Task One  The assignment is in the form of an open-book quiz, accessed via the link (below).

Click here to Begin Quiz.

Task Two  Define and discuss 

1. The theories used in interviewing and counseling.
2. The difference between interviewing and counseling.

The Self (summary excerpt from the textbook):
Nothing is more important to the success or failure of a counseling relationship than the quality of the helper's self. The self-concept is the product and producer of experience. Positive experiences lead to a positive self-concept, and a positive self-concept leads to further positive experiences. The opposite progression, often found in offenders, is also true.

Unit 3 - Interviewing and Interrogating. 

Unit Overview (summary excerpt from the textbook):
The interview is a focused process of communication by which you gather information for the purpose of assessing the interviewee. It is a structured and purposeful method of getting to know another person. Interrogation is also a part of the corrections worker's task. Interrogation is conducted either to get an admission of guilt from a person who has been involved in a crime, or to obtain clarification and elaboration of certain facts from someone who is innocent.

Prepare for both tasks by thoroughly familiarizing yourself with all the pertinent information available. An effective interview must begin by establishing rapport. This is especially important in criminal justice where offenders are not exactly enthusiastic about being in your office. Offenders are convicted criminals, but they are also human beings who are deserving of consideration and respect. Make them as comfortable as possible, and show that you are concerned and are willing to listen to them.

Listening, really listening, is the most important aspect of an effective interview. Give the offender the "air time" and resist interruptions and debates--the interview time belongs to the offender. Offenders must be encouraged to explore themselves and their behavior. Encourage this exploration through the frequent use of probes and open-ended questions. Make sure that you understand what offenders are trying to tell you by use of paraphrase, clarification, and reflective techniques. Even the most awkward of offenders will settle down and provide you with valuable assessment information if you treat them with patience and respect, but also with firmness, when it is required.

Interviewing victims requires special sensitivity to their victimization. Any reluctance on their part to be interviewed or to approach certain subjects should be respected absolutely. Do not dig for details of sexual offenses. It is extremely inadvisable to interview child victims of sexual assault. Never argue with victims about anything, and do not upset yourself if they sometimes use you as a convenient target for their verbal anger. Finally, reassure victims as much as possible, but as with offenders, do not make any promises that are not within your power to keep.

Task One   The assignment is in the form of an open-book quiz, accessed via the link (below).

Click here to Begin Quiz.

Note:  Some of these quiz-like questions will be on the final.

Task Two  Define and discuss 

1. Approaches to assess offenders.
2. Purposes of offender assessment.

The Social History Questionnaire (SHQ) and the Client Management Classification (CMC) Interview Schedule are interviewing and assessment aids. They are used prior to sentencing. The Felony Sentencing Worksheet (FSW) assists you in making sentencing recommendations by providing you with sentencing "norms" based upon past experience.

The Presentence Investigation (PSI) Report is the end product of the interviews you have had with the offender, the victim, arresting officers, and other interested parties. The PSI, prepared by Probation Officers, aids the judge in the selection of the most appropriate case disposition, and is consistent with the philosophy of "individualized justice." The PSI, contains facts about the offender's present offense, the offender's version (of what happened), prior record, family history, employment history, physical and mental health, and an evaluative summary (the entire case in a "nutshell" plus the officer's assessment of what is to be done to amend the offender's behavior.

Unit 5 - Counseling; Assessment & Classification; Community Agencies. 

Task One   The assignment is in the form of an open-book quiz, accessed via the link (below).

Click here to Begin Quiz.

Task Two  Define and discuss 

1. Two ethical issues in a correctional setting.

Unit Overview
The courts in recent years have made the caseworker's job much more difficult, as the rights of criminal offenders, both incarcerated and in the community, have been expanded dramatically. In addition, caseworkers have been held liable for failing to protect the public from the same clients to whom the courts have been according additional rights.

The day has not yet come that a caseworker needs to think like a lawyer, however. If caseworkers can remember a few main points, they should be able to do their job effectively without infringing on the constitutional rights of their clients or incurring liability. Criminal justice offenders do not enjoy the same rights as ordinary citizens. But where rights have been circumscribed, certain procedures still must be followed. This is the essence of the phrase "due process of law." And while caseworkers need not be lawyers, it would be wise to keep abreast of the latest developments in the legal area.

Recently, as the membership of the Supreme Court has become more conservative, the high court has been less receptive to the complaints of inmates, and has declined to extend further the protections accorded inmates and those under community supervision. This is no way suggests that the old days are back-- corrections officials and staff must continue to practice humane treatment of the inmate population.

Because the statutory goals of probation and parole officers are frequently vague, the manner in which a caseworker deals with his or her clients is likely to be determined in large part by the needs of the local agency and outside factors such as public outcry over individual cases. Commentators have identified three different roles that most caseworkers fall into, based on their education, training, and local agency culture. These are the law enforcement model, the therapeutic model, and the synthetic model. Under the law enforcement model, caseworkers see their primary role as protecting the public. Under the therapeutic model, caseworkers see their role as rehabilitating and aiding the offender. Under the synthetic model, caseworkers see their primary role as a combination of the law enforcement and rehabilitation.

Unit 7 - Alcohol; Drugs and the Criminal Offender. 

Task One   The assignment is in the form of an open-book quiz, accessed via the link (below).

1. The impact of drug usage/addiction on the offender and 
2. The counseling process.

1. Issues related to counseling mentally ill offenders.

Unit Overview (summary excerpt from the textbook):
Few kinds of criminals arouse our passion for punishment more than does the sex offender. Sex offenses are perhaps the most underreported of all major crimes, but we should not put all sex offenders into a common basket. The rapist differs dramatically from the child molester, and stranger rapists and acquaintance rapists also differ considerably. The majority of rapists appear to be traditional macho males who hold onto the notion that "no" means "yes." They rarely respect women as autonomous human beings who have absolute rights to their own bodies. There are those rapists (usually strangers to their victims) who do appear to require violence and victim degradation for their perverted satisfaction. You will find this type of rapist to be rare in comparison with the acquaintance/date rapist.

Treatment of rapists in community corrections should center around discussions of sex roles, their images of women, and the victim experience. The violent rapist usually is imprisoned and treatment there must be more intense and specialized. Such treatment usually is administered by psychiatrists and psychologists.

Child molesters are, in the main, weak and lonely individuals. Only occasionally will you run into a true pedophile. Child molesters tend to be concentrated in three age categories: the teens, mid to late thirties, and the mid fifties onward. There are usually some special conditions contributing to child molestation, such as mental deficiency, unemployment, and loneliness. Just as there are some major demographic differences between acquaintance and stranger rapists, there are major differences between rapists and child molesters. The biggest differences are the average ages of the two groups and the rapists' greater propensity to use force.

Mentally ill and mentally deficient offenders pose a particularly difficult set of challenges for the correctional worker. For new correctional workers used to dealing with only "fully rational" people in their daily lives, their first acquaintance with mentally ill or deficient offenders comes as quite a shock.

Unless their departments have a specialized caseload of mentally ill offenders, most probation and parole officers are likely to get at least one or two individuals of this type on their caseloads at any one time. You will find that most community-based offenders are functioning at an intellectual level that makes them difficult and frustrating people with whom to work. So be forewarned and forearmed, so the more you learn about such offenders before meeting them the better prepared you will be.

Unit 9 - The Juvenile, Female, and Elderly Offenders. 

1. The issues related to counseling juvenile vs. adult offenders.

Unit Overview
A corrections professional in juvenile services has perhaps the most demanding and important job in the criminal justice field. As Hans Toch indicated in the epigraph of Chapter Eighteen, the juvenile officer get individuals at a crucial juncture; the time before their criminal roots are too deeply embedded. If through your caring efforts you can wrench these roots from their criminogenic soil, you have performed a great service both to the child and to your community. Working with juveniles presents some special problems (and opportunities) not found among adult criminal populations. Despite the sometimes overwhelming nature of juvenile delinquency, the official ideology of the juvenile court is frankly rehabilitative and avoids many of the stigmatizing terms ("criminal," "defendant," "trial," "guilty," and so forth) used in the adult system.

With the realization that most delinquents do not become adult felons, certain psychological and environmental factors were identified as possible causal factors in delinquency. Adolescence was described as a trying time for many youngsters, caught as they are in a "time warp" between childhood and adulthood. It is a time when they are trying to distance themselves from the authority of their parents and to find their own identities. This attempt is often made under the influence of the peer group and the entertainment media, both of which often model antisocial attitudes and behaviors. The hardening of poverty, especially in the ghettoes, also was cited as a factor for many of the worst manifestations of modern American delinquency.

The first thing you have to do is find out as much as you can about a juvenile. The assessment interview should cover their attitudes, behavior, school behavior and attitudes, family dynamics, and peer groups.

The effective supervision of juveniles towards the development of positive psychosocial development must involve at least nine components: learn discipline, understanding and acceptance of self, self awareness of their emotions and feelings, understand the emotions and feelings of others, positive interpersonal relationships, positive values and ideals, appreciation of education and work, have a sense of responsibility for their actions and lives. Sounds simple--it will take hard work. Adding family counseling to the mix is another valuable tool--and this can bring the "love' that many children lack.
 

Females commit far fewer crimes than males, although some can be just as dangerous and criminal as males. In 1996, only about 6% of all adult inmates were women. Greater participation in the work force provides women with increasing opportunities to commit crimes such as fraud and embezzlement. While female rates of such "economic" crimes are increasing faster than male rates, they are still much smaller in number. Numerous studies have shown that females who do become criminal have suffered a greater frequency and/or intensity of many of the negative environmental factors said to increase the probability of criminal activity than male criminals. They tend to have suffered more physical, sexual, and psychological abuse, parental substance abuse, parental neglect, and come from poorer homes and homes that are more likely to be broken. Yet, it appears that women have a higher threshold against antisocial behavior than men.

The elderly offenders until quite recently have received little or no attention. Because they are very much underrepresented among our criminal population, they are considered something of a "non-problem." However, the proportion of our elderly citizens under some form of correctional supervision is rising as our society ages. Several issues regarding the elderly offender were raised, including the definition of "elderly," which has been defined differently in various states. Given the youthful nature of our criminal population, anyone more than thirty is considered old in prison, but we have not considered anyone below fifty as old. We also looked at some reasons why after lifetime of non-criminal behavior, many elderly individuals commit crime. The reasons ranged from the biological impairments sometimes accompanying old age, to the social and psychological problems of the elderly.

Final Examination: Your grade for the course will be weighted as follows: Written Assignments = 50%, Final Exam = 50%. In order to successfully complete the course you MUST complete the written assignments and, take the final examination. If you live within 50 miles of the campus, you MUST take the final examination on campus. You may contact the Learning Assistance Center at (562) 692-0921 x 4016 or 3169 to schedule taking the final exam. The Learning Assistance Center is located at the Police Academy which is on the main campus on Canyon Drive. If you live over 50 miles from the college the exam may be proctored at your location. Contact your instructor for details.

If you experience any difficulty or need any further clarification, contact the Online Coordinator, Carley Mitchell at mitchellcarley@hotmail.com or in an emergency call him at (801) 953-6173.

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