The Effectiveness of CBT in Treating Mandated Clients
This study evaluates the effectiveness of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) in reducing criminogenic thinking among justice-involved adult males participating in a community-based behavioral health program. The study population consisted primarily of African American and Hispanic men mandated to treatment as a condition of probation or parole. Given the limited timeframe of the study, direct measurement of recidivism was not feasible; therefore, changes in criminal thinking, measured using the Texas Christian University Criminal Thinking Scales (TCU CTS 3.0), were used as a proxy indicator of recidivism risk.
A quasi-experimental, one-group pretest–posttest design was employed. Data were collected from 26 participants (n = 15 pre-treatment; n = 11 post-treatment) and analyzed using descriptive statistics, effect size calculations (Cohen’s d), and distributional analysis. Results indicated substantial reductions across all five criminogenic thinking domains, with large-to-very-large effect sizes (d = 1.24–1.62). Distributional analyses revealed reductions in variability and attenuation of high-risk outliers following treatment.
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