Posts by Richard Aston
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Hard News: Living with the psychopath, in reply to Matthew Poole,
requiring people to at least want to participate in therapy
Good point Matthew and I would ask how does a person get to the point of wanting to participate in therapy ? In the normal world this might be driven by crisis, tragedy or a friend say you need help. I am interested in that pre-therapy process and could we more assertive about it because the fact is that those who could do the most damage when released are most likely to be the ones who do not want to participate.
Do we not have a obligation to do all we can to bring an offender into a treatment process regardless of his initial disinclination.
If we can't , in the interests of our children's saftey we really should lock them away forever.
Sorry to bang on about this - its a bit personal for me. Aside from my work , my best mates son was abused by a serial sex offender who had been released , and then placed in a kindergarten as a caretaker as part of his rehabilitation, yes I was astounded as well. I took considerable lobbying on our part to get this guy back behind bars - he had done no treatment whatsoever. The abuse was not majorly traumatic but clearly this man was heading down the same path as he's always done. -
Hard News: And so it begins, in reply to Paul Williams,
Paul , thanks for that Aussy My Schools link .
That looks like a better way to provide a wider range of info on a school that could put the league ( Results) tables in context . -
Hard News: Living with the psychopath, in reply to Lilith __,
But if an offender refuses to participate in therapy, as this man has, what then?
That's exactly my point. Offenders would also refuse to participate in prison, probation and home detention if they could but does that stop us making them participate.
Expecting the offender's acceptance they need help is like that Light Bulb joke.
How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb?
One. But only if the light bulb really wants to change.I think that's a cope out by psychologists . Maybe a confrontational approach won't work but we should at least be exploring the options.
The current treatment programmes such as Kia Marama seem to show success ie low re offending rates but there are a couple of catches to this
1 Over what period of time. This report shows the re offending rate increases over time. Same gotyou applies to Boot Camp stats .
2 What is the selection process for offender programmes , who doesn't get into the programmes. It seems the worst offenders don't but while I can't find any case studies or stats on this my suspicion is that prison programmes tend to select out ( or self select) those most likely to re offend. They have to produce good stats to survive. -
Hard News: Living with the psychopath, in reply to Lilith __,
You want to torture the guy?? Not even the Sensible Sentencing Trust is asking for that!
No, perhaps I was being a little too facetious. I was talking about intense group psychotherapy where offenders are challenged at a deep level. It was something alluded to in the Roper Report on prison reform ( sorry can't find a link to this old report). Offenders are confronted over time and within a controlled group setting in an attempt to crack through the denial. I have worked on Non Violence groups where a level of this work is done. I have seen the edge of this in some intense Family group conferences I have a been a part of , where victims confront the offender in no uncertain terms. Not suggesting sex offender victims should be part of this but I know of some who would be more than willing to vent their rage.
Calling the above torture is ill informed I believe.I think the extensive use of solitary confinement is a form of torture. If you know anyone who has spent time in max security you will hear horror stories of solitary confinement madness, beatings, suicides, brutality and sexual assaults .
And you think intensive and challenging psychological work is torture .
From conversations I have had with leaders in the Police and psyches working with sex offenders there are two types. Opportunist offenders who once caught a confronted never offend again. Serial offenders who are deeply disturbed and will reoffend time and time again - they do the most damage and they are almost impossible to "treat" with conventional behavioral mod techniques.
Part of my job has been to study and get familiar with the sex offender profile - I am sorry if my original post was written light heartedly but I am serious in challenging the efficacy of offender treatment programmes. If we cannot "treat" these serial offenders we really should lock them away for life. A psychologist friend of mine spent 2 years working on sex offender programmes and gave up in the end , changed career path and said "they cannot be changed , we need to lock them up forever".
A part of "choosing to be better", of being civilized, is also in protecting our young ones from predators. If the current law prevents us from locking them away forever then we need to create new methods of "treatment" at the very least, because when those serial offenders come out, they will re-offend.
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He has refused all treatment
So.
The Kia Marama programme showed a 10% recidivism rate but, this is interesting, those that don't do the treatment have a recidivism rate of 23%
Doesn't seem like much of a difference to me.This research comes to the conclusion " difference between those who have taken treatment and those who have not is minor"
If the majority of untreated sex offenders don't re offend then a majority of those doing the treatment wouldn't have offended either. In other words how effective is the sex offender treatment really?
Taking this further who really gives a shit if a sex offender doesn't want to do the programme , why are we being so nice about it? Can't we design programmes that challenge the offender's denial, that put him through a psychological maelstrom that deconstructs him, opens him up and changes him. Hey while we are at there must be a few mind altering chemicals that could aid this process. If they end up completely insane - no worries we keep them in a secure psyche unit forever.
I mean why are we being so nice with these guys?
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Capture: Spring is Like a Perhaps Hand, in reply to Kyle Matthews,
(if you click on the photo you’ll get the closeup of the lamb)
ohhhhh that must hurt !
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He’s a reminder of quite how dark and damaged a human can become.
And perhaps we don't want to be reminded of our darker potentials or how we too could become twisted and damaged. Better to kill off those reminders or at least hid them. And yes we do need to protect people from the dark damaged humans but it seems a real challenge to do that with as you say Russell that we are better than that.
Great story and an interesting insight about his ability to "intimidate and manipulate". -
Legal Beagle: MMP Review - The Proposals, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
That some voters choose not to avail themselves of the information readily available to them in party lists does not alter the fact that list MPs are elected.
Paraphrasing
That some voters choose not to avail themselves of the history of Winston Peters does not alter the fact that voters still vote for him -
Hard News: Future shock for the media, in reply to ppjamieson,
I am interested in the Consumer.org model which has the magazine and the internet subs, with a small difference between either one and the cost of both encouraging keeping the mag and having the internet availability complementing each other. I suspect in future something like this more often with limited free acess and paid subs in conjunction with the prin sub.
Its is still hard work - disclaimer I am on the board of Consumer NZ - takes a fair amount of marketing and promotion to keeping those paying customers on board.
But it is a success - well at the least the web side - one of few examples of a pay wall working. Not sure it compares well to the competitive market of trad newspapers.
As for getting people to pay to read blogs , or the ads , I dunno I'd like to think that as we webby info consumers mature there will be a increased willingness to pay. -
Hard News: Christchurch: Is "quite good"…, in reply to Sacha,
I’ve heard Northland is clear.
Great I have a few NgaPuhi mates should be sweet then.