Treatment and parole effective at reducing reoffending
New resarch from Professor Devon Polaschek suggests intensive psychological treatment and parole are effective at reducing reoffending in high risk prisoners.
Intensive psychological treatment and early release to parole is far more effective at reducing reoffending among high risk prisoners than serving out the full prison sentence, new research shows.
Offenders who completed the Correction Department's intensive Special Treatment Unit Rehabilitation Programme (STURP) were 37 per cent less likely than similar but untreated prisoners to be reimprisoned within a year of release, according to the study Surviving the first year, by Victoria University psychology professor Devon Polaschek.
"That's a huge effect - better than some treatments for heart disease or cancer," Polaschek said.
The STURP programme is offered at four prisons nationwide and is only available to offenders serving a sentence of more than two years who have a 70 per cent risk of reimprisonment within five years of release. An 8-12-month residential programme, it helps prisoners understand why they offend and teaches tools to calm high risk situations before they get out of control.
Polaschek's research, which tracked 271 high risk offenders, also found that both treated and untreated prisoners released early to parole were 30 per cent more likely to avoid reconviction over a period of more than two years. The longer the parole period, the more reconvictions fell, even when taking into account the factors making early-release prisoners more likely to succeed.
"There's something good happening on parole," Polaschek said.
Rethinking Crime and Punishment spokesman Kim Workman said the research reinforced the importance of supportive parole, which was becoming harder to get. The Parole Board approved parole in only 26 per cent of hearings last year, compared with 49 per cent in 2002/2003.
"The Parole Board say that it is in the interests of public safety when in fact it's in the interests of the Parole Board's reputation," Workman said.
He would also like to see a programme similar to STURP offered as part of a community sentence, instead of only being offered in prison.
Corrections Department chief psychologist Nikki Reynolds said the department already had a similar, but much shorter, community programme in Hamilton, called Tai Aroha. While the STURP programme's success was encouraging, it could not easily be expanded to other prisoner groups, as subjecting lower risk prisoners to high intensity programmes could be counterproductive.
The finding that longer parole could reduce reoffending was useful, Reynolds said.
"That indicates that the earlier we can get them to a point where the Parole Board consider that their risk is reduced enough for them to get out, the longer we can have them on parole, the more beneficial that is."
The Sensible Sentencing Trust did not accept the study's findings. Founder Garth McVicar said the decline in high risk offenders being granted parole was helping reduce crime. The parole system was offensive to victims and should be abolished, he said.
The Parole Board declined to comment on the research.
- Stuff.co.nz