Criminal Justice (CRJS) 491

CRJS 491: Offender Rehabilitation will focus on current issues in offender rehabilitation from both a Canadian and international perspective. You will have the opportunity to examine the theoretical literature about offender rehabilitation and the practical application of that literature as we explore “what works.” Rehabilitation will be considered across a variety of areas that contribute to offender recidivism, including interventions for people who have drug addictions and those who perpetrate property offences, sexual crimes, and domestic violence. This course will also consider offender rehabilitation with men and women of different ages and ethnic/cultural background and relevant professional ethics issues.

CRJS 491 is divided into two parts comprising twelve units in total:

PART 1 Introduction

• Unit 1 Historical Overview
• Unit 2 Public Perceptions
• Unit 3 The Good Lives Model & The Risk-Need-Responsivity Model
• Unit 4 Cultural Factors in Treatment

PART 2 Special Populations

• Unit 5 Treatment for Psychopathic Offenders
• Unit 6 Interventions to Stop Intimate Partner Violence
• Unit 7 Sexual Offender Treatment
• Unit 8 Interventions for Juvenile Offenders
• Unit 9 Treatment for Anger-Based Offending
• Unit 10 Treatment for Substance Abuse-Related Offending
• Unit 11 Interventions for Offenders with Intellectual Disabilities
• Unit 12 Interventions for Mentally Ill Offenders

After completing CRJS 491, you will have achieved several important learning outcomes. Specifically, you should understand and be able to describe:

1. Historical trends in offender rehabilitation.
2. The dominant treatment models in contemporary correctional services
3. How interventions strategies for offenders are evaluated and deemed to be “empirically validated.” 
4. The treatment needs of specific offender groups.