Does intra-individual change predict offender recidivism? Searching for the Holy Grail in assessing offender change

Abstract

Offender rehabilitation effectively reduces recidivism for treatment groups compared to control groups, but there is less evidence demonstrating that intra-individual changes are related to reductions in risk. We review and critique academic and government literature linking individual change scores to recidivism, focusing on three key treatment domains: cognition, violence, and substance misuse. Database searches identified 378 studies measuring change, but only 53 studies yielding 49 explicit tests of the relationship between intra-individual change scores and recidivism outcome. Of the 49 available tests, 26 effect sizes (53.1%) were significant, ranging from small (d = 0.06) to large (d = 1.48). Across all domains, change variables significantly related to recidivism included known dynamic risk factors: antisocial attitudes, antisocial beliefs, antisocial associates, antisocial personality, social support, and substance misuse. Two additional findings centered on changes in negative emotion and successful treatment process. This review further suggests there is a need to utilize better measurement strategies and more sophisticated constructs. Additional practical, theoretical, and methodological implications are discussed.

Introduction

There is consistent and conclusive evidence that groups of offenders exposed to appropriate treatment recidivate at lower rates, on average, compared to groups of offenders excluded from treatment (for meta-analytic reviews, see Andrews and Bonta, 2010, Andrews et al., 1990). Minimally, appropriate and effective correctional treatment applies three empirically supported principles. In brief, the greatest potential for change occurs when programs employ cognitive–behavioral techniques (the responsivity principle) to target individual-level variables empirically associated with reoffending (the need principle) among offenders most likely to commit further crime (the risk principle; Andrews & Bonta, 2010). Programs that employ these principles show the greatest treatment effects (Gendreau et al., 2006, Smith et al., 2009) and result in a greater cost–benefit ratio (Aos, Miller, & Drake, 2006) compared to programs that do not adhere to these principles.

However, considerations beyond these three core principles are also empirically and theoretically important, including program quality (Lowenkamp, Latessa, & Smith, 2006), program staff and their ability to build strong interpersonal alliances with offender clients (Ross et al., 2008, Serin and Shturman, 2007), offenders' ability and opportunity to engage in treatment (Ward, Day, Howells, & Birgden, 2004), and methods for enhancing offenders' motivation for change (McMurran, 2009). Recently developed theoretical models of treatment readiness and offender motivation (e.g., Ward et al., 2004) have set forward a framework for systematically examining individual offenders' experience of the therapeutic process.

These considerations demonstrate the research community's increasing interest in enhancing understanding of the specific mechanisms (i.e., program elements, individual characteristics, therapeutic gains) that reduce an individual offender's propensity to recommit crime. The current state of knowledge addresses group-level (or program-level) considerations but fails to address the variables that explain which offenders benefit from treatment, how these offenders assimilate program content into palpable gains, when criminogenic needs have declined enough to justify a lower risk classification, and what relative influence treatment has in the broader array of factors that initiate, motivate, and maintain offender change.

In particular, it remains relatively unexplored whether individual-level changes are reliably associated with reduced risk for recidivism. Although the body of offender treatment research strongly suggests individuals are making detectable gains within correctional treatment, the individual-level gains responsible for the change process have not been identified or integrated into the theory and practice of offender treatment. Identifying the intra-individual factors responsible for driving offender change is of great practical importance for evaluating and further enhancing rehabilitation efforts.

The purpose of this paper is to review and critique the relevant corrections-based literature linking intra-individual change to criminal behavior outcomes. Our review focuses on identifying which individual-level variables show reliable change associated with recidivism. As a result, we only make brief mention of variables that characterize treatment groups, such as type of treatment provided, adherence to risk, need, and responsivity principles, research design, etc. We expect that the relationship between change and recidivism would be impacted by treatment content and quality, but given the scarcity of research on intra-individual change, our main purpose is to highlight which assessment strategies best delineate offender change, regardless of the type of treatment delivered. As the knowledge base on intra-individual change increases, examinations of the interaction between treatment features, individual change, and recidivism will be more feasible. Currently, we refer readers to available discussions of the evidence for the relative effects (Smith et al., 2009) and cumulative effects (Andrews & Bonta, 2010) of risk, need, and responsivity factors on program effectiveness.

Although we examined all studies measuring change within offenders, we focus here on measures of change that have been empirically tested for association with future offending to critically examine whether change scores are inversely related to recidivism.² In addition, we narrowed the scope of our review to explore three domains most often targeted in offender treatment: (a) cognition, (b) violence, and (c) substance misuse. Within the literature on violent offenders, we excluded research examining sex offenders and domestic violence offenders due to these offenders' unique and specialized treatment needs (Serin & Preston, 2001; for a review of intra-individual change within sex offenders, see Beggs, 2010, and for a discussion of treatment change among domestic violence offenders, see Scott, 2004). With an aim to limit the scope of this paper, our review further excluded studies of change in psychopathology (symptoms of mental illness) or educational achievement (reading or math skills).