We’ve all experienced the violent revolving door of the criminal justice system. Rape, robbery, arrest, due process, conviction, treatment prison, parole and right back in the system and prison.

Where does coaching come in? Are you teaching desistence?

It’s the criminal justice WPA annuity system. It’s like a Roth IRA distribution. It just keeps on paying and maybe no taxes.

Nothing is going to change unless we, the system change. “It” is not going to get better unless the way we deal with the problem “gets better.”

Drug courts are a good example. Nobody does it the same way. But everyone reports 84% success rates.

How can that be when the DOJ and CJS report 85% of parolees will return to prison by the 10th year?

Drug court clients are recidivating while in the program and on the day of graduation. Some are high on Meth while giving their graduation speeches.

Drug courts report 84% success rates because per their record keeping, there were no new arrests and convictions within a three-year period.

Within three years is the time period used to measure recidivism rates by these courts.

Another definition of recidivism is “thinking of or returning to criminal thinking ‘and’ conduct. No time limit.

Relapse, thinking of or returning to AOD, alcohol or other drugs use, and recidivism are processes. They do not respect a 36-month measuring stick.

To desist or recidivate is a choice. Offenders are not taught how to desist. They are haphazardly taught ‘relapse prevention.’

Plus – drug courts only care about compliance, not change. Reduce recidivism is goal number one followed by cost reduction.

You get what you think about. Is it better to have clients think about desistence or relapse?

There will be no long-term behavior changes unless you change anti-social, criminal thinking and conduct (CTC) beliefs and values involving AOD, alcohol and other drugs, first.

What is your specific CTC belief change protocol?

Your answer will determine the quality of your programs. I designed Belief Eye Movement Therapy, BEMT, to help CTC/AOD offenders achieve desistence.

Once desistence is reached, criminals who have issues with alcohol and other drugs learn to collapse those things that trigger them to use or do crime and reach transcendence.

If you would like to hear more about this CTC problem-solving ideas, I’m available for comments or training.

Please share this post if you found it interesting. And you can find more information at https://lnkd.in/g9JUVuVr

The CBT map image is from Drug Court Treatment: The Verdict. Amazon.com

Do you know what’s missing in treatment for court mandated clients? Something to do with geographic standard of care as it relates to goals of treatment.

Maybe it’s not the clients’ fault when they violate the drug court contract. Question: What was done for the clients to reprogram the hard drive?

What needs to be done differently?

Clients will not change their criminal behavior unless core beliefs about CTC, criminal thinking and conduct involving alcohol and other drugs (AOD) are changed first.

No B (behavior change) therefore, No A (change of core beliefs).

“Changing thoughts is not enough to get ongoing positive outcomes. We must change our [permission-granting (Beck)] core beliefs and [values].”

“Sometimes, these beliefs are so deep we are not aware of them.” Wanberg and Milkman, (Criminal Conduct and Substance Abuse Treatment).

Beck, Milkman, Ellis, ABC-DE Theory, and others have emphasized the importance of changing core beliefs and values in order to effect behavior change.

Do you think this will happen magically because someone attended a tedious class for 12 months? Clinicians can get bored of the same old routine day in and day out for years.

This comes across in the delivery of the program. Counselors start to show movies, go out and play basketball, dance, do aroma therapy, etc. Anything but the program.

Clients and the world are not going to get better automatically. We, the counselors must get better.

The wind is going to blow the same this year as it did last year. We need to learn to reap the wind.

Anti-social, permission-granting, criminal thinking and conduct core beliefs and values won’t change by themselves. This requires specific skills on the part of the counselors.

Belief Eye Movement Therapy™, BEMT™, is the most effective and cost-efficient way to help clients explore and resolve their anti-social beliefs and values that lead to CTC, R&R, recidivism, and relapse.

It is “Belief Specific” counseling and therapy.

Some of the beliefs can be changed in 20 minutes to one hour. Imagine how much time and money that would save. Imagine discovering and changing the “driver core belief” in the first few days or weeks.

Subsequent limiting beliefs could collapse like dominoes.

If you would like to learn more about this, I’m available for comments or training.

If you found this of interest, please share it. And you can find more information at https://lnkd.in/g9JUVuVr

The CBT map image is from Drug Court Treatment: The Verdict. Amazon.com

There are two primary goals of mandated treatment programs such as drug court. They are: 1. Reduce Recidivism and 2. Lower the cost of crime and treatment.

For the State of Hawaii, it costs $39,000.00-$40,000.00 per year to house drug offenders and others convicted of crime in the state. Many of the convicted offenders are housed in Arizona at Saguaro State Prison.

In Arizona it costs $90,000.00 per year to house the same clients convicted and sentenced for longer periods.

Now comes drug court, with the promise that “if you complete the 12-month drug court class, we will drop your charges and expunge your record.”

Approximately 50% of clients graduate from the program. It is possible to improve graduation success rates by lowering the standards, rules, and regulations.

Why drug courts? The number one reason stated is “it costs less.” Consider an in-community drug court program that costs less than $12,000.00 per year. That is a nice savings per person. At least $27,000.00 per year. When you consider that some of the sentences could have been from five to over 100 years it looks like a bargain. But is it?

The criminal justice system reports that 85% of released offenders will return to prison within 10 years. Drug courts report successes based on a three-year window. They report an 84% success rate.

Recidivism is defined as returning to criminal thinking and/or conduct (CTC). Many drug court clients are high on crystal methamphetamine or their drug of choice at their graduation ceremonies. Drug court graduates are supplying other graduates with illicit drugs the same day. Is that success?

This means there has been no change in behavior for these graduates who have faked it until they completed the class as spelled out in the sentence agreement: no criminal behavior.

Clients will not change their criminal behavior unless core beliefs about CTC, criminal thinking and conduct involving alcohol and other drugs (AOD) are changed first.

No B (behavior change) therefore, No A (change of core beliefs).

“Changing thoughts is not enough to get ongoing positive outcomes. We must change our [permission-granting (Beck)] core beliefs and [vaues]. Sometimes, these beliefs are so deep we are not aware of them.” Wanberg and Milkman, (Criminal Conduct and Substance Abuse Treatment).

Belief Eye Movement Therapy™, BEMT™, is the most effective and cost-efficient way to help clients explore and resolve their anti-social beliefs and values that lead to CTC, R&R, recidivism, and relapse. Some of the beliefs can be changed in 20 minutes to one hour. Imagine how much time and money that would save. I’m available for comments or training.

Belief Eye Movement Therapy, BEMT is a Cognitive Behavior Therapy, CBT, intervention that can be performed and used by anyone. Of course, training is required first. It is ideal for treatment of substance use disorders, AOD use disorders.

One does not need a master’s degree or PhD to do this work for others.

It is also useful for help with criminal thinking and conduct. It is therefore useful for DBT interventions.

Drug courts want to reduce recidivism and reduce cost of crime and treatment.

Drug courts should do this for mandated clients. Belief Eye Movement Therapy is used to change limiting, harmful, permission-granting beliefs about CTC, criminal thinking and conduct involving alcohol and other drugs AOD. Treatment providers want to do this as soon as possible in treatment without endangering rapport, according to Judith S. Beck, Cognitive Behavior Theory

“There will be no long-term behavior changes unless you first change limiting, anti-social, permission-granting core beliefs and values of the clients” to paraphrase Wanberg and Milkman.

Why would you wait to elicit and change these core beliefs? How specifically are you doing that now? If you do not have a specific belief change intervention for your clients, then this is for you.

For people who want to learn how to help others with BEMT, training consists of reading and studying theory, taking tests to assure comprehension and recall and practical training allowing the practitioner to learn how to do the methods properly and demonstrate effective skills.

Each drug court should have at least one skilled practitioner onboard to help mandated clients to change.

Upon satisfactory completion the participant will be given a certificate declaring the holder is a Certified BEMT Practitioner.

The basis of theory for this treatment protocol is based upon the works of Albert Ellis, REBT and ABC-DE Theory and Aaron Beck, Cognitive Behavior theorist and originator. The works of Francine Shapiro, Steve Andreas and John Grinder are also components.

Briefly stated and paraphrased, “behavior (C) is not based on events (A), but rather beliefs (B) about (A). Ergo, ABC Theory. Ellis went on to advise that we must Dispute (D) these beliefs and replace them with (E), empowering beliefs. This allows the client to be free of the pain of traumatic past events and move on to have a happier, more fulfilling life.

That is the goal of BEMT. Additionally, BEMT can be used for chronic pain relief in some cases.

Methods and patterns

Client presents with an issue such as not being happy with success and failures of life. Using various attending skills, the practitioner fleshes out what she/he believes to be limiting beliefs in a certain area of the client’s life. Non-validation in childhood might lead to “I don’t deserve success.”

This is discussed with and verified by the client before moving on. The process is a collaboration, meeting the client where she is at and then take her where she wants/needs to go, ABC-DE.

The client is instructed to say the limiting belief simply as possible.

The practitioner then instructs the client to describe the strength or pain of the belief on a scale of 1-10, 10 being really, strong and 0-1 being acceptable. As pain is a warning sign, we would not want to eliminate it completely.

Horizontal, vertical, circular, and diagonal hand/pointer movements are used. The client is instructed to follow the fingers or pointer of the practitioner with her eyes without moving her head while repeating the statement. This is continued for as long as it takes to see, hear, and feel the positive results.

As this statement is repeated the numeric strength of the statement is ratcheted down. The process is repeated for as long as it takes to get to 0-1. If the feeling or belief is diminished such that the client feels it is acceptable, we then go on to replace the “old You” limiting belief with a “new you” empowering belief. “I deserve to be successful. “Thus, ABC-DE. The brain is doing the disputing and reprocessing.

The client constructed a new empowering belief (E) that may only be a 0-1 initially. We then begin to ratchet up that belief using the BEMT hand/pointer movements until we reach 9-10, which is E.

This is a thumbnail sketch of the process. I am available for staff trainings by Zoom or live. For more details, please call or message me. Ph: 1 808 385 4550.