According to Eshleman, Cashion and Basirico (1995),
contemporary crime statistics are alarming. In this regard,
statistics show that in the United States some form of crime is
committed once every three seconds with violent crimes occurring
once every 24 seconds. Such statistics highlight the need to
determine the factors producing crime and to identify effective
rehabilitation strategies. The purpose of this paper is to
articulate a particular etiological model of crime (cognitive
behavioral theory) and to discuss effective rehabilitation
strategies that have been developed based on this model,
emphasizing "citizenship building" strategies sometimes referred
What factors produce criminal behavior? Several theoretical models have been developed to explain this behavior. For example, psychoanalytic theory holds that criminal behavior arises from
difficulties in attachment to others that occurred during the
criminalÆs infancy and childhood interaction with his parents
(Van Voorhis, Brashwell & Morrow, 1997). Other theorists hold
that it is the psychosocial environment of the criminal that produces the behavior, e.g. poverty, poor parenting, exposure to
criminal collectives, and various other psychosocial risk
However, Antonowicz and Ross (1994) report that one theoretical view that has gained increasing prominence in the
field is the cognitivebehavioral perspective which holds that criminal behavior is learned behavior. Cognitivebehavioral theory holds that the processes by which criminal behavior is learned are the same processes involved in producing any other behavior, namely process such as reinforcement, modeling, and so forth. For example, this theory holds that if a person associates with criminals and is exposed to many models of criminal behavior, there is an increased likelihood that he will learn this behavior through imitative or modeling processes.
What...