NCJ Number
215562
Journal
Legal and Criminological Psychology Volume: 11 Issue: 2 Dated: September 2006 Pages: 155-177
Date Published
September 2006
Length
23 pages
Annotation
This paper argues the notion of “cognitive distortion” in reference to excuses for offending by examining the relationship between offending and excuse-making, specifically whether excuse-making is indeed criminogenic.
Abstract
It is suggested that some of the common assumptions about post hoc excuses (sometimes called cognitive distortions) are worthy of reinvestigation. A larger body of literature exists which indicates excuse-making as normal and frequently healthy, however the author of this paper makes the uncontroversial point that behaviors frequently have external causes. The authors suggests that because many offenders seek to excuse their offending by appealing to external, unstable causes, this does not justify the assumption that such an attributable style is risky. Such an assumption may mean that those concerned with understanding offending whether through research or clinical practice pay too little attention to other important cognitive phenomena. This paper reviews excuse-making and criminality and presents several arguments in favor of tolerating some level of excuse-making among offenders. It means to shift the focus of cognitive interventions away from individual excuses and toward other aspects of self-identity, such as beliefs, schemas, and implicit theories. The paper examines whether excuse-making is normal, whether listeners encourage excuses, whether excuse-making predicts recidivism, and whether risk factors are really external and unstable. Thinking differently about cognitive distortions is discussed in the realm of considering different ways of taking responsibility, considering account dimensions besides internality, treating excuses as the identification of risk factors, probing cognitive style beyond offense accounts, separating offense-supportive attitudes from rationalizations, and differentiating between good accounts and bad excuses. References