The most obvious approach I can think of is to pair dynamic risk information, such as LSI-R or LSCMI scores, taken over time with some qualitative information about change efforts (either correctional case notes or interview data).

The bigger issue I would be concerned with is how do you operationalize change. This is something I struggle with in my own research (and clinical practice), as it's often difficult to differentiate instrumental change from actual change. It's almost guaranteed that will be a challenge when you are measuring such an implicit quality with this population, sorry I don't have an answer for that.

In the State of Ohio,  our legislature prohibits the release of offenders serving life sentences.

Arizona has long been known as the most progressive state in the U.S. in terms of rehabilitation of "lifers", so you might try try researching their programs.

Dear Madam, look at some of my work - we have conceptualized change and documented it - this might be a good start. Your research is very important and happy to collaborate. We just finished another big study in N Z 

Dear Lori, 

personally I am a bit skeptic to that a psychopath really have changed without psychoanalysis. I would start with a literature review. However if Dr J-F wants to guide you that is excellent. 

Hello Lori,

I don’t know if this is helpful or of interest to you, but I have attached a short informal paper I wrote on a study that examines an individual’s criminal history and their likelihood of future offending, specifically child pornography offenders. This study collects data from individuals who are incarcerated, as well as individuals who are in the community. The research not only gathers data, but also includes a follow-up study of the participants, which spans approximately 5.9 years.

Good luck!

Lelah Villalpando

Hi Lori,

I suggest you adopt not only a quanti/quali approach as suggested by Michael Lasher, but that you look at the given prison population longitudinally and prospectively - change is a process. A really good book on differences in narratives of ex-offenders desisting from crime and offenders who relapse is "Making Good - How ex-convicts reform and rebuild their lifes" by Shadd Maruna. Difference to your research: the participants were interviewed after release. Another good book on change in corrections is "Criminal Careers in Transition" by Stephen Farrall, Ben Hunter, Gilly Sharpe and Adam Calverley on probationers.

Best, Kirstin

when considering change of any type, most people progress though a series of stages - such as the transtheoretical model of change. i'm wondering at what stage of change the parolees might be at and what their narratives might look like.

Thank you, everyone, for your responses.

My proposed participants are life-term offenders who were granted release dates from prison and are living in the community.  It's my assumption that psychopathy is being screened out with the PCL-R, which is given in prison and generally prohibits high scorers from obtaining a release date.

Michael, thank you for your suggestions about the LSI-R and LSCMI as measures for assessing risk.  I would like to do a multi-method study.

Lelah, thank you for sharing your paper.

Kirstin, thank you for your book suggestions.  I do have "Making Good" by S. Maruna.  I will look more closely at his work for framework guidance and check out your other book suggestion.

John, thank you for your suggestion to think about conceptualizing change in stages.  I will do further research about this.

All the best!

I am left wondering if this project has any mileage in it perhaps you might have concluded that after life after life, few men wish to continue on a pathway of cross examination well into their supposedly ripe old age, that is post institutionalisation.

Coming from an institution and moving into the one thing you thought you already knew inside out, society, is fraught with peril for any parolee. For one thing stands out, authority is a jealous spouse. Time after time, men who have been literally picked through are recalled to prison on the pretence of re offending, more often than not the offense turns out to be not an offense but really a raised risk, and of course that is unacceptable.

The journey through which the parolee takes is a jumbo of subjective emotions coupled to total submissiveness borne out of instinct, in other words, I think that I really should be trying to get out of here.

A prisoner has the right to reject parole, however it might be illegal for him to verbalise that view in the United States.

It is such an interesting subject, is it solely about power? Or the most intimate understanding between governance and man?

Are you interested in a healthy society? Or a healthy judicial examination? The irony as most inmates will tell you is that a purely judicial examination is preferential to be being stroked by a therapeutic hand.

Soft is not always better, in life and in particular in jail. The people that lurk in institutions behind closed doors in parts of the prison where men do not have access are frankly often devious and yet fascinated with their opportunity to investigate the pathology of a prison.

There are some parts from which good has come, if good use is made of an narrative , each individual having his own life story, then perhaps self interest might flourish, even inside the most brutal of environments.

Of course that opportunity might extend outward beyond the influence of the closed environments and into the life of the parolee.

Sincerely.