Written by twenty-one of the leading experts and practitioners in the field, this textbook clearly guides students through the process and steps in applying evidence-based counseling and treatment approaches to offender rehabilitation.  In recent years there have been a number of far-reaching and dramatic changes in the correctional treatment and counseling policies, methods, processes, and programs in order to facilitate offender behavior change. This text provides the first up-to-date and comprehensive examination of the current clinical issues and counseling practices discussed and debated by legislators, judges, adult and juvenile correctional administrators and supervisors, correctional treatment specialists, correctional counselors, correctional social workers, probation chiefs and probation officers, and addictions treatment staff. This is the first text to provide an evidence-based overview of the state-of-the-art of correctional treatment and counseling approaches. It includes definitions and illustrations of the best practices in individual and group counseling ranging from crisis intervention to cognitive-behavioral counseling to suicide prevention protocols to anger control training. One of the many special features includes the summary findings of the Editor’s national survey of 25 different state departments of corrections and the correctional facilities under their jurisdiction. This includes a comparative analysis of the costs, methods, staff to inmate ratio, frequency and duration, and the effectiveness of correctional treatment and counseling vs. custody and punishment.     Professor Francis Cullen sets a positive and futuristic tone for this new text in the Prologue.  He calls for stopping punitive approaches and failed non-intervention methods, and maps out a strategy for re-vitalizing the corrections profession with emphasis on rehabilitation policies and programs based on scientific evidence and treatment technology transfer. The next fifteen chapters in this text follow through on Professor Cullen’s strategy with step-by-step evidence-based offender assessment and treatment models.   Highlights of this Text: This volume brings together new and varied offender treatment and rehabilitation approaches that have demonstrated effectiveness. Each chapter in this book includes summaries of the latest government reports, treatment guidelines, evidence-based counseling practices, research findings, trends and statistics, program evaluations, journal review articles, and meta-analyses.  Professional interest in the critical issues and controversies surrounding correctional counseling programs and methods has grown tremendously.  Several of the most visible critical issues and special features addressed in this new book are as follows:

• evidence-based assessment and treatment plans for juvenile and adult offenders,
• evidence-based family interventions with juvenile offenders,
• clinical vs. actuarial risk assessment in evidence-based community corrections,
• evidence-based assessment and treatment of mentally ill offenders,
• assessment and treatment of offenders with co-occurring disorders,
• juvenile and adult inmate suicide prevention protocols,
• national survey of evidence-based juvenile offender treatment programs,
• best practices in prison group counseling,
• California’s adult inmate drug treatment programs and therapeutic communities,
• best practices in the assessment and treatment of sex offenders,
• behavioral management models and tools within the Federal Bureau of Prisons,
• neurological assessment and treatment protocols with offenders, and
• correctional social work and re-entry programs.  

Competition and Unique Features of the Current text: At the present time, there is no comprehensive and up-to-date competing textbook. Almost all of the chapters are original and specially written for this volume. There is no real competition. Other texts are primarily based on out-of-date reprints (e.g. Dilemmas in Corrections-edited by Geoffrey Albert and Ken Haas published by Waveland Press–most of the articles are from 14 to 32 years old;  Correctional Counseling and Treatment, edited by Peter C. Kratcoski is also published by Waveland Press and includes well-written, but 14 to 25 year old articles; Roxbury Press does the same thing, and publishes so-called correctional texts that are more like history books. Sage Publications has a book in the second edition entitled Counseling Criminal Justice Offenders (2004) by Ruth E. Masters. This book is well-written and includes a useful glossary, but unfortunately is way out-of-date. The majority of the references are from the 1970s and 1980s. If my students were interested in majoring in history, or the history of correctional treatment then outdated chapters would make sense. However, there is no current major or required course on the History of Criminal Justice or corrections at universities in this country.  The field of criminal justice is rapidly changing, and it is imperative for our students —future criminal justice professionals — to be required to read the most up-to-date, readable, and informative texts possible. Fortunately, Prentice-Hall’s criminal justice and corrections textbooks are revised every 3 to 5 years, and are always well-written, up-to-date, and comprehensive.   Need for this textbook: most students and professors are intrigued by crime, criminals, and the prison system. Almost all Americans will become a crime victim at some point in their lifetime so the interest in breaking the cycle of criminality through correctional counseling and treatment has also rapidly increased.  In view of all of the changes within the criminal justice system, and the fact that there is no up-to-date text currently available for the correctional counseling or the correctional treatment courses,  this new book is critically needed.   Audience for this Text: Most criminal justice undergraduate programs offer either a correctional counseling or correctional treatment course elective, and almost all Master’s programs in criminal justice require completion of a correctional counseling or treatment course. The proposed book is being specially designed as the required text for the latter mentioned courses. The secondary market for this up-to-date multi-authored book will be college and university libraries, state and county criminal justice as well as juvenile justice agencies, and federal criminal justice agency libraries.   It is the Editor’s earnest anticipation that all criminal justice students, professors, and practitioners will be better informed after reading this volume. More Reviews and Recommendations

Albert R. Roberts, Ph.D., B.C.E.T.S., D.A.C.F.E., is Professor of Criminal Justice and Social Work (former Chairperson), and Director of Faculty and Curriculum Development, Administration of Justice and Interdisciplinary Criminal Justice Programs in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Livingston College Campus at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey in Piscataway. He has been a tenured professor at Rutgers University since 1989. Dr. Roberts received an M.A. degree in Sociology from the Graduate Faculty of Long Island University in 1967, and a D.S.W. in 1978 (which became a Ph.D. in 1981) from the School of Social Work and Community Planning at the University of Maryland in Baltimore. Dr. Roberts is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention journal (Oxford University Press). Dr. Roberts recently edited a special issue of the Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention journal on stress, crisis, and trauma intervention strategies in the aftermath of the September 11th terrorism attacks.   Dr. Roberts is the founding and current Editor of the 41-volume Springer Series on Social Work (1980 to present), and the 8 volume Springer Family Violence Series. He is the author, co-author, or editor of approximately 160 scholarly publications, including numerous peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, and 25 books. His recent books and articles include: Handbook of Domestic Violence Intervention Strategies (2002), Oxford University Press; Social Workers' Desk Reference (includes 146 chapters and is co-edited byGilbert J. Greene, Oxford University Press, 2002), Crisis Intervention Handbook: Assessment, Treatment and Research, 2nd edition (2000, Oxford University Press), Juvenile Justice Sourcebook (In Press, Oxford University Press, N.Y.), and Battered Women and Their Families: Intervention Strategies and Treatment Approaches, 2nd edition (1998, Springer Publishing Co.).   Dr. Roberts current projects include: Directing the 18-credit Certificate Program in Criminal Justice Policies and Practices at Livingston College of Rutgers University; training crisis intervention workers and clinical supervisors in crisis assessment and crisis intervention strategies; training police officers and administrators in domestic violence policies and crisis intervention. He is a lifetime member of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (ACJS), has been a member of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) since 1974, and has been listed in Who's Who in America since 1992. Professor Roberts is the faculty sponsor to Rutgers' Sigma Alpha Kappa chapter of the National Criminal Justice Honor Society (1991-present).

Tags: correctional counseling and treatment