Abstract
The general perspectives of prisoners have negative stereotypes in the eyes of society. They are considered deviant in the social and legal order. Their personal problems are considered unimportant. In fact, they still have the nature of a human being who needs to be heard and express emotions. However, this book looks at the other side of the general public’s point of view in dealing with high-risk offenders (HROs). Prisoners who have complex needs from physical and mental limitations are given space to heal themselves. Through this book, a window will be opened for the reader that those with special physical and mental needs are still represented in the criminal justice system. Through music therapy, inmates who are discriminated against with serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression have a place to identify and express themselves until healing helps the criminal law process to be successful.
Specifically, Sicard defines HRO in terms of emotional disorders and aggressive behavior of violent and sexual delinquents. Aggression arises from feelings of disappointment or anger, which result in other destructive or maladaptive behavior; this condition makes it possible to violate the prevailing norms. HROs with deviant behavior need a psychologist’s help with their mental health. However, there is limited literature discussing the process of providing mental health assistance for HROs (Hakvoort et al., 2015; Sicard, 2016). Exploring High-Risk Offender Treatment and the Role of Music Therapy is a book that presents the role and position of music therapy in healing HRO mental health wounds. For prisoners, music therapy is an element that humanizes amid the challenges of life in prison. Therefore, this book was interesting to review.
In general, this monograph explored the technique of music therapy as a treatment component for HRO through three major questions: What perspectives and practical experiences address the HRO’s complex needs? How do we manage HRO care? And how can music therapy support treatment of HROs? To explore these issues, Sicard conducted interviews with 38 participants from Canada, the United States, New Zealand, Australia, England, and the Netherlands. The results of this study were then presented and analyzed through six chapters divided into two major parts and an author’s introduction.
The “Introduction” section describes the efficacy of the core model of music therapy for HROs through a cognitive approach. This section outlines the book’s contents on handling HRO using music therapy. The first part of this book consists of Chapters 1 to 3. Chapter 1 details that the higher the risk, the greater the need for HRO treatment, and discussed theories and approaches for dealing with high-risk sexual violence perpetrators. Furthermore, this chapter deliberates on the causes and factors of high-risk sexual offenders. This part implies that HROs are not only viewed and judged in a negative light, but they are seen as people who need help. This section describes some of the treatments that have been used to treat agents of sexual violence. The treatments included risk-needs-responsivity, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and the good lives model. The treatments are believed to produce positive behavior at the level of HRO recidivism and help reduce violations caused by HROs.
Chapter 2 discusses contemporary offender treatment from the practitioner’s perspective and explores HRO cases more deeply. It describes the experiences of practitioners while giving treatment for HROs and the results of interviews with treatment facilitators. From several interviews, the findings indicate the need for a more holistic approach to HRO treatment with intricate requirements and demand further evaluation and research. This is due to the limited number of treatment facilitators to handle this issue. Additional expertise is needed for treatment facilitators to maximize their performance to help minimize HRO activities.
Chapter 3, “Moving Toward a Creative Corrections Approach,” explores modern and creative approaches such as meditation, psychodrama, and art therapy. This chapter mentions a shift in the approach used to assist HROs toward a creative correction approach. This approach is considered an intervention with a high probability of success for people with complex needs. This creative correction approach also has many benefits for its users. This chapter also serves as a bridge to Part 2, providing the basics of using music therapy to treat HROs.
Part 2 describes music therapy as a treatment for HROs and consists of three chapters (Chapters 4–6). Chapter 4 explores research involving music therapy for offending behavior and discusses music therapy as a means of dealing with deviant behavior. Sequentially, this part discusses the concept of music therapy, its model, and its use in forensic psychiatry. In addition, several studies are also presented showing the benefits of music therapy for the population of interest. The uniqueness of this chapter was that it tried to provide a basis or foothold for the reader to understand the next chapter.
Chapter 5 pronounces the practitioner’s perspective and experience of music therapy for HROs and presents the results of the interviews with music therapists. The focus of Chapter 5 was to answer the third research question on how music therapy supports contemporary treatments for HROs with complex needs in their psychological condition. The significant points in Chapter 5 are indicated in a chart that made it easier for the reader to analyze and understand the findings.
Each subtheme has specific results for further study. The first subtheme states that music therapy benefits offender treatment as an effort to express and manage emotions. Several music therapists who were interviewed found that music therapy was more acceptable to HROs compared with talk therapy in general. Prisoners could accept music as a catalyst to express sadness, anger, disappointment, or joy. Music therapy was valuable for changing past traumatic memories by composing or selecting appropriate works or expressing them by writing song lyrics. Music was suitable for expressing moods such as calming or motivating and coping with emotional control problems. Music therapy could be a coping strategy for HROs to manage their emotions.
The second subtheme discussed in this book is the incorrect perception of music therapy due to limited information and research results. Misconceptions about music therapy due to limited understanding could influence views on the significance of therapeutic interventions. Music therapy is also considered relatively expensive for certain people. It took efforts to convince the public that music therapy was effective in treating mental health issues such as aggression and its causes. The second subtheme explicates issues gained through forensic experts related to needs for psychological and basic musical skills because numerous prisoners build walls to limit themselves from other people. In such cases, the process of talk therapy becomes difficult to carry out, so music therapy is a potential solution to help perpetrators in reducing inappropriate behavior or recovering from mental health problems. Unfortunately, Chapter 5 did not present the process of music therapy for HROs from the beginning to the therapeutic moment of convict healing. This section immediately explained the benefits of general music therapy, such as playing music, choosing songs, or rearranging.
Chapter 6 details the role of music therapy in HRO treatment and explores how music therapy benefits society as a treatment component for sexual and violent offenders. This chapter elaborates on music therapy’s three effective components: (1) schema therapy and victim empathy skills, (2) group work, and (3) active and creative activities. Chapter 6 reflects the success of the book presentation because it expands on each part of the research results mentioned from Chapters 1 to 5 with in-depth discussion. This section is suitable for people with limited time to review the book’s content. Readers can immediately gain an understanding of all the successes and challenges of music therapy in Chapter 6 because they are explained in detail, starting from music therapy’s efforts as a grand scheme to build a cognitive framework for HROs to recognize maladaptive thoughts and behaviors, to building empathy and teamwork, as well as stimulating creativity as an effort to grow a more valuable self. In the end, Chapter 6 reflects how music therapy has succeeded in helping practitioners working with HROs to improve their quality of life based on their strengths and practice emotional regulation skills. Music therapy may be a solution for people who have talk-based therapy issues. They may be more capable of expressing themselves through music.
Significantly, this research is very useful for therapists, psychologists, or experts who discuss HRO treatment. Music therapy can be effective if the active involvement of the HRO in the therapeutic process is obtained. Music therapy develops the ability to be creative and productive and leads to feelings of self-worth to improve quality of life. For example, to help inmates increase their self-esteem, a music festival was held in prison to give them access to becoming performers and showing their abilities in front of their families and other prisoners. This proved successful in increasing self-esteem and hopefulness about life. Another way to improve their mental health is to request songs on the radio for loved ones outside the prison.
The book’s main strength lies in the coherence of the chapters. There are good connections between sections. Certain chapters guide readers toward exploring other chapters to understand the concept. In addition, the arrangement of each chapter is structured so that it directs the reader to start from the approach that had been used to help HROs, music therapy as a nontraditional approach, to the effectiveness of its use. Sicard also provides a summary in each chapter. The summary helps provide a comprehensive understanding. However, this book has a lot of confusing abbreviations, even though the author has provided a list of these acronyms.
Music therapy answered the author’s concerns regarding managing HROs with complex needs. Music therapy provides the mental health treatment previously applied to HROs with several existing treatments. Reading this book increased the repertoire of counseling theories to emphasize managing emotions and helping to be free to express ideas through music. Music has numerous impacts on HROs. Moreover, it could help therapists to deal with HROs with multifaceted difficulties.
The book Exploring High-Risk Offender Treatment and the Role of Music Therapy provides positive insights for readers about other perspectives on HROs. The author emphasizes that HROs are not only accused of the cases they had committed but are also seen as human beings who require professional assistance. This book was interesting, especially in the section exploring the role of music therapy in reducing HRO behavior.
