Date of Conferral

5-13-2024

Date of Award

May 2024

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Psychology

Advisor

Dr. Leslie Barnes-Young

Abstract

Wisconsin policy makers implement sex offender treatment programs with the purpose of decreasing reoffending while increasing safety for victims and communities. Research has suggested that the cognitive behavioral therapy group curriculum, Thinking for a Change (T4C), has been effective for offenders; however, this program’s key component of cognitive self-change among sex offenders has yet to be researched. The purpose of the current study was to fill a gap in T4C research and, specifically, explore whether sex offender probationers gained the T4C component of cognitive self-change as compared to non-sex offender probationers from Wisconsin. Beck’s cognitive behavioral theory was used as the study’s theoretical framework. The key research question was whether there was a statistically significant between-group difference in T4C posttest scores of cognitive self-change while controlling for T4C pretest scores among 51 Wisconsin adult male sex offenders and 51 adult male non-sex offender probationers. Archival data were obtained from the Alternative to Traditional Incarceration of Citizens Correctional Services database. Using ANCOVA, the T4C posttest scores revealed there was not a statistically significant difference among and between the non-sex offenders and sex offender probationers regarding the T4C’s component of cognitive self-change. Thus, the T4C program did not have a different effect on sex offenders than it did on non-sex offender probationers. This study may impact positive social change by encouraging further T4C research among sex offenders that may increase knowledge into the multidimensional factors that hinder sex offenders’ cognitive self-change, thus improving the likelihood to decrease reoffending and improve safety to victims and communities.

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