Abstract
This chapter welcomes correctional practitioners and other helping professionals to Responsible Adult Culture (RAC). The chapter introduces RAC as a comprehensive cognitive behavioral program, that is, a group-based intervention designed to address both motivational (cognitively enriched mutual help “culture,” amenability to treatment) and equipping (cognitive and behavioral curriculum) aspects of offender treatment. Offenders will constructively help others and themselves change toward responsible adulthood once they are both motivated (in a responsible adult culture) and equipped (with skills and maturity) to do so. Across motivating and equipping are two themes: social perspective-taking and the correction of self-serving cognitive distortions. The chapter describes the history as well as various implementations and adaptations of RAC (and its parent program, EQUIP), and reviews evidence that the program is effective (given program fidelity) in promoting both a humane institutional climate (e.g., fewer incident reports) and subsequent responsible behavior in the community (e.g., lower recidivism and longer latency rates). Supplementary references are provided at the end of the chapter.
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References
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Potter, G.B., Gibbs, J.C., Robbins, M., Langdon, P.E. (2015). Welcome to Responsible Adult Culture. In: A Comprehensive Cognitive Behavioral Program for Offenders. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17536-2_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17536-2_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-17535-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-17536-2
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