NCJ Number
77532
Journal
Corrective and Social Psychiatry and Journal of Behavior Technology Methods and Therapy Volume: 27 Issue: 2 Dated: (1981) Pages: 84-87
Date Published
1981
Length
4 pages
Annotation
This article endorses group counseling as an appropriate therapeutic technique in treating incarcerated offenders when groups are composed of both inmates and college students.
Abstract
These conclusions are based on results of a student/inmate group counseling model first tested within the North Carolina Corrections Department's prerelease and aftercare program and later within the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services. The North Carolina sessions were held at a prerelease center on a college campus, while the Nebraska experiment was conducted within the correctional institution. The student element clearly distinguishes these group sessions from the traditional inmate peer counseling sessions. In addition to fostering hostility, confrontations, and guilt, inmate peer sessions usually generate a perverse 'group norm,' reflective of the institutional environment and not the 'home world.' The students not only provide the home-world perspective, they represent the middle-class status as well. The survival and adjustment aspect of these sessions help the lower class, often minority inmates cope with the dominant society as well as their own particular home-world subcultures. By the same token, the students learn about minority, lower class, and inmate subcultures. Although a majority of the inmates and students perceived these sessions as rewarding, no conclusive program evaluation has been made. Five footnotes are provided.