Evaluation of CHANGE, an Involuntary Cognitive Program for High-Risk Inmates

Abstract

Prison violence is a major concern in most correctional institutions. One intervention frequently used to reduce violent behavior is cognitive therapy. An involuntary cognitive program at a Midwestern state prison was evaluated for its impact on official misconduct. A total of 213 inmates were randomly assigned to the treatment (CHANGE) group (n = 122) and the control group (n = 91). The specific outcomes measured were disobeying a direct order, insolence, violent, nonviolent, and total number of infractions. Using general linear univariate model analyses, the only statistically significant but important difference found was the reduction of violence for the CHANGE group after 6 months.

A meta‐analytic review of the efficacy of psychological treatments for violent offenders in correctional and forensic mental health settings.

“…Given the I 2 index is not a measure of absolute heterogeneity, we also calculated a 95% prediction interval alongside the pooled effect for each outcome (Borenstein, Higgins, Hedges, & Rothstein, 2017). The prediction interval estimates where the true effects are expected to be for 95% of similar studies that might be undertaken in the future (Higgins, Thompson, & Spiegelhalter, 2009). In order to evaluate the influence of each study on the pooled effect size, we calculated standardized residuals for each study comparing the individual effect to the pooled effect and conducted sensitivity analysis using the "one study removed" approach.…”

Psychoeducational programs for reducing prison violence: A systematic review

“…Thirteen studies were of programs in the USA (Armstrong, 2002;Baro, 1999;Dietz et al, 2003;Goldstein, Dovidio, Kalbeitzer, Weil, & Strachan, 2007;Hogan, Lambert, & Barton-Bellessa, 2012;Lambert, Hogan, Barton, & Stevenson, 2007; Lee & Gilligan, 2005;Liau et al, 2004;Maglinger, 2013;Morrissey, 1997;Prendergast, Farabee, & Cartier, 2001;Walrath, 2001;Welsh, McGrain, Salamatin, & Zajac, 2007), Three were set in the UK (Evershed et al, 2003;Jotangia, Rees-Jones, Gudjonsson, & Young, 2015;C. Wilson et al, 2013), two came from Australia (Miller, 1996;Watt & Howells, 1999), and one study each came from Canada (R. C. Serin, Gobeil, & Preston, 2009), and the Netherlands (Hoogsteder et al, 2014).…”

“…The number of participants in each study varied considerably; six studies analysed data for less than 50 participants (Evershed et al, 2003;Goldstein et al, 2007;Jotangia et al, 2015;Miller, 1996;Watt & Howells, 1999), five studies had between 50 and 100 participants (Hoogsteder et al, 2014;Maglinger, 2013;Morrissey, 1997;Walrath, 2001;C. Wilson et al, 2013), three studies involved between 100 and 200 participants (Baro, 1999;Lambert et al, 2007;Lee & Gilligan, 2005), three studies involved between 200 and 300 participants (Armstrong, 2002;Hogan et al, 2012;Liau et al, 2004), and two studies had samples larger than 500 (Dietz et al, 2003;Welsh et al, 2007). One of these studies had the advantage of…”

“…Amongst the 21 included studies there were 17 different programs evaluated to reduce prison violence, as three programs were evaluated more than once: the Alternatives to Violence Project (Miller, 1996;Walrath, 2001) (Hogan et al, 2012;Lambert et al, 2007). The CHANGE program was a modified version of the Strategies for Thinking Productively (STP) program evaluated in an earlier included study (Baro, 1999).…”

“…The questionnaire measures used several different methods to collect data: self-report, professionally-rated, peer-rated, and ratings made by an independent observer. Violent behaviour in prison was measured most often using institutional records (Armstrong, 2002;Baro, 1999;Dietz et al, 2003;Hogan et al, 2012;Hoogsteder et al, 2014;Lambert et al, 2007;Lee & Gilligan, 2005;Liau et al, 2004;Maglinger, 2013;Morrissey, 1997;Prendergast et al, 2001;R. C. Serin et al, 2009;Welsh et al, 2007;C.…”