Treatment for Violent Offending

A Brief History

  • Early focus was on managing problematic anger.
  • Meta-analyses emerged, pinpointing features of effective correctional treatment.
  • New dynamic risk assessment measures were developed.
  • More intensive and comprehensive treatment programs began to emerge.
  • Polaschek (2019) noted that anger is too narrow a focus.

What Treatment Involves

  • Most commonly involves group treatment.
  • Treatment is delivered by highly trained and qualified staff, usually in pairs.
  • Three phases of intensive violent offending treatment:
    • Motivation and engagement phase
    • Prosocial skill acquisition phase
    • Consolidation and future planning phase
  • Programs typically run for several months.
  • Group sizes are typically around 8-10 people (Polaschek, 2019).

Treatment in Aotearoa New Zealand

  • Includes non-violence programs and correctional treatment.
  • Non-violence programs are for non-violent offenses, including intimate partner violence (IPV).
  • Correctional treatment addresses general violence.

Non-Violence Programmes

  • Community-based.
  • Participants come from self-referrals, community sentences, and Family Court referrals.
  • Combination of voluntary and mandatory attendees.
  • Delivered by a wide range of community organizations.
  • Significant variability in content and approach across different providers (Polaschek, 2016).
  • Latest organizations around New Zealand - some local, receive government funding, some Maori, church, some work together, varied picture.

Correctional Treatment

  • Three main intervention types:
    • Medium-intensity group treatment
      • Both in prison and the community.
      • For individuals at moderate risk of reoffending.
      • Not violence-specific.
      • Delivered by program facilitators.
    • High-intensity group treatment
      • Mostly in prison.
      • Delivered by program facilitators and psychologists.
      • For individuals at the highest risk of violent reoffending.
      • Four prison-based Special Treatment Units: Karaka, Puna Tatari, Te Whare Manaakitanga, and Mātāpuna, plus one community-based program (Tai Aroha).
    • Individual psychological treatment
      • Both in prison and the community.

First Therapeutic Community in a Women's Prison

  • Opened in Christchurch Women's Prison.
  • Changed only last year – challenges - programme, how fits in prison, space environment treatment.

Case Study: Te Whare Manaakitanga Special Treatment Unit

  • Located at Rimutaka Prison.

The Unit

  • 30-bed low-medium security unit at Rimutaka Prison.
  • Combination of therapy and custodial staff.
  • Separate therapy and custodial wings.
  • No special training for custodial staff.
  • All new therapy staff and men are welcomed with mihi whakatau (a formal welcome).
  • Runs 3 groups.

The Men

  • Considered "high-risk" for violent reoffending (approximately 50% likelihood).
  • Must have at least low-medium security classification.
  • Attendance is voluntary, but it significantly impacts chances of release.
  • Data from 2008-2011 (Polaschek & Kilgour, 2013) on 264 men entering STUs:
    • Average age: 34 years old.
    • 64% New Zealand Māori, 25% Pākehā, 9% from Pacific Island nations.
    • 44% were members, associates, or prospects of criminal gangs.
    • Mean prison sentence length: approximately 4.5 years.

The Programme

  • 9-month group-based program.
  • Three 3-hour group sessions per week, plus individual sessions as needed.
  • Content draws on various theories and models, including social learning, CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy), and the Good Lives Model.
  • Incorporates Māori concepts (e.g., Te Whare Tapa Wha).
  • Manualized program with flexibility in session content and order.

The Programme Phases

  • Phase 1: "Safety and containment"
    • Group kawa (protocols).
    • Dealing with conflict.
    • Goal setting.
    • Communication.
    • Te Whare Tapa Wha (Māori health model).
    • Distress tolerance.
  • Phase 2: "Control and regulation"
    • Understanding emotions.
    • Problem thinking.
    • Personal goals and values.
    • "Life stories".
  • Phase 3: "Exploration and Change"
    • Introduction to CBT.
    • Understanding emotions.
    • Problem thinking.
    • Healthy relationships.
    • Emotion regulation.
    • Crisis survival.
    • New thinking.
    • Introduction to offence chains and "offence mapping".
  • Phase 4: Integration and Synthesis
    • Goal setting.
    • "What ifs".
    • "Safety plans".
    • Skill practice.

The Therapeutic Community

  • The unit operates as a "community of change."
  • "Everything that happens between staff and men in the course of living and working together can be used as a chance for learning."
  • Aims to replicate parts of normal life to build skills and develop new habits.
  • A range of recurring and one-off organized activities are run in the unit (e.g., creative writing, cooking classes, kapa haka, Christmas event).
  • The main weekly event is the community meeting.

After the Programme

  • A Reintegration Coordinator (member of therapy staff) helps men directly and liaises with support people inside and outside prison.
  • Staff help men to think about and prepare for the next steps in their life, including:
    • Additional rehabilitation or other programs.
    • Employment (inside and outside prison).
    • Accommodation.
    • Relationships.
    • Financial issues.

Effectiveness of Treatment

  • Meta-analyses and reviews:
    • Joliffe & Farrington (2007): reduction of 8–11% in reconviction of any type, and 7–8% in violent recidivism.
    • Henwood et al. (2015): 25% relative reduction in reconvictions, 28% relative reduction in violence risk.
    • Papalia et al. (2019):
      • 19 studies compared treated samples relative to matched comparison groups.
      • Treatment associated with a 31% relative reduction, equated to an average 10.2% absolute reduction, in violent recidivism.

Effectiveness of Treatment: Things to look out for

  • Absolute reduction vs. relative reduction.

Effectiveness of Treatment: New Zealand Evidence

  • Internal evaluation (Ara Poutama Aotearoa, 2025):
    • Impact on convictions and imprisonment:
      • High-intensity: 13.4% reduction (convictions), 11.5% reduction (imprisonment).
      • Medium-intensity: 0.3-1.0% reduction (convictions), 1.0-1.3% reduction (imprisonment).
      • NVPs for men: 1.7% reduction (convictions), 0.5% reduction (imprisonment).
      • NVPs for women: 0.8% reduction (convictions), 0.8% reduction (imprisonment).
    • Note: Bold values are statistically significant.
  • Paulin et al., 2018: Evidence of community and other intervention projects – impact on family violence offending with good results.
  • Independent evaluations:
    • Polaschek (2011): "10-12% fewer program completers reconvicted for violence compared to their untreated controls."
    • Polaschek et al. (2016): Consistent with this, recidivism rates still 40%, but good for 60% not going through treatment.
  • Zane, S. N., Pupo, J. A., & Welsh, B. C. (2023). Big impact

Mechanisms of Effective Treatment

  • Why does treatment work?
  • Lots of possibilities, but very difficult to identify the real causal mechanisms (Polaschek, 2019).
  • Hard to isolate individual variables that may impact the outcome.

Mechanisms – the Likely Suspects (Polaschek, 2019)

  • Change in antisocial attitudes and beliefs.
  • Change in violence-supportive beliefs.
  • Improved problem-solving.
  • Enhanced emotion regulation skills.

Summary

  • Treatment for violent offending works!
  • Reduces violent and other criminal behavior.
  • We know a few things about what makes it work:
    • Anger management is not sufficient.
    • Most intensive programs should be provided to the highest-risk people.
    • Requires stable environments, highly trained staff, and time.
  • But…
  • We need more research on the psychological mechanisms of change.

Key References

  • Henwood, K. S., Chou, S., & Browne, K. D. (2015). A systematic review and meta‐analysis on the effectiveness of CBT informed anger management. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 25, 280–292.
  • Jolliffe, D., & Farrington, D. P. (2007). A systematic review of the national and international evidence of interventions with violent offenders. Ministry of Justice Research Series 16/07. Ministry of Justice.
  • Papalia, N., Spivak, B., Daffern, M., & Ogloff, J. R. (2019). A meta‐analytic review of the efficacy of psychological treatments for violent offenders in correctional and forensic mental health settings. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 26(2), e12282. https://doi.org/10.1111/cpsp.12282
  • Paulin, J., Mossman, E., Wehipeihana, N., Lennan, M., Kaiwai, H., Carswell, S., … & Gauper, E. (2018). An evaluation of the Ministry of Justice-funded Domestic Violence programmes. Artemis Research.
  • Polaschek, D. L. L. (2011). High‐intensity rehabilitation for violent offenders in New Zealand: Reconviction outcomes for high‐ and medium‐risk prisoners. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 26, 664–682. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260510365854
  • Polaschek, D. L. L. (2019). Interventions to reduce recidivism in adult violent offenders. In The Wiley International Handbook of Correctional Psychology (pp. 499–514). John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119139980.ch31
  • Polaschek, D. L. L. (2016). Responding to perpetrators of family violence. New Zealand Family Violence Clearinghouse.
  • Polaschek, D. L. L., & Kilgour, T. G. (2013). New Zealand’s special treatment units: The development and implementation of intensive treatment for high‐risk male prisoners. Psychology, Crime & Law, 11, 511–526.
  • Polaschek, D. L. L., Yesberg, J. A., Bell, R. K., Casey, A. R., & Dickson, S. R. (2016). Intensive psychological treatment of high‐risk violent offenders: Outcomes and pre‐release mechanisms. Psychology, Crime & Law, 22, 344–365. https://doi.org/10.1080/1068316X.2015.1109088
  • Zane, S. N., Pupo, J. A., & Welsh, B. C. (2023). Correctional treatment as an economically sound approach to reducing the high costs of recidivism: A review of the research. Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health, 33(2), 125-138. https://doi.org/10.1002/cbm.2284