Counseling Program for Adult Prisoners

¶ … Drug Treatment of Counseling Program The District of Columbia has decided to implement a drug treatment program or a counseling program for adults incarcerated in jail. The decision is influenced by the need to enhance rehabilitation services that the district provides to its adult prisoners. Moreover, the District of Columbia has decided to implement such as program in order to help lessen the recidivism rates among adults upon release from incarceration facilities.

However, the implementation of this program requires conducting an extensive research on the effectiveness of such a program in order to enhance its overall success. Conducting an extensive research will help in assessing the effectiveness of the program prior to implementation and ensure best practices are adopted in designing the program. This paper provides a research proposal for measuring the effectiveness of the drug treatment program to be implemented in the district.

Research Question The research question that will guide this study is, "Does a drug treatment or counseling program during incarceration help in reducing the rate of crime among adults?" This research question will be utilized since the District of Columbia is considering implementing such a program for incarcerated adults in the region. Moreover, the research question is also suitable in measuring the effectiveness of program with regards to addressing some of the major factors that contribute to crime.

Through this question, the researcher will seek to determine whether a drug treatment of counseling program helps in reducing the rate of crime among adults in the District of Columbia. Research Hypothesis In order to answer the research question, the researcher has developed a relevant hypothesis that will be tested throughout the study. The hypothesis will help in obtaining insights regarding the impact of such programs in lessening criminal behavior among adults.

The research hypothesis for this study is, "Drug treatment or counseling program helps in lessening criminal behavior among incarcerated adults." This research hypothesis has been developed on the premise that there is a strong link between substance abuse or use and crime, especially among adults. Therefore, a drug treatment or counseling program will help reduce criminal behavior by addressing drug use or abuse, which is a major factor that contributes to increased rates of crime through promoting criminal behavior.

Research Methodology To test the research hypothesis and answer the research question, the researcher will utilize an appropriate research methodology and design for the study. In this case, the researcher will utilize and experimental research design, which entails deliberate introduction of a treatment or program to observe an outcome or result (Office of Research Integrity, n.d.). The use of experimental research design is influenced by the fact that the methodology involves conducting a test under controlled conditions to examine the validity of a hypothesis.

Therefore, the researcher will conduct a test of the impact of such a program in lessening criminal behavior among adults. The use of the experimental research design for this study will involve selecting an adequate sample of the representative population. As a result, the researcher will select 20 adult participants who are currently incarcerated in one of the correctional facilities in the District of Columbia. While these participants will be selected randomly, their eligibility for involvement in the program will be based on previous history of substance use or drug abuse.

In essence, participants will be selected on the premise that they have or are currently involved in substance use. Once this has been ascertained, they will be assigned to a drug treatment or counseling program, which will comprise 10 therapy sessions that will be offered once a week for 10 weeks. Participants will meet their counselors for a 1-hour session at least once a week where they will be subjected to narrative therapy and regular treatment techniques.

The narrative therapy sessions will entail the use of description and progression therapy through which participants will provide information regarding their progress in dealing with substance abuse. Notably, the techniques of narrative therapy in this study include exploring distinctive outcomes, mapping the various impacts of the problem, and externalizing conversations as described by White (2007). Data will be collected through the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), which comprises various items relating to substance abuse and subsequent criminal behavior.

Participants in the study will rank each item in the BSI using the Likert-type scale of 0 to 4 where 0 equals false and 4 equals extremely true. Consequently, the researcher will utilize scores on the Brief Symptom Inventory as an outcome measure of the drug treatment or.