Forensic Psychology For Dummies (126 page)
Read Forensic Psychology For Dummies Online
Authors: David Canter
The application of RET with prison populations, however, has a lot of prob lems. For instance, considerable discussion revolves around what is an irrational belief and what isn’t. Also, people often have great reluctance in rejecting a viewpoint that they’ve held for many years, and which the community they belong to believes is obvious and logical.
Treating in therapeutic communities
As I note in the earlier section ‘Asking whether prison can make people worse’, prisons aren’t very effective environments in which to carry out therapeutic interventions with inmates. Therefore, from time to time attempts have been made to create communities for offenders that counteract the prison culture that can maintain criminal behaviour. A central part of this approach is to remove the strongly hierarchical, coercive nature of prisons and open up decision-making to all those involved. For that reason, these communities are often referred to as
democratic therapeutic communities.
The residents in these communities are usually selected by those already there, or at least by a subset elected by the community. (Yes, the prisoners are involved in deciding which new inmates should be allowed to join their community.) The community also decides when a person can be discharged. Any new member also has to be clear what they’re signing up to, which includes an acceptance of a range of aspects that are alien to a prison environment and are often psychologically demanding to deal with. For example:
Democratisation
is embraced with gusto. All major decisions relating to the community are made jointly by all its members, including staff and residents. Residents are expected to take an active role in this process.
takes the democratic process a stage further. Open and free communication between everyone is encouraged, with no secrets between people.
means that although people must obey the rules of the community, low-level misbehaviour is considered for its reasons and for ways to ensure it doesn’t re-occur, instead of being a reason for punishment or ejection from the community.
requires that residents have to face up to their ‘true colours’. They can’t hide behind denial, withdrawal from contact with others or distortion of the facts to suit themselves (see the later ‘Dealing with denial’ section for more information).
are used to deal with
the problems that originally led people to be sentenced; these sessions can follow various therapeutic principles.
are how the community makes decisions and manages its affairs.
The environment of a therapeutic community is an intensely social one in which every aspect of every day is regarded as some form of therapeutic intervention. Unsurprisingly, many offenders can’t tolerate those conditions and prefer to spend their time quietly in prison. The communication demands of these communities also means that they tend to attract and select the more capable and articulate offenders.
When treatment goes wrong
In the late 1980s, a novel form of therapeutic community was set up in the US especially for people diagnosed as psychopathic. Its activities were built around 80 hours of therapy each week, and as a result virtually no time was left for leisure, opportunities for training or for development of useful skills. The programme also included two weeks in a self-contained chamber where food and drink was provided from pipes in the walls. Along the way the inmates were made to use a variety of psychotropic drugs, such as LSD. People were expected to participate for two whole years and weren’t allowed out until they showed that they had complied with what the ‘treatment’ was expected to achieve.
Perhaps not surprisingly, people identified as psychopaths before they joined this community were in fact more dangerous and disturbed when they left than before they entered.
The success of therapeutic communities usually relies on a charismatic leader who can keep the highly charged atmosphere in a positively supportive state rather than it imploding. Any success they have seems to depend on offenders spending at least a year or longer as members. This length of time allows people to move through various reactions to the
therapeutic community
experience, such as hostility and depression, before they can benefit from the new perspectives on themselves and others.