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Training Correctional Volunteers for Group Discussions

Regional Psychiatric Centre (Saskatoon) and University of Saskatchewan

Sixty-three volunteers were assigned to one of four different institutional programs with fifty incarcerated correctional offenders (trained discussion, untrained discussion, a self-control program and recreation activity) or a delayed-treatment control group. Volunteers were rated on interpersonal skills and discussions were monitored. An attitude-personality test battery was administered in a pre-post design. Participant evaluations were found to be a complex function of the amount and kind of volunteer training, the type of program, the personality of the volunteer, and the personality of the client. Trained discussion group volunteers self-reported more tension, and less flexibility than untrained volunteers although the residents did not describe them as such. Volunteers in the self-control program reported more tension and less flexibility, approachability, and influence relative to the recreation volunteers. Residents rated the self-control volunteers higher in tension but also more approachable and more concrete. Residents expressed a greater appreciation of the noncriminally oriented volunteers. Training had a positive effect on the differential reinforcement of residents' pro- and antisocial statements. All program group volunteers increased on identification with criminal others as a function of their exposure to offenders. Recreation group volunteers also increased on empathy. Implications for volunteer and correctional counselor training are reviewed.

Criminal Justice and Behavior, Vol. 7, No. 3, 341-356 (1980)
DOI: 10.1177/009385488000700308


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