Preventing Crime Through Cognitive Restructuring

An illustration

The following illustration and questions are an example of the text and curriculum that is located in a Crime Prevention Cognitive Lifeskills Workbook.

Jason was born in 1958. His grandpa, Ralph Johnson, had an extremely damaging effect on his children and grandchildren with the exeption of Jason, his cousin Becky and some other cousins. The whole remaining Johnson clan was engaged in drug addiction, anger, theft, brutality, prostitution, welfare, broken relationships, and a multitude other crimes and bad habits. His mom, a drug addict and a prostitute, left him alone for lengthy periods of time, abandoning the children and suffering them to survive on their own.

Jason was caught stealing a car. He was soon sent to juvenile detention and while he was there he began a cognitive life skills class like this one. Because of his willingness to improve, the class had a big effect on him. He was tired of street dwelling, suffering and worrying about his next meal.

When Jason was released, he soon reported to his probation officer. She questioned him about the things he had gained a knowledge of from the life skills class that he took while in juvenile detention. This is what he said:

� I was headed in a similar direction as my family�drugs, jail, anger, and ruin. My subconscious mind had been programmed with the untruth that I was useless and I lived on the bottom. I learned that I'm much better than I believed . In addition I learned that I wasn't to blame for coming from an abusive home.

� I learned that regardless of the fact that I never had power over my beginnings, I do have control over the present. I am a new person every day and I can forgive the harm done to me. I will choose to forgive and forget so that I can continue with my life. My past doesn't control my future.

� I learned that I can�t persist in blaming my parents or other people for all my issues. Life is not always fair and I must create the best out of each situation. The only I have to move my life forward is to release the past.

� The Lifeskills class taught me that I'm a deserving individual with immense potential, that this life is wonderful gift packed with numerous new and magnificent chances, and that I will be able to defeat the drug problem if I want to.

� I learned that being thrashed, heaved into brick walls, scalded with cigarettes, going hungry, feeling shame and living interror can help me grow to be an improved, more caring person. I learned that adversity and conflict will help me grow stronger, if I wish to learn from each experience.

� To conclude, I realized that I'm in-charge of my own ship. I can guide it where I want. If I refuse to adjust my course I'll keep suffering the damaging consequences of each action and my life will get more and more difficult until I change or die.

Questions:

1) Jason was a sufferer; in his young life he had no control over his family or surrounding. Now as an adult, what are his responsibilities? _______________________________________________________________

2) Are there many people in America who have been abused from childhood? ________ Name a few of the consequences of childhood abuse? _______________________________________________________________

3) What do you think? Can Jason choose to develop into a successful man? ______ How hard will it be? ______ Will the consequences outweigh the hardship he will encounter? ________

4) Life is reduced to a simple formula. It states, �If you keep on doing what you have been doing, you'll keep on getting what you have been getting.� If the Johnson family keeps on doing drugs and robbing, what will they keep getting? _____________________________________________________________

5) How will they ever be able to correct what they're receiving? _____________________________________________________________

6) If you happened to ask a hundred individuals why they are here on earth, and what they want out of life before it ends, what, do you imagine, would be their answer? ______________________________________________________________

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