anger management

• INTRO - proposed by nevaco

  • anger management is a treatment programme aimed to control and manage hostile, violent and antisocial behaviour of offenders and reduce recidivism rates
  • it does this through teaching offenders ways of managing anger such as through communication (social) or positive self talk (cognitive)
• STAGES OF ANGER MANAGEMENT

  COGNITIVE PREPARATION - irrational thought and triggers are identified and challenged

  SOCIAL ACQUISITION - offender is taught skills to deal with a potential anger inducing scenario such as deep breathing, or self talk

  APPLICATION PRACTICE - learnt skills are put to the test through role playing a potential anger inducing scenario with therapist to test the degree to which offender is able to react in a calm and rational manner
• MEASURING ANGER

  • to measure the effectiveness if the therapy, therapist will ask for both self report in the prison environment from offenders, aswell as reports from officers/guards on how the offenders are behaving
• A03

  +SUPPORTIVE STUDY - Ireland found a 92% improvement in the behaviour of offenders after they had engaged in anger management compared to a control group. this therefore demonstrates clear cause and effect relationship between anger management and improvement of behaviour therefore highlighting its effectiveness and potential lower rates of recidivism- implications for the economy
• A03

  -aspects of therapy lack mundane realism - for example, application practice involves role play which doesn't reflect the real life scenarios of an anger inducing situation. therefore, despite being able to control anger well in a therapeutic setting, this is unlikely to happen in real life. similarly, as calm behaviour won't be positively reinforced in real life to means offender is less likely to feel motivated to display positive behaviour, this therefore means the therapy lacks ecological validity
• A03

  -anger management not fully applicable - while it can be beneficial in reducing the anger in people who commit anger fuelled crimes such as murder, it is not as applicable to crimes that don't really involve anger such as drug dealing, or burglary etc. this means that while anger can be reduced in some criminals, thus reducing recidivism rates, criminals who don't operate on anger are likely to be unchanged through anger management therapy and return back to their crime. therefore thus means a more holistically inclusive treatment for criminals is needed to try and reduce recidivism rates