Week 1 Treatment Programs Effectiveness in Jails Prisons Discussion Paper

Respond to a classmate who holds a different philosophical orientation than you and share an insight. her reply is below. This is normally $5. Few sentences and maybe a question

My topic of research interest would be something involving corrections. Although I am not entirely sure what I would like to research for my dissertation, I am interested in correctional treatment programs and how effective they are. I have done research on this topic in the past, but as an overall correctional treatment, not necessarily focusing on one type of offender. I would like to focus on one type of offender, particularly sexual offenders. Are treatment programs effective in jails/prisons? What types of programs work in restoring cognitive-behavioral change and lower recidivism rates? How does the community feel when a sexual offender is released back into their community? I would like to be able to answer all of these questions. I particularly find sexual offenders more interesting than other offenders because they commit more serious crimes than other offenders. Drug-related offenders and violent offenders are also interesting and important to research, but I find sexual offenders the most interesting. There are many crimes that can be classified for one to be a sexual offender. There are more serious offenses such as child molestation and not as serious ones such as urinating in public. The offenses have such a wide range of severity so it would be interesting to see the how each offender responds to treatment depending on their level of offense.

According to the Missouri State University (2014), the five philosophical orientations are progressivism (needs and interests of a person), perennialism (knowledge of enduring great ideas), essentialism (disciplinary and systematic), existentialism (education that will give an understanding to people’s lives), and social reconstruction (creating new social order). The one that reflects my worldview the most would be progressivism. In order to help a person, or in my interest of helping sexual offenders receiving treatment, it would be most important to understand the needs and interest of a person. Each person and offender are different, so it would be necessary to understand what each person requires. For example, if a treatment program is implemented, it may be effective for 8 out of 10 offenders. But, why was the program not effective for those 2 other offenders? Clearly, this was not the correct program from them. Understanding of what is required from each person would help to place them in the correct treatment program. All of the other philosophical orientations are necessary, but it is first important to understand the basic needs of an individual before going ahead to implement the rest of the orientations.

Dr. Patton, from this week’s video resource (Laureate Education, 2016), explains that epistemology is the study of knowledge. It is understanding how we know what we know. Ontology is the study of being, existence, and the nature of reality. Epistemology requires separating yourself from the world so that you can be on the outside looking in. Ontology is studying the world that is not physical but rather how people are. Both of these can lead to different research approaches. Ontology is more hands on rather than epistemology which is seeing the world by being separate from it. Both approaches are extremely useful but it also depends on what type of research one is conducting to understand which approach to take. For me, I would probably consider ontology. Ontology would help me to understand people and why they are the way that they are. In understanding sexual offenders, ontology would be necessary to understand their thinking behavior to apply it to reality, to understand their human thought processes.

Laureate Education (Producer). (2016a). Introduction to research design [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Missouri State University. (2014). 5 what are the five modern philosophical orientations. Course Hero, Inc. Retrieved from https://www.coursehero.com/file/prcs04/What-are-th…

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