23.6 LIMITATIONS OF THE RISK- NEED-RESPONSIVITY MODEL
As stated above, meta-analyses have found support for the efficacy of RNR-based treatment programmes in reducing recidivism amongst general and sexual offenders (e.g. Andrews & Dowden, 2005; Andrews, Zinger, Hoge, Bonta, Gendreau, & Cullen, 1990; Hanson, Bourgon, Helmus, & Hodgson, 2009; Hanson et al., 2002; Lösel & Schmucker, 2005). However, some researchers argue that the available evidence is insufficient to conclude current treatment programmes are in fact efficacious (e.g. Marques, Wiederanders, Day, Nelson, & van Ommeren, 2005; Rice & Harris, 2003). Putting the question of treatment effectiveness to one side, the fact that anywhere between 12% (e.g. Hanson et al., 2002) and greater than 50% (e.g. Prentky, Lee, Knight, & Cerce, 1997) of treated child molesters go on to reoffend, (and as many as 46% of treated general offenders – Wilson, Bouffard, & Mackenzie, 2005), underscores that considerable scope remains for improving offender rehabilitation and reintegration initiatives.
The most heavily cited criticism of the RNR model revolves around its failure to motivate and engage offenders in the rehabilitation process (e.g. Mann, 2000; Ward & Beech, 2015; Ward & Maruna, 2007). Jones, Pelissier, and Klein-Saffran (2006) found that a judge’s recommendation for treatment significantly predicted whether sex offenders volunteered for treatment, suggesting that external motivators such as parole eligibility influence decisions to enter treatment. Moreover, attrition from sex offender treatment programmes is particularly high, with reported rates as high as 30–50% (e.g. Browne, Foreman, & Middleton, 1998; Moore, Bergman, & Knox, 1999; Ware & Bright, 2008), which have been attributed to poor treatment engagement (e.g. Beyko & Wong, 2005). Consistent evidence shows that men who drop out of treatment are more likely to reoffend compared to treatment completers (e.g. Hanson et al., 2002; Marques et al., 2005) as well as untreated comparison groups (Hanson et al., 2002). Without addressing the problem of treatment attrition, current treatment programmes fail to deliver to groups of sex offenders most requiring treatment (Beyko & Wong, 2005), and therefore fail to adhere to the RNR risk principle. Thus, although empirically derived, in reality the risk principle is difficult to adhere to.
What is behind the failure of the risk management approach to engage clients in rehabilitation? At the outset, the risk management approach differs substantially from therapeutic models used with other client populations (e.g. in the treatment of mental health problems) in the orientation of treatment goals, limited collaboration between client and therapist, and limited attention to problems not causally related to the problem behaviour (i.e. in the case of offending – non-criminogenic needs such as self-esteem or personal distress). Addressing the first issue, risk management interventions rely heavily on avoidant goals through encouraging hypervigilance to threats of relapse and the reduction of dynamic risk factors (Mann, 2000). By contrast, approach goals provide individuals with guidance on how best to achieve their goals (i.e. the stress is on achieving specific outcomes rather than simply avoiding negative consequences). It has been suggested that individuals driven by approach goals focus on positive outcomes and thus persevere longer than people driven by avoidance goals, who tend to focus on threats (e.g. Higgins, 1996). Reframing the overarching goal of treatment (i.e. reducing risk of reoffending) as an approach goal might be “to become someone who lives a satisfying life that is always respectful of others” (Mann, 2000, p. 194). Such a goal remains consistent with avoiding relapse given it is incongruent with offending, and can be separated into personally meaningful subgoals that provide clients with direction in life, for example, increasing confidence in socialising with adult women. Thus, by using approach goals, treatment can help offenders live a better life, not just a less harmful one, in ways that are personally meaningful and socially acceptable – and risk reducing (Mann, 2000; Ward & Maruna, 2007). Indeed, Mann, Webster, Schofield, and Marshall (2004) showed that an approach-goal focused intervention with sex offenders was associated with increased treatment engagement compared to a traditional avoidant-goal focussed intervention.
Secondly, treatment goals in the risk management approach are enforced upon offenders rather than mutually agreed upon in therapy (Mann, 2000), thereby compromising the therapeutic relationship. Marshall and his colleagues (e.g. Marshall, Serran, Fernandez, Mulloy, Mann, & Thornton, 2003; Serran, Fernandez, Marshall, & Mann, 2003) demonstrated that confrontational therapeutic styles had a negative impact on attitude and behaviour changes, whereas displays of empathy, warmth, encouragement and some degree of directiveness facilitated treatment change – suggesting that careful attention to the therapeutic relationship might increase treatment engagement. The didactic nature of the risk management approach, however, allows limited scope for enhancing the therapeutic relationship. Third, some researchers have convincingly argued that a sole focus on criminogenic needs obstructs treatment engagement, and that attention to non-criminogenic needs such as those relating to enhanced wellbeing and quality of life might enhance treatment engagement (Ward & Maruna, 2007). More specifically, targeting noncriminogenic needs might be a necessary predecessor for targeting criminogenic needs through enhancing the therapeutic alliance (Ward & Stewart, 2003). For example, attempting to address criminogenic needs in the context of personal distress or financial crisis (both noncriminogenic needs) will likely prove fruitless if the more acute issues are not sufficiently addressed (Ward & Maruna, 2007).
Another general limitation of the risk management approach is its minimal consideration paid to re-entry and reintegration into the social environment (outside of identifying and then actively avoiding high risk situations). The desistance literature emphasises the crucial role of environmental systems such as close, supportive relationships and employment in ceasing offending. Thus, building and strengthening environmental opportunities, resources and supports should be central to offender rehabilitation and reintegration endeavours. Moreover, in the case of treated offenders, environmental factors have the potential to facilitate or impede the maintenance of treatment-related changes to dynamic risk factors. Ward and Nee (2009) argued that effective treatment generalisation requires an environment that supports and reinforces newly-learned concepts, such as the restructuring of offence-supportive beliefs. Associating with people endorsing such beliefs, for example, will likely not be conducive to maintaining treatment-induced restructured beliefs.
We argue that the failure of the risk management approach to engage criminal justice clients in the rehabilitation process is derived from its theoretical underpinnings (or lack thereof – for a detailed discussion see Ward & Maruna, 2007), which ignore the nature of human beings as value-laden, meaning seeking, goal directed beings. The risk management approach, we argue, is overly mechanistic and reductionist – that is, there is an implicit assumption that through fixing a malfunction offenders are (hopefully) restored to their optimal functioning state. Humans, on the other hand, are arguably not simply clusters of mechanisms but also persons with an array of values. We argue that it is not simply enough to rectify personal deficits, or reduce criminogenic needs, and expect individuals who have committed crimes in the pursuit of perceived valued outcomes to be rehabilitated. In other words, the theoretical grounding in managing risk, rather than improving the lives of offenders, compromises client engagement and their capacity for change (Ward & Maruna, 2007).
The problem with basing the explanation of crime on dynamic risk factors is that such an account fails to adequately reflect human agency and the goal directed nature of action. What you typically end up with is a list of factors that predict recidivism but reveal little or no understanding of how they actually cause offending in part or collectively. This is in part because criminal justice researchers are preoccupied with risk assessment and prediction, and therefore, heavily favour psychometric models of offending over causal ones (Ward, 2015). In our view this is a mistake and likely to lead to theoretical and practice dead-ends very quickly; additionally, it conflates risk prediction with causal
explanation (Heffernan & Ward, in press; Ward, 2014, 2015; Ward & Beech, 2015).
In summary, critics argue that the RNR approach commonly current in offender rehabilitation and reintegration endeavours constitutes a necessary, but not sufficient, foundation for effective interventions (Ellerby, Bedard, & Chartrand, 2000; Maruna, 2001; Ward & Maruna, 2007; Ward & Stewart, 2003). We are committed to the idea of subjecting offenders to interventions that are empirically supported; however, it is our contention that there is still much to be done in the arena of correctional practice and that desistance theory and research can offer those working with offenders a plethora of good ideas and practices. It has been convincingly argued that offender rehabilitation endeavours require a dual focus: reducing risk, but also promoting human needs and values through approach goals, thereby engaging offenders in the treatment process (Ward & Brown, 2004). The GLM was developed as an alternative approach to rehabilitation that accommodates this dual focus. In other words, the very nature of the GLM addresses limitations of the risk management approach, including motivating offenders to engage in treatment and desist from further offending and consideration for offenders’ environmental contexts (Ward, Mann, & Gannon, 2007; Ward & Maruna, 2007; Ward & Stewart, 2003). Although developed independently, as will be shown the GLM is a natural ally of desistance theory because of the overlapping nature of the theoretical assumptions of both perspectives and their common stress on the importance of both offender agency and social resources.
23.7 THE GOOD LIVES MODEL
The Good Lives Model (GLM), first proposed by Ward and Stewart (2003) and further developed by Ward and colleagues (e.g. Purvis, Ward, & Shaw, 2013; Ward & Gannon, 2006; Ward & Marshall, 2004), is a strengths-based approach to offender rehabilitation. It is a strength-based rehabilitation theory because it is responsive to offenders’ particular interests, abilities and aspirations. It also directs practitioners to explicitly construct intervention plans that help offenders to acquire the capabilities to achieve the things that are personally meaningful to them. It assumes that all individuals have similar aspirations and needs, and that one of the primary responsibilities of parents, teachers and the broader community is to help each of us acquire the tools required to make our own way in the world. Criminal behaviour results when individuals lack the internal and external resources necessary to satisfy their values using prosocial means. In other words, criminal behaviour represents a maladaptive attempt to meet life values (Ward & Stewart, 2003). Rehabilitation endeavours should therefore equip offenders with the knowledge, skills, opportunities and resources necessary to satisfy their life values in ways that do not harm others. Inherent in its focus on an offender’s life values, the GLM places a strong emphasis on offender agency. That is, offenders, like the rest of us, actively seek to satisfy their life values through whatever means available to them. The GLM’s dual attention to an offender’s internal values and life priorities and external factors such as resources and opportunities give it practical utility in desistance-oriented interventions. We argue that the GLM has the conceptual resources to incorporate desistance ideas by virtue of its stress on agency, interdependency and development. In other words, there is natural resonance between desistance theory and the GLM because of their overlapping theoretical ideas and broad way of conceptualising the relationship between human beings and their social world.
The GLM is a theory of offender rehabilitation that contains three hierarchical sets of assumptions: general assumptions concerning the aims of rehabilitation; etiological assumptions that account for the onset and maintenance of offending; and practical implications arising from the first and second sets of assumptions. Each set of assumptions will be detailed, followed by a summary of empirical research investigating the utility of the GLM.
23.7.1 General Assumptions of the GLM
The GLM is grounded in the ethical concept of human dignity (see Ward & Syversen, 2009) and universal human rights, and as such it has a strong emphasis on human agency. That is, the GLM is concerned with individuals’ ability to formulate and select goals, construct plans, and to act freely in the implementation of these plans. A closely related assumption is the basic premise that offenders, like all humans, value certain states of mind, personal characteristics and experiences, which are defined in the GLM as primary goods. Following an extensive review of psychological, social, biological and anthropological research, Ward and colleagues (e.g. Ward & Brown, 2004; Ward & Marshall, 2004) first proposed nine classes of primary goods. In more recent work (e.g. Ward & Gannon, 2006; Ward et al., 2007) they separated the goods of friendship and community to produce 11 classes of primary goods (see Box 23.3).
BOX 23.3 PRIMARY GOODS FROM THE GLM MODEL
Life (including healthy living and functioning)
Knowledge acquisition
Excellence in play (being good at something)
Excellence in work (including mastery experiences),
Excellence in agency (being in control and the ability to be able to get things accomplished)
Inner peace (freedom from emotional turmoil and stress)
Friendship (having intimate, romantic, and family relationships)
Community (being part of wider social networks)
Spirituality (finding meaning and purpose in life)
Happiness
Creativity
Whilst it is assumed that all humans seek out all of these primary goods to some degree, the weightings or priorities given to specific primary goods reflect an individual’s values and life priorities. Moreover, the existence of a number of practical identities, based on, for example, family roles (e.g. parent), work (e.g. psychologist) and leisure (e.g. rugby player) mean that an individual might draw on different value sources in different contexts, depending on the normative values underpinning each practical identity.
Instrumental goods, or secondary goods, provide concrete means of securing primary goods and take the form of approach goals (Ward, Vess, Collie, & Gannon, 2006). For example, completing an apprenticeship might satisfy the primary goods of knowledge and excellence in work, whereas joining an adult sports team or cultural club might satisfy the primary good of friendship. Such activities are incompatible with dynamic risk factors, meaning that avoidance goals are indirectly targeted through the GLM’s focus on approach goals.
23.7.2 Aetiological Assumptions of the GLM
According to the GLM there are two primary routes that lead to the onset of offending: direct and indirect (Ward & Gannon, 2006; Ward & Maruna, 2007). The direct pathway is implicated when an offender actively attempts (often implicitly) to satisfy primary goods through his or her offending behaviour. For example, an individual lacking the competencies to satisfy the good of intimacy with an adult might instead attempt to meet this good through sexual offending against a child. The indirect pathway is implicated when through the pursuit of one or more goods, something goes awry which creates a ripple or cascading effect leading to the commission of a criminal offence. For example, conflict between the goods of intimacy and autonomy might lead to the break-up of a relationship, and subsequent feelings of loneliness and distress. Maladaptive coping strategies such as the use of alcohol to alleviate distress might, in specific circumstances, lead to a loss of control and culminate in sexual offending (Ward et al., 2007). Four types of difficulties in offenders’ attempts to secure primary goods have been proposed; see Box 23.4.
BOX 23.4 INAPPROPRIATE ROUTES TO SECURING PRIMARY GOODS
The most common in the direct route to offending, is the use of inappropriate strategies (secondary goods) to achieve primary goods.
An individual’s implicit good lives plan might suffer from a lack of scope, in that a number of goods are omitted from his or her life plan.
There may be conflict in the pursuit of goods that might result in acute psychological stress and unhappiness.
An individual might lack internal and external capabilities to satisfy primary goods in the environment in whi
ch he or she lives. Internal capabilities include relevant knowledge and skill sets, while external capabilities include environmental opportunities, resources and supports (some of which are desistance factors – Lindsay & Ward, 2010).
Empirically identified criminogenic needs are conceptualised in the GLM as internal or external obstacles that interfere with the acquisition of primary goods. In their recent work, Ward and his colleagues have concentrated on the goal-directed nature of human functioning and the constituents of human agency, and deconstructed criminogenic needs into the components of agency (Ward, 2015; Ward & Beech, 2015; Heffernan & Ward, in press). The question then becomes: What type of goals (and their motivational and cognitive underpinnings), strategies, plans and contexts are associated with the violation of significant social and moral norms? As outlined by Ward and Maruna (2007), each of the primary goods can be linked with one or more criminogenic needs. Taking the primary good of agency as an example, impulsivity might obstruct good fulfilment. Similarly, poor emotional regulation might block attainment of inner peace.
23.7.3 Practical Implications of the GLM
To reiterate, the aim of correctional intervention according to the GLM is the promotion of primary goods or human needs that, once met, enhance psychological wellbeing (Ward & Brown, 2004). In applying the GLM, assessment begins with mapping out an offender’s good lives conceptualisation by identifying the weightings given to the various primary goods. This is achieved through (1) asking increasingly detailed questions about an offender’s core commitments in life and his or her valued day-to-day activities and experiences, and (2) identifying the goals and underlying values that were evident in an offender’s offence-related actions. Once an offender’s conceptualisation of what constitutes a good life is understood, future-oriented secondary goods aimed at satisfying an offender’s primary goods in socially acceptable ways are formulated collaboratively with the offender and translated into a good lives treatment plan. Treatment is individually tailored to assist an offender in implementing his or her good lives intervention plan and simultaneously address criminogenic needs that might be blocking goods fulfilment. Accordingly, intervention might include building internal capacity and skills and maximising external resources and social supports to satisfy primary human goods in socially acceptable ways.
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