U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

Group Counseling and the High Risk Offender

NCJ Number
123150
Journal
Federal Probation Volume: 54 Issue: 1 Dated: (March 1990) Pages: 48-51
Author(s)
J M Robertson
Date Published
1990
Length
4 pages
Annotation
A group counseling program for adult probationers in Alabama was evaluated in terms of the level of participation and recidivism of different types of offenders.
Abstract
Information came from 90 individuals who had been ordered to group counseling in the Northern District of Alabama as a requirement of their probation supervision. They were scheduled for one, 3-hour session each week for 13 weeks. The group counseling was modeled on Maxie Maultsby's theory of rational behavior training. The individuals were classified into minimum, medium, or maximum supervision categories according to common traits measured in the Federal probation system. Findings showed that success on probation was directly related to the level of participation in the program, but that the groups performed exactly as predicted before counseling. Thus, the mandatory group counseling had no proven effect on the statistically predicted behavior of offenders. Tables and 13 references.