Offender Rehabilitation And Therapeutic Communities (International Series On Desistance And Rehabilitation)

Drawing upon original qualitative research with prisoners in three democratic therapeutic communities (TCs), this book provides a unique sociological portrayal and new criminological understanding of the TC's rehabilitative regime and culture. Democratic TCs offer serious offenders the opportunity to participate in psychodynamic group psychotherapy and live within a carefully designed pro-social environment, in order to help them understand and so moderate their cognitions and behaviour. In tracing prisoners' engagement with the penologically anomalous and palpably humane 'TC way' of imprisonment and offender rehabilitation, the author argues that what helps to promote change in prison-based TCs is the facilitated development of a more adaptive and prospective self-narrative and a 'new, improved' self-concept which no longer coheres, cognitively or emotionally, with serious offending. Offender Rehabilitation and Therapeutic Communities accordingly contributes to empirical and theoretical understanding of desistance from crime and advances scholarly appreciation of the rehabilitative value and potential of prison based TCs.

• | Author: Alisa Stevens
• | Publisher: Routledge
• | Publication Date: Mar 10, 2014
• | Number of Pages: 240 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Paperback
• | ISBN-10: 0415635276
• | ISBN-13: 9780415635271