FORENSIC COUNSELING: A NEW APPROACH TO SCHOOL CRIME

Forensic Counseling, as defined by Dr. E. Scott Ryan, can be understood as counseling of offenders, both juvenile and adult, in a manner that does not repeat past treatment and education failures. Dr. Ryan describes the medical model treatment mistake of relying upon mental health professionals to treat crime and delinquency as if there were an illness they could cure. These therapeutic rehabilitative approaches have failed for the simple reason that an offender in trouble is not necessarily a troubled offender. Accordingly, a criminological or delinquent pathology, as observed in a criminal or delinquent ego, cannot be equated with a psychological or psychiatric pathology. In addition to the failures of specific medical model approaches, the in appropriateness of general moral education approaches is also addressed. Rather than purporting to teach secular or religious morality in a pluralistic society, with the concordant pitfalls of moral dissensus and conflict, forensic counseling concentrates on the specific criminal rationality dynamics associated with criminal behavior. Forensic counselors can be trained to encounter criminal rationalities and rationalizations in a direct but not denigrating manner, so as to counter them before they become worse and to reverse them with continued forensic counseling and treatment approaches.

After being invited to present my workshop on Forensic Counseling at The New Jersey Education Association's annual conference in Atlantic City, the largest education meeting in the world, I was informed, I realized the remarkable largely untapped educational potential for responding to crime and delinquency. Despite the frustration of having not only to teach, but to discipline, the educators in attendance among the approximately 55,000 NJEA members were not only not frustrated, but quite enthusiastic. Many of them asked me what they could do next, and that is why I am responding with my suggestions. The fact that the Governor was there is an immense plus.

First, Forensic Counseling can be understood as counseling for offenders, both juveniles and adults, in a manner that does not repeat our society's failure to respond effectively in the past.(5) Despite our best intentions, we have failed to deal with our problems of crime and delinquency, and casting the failure in terms of liberal versus conservative approaches is quite mistaken. The mistakes that have been made can be grouped into one of two approaches: the first one of being too specific in the wrong way, and the second of being too general in the wrong way.

The Medical Model

In reference to the first mistake, we have relied upon mental health professionals to treat crime and delinquency as if there were an illness that they could cure. We know in criminology that crime is not an illness and that it cannot be cured by what we refer to as "the medical model". We have attempted to employ medical model pathologies and failed for the simple reason that an offender in trouble is not necessarily a troubled offender. There are some troubled people in all walks of life, but a criminal or delinquent pathology is not a psychiatric or psychological pathology. Dr. Thomas Szasz, MD. in his book ,Psychiatric Justice(10). followed by Dr. William Classer, MD. in his book, Reality Therapy(2). and myself in my article, "Therapeutic Justice"(9), and in my books on Forensic Counseling(4)(7), all come to the same conclusion and can demonstrate why the medical model has failed to work. Although Szasz and Glasser are doctors of psychiatry and I am a doctor of criminology, we have come to the same conclusion regarding the failure of rehabilitative therapeutic counseling in treating crime and delinquency. A school psychologist or psychiatrist has a place in treating mental pathology whether it be associated with delinquent or non-delinquent behavior. That is a very specific task, but it is not the same task of dealing with crime and delinquency. The application of specific therapeutic rehabilitative treatments based upon the medical model accounts for the fact that treatment has not worked. Nevertheless, the fact that the wrong treatment has not worked should not lead to the erroneous conclusion, as it has among many, that there is no way to treat crime and delinquency.(6) We can treat delinquency with forensic counseling, and educators can be trained to do this fairly quickly at a fraction of the cost of traditional treatment programs(3)...that have failed for decades. I shall say more about that and how the educational system can respond after explaining the second mistake.

As is often the case in reacting to insoluble problems, in swinging from one extreme to another, some treatment programs have gone from specific mental illness pathologies to simplistic moral pathologies. Instead of the first mistake of employing pseudo-medical diagnosis with specific psychiatric or psychological terminology, a second mistake of employing a general moralizing approach is taken. In some correctional programs, inmates carry around their moral reflection notebooks to record their supposed moral progress.

The Moral Model

Morality is important but an educator is not a moral guru and should not pretend to be one. Further, the problem to be addressed in dealing with crime and delinquency is not a general moral one, but, rather, a very specific one of criminal rationality and rationalization. One does not need to be a mental health professional as in the first failed approach, nor does one need to be a moral educator as in the unrealistic and simplistic second approach. In fact, introducing a moral education approach is fraught with not only failure but danger. If one employs secular morality, it is neither convincing nor strong enough; and if one employs religious morality it can be divisive and discriminatory. In neither case does it deal with the problem of crime and delinquency in a manner that is effective and one that reflects our pluralistic society.

I am not arguing against the moral component in many faith based crime fighting community programs. In fact, in my first book on forensic counseling(4), I pointed to successful faith based community programs among Baptists and Muslims, in addition to effective Catholic programs .I recommended cooperation among these various programs in working together to combat not only crime and delinquency but hate based extremism on the part of some secular ideologues and some religious zealots. One should remember, however, that the Sept. 11 terrorists represent both a new and old Theology of Terror criminal belief system that has manifested itself in many different religious belief systems; and I have discussed that criminality in my book, The Theology of Crime.(8) Once educators assume the role of moral educators they open themselves up to moral analysis that can lead to absolutist positions based upon sacrosanct positions. It should be noted that the most dangerous criminals are and always have been those who believed that God was on their side. Moral education should be left to religious and faith based communities and not introduced into public education when the education task at hand concerns crime and delinquency.

When Irish Catholics first arrived in America, they reacted negatively to the Protestantism in the public schools by establishing their own Catholic schools. In pursuing the moralist education approach to dealing with crime and delinquency, we are opening the door to competing and often conflicting moralities. The simple idea that morality is good and therefore all good people will be of one moral accord is simplistic to say the least. Since those who disagree with the politically correct morality are not likely to be able to establish their own school system in response, the conflicts will simmer within and could easily become an independent group conflict precipitator. We already have some clerics preaching hate, in the name of morality, as chaplains in our correctional institutions.(1) Morally, can you prove that they are wrong? Can you morally prove it to those who agree with them and not you? Think about that conflict scenario which is already here and try to keep it out of our schools, please! It is a sham that has nothing to do with effective criminological counseling in our schools, and it has dangerous implications in reference to engendering ideological and moral belief system based conflict and criminality.

Forensic Counseling

Fortunately, we have a new alternative approach of Forensic Counseling that is effective and does not repeat the therapeutic mistakes of the first misstep nor the simplistic moral assumptions of the second misstep. Educators can be quickly introduced to the principles and procedures, which are based upon criminological facts rather than model medical or moral assumptions. Forensic Counseling teams consisting of three or more trained individuals can be created with no more than one seminar and one workshop preparation. I would recommend that these teams be established in every school and in every institution that deals with crime and/or delinquency. Techniques can be adapted to the respective needs of varying schools and institutions. The result will be not only improved school safety, but better school services in general, in enabling more forensic counseling to combat delinquency at its incipient stages before it gets out of control.

The word penitentiary stems from the Quaker concept of imprisonment being one of doing penance for crime in meditating upon the evil of one's criminal ways. The Quakers have always tried to do right even when they were not right in imposing solitary confinement as a means of prisoners doing penance. Nevertheless, more often than not they have been right, as they are now in stating that we are robbing the school house to pay for the jail house. Forensic counseling allows us to stop robbing ourselves of a new approach in enabling us to both save money and reduce delinquency and crime as soon as they surface in our schools and society.

Educators, in particular, can be trained as forensic counselors in encountering the criminal rationalities and rationalizations associated with crime and delinquency in such a manner as to counter them before they get worse. This forensic counseling approach is far more effective than any other and it is far less expensive to implement. It's a criminological no brainer for any jurisdiction that has considerable brains at both the educational and political levels.

References

(1) Barrett, Paul M., "How a Chaplain Spread Extremism to an Inmate Flock," Wall Street Journal, Feb. 5, 2003, pgs. A1 & A13

(2) Classer, William, Reality Therapy, Harper and Row, New York, 1975

(3) Kolstad, R. and Ryan, E.S., "Forensic Intervention Counseling Training for School Personnel", Scientia Paedagogica Experimentalis, XXXVI, 1, Universitiet Gent: Belgium, 1999, pgs. 145-149

(4) Ryan, E. Scott, A Forensic Counseling Approach, Anchor, Lancaster Va. 2001

(5) Ryan, Edward, "Cognitive Counseling in Criminal Justice", Journal of Instructional Psychology, 21, 4, Dec 1944, pgs. 303-307

(6) Ryan, E. Scott, "Forensic Counseling", The Forensic Examiner, 8, 11&12, Nov-Dec 1999, p.34

(7) Ryan, E. Scott, Juvenile Forensic Counseling, Anchor, Lancaster Va. 2002

(8) Ryan, E. Scott, The Theology of Crime and The Paradox of Freedom, Anchor, Lancaster Va. second edition, 2003

(9) Ryan, Edward, "Therapeutic Justice and Child Abuse", Education, 114, 3, Spring 1994, pgs. 328-336

(10) Szasz, Thomas, Psychiatric Justice, MacMillan, New York, 1965

E. SCOTT RYAN, PH.D.

Copyright Project Innovation Winter 2003
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved