Prevention of Recidivism and Violent and Aggressive Offenders

Abstract

Interventions that are effective in reducing recidivism and enhancing desistance are growing, but research into whether they work and how they work is rare. In keeping with the risk principle of the risk‐need‐responsivity model, risk‐reducing interventions have the most impact on the highest‐risk offenders. Developmental theory and longitudinal cohort research indicate that those who commit the most violent acts are also prolific and diverse offenders who start offending early, persist well into adulthood, and have myriad characteristics associated with poor life prognoses, including risk factors for offending, poor physical and mental health, and economic failure. This chapter reviews treatment programs for high‐risk violent offenders in correctional settings such as prisons before considering the applicability of developments in the treatment of psychopathic and personality‐disordered offenders. It proposes that psychological treatment, while effective, should be coupled with reentry or resettlement preparation and postrelease support to minimize recidivism.

Do Triarchic Psychopathy Components of New Zealand High-Risk Parolees Predict Probation Officer Relationship Quality, Quality of Life on Parole, and Recidivism?

“…High levels of PCL-psychopathy are a feature of high-risk prisoner samples, a finding that is to be expected given that the PCL-R is widely used to predict criminal risk (Douglas et al, 2018). Our results are also consistent with research with an earlier sample of high risk New Zealand male prisoners, which found that on average they also obtained high scores on the PCL-SV ( M = 19.8, SD = 3.1, mdn = 20.0; Polaschek, 2008). But in contrast to the PCL scales, where scores are more directly based on criminal behavior and criminal lifestyle correlates, only the Disinhibition scale of the TriPM correlated with recidivism; it also continued to predict it directly in the multivariate models.…”