Leading the world in violence prevention

A couple of Corrections staff members approached a prisoner in the informal setting of the open grassy space in the middle of the Violence Prevention Unit at Rimutaka Prison. The prisoner was a senior gang member; a huge guy, covered in tattoos, and with 45 previous convictions, eight of them for crimes of extreme violence.

The staff asked him to welcome another prisoner from a rival gang into the unit and show him around.

“No way,” he said, starting to walk away. “I can’t.”

Then he stopped, turned back. “This is part of the therapy, isn’t it? OK, I’ll do it.”

And do it, he did. And very well, too, according to Violence Prevention Unit Principal Psychologist Kirsty Williams.

“Everything we do here is therapy-driven. Basically, treatment starts the moment they walk in the gate, and the whole unit provides the therapy. Every interaction is part of our community of change.”

And the ‘community of change’ approach is helping to reduce re-offending and make our society a safer place to live.

Only 62 per cent of men who finish the programme at the Violence Prevention Unit are likely to be reconvicted of a violent crime, compared with 72 per cent of men who have not done the programme.

“That may sound modest, but considering how exceedingly difficult it is to change violent behaviour – it’s very promising,” says Kirsty.

Dr Devon Polaschek, Associate Professor at Victoria University School of Psychology, says that Kirsty and her colleagues are successfully treating men who are considered untreatable psychopaths by the rest of the world.

“Internationally there’s a lot of interest in the work being done at the VPU because most of these guys would be put in the ‘too hard’ basket in other countries,” she says.

“Countries such as Australia and Canada look to us for correctional rehabilitation initiatives. That’s partly because here in New Zealand we’re lucky enough to have a single unified correctional system with coherent leadership from the top that places an emphasis on rehabilitation.”

Kirsty and her colleagues make initial contact with prospective participants for the year-long programme over the phone.
“We ask them if they want to come, and tell them what we expect of them. We ask ‘Do you think you can do it?’ We also make it clear that we expect mistakes.”

Participants are usually welcomed into the unit one-by-one, with a space of a few days between each new entry. It’s a deliberate technique to ensure each man comes in to an existing positive culture to which he must adapt.

Once in the unit, there is a settling-in period, while the men get used to their group of ten fellow participants. They share the unit with two other groups of ten who are further ahead in the programme.

The main part of the programme runs for about nine months and involves three, three-hour group therapy sessions each week.

“The sessions are just a small part of our community of change,” says Kirsty.

“For example, at one of the unit’s regular informal quiz events involving staff and participants, one of the men may become aggressive because he can’t handle losing. This then becomes an opportunity to address his violence in a real way, within a real world interaction. The staff here are well trained to watch out for signs that someone is still buying into violent ways. We sweat the small stuff.”

“This is the hardest kind of work to do. Most of the men score so highly on the most commonly used measure of psychopathy that we no longer find it useful to use. Yet we do achieve a measure of success.”

The rest of the world might have given up on them, but in New Zealand there is still hope for these men.