Rectitude and Redemption
| Published date | 01 October 1993 |
| Date | 01 October 1993 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/026455059304000307 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
147
Rectitude
and
Redemption
Kevin
Gorman
of
West
Yorkshire
Probation
Service
outlines
an
alternative
R &
R
program
for
offenders,
shortly
available
after
extensive
research
and
development.
he
current
debate
about
the
arguable
effectiveness
and
ethics
of
the
Reasoning
and
Rehabilitation
program
developed
by
Ross
and
Fabiano
has
so
far
ignored
an
earlier
form
of
R
&
R.
I
refer,
of
course,
to
Rectitude
and
Redemption,
a
time-tested,
morally
proven
package
for
of-
fenders
which
certainly
has
as
credible
a
scientific
basis
as
Reasoning
and
Rehabilita-
tion
and
which
may
even
have
been
one
of
the
many
pieces
of
material
to
have
influenc-
ed
the
work
of
Ross
et
al.
It
is
a
tailor-made
program
to
confront
offending
behaviour
and
to
combat
the
debilitating,
woolly
relativism
so
pervasive
among
’professionals’
in
the
Criminal
Justice
System.
Rectitude
and
Redemption
is
essential-
ly
a
collation
of
some
of
the
better
exercises
from
a
host
of
offence-focused
programs
which
are
otherwise
ineffective.
Painstaking
analysis
of
these
and
even
less
worthy
pro-
grams
established
that
a
common
component
of
programs
which
showed
any
success
in
reducing
offending
was
material
addressing
the
singular
lack
of
moral
rectitude
among
offenders.
The
next
step
was
to
create
a
pro-
gram
designed
specifically
to
target
these
rectitudinal
deficits.
Two
fundamental
prin-
ciples
informed
this
creative
process:
(i)
compared
to
non-offenders,
offenders
are
rectitudinally
deficient
in
terms
of
goodness,
political
correctness,
good
manners,
moral
fibre,
conservatism,
and
adherence
to
both
the
capitalist
ethic
and
white
male
supremacist
ideology;
(ii)
these
rectitudinal
deficits
can
be
rec-
tified.
~
-
---
The Program in Action
The
program
consists
of
35
two-hour
sessions.
The
figure
35
is
significant,
being
the
mathematical
outcome
of
multiplying
together
the
magical
numbers 5
and
7
and,
hence,
a
fusion
of
the
scientific
and
the
mystical.
It
is
absolutely
essential
to
the
in-
tegrity
of
the
program
that
all
35
sessions
should
be
delivered
sequentially
and
in
strict
accordance
with
the
delivery
schedule
con-
tained
in
the
Rectitude
and
Redemption
handbook.
Some
cynics
have
suggested
that
this
is
purely
a
marketing
ploy
and
that
the
supposed
harm
which
can
come
of
using
the
program
selectively
and
piecemeal
has
been
exaggerated
and
remains
utterly
unproven.
However,
it
must
be
obvious
to
all
but
the
most
jaundiced
Trotskyite
how
catastrophic
it
could
be
for
offenders
to
dine a da
carte
from
the
program
and
so
end
up
with
a
semi-
developed
rectitude.
The
sessions
are
delivered
via
a
series
of
thematic
modules,
including:
’The
Ten
Commandments’,
’Social
Etiquette’,
and
’Creative
Thinking’
(eg
how
to
reframe
unemployment
and
frozen
benefits
as
an
op-
portunity
to
lose
excess
weight).
Unlike
Ross
et
al,
we
make
no
pretence
about
welcom-
ing
criticism
of
the
Rectitude
and
Redemp-
tion
program.
On
the
contrary,
we
are
absolutely
explicit
about
our
expectation
that
users,
deliverers
and
purchasers
of
the
package
suspend
their
critical
faculties
and
simply
do
as
they
are
told.
So
it
is
that
the
title
of
the
program’s
most
important
module,
’Critical
Reasoning’,
is
actually
an
ab-
To continue reading
Request your trial