefrontal cortex which enables some "top-down" control of our behavior, our feelings and our assessment of the feelings of others (Tamm, Menon, & Reiss, 2002, Ochsner & Gross, 2005). Taking the perspective of others requires executive functions and these functions are necessary for socially appropriate conduct.

As we noted earlier, there is a strong and statistically significant relation between poor executive function and antisocial behavior (Morgan & Lilienfeld, 2000). The inhibitory control aspect of executive function is more strongly correlated with academic performance in kindergarten children than is general intelligence. Self-regulation accounts for differences in academic performance (early math and reading) independent of general intelligence (Blair & Razza, 2007). Thus, we need the RT ―mind‖ even though most of our behavior is triggered by our automatic mind.

Accurate empathy requires self-awareness, emotional recognition and emotional regulation (Decety & Lamm, 2006). Without such ability, empathy might be highly inaccurate because one's egocentric perspective may prevent objective evaluation of the other's perspective. The prefrontal cortex plays an important role in this process (Cohen, 2005). Training in cognitive skills can play a critical role in the development of executive functioning that can enable accurate evaluation of the feelings, attitudes and potential behavior of others.

Imagining

It is important to realize that neuroimaging studies have shown that mirroring brain processes are activated even when we only imagine perceiving something. We do not actually have to perceive it. Thus, the process can be generated by the brain itself rather than by external stimuli (Gallese, 2006). This can occur, for example, while


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imagining one‘s own action (e.g. Jeannerod & Decety,1995) or imagining another‘s action (Jackson, Meltzoff, & Decety,2006)15. As we shall see, this is another principle that underlies the interventions we recommend for fostering the development of prosociality. One can learn by observing and by imitating but also by imagining as in covert rehearsal (Cautela & Kearney, 1986). Each of those activities are key ingredients in the interventions we recommend for antisocial behavior.

Neural Networking

Neuronal networks begin forming early in brain development in childhood. Most of what the brain does is accomplished by synaptic transmission between neurons. Our knowledge, our emotions, our thinking, our values and our behavior are directed by the connections that have been formed. Throughout life, our brains encode thoughts and memories by forming new connections among neurons. Our brain 'hardware' grows, adapts and becomes more and more complex and integrated with age and experience. As the network of connections increase, ever more complex constellations of interconnected neurons evolve. The synaptic connections between neurons are formed by our observations and our experiences. All the observations we make and all the events that we experience and even those which we only imagine form memories in our brain. The memories are essentially networks of brain cells each of which store information from those observations and experiences.

Our "self identity - who we are, reflects the patterns of interconnectivity between neurons in our brain (LeDoux, 2002). Our self-identity is hard-wired in our brain in accordance with the environment we have lived in, the experiences we have had, and the people we have encountered not only in our early formative years but throughout our lives. They shape our underlying core schema which is often tacit and para-verbal. They represent core self-narratives that are coded in affect, in physical sensations and in images far more than in overt words or thoughts.

15

Watching another person perform an action or experience emotion activates many of the same brain systems that are engaged when one experiences these things oneself. For example, studies being conducted at the University College, London have found that thinking that a loved one is receiving an electric shock registers in the same brain areas that "light up" (i.e. show more blood flow, which indicates activation) when the 'thinkers' are directly experiencing the shock themselves (cf.Decety & Grezes, 2006; Wicker et al., 2003).

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=The+power+of+simulation:+imagining+one%27s+own+and+other%27s+behavior.&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=Both+of+us+disgusted+in+My+insula&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8


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The People Within Us

Each of us develops a unique identity because our unique set of genes have interacted with different environments that have shaped who we are and how we perceive our world and the people in it. What we experience causes each of us to develop a different organization of neural pathways in our brain. Neurodiversity is the norm.

An example that illustrates that is a study of dancers from the London's Royal Ballet and experts in capoeira, a Brazilian form of martial arts. Both types of dancers were asked to watch short videos of ballet dancers or capoeira dancers performing brief dance moves of ballet dancers or capoeira dancers. While watching the videos, the dancers were lying perfectly still in an MRI scanner. A control group of non-dancers were also examined. The researchers found that the mirror neuron system areas in their brains evidenced more activity when the dancers saw movements they had been trained to perform in the past than when they observed movements they had never been trained to perform. The mirror system in the non-dancers showed significantly less activity while watching the videos than the mirror systems of the dancers. The three groups showed different ―mirror neuron system‖ activity based on their past experience (Calvo-Merino, Grezes, Glaser, Passingham & Haggard, 2006).

The Antisocial Brain

Similarly, maltreated children show different emotional responses than children who have been well cared for. Their brains develop differently. Their brains are different, and therefore, their social minds are different (cf. Bradshaw and Garbarino, 2004). Thus, the brains of children who, for example, are raised in an environment of hostility, rejection, abuse and maltreatment or who experience consistent failure in school or in their social activities have those experiences seared in their brains in neural networks that, for years, can trigger deep feelings of anxiety, fear, anger and hostility that can engender antisocial behavior. An antisocial identity can be 'hard-wired' in the brain. The concept of an "antisocial brain" is more than a mere metaphor.

Only some antisocial individuals may have inherited pathology-linked genes. Most have inherited toxic environments. The adversity that children may experience early in life can lead to a range of problems years later including not only antisocial problems and delinquency but also aggression, depression, substance abuse, health problems and general unhappiness. Neuroscience research of the neural effects of adversity in childhood indicate that such experiences become 'hard-wired' in the brain. The brains of children


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who experience learning difficulties, failure in school, rejecting or demeaning peer relations, hyperactivity or attentional difficulties, or who are raised in an environment of hostility, rejection abuse and maltreatment register those behaviors, attitudes and negative emotions.

There are, of course many risk factors for delinquency in addition to neglect and abuse. They include not only those we have discussed in previous chapters but also criminality in the parents; pro-criminal associates and isolation from anti-criminal others (Farrington & Welsh, 2007; Loeber and Farrington, 2001). Although neuroscience has not yet clarified the neural effects of all such factors, given what is known about how imitation and experience become imbedded in neuronal connections, it seems reasonable to assume that the people to whom we are exposed leave a lasting impression on our developing brain.

Antisocial Modeling

We have long known that being exposed to antisocial adults and peers and being isolated from prosocial models can lead youths to develop antisocial behavior. This has usually been explained in terms of modeling - they see others behaving in antisocial ways and they imitate. What we have not recognized until recently is that what the antisocial models do is not only registered in the mind of the observer at the cognitive level but is also imprinted in neurons that are permanently waiting to be fired.

There is also mounting evidence that watching violent media or playing violent video games increases reactive aggressive tendencies among viewers (e.g. Anderson & Bushman, 2002; Johnson, Cohen, Smailes, Kasen & Brook, 2002). There now is evidence that while watching violent computer games, the images we see are burned into the same area of our brains (posterior cingulate) as if we had witnessed real violence or thought about our personal experience of real violence – the images are registered and stored in the same area of the brain as real events. One of the explanations for the effects of such antisocial modeling is that the exposure to such antisocial stimuli can diminish or even inhibit activation in the cortical networks that regulate behavior. Inhibition of these networks has been associated with antisocial behaviors such as reactive aggression. Such research does not establish that individuals who are so exposed will actually engage in aggressive or violent behavior; however, it does indicate that even short-term observations of antisocial behavior impacts the neural networks in the brain (Kelly, Grinband, & Hirsch 2007).


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Better Late Than Never: Brain Exercise Yields Brain Growth

It is important to understand that because neuronal connections become hard-wired in our brain, everything we observe and everything we experience contributes to making us what we are. However, it is even more important to understand that new experiences can change what we are.

Neuroscience helps us to see (literally) that our brain hardware is capable of adapting, growing and becoming more complex and integrated with age. In fact, approximately fifty percent of the connections are cleared during childhood as new ones are formed. As our brains mature and evolve, so does our knowledge, our emotions and our expressive abilities. In turn, what we do with those abilities affects the brain itself, forging the new connections and constellations needed for further psychological growth.

Does this brain plasticity allow for significant change so that a prosocial brain can be developed? If so, how can we best bring about this neural pathway reorganization?

It was long believed that the adult brain could only lose nerve cells, not gain them – that the number of new cells, or neurons, in the adult brain was fixed early in life. However, recent research on neurogenesis (the creation of new neurons) indicates that new neurons continue to form during adulthood. The adult human brain is capable of producing new brain cells throughout life. Neurogenesis can yield the formation of hundreds of thousands of new neurons each month. "Neurogenesis is an ongoing developmental process that continuously rejuvenates the mature nervous system in response to experience throughout life" (Ge, Yang, Hsu, Ming & Song, 2007). The brain is malleable. Growth is not only possible, it is unavoidable (Gross, 2000; Sadananda, 2004).

New experiences create temporary modifications to already-existing networks of brain cells that, within a few hours, create new networks. Our brain development continues such that new observations and new experiences form new connections. The brain's neuroplasticity (the ability of the brain to rewire itself through experience), enables our brain to change its structure (both the size of different regions and the number and strength of connections) and its function as we continue to become what we observe and what we experience.

This phenomenon was illustrated by an examination of London taxicab drivers. It takes about four years of walking or riding a bike for a London cabbie to learn enough to pass the cabbie exam. Structural MRI's of the brains of licensed London taxicab drivers with extensive navigation experience were analyzed and compared with those of control subjects who did not drive taxis. It was found that the posterior hippocampus of taxicab drivers was significantly larger than that of


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control subjects, whereas a more anterior hippocampal region was larger in control subjects than in the cabbies. Hippocampal volume correlated with the amount of time spent as a taxicab driver. The evidence indicated that their hippocampus had been changed due to their learning taxi routes. Indeed the London cabbies have found that GPS are no match for their experience. This research shows that there is considerable capacity for change in the structure of the adult human brain in response to environmental demands (e.g. Caplan, Madsen, Schulze, Aschenbrenner, Newman & Kahana, 2003; Maguire et al., 2000)

Given what we are now learning about the brain‘s potential to mirror and to imitate, it is possible that even individuals with histories of exposure to criminogenic risk factors who have been engaged in anti-social and criminal actions can still acquire new linkages and develop new personal narratives that are prosocial.

Making New Connections

There are key moments, such as in early childhood and adolescence, in which the developing brain is more plastic than other times. These are critical times for the making of critical synaptic connections that are associated with prosocial behavior. Developing prosocial behavior after experiencing neglect, abuse, and even violence in the key developmental periods is not an easy process. However, if the key period is missed then learning is still possible even if it is more difficult. After the key developmental period, an individual can develop new synaptic connections and a new pro-social identity even if that learning did not occur at the optimal time of early childhood and adolescence. Although it may well take greater effort, antisocial individuals can become pro-social adults. Neuroscience research helps to show us that such a growth process is possible by pointing to the plasticity, adaptability, resilience, malleability and flexibility of the brain, and its potential to make new synaptic connections (Kempermann & Gage, 2002).

Even a history of alcohol abuse, which is very common among antisocial individuals, need not present an impediment to such development. During alcohol dependency, brain cell development is inhibited (Crews & Nixon, 2002). Alcohol induced impairment of cognitive function may be particularly prevalent among adolescents. There is growing body of literature showing that the adolescent brain is not fully mature and is highly vulnerable to the effects of alcohol. Alcohol ingestion further 'dilutes' the underdeveloped braking power of their prefrontal cortex which is the area of their brains which develops most slowly. However, recent research has indicated that new brain cell development which is inhibited through alcohol ingestion can markedly increase during abstinence. Abstinence can


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yield a pronounced increase in new neuron formation within four-to-five weeks of abstinence. Even after only seven days of abstinence there can be a twofold increase in brain cell proliferation (Crews, Nixon & Wilkie, 2004).

Even individuals with long histories of anti-social and criminal behavior can still acquire new neuronal connections. Social cognitive neuroscience has developed an understanding of how such new connections are formed and this understanding coupled with our recent understanding of the process of desistance and an analysis of key elements in effective rehabilitation programs has led to the development of R&R2 programs that can help offenders and other antisocial individuals develop new neural pathways that will engender prosocial feelings, thoughts and behavior. An antisocial identity can become a prosocial identity.


The question we need to ask is: how can we expose antisocial individuals to experiences that can 'get under their skin' and change their self-identity from antisocial individuals to prosocial individuals?

Given what we know about mirror neurons and perception/action coupling, the answer is that since imitation and experience shapes our neuronal connections, we can create new prosocial neural connections that are superimposed on the former antisocial connections by two complementary interventions: 1. exposing antisocial individuals to prosocial models 2. engaging antisocial individuals in prosocial experiences. Neither sounds very easy to accomplish but, as we will demonstrate in the following chapters, both can be done, have been done, can be done again, and can be done better.

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Chapter 26

PROSOCIAL MODELLING

The child development research we have reviewed indicates that the acquisition of empathy requires exposure to prosocial models. The neuroscience research we have reviewed indicates that we can create new prosocial neural connections that become superimposed on former antisocial connections by exposing antisocial individuals to such prosocial models. Thus, one way to change the antisocial trajectory of antisocial children and youth would be to change their social environment such that they become surrounded by prosocial adults and peers who would provide prosocial modeling and thereby replace the neural connections that have previously been formed by their exposure to antisocial models in their home, school, or community. However, it is not easy to surround antisocial individuals with prosocial models. In fact, in most environments where antisocial individuals are placed (such as group homes, special schools, community residences, social agencies, reform schools, prisons, and secure hospitals) they are exposed to even more antisocial models than they were exposed to before their placement for treatment.

The potential destructive power of exposing individuals to antisocial peers cannot be overemphasized. There is a substantial body of research that confirms that affiliation with deviant peers contributes to antisocial development (e.g. Dishion & Dodge, 2006; Curran, Stice, & Chassin, 1997). Negative effects of exposure to a deviant peer group have been found at every age level from pre-kindergarten (e.g. Lavallee et al., 2005) to college (Duncan et al., 2005).

TEACHING PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR IN AN ANTISOCIAL ENVIRONMENT

Adverse treatment effects for group training programs that aggregate antisocial youth have often been reported (Catterall, 1987; Dishion & Andrews, 1995; Dodge, Lansford & Dishion 2006). Aproximately one in three controlled studies of interventions for delinquency that aggregate antisocial youth have found an adverse effect on behavioral outcomes (Lipsey, 1992). Reviews of group-based skills training with aggressive youth indicates that the potential benefits of skills training may be diminished or even negated by the negative effects of aggregating antisocial youth in the training group (Arnold & Hughes,1999; Dodge Lansford & Dishion, 2006). That conclusion has been confirmed by metanalytic reviews of interventions with conduct problem youth (Ang & Hughes, 2002; Lipsey, 1992; Whitehead & Lab, 1989) as well as with


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hyperactive/impulsive and aggressive youth (Robinson, Smith, Miller, & Brownell, 1999). There is often a significant negative relationship between the degree to which treatment involves association with antisocial peers and the success of that treatment (Chamberlain, 1999; Cavell & Hughes, 2000; Dishion, McCord & Poulin, 1999; McCord, 2003). Such interventions can have iatrogenic effects. For example, in a social skills program that aggregated antisocial adolescents, peer approval was found to increase the participants' belief in the positive consequences of antisocial behaviors (Cavell & Hughes, 2000).

Caveats

Like it or not, there is very little likelihood that the governments on our planet will stop aggregating antisocials in antisocial groups. Most offender rehabilitation programs are conducted with groups of offenders. However, before we add offender rehabilitation to the growing pile of abandoned criminal justice programs because of its potential harmful effects, we should keep clearly in mind that not all rehabilitation programs conducted with aggregated antisocial participants have had adverse effects (Dodge, Lansford & Dishion, 2006). Moreover, the review of the relevant research studies conducted by Dodge, Lansford & Dishion (2006) indicates that iatrogenic effects are found only under some circumstances. Indeed, recent metanalysis of delinquency studies (Lipsey, 2006) found no evidence of iatrogenic effects. Moreover, some such programs have yielded very impressive benefits. We describe several in the next chapter.

Individual Differences

The research indicates that "at-risk" youth and marginally delinquent adolescents who do not have a history of serious anti-social behavior are likely to be negatively influenced by placement with more deviant peers. This echoes the well established risk principle that states that treatment should be focused on those at high risk for reoffending and that treatment provided to low-risk offenders may be counter-productive - it is either ineffective or may even cause harm to the participants (Andrews et al.,1990). One of the easiest ways to turn a low-risk adolescent into a high-risk adolescent is to expose him/her to high-risk adolescents. However, there may be a limit to the risk principle - the iatrogenic effect is unlikely to occur in the case of youths who already are highly deviant. Aggregating may not significantly increase their already acquired antisocial propensity.

Some studies (e.g. Dishion et al.,1999) suggest that group therapy for adolescents with substance use disorder and other forms

Chapter 26: Prosocial Modelling

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of deviancy may cause iatrogenic effects such as increased substance use and legal problems for those with lower levels of deviancy. However, a large adolescent treatment experiment involving 400 adolescents found that such group composition is not always associated with worse substance use, psychological, environmental or legal treatment outcomes (Dennis, Godley, Diamond, Tims, Babor & Donaldson, 2004). Indeed, the results indicate that there is an advantage for youth with high levels of conduct disorder to be included in such groups.

Differential Treatment

Another factor that must be considered in assessing the potential adverse effects of aggregation is the type of treatment. Many if not most of the unsuccessful programs that have aggregated antisocial youths have employed loosely structured nondirective discussion that has focused on the participants' antisocial behavior. Many others involve confrontation among the peers that also focuses on their antisocial behavior. For example, in the popular Guided Group Interaction (GGI) peer group programs for delinquent and high-risk youth the group leader encourages free discussion by asking non-directive but challenging questions that hopefully lead the participants to recognize their problems. Unfortunately, confrontation is a component of many such programs. Although the early PROVO experiment that employed GGI reduced post-treatment arrests among delinquent youth, evaluations of other programs based on the GGI model (e.g. Positive Peer Culture) have been far from encouraging (Dodge et al.,2006). Some have led to more drug use and more serious delinquency (e.g. Gottfredson, 1987). Demeaning confrontation of delinquents does not constitute prosocial modelling whether it is done by staff or peers.

Programs that encourage aggregated youths to discuss their antisocial history in groups not only expose the participants to antisocial peer models. They also communicate to all the participants that their most interesting and most important characteristic is their antisocial behavior. The neuroscience research that we have reviewed would suggest that such programs provide a very effective way of reinforcing the participants' antisocial identity.

Alternative Thinking

How can we combat the dilution of potential program benefits or the iatrogenic effects of delivering programs to aggregated groups of antisocial individuals? One way that is recommended, but seldom implemented, is to include prosocial youths in the groups. There is evidence that some programs for reducing school bullying have very


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successfully taken this approach (Olweus, 1994). There is also some evidence that mixing prosocial peers with antisocial peers in skills training programs may not only benefit the aggressive children but may also lead to an improvement in the social skills of the prosocial children (Ang & Hughes, 2002; Morrison, Hughes & Cavell, 2001). However, recruiting prosocial children and adolescents to participate in skills training with antisocial peers raises both practical and ethical issues. In some settings (e.g., institutions for offenders) there may be no prosocial peers available.

Prosocial Trainers

The iatrogenic deviant peer contagion effect can also be minimized when the group leader acts as a prosocial model. Several well designed studies have demonstrated that prosocial modeling by the individual who delivers the program can yield positive outcomes for group programs designed to reduce antisocial behavior (e.g. Andrews & Bonta, 2006; Trotter, 1999).

Research on the ―core dimensions and characteristics of effective therapists‖ has been conducted since the early 1960's (e.g., Truax & Carkhuff, 1967). Most of the early research supported the conclusion that the communication of empathic understanding, genuineness, positive regard and respect, warmth, and concreteness of expression is essential in producing constructive client change. Those core characteristics are still considered basic to the effective helping relationship in counselling, psychotherapy and cognitive therapy (e.g., Wallace, 1986). They are also basic elements in developing the client‘s motivation for change (Miller & Rollnick, 2002). Research by Andrews and his colleagues on the effectiveness of counselors in the criminal justice field has indicated that some of those characteristics are also essential elements in effective programs with offenders (Andrews and Bonta, 2006).

Effective service deliverers must establish high quality relationships with participants by demonstrating enthusiasm, genuineness, empathy and caring. However, expressing empathy is not enough. The research indicates that counsellors and Trainers must also do at least four other things

Model prosocial behavior

Model anticriminal behavior and attitudes

Reinforce the participants‘ anticriminal behavior or verbalizations

Express their disapproval of the client's procriminal expressions while at the same time demonstrating alternatives.


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Effective prosocial modelling involves deliberately and clearly reinforcing expressions reflecting concern for other people and reminding participants when such expressions are not forthcoming. It also requires that reinforcement of prosocial verbalizations and behavior be delivered immediately and frequently. Prosocial models express strong and emphatic statements of approval, support and agreement with prosocial expressions by the participants. Receiving rewards for doing something well involves activation of the orbitofrontal cortex and leads to brain changes that correspond to feeling good.

Reinforcing prosocial behavior requires the trainer to possess a wide variety of reinforcers including not only explicit complimentary verbal comments, but also nonverbal communications. Consistent with the research on the importance of inductive discipline that is so important in fostering social perspective-taking in children, trainers must also make clear why their approval is being offered.

Prosocial modelling should also include trainers correcting procriminal expressions, attitudes, values and beliefs that suggest that antisocial conduct is acceptable. Such expressions include verbalizations of negative attitudes toward the police; verbalizing acceptance of rule violations; verbalizing disregard or disrespect of the law; verbalizing respect and admiration of criminals; and excusing antisocial behavior. These are ―criminogenic factors‖ that are known to reliably predict future criminality (Andrews & Bonta, 2006; Gendreau, Little, & Goggin, 1996). They comprise a set of attitudes, values, beliefs, and behaviors held by the offender that minimize the value of prosocial activities, such as education, work, stable relationships, and law abiding behaviors. They also justify the use of violence, aggression, alcohol and drugs, and other antisocial behaviors (Gendreau, Goggin, & Paparozzi, 1996). Prosocial modelling requires non-acceptance of excuses and rationalizations for antisocial acts.

A pat on the back is only a few vertebrae removed from a kick in the pants, but is miles ahead in results.

V. Wilcox

Correcting does not mean demeaning. On the contrary, it involves supporting and encouraging participants as they examine their own conduct and make self-evaluative judgments as to whether or not their behavior reflects antisocial values. Prosocial Trainers elaborate the reasons for their disapproval and help the participant to think of prosocial alternatives. Correcting must be conducted within an atmosphere of caring, trust and empathy to ensure that counselors minimize client retaliation, lowered motivation or withdrawal from the


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program. Prosocial modelling requires Trainers to express disapproval. However, this does not require a 'big stick'. Correcting can be accomplished by verbal statements of disapproval or nonverbal communication such as a frown, decreased interest, or even an increase or decrease in the physical distance between the Trainer and the client.

Prosocial modelling also requires trainers to draw attention to the hazards of associating with antisocial individuals or of adopting their styles of behavior, and to the negative consequences of antisocial behavior not only for the antisocial individual, but also for victims and society.

Prosocial modelling requires that reinforcing statements well outnumber expressions of disapproval.

Empathy Is Not Enough

Trotter (1999) has reported research that indicates that the Trainers' prosocial modelling is more important than their empathy. Research indicates that empathy is essential but when empathy is not combined with prosocial and anticriminal expression and correction of antisocial expressions by the trainer, empathy may reinforce the offender‘s antisocial beliefs, attitudes and behavior by appearing to accept them.

The Trainer As A Teacher

The personal characteristics of service delivery personnel are are also important. The trainers‘ values and beliefs as well as their attitudes to economic, social and cultural factors that may impinge on the offender‘s life can all influence the outcome of their interventions. Trainers must be aware of their own values, beliefs, attitudes, biases, personal experiences and problems and understand how these personal characteristics can contribute to or prevent the delivery of effective programs.


It is well recognized that antisocial behavior is multi-determined and that effective programs must attend to the contextual and ecological factors that are known to produce and maintain antisocial behavior. The vast majority of interventions focus on the individual as the unit of change and disregard the contextual factors. The adolescent‘s peer group is among the most important of those factors. Trying to neutralize the negative impact of an antisocial peer group is a difficult task even when service personnel epitomize the qualities of a prosocial model.


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A number of programs have yielded very impressive results by taking a different approach. Rather than attempting to neutralize the antisocial peer group they have mobilized the peer group into a prosocial force by engaging the antisocial peers in prosocial role-playing in the training group and/or by persuading participants to engage in prosocial role-taking after their graduation. We discuss role-playing in Chapter 27 and role-taking in Chapter 28. Both are fully in accord with the findings of neuroscience research. They exemplify two principles of the neurocriminology model: prosocial connections can be acquired by being exposed to prosocial models and by behaving in a prosocial manner.

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Chapter 27

PROSOCIAL ROLE-PLAYING

More men become good through practice than by nature

Democritus

Intervention programs that employ prosocial trainers can help to some extent to combat the adverse effect of exposing participants to antisocial peers. However, a positive role-model may not have sufficient power to make up for the antisocial modelling of antisocial peers in many training groups. There is a training approach that can combat the antisocial modeling of the peers in the training group – frequently engaging all of the participants in prosocial role-playing.

Engaging the participants in role-playing prosocial behaviors in the training group can enable the trainer to have all participants practice prosocial behavior and thereby expose all participants to prosocial behavior being modelled not just by the trainers but also by otherwise antisocial peers. Prosocial modelling by peers is even more potent than prosocial modelling by Trainers, particularly when the prosocial modelling is delivered by otherwise antisocial peers.

WE ARE THE ROLES WE PLAY

We all play a variety of roles on a daily basis. We play family roles such as son, daughter, brother, sister, mother, father or family black sheep. We play household roles such as breadwinner, cook, cleaner, or problem child. We have social roles such as worker, teacher, counsellor, student, police officer, or lawbreaker. There are specific behaviors and attitudes that are part of the 'script' of such roles and we synchronize our behavior to our script more or less well and more or less intentionally. These roles help to define our identity. They form the scripts that tell us how we should behave. The scripts tell us a story about who we are. They determine our view of ourselves. This view is developed over a lifetime, and is based on the person's physical characteristics (as he or she sees them), cultural upbringing (as he or she experiences it), and other, more personal, experiences.

We continually strive to maintain our identity and protect ourselves from threats to this identity. We each choose the roles we play and our roles tend to remain fixed and rigid. However, we can also abandon roles that prove to be non-adaptive or fail to yield us benefits.

Individuals who have acquired an antisocial identity often engage in antisocial ways to preserve that identity. Although we can


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choose which roles we want to play and we can also choose to change these roles, many antisocial individuals have very little choice – the roles they play are determined not only by them but by their limited economic or social opportunities. Offenders have roles that they play – whether they want to or not.

Prosocial individuals are capable of performing antisocial roles. However, prosocial role-playing may not be in the role repertoire of many antisocial individuals. Individuals who are raised in impoverished, restricted environments may not receive adequate prosocial role-playing opportunities. Some may simply not realize that there are effective alternative ways of interacting with other people. Some may feel that behaving prosocially would ruin their image. Some may feel that they would not enjoy behaving in a prosocial manner. Some may feel that there would be nothing to gain by doing so. Some may fear that behaving in a prosocial manner in their environment would invite censure by their antisocial peers. Some may feel that if they tried to relate prosocially they would be rejected both by antisocial others and by prosocial others.

Antisocial individuals can be led to engage in prosocial roles if and when they feel it is safe to do so. We can lead antisocial individuals to practice prosocial roles by engaging them in role-playing activities in the training group in which there is no threat because the activity involved is merely a simulation or a game. Such role-playing can serve as a vehicle for role expansion and role flexibility (Blatner, & Weiner, 2007; Bergman & Hewish, 2003; Baim, 2007).

Why Role-Playing?

For many years, R&R Trainers have been urged to engage participants in the training groups in assisting in the training of other participants. Such activities are based, in part, on the principle that the best way to learn something is to teach it to others. However, these activities are also designed to lead the participants to believe that they are competent since they can teach the skills to others.

However, neuroscience research has taught us that there is a more important reason for engaging R&R participants in teaching other participants. Neural connections can be formed not only by observing the behavior of prosocial models but also by engaging in prosocial activities. The new R&R2 programs do both. They engage antisocial participants in playing prosocial roles (the experiential factor) and by so doing they frequently expose all of the participants to their otherwise antisocial peers behaving in an prosocial manner (the observing factor). Moreover, by asking antisocial participants to give feedback to their prosocial role-playing peers as to how well they performed the prosocial roles and how they could improve their prosocial role-playing, all antisocial participants are engaged in

Chapter 27: Prosocial Role-Playing

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thinking of prosocial alternatives (the rational factor). Antisocial individuals can learn new prosocial roles by playing prosocial roles.

Role-Playing 'Works'

There are many early studies that demonstrate that practice in performing prosocial behaviors is effective in promoting the development of prosocial attitudes and behavior (e.g. Barton, 1981; Staub, 1979; Rosenhan & White, 1967; White, 1972). Many programs that engaged delinquents and adult offenders in prosocial role-playing successfully reduced their recidivism (Antonowicz & Ross, 1994).

For example, in a five year follow-up, major improvements in the recidivism of institutionalized adolescent offenders were found in Sarason's (1968) study. Less than half the delinquents in his role-playing group (23%) recidivated than in the control group (48%). In another early study the recidivism of adolescent probationers was reduced from 50% to less than 10% through a program in which the probationers were led to play the role of school-teachers, victims, judges, jailers, or innocent bystanders (Ostrom, Steele, Rosenblood & Mirels, 1971).

One of the best examples of the value of role-playing with antisocial youth is the early study conducted by Chandler (1973) with 11-13 year old persistent young offenders that used role-playing to improve their social perspective-taking. At the beginning of the program the young offender group was found to be significantly more egocentric than a comparison group of non-offenders from the same high-crime area. The young offender group was randomly assigned to one of three conditions. The first consisted of a series of role-playing training sessions involving drama and making video films. The other conditions were placebo and non-treatment controls. Following the intervention, the role-playing group improved significantly in their perspective-taking abilities. Moreover, an 18-month follow-up showed a significant reduction in the recidivism rate of the drama and film-making role-playing group compared to the other groups.

Role-playing is also a central component of Goldstein's various social skills training programs that have been used for many years in a wide variety of settings with a wide variety of clients. Evaluations of such programs (Gresham, 1986; Gresham, Sugai & Horner, 2001; Mathur & Rutherford, 1995; Quinn, Mathur & Rutherford, 1996) have not yet determined which of the components of the multifacetted interventions are responsible for their positive outcome. Although their efficacy has usually been attributed to the social skills that the participants learn as they practice socially skilled behaviors, a key component of all of the programs is prosocial role-playing. As the participants practice the social skills they are actually engaging in prosocial role-playing in front of their antisocial peers. All


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participants also assess and give feedback to their co-participants on the adequacy of their prosocial role-playing.

Metanalyis Of Role-Playing

Programs that have included role-playing in their intervention and have been found to be effective have been multi-faceted and it is not easy to separate the effects of role-playing from the effects of other components. However, the value of role-playing has been confirmed by most of the metanalyses of offender rehabilitation programs and an analysis of the best designed studies found a substantial difference depending on whether or not programs included role-playing; 50% of successful programs included a role-playing component, whereas only 17% of unsucessful programs did so (Antonowicz and Ross, 1994).

Drama And The Expressive Arts

There is a more 'dramatic' form of role-playing. Expressive arts programs such as drama, also involve offenders in role-playing. Role-playing, using techniques and concepts derived from drama and drama therapy, is being widely applied in many fields including education and professional skills training. Drama programs are also growing in popularity in criminal justice settings and in social service agencies for "at risk" youths. For example, the Geese Theatre organization involves antisocial individuals in a wide range of drama activities in which the participants play and practice new roles. Many of the roles involve performing prosocial skills in mock or actual social problem situations (Baim, Brookes & Mountford, 2002).

Role-playing is a key component of many programs that have been effective in reducing recidivism, and some of those programs also employ drama. For example, Chandler (1973) successfully reduced recidivism through drama, role-playing and film-making. However, the evidence of the efficacy of drama, drama therapy and other expressive arts programs in reducing re-offending is not yet sufficiently strong to convince effective practice proponents or their protagonists. Nevertheless, there are several reasons for engaging antisocial individuals in prosocial drama in rehabilitation programs:

Not Just Play: Role-playing and participation in dramas are not just play-acting. Most offenders (after some initial hesitancy) enjoy them and soon come to view them as "serious fun" as they experiment in assuming prosocial roles that they would never care to try under other circumstances. Playing prosocial roles in drama can quickly become "living experiences" (Blatner, 1996). Under the guidance of a competent Trainer, playing prosocial roles serves to persuade


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participants that they are able to behave in prosocial ways, that they can enjoy doing so, and that prosocial behaviors can "work" for them. Such experiences can motivate them to move beyond the antisocial roles they have played in the past because they learn that they can (Blatner, 1996).

Role-playing and Cognition: Role-playing and participation in drama can yield cognitive benefits. Participants can be taught to think about and recognize the underlying feelings, attitudes and beliefs of the person whose character they are playing and, thereby, they are led to engage in practicing social perspective taking. For example, playing the role of a victim can lead the participant not only to recognize, but also experience the thoughts and feelings that are experienced by victims of antisocial behavior. Other participants can contribute to this experience by offering suggestions of how the victim may be thinking or feeling. Thus, other program participants (the audience) can also benefit. Alternative Thinking: Drama, especially improvisational drama, can foster the creativity that we have noted are essential to the ability of thinking of alternative solutions to interpersonal problems. Social perspective taking: Participation in drama fosters social perspective taking by involving the actors in imagining what it‘s like to be another person. Self-reflection: As they play roles they are both "in role and at the same time a little apart from it and thus are engaged in reflective thinking - noticing and managing their own thoughts" (Blatner & Wiener, 2007).

Behind The Mask

Participants can also be helped to realize through role-playing that they, like all of us, wear masks in their daily lives; why they do so (e.g. to appear tough); and how the masks they choose can be self-defeating. They can also be led to realize and think about the fact that by changing their masks they can change their thinking, their feelings and their behavior. They become aware of the roles they play, but they also learn that they can choose different roles.


Most of the successful role-playing programs for antisocial individuals have been rationalized as ways of helping them to acquire skills. However, we would argue that they do more than that. Role-playing is more than an effective technique for acquiring skill. As


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Chandler demonstrated years ago, prosocial role-playing challenges their egocentricity and leads participants to think about the thoughts and feelings of others.

More important, neuroscience research indicates that by practicing prosocial behaviors the antisocial participants can acquire prosocial neural connections that may lead them to a new prosocial identity. The neuroscience research we have reviewed indicates that our neuroanatomy is shaped in large measure by our observations and experiences. As they engage in prosocial roles, participants are involved in experiential learning. They learn not just by being told what to do but by doing it. They not only observe others engaging in prosocial experiences, they think about how others are thinking and feeling, and they engage in prosocial experiences themselves. The observational, cognitive and experiential components become registered in new prosocial connections in their brains.

We have revised most of the exercises in the R&R programs such that they are much more prosocial, more experiential, less didactic and less dependent on 'Trainer Talk' (which participants often hear but to which they seldom listen). The program emphasizes active rather than passive participation in the learning process. Our experience and social cognitive neuroscience suggests that Action is better than Talk.

They would hardly learn anything if they would just have to memorize the basic mathematical axioms and some theorems. Students must take the role of a mathematician in order to learn mathematics. Lind

Following an orientation to role-playing to ensure they

understand and are comfortable in engaging in such activities, participants are assigned prosocial roles to play in most program sessions as they practice, in interaction with other participants, the skills that the program teaches. These activities not only enhance learning but also give participants an opportunity to test and assess in a safe environment how they would feel behaving in a prosocial manner. It is essential that the roles assigned to the participants are prosocial roles. Engaging them in antisocial roles would be counterproductive.

A goal of the R&R2 programs is the development of concern for others. Concern for others can not be acquired by a didactic approach – by being told by others that it is worthwhile. It can be acquired early in life through adequate exposure to and experience with caring significant others who actually display it. It can also be acquired later in life by practicing it. The exercises in the R&R2 program engage them in expressing both understanding and concern


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for the thoughts and feelings of others and obtaining reinforcement from their peers for so doing. They also expose them to otherwise antisocial peers who are engaged in activities in which they behave as socially competent models who display both understanding and concern.

There is another way to engage antisocial individuals in prosocial activities that we discuss in the next chapter.

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Chapter 28

PROSOCIAL EXPERIENCE

We become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.

Aristotle

There is another form of fostering prosocial neural connections through prosocial experience that can be even more effective than role-playing exercises. It involves not only role-playing but role-taking.

Engaging children in prosocial behaviors is a technique that has long been known to be effective in promoting their prosocial tendencies (e.g. Barton, 1981; Staub, 1979; White, 1972). Children who are assigned responsibility to teach others or who are encouraged to participate in prosocial activities subsequently display more prosocial behavior. Assigning children responsibility for others enhances their prosocial behavior (Maruyama, Fraser, & Miller, 1982; Peterson, 1983). In fact, cross-cultural research has found that children from cultures in which youngsters are routinely assigned responsibilities for assisting others are more prosocial than children from other cultures (Whiting & Whiting, 1975).

There are also many examples of the success of programs that have engaged older individuals such as antisocial adolescents and adult offenders in prosocial activities in which they play the role of helpers for others. Before we describe these programs it may help to present our rationale for recommending such interventions in programs designed to lead antisocial individuals to adopt a prosocial life-style. There are several explanations as to why prosocial attitudes and behavior can be fostered by helping others.

Helper Therapy

Some explanations are similar to those that we suggested to account for the success of the "Peer Therapist" program in the early stages of the research project we described in earlier chapters. The program was referred to as "Helper Therapy", a term used by Riessman (1965) for his observation that you get more out of therapy if you are the therapist than if you are the patient. That is a fact to which countless therapists would attest if they honestly and objectively assessed the outcome of the therapies they have conducted. Riessman was not referring to money. Therapy for many therapists may help their financial well-being more than it helps the financial well-being of the patients who must pay their fees, but


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Riessman was referring to something non-pecuniary the good feeling that comes from helping people. The "therapist" helpers in the "Peer Therapy" program were reinforced for their prosocial activity not by monetary or other tangible rewards but by social rewards in the form of acceptance by their adolescent peers. However, their frequently voiced comments indicated that they were more strongly reinforced by the fact that their activities made them feel worthwhile. Helping others may not be selfless because helping others leads to a more favorable mental state for the helper.

Altruism was probably first created when our primitive ancestors realized that cooperation increased the odds of survival in a danger-filled environment. However, in modern times there are other rewards. For example. antisocial individuals who engage in such prosocial role-taking may be rewarded by their newly acquired feelings of prosocial competence. They feel empowered and they may develop a sense of self-efficacy. They experience a sense of acceptance and belonging in a prosocial culture. They may come to view themselves as prosocial.

You Become The Role You Play

There is another important benefit that can be obtained by helping others. Research in social psychology indicates that individuals tend to attribute to themselves characteristics of the roles they play. Bem (1967) argued that if we can subtly get people to behave in ways in which they do not normally behave, they will come to attribute to themselves the characteristics of people who usually behave in these ways. Individuals who engage in prosocial acts learn to think of themselves as prosocial, caring people (Perry & Perry, 1983). They develop a 'prosocial identity'.

If you treat an individual…as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be. Author unknown

Antisocial individuals who are led to engage in prosocial roles as helpers for others may come to see themselves in a very different light - they may come to see themselves as prosocial rather than anti-social. They begin to attribute to themselves positive, prosocial characteristics which were previously foreign to them. They also come to appreciate the value of prosocial behavior, to recognize the awards it can bring them, and to acquire social skills which can serve as alternatives to their antisocial behavior. They learn that prosocial behavior ―feels good‖.

Chapter 28: Prosocial Experience

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Although seldom explained this way, the helper therapy principle is operative in a variety of "self-help" groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Weight Watchers in which participants become advocates of alcohol avoidance or improved eating habits.

The Story Of Our Life

How individuals behave is strongly influenced by their ―scripts‖ (or their ―self-narrative‖ that they develop through their social experience that tells them who they are and why they are that way (Huesmann & Eron,1989; Maruna, 1999). They come to behave in ways that fit their narratives. Studies of the process of "desistance" demonstrates that offenders who "go straight" make pro-social sense of their lives. The research indicates that “In order to desist from crime…ex-offenders need to develop a coherent, prosocial identity for themselves” (Maruna, 2000). Providing service to others is one way individuals can change their antisocial self-narrative. One of the earliest examples of this phenomenon was the "Peer Therapist" program.

Becoming Good By Doing Good

Very often the only way to get a quality in reality is to start behaving as if you had it already

C.S. Lewis

The institutionalized antisocial adolescents who were persuaded to act as ―therapists‖ for their delinquent peers came to view themselves as prosocial problem-solvers rather than the antisocial, problem-ridden individuals they thought they were (and indeed were) before their involvement in the program. They were treated as cohorts rather than patients; as research assistants in the university's long-term research project.

It is important to note that the adolescents' participation was voluntary. They were never given any material rewards for acting as helpers. They needed to explain to themselves why they were acting in such an unaccustomed, prosocial manner. They asked themselves, "How can I explain to myself why I am engaging in helping others?" Their answer was "perhaps it is because that is the way I am".

Antisocial individuals who are led to engage in prosocial role-taking may justify their reasons for doing so by attributing to themselves characteristics of people who normally behave that way. "I must be prosocial if I behave prosocially". Engaging in prosocial


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activities leads them to change their antisocial self-identity to that of a prosocial one.

The adolescents' previous antisocial behavior had been underpinned by an "antisocial" self-narrative that they had developed as a way of making sense of the way they usually behaved – the way that they believed was the best way, or the only way to deal with their problems. It became over time their ―story‖ about how they must behave in order to cope with their environment. Their new experiences helped them to create a different ―story‖ as they began to develop a prosocial narrative and self-identity (cf. McAdams, 1993; Maruna, 1999; Sampson & Laub, 1993; Ward & Maruna, 2007).

We act 'as if' we are all the things we want to become. We act as if' we're decent and caring and bright and talented. And we eventually become these things. Mimi Silbert

Is It Better To Give Than To Receive?

It is important to realize that the adolescents' improvement was not engendered by their receiving help from their peers. It was engendered by their giving help. The improvement in the behavior of the adolescents did not occur until they actually had been assigned peer "patients" and had begun helping these other adolescents. It was by acting prosocially that they became prosocial. Perhaps it really is better to give than to receive.

Reciprocal Altruism

However, it is also important to note that they became therapists only after they had received help from their peers. Thus, their participation as "therapists" may constitute "reciprocal altruism". It was more than just direct reciprocity ("if you help me, I'll help you") since the individuals they helped when they became therapists were new residents - not the individuals who had previously helped them.

Perhaps this indicates that adolescents who have experienced very little acceptance and support and considerable rejection and maltreatment in the past can become prosocial by being helped by caring peers. Unfortunately, this did not appear to be the case in this instance – the adolescents who received the help of their peers but left the institution before they became "therapists" for others did not make much improvement in their behavior while in the institution or fare as well after release. It appears that receiving help was not as helpful as giving help.


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That conclusion is reinforced by evidence that among adolescent students engaged in peer tutoring programs and peer counselling programs in schools, those who serve as tutors and counsellors make gains in knowledge and attitudes to school; but there is little evidence of any benefit to the tutored students (Resnick & Gibbs, 1988). However, it may be that being helped by their peers may be an effective way to motivate antisocial adolescents to subsequently engage in helping others.

The Power of Positive Acting

Hans Toch (2000) has argued that many "altruistic" programs such as those that involve offenders in assisting underprivileged persons including the elderly, children, and the disabled not only assist the recipients of the services but also yield the offenders "a sense of accomplishment, grounded increments in self-esteem, meaningful purposiveness, and obvious restorative implications". He notes that such activities accord well with the principles of restorative justice. They also enable them to find a sense of community and belonging and encourage social integration rather than social exclusion (Midlarsky, 1991).

Perhaps we could learn a lesson from the substantial benefits that accrued for the institutionalized mentally ill in the 1820s when "moral treatment" was introduced to help free these "patients" from their shackles and other forms of extreme control and maltreatment. Moral treatment was based on the belief that they should be treated with kindness. However, it was more firmly based on the principle that they could spend their time helping others (Clouette & Deslandes, 1997). Would that this relatively unknown principle could have been operationalized, (or at least included) in the rationalization behind the deinstitutionalization movement that 'freed' large numbers of psychiatric patients in the modern era.

If you want to look in a crowd and find the person who is going to help someone else, look at someone who has been damaged.

Michael Levy (The lives of Heroes)

More Than Just "Feel Good Programs"

Helping others enables people to feel good not only about themselves but also about other people (Post, Underwood, Schloss & Hurlbut, 2002). Experiencing positive emotions such as kindness from helping activities can displace the helper's harmful negative emotional states such as rage, hatred, fear, depression, anxiety, anger and hostility which can trigger antisocial behavior (Post, 2005).


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The "Good Lives" Model

Some practitioners have begun to consider the use of positive psychology in offender treatment. Positive psychology emphasises the facilitation of optimal mental and physical health rather than combating dysfunctional thoughts, feelings, and behaviors (Seligman et al., 2004; Snyder & Lopez, 2001). The goal of positive psychology is to enable people to live flourishing lives with greater health, well-being, and meaning. By focusing on the strengths of happy people, positive psychology has identified factors that facilitate a more satisfying life. The factors include work, helping others, being a good citizen, developing spirituality and integrity, realizing potential, and self-regulating impulses (Seligman, 2004).

Positive Psychology is the foundation of the "Good Lives" model of offender treatment which represents a paradigm shift from deficit-based to strength-based programming (Ward & Stewart, 2003). For example, sex offenders are regarded as actively seeking those things that most people desire (e.g., intimacy) but employ inappropriate strategies. Treatment helps them identify their positive life goals, then helps them work toward achieving their goals (Marshall et al.,2005). Although still only preliminary, the available research supports this approach to sex offender treatment (e.g., Webster, 2005).

Rather than focusing on reducing criminogenic needs or risk factors, the model suggests that programs stress teaching skills and values and providing opportunities and social supports to enable offenders to improve their functioning and obtain a better quality of life. Such strength-based programs treat offenders as "community assets" and seek to provide opportunities for them to develop prosocial identities and engage in work that is helpful to others (Burnett & Maruna, 2006). Research on desistance from a criminal life-style has found that the most successful desisters changed their self-identity from that of an offender to that of a person who cares about others (Maruna, 2000).

Such an approach is far from new. The basic principles were presented in the 1960's and 1970's under the ‗New Careers Movement‘ in which, for example, poverty- stricken citizens were engaged in constructive social programs to relieve the hardships of their peers (Pearl and Riessman, 1965). Pearl (an unsuccessful U.S. Presidential candidate) suggested that "the best people to solve a social problem are the products of that social problem". Interestingly, he suggested training such individuals in the R&R program in order to equip them with skills they could apply in order to bring about positive social change (Pearl, 1989).


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A Rose by Any Other Name

If you can't say something nice, don't say nothing at all. Thumper (in the movie "Bambi")

An important component in the "Peer Therapist" program in the 1960's was what was termed "normalizing" or "depathologizing". The program staff were asked to avoid talking about their clients' behavior in pathological terms or in terms of personal deficits. Instead they focused almost exclusively on their competence, prosocial skills and personal strengths – no matter how limited they might be.

I shall always be a flower girl to Professor Higgins, because he always treats me as a flower girl, and always will, but I know I can be a lady to you because you always treat me as a lady, and always will.

Eliza Doolittle

A NEUROSCIENCE VIEW

The neuroscience evidence we have reviewed in this book that indicates that experiences in life become recorded and hard-wired in our brains in neural connections suggests that engaging in prosocial experiences may foster the development of prosocial connections in our brains that can lead us to engage in further prosocial activity. Neural connections formed by exposure to criminogenic and/or pathogenic environments can engender an antisocial life story. New prosocial experiences can yield new connections and a new prosocial life story.

Simply thinking about someone else's problems lights up the same part of the brain that gets activated when we reflect on our own problems. The compassion we feel registers in our brain's pleasure zones. Neuroscientists, Jorge Moll and his colleagues at the National Institutes of Health (2005) have now found persuasive evidence that altruistic acts activate pleasure centers in the brain that usually are activated in response to food or sex.

Helping, Health and Mental Health

Helping others can help the others but helping others may help the helpers even more. It may have significant physical and mental health benefits.

The health benefits of helping others have been touted by innumerable cliches such as "Good deeds are good medicine". There

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/National+Institutes+of+Health?tid=informline




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now is strong evidence that there is considerable substance to such cliches. For example, symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder have been found to be reduced among veterans after caring for their grandchildren (Hierholzer, 2004). Helping can also neutralize negative emotional states which cause stress and stress-related illness (e.g. Fredrickson, 2003; Sternberg, 2001).

Research in bioneurology has also established that our physiology can be changed by helping others (e.g. Post, 2007; Schloss, 2005). For example, examination of the saliva of students watching a videotape of Mother Theresa found evidence of elevation in their immunity-boosting chemicals (McClelland, McClelland, & Kirchnit, 1988). In fact, helping others can lower stress hormones (Field, Hernandez-Reif, Quintino, Schanberg & Kuhn, 1998).

Recent studies have confirmed an association between helping activities and both emotional well-being and life satisfaction (e.g. Dulin & Hill, 2003; Liang, Krause, & Bennett, 2001; Krueger, Hicks & McGue, 2001; Morrow-Howell, Hinterlonh, Rozario, & Tang, 2003). Actively engaging in helping others can also reduce feelings of depression (Musick & Wilson, 2003). Helpers can gain the good feeling of vicariously sharing the joy of the person they help (Smith, Keating, and Stotland, 1989).

Just thinking about helping can have positive physiological effects. For example, students who watched a film about Mother Theresa working with poor and sick individuals strengthened the immune system of the observers but not that of students who watched a neutral film (Edwards & Cooper, 1988).

Helping others can even substantially increase the helper's longevity. Research reviews indicate that individuals who help others may reduce their own chances of dying (Post, 2005). For example, a five year study of elderly couples found that those who provided emotional support to spouses, friends and relatives were half as likely to die over the five-year period. Another study found that among AIDS patients those who reported high levels of altruism, including helping other AIDS victims, lived longer. ―Altruistic persons live longer than egoistic individuals‖ (Sorokin 2002).

Helpers Get High

Such research supports the view that it is not what we receive from relationships that is most beneficial; it is what we give. There appears to be a "helper's high," similar to the endorphin rush that runners often experience. The "helper's high" can produce immune-enhancing biological changes.

However, the prosocial role-taking activities that our neurocriminology model proposes are not just more "self-help programs". They are "other help programs".


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Nobody should be only a receiver. If people are going to feel good and be accomplished and be part of something, they have to be doing something they can be proud of. ... So if we want them to be pro-society, then we ought to set-up the vehicles that help them to be somebody in more traditionally socially positive ways. Mimi Silbert, Delancey Street.

It Can Be Done and It Has Been Done

For more than twenty years, R&R Trainers have been advised to encourage participants to act as "helpers" for each other in the training sessions and to encourage participants to apply the skills they have learned through R&R training not only in helping other participants in the classroom but also in helping individuals in the community – paticularly individuals who are less fortunate than themselves. Too often the response of individuals who have been trained in R&R and urged to involve their trainees in such "helper therapy" activities on completion of training have taken the position that they are too difficult to arrange. It does not help to remind them that adolescents as young as twelve founded nation-wide programs that involve children helping children in need (for example the "Snug as a Bug, Kids Helping Kids" program and the internationally renowned "Free the Children" program). "Offenders are different" goes the argument. However, there is a remarkable and growing number of examples that demonstrate that "helping others" programs can be implemented even with antisocial individuals:

Adolescent Psychiatric Patients: Ross & McKay's (1979) "Peer Therapist" program not only reduced recidivism, it also eliminated self-mutilation among the adolescents in the institution who were acting as "therapists". Crabtree and Grossman (1974) achieved a major decrease in self-mutilatory behavior using a very similar intervention - they persuaded the adolescents in an adolescent psychiatric ward to help other high-risk patients.

The Equip program: A major reduction in recidivism among male delinquents was achieved in the United States in two residential settings for antisocial adolescents with a history of aggressive, disruptive and antisocial behavior through a program that included a remarkably similar approach to the "Peer Therapist" program of the 1960's. In the U.S. program, juvenile offenders were taught values and social skills which


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they used as helpers for their peers. In a 12-month post-release follow-up, recidivism for these adolescents was only 15% compared to recidivism of 40.5% for the control group (Gibbs, 1996).

Wharton Tract Narcotics Treatment Program: The success of a multifacetted program for young offenders with lengthy histories of criminal behavior and of heroin use has usually been attributed to the problem-solving component. However, it combined training in problem solving with a form of group activities in which the offenders acted as "agents of change for others". At the end of a two-year follow-up period, participants had a significantly lower rearrest rates (49% vs. 66%) than a comparison group. Moreover, those reconvicted had a lower rate of re-commitment to institutions, implying that their reoffences were of a less serious nature (Platt et al.,1980).

Uvic: Arguably, the most effective programs ever conducted in a prison was a program that provided post secondary courses in the humanites to adult prisoners with little education and long criminal histories (Duguid, 2000). As a key part of this program, prisoners acted as "teaching assistants" to their prisoner peers. The prisoners entered the program as students but later became tutors for their fellow inmates. The program re-labelled the prisoners as students then as educators rather than criminals. The prisoners could not attribute their prosocial behavior to some external rewards such as a favourable parole release decision. They came to view themselves as teachers who valued helping others learn. They became committed to prosocial behavior by advocating it to others – their prisoner/student peers. Although there were unavoidable shortcomings in the evaluation, the four year outcome in terms of reduction in recidivism was remarkable: "more than three times as many of a matched group of non participants...were reincarcerated (52%) as of the Uvic participants (14%) (Ross, 1980). Nowhere else in the criminological literature can one find such impressive results with recidivistic adult offenders.

Offenders as Researchers: Hans Toch (1997) has reported that reduced violence can accrue among violent individuals in prison by engaging them as research assistants engaged in the study of violence by their peers.

Delinquents Studying Delinquency: Bryan McKay (1979) who trained the institutionalized adolescents in the "Peer


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Therapist" program, has pointed to the benefits in terms of reduced delinquency that were obtained by having delinquents on probation act as research assistants in the study of delinquency.

Therapeutic Community: A classic example of engaging offenders in helping roles is the many therapeutic communities (TC's) that have been implemented in prisons, secure hospitals, and institutional and community settings for drug abusers (e.g. De Leon, 2000; Cullen, 1997). Meta-analyses indicate that TC's have reduced recidivism for incarcerated substance-abuse offenders (Aos et al.,2006,b; Lipton et al.,2002). Outcome studies of prison-based TC programs with community after-care have reduced both recidivism and drug use (Knight, Simpson, & Hiller, 1999; Martin, Butzin, Saum, & Inciardi, 1999; Wexler, Melnick, Lowe, & Peters, 1999). There are also a few controlled studies that have reported positive outcomes for TC's in drug treatment settings (e.g. Falkin, Wexler, & Lipton, 1992). Athough they involved only small samples of participants, two rigorous studies have indicated the value of Therapeutic Community programs for mentally-ill offenders. (Sacks, Sacks, McKendrick, Banks & Stommel, 2004; Van Stelle & Moberg, 2004).

However, metanalyses also highlight the many problems

involved in evaluating TC's (Lees, Manning & Rawlings, 2004). For example, since TC's are designed to involve the whole "community" of patients (and staff…) it is difficult to obtain an untreated sample. Moreover, among the many in-prison TC's, attempts are made to introduce multiple changes in the organization, management and culture of the prison. It is difficult to determine the relative contribution of such contextual factors to outcome. Many provide a wide range of programs services and it is difficult to determine the relative contribution to outcome of any one of them. For example, the TC program in Grendon prison in the U.K. has yielded decreases in recidivism (Cullen, 1997; Marshall, 1997; Wilson & McCabe, 2002). However, this institution also provides a form of Psychodrama which, as we will argue later, may contribute significantly to the outcome.

Although in Therapeutic communities the participants are expected to function as helpers for their peers, there is seldom any training provided for these helpers that could equip them with skills or values to effectively play such helping roles. Perhaps that is why the average reduction in recidivism of in-prison T.C. programs has only been found to be between 5.3% and 6.9% (Aos, Miller & Drake, 2006).


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TwelveSteps: The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) involves recovering alcoholics in helping in the recovery of other alcoholics and doing so without any tangible reward. The AA literature suggests that ―he discovers that by the divine paradox of this kind of giving he has found his own reward, whether his brother has yet received anything or not‖ (AA Big Blue Book, 1952). There is mounting evidence from controlled evaluations and no shortage of anecdotal evidence and personal testimony that attests to the benefits for the ‗helper addict‘ in terms of their own recovery. There is also anecdotal evidence that smoking cessation programs and weight reduction programs work best when participants become ‗evangelists‘ against obesity or smoking. Similarly, there is persuasive though only anecdotal evidence that smoking cessation programs and weight reduction programs work best when participants become "evangelists" against obesity or smoking.

Delancey Street: The well known Delancey Street program is an example of programs that engage offenders or substance-abusing residents in helping others in the community. Delancey residents work with senior citizens, juveniles from poor areas and people who are disabled, and they contribute to the community in myriad ways, including running a food-distribution service for 60 charitable organizations in the San Francisco area. The program takes the position that "This is about people helping each other. It's not enough in life to take care of yourself ...Life isn't just about you".

Offenders as Caretakers: Many institutions have implemented programs in which inmates ‗work‘ as volunteers in helping developmentally delayed children, handicapped, long-tem institutionalized schizophrenic patients or other individuals who have more problems that they have themselves. These programs demonstrate one way whereby individuals can change their own antisocial self-narrative. Careful screening is obviously required for such helping assignments as is careful supervision.

Prison Listeners: There are currently more than 1,500 prisoners in 153 prisons in the UK and the Republic of Ireland who have been Samaritan trained as "Listeners" who offer 24-hour support to fellow prisoners in distress.

Pet Therapists: A growing number of institutions engage offenders in caring for and training stray or abandoned pets


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that would otherwise be ―put to sleep‖. However, it is not only the pets that benefit. Animals have been shown to significantly reduce the prisoners' feelings of isolation and frustration (Moneymaker & Strimple, 1991). Caring for pets yields prisoners a sense of importance and of being needed. Most dogs give unconditional, non-judgmental love and acceptance and offer spontaneous affection and undying loyalty (Cusack, 1988). The offenders learn that caring is something they can do without fear of rejection, and they learn that caring feels good.

There are many prison pet programs in such countries as

Canada, United States, England, Scotland, Australia, and South Africa. The pets include not only dogs but cats, birds, mice, guinea pigs, birds, fish, horses, farm animals, and exotic animals.

The sanitized Hollywood movie depiction of the Birdman of Alcatraz depicted how his violent behavior was curbed when he began caring for birds. There are many other anecdotal reports of the benefits of such programs. For example, the Bird Hand-Rearing Project in Pollsmoor Prison, one of the most notorious correctional facilities in South Africa that houses hardened criminals and dangerous gangs involves prisoners serving long sentences (usually for violent and serious crimes) who hand-raise exotic birds. Caring for another creature has led the offenders to become more caring themselves.

There have been a few controlled, empirically based studies of "Pet Projects16. For example, a study conducted in a forensic hospital in Ohio compared two wards, identical except that one had pets and one did not. It was found that the medication level doubled in the ward without pets, as did the incidence of violence and suicide attempts (Lee, 1983).

The "Pawsitive Directions Canine Program" at the Nova Institution for Women in Canada teaches the women a non-punitive dog obedience training method (operant conditioning) which they then apply in training unwanted rescue dogs which are subsequently returned to the community as family pets or assistance dogs for disabled persons. A comprehensive evaluation indicated that the canine program not only provides the dogs with loving carers, but also improves the offenders' self-esteem; self-discipline; patience and empathy. Moreover, it produces positive changes in the institutional environment and contributes positively to other institutional programs. The program is closely linked with the R&R program and thus enables

16 For a review see Lai, J. (1998). Literature Review: Pet Facilitated Therapy in Correctional Institutions. Ottawa, ON: Correctional Service Canada.


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the women to apply, and obtain reinforcement for using key cognitive skills taught in the R&R program such as problem solving, alternative thinking, responding to the feelings of others, verbal communication, and consequential thinking in their work with the dogs (Richardson-Taylor & Blanchette, 2001). Hopefully, research will eventually find evidence that the offenders' animal caring activity generalizes to their interactions with humans after release.

Court-ordered Community Service is one way to engage antisocial individuals in prosocial role-taking activities. However, the potential benefit to the individual of serving the community may be compromised if the activities they are assigned are demeaning. Cutting grass as part of a chain gang on a golf course in Florida might help golfers find their errant golf balls but it is unlikely to have much rehabilitative impact on the offenders.

If the community service order is presented only as punishment, participants are likely to attribute their prosocial role-taking not to their prosocial motivation but to a court order. However, many community service order workers relate to offenders in a manner that is fully in accord with the empathic understanding, genuineness, positive regard and respect, warmth, and concreteness of expression that are essential in producing constructive client change. Prosocial role-taking can occur in many supervised assignments that involve worthwhile service that clearly benefits people in the community. The social service and not only the sanction should be what is stressed.

The community services that the offenders are assigned need not involve them in directly working with people. It is interesting to note that few of the reviews of the efficacy of community service orders have assessed outcome in relation to the type of service that the offenders provide.


It is important to note that it is rare for programs that engage prisoners, patients or other clients in helping roles to equip the helpers with the requisite skills to effectively perform such roles. Engaging antisocial individuals in helping activities with others is unlikely to be helpful either for their 'clients' or themselves if they do not have the social/cognitive/emotional skills and values that are required for prosocial competence. Training them in such skills should precede their engagement in prosocial role-taking (cf. Gibbs, Potter, Barriga & Liau, 1996). The R&R2 program provides an empirically-based, highly structured, and manualized program that provides such training.

Part of the rationale for the prosocial role-taking activities we recommend is that programs for offenders often have disappointing results because, with the best of intentions, they emphasize their


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problems rather than their strengths. When a program places individuals in the "offender role" or the "victim role" they often come to believe that characteristics associated with those roles are enduring characteristics of themselves and behave in accordance with their perception. Thus, when we treat offenders as victims rather than victimizers we may lead them to view themselves as helpless and powerless. Treating offenders as victims can also unintentionally feed their egocentricity. A primary goal of the R&R program is to combat egocentricity. It seeks to help offenders to decrease their self-centredness and increase their concern for others.

Focusing on their shortcomings or their victimization may inadvertently reinforce their attempts to avoid taking responsibility for their actions. This does not mean that their behavior cannot be attributed to environmental, cultural and economic factors. Such factors must be recognized and acknowledged both by the offender and the Trainer. In fact, by acquiring prosocial thinking and emotional skills, the offenders may be better able to identify and understand how these past and current factors have influenced them in their choice of an antisocial life-style. However, the R&R2 programs aim to help offenders realize that they are not destined to remain victims of their background circumstances but can become self-determined individuals who are personally responsible for what happens to themselves.

It is curious that, although they extoll the value of human service being provided by staff, few "What Works" proponents have strongly advocated that human service be provided by the offenders. Doing so would be fully in accord with the social learning model they extol. It is interesting that in a very brief response he made to a "pre-obituary tribute" for his life-long contributions to effective practice in offender rehabilitation, one of the first and most influential "What Works" experts chose to include the following:

the inmates produced toys…for children in institutions in Smiths Falls and Brockville, Ontario. It was a heartwarming enterprise that reduced the most hardened of inmates and staff to tears when the gifts were being handed out.

Paul Gendreau, 2006.

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Chapter 29

RETHINKING THE COGNITIVE MODEL

The cognitive model of offender rehabilitation and delinquency prevention proposed that an individual‘s offending behavior could be reduced by training in social cognitive skills and values. The model was based on empirical research that indicated that many offenders evidence what were referred to as ―deficits‖ in specific cognitive skills and values that are essential to successful social adjustment. It was also based on evidence that programs that had been successful in the rehabilitation of offenders included some component that could improve such skills and values.

Second Thoughts About Cognition

More recent research that we have reviewed in the preceding chapters both supports and clarifies the link between cognition and offending behavior. However, the research has persuaded us to ―think again‖ about the adequacy of the cognitive model. Recent research on the relation between social cognition and antisocial behavior; research on emotion; research on social emotional development; research on automatic thinking; research on offender treatment programs; and research in social cognitive neuroscience demand a revision and an extension of the cognitive model and the programs that it spawned.

We have indicated in previous chapters some of the implications of the research for programs for the treatment of offending behavior and for the treatment of a variety of other forms of antisocial behavior. In the present chapter we discuss some of the principles derived from that research that have guided our revisions of the cognitive model. In the following chapter we indicate how these principles have guided modifications of one program - the Reasoning and Rehabilitation program for prevention and treatment of antisocial behavior.

From Deficits To Developments

The 1985 model focussed on ―deficits‖ that were presumed to be antisocial risk factors that increase the probability that an individual will become involved in crime or delinquency. The revised model is based on a different perspective. Rather than assuming that ―deficits‖ put the individual at risk of adopting an antisocial life-style, it assumes that prosocial skills and values are prosocial protective factors that enable an individual to withstand the antisocial effects of exposure to


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an environment of deprivation, parental and/or peer criminality, inadequate schooling, substance abuse, chronic unemployment, parental discord, and/or authoritarian, abusive or neglectful parenting. Individuals who have developed these skills but are raised in an environment that provides opportunities for education and gainful employment may be able to function without engaging in antisocial behavior. However, individuals who have not yet developed such skills and are raised in antisocial or criminogenic conditions are likely to be at considerable risk of acquiring an antisocial or criminal life-style. Many antisocial individuals develop a prosocial life-style as they gradually acquire such skills through life experience. Many others need to be helped to acquire them through program interventions.

Thus, the objective of the interventions we propose is less a process of repair than a process of growth and prosocial development. It is easier to teach new behaviors than to extinguish old behaviors – particularly behaviors that we do not know how to extinguish. Rather than unlearning antisocial habits we recommend helping them to overlearn prosocial behaviors.

Not a Pathology Model

We have returned to adopt the perspective that led to the development of the effective "Peer Therapist" program for the institutionalized adolescents we described in Chapter 2. Rather than treating them as problem-ridden individuals whose antisocial behaviors were responsive to some underlying personal psychopathology, they were taught skills and engaged in prosocial experiences that enabled them to acquire a prosocial personal identity.

Promote and Protect

Our new perspective is in line with the shift that has ocurred across the social service field. The prevention and intervention focus in the 1990's moved from an emphasis on problem behaviors to an emphasis on the promotion of protective factors and to the concept of positive youth development (Catalano, Berglund, Ryan, Lonczak & Hyawkins, 1998; Pittman, O‘Brien & Kimball, 1993). The view that is now being widely advocated is that the successful transition from childhood to adulthood requires more than the avoidance of drugs, violence, or precocious sexual activity. The promotion of children's social, emotional, behavioral, and cognitive development has come to be seen as key (Elias, Weissberg, Zins, Kendall, Dodge, Jason, Rotheram-Borus, Perry, Hawkins & Gottfredson, 1996). This perspective has led to a call for a greater emphasis on positive

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approaches that seek to engender healthy development; that are concerned with the whole person; that focus on the achievement of developmental tasks; and that focus on positive interactions of the individual with family, school, neighborhood, society, and culture (Catalano et al.,1998). A similar paradigm shift occurred in the Health field in 1946 when the constitution of the World Health Organization defined health as "a state of physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease‖ (WHO, 1996). Health, not disease, was proposed as the target of the WHO.

There is now a considerable body of research on the developmental etiology not only of problem behaviors but also of positive behaviors (Hawkins, Catalano & Miller, 1992; Kellam, Rebok, Ialongo & Mayer, 1994). There are also many successful outcome reports from rigorous controlled evaluations of positive youth development programs (e.g., Greenberg, 2006; Hahn, Leavitt & Aaron, 1994; Weissberg & Caplan, 1998).

The criminal justice field has also started to shift from an emphasis on risk-focused interventions that target intervention at the individual‘s ―deficits‖, ―criminality‖ or ―criminogenic needs‖ to an emphasis on positive prosocial development (Owers, 2007; Bazemore, Zaslaw & Riester, 2005; Umbreit, Vos, Coates & Lightfoot, 2005). Without denying the salience of "risk" factors, the focus of prevention and rehabilitation is gradually moving from attempting to achieve behavior change by targetting intervention efforts at youth‘s personal shortcomings, to a strength-based focus on helping them develop prosocial competence; from reducing risk factors to promoting protective growth factors. Our revised model and the new R&R2 programs are in accord with this movement.

Efficacious Delinquency

Our perspective is also in accord with recent views of delinquent behavior that suggest that antisocial behavior is a device used by adolescents to cope with the problems they face in their social environment. Their delinquency may be a successful, though short-term adaptation to family and other environmental shortcomings, stresses and problems. It yields them a range of benefits including feelings of power and control. Through their oppositional behavior they can affirm their autonomy and independence in the face of adult authority (Agnew 1997; Moffitt 1993; Tittle 1995). Antisocial behavior may represent a corrective action in response, for example, to negative family relations (Agnew, 1992). It enables the adolescent to express hostility, resentment and anger or obtain retaliation or revenge by generating anxiety, fear and dismay in adults particularly those whom they feel have rejected,


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abused or over-controlled them or have failed to show respect for them. Antisocial behavior may represent a means of goal attainment.

Rather than viewing antisocial behavior as non-utilitarian, we view it as effective - at least in the short-term. We view antisocial problem solving as a conscious and rational response to what the individual may feel, and often is, a noxious, oppressive or overcontrolling environment. Their antisocial behavior is a goal-oriented attempt to cope with adversity (cf. Tedeschi & Felson 1994; Thoits 1994). Antisocial behavior is a short-term, adaptive response that enables them to alleviate undesirable states and, as a result, is reinforced and strengthened. Because such behaviors are often immediately self-reinforcing, they tend to persist (Brezina 1996; Wood et al.,. 1997).

Surveys of offenders have indicated that engaging in antisocial deviant and/or risky behavior may be one way that they can obtain some ―meaning to their lives‖ and achieve a sense of self-determination and accomplishment (Wood et aI., 1997). From this perspective, even violence can be considered to be an effective way of controlling the behavior of others, ending their aversive treatment, and deterring those who are considered to be harmdoers (Anderson 1994; Tedeschi & Felson 1994). Rather than viewing the behavior of offenders and other antisocial individuals as symptoms of deep-rooted personality shortcomings, we view their behavior as a way of enabling them to cope with criminogenic or pathological social environmental factors. We view them not simply as problem-ridden individuals who appear to be impulsive, non-empathetic, and egocentric, who behave without consideration of consequences for themselves or others, who fail to think of alternative ways of dealing with problems and who repeatedly engage in behaviors that yield them little gain and considerable pain. Instead, we view them as problem-solvers who are coping with their environment in the way that they have learned and in the way that has been modelled for them. Consistent with social learning theory, we view their behavior and the thinking that underlies it as their way of adapting to an environment in which prosocial skills are seldom modelled and even less frequently encouraged.

The Short And The Long Of It

Although their antisocial conduct may provide short-term relief, it exacts a high price in social relationships with parents, teachers, peers, employers, and others. Violence and aggression and other antisocial behaviors often work quite well at least in the short-term. However, antisocial adolescents may be "mortgaging their future" by such behavior (Brezina 1999).


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Their antisocial coping style may later exact a high price in terms of limited educational attainment, future unemployment and financial insecurity. Over time, their antisocial coping may exacerbate their problems. However, concern about such matters requires a future time orientation; but many antisocial individuals must devote their interests and energy to present concerns. Moreover, many antisocial individuals possess few stakes or investments in conventional relations (Gottfredson & Hirschi 1990). Accordingly, they are unlikely to be deterred from engaging in antisocial or criminal behavior by the negative, longer term consequences that can deter non-offenders such as the potential effects of their behavior on their close relationships (e.g. Tittle, 1995). This perspective has also been applied to the understanding of substance abuse among adolescents. Several researchers in this area have referred to drug abuse as a ―drug-based coping strategy‖, or a form of ―self-medication‖ that enables youths "to escape from problems"; "to relieve nervousness"; "to relax"; "to get along in the world"; "to make them more popular with their friends"; and "so people would like them" (e.g. Novacek et al., 1991; Weiss et al., 1992). Analysis of the self-reports of several thousand adolescents found the "day-to-day struggle to cope" to be a consistent theme in users' accounts of regular drug and alcohol use (Novacek et al.,1991). The ingestion of even moderate amounts of alcohol and other drugs can reduce psychological distress and feelings of alienation (Lipton 1994; Weiss et al., 1992).

We drank for joy and became miserable. We drank to help us sleep and became exhausted. We drank for exhilaration - and ended up depressed. We drank to diminish our problems and saw them multiply.

(author unknown)

Lack of Opportunity

Our perspective begs the question as to why antisocial individuals do not use more prosocial coping strategies that might be just as efficacious as their antisocial behaviors both in the short and long-term. One possible explanation is that prosocial strategies may not be effective and at times may not even be possible in the environment in which they live. Their antisocial choices may not simply indicate that they lack the ability to think of prosocial alternatives. It may be that there are none. Some young people lack legitimate prosocial means of control in an impoverished, rejecting or overcontrolling adult environment and may have little choice but to


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seek control through antisocial means (Tittle,1995; Agnew 1992; Brezina 1996; Messerschmidt 1993).

An alternative view is that they may not have learned prosocial coping strategies. If they have, they may not believe that they can be effective. Accordingly, they not only need to be taught the strategies, they also need to be persuaded that they can ―work‖, and they need to be motivated to use them. Those are goals of the new R&R2 programs.

Persisting or Desisting

A substantial proportion of the adolescent population have engaged in delinquent acts. As many as 80% have done so, but if unrecorded offences are included, the rate is closer to 100% (Farrington, 1998b). However, very few adolescents continue to engage in offending behavior in adulthood. Delinquency for most is time-limited (Steffensmeier & Allan 1995). The "aging-out" phenomenon may occur only for those who have come to acquire effective prosocial skills. The antisocial behavior of others may persist into adulthood because for a variety of reasons, they have yet to acquire prosocial alternatives (Moffit, 1993b).

Prosocial Development

The developmental pathways into persistent antisocial behavior and criminality are complex. All the pathways that have been identified share a common characteristic - that the individual is learning anti-social values, attitudes, and behaviors and this is done at the expense of the development of pro-social values, attitudes, and behaviors (Lahey, Moffitt & Caspi, 2003; Piquero, Farrington,& Blumstein, 2007; Thornberry & Krohn, 2003).

Social-cognitive factors play an important role in the development. For example, it has been shown that a hostile attributional bias predicts aggressive behavior from early childhood to late adolescence (e.g. Lochman & Dodge, 1994). The same is true for aggressive and ineffective social problem solving strategies (e.g. Lochman & Dodge, 1994; Pakaslahti & Keltikangas-Jarvinen, 1996).

Loeber & LeBlanc (1990) refer to an antisocial developmental pattern that leads to repeated delinquency. We are more interested in development that leads to repeated prosocial behavior.

Most of the basic skills necessary for prosocial competence are learned during early childhood. However, human brains do not reach their full growth and maximal capacity to execute mental processes until adolescence or beyond (Leiner, Leiner & Dow, 1986). Mastery of the skills required for prosocial competence often


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does not occur until later adolescence. Early development of social-cognitive skills may reduce the likelihood of conduct disorder and aggression in children both of which are related to the onset of delinquency (e.g. Loeber, 1991; McCord, 1991; Tremblay & Craig, 1995). The development may contribute to the avoidance of antisocial behavior in adolescence and adulthood (Farrington, 1997; Moffitt, 1993; Robins, 1991). It also may prevent school failure; engagement with delinquent peer-groups; substance abuse; employment difficulties; unstable relationships, financial mismanagement, difficulties in accomodation and even health problems that can lead to re-offending (May, 1999).

Person/Situation Interaction

A major shortcoming of the 1985 cognitive model is that it failed to give sufficient weight to the interaction between person and situation variables. Prosocial competence is a learned skill and its acquisition is strongly influenced not only by personal factors but also by environmental factors. However, the interaction between them must not be under-emphasized. Individual personal factors modify children's vulnerability to antisocial environments. For example, as we noted earlier, the effect of impulsivity on the frequency of violent and theft offences is not significant in good neighborhoods but very large in the worst neighborhoods. It is the impulsive children from poor neighborhoods who are at greatest risk for becoming serious juvenile offenders. Impulsive boys have been found to be at great risk for offending in the poorest neighborhoods, but impulsivity poses little risk for delinquency in better neighborhoods (Lynam et al., 2000).

Several behavioral-genetic studies of aggression and crime have shown that a genetic liability to crime is potentiated in criminogenic home environments (e.g. Cadoret, Yates, Troughton, Woodworth & Stewart, 1995). However, adoption studies have shown that children who have a criminal biological parent (one of the risk factors for delinquency) are less likely to evidence conduct disturbances and delinquency if they are reared in a noncriminogenic environment (Cadoret et al.,1995). Some person factors may protect children from environmental risk. For example, longitudinal studies have found that high IQ is a protective factor against criminality among youths at high risk for crime (e.g. Kandel, Mednick, Kirkegaard-Sorenson, Hutchings, Knop, Rosenberg, & Schulsinger, 1988; White, Moffitt, & Silva, 1989).

Development of an Antisocial Brain

The neurocriminology model assumes that antisocial and criminal behaviors are a function of interactions among multiple


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neurocognitive and neurobehavioral systems that are shaped by environmental, situational and experiential events. Our experiences, our observations, our thoughts and our feelings are registered in connections among neurons in our brain. The unique network of connections that is shaped in our brain by our history of interaction with our environment forms the script for the story of our lives that determines who we are, how we perceive, how we interpret, how we feel about and how we react to our physical and social environment. All our observations and experiences create neuronal connections that are stored in our brains and direct our emotions, our thoughts and our behavior throughout our lives unless and until alternative connections are developed. Neuroscience studies have determined that the effects on the developing brain of being exposed to adverse socio-environmental conditions can permanently impact the development of the brain and foster the development of antisocial emotions, attitudes and values that lead to antisocial behavior. However, neuroplasticity makes change possible. New connections that confirm our identity or revise it can be created by new observations and experiences during childhood, adolescence and adulthood. Our brain can become a unique record of our future.

Development of a Prosocial Brain

Research conducted over the past 20 years has yielded a much deeper understanding of the protective factors that lead individuals to refrain from, or desist from antisocial behavior – prosocial growth factors. The prosocial growth factors include not only cognitive factors but also environmental, social, familial, educational, emotional and neurological factors. The research has yielded an understanding of how we can help antisocial individuals develop new neural pathways that will engender not antisocial but prosocial feelings, thoughts, behaviors and values. Our review of the research indicates how that can be achieved by particular forms of program interventions. The interventions we suggest are based, in part, on the neurocriminology models' assumption that the brain's plasticity and its potential for life-long development means that whereas experience with criminogenic factors launch a trajectory toward an antisocial life-style, prosocial experiences can impact the development of the brain such that the trajectory is re-directed toward a prosocial life-style and what we refer to as a "prosocial brain". Neuroscience research has made it clear that human behavior is controlled and directed by at least two systems – the relatively emotion-free, conscious, deliberative, controlled and rational system (RT); and the emotion-laden, preconscious automatic system (AT). The research demonstrates that our behavior is triggered not only by


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our neo-cortex which is that area of the brain where we consciously and rationally make decisions, but also by deeper regions in the brain that are not readily impacted by cognitive training because they are not readily accessible to cognitive intervention. Cognitive training can improve the functioning of the rational system, but only to a limited extent can it regulate the powerful automatic system that, usually without our awareness, is most responsible for our everyday behavior and our emotions. Interventions are required that target not only the RT system but also the AT system. Relying on cognitive behavioral treatment alone will not get the job done.

In the next chapter we discuss the operationalization of the neurocriminology principles in rehabilitation programs.

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Chapter 30

RETHINKING THE R&R PROGRAM The research we reviewed in the preceding chapters led us to

take 'Time to Think Again' about the rehabilitative potential of the cognitive behavioral Reasoning and Rehabilitation program. Although evaluations of the R&R program have found substantial evidence of its efficacy, there is also evidence of its failure. Our development of new editions of the program is responsive to the lessons learned from those evaluations, but is also based on research published since R&R was first developed – research on the relationship between social cognition and offending; research on emotions and emotional values; research on ―what works‖; research on desistance; and research on social cognitive neuroscience. Our development of new editions of R&R was also guided by feedback from close to one thousand R&R Trainers and agency managers on practical matters related to the delivery of R&R such as program length; the human resource requirements for delivery; the length and costs of training; attendance problems; and the participants' (and Trainers') motivation. Our development of new editions of the program was also informed by research that indicated that the factors that are the focus of the new editions of the program are factors that are also known to be associated with other forms of antisocial behavior.

THE RT COMPONENT

It is important to teach antisocial individuals to become reflective rather than reactive or impulsive; to become problem-oriented and solution-focused, aware of and considerate of the views of others; and to become flexible, creative, open-minded, rational and deliberative in their thinking. Programs must help participants develop skilled thinking and behaving. More than twenty years of research has yielded information on the most effective ways to teach the social cognitive and behavioral skills that are essential for prosocial competence. These lessons have guided the improved training techniques that we have incorporated in the new R&R2 programs to teach the following overlapping prosocial skills:

problem solving

nonverbal communication

decision-making

creative thinking

critical reasoning


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social perspective taking

interpersonal skills

conflict management

negotiation

prosocial values

The skills are taught not by a didactic approach but by an approach that emphasizes experiential learning through engaging in cognitive exercises, constructive controversy, competition, games, neurobics, prosocial role-playing and drama.

The approach we take in the new R&R2 programs is to have participants learn by having them experience using prosocial reasoning by playing the role of a teacher who teaches the skills they are taught in the program to help other participants. The new programs also engage participants in role-playing exercises in which they are asked to assume the role of someone whose beliefs are prosocial and opposite to their own and, while playing that role, they are asked to attempt to justify the prosocial beliefs that they normally reject.

Neurobics

The impulsivity of many antisocial individuals, including adolescent and adult offenders, is a function of underlying developmental physiological or neurological factors particularly those associated with attention and short-term memory. Their impulsivity may not just reflect that they are unable or unwilling to withold their response to stimuli but that they do not adequately attend to the stimuli in the first place. Inattention is a key risk factor for both substance abuse and antisocial behavior (Klinteberg et al.,1993). It is not likely that an individual will heed a warning sign or recall the negative consequences of their previous behaviors if their inattentiveness prevents them from realizing that there is a warning sign, or prevents them from realizing that there are any potential negative consequences. Many fail to attend to social and situational cues. They often miss important ones and tend to make use only of the more stimulating ones. Developing participants' attentional skills is a key component in most of the R&R2 programs. Many of the training techniques included in the programs are based on neuroscience research on neurobic "Brain Training" exercises that have been found to be effective for aging brains but can be of benefit to everyone at all stages of the lifespan by fostering attention and memory skills that are required for prosocial competence in school, employment, and all interpersonal activities.

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The AT Component

The program must teach rational "RT" thinking. However, the brain does more than reasoning. The R&R2 programs are designed to impact not just the participants' "Rational Mind" but also their "Automatic mind" by means of a variety of techniques including the following:

Know Thyself

Self-monitoring: It is unlikely that participants will learn that they can learn to manage their automatic thoughts and feelings unless they become aware of them. Accordingly, a key element of interventions is helping participants recognize that much of the thinking, feeling, evaluating and behaving that leads to their antisocial behavior is triggered (usually without their awareness) by automatic thoughts and emotions that stem from their AT mind. They must also learn that in order to control such triggers they must first attend to them and then clearly and accurately identify them. They must also be led to realize that they are the originators of these triggers and not simply the victims of them. The goal is to help them put their AT feelings and thoughts into words so they can be dealt with by their RT.

Key elements in teaching them self-monitoring is making them aware of their self-talk (often for the first time); helping them recognize when their self-talk is antisocial; and teaching them how they can replace it with prosocial self-talk.

Emotional Recognition. Rather than excluding emotions as is done in many cognitive behavioral programs, participants are taught to pay attention to them, identify them, appropriately express them, and use them effectively. Teaching introspection is a first step in the direction of helping them acquire recognition of their emotions. Many antisocial individuals are not even aware that they have emotions – except anger. Many do not realize that their emotions have a very powerful controlling impact on their attitudes and their behavior. Accordingly, techniques are included to help them to recognize their emotions and accurately identify them. They are helped to understand that their emotions can have negative impact on their thoughts and behavior but can also have benefits, for example, by slowing dowm or energizing their behavior.

There is another reason for training antisocial individuals in emotional recognition. Neuroscience research has recently found both an explanation for something that counsellors have long assumed: identifying and articulating our emotions - putting our feelings into words - can make us feel better. Putting feelings into words can weaken fear, sadness and anger indicating that learning to identify


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and communicate one's feelings may be therapeutic (Lieberman, Eisengerger, Crockett, Tom, Pfeifer & Way, 2007). The research demonstrates that when individuals label their emotion, their amygdalae become less active whereas their right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex becomes more active. The latter region acts as an alarm centre in the brain that has been implicated in controlling emotion and inhibiting behavior. As Lieberman (2007) puts it: "In the same way you hit the brake when you‘re driving when you see a yellow light, when you put feelings into words, you seem to be hitting the brakes on your emotional responses‖.

Evidence of the efficacy of training emotional recognition and labeling was found in a recent study which included having school children use "feeling faces" cards throughout the day to indicate clearly to others what emotions they were experiencing. A randomized experimental study in which children were taught to label their own and other children's emotions led to improved social competence and less behavioral and emotional problems over a one year period (Greenberg, 2006).

The new R&R teaches participants to accurately identify all of their emotions (both positive and negative) and to keep clearly and predominantly in their mind both the occasions and situations when they experienced positive prosocial feelings and how they can return to such occasions either in vivo or in their imagination. Even antisocial individuals have such "magic moments". Emotional Regulation: A variety of techniques are included to enable participants to acquire skills in regulating their emotions – not just their anger but many other emotions both negative (e.g. sadness); and positive (e.g. excitement) that can lead them to engage in antisocial behavior. Having taught them to attend to and correctly identify their emotions, they are then taught not only how to reduce the strength of these emotions but also to maintain them at levels that can be beneficial. This is accomplished by a three-pronged approach:

training them in several brief relaxation methods that have been found to appeal to many otherwise uncooperative participants.

Training them in "Mindfulness Meditation", a technique that is based on Buddha's teaching that has been practiced for more than two thousand years. They are taught to "live in the moment" as they focus their attention on the emotions, thoughts and sensations they are experiencing without judging them or reacting to them. They are taught to just observe and label them. Neuroscientists have recently found the neurological mechanism that may be responsible for why ―mindfulness meditation‖ may effectively improve a wide variety of pathological mental and


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physical conditions and diseases. They have found that it increases activity in the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and reduces activation in the amygdala (Creswell, Way, Eisenberger & Lieberman, 2007).

training them to articulate their emotions – to "give their emotions a voice" by recognizing, identifying, labeling and appropriately expressing them in words. Neuroscience research has shown that accurately putting feelings into words can weaken negative emotions.

SOCIAL PERSPECTIVE TAKING

It is difficult for individuals to recognize the thoughts and feelings of others if they do not recognize and manage their own. The same neural mechanisms are involved in both. Accordingly, the program begins with self-monitoring and self-control to provide a base for "other monitoring" or social perspective-taking and empathy.

The Feelings of Others

The program goal is not only to teach recognition and regulation of one's own emotions but also the emotions of others. They are taught to become aware of their feelings in order to distinguish between their feelings and thoughts and those of others. Social perspective-taking is essential in effectively handling the emotional aspects of interpersonal relationships. Neuroscientists have shown that identifying the emotions of others activates biological responses that are known to protect the body when we face danger (Lieberman et al., 2007). Recognizing and labelling the emotions of others actually decreases the response in the amygdala. This occurs even when the stimulus object is not a person but only a photograph of the person displaying emotion. It even occurs subliminally – when the photo is presented so fast that the observer cannot see it.

Leading participants to move beyond their egocentric perspectives is a primary goal of all of the program sessions. However, several training sessions are specifically designed with that goal in mind:

Non-Verbal Communication Training: after teaching participants to attend to and identify their own emotions, the emphasis is shifted to leading them to attend to and accurately identify the thoughts and emotions of others. This is achieved in part by teaching skills in interpreting nonverbal communication (e.g. through facial expressions, tone of voice, gesture). The training is also designed to help them realize that body language can easily be misinterpreted (e.g. misattribution of hostility). Many


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antisocial individuals evidence difficulty in recognizing the emotions expressed in bodily (particularly facial) expressions of emotions. Not only offenders but also children with conduct problems have such difficulties (Stevens et al.,2001). Although they are taught to understand the non-verbal behaviors of others that may indicate how they feel, and to realize how their own non-verbal behavior is likely to be interpreted (and frequently misinterpreted) by others, the primary purpose of the module is to engage the offenders in activities that require that they think about the feelings of others. By asking them to carefully observe the non-verbal cues of others and to try to ascertain what the cues indicate the others are feeling, it subtly leads them to engage in social perspective-taking. Training involves not didactic, information giving but experiential learning through role-playing.

Constructive Controversy: engaging participants in challenging and emotionally provocative, but guided and highly concentrated group discussions on controversial issues. The exercises constitute "constructive controversy" through which they are led to realize that the thinking and feeling and perspectives of others may be incompatible with their own and then are led to consider the advantages and disadvantages of the views of the others. The emphasis is not on harmony but on controversy, which may or may not lead to agreement. Studies of cooperative learning provide evidence of the role of cognitive conflict in facilitating cognitive growth (Johnson, Brooker, Stutzman, Hultman, & Johnson, 1985). Students who are encouraged to disagree and to challenge the thinking of their peers score higher on subsequent measures of perspective-taking than students who are encouraged to seek agreement and avoid disagreement. Conflict can create growth. Cognitive development may require conflict.

Socratic Questioning: Trainers frequently engage in socratic dialogues with participants that are similar to the inductive interventions that they should have been exposed to at home during their formative years and during their adolescence. The goal is to have them realize the emotional and other benefits for themselves and others not only of manners, rules and laws but of prosocial behavior in general.

Victim Awareness Training: Participants are presented with social dilemmas which involves one or more ‗victims‘ not only of crime but of various adverse circumstances or personal hardships and they are led to identify and discuss the feelings of the victims


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and to engage in role-playing in order to vicariously experience those feelings.

EMOTIONAL COMPETENCE

Participants are taught not only to understand how other individuals think and feel. They also learn to express their understanding in an acceptable way so that the others realize that they are attempting to understand them. Too many programs are limited to fostering empathy without teaching offenders how to express empathy. The R&R2 programs accomplish this not only by frequently asking participants ―how do you think others feel‖ but also by frequently inquiring ― how could you tell the person what you think they are feeling‖. Participants are engaged in role-playing exercises through which they acquire skills in responding appropriately to their own emotions and those of others. Expressing their emotions in a prosocial manner and effectively reacting to the emotions of others with empathy and concern can aid in developing and maintaining close personal relationships. The program goal is to enable not only their thinking but also their feelings to become more skilled, more positive and more effective. By acquiring emotional competence they increase the likelihood that they and those they interact with will relate to each other prosocially rather than antisocially. Empathetic expression can quickly reduce hostile interchanges We hasten to add that our emphasis on emotion does not mean that programs should be focussed on relieving emotional discomfort. Therapy programs aimed at reducing antisocial behavior by focusing only on relieving the person from emotional discomfort have met with limited success at best (Andrews & Bonta, 2006; Kazdin, 1987). Our goal is to help participants acquire prosocial competence in emotional skills so that their AT becomes more skilled, more positive, more prosocial and more effective.

PROSOCIAL CONNECTIONS

The R&R2 programs also teach specific interpersonal cognitive and behavioral skills that will enable participants to develop close relationships with prosocial peers and adults at school, work or in the community. Close family and friendship relationships can help sustain an individual who is striving to stop behaving in an antisocial manner. However, many lack close family and friends. One of the reasons that they do is that they have not yet developed the cognitive skills, the emotional skills, the interpersonal skills, the conflict resolution skills, and the negotiation skills that are required for the


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formation of close personal relationships. Since prosocial connections can be developed through prosocial experiences, it is important to ensure that participants acquire skills which will enable them to relate to others in a manner that will make such prosocial experiences likely to occur. This is accomplished through a variety of interventions:

Interpersonal Cognitive Problem-Solving: teaching skills such as generating alternative and effective solutions to interpersonal problems; anticipating the interpersonal consequences of one‘s potential actions; and expressing solutions in a prosocial and effective manner.

Verbal Communication Training: participants are taught to realize the importance of clear verbal communication and the misunderstanding that can be result from unclear communication. For example they are trained in skills in expressing feelings clearly and prosocially (e.g. assertively rather than aggressively).

Counselling Skills Training; participants are taught skills in empathetic understanding and skills in communicating their empathetic understanding. This is achieved by engaging them in exercises that have been employed for decades in teaching counseling skills that can enable counsellors to establish relationships with their clients that foster the counseling relationship. The skills include active listening skills, questioning skills, paraphrasing skills, and skill in expressing accurate empathy. Teaching such skills is designed not only to help participants relate to each other in the training group but also to help them develop closer personal relationships with family members and others outside of the group in order to develop a supportive social network that may serve to dissuade them from continuing to engage in antisocial behavior. Training in these skills also lays the groundwork for subsequently engaging them in prosocial experiences that can foster prosocial neural connections that shape the development of a prosocial identity.

Conflict Resolution Skills: Participants are taught conflict management skills that enable them to effectively respond to conflict both in the program sessions and in their everyday life. The strategies they are taught stand in marked contrast to those they see on Coronation Street.

MOTIVATION

Engaging individuals, particularly antisocial individuals, in a program designed to train them in pro-social competence is a delicate


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and sensitive task. Few of those assigned to the program are likely to rush to attend, eager and willing to learn new ways of thinking or behaving. More likely they will initially display little motivation and much resistance to the Trainer's attempts to engage them in such a program. Many will evidence considerable enthusisam for dropping out. Most individuals – not just offenders - are ambivalent about changing their lives - or at least, about changing their habits. Resolving their ambivalence and their resistance to change and helping clients to develop an internal sense of readiness, responsiveness and openness to treatment are primary objectives of the early stages of the R&R2 programs. The program development was guided by the research of William Miller and his colleagues whose model of Motivational Interviewing (MI) (e.g. Miller & Rollnick, 2002) provides a theoretically sound, practical, and effective way to motivate resistant and ambivalent clients. Although Wormith and Olver (2002) have reported that their multivariate analysis showed no effect of motivation on program completion there is a growing body of research that indicates that interventions that include or are preceded by motivational techniques are more likely to be effective (e.g. Taxman, 1999; Simpson & Knight, 1999). We recommend that wherever possible, R&R2 Trainers receive training in MI before they are trained in delivering R&R2 and that they then use MI in an initial interview before the program begins. Rather than viewing and reacting to non-attendance as an enemy to fight, Trainers are urged to avoid a power struggle but, instead, to strive to maintain a helping relationship with the participants and work toward helping them understand the importance of attendance for achieving the goals that they are helped to articulate and commit to in the pre-program individual interview which we recommend for all participants. In the R&R2 programs, MI is implemented not only on an individual basis at the beginning of the intervention, but throughout the program. Thus, MI is used in a group format. The group approach is based on the insights of MI and R&R Trainers, Patrick Liddle and Patricia Clark who have delivered many R&R2 programs in Connecticut (Liddle & Clark, 2007).

A Motivational Program

It makes little sense to blame clients for the failure of programs designed to help them to fail to do so. The motivation of offenders is probably just as or more a function of program shortcomings as a function of client shortcomings. There are a host of other non-client factors that are likely to determine the motivation of clients such as the relevance of the program to the interests and needs of the


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participants; the difficulty of the program (e.g. its literacy requirement); the immediate benefits it earns them; the indicants of progress it provides them; the enthusiasm and relationship skills of the program staff (and their managers); the persuasiveness of the trainers; and a host of situational factors. Programs whose material is too easy or too demanding or too slow, or too patronizing, and Trainers who are less than enthusiastic or lacking in core relationship skills (e.g. empathy, positive regard, caring) are unlikely to lead participants to be overjoyed about participating or continuing to do so. Throughout the development of R&R2, considerable attention was paid to means whereby the training procedures, techniques and materials would optimize the motivation of reluctant participants. R&R2 exercises are designed to be challenging, stimulating, highly active, serious fun.

Motivational Experiences

The clients' attitude to the program is probably just as important as their attitude to change. The message that R&R programs communicate is that we are not asking them to change – we are asking them to learn – to learn skills that will enable them to change if and when they wish to do so. Throughout the program, participants are given out-of-class assignments to experiment with the skills taught in the program in order to see first-hand that they "work". The assignments are also designed to lead them to realize that many other people do not have the skills they are being taught.

MI for Participants

Given that MI was initially designed for counsellors working with substance abusers, it seems reasonable to teach MI not only to social agency staff members but also to their antisocial clients since the clients are the individuals who have the most contact with substance abusers. The interpersonal skills we discussed above that are taught in the program are basic MI techniques. They are taught not only to enable participants to help each other in the program sessions but also to enable them to help others outside of the classroom. The skills that are taught in MI training workshops and in R&R2 programs are skills that are essential to the development of close personal relationships not only in counselling but in all interpersonal activities.

PROSOCIAL MORAL COMPETENCE

As we have noted, the foregoing program components are designed to teach antisocial individuals skills that can enable them to form close personal relationships that can act as a buffer against


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engaging in antisocial behavior. However, it is one thing to teach skills. It is an altogether different thing to ensure that those skills will be used in the service of prosocial behavior. Antisocial individuals must not only be taught skills, they must also be led to value the prosocial application of those skills. They must not only learn to apply their skills in attempting to understand the thoughts and feeling of others, they must also be led to be concerned about the thoughts and feelings of others.

Prosocial Values

Some advocates of the R&R program continue to draw a distinction between cognitive restructuring programs and R&R. It is argued that the former attempts to teach ―what to think‖, whereas R&R teaches ―how to think‖. We no longer believe that teaching ―how to think‖ is enough. In order to achieve prosocial competence, participants must acquire moral competence, and that requires leading them to acquire social perspective taking and concern for others. What we want them to think is that they should think about and concern themselves with the well-being of other individuals. The new R&R2 approach to developing prosocial values is not limited to engaging participants in guided discussions of moral dilemmas. The program also employs an experiential learning method based on neuroscience research that indicates that our neuroanatomy is shaped in large measure by our observations and our experiences. Thus, participants are engaged in prosocial experiences that become registered in new prosocial connections in their brains. Because prosocial neural connections can also be acquired through observation, the program includes exercises and assignments that expose them to prosocial others – both Trainers and otherwise antisocial peers. Because prosocial neural connections can also be acquired through imaging, participants are frequently engaged in mental simulation exercises in which they imagine themselves behaving in a prosocial manner. The new R&R program's approach to teaching prosocial values is multifacetted:

Prosocial Role-Playing: One way to engage antisocial individuals in prosocial behavior is prosocial role-playing. Role-playing is rationalized to R&R2 program participants as an enjoyable and entertaining way to practice (in a safe environment) the prosocial skills that are being taught in the program. As they play prosocial roles in the company of their antisocial peers, the reinforcement they receive from their peers and the Trainer lead them to recognize (often for the first time) that they can act in prosocial manner and that doing so is not ego-threatening but


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rewarding. They learn how they would feel behaving in a prosocial manner. They also get the opportunity to see the positive impact of acting prosocially on others – their co-actors.

Role-playing exercises are inserted in the program in such a way that they first involve simple, non-threatening, scripted activities and then are gradually developed such that the roles are less scripted and less structured so that participants must increasingly think on their own about how to behave prosocially. The role-playing scenarios are designed to ensure that they are engaged only in prosocial behavior. They are never asked to play antisocial roles (most have more than enough practice in that). They are also designed to ensure that they learn that, by using social perspective taking and expressing empathy and concern, they improve their performance and their likelihood of receiving reinforcement from their audience. An important part of each role-playing exercise is integrating role-playing with the emotional recognition training provided earlier in the program by leading the actors and the audience to identify the feelings that the actors are expressing. Moreover, participants are led to recognize the feelings and needs of the characters whose role they are asked to adopt. The goal is to get them both to try to understand how others think and feel and to lead them to experience what others are thinking and feeling. Engaging antisocial individuals in prosocial role-playing is one way to have them not only behave in a prosocial way but also think in a prosocial manner and feel what it is like to do so.

Role-Reversal: Participants are also engaged in role playing activities in which they are asked to assume the role of someone whose beliefs are prosocial and opposite to their own former or current personal beliefs. While playing that role, they are asked to attempt to justify prosocial beliefs that they normally reject. By doing so, they become committed to prosocial activity by expressing it and justifying it not only to their audience but also to themselves. Prosocial role-playing is a powerful intervention because it involves leading antisocial individuals to act in a prosocial manner in front of antisocial peers. Moreover, at the same time, the other group members in the actor's antisocial audience are engaged in applying their own newly acquired prosocial problem-solving and social perspective skills in reinforcing the actors and in acting as advisors on how the actors could improve their prosocial performance. Thus, all participants are led to practice being advocates of prosocial behavior – a marked reversal from their usual behavior.


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Guided Imagery: Neuroscience research indicates that imagining oneself acting in helping activities, and imagining obtaining the rewards that would accrue from so doing, can foster the development of prosocial connections. Simulation and guided imagery techniques and the covert rehearsal of pro-social actions are used to engage participants in imagining what it would be like to act in a prosocial manner. For example, they are asked to imagine themselves as helpers. This is achieved by assigning them to play roles as teachers, counsellors, judges or parents who are trying to deal with problematic situations. The problems are ones that the particpants are actually experiencing. However, they are presented anonymously. Participants are also engaged in visualization exercises in which they recall episodes in their lives when they did help someone or they are led to imagine situations in which they could save others from suffering. They are also asked to vividly imagine what how they would feel in a world in which they and others always behaved prosocially.

Prosocial Modelling by Trainers: The value of prosocial modeling has long been recognized as a key factor in the efficacy of offender rehabilitation programs. It is essential that Trainers model the empathy, the concern and the care that they wish the participants to acquire. Prosocial modelling by the Trainers must include frequent reinforcement of the participants' prosocial behavior and verbalizations. Few participants will have ever received much reinforcement for prosocial behavior in the past and it is highly unlikely that they will display such behavior unless reinforcement is forthcoming.

Correction: Effective prosocial modelling must also involve Trainers in correcting antisocial talk and behavior in a manner that is not confrontational or negative but is supportive and educational - one that includes both clear explanation of the reasons for the corrections and suggestions for prosocial alternatives. Based on the social cognitive neuroscience research that indicates the neural impact of both observation and experience we have ensured that prosocial modelling and role-playing is provided in exercises throughout the R&R2 programs. Many of the exercises include prosocial modelling not only by the Trainers but also by the other antisocial participants. Peers have much more modelling power than Trainers. The exercises are designed so that the prosocial modelling by peers is achieved by engaging all of the participants in playing prosocial roles.


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Reinforcement for Prosocial Behavior: Acquisition of prosocial cognitive, emotional skills and behavioral skills is not enough. They must also be helped to develop confidence in their ability to employ those skills - a belief that such skills can be beneficial. Many aggressive antisocial individuals have a high level of self-efficacy beliefs about behaving aggressively and a low level about behaving prosocially (Erdley & Asher, 1996). The R&R2 programs are designed to persuade them that prosocial behaviors can yield even more positive outcomes or can enable them to avoid negative consequences including negative emotions (cf. Marlatt, Baer, Donovan & Kivlahan, 1988). Trainers must also foster the participants' inclination to apply the skills in prosocial activites. This can result from the reinforcement they obtain from their prosocial activities in the group (including their helping other participants). It is also achieved by giving participants out-of-class assigments in which they practice applying the prosocial skills they have acquired and obtain reinforcement for so doing. Thus, they can come to realize that they can achieve success not only in an antisocial environment with antisocial peers, but also in mainstream society.

Prosocial experience: As we indicated earlier, the antisocial schemata of antisocial individuals may be modified or replaced by the development of prosocial schemata by engaging individuals in prosocial experiences outside the group sessions. Antisocial individuals who are led to engage in prosocial roles as helpers for others come to see themselves in a very different light. Such activities challenge their pre-established schematas as they come to see themselves as prosocial rather than anti-social. They come to attribute to themselves positive, prosocial characteristics which were previously foreign to them. They learn prosocial behaviors which can serve as alternatives to their antisocial behavior. They also come to appreciate the value of prosocial behavior, to recognize the awards it can bring them. They learn that prosocial behavior ―feels good‖. It is not easy to arrange to have antisocial individuals engage in helping behavior. But it can be done and has been done as we indicated in Chapter 28. We have described a variety of programs that have succeeded in engaging antisocial individuals (e.g. hardened offenders with long criminal histories including violence) in helping others. We urge that whenever possible Trainers engage participants following training in well supervised helping activities with other individuals. "Homework" assignments are included in various program sessions that require participants to engage in helping others, or to observe others doing so. Exercises are also included in the


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program that engage participants (and Trainers) in applying the creative thinking they have been taught as they are asked to think of situations in which they can apply their newly acquired skills and values in helping others.

Combating Resistance to Desistance

How individuals behave is strongly influenced by their ―scripts‖ or the ―self-narrative‖ that they develop through their social experience that tells them who they are and why they are that way (e.g. Maruna, 1999). Their script motivates them to behave in ways that fit their narratives. Our self-narrative is our subjective reality, our view of world and our place in it. It is a unique, individual phenomenal view that is primarily based on our personal experience. It is who and what we think we are. We have a need to preserve the phenomenal self and to behave in accord with it. Antisocial individuals may achieve this by persisting in antisocial behavior. Interventions are needed that can change antisocial scripts to prosocial ones. That is achieved in R&R2 programs by equipping antisocial individuals with skills that can enable them to acquire prosocial competence, by enabling them to experience the rewards of thinking and behaving in a prosocial manner, and by persuading them to employ those skills in their daily affairs. The R&R2 exercises and assignments are designed to promote a prosocial identity by engaging participants in prosocial exercises and homework assignments in which they play the role of caring, altruistic, prosocial problem-solvers, are rewarded by their peers and others for so doing, and led to realize that they can change their identity and benefit from so doing.

Understanding Desistance

Participants are also engaged in discussions about how people (e.g. smokers; alcoholics) have successfully changed their life-style and helped to understand the process of desistance. They are then engaged in role-plays in which they apply their understanding of how people change as they assume the role of helping a Trainer who plays the role of someone whose thinking errors, behaviors and schematas are preventing them from changing. By acting as advocates for change in others, they become committted to change in themselves.

Keep the Change

Although the antisocial individuals‘ cognitive, emotional and behavioral skills may be improved by training, their new skills and values can be expected to endure best in social environments that support their use. Their social environment may well support the


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new patterns. However, relapse prevention is also required. The participants are trained to recognize and anticipate thoughts, feelings and situations in "not so supportive environments" that can trigger their previous ways of responding. They are taught skills to avoid or prosocially cope with such potential antisocial triggers in order to ensure long term maintenance of positive treatment outcomes.

Use it or Lose It

In order to ensure that participants practice their newly acquired prosocial behaviors every session of the program includes out-of-class assignments that require participants to observe prosocial behaviors and/or apply their newly acquired prosocial skills in interaction with others beyond the classroom. Many of the assignments are designed to help the participants acquire feelings of self-efficacy by realizing that many people do not have the skills that they have acquired through the program.

TRAINERS

The personal characteristics of the Trainer are crucial to program efficacy. There has not yet been enough research on the differential effectiveness of different types of R&R Trainers to enable us to determine the specific characteristics of Trainers that have influenced program outcome for better or worse. However, there is little reason to suspect that these are substantially different from those characteristics that have been established through decades of research on the characteristics of individuals who are effective in delivering other psychosocial programs. The limited amount of research that has been reported indicates that the quality of the Trainer's program delivery is critical to outcome. For example, research on the trainers who delivered R&R in Georgia indicated that those who were enthusiastic, organised and professional had more program completers in their groups (Van Voorhis, Spruance, Ritchey, Johnson-Listwan, Seabrook & Pealer, 2003). A significant relationship was found between lower rearrests/revocations and the trainers‘ adherence to the prescribed program structure (e.g., establishing and enforcing rules for missing sessions or for poor classroom behavior). Recidivism among program completers was also significantly better if their trainer adequately prepared for the sessions. The quality of program delivery has too often been compromised by attempting to implement the program on a system-wide basis with less than enthusiastic Trainers who are required to achieve unrealistic numbers of program completions. It is both unrealistic and overly ambitious to think that all staff can become competent trainers. Many lack the personal qualities


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required for functioning as a trainer in the kind of group activities involved in the R&R2 program. Many are unwilling to accept the conceptual basis of the program or its practice. Many are unable to sustain the efforts required to conduct the program which, though highly enjoyable, is energy-demanding. Some do not feel comfortable with a role which requires that they refrain from discussing client's problems in the group, that they tolerate (and stimulate) a high level of interpersonal conflict, and that they allow issues to remain unresolved or questions to remain unanswered (so that thinking continues after the session). Some lack the ability, some the inclination to relate to antisocial individuals empathically and with positive regard. Some believe that antisocial individuals cannot change. R&R2 Trainers must view themselves not as lecturers who are providing information, nor as preachers who are inculcating values, nor as therapists who are trying to counsel people, nor as entertainers who are providing stimulation and enjoyment for the offender's leisure time. They must be teachers in all the positive senses of that term. Trainers must be not only task-givers but also group-leaders and resource persons. They must listen as well and as often as they speak. They must not only stimulate, encourage and empathize but also challenge, manage and control. They must also model the interpersonal cognitive skills they wish the offenders to learn.

Trainer Qualifications

A fundamental assumption in the program development was that the successful rehabilitation of offenders should not require the services of highly trained mental health professionals. There are not enough psychiatrists, psychologists or social workers to enable programs which require their services to be provided to enough individuals to have a major impact in reducing antisocial behavior. The R&R2 programs were designed such that they can be delivered by competent staff whatever their academic background. Each of the new versions of the program can be conducted not only by psychologists and social workers, but also by teachers, counselors, probation officers, classification officers, case-management officers, parole officers, youth workers, correctional officers (prison officers), volunteers, and by individuals who are graduates of the program. Thus, the programs can be effectively delivered by a wide variety of individuals regardless of their professional qualifications. provided they evidence each of the following abilities and personal characteristics:

1. Above average verbal skills.


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2. Ability to relate positively and empathetically to antisocial individuals, but to do so while maintaining a relationship which does not compromise the rules, regulations and mission of the agency. 3. Sensitivity to group dynamics and the ability to promote interest and high activity levels while maintaining adequate discipline. 4. Ability to correct participants without demeaning them. 5. Above average interpersonal skills, and, in particular, the social/cognitive skills which he/she wishes participants to acquire a) empathy (vs. egocentricity) b) effective problem solving c) well developed values d) rational and logical reasoning e) openness to new ideas (vs. rigidity) 6. Successful experience in managing groups of poorly motivated individuals who may be passively or aggressively hostile or critical. 7. Humility and openness: willingness to consider views of both participants and program developers which may not jibe with their own. Potential Trainers who are wedded to other approaches to offender rehabilitation may find it difficult to accept the role of a Trainer in this program without compromising its principles or practices. 8. Thorough understanding of the neurocriminology model. 9. All of the foregoing skills and attitudes will be for naught unless the Trainer has the one characteristic that is absolutely essential: enthusiasm.

ENSURE EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT

In order to be effective, the R&R2 programs must be implemented in a supportive context. It is essential that managers not only ensure that the program is adequately resourced, but also understand and endorse the program and its purpose. It is equally important that managers effectively attend to the many issues and concerns which adopting an R&R program may create within the agency as it adjusts to what may be perceived to be a very different model of the role of the agency and its workers. Steps must be taken


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to prevent a clash between the culture of management and the culture of treatment.

DIFFERENTIAL TREATMENT

R&R has been successfully implemented with a wide variety of different types of offenders. However, the original R&R program is a ‗shot-gun‘ program that has not been responsive to the need for differential treatment (different strokes for different folks) that is key to successful program outcome (Andrews 2000). The R&R2 programs we describe in the next chapter are specifically designed for particular groups of antisocial individuals.

The failure to pre-screen participants in programs with well standarized and psychometrically adequate assessment measures is very common in criminal justice services. Some agencies are administering a test for potential participants in cognitive skills programs but no such test has ever been adequately validated in terms of its ability to determine who is likely to benefit from training. A well validated assessment measure has been developed for two of the R&R2 programs by Dr. Susan Young at the Institute of Psychiatry in London and a battery of tests that can reliably identify the offenders‘ characteristics that are likely to be responsive to training in R&R and other R&R2 programs is currently being developed by Dr. Dan Antonowicz at Wilfrid University in Canada to be used in conjunction with the new editions of R&R.

CULTURAL RESPONSIVITY

The development of each of the new R&R2 programs was guided by the priniciple that training must be culturally sensitive and responsive to the participants‘ cultural values, gender, age, religion and ethnic background. The programs were designed in such a way that Trainers can (and should) modify the content of the program to ensure it is appropriate to the characteristics of the participants.

THE PERSON IS NOT THE PROBLEM

The R&R2 Programs we describe in the next chapter avoid a shortcoming that characterizes many cognitive-behavioral programs (including other versions of the R&R program): the subtle moralizing that is associated with programs that blame the participants for their antisocial behavior rather than recognizing, and fully appreciating, that shortcomings in their environment (particularly their home environment) and/or a lack of skills often underlies such behaviors. Such programs promote the view that 'the person is the problem'. R&R2 rejects that position and is based on the view that 'the problem is not the person but the person's problems'. That theme runs throughout each of the new R&R2 program versions.


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TRAINING IS NOT ENOUGH

Interventions designed to prevent antisocial behavior that focus on a single problem behavior or situation have come under increasing criticism (e.g. Henggler, Taylor, Addison & Swenson, 2004). Researchers and practitioners have been urged to consider the co-occurrence within each antisocial individual of various inter-related problem behaviors that share common predictors. The likelihood of the success of prevention and rehabilitation programs depends not only on the adequacy of the program but also on whether program participants are assisted to deal with other problems that they face in such areas as family relations, school, employment, income, recreation and housing. Broad based social service must be an integral part of the intervention.

Researchers have been pointing out since the beginning of the What Works movement that a key characteristic of effective programs is that they are multi-faceted (Ross & Gendreau, 1980). That means that programs must attend to all the factors that influence the individual‘s proclivity for antisocial behavior including educational, vocational, familial, and social. We cannot treat offenders in a cocoon. We must be responsive to the reality of environmental pressures towards antisocial behavior.

The intervention must seek to engage the client's primary social unit and significant others. It needs to engage the support, understanding and reinforcement power of the family and/or significant others in the person's effort to make change – including staff members in the agency where the program is delivered. It is essential that program participants' social environment supports and rewards their newly acquired ways of thinking, feeling and behaving and enables them to have experiences that reinforce their new prosocial skills. These considerations underly the R&R2 for Families and Support Persons and the use of a PAL in some of the programs to support and reinforce the participants' learning and skill application.

COGNITION IS NOT ENOUGH

We cannot emphasize too strongly that the R&R program was not designed to be a subsititute for other interventions which may be needed. It was not meant to replace programs but to support them. Antisocial individuals are much too complex to lead us to think that one program is all that is required. We suggest that the ideal role for R&R2 programs is that of a core curriculum in a comprehensive approach. A comprehensive service would provide a variety of programs to respond to the needs of various antisocial individuals. Although some low-risk individuals may need few if any of the programs, many will require more than one. Some will need one combination of these programs; others will need another.


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Several agencies which provide a comprehensive rehabilitation service are now delivering the R&R program to offenders before engaging them in other programs. They view skills training as a prerequisite to other programs. There are two reasons why we recommend such a model:

Program Readiness: One of the reasons that many individuals fail to respond to programs is that their cognitive skills are not sufficiently developed to adequately comprehend the content or value of the program. For example, some lack the attention and concentration skills that could enable them to focus on what the program offers. Accordingly, it is reasonable to require that before they are engaged in other programs they first receive training in cognitive, emotional and behavioral skills which may increase their success.

Program Motivation: Although agencies may offer many programs to clients, many offenders refuse to participate. It may be that the ones who most need such programs are the ones most unlikely to enrol. There are many reasons for their reluctance to participate in rehabilitation programs. Among these is the frequent aversion among such individuals to therapy and to school. One of the reasons for recommending that they first be engaged in the R&R program is that it often succeeds in motivating reluctant clients to accept services which previously were anathema to them. In effect, by engaging them in the R&R program the individuals may learn that programs need not be ego-threatening or intrusive and, in fact, may be enjoyable. More important, the self-analysis skills which they learn in R&R may help them to recognize that they may need other programs.

Thus, the major contribution of an R&R program may be to

increase the rehabilitative potential of other human services.

TRAINING NOT THERAPY

The neurocriminology model is not a model for therapy in the usual sense of that word. That is, its focus is not on treating the participants' personal problems. On the contrary, it is designed to equip them with skills that will enable them to deal with these problems themselves; skills which will also help them to avoid such problems in the first place. It is clearly essential that the individual's personal problems be effectively responded to. However, we suggest that these matters should be left out of the R&R program sessions and dealt with elsewhere. Their participation in an R&R program is likely to make


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them more willing to accept help with their problems. Their improved social cognitive, emotional and behavioral skills will equip them to benefit more from the counselling and other assistance that the agency offers to help them with such related matters.

NOT AN “OFFENDING BEHAVIOR” PROGRAM

The neurocriminology model should not be viewed as a model for what has been referred to as ―offending behavior‖ programs. There are several major reasons for this position.

We propose an approach to the rehabilitation not only of offenders but of a variety of other individuals who evidence a wide range of noncriminal problem behaviors including educational underachievement, substance abuse, emotional disorder and employment instability.

Much of the antisocial behavior of offenders is similar to that of many other antisocial individuals. Offending behavior may differ in form and severity, but not differ in terms of the factors that need to be addressed in order to prevent it. Our view is that many antisocial individuals, just like many offenders, have acquired an antisocial lifestyle as their way of coping with life circumstances and that they maintain that lifestyle because they believe that there is no other life-style that would enable them to cope as well; or because they have not yet developed the requisite skills for success through another life-style, or because they do not believe that an alternative, prosocial life-style is possible for them.

Nor should it be assumed that all offending behaviors are qualitatively different from other antisocial behaviors. The differences may only be a matter of degree (Welsh, 2005). Our review indicates that delayed development of prosocial cognitive/emotional skills and values is found not only among offenders but also among other antisocial individuals. This finding should come as no surprise given that the difference between offending behavior and other antisocial behaviors is often only that offending behavior is defined as behavior that breaks the law. Many behaviors that are defined as criminal are behaviors that differ primarily in their seriousness from other behaviors that may be just as antisocial but have not been labelled as illegal. Training in prosocial competence skills and values may be an effective approach to treating such individuals and an effective means of preventing their ‗progression‘ to delinquency or adult criminality.


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Offenders are not just offenders. Their offending behavior actually comprises a significant, but usually only a small part of their everyday activity. Too often offending behavior programs condemn not the crime but the person. Such character assault may make them feel they have some unchangeable personal flaw that cannot be changed – so they do not try to change and resist those who try to make them try to change.

By an excessive or even an exclusive concern for their illegal behavior, their "criminogenic risk" factors and their "recidivism", we may blind ourselves to the fact that there are other aspects of the offender‘s daily life that must be addressed. We propose pursuing a much broader, distal goal: producing a productive member of society – not only someone who can contribute to the economy by acquiring the interpersonal skills and attitudes required for successful employment, but someone who can contribute to the well-being of others; someone who can function as an effective parent rather than one whose interpersonal skills and values lead him/her to repeat the ineffective, pathological or criminogenic parenting with children that may have spawned his/her own antisocial life-style.

Although the Neurocriminology model is more grounded in empirical research including social cognitive neuroscience research, it is consistent with the "good lives model" (Ward, 2002) and the "strength-based model" (e.g. Perlman, 1957) which focus on equipping offenders with the skills, values and supports for achieving positive goals, rather than on managing their risk of future offending (McMurran & Ward, 2004; Ward & Stewart, 2003). As Chapin (1995) suggested, "the strengths and resources of people and their environments, rather than their problems and pathologies, should be the central focus of the helping process". The R&R2 interventions are not offence focused. They are strength focused. Teaching prosocial competence is designed not only to provide them with an alternative to crime but to provide them with an alternative means to success.

We take the position that limiting programs to interventions that seek to discourage participants' illegal behavior is short-sighted - we may reduce their offending but we oten leave them to continue to drain the social services system. The goal of reducing recidivism or re-offending has become the sine


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qua non of offender treatment programs and the marker of the success of the offender rehabilitation movement. Whereas such a goal may be appropriate to one of the primary purposes of the criminal justice system, it fails to do justice to the many other problems of offenders.

We discourage participants from discussing their criminal or antisocial history in the training sessions. We do not want them to compete with each other in terms of who has the most impressive criminal record. More important, we do not want to allow them to promote the impression that their most important characteristic is their criminality or their antisocial behavior. The focus of the program is their future, not their history. The emphasis is not on what has been but on what can be. As in Solution Based Counselling (e.g. McConkey, 1998), the emphasis is on solutions not past problems. As in Reality Therapy (Glasser, 1965), without denying the significance of their past, the emphasis in not on their history but their future.

LOW RISK IS NOT NO RISK

Taking the position that it is not only illegal behavior that programs should be designed to target appears to go against the grain of the ―risk principle‖ of effective correctional treatment that indicates that providing treatment programs only to high-risk offenders may offer the ―biggest bang for the buck‖. Many if not most low-risk clients may be at such a low risk to re-offend that additional treatment would not decrease their risk of offending any further when compared to clients who do not receive any treatment. Moreover, involving low-risk offenders in programs particularly those that include high-risk offenders, may be an expeditious way of changing a low risk offender into a higher-risk offender as a consequence of labelling, contagion or modelling.

However, low risk of reoffending does not mean low risk of engaging in other problems that should concern us. Offenders cannot realistically be said to be rehabilitated if, although they do not re-offend, they remain socially inept; chronically unemployed, substance dependent; dependent on welfare; a burden to the health and social service systems; a model of antisocial behavior to their children… Clearly, more than risk of reoffending should be considered in selecting individuals for participation in programs.

The results of a study of the highest quality evaluation studies of offender treatment programs raise some doubts about the risk principle (Antonowicz & Ross,1995). It found that success had been achieved with both low and high risk offenders. Moreover, there is some evidence that contradicts the risk principle at least in the case of the R&R program. For example, in a metanalysis of evaluation studies


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of R&R, Tong and Farrington (2007) found that the program benefited both low and high risk offenders and the effect size for low risk offenders was not significantly different from the effect size for high risk offenders. Moreover, Robinson‘s (1995) study of R&R prison program participants and completers who had been released for at least one year found that low risk offenders were significantly less likely to be reconvicted whereas no statistically significant differences were found for high risk offenders.

Attacking the Risk Principle is Risky

The concerns we are expressing is not a criticism of the validity or reliability or value of risk assessment. To attack risk assessment would be irreverent, even sacriligeous. Our concern is about how the risk principle is being applied and, albeit unintentionally, is narrowing our sights. Problematic antisocial behaviors tend to cluster together. A factor that may not be a risk factor for offending behavior may well be a risk factor for other forms of problematic behavior that may not be a focus of the criminal justice system but are significant in the broader picture. Programs that are designed to target only identified "criminogenic" or "risk of offending‘ factors may fail to prevent offenders from engaging in other behaviors that cause them to be ‗social casualties‘ and a burden on society in other ways. Social handicaps can easily be forgotten when the risk of re-offending is the principal guide to intervention management. It may sound trite, but we really do need to take a whole-person perspective. The risk principle takes a rather narrow and limited view of social responsibility – we must be concerned with justice and not only with criminal justice.

There are several other problems with the application of the risk-principle:

Assessment: There is an impressive lack of evidence that risk assessment measures indicate whether an offender needs the specific type of training that programs (including R&R) are designed to teach. Agencies which attempt to select offenders for treatment programs only on the basis of risk assessment may be treating the wrong offenders or treating them with the wrong programs. An exception is the R&R2 program for ADHD Youths and Adults that we describe in the next chapter that does include a well validated assessment measure.

Staff Attitudes: Adherence to the risk principle can lower staff motivation and enthusiasm and their expectancy of success without which programs are unlikely to ―work‖. Many, perhaps most staff would be much more enthusiastic if they were allowed


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to work with less difficult and more appealing cases rather than being required to devote most of their efforts to working with the less appealing and apparently less promising high risk cases.

Staff Skill: Many otherwise excellent staff may not have the skills

that are required to work with the most difficult cases.

The Limits of Treatment: An unqualified acceptance of the risk principle may create false optimism by implying that we can be effective with very high-risk individuals. There are many high risk antisocial individuals that we cannot successfully treat. Informing politicians and the public that our rehabilitation programs are designed to rehabilitate high-risk offenders may reduce already faltering political support for offender rehabilitation when our best efforts fail.

Nonetheless, we must be cognizant of the fact that one of the easiest ways to turn low-risk offenders into medium or high-risk offenders may be to involve them in programs, particularly when their involvement in a program labels them in such a way as to create expectancies that they are "at risk", or when their involvement puts them in close association for substantial periods of time with high-risk offenders.

SHORTER CAN BE BETTER

Guid gear gangs inta’ sma bulk Scottish homily

Most social cognitive-behavioral programs that are designed

to teach pro-social competence require 35 to 76 two hour sessions. Such programs tax the motivation of many offenders and are associated with very high attrition rates. They also tax the motivation of Trainers. Some programs require delivery over many months (even years in some cases). Such programs are unrealistically demanding and too expensive for the human resources of many agencies. Many antisocial youths and most offenders (particularly those on probation and those with short prison sentences) are unable to be provided with such programs because of the limited period of time that they are involved with agencies responsible for their treatment. However, a recent review of evaluation studies of R&R indicates that a shorter program can be just as effective as a longer one (Antonowicz, 2005). For example, three independent studies provide evidence that versions of R&R that are not as long as the original have been effective in reducing reoffending. An abridged version of the R&R program yielded significant improvement in anti-social behavior among high-risk felony probationers in Texas


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(Kownacki, 1995). The use of a few of the core techniques of R&R were found to produce significant improvement in the social adjustment of institutionalized adolescent offenders in Spain (Garrido, 1995). Significant improvement in the post-institutional success of prison inmates in Prisons in Tenerife was found when a shortened version of R&R was delivered in combination with social work services (Martin & Hernandez, 1995). Another evaluation of a shortened version of R&R (18 sessions) found a statistically significant difference in reconvictions in favour of the R&R program compared with randomly assigned controls over a nine-month follow-up among 13-17 year old juveniles in juvenile Detention Centres in Georgia (Murphy, Jones & Bauer, 1997). The results of U.K. comparative studies of R&R and "Enhanced Thinking Skills" (a program that is essentially a shortened version of R&R) in prisons (Antonowicz, 2005) and probation in the U.K. (Palmer, McGuire, Hounsome, Hatcher, Bilby & Hollin, 2007) found little difference in outcome between the long and the short programs.

Short-term social-cognitive interventions (as short as 12 hours) have been found to be able to reduce children's and adolescents' deficiencies in social information processing patterns (Guerra & Slaby, 1990; Lochman, Burch, Curry, & Lampron, 1984; Weissberg et al.,1981). They have also been found to be effective in reducing aggressive behavior (Guerra & Slaby, 1990; Lochman et al.,1984). The behavioral changes engendered by such programs have often been found to be long-term (Guerra & Slaby, 1990). Although the metanalysis by Lipsey et al. (2007) found that programs for offenders that were longer than 26 weeks or provided over 100 hours were more successful, a metanalyis of evaluation studies of programs for antisocial youths concluded that short programs were as good as longer ones (Latimer, Dowden, Morton-Bourgon, Edgar & Bania, 2003). The latter analysis indicated that although high-risk offenders may require more program exposure, programs for lower risk youths should be limited to six months and provide a maximum of twenty hours of program involvement. It found that the length of time the youths participated in the program was inversely related to program success. Programs that were shorter than six months in length had more effect than programs longer than six months. Secondly, those programs that had limited treatment exposure during the program were considerably more successful than programs with higher dosages of treatment. Programs that provided twenty hours or less of treatment exposure yielded much better results than programs longer than a hundred hours. The longer ones actually yielded an almost zero effect on average. Doing more than is necessary may be harmful.


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There are some other considerations that led to our decision to develop shorter R&R programs:

Multifaceted Programs: A metanalysis of DUI interventions has established that the use of multiple strategies regardless of the length of the programs was associated with larger intervention effect sizes for reducing recidivism among drivers convicted of driving under the influence of alchol (Wells-Parker, Williams, Dill & Kenne, 1998; Wilk, Jensen and Havighurst, 1997). Although they are shorter than the original R&R, all of the new R&R2 programs conform to a basic principle of effective practice – they are multi-modal.

Reduce Exposure: The ―Risk Principle‖ was one factor that guided our decision as to both the length of the R&R2 programs and their content. The programs were designed to be very brief to minimize the amount of possible exposure of low risk participants to higher risk ones. Agencies are advised to assess the risk level of each potential participant and, wherever possible, to form separate groups for low and high-risk participants – a recommendation that is not always adopted, but a possibility that is made more likely by the shortness of the program.

Prevent Exposure: An advantage of involving low-risk offenders in the short R&R2 programs is that it may provide them with skills that will enable them to improve their functioning and thereby enable them to avoid the necessity of being involved in subsequent programs in which high-risk individuals are participants. Observations of the participants‘ performance in a short program may also help Trainers to identify those who are most likely to be harmed by their subsequent enrolment in programs that include high-risk participants.

Prevent Attrition: Another advantage of short programs is that the many antisocial individuals who are not motivated to enter long programs may accept a program that requires much less of their time. A problem that is frequently encountered in attempting to deliver rehabilitation programs in community settings is poor attendance. Attrition is, in fact, the Achilles Heel of offender rehabilitation programs. A study of cognitive behavioral programs for probationers in the U.K. (including R&R) found that among the 2,186 offenders assigned to a program, only 28.2% started it, and among those who started it 23.3% did not complete it (Hollin, McGuire, Hounsome, Bilby & Palmer et al.,2007).


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It must be noted that this is a problem not only for offender rehabilitation programs but for a wide variety of other programs. For example, nearly two-thirds of patients receiving medication after first episode schizophrenia stop taking their medications within a year of beginning treatment, and almost 100% of these relapse (Weiden, 2007). Noncompliance rates for stimulants prescribed for ADHD is between 20% and 65% (Swanson, 2006).

Motivational Appetizer: Engaging antisocial individuals in a short program may also provide a 'foot-in-the-door' technique and succeed in motivating participants to enter therapy and education programs which they might otherwise avoid or reject. We believe that one of the greatest values of the R&R2 program with antisocial individuals who are 'resisting desisting' may be its ability to help participants develop attitudes which will encourage them to acknowledge that they may need the help which other programs might offer.

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Chapter 31

REASONING AND REHABILITATION 2

The following provides a description of each of the new R&R2 Prosocial Competence Training Programs. All of the programs are brief, multifaceted, small group programs that are specifically designed for particular groups of participants. Each is a manualized program that provides a Handbook which explains the program model and provides detailed instructions for delivering the program. All provide Workbooks or Journals for each participant that contain summaries of the sessions and instructions for practicing the skills both in the training sessions and in their daily life. A variety of innovative training techniques are used to engage the participants and to make the training enjoyable - including stimulating games, individual and group exercises, guided group discussions, simulation training, role-playing, neurobics, brainstorming, brain-teasers and games, audiovisual materials and out-of-class assignments. The programs have been designed to provide comprehensive and intensive training that can be delivered by certified R&R trainers in any agency including those that have supervison of participants only for short periods of time. Most include booster sessions that enable extended practice over longer or even indefinite periods of time. Most participants will require only the brief program. However, for those requiring additional training, each of the R&R2 programs has been designed to serve both as a 'taster' and as a motivator for those who require more training and for those who are reluctant to enrol in the more extensive R&R program or in other programs that they require. Their performance in an R&R2 program provides trainers with an opportunity to assess whether the individual requires and would likely benefit from more extensive training or training designed for other problems that they may evidence.

R&R2 FOR YOUTH

R&R2 for Youth (Ross & Hilborn, 2008) is designed for 12-16 year old youths who are evidencing behavior problems at home, in school or in the community; for youths who are engaging in disruptive and anti-social behaviors at home, in school or in the community; for youths whose antisocial behavior has led to their involvement with social agencies, special schools, residential units, clinics or has led to their involvement with the juvenile justice system; and for "at risk" youths who have not (or not yet) been brought to the attention of the authorities. It can be conducted in institutions, schools, social service


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centers, recreational centers, group homes and in any other setting, including those in which youths are available for only short periods of time. The program is a new edition of the shortened version of the original R&R program (Ross & Hilborn, 2004) that was field-tested in Estonia and has been widely implemented in the U.K. A recent experimental evaluation of that program with 13-14 year old institutionalized youth in Scotland (Curran, 2006) concluded as follows:

Investigation of the effects of the programme on level of risk of general reoffending, problem solving ability, behavior, and criminal attitudes were observed for the treatment group. Improvements in the outcome measures, level of risk of re-offending and behavior were observed for the treatment group. In comparison, the control group showed no significant improvement in any of the treatment outcome measures.

Based on the neurocriminology model, the new edition of the program emphasizes experiential learning through numerous role-playing activities that are designed to develop prosocial values, prosocial motivation and prosocial self-efficacy. The program provides a core curriculum of cognitive and behavioral training exercises through which Trainers teach youths prosocial problem solving skills; interpersonal skills; critical reasoning skills; negotiation skills; and conflict management skills. The exercises are designed to foster the development of the youths' rational, executive functions. However, the youths are also engaged in exercises through which they acquire skills in self-monitoring, emotional recognition, emotional regulation and emotional management. Throughout the multifaceted program the youths are engaged in activities through which they acquire prosocial values, attitudes and beliefs as their egocentricity comes to be replaced by social perspective-taking and concern for others. It is a brief, 18 hour, 12 session program. Each session requires 90 minutes of training. Thus, by delivering 3 sessions per week, the program can be taught in 4 weeks.

R&R2 FOR ADULTS

The R&R2 for Adults (Ross, Hilborn & Liddle, 2008) is similar to the 2008 R&R2 Program for Youth but its content is appropriate for adults (18 and older). It is a new edition of the 2007 R&R2 program for Adults that has been field-tested and widely implemented in a large number of settings throughout Connecticut as a core program in a large-scale evaluation of the effects of incorporating principles of effective practice on a system-wide basis. The earlier program has

Chapter 31: Reasoning and Rehabilitation 2

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been revised based in part on lessons learned in the Connecticut project and on the neuroscience research we describe in this book. As in all the R&R2 programs, the emphasis is on cognitive, emotional and interpersonal behavioral skills training and the acquisition of prosocial attitudes and values through role-playing, simulation training, guided imagery, neurobics, and prosocial experiences.

R&R2 FOR GIRLS AND YOUNG WOMEN

Robert R. Ross, Yvonne Gailey, Wendy Cooper & James Hilborn (2008)

The R&R program was originally designed for high-risk male probationers but it has frequently been delivered to female offenders. It is regrettable that none of the evaluations of R&R have ascertained whether the program is more or less effective with female offenders than it is for male offenders. However, a recent British study failed to find positive outcome among female probationers and prisoners (Cann, 2006) .

There are very few examples of any kinds of treatment programs for female offenders that have been adequately evaluated and found to be effective (Ross & Fabiano, 1985; Dowden & Andrews, 1999). For example, among the sixty seven evaluations of programs for female offenders identified by Morash, Bynum & Koons (1995), only six provided a measure of outcome and no general conclusion could be justified as to whether programs ‗work‘ or fail. However, there is research that would indicate that antisocial females require different programs than males or at least require female-specific programs that are responsive to the particular characteristics of female offenders.

The research summarized below made it clear that a new edition of R&R must be developed that is responsive to the issue of gender.

Although one Spanish study indicated that antisocial females and female offenders may not evidence some of the cognitive skill shortcomings as male offenders (Martin-Rodriguez & Rodriguez-Rodriguez, 1997), there is evidence that many female offenders evidence similar shortcomings in at least some of the same social competence skills as do male offenders and that the best predictors of female recidivism are the same as those for the male offender population. Nevertheless, several additional factors must be considered critical: victimisation, abuse histories, relationship problems and familial problems (e.g. Dowden & Andrews,1999; Howden-Windell & Clarke,1999). Other factors such as substance abuse and inadequate educational skills, though problematic for


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many female offenders, may be less important for antisocial females than for males (McGuire, 2002).

There is some evidence that indicates that women exhibit different types and patterns of offending behavior than men (Home Office, 2004). On average they offend less frequently, they begin offending later, and they desist earlier (e.g. McIvor, Jamieson & Murray, 2000; Flood-Page, Campbell, Harrington & Miller, 2000). When women do offend they are, on average, more likely to commit acquisitive rather than violent crimes (Home Office, 2004b).

There is also some evidence that the principles of risk, need and general responsivity are associated with positive treatment outcomes for female offenders (Andrews & Dowden, 1999). However, Hedderman (2004) assessed the very limited evidence available and concluded that programs that focus on the criminogenic factors that are common among males are unlikely to be as effective in reducing recidivism among female because they do not address factors which are more common among females.

The paucity of criminological research on women‘s offending and the lack of evaluation of the effectiveness of existing responses to it is well documented though far from remedied. However, the lack is even more marked in the case of girls and young women. They are almost ‗invisible‘ in the field of program development (Chesney-Lind, 2001).

Similarities between girls and women in conflict with the law are both informative and disconcerting. The profiles of girls in secure care and women in prison highlight many common factors – history of victimisation, higher occurrence of self-harming behaviors and mental health problems, as well as relatively minor criminal histories. Many young women are detained in secure care for reasons of moral/sexual welfare; many women are imprisoned for minor offences often related to prostitution.

Assuming that strategies responsive and specific to women are equally applicable to girls who are in conflict with the law and girls who are "at risk" and those whose problematic or antisocial behavior (e.g. in school) has involved them with social agencies also echoes the tendency to ‗make do‘. Programs responsive to the needs of girls and young women need to be based not only research on female offenders. They must also integrate some key psychological and developmental issues associated with female


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adolescence. For example, Brown & Gilligan (1992) point out that adolescence is a time when a critical change occurs in a girl‘s view of herself. The confidence and self-assuredness of childhood is dramatically swept away by concerns about others‘ views and expectations of her. For many girls this is expressed through withdrawal and silence. For others, their resistance to this phenomenon leads to the acquisition of a range of survival techniques many of which bring young women to the attention of welfare agencies, social agencies, and justice agencies – running away; school misconduct; self-harm; destructive relationships; substance abuse; aggression; or general antisocial behavior (Pipher, 1994).

Chesney-Lind (2001) stresses that many of those behaviors must be viewed in the context of previous or current victimisation. Although the experience of abuse may manifest itself in ways similar to that for boys, policy makers, service providers and program developers must understand the influence of gender. For example, girls‘ pathways into delinquent behavior can be different than that for boys. The primary risk factors for males and females such as family, school and peers are similar (Rettinger, 1998; Simourd and Andrews,1994). However, there is at least one distinction: the cause of onset (Latimer, Kleinknecht, Hung & Gabor, 2003). While boys perceive that their delinquent behavior has been accelerated by disaffection or social exclusion, girls clearly link their behavior with experiences of abuse. This has a clear bearing on the development of programs intended to address such behavior.

The literature on gender differences has also highlighted learning styles and values that are relevant to programming.

The R&R2 Girls and Young Women program incorporates the

principles deemed to be important for a gender-responsive programme. It focuses on building strengths, it emphasises young peoples‘ capacity to develop constructive prosocial skills. It emphasises the link between emotions and behavior. As such it can be an empowering tool to build self-efficacy and thus resiliency.

The program is specifically designed for girls and young women (age 13-22). It includes substantial emphasis on emotions, values and relationships and, in keeping with the neurocriminology model, emphasizes experiential learning through role-playing activities. The program has 16 sessions, each requiring 90 minutes of training (with breaks as required) and includes homework tasks.


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Sessions may be delivered in any schedule. The ideal is 2-3 sessions a week.

R&R2 FOR ADHD YOUTHS AND ADULTS

Young & Ross, 2007

The evidence we presented in Chapter 10 clearly indicates that ADHD is often associated with antisocial behavior not only in children but also in adolescents and adults. The core symptoms of ADHD are inattention, impulsivity and hyperactivity and these problems considerably limit the ability of the individual to benefit from R&R or other programs. Individuals with ADHD symptoms may have difficulty engaging in any therapeutic program and/or lack motivation to do so. For example, they may not pay adequate attention to the program. Their behavior in groups is likely to be disruptive, provocative and challenging and they may pose significant management problems for trainers. They may disrupt other participants in the group and incite restlessness and dissatisfaction in other patients.

Antisocial individuals who evidence ADHD symptoms require a specialized program that includes considerable emphasis on the core dimensions of ADHD (particularly concentration, attention and memory). Such training is required in order that the participants are both prepared and amenable to training in the prosocial cognitive/emotional skills and values that are taught in all R&R2 programs. Their poor concentration and hyperactivity may lead to their being viewed as untreatable. They may, in fact, actually be untreatable if trainers fail to recognize the underlying ADHD symptoms and ensure that their intervention is appropriately designed to respond to the underlying condition.

This new version of R&R2 has been specifically designed for youths and adults (age 13+) who evidence ADHD symptoms of inattention, impulsivity, poor concentration, and/or hyperactivity. The program is designed to target not only individuals who have been diagnosed with ADHD, but the much larger population of individuals who may not have been diagnosed but are exhibiting antisocial behavior problems and evidence some or all of the ADHD characteristics. The program was developed in collaboration with Dr Susan Young, Clinical Psychologist and Clinical Neuropsychologist, at the Institute of Psychiatry in London and field-tested with some of the most serious offenders in the U.K. – mentally disordered offenders in secure hospital settings.

The program has been designed to teach prosocial cognitive, emotional, behavioral skills and values to youths under the supervision of social service agencies or youth justice agencies, and


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to adults under the supervision of community criminal justice agencies or in institutions. It was developed specifically for adolescents and young adults with attentional problems and impulse control problems who lack essential constructive planning, organizational and prosocial skills and values and are engaging in various disruptive and anti-social behaviors at home, in school, at work or in the community.

Thus, aside from targeting antisocial behavior associated with delinquency and crime, the program is suitable for the very large population of youth who have not been adjudicated in juvenile or adult court. In most advanced countries the vast majority of ‗at risk‘ and antisocial youths are not found in the criminal justice system or in the juvenile justice system but are ‗under the care‘ of social agencies in community or in residential ‗treatment‘ placements. The vast majority of such youths are typically looked upon simply as having behavior problems and little if any consideration is given to the possibility that they may have an underlying ADHD problem. Many of these individuals have ADHD or residual symptoms but are seldom adequately diagnosed. Moreover, only a small percentage of those with obvious ADHD symptoms are referred for specialized diagnosis for this disorder. Most receive only pharmacological treatment. Most people with ADHD will gradually experience an improvement of symptoms with maturation, although the disorder is heterogenous and rates of remission will vary because symptoms do not uniformly remit. Nevertheless, although their ability to attend to information and remain on task may have improved, ―graduates‖ are likely to retain a learned sense of helplessness reinforced by years of failure. Indeed ―graduates‖ of childhood ADHD are even less likely to have their problems recognised in spite of having ―survived‖ a syndrome that has led to significant personal, social and occupational consequences for them. Unfortunately, in spite of symptom improvement, many young people will follow an increasingly antisocial trajectory without direct and specific intervention. Although their symptoms may improve or remit, the improvements may come too late to prevent their acquisition of negative attitudes and patterns of dysfunctional and/or antisocial behavior. The tendency for individuals to engage in repeated patterns of learned behaviors which are often unconstructive, non-productive and antisocial has been called the ―hangover‖ of ADHD (Young, 2000). Professionals may attribute such behavior to motivational and attitude problems, with little appreciation that it stems from cognitive problems, a lack of self-confidence and low self-esteem. Negative assumptions and expectations about their ability to cope are likely to result in such individuals avoiding situations they perceive as anxiety-provoking and/or unmanageable. Accordingly, the program was designed in such a way that it will be helpful for ‗graduates‘ of ADHD, i.e. people who no longer have residual symptoms of childhood ADHD


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but can benefit from acquiring the academic skills, the cognitive/emotional skills and the behavioral coping skills that are taught in the program in order to accelerate the process of prosocial development.

The program spans a broad age range but is designed to be taught in age-appropriate groups, e.g. 13-15, 15-18, 18-25 etc. Thus, the program has been designed to provide maximum flexibility for Trainers so they may be applied at the most appropriate developmental level of the child/adolescent.

The program teaches the prosocial skills and values that are taught in other R&R programs but provides specific training techniques that target the cognitive, attitudinal, emotional and behavioral characteristics that are associated with ADHD symptoms and that limit the individuals‘ prosocial competence and/or prevent them from benefiting from programs designed to help them acquire prosocial competence.

The program has 15 sessions. Each session requires 90 minutes of training with breaks and includes homework tasks. Sessions may be delivered once a week or more. The program provides specifically designed training to target the inattention, lack of concentration, impulsivity and hyperactivity that are associated with poor interpersonal relationships, educational underachievement, employment problems and other social, financial, legal and/or relationship difficulties that reflect a lack of prosocial competence.

The program provides neurocognitive skills training techniques to improve attentional control, memory, and impulse control. It teaches achievement strategies by means of constructive planning techniques. Learning those target skills enables the participants to profit from the rest of the training provided by all R&R2 programs. Participants who apply those skills not only acquire specific prosocial competencies in coping with their ADHD symptoms, they also improve their performance in all of the program sessions thereby increasing the likelihood of positive outcome. For example, the self-control and listening skills they learn help the participants to focus on the core curriculum of R&R2 programs that has been designed to develop pro-social attitudes, skills and values.

The program also introduces a unique coaching system, whereby patients identify a Participant Aid for Learning (PAL) with whom they meet between sessions. The PAL may be a friend, family member, social worker or keyworker and their function is to reinforce what the patient has learned in the session and encourage the person to apply the new skills outside the session.

Booster sessions have also been developed for the program which enable review and extended training in keeping with the importance of 'throughcare" for antisocial individuals.


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Another problem for trainers in the juvenile and adult justice systems is that their clients' ADHD may be undetected. This may not only be because routine assessment in the criminal justice system rarely includes adequate measures of ADHD, but also because the clients evidence comorbid problems of personality, mood, anxiety and/or substance misuse which become the focus of attention of the program staff. Our search of the literature on cognitive skills training for offenders (including R&R) found not a single study that attempted to ascertain whether the program participants evidenced ADHD symptomatology. We can only wonder how many offenders with ADHD, or with ADHD symptoms of hyperactivity, poor concentration and impulsivity, have participated in R&R and other rehabilitation programs and whose inclusion in the evaluation sample has lowered the magnitude of the positive outcome in the program evaluation.

A screening measure, the ―RATE‖, has been developed for R&R2 for ADHD Youths and Adults that is specifically designed to identify individuals whose antisocial behavior is associated with symptoms of ADHD. The RATE scales rate the behaviors, attitudes and feelings of the individual over the past month and the items are classified according to four scales: ADHD symptoms; Emotional problems; Antisocial Behavior; Social Functioning. It has been designed to also serve as a pre-post program assessment measure of program efficacy.

R&R2 FOR YOUTHS AND ADULTS WITH MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS

Young & Ross, 2007

The contribution of problem solving and cognitive-behavioral interventions to mental health care, including work with persons suffering from severe and enduring mental health problems has been supported by reviews of the literature (Timmerman et al.,1998; Dixon, McFarlane, Lefley, Lucksted, Cohen, Falloon & Mueser, 2001; Kendrick, 1999). Deficits in social cognition and neurocognition are believed to underlie disabilities in schizophrenia, but many of these disabilities are capable of improvement after adequate exposure to cognitive rehabilitation such as cognitive enhancement therapy (Hogarty, 2005). However, individuals who, in addition to their mental health problems, evidence antisocial or criminal behavior require treatment that not only targets their mental health problems but also specifically targets their antisocial behavior (e.g. Hodgins & Müller-Isberner, 2004).

Mentally disordered offenders are complex individuals with multiple problems such as mental illness, personality disorders, learning disability and substance misuse. In some cases, brain


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damage has been associated with their criminal behavior and this may arise from physical abuse received in childhood, accidental injury, and/or violence. Such events often result in diffuse damage or more severe traumatic brain injury and cognitive impairments are associated with both. In many cases such impairments are long lasting. Comorbid problems are often present and patients frequently have associated anxiety disorders and depression. Many individuals are detained under Mental Health legislation for many years and they become institutionalized. Most feel anxious about coping in the community where they have limited social networks and support and they lack a level of prosocial competence that could enable them to cope.

Mentally disordered offenders often experience intellectual decline over the years from premorbid levels. Many have general limitations in their intellectual functioning and/or they exhibit specific problems such as poor attentional control and processing speed. Deficits in memory and executive functioning are common, resulting in them having difficulty recalling verbal and visual information, poor organizational ability, poor planning ability, impulsivity and poor response inhibition.

Many evidence the same cognitive characteristics as the general offender populations such as egocentricity, limited interpersonal problem solving skills, dysfunctional or self-defeating coping techniques, inadequate social skills, rigid and concrete thinking, thinking errors and inconsistent values. Although they have may been involved in many programs throughout their lives, many are resistant to treatment. Several secure hospitals for mentally disordered offenders in Scotland, England, New York, Germany and Colorado are delivering the Reasoning and Rehabilitation program to mentally disordered offenders. Although no evaluations of post-hospital antisocial behavior have yet been conducted, there are some studies that demonstrate that R&R can be implemented in such settings (e.g. Yates, Kunz, Czobor, Rabinowitz, Lindenmayer & Volavka, 2005) and some have reported program-related improvements on psychometric measures (Clarke, Fahy & Walwyn, 2003; Fahy, Clarke & Walwyn, 2003; Donnelly & Scott, 1999; Gretenkord, 2004). One study of 85 patients treated in a modified version of the original R&R program found the "rearrest rate was lower than that observed in similar populations". However, no control group was available for comparison. A large-scale, international evaluation of R&R is currently being undertaken that involves several secure hospital settings of the Maudsley Hospital in London and the Haina Hospital for mentally disordered offenders in Germany. In keeping with the responsivity principle of effective offender treatment, a specialized version of R&R2 has been designed for


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mentally disordered offenders and for youths and adults with mental health problems. The program is responsive to the neuropsychological difficulties associated with mental health problems. Thus, for example, it teaches skills that will help participants overcome attentional and memory difficulties that are associated with mental health problems in order to enable them to benefit from the prosocial cognitive and emotional skills that are taught in all the R&R2 programs. This program has been developed in collaboration with Dr. Susan Young, Clinical Psychologist and Clinical Neuropsychologist, at the Institute of Psychiatry in London. The program is designed to teach appropriate and effective coping strategies to mentally disordered offenders, and other youths and adults with mental health problems in both inpatient and outpatient settings that can enable them to develop prosocial competence. The program has 16 sessions, each requiring 90 minutes of training and includes homework tasks. Sessions may be delivered once a week or more. As in the ADHD program, the program includes Booster Sessions and the PAL coaching system. The program has been field-tested with mentally disordered offenders detained in medium security at the Maudsley Hospital in London and the Broadmoor Hospital in Berkshire.

R&R2 FOR FAMILIES & SUPPORT PERSONS

This new edition of R&R2 specifically addresses an aspect of the antisocial individual‘s social environment that is known to be critical in the etiology and persistence of antisocial behavior: the family. There is a substantial body of research that demonstrates the salience of family factors in the etiology of antisocial behavior, delinquency and adult criminality. Rather than viewing such factors as symptoms of parental pathology, the R&R2 Program for Families and Support Persons (Ross & Hilborn, 2008) is based on the assumption that the parent's difficulties may, in part, reflect their lack of prosocial competence (e.g., limited prosocial problem solving skills, emotional management skills, negotiation skills, conflict management skills, reasoning skills, and/or underdeveloped prosocial values).

Most programs for aggressive children and adolescents target only the individual. However, research would suggest that problem solving interventions should also be delivered in a family context. Although many programs have taught parents behavioral and other techniques to control their children's aggressive behavior, many parents lack the prosocial skills to benefit from such programs. However, if the parents‘ social-cognitive and emotional skills are improved through training, parents may be able to facilitate the development of problem solving skills in their children (Tebes, Grady & Snow, 1989). This R&R2 program is designed to teach specific


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skills and values that can help them, and motivate them to relate to one another in a way that will foster the development of prosocial competence in all of the family members.

Many antisocial youths have no family that could provide such training. Many are under the supervision of foster parents and other adult figures. Thus, the program is designed to empower not only families but other support persons by helping them acquire thinking, emotional, behavioral and interpersonal skills that will enable them to cope more effectively with the inevitable problems that are encountered in caring for antisocial adolescents.

The program has also been designed to provide the family members, spouses, friends, mentors and other support persons of R&R or R&R2 participants with an understanding of the R&R program approach in order to ensure that they understand and can reinforce the participants when they attempt to apply the skills they are learning in an R&R2 program. It provides them with an understanding of the R&R2 program in order to ensure that they understand and can encourage the participants when they attempt to apply the skills they are learning in the program outside of the group sessions, particularly in the many home-life situations that are characterized by conflict, the absence of empathy and respect, and/or actual physical or emotional abuse.

The R&R2 for Families & Support Persons is also designed to prevent delinquency in the siblings of youths who are enrolled in an R&R2 program by improving interactions among supervising family members and other adults that may have contributed to the development of the antisocial behavior in the youths who are being trained in the R&R2 program.

R&R2 FOR ANTISOCIAL DRIVERS

Ross, 2007

Another version of R&R2 is designed for the prevention and rehabilitation of ―antisocial drivers‖ - drivers who are inconsiderate, selfish, and rude and frequently drive in an offensive manner that disregards the rights of other drivers to be treated courteously and safely.

A review of psychological research on driving behavior identified the personal factors associated with driving violations and risky or careless driving (Ross & Antonowicz, 2004). The review indicated that antisocial drivers can be distinguished from prosocial drivers by the same cognitive, emotional, behavioral and value factors that are the targets of programs that effectively reduce offending behavior.


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The R&R2 Program for Antisocial Drivers focuses on teaching the cognitive skills, emotional skills, and values that are associated with courteous and safe driving. It is designed to teach prosocial skills and values to adolescent and adult drivers with poor driving records and/or antisocial driving habits. It is also designed to be delivered to novice drivers to ensure that they have acquired such skills and values before they are are granted a driver‘s license.

R&R2 FOR FIRESETTERS

(in preparation)

The R&R program has attracted a great deal of interest among fire services in the UK that are concerned about the high number of fires that can and have caused major damage to property and harm to victims and are caused by firesetters. Both in the U.K. and North America there has been a remarkable increase in fire and rescue services that have assumed responsibility for interventions to manage or treat firesetters. Unfortunately, research on firesetting has been hampered by the absence of a clear and widely accepted definition of firesetting, by the lack of an adequate body of research data, and by the relatively small and heterogeneous populations that are available for study. Many of the studies that have been conducted have included only mental health patients who may not be representative of the population of firesetters.

A growing body of research indicates that fire setting is not an unique syndrome - the characteristics of firesetters that have been identified are the same as those found in studies of most forms of antisocial behavior. This conclusion is in accord with the fact that some of the studies of the efficacy of programs for firesetters indicate that the most promising interventions have targeted similar factors as those targeted by effective interventions for other anti social behaviors.

A version of the R&R2 program that is specifically designed for firesetters is being developed with the close co-operation of fire and rescue services in the U.K. The program will incorporate fire-related examples to adapt the R&R2 program to the target audience. It also will ensure that fundamental aspects or "hot topics" of fire education are presented in the program in such a way that they are consistent with the R&R2 training principles and approach. The program is being designed such that firefighters may deliver the program.

267

Chapter 32

CONCLUSION

It could, and probably will be argued that by focusing on changing offenders we are perpetuating the view that it is only offenders who should be held accountable for crime and not the society which is responsible for the conditions which, it is believed, engender; condone; stimulate; reinforce; or even necessitate crime. It might be suggested that by publicizing the success of interventions in the lives of those who commit crime we provide an excuse for the failure to pursue socio-political improvement. So be it. We have no argument with the ideological position that the ultimate, perhaps the only way to substantially decrease antisocial behavior and crime is by changing criminogenic social, political, cultural, health, educational and economic conditions. However, while we are waiting (very patiently) for such changes we consider it totally justifiable to concern ourselves with helping offenders to cope with the personal difficulties they have experienced through such adverse conditions and through lack of opportunities to achieve success in prosocial endeavours. Moreover, we do not feel we need to rationalize attempts to change the attitudes and behaviors of antisocial individuals who might otherwise continue to produce problems for others that may be even more severe than the problems that they themselves may have experienced.

The neurocriminology model emphasizes helping antisocial individuals develop cognitive, emotional and behavioral skills and prosocial attitudes, values and personal narratives that will enable them to cope more prosocially and more effectively with the adverse social conditions which they may have experienced and to which they will regrettably, but probably, continue to be exposed.

A WORK IN PROGRESS

Given the remarkable recent and continuing explosion of research in neuroscience, the neurocriminology model for prevention and rehabilitation of antisocial behavior we have presented may have to be regularly updated. This is not the final stage of the long-term research project that we have described in this book.

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http://www.medscape.com/viewprogram/8683

http://www.medscape.com/viewprogram/8683

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

ROBERT R. ROSS Bob Ross (Ph.D. Psychology, University of Toronto) has been Lecturer, Wilfrid Laurier University; Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of Waterloo; Research Associate, Human Justice Program, University of Regina; Honorary Research Associate, Faculty of Law, University of Edinburgh; and Professor of Criminology, University of Ottawa. He is a Director of the Cognitive Center of Canada and an International Consultant on Offender Rehabilitation. Dr. Ross has had extensive experience as a Clinical Psychologist working with antisocial individuals, including twelve years as a Chief Psychologist with the Ontario Government‘s Ministry of Correctional Services in Canada for juvenile and adult offenders. He has also been a faculty member for the Ontario Department of Education's programs for special education teachers and a Consultant to the Department of Educational Television. Dr. Ross has been conducting research on antisocial behavior since the late 1960's. His research has been published in more than 100 articles in journals in psychology, criminology and education and in 23 books including Effective Correctional Treatment (1980); Treatment of The Alcohol Abusing Offender (1985); Time To Think: A Cognitive Model of Offender Rehabilitation & Delinquency Prevention (1985); Thinking Straight:The Reasoning & Rehabilitation Program (1985); Going Straight:Effective Programs for Delinquency Prevention & Offender Rehabilitation (1985); Antisocial Drivers: Prosocial Driver Training for Prevention and Rehabilitation (2005). His internationally renowned Reasoning and Rehabilitation (R&R) program has been delivered to more than seventy thousand offenders in seventeen countries with significant reductions in reoffending. The Handbooks for the R&R program he developed with his daughter, Roslynn Ross, in 1986 have been translated in nine languages. Dr. Ross was awarded the Centennial Medal of Canada for his work with antisocial adolescents.

JAMES HILBORN

Jim Hilborn, MES, is a Canadian health criminologist living and working in Tallinn, Estonia. He has worked in criminal justice for 35 years. He uses Embodied Cognitive Therapy, Evidence Based Harm Reduction and Health Promotion in his work in Criminal Justice, Addictions and on obesity. His MES from York University in Toronto is a social planning degree with an emphasis on community design and social & organizational intervention. In Estonia, he is teaching courses on cognitive-behavioral approaches, community work, crime prevention, community policing and evaluation of criminal justice


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programs. He is completing a book on Health Criminology which is an evolving synthesis of criminology, health promotion, harm reduction with an emphasis on human rights. The Healthy Prison model in the UK is one example of a Health Criminology perspective. He is a co-author with Dr. Ross of three program handbooks: Reasoning & Rehabilitation 2: Short Version for Youth (2003); Reasoning & Rehabilitation 2: Short Program for Families (2005); R&R2 Short Version for Adults (2005). His latest work includes two books: Crime Prevention Planning which was published by the Estonian Ministry of Justice in November, 2007 and Response Guide on the Design, Maintenance, and Policing of Crime and Disorder in Urban Parks, Center for Problem Oriented Policing, Community Oriented Policing Service (COPS), U.S. Department of Justice.

rehabilitating rehabilitation - neurocriminology

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