Evaluation of the Persistently Violent Offender Treatment Program

Abstract

The treatment of violent offenders has evolved in recent years, shifting from interventions focused on anger management to those incorporating social information processing skills. The present study was a multimethod evaluation of one such program, the Persistently Violent Offender program. A total of 256 Canadian male violent offenders participated in the study; 70 Persistently Violent Offender program completers were compared to two control groups (n(1) = 33, n(2) = 105) who completed an alternate program and to 48 offenders who failed to complete either program. Results demonstrate few differences among groups in terms of changes on measures of treatment targets, involvement in institutional misconducts, and postrelease returns to custody, thus demonstrating that the Persistently Violent Offender program was superior to neither the alternate program nor program noncompletion. These results are discussed in light of the findings from two more promising recent evaluations of similar programs.

A meta‐analytic review of the efficacy of psychological treatments for violent offenders in correctional and forensic mental health settings.

“…() and Serin et al. (), as treatment and comparison groups were not equivalent in their pretreatment involvement in misconducts, with the treatment groups involved in more misconducts than the control groups. When these three studies were removed, the pooled effect was larger (in favor of treatment) and statistically significant (Hedge's g = −0.22; 95% CI −0.40, −0.04; p = 0.019).…”

Changes in J-SOAP-II and SAVRY Scores Over the Course of Residential, Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment for Adolescent Sexual Offending

“…In other studies, however, reductions in risk factors have not translated into reduced reoffending (Barnett, Wakeling, Mandeville-Norden, & Rakestrow, 2012, 2013; Bowen, Gilchrist, & Beech, 2008; Goodman-Delahunty & O’Brien, 2014; Kroner & Yessine, 2013; Serin, Gobeil, & Preston, 2009; Woessner & Schwedler, 2014). …”

The impact of an intensive inpatient violent offender treatment programme on intermediary treatment targets, violence risk and aggressive behaviour in a sample of mentally disordered offenders

“…Combined, the results suggested a statistically significant reduction in violent reoffending of about 7-8%. Since the publication of this meta-analysis several other violent offender treatment evaluations have been conducted; some have revealed positive impacts on violence (Cortoni, Nunes, & Latendresse, 2006;Polaschek, 2011a), whereas others have revealed no significant impact (DiPlacido, Simon, Witte, Gu & Wong, 2006;Serin, Gobeil, & Preston, 2009;Wong et al, 2007).…”