Searching for ‘What Works’: HM Prison Service accredited cognitive skills programmes

Falshaw, Louise; Friendship, Caroline; Travers, Rosie; Nugent, F. Warren

doi:10.1108/14636646200400007

Cited by 45 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Palmer reconviction was reported for offenders in the programme group. A second evaluation of the prison-based R & R and ETS programmes was reported by Falshaw and colleagues Falshaw et al, 2004). This later evaluation compared the outcome for 649 male offenders who had taken part in an offending behaviour programme (including 10% who failed to complete) with a no treatment control group of offenders.…”

Section: Outcome Evaluationmentioning

confidence: 97%

Cognitive skills programmes for offenders

Hollin

Palmer

2009

Psychology, Crime & Law

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Following the impact of the meta-analyses and 'What Works' in offender treatment, cognitive skills programmes for offenders have become widely used in both the community and in custody. This overview is primarily concerned with the issue of effectiveness: do cognitive skills programmes have an effect on reoffending? The extant evidence suggests that there are lower rates of reoffending among offenders who complete cognitive skills programmes. However, there is a debate in the literature as to whether this 'completion effect' is a real treatment effect or an artificial side-effect of the use of non-randomised research designs. The 'research design' view is considered in detail, leading to the conclusion that it is based on a less than convincing argument and that a pragmatic explanation (which does not exclude a treatment effect) for the completion effect is required.

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Section: Outcome Evaluationmentioning

confidence: 97%

Cognitive skills programmes for offenders

Hollin

Palmer

2009

Psychology, Crime & Law

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“…ETS programs aim at reducing reconvictions by changing prisoners' criminal attitudes (so far, with limited success; e.g., Falshaw, Friendship, Travers, & Nugent, 2004). Current ETS programs mainly address prisoners' impulsive tendencies, moral reasoning, and empathic behavior (McDougall, Perry, Clarbour, Bowles, & Worthy, 2009), whereas their risk taking has received no attention so far.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prospects behind bars: Analyzing decisions under risk in a prison population

Pachur

Hanoch

Gummerum

2010

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

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Criminal activity often involves considerable risks. It is therefore not surprising that criminals have been speculated to differ from noncriminals in risk attitude. Yet, few data exist to support this assumption. Moreover, the psychological underpinnings of differences in risk attitude are currently little understood. We presented prisoners and controls with sets of risky decision tasks and modeled their responses using cumulative prospect theory (CPT). The two groups showed several differences. Prisoners were more risk seeking than nonprisoners in lotteries involving losses, but they were less risk seeking in lotteries involving high-probability gains. Bestfitting CPT parameters indicated a reduced sensitivity to outcomes, for both gains and losses, and a stronger loss aversion among prisoners. In addition, prisoners showed a diminished sensitivity to the probability of gains. Our results contribute to a better understanding of prisoners' risk attitudes and the underlying mechanisms that distinguish prisoners from nonprisoners and may thus help improve interventions designed to prevent crime.

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“…Both R&R and other cognitive skills programmes have emerged as beneficial from focused meta-analytic reviews (Wilson et al 2005a;Tong & Farrington 2006). However, system-wide implementation of R&R in prisons in England and Wales yielded mixed and predominantly negative results (Friendship et al 2002;Cann et al 2003;Falshaw et al 2003).…”

Section: (Iii) Behavioural Interventionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A review of effective interventions for reducing aggression and violence

McGuire

2008

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

194

134

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This paper addresses the question of whether individual violence can be reduced in frequency or severity, if so to what extent and by which methods. It opens with a brief overview of the nature of personal violence and discussion of some key definitional and methodological problems. However, its principal focus is on the findings obtained from a series of meta-analytic reviews of structured programmes for adolescents and adults who have shown repeated aggression or been convicted of personal violence, drawing together the results of studies conducted in prison, probation, youth justice and allied services. Additional results are considered from a systematic review of studies of violence prevention among offenders with mental disorders. This incorporates the preliminary findings of a meta-analysis of controlled trials of psychosocial interventions with that population. Overall, it is concluded that there is sufficient evidence currently available to substantiate the claim that personal violence can be reduced by psychosocial interventions, but that much more research is required to delineate the parameters of effectiveness in this context. Proposals are made for future investigations with reference to the theoretical understanding of causal relationships and the design of experimental trials.

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Searching for ‘What Works’: HM Prison Service accredited cognitive skills programmes

Cited by 45 publications

References 13 publications

Cognitive skills programmes for offenders

Cognitive skills programmes for offenders

Prospects behind bars: Analyzing decisions under risk in a prison population

A review of effective interventions for reducing aggression and violence

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