This book addresses how and why criminal offenders repeat their actions after being released from prison. It is part of an attempt to explain criminal behavior within the context of a contemporary psychological understanding of behavior, rather than more traditional theories of crime. Over 300 serious male criminal offenders were interviewed and tested after they returned to prison for new crimes. The results indicate that their new offenses may be the result of something like a 'breakdown'. From this, it can be argued that we could monitor released prisoners to predict or even to prevent their return to crime. This report, written for a general audience, has some important implications for release supervision, rehabilitation programs, and the prediction of recidivism.

A three-wave, prospective panel design was used to assess the extent to which static and dynamic risk factors could predict criminal recidivism in a sample of 136 adult male offenders released from Canadian federal prisons. Static measures were assessed only once, prior to release while dynamic measures were assessed on three separate occasions: pre-release, 1 month, and 3 months post-release. Recidivism was coded during an average of 10.2-month follow-up period (SD = 19.2). A series of Cox regression survival analyses with time-dependent covariates and Receiver Operator Characteristic (ROC) analyses were conducted to assess predictive validity. Although the combined static and time-dependent dynamic model (AUC = .89, CI = .81–.93) significantly (p < .01) outperformed the pure static model (AUC = .81, CI = .73– .87) the confidence intervals did overlap to some extent. Implications for dynamic risk assessment and management are discussed.

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Despite the likely importance of Pavlovian conditioning in sexual behavior, previous evidence of reliable or sizeable effects is very sparse. This report includes four experiments in the conditioning of sexual arousal in the males of a mammalian species, namely, the rat. In each case the unconditioned response (UR) was unconsummated arousal after exposure to a female. There was evidence of a substantial conditioned effect, as shown by decreases in the time to complete copulation during postconditioning conditioned stimulus (CS) tests. It is also possible to establish a second-order conditioned response (CR), which retains its strength even after extinction of the first-order response. These results confirm the power of Pavlovian contingencies in sexual responding and provide implications for conditioning theory and applied work.

The results of a recent longitudinal study of coping in prison are reviewed with respect to their implications for rehabilitation. The failure of the conditions of ordinary imprisonment to change behavior generally, and the demonstration of substantial coping deficits among prisoners in particular, are both justification for increased adoption of treatment programs aimed at behavioral change. More specifically, the data indicate that programs should begin at the start of a prison term rather than later, and they also delineate some of the particular targets for change. These all justify the conclusion that the empirical study of the process of imprisonment and the behavioral precursors of criminal actions can help to maximize the effectiveness of treatment programs.

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