7. Kennealy (2012)

Background and theoretical framework

• Research question: Do high quality dual role relationships between community corrections officers and offenders reduce rearrest risk, and does this generalize from offenders with mental illness to general (without mental illness) offenders? Also, is the relationship between dual role quality and rearrest causal or attributable to pre-existing offender characteristics?
• Core theoretical bases:
  • Core Correctional Practice (CCP) principles within the Risk-Need-Responsivity (RNR) model emphasize high quality officer-offender relationships (caring, respectful, autonomy-supportive) and high quality structuring (prosocial modeling, reinforcement, problem-solving, service advocacy).
  • RNR principles: target high-risk offenders with high-intensity supervision/services, address criminogenic needs, deliver in structured, cognitive-behavioral formats, matched to learning styles.
  • Mechanism emphasis: effectiveness of intervention may depend on how it is delivered by the officer, not only on program content.
• Key constructs:
  • Therapeutic alliance: bond, collaboration on goals/tasks, and mutual respect in therapy; strong predictor of outcomes across therapies in clinical psychology.
  • Procedural justice: decisions by authorities perceived as fair, respectful, and allowing offender participation; linked to compliance and voluntary cooperation.
  • Dual-role relationships: officers serve as both counselors (care/therapeutic aims) and law enforcers (control/public safety); effective dual-role practice balances these roles rather than privileging one.
• Prior evidence foundations:
  • Therapeutic alliance accounts for substantial variance in clinical outcomes beyond specific therapies (Horvath & Symonds, 1991; Krupnick et al., 1996; Connors et al., 1997).
  • Procedural justice linked to compliance and perceived legitimacy (Tyler & Huo, 2002; Tyler & Rankin, 2011).
  • Officer orientation and dual-role balance associated with better supervision outcomes (Klockars, 1972; Paparozzi & Gendreau, 2005).
  • Dual-Role Relationship Inventory (DRI-R) operationalizes Caring-Fairness, Trust, and Toughness; prior findings connected DRI-R with meeting behavior and 16.2-month recidivism follow-up (Skeem et al., 2007).

Therapeutic alliance, procedural justice, and dual-role relationships in corrections

• Therapeutic alliance as an integrative variable: accounts for variance in outcomes and may operate directly on well-being and behavior change.
• Dual-role considerations: traditional alliance models may miss key dynamics when officers are also enforcers; a more comprehensive model includes procedural justice elements (fairness, respect) and autonomy-supportive interactions.
• Prior evidence suggests that a balanced officer orientation (careful, fair, yet capable of enforcing rules) is associated with better compliance and lower revocation rates (Skeem et al., 2007; Klockars, 1972; Paparozzi & Gendreau, 2005).

The current study: aims and hypotheses

• Aims:
  1) Generalizability: Does the protective association between dual role relationship quality and rearrest extend to general offenders (no mental illness)?
  2) Incremental validity: Does dual role relationship quality predict rearrest above and beyond offenders’ pre-existing personality traits and recidivism risk?
• Hypotheses:
  • Higher dual role relationship quality will be associated with longer time to rearrest in general offenders.
  • DRI-R scores will show incremental prediction beyond MPQ Negative Emotionality and LS/CMI total scores.
• Rationale: If protective effects persist after accounting for pre-existing traits and risk, the relationship is not solely a function of offender characteristics.

Methods

Participants

• Sample: $n = 109$ offenders (98 men, 11 women) on parole in a Western state.

• Eligibility criteria:

  • English-speaking; at least 18 years old; on active parole; released within 90 days of recruitment; no diagnoses of major mental illness or mental retardation.

• Demographics: age $M = 38.09,<br /> SD = 9.93$; age range $20–68$; ethnicity: 71 ext{% African American}; 17 ext{% Hispanic}; 6 ext{% Caucasian}; 6 ext{% Other}.

• Supervised by $58$ parole officers (88% men, 12% women).

• Follow-up: rearrest data collected for average $ext{follow-up} = 16.4 ext{ months}, SD = 2.03, range 13–21$ months.

Procedure

• Recruitment: at mandatory weekly parole orientation meetings; participants contacted after meeting; informed consent obtained; confidentiality assured.
• Data collection: semistructured interview plus measures of relationship quality and personality; interviews lasted 1$-$ ext{2 hours}; participants paid for time.
• Outcome data: official parole records and state parole databases reviewed approx. $16.4$ months after interview to code rearrest (days until first rearrest).
• Follow-up rationale: rearrest is a robust outcome within the early post-release period; most rearrests occur within the first year.

Measures

• Dual-role relationship quality: offender version of the DRI-R (Skeem et al., 2007), 30 items, 7-point scale (1 = never to 7 = always).
  • Subscales: Caring-Fairness (20 items)； Trust (5 items)； Toughness (5 items).
  • DRI-R total: sum of Caring-Fairness and Trust plus the inverse of Toughness. Inverse mapping: Toughness is transformed as (8 − Toughness) for the total.
  • Reliability: internal consistency reported as $ext{alpha} = .87 ext{ to } .96$ in offenders with mental illness; $.75 ext{ to } .95$ in general offenders.
  • Scoring note: allows up to 20% item missing per scale.
• Rearrest outcome: recorded as days to first rearrest; coded as present/absent for survival analyses.
• Potential third variables (covariates):
  • Personality: Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire-Brief Form (MPQ-BF; 155 items; dichotomous responses); scales: Positive Emotionality (PEM), Negative Emotionality (NEM), Constraint (CON).
  • MPQ-BF reliability in prior work: $$ ext{alpha} \