Anger management

• Anger management focuses of cognitions and teaching individuals how to recognise their anger and develop techniques to resolve conflict without violence.
• It starts with Cognitive Preparation where an offender reflects and considers their typical patterns of behaviour.

  Then the offender must identify their triggers and see whether the event that caused it is the result of irrational interpretation.
• Then the offender more onto Skills Acquisition where the offender is introduced to skills and techniques to rationally and effectively deal with their behaviour.

  For example they may engage in positive self talk (cognitive), communication training (behavioural) and relaxation techniques (physiological).
• The third step is Application Practice where an offender role plays in a controlled environment to practice the skills and techniques learnt.

  They reenact scenarios where they've felt escalated feelings of anger which requires lots of commitment.
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  A strength of anger management is that it attempts to address thought processes and not just superficial surface behaviour.

  This is because it's logical to assume anger management will lead to permanent behaviour changes leading to less recidivism compared to the likes of Token economy.

  This therefore leads to increased appropriateness making it a better therapy for criminality.
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  Another strength is that it takes into consideration the complexity of offending.

  This is because it takes it account all factors providing skills and techniques that are cognitive, behavioural and psychological.

  Therefore, anger management takes a more holistic approach than most therapies which make it highly comprehensive and appropriate.
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  A limitation of anger management is that there is little evidence to suggest it actually reduces recidivism.

  For example Blackburn pointed out that anger management may not reduce recidivism in the long term perhaps because the application practice occurs as role play and does not reflect all the possible triggers that are present in real life.

  Therefore any progress made in therapy may count for little when compared to a busy pub on a Saturday night.

  Therefore, anger management may not reduce recidivism.
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  Another limitation of anger management is that its success depends on the offender.

  Howells found that participation in the therapy had little impact when compared to a control group who received no treatment.

  However, this was not true for all offenders as some made significant progress when they'd had intense levels of anger prior.

  Also offender who were open to change and were highly motivated experienced similar progress.

  Therefore anger management may only benefit offenders who fit a certain profile and therefore it's limited in its effectiveness.