Anger Management and Restorative Justice Programmes
Anger management and restorative justice programs are interventions designed to help individuals manage and express their anger in healthier ways, as well as to restore relationships and address harm caused by conflict. These programs often involve teaching communication and conflict resolution skills, promoting empathy and understanding, and providing opportunities for individuals to take responsibility for their actions and make amends.
4 Key excerpts on "Anger Management and Restorative Justice Programmes"
eBook - ePub- Sandi Mann(Author)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Teach Yourself(Publisher)
...As mentioned repeatedly throughout this book, anger management is not about learning to suppress anger or to try to stop feeling angry; it is about getting angry when it is appropriate to do so and expressing that anger in an appropriate manner. Cognitive and behavioural approaches to anger management involve both the mental processes (our thoughts) and behavioural processes (what we do). We have already discussed in chapter 3 some of these approaches in relation to the ‘angry personality’ but here we will look at some specific cognitive and behavioural techniques aimed at controlling our anger when we know we need to cool it – but just can’t. These techniques include: • avoiding the provocation • distancing yourself from the provocation • disrupting your anger response • taking physical exercise. Point to remember Anger management techniques can involve changing our mental processing, our actual behaviour, or both. Avoiding the provocation Previously (in chapters 2 and 3), we have discussed the avoidance response in reference to a strategy that contributes to the angry personality, so it is important here to distinguish between avoidance as a maladaptive (i.e. negative) anger management strategy (as discussed in chapters 2 and 3) and avoidance as an adaptive (or positive) strategy, as we will see here. The maladaptive avoidance is when the individual avoids dealing with anger – or withdraws from the situation – whereas the strategy to be discussed here is when the individual avoids (or minimizes their exposure to) the provocation or the anger-eliciting event. Avoiding dealing with the anger arousal can be negative and contribute to the angry personality as explained previously, but avoiding the anger-eliciting event can be a positive and helpful strategy. In chapter 1 we started to chart those ‘anger triggers’ that cause anger – and to put them into common themes. You will probably notice a recurrence of the sorts of things that make you angry...
- Amy E. Wenzel(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications, Inc(Publisher)
...Anger episodes may be positive in the short term, because the individual gets what is wanted (e.g., the other person stops an undesired action). In contrast, anger episodes are often negative in the long term and can lead to damaged relationships, intimate partner violence, health issues, and/or involvement of the criminal justice system. Clients also learn that anger is often related to drug use, stress, and alcoholism, causing further long-term health problems. It can lead to school difficulties for children and adolescents and work difficulties for adults. This psychoeducational treatment component is important because it can give clients a sense of power. They begin to understand the process of anger arousal and resolution and learn that there are techniques to bring it under control. With cognitive corrections, they are also taught that venting and ruminating about anger triggers actually increase aggression. Finally, they are made aware that anger is associated with financial and legal difficulties, additional negative feelings, and health concerns, such as heart problems and stroke. These function to increase motivation to change. Change Techniques Anger management programs generally have four components: (1) preparing for change, (2) changing, (3) accepting, and (4) maintaining the change. It is wise to begin by using the strategies that prepare clients for change. Practitioners can then move to changing or accepting strategies as they think it prudent. Various strategies fit within each component, to be chosen collaboratively by the practitioner and the client in order to increase treatment acceptability. Intervention begins in the preparation stage since it is difficult to achieve success if clients do not believe that their anger is problematic and are thus low in motivation and not engaged in the process. This is a special issue for clients who are coerced into treatment by their spouses, supervisors at work, judges, or probation or parole officers...
eBook - ePub- Adam Crawford, Tim Newburn(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Willan(Publisher)
...Furthermore, it called on the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice to consider the development of guidelines on the use of mediation and restorative justice programmes. The declaration arising from the Tenth UN Congress on the Prevention of Crime and Treatment of Offenders, held in May 2000 in Vienna, called on governments to expand their use of restorative justice. Immediately after the congress, the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice approved a resolution calling for comment from member states on its own draft Basic Principles on the Use of Restorative Justice Programmes in Criminal Justice Matters (United Nations 2000). Restorative Practices Despite the fact that some commentators suggest that restorative justice is a set of principles, values or a philosophy rather than a practice (Marshall 1999: 1), it is through practice developments around the world that restorative justice has come to be known and in relation to which theories have emerged 4 Victim-offender mediation The revival of restorative justice has its roots in victim-offender mediation and reconciliation programmes. It is widely recognised that in the English-speaking world, the first vicim-offender programme was established in Kitchener, Ontario, by Mennonite Central Committee workers in 1974. The model spread to the USA and UK throughout the ensuing decade and was particularly developed with regard to young offenders 5 It involves bringing together a victim and his or her offender at a meeting facilitated by a mediator, the aim of which is to discuss the crime and the harm caused as well as how this might be put right. Mediation is a method of communication by which negotiations between the opposing parties are brought about by a third party who attempts to help the parties reach their own solutions to their problems...
eBook - ePubUnderstanding Criminal Justice
A Critical Introduction
- Azrini Wahidin, Nicola Carr(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...At its simplest level restorative justice can involve a facilitated meeting between the victim, offender and a representative of the community, in which there is a dialogue between the participants. The purpose of this dialogue is to allow the victim to articulate the harm caused by the offence and to enable the offender to take responsibility for the harm done. One of the desired outcomes of such an approach is that the offender commits to do something to ‘restore’ or put right the harm. This could involve making a commitment to undertake unpaid work, writing a letter of apology, paying compensation to the victim or engaging in a specific programme to address the causes of offending (Dignan, 2007). Bearing in mind the critiques of conventional models of justice, proponents of restorative justice argue that restorative approaches allow for a more meaningful engagement for all parties. As Morris (2002: 598) notes, restorative justice also emphasises human rights and the need to recognise the impact of social or substantive injustice and in small ways address these rather than simply provide offenders with legal or formal justice and victims with no justice at all. Thus it seeks to restore the victim’s security, self-respect, dignity and, most importantly, sense of control. And it seeks to restore responsibility to offenders for their offending and its consequences, to restore a sense of control to them to make amends for what they have done and to restore a belief in them that the process and outcomes were fair and just. Restorative justice approaches are associated with a broad range of processes – a list of some common examples is provided in Box 8.3. What characterises the interventions as being restorative is their adherence to the principles already described...
