Anger management:

• STRENGTH

  • Benefits outlast those of behaviour modification
  • Anger management tries to tackle one of the causes of offending the cognitive processes that trigger anger
  • Behaviour modification deal with only surface behaviour and not the processes that drive such behaviour
  • Experience of anger management may give offenders new insight into the cause of their criminality and allow them to self-discover ways of managing themselves outside of the prison setting

  This suggests that anger management is more likely than behaviour modification to lead to permanent behavioural change
• COUNTERPOINT

  • Follow-up studies of anger management tend not to support this assumption
  • General trend summarised by Blackburn points out that whilst anger management may have a noticeable effect of offenders in the short term there is very little evidence that it reduces recidivism in the long term
  • Application phase of treatment relies on role play which might not properly reflect all the possible triggers that are present in real-world
  • Any progress made in therapy may count for little when compared to, say, a busy city centre pub on a Saturday night

  In the end may not reduce reoffending
• X

  • likely to be an expensive option
  • Anger management programmes are expensive to run as they require the services of highly-trained specialists who are used to dealing with violent offenders
  • For this reason, many prisons may not have the resources to fund such programmes
  • In addition the success of anger management is often based on the commitment of those who participate, and this may be a problem if prisoners are uncooperative
  • Change takes time and this is ultimately likely to add to the expense of delivering effective programmes

  Are probably not going to work in most prisons