Anger Management

• Anger management as a way of dealing with offending behaviour

  • Limited rehabilitative value
  • Effective in the short term but less successful in the long term for decreasing rates of recidivism
• Anger management is only an effective treatment within a controlled artificial setting and cannot be generalised to natural everyday situations where aggressive triggers may not be as easy to manage outside of a role play
• This reduces the overall effectiveness and appropriateness of anger management
• Cost of implementing the anger management programme

  • Requires the services of highly trained specialists experienced in working with violent offenders
  • Different to behaviour modification where there is no need for a specialist professional to be involved
• Many prisons do not have the necessary resources or funds to be able to implement such support across all prisons
• This reduces the appropriateness of anger management
• Strength of anger management

  • Focuses on addressing the underlying causes of offending behaviour
  • Addresses the underlying cognitive processes that trigger anger and ultimately offending behaviour
• Offenders are able to understand the underlying causes of their criminality which enables them to self-discover ways of managing themselves outside of the prison setting and also to identify when those triggers will occur
• This makes anger management more effective and practical in comparison to other methods, meaning increased chances of long-term effectiveness and therefore lower rates of recidivism