20 | New Scientist | 14 March 2020UK POLITICIANS are considering
new measures to combat domestic
violence. Many elements of the
government’s proposed Domestic
Abuse Bill have been welcomed by
campaigners, but it also includes
a plan for those convicted of such
offences to be regularly monitored
after release with lie detector tests.
Lie detectors, also known as
polygraph machines, measure
changes in people’s pulse,
sweating rate and other indicators,
but they are notoriously
inaccurate so it isn’t clear they
can prevent reoffending.
The issue goes to the heart of a
broader problem in the criminal
justice systems of many nations.
Very few crimes result in people
spending the rest of their lives
in prison, so sooner or later they
are released – and our methods
for attempting to prevent repeat
offences lack scientific evidence.
Prison treatment programmes
based on psychological techniques
are designed to cut reoffending,
but it is unclear if they work. They
may achieve nothing, wasting
money, or even make it more
likely that people will reoffend.
Such programmes have been
around for decades. Early attempts
were based on Freudian-style
psychoanalysis, where people
talk about their childhood.By the 1980s, these were
being replaced with cognitive
behavioural therapy (CBT), a form
of counselling that aims to change
people’s thinking patterns.
CBT is perhaps best known as a
treatment for emotional problems
like depression and anxiety. There
is good evidence to show it can
help with these conditions, butchanging complex behavioural
patterns such as criminal
offending is another matter.
At first, CBT treatments in
prisons were primarily aimed
at sex offenders, but now they
are used to tackle other crimes
such as domestic violence.
Programmes seek to help
people understand the thinking
processes and choices that
preceded their criminal behaviour.
They might include techniques
for improving relationships with
others and managing anger. “We
are trying to get them to stop and
think instead of going straight to
violence,” says Richard Taylor, a
forensic psychiatrist in London.
Unfortunately, we don’t know
if this approach works. It isn’t
that there have been no studies
of these programmes, it is just
that most are very poor quality,had similar characteristics.
When one Canadian group
tried to summarise the findings
of all studies of a certain kind of
sex offender treatment, they had
to discard 105 out of 130 papers
for failing to use robust enough
methods. This analysis did find
that treatment programmes were
linked with lower reoffending
rates, but other analyses disagree,
including one from the Cochrane
Collaboration in 2012, which
looked only at randomised trials
of sex offender treatments,
and found no effect.
William Marshall, a retired
psychiatrist and one of the early
pioneers of CBT for sex offenders,
believes it does work when done
properly, but that key aspects
are often dropped to cut costs.
“You have to have people who
know what they’re doing,” he says.Raising reoffending
Alarm bells rang in the UK after a
large study of a CBT programme
for sex offenders found it actually
seemed to slightly raise
reoffending rates. Out of nearly
16,000 men, 10 per cent of those
who went through it carried out
a sexual offence in the eight years
after their release, compared with
8 per cent who hadn’t taken part.
It wasn’t a randomised trial, but
the researchers did carefully
match those in the two groups
to ensure fair comparison.
One explanation for the
apparent rise is that the group
therapy sessions involved could
have helped to normalise the
acts being discussed, according
to a Ministry of Justice report.
“When stories are shared, their
behaviour may not be seen as
wrong or different,” said the
authors. “At worst, contacts and
sources associated with sexual
offending may be shared.”Treatment on trial
Efforts to prevent prisoners from reoffending are rarely
backed by scientific evidence, reports Clare WilsonHow can we ensure
people avoid crime
once released?says Robert Forde, a former UK
forensic psychologist and author
of Bad Psychology: How forensic
psychology left science behind.
For example, many studies
are too small to be useful, some
looking at just tens of people. Or
instead of measuring reoffending
rates, they look at a proxy, such as
impulsiveness reported through
a questionnaire. After six months
of therapy, the offender may know
very well what answers they are
supposed to give, says Forde.
Even studies that avoid these
problems aren’t usually gold-
standard randomised trials, but
simply compare people who got
the intervention with ones who
didn’t, without ensuring they“ We are trying to get
offenders to stop and
think instead of going
straight to violence”
JusticeMARJORIE KAMYS COTERA/BOB DAEMMRICH PHOTOGRAPHY/ALAMYNews Insight