Abstract
Psychological programmes with offenders and their effectiveness: The European situation.. This paper reviews the treatment techniques most often applied in European countries and their relative effectiveness. Three meta-analyses have been conducted in this field during the last decades. In 1987 Lösel, Köferl and Weber reviewed 16 sociotherapeutic programmes of German prisons. Afterwards, two different analyses, in 1997 and 1999, by Redondo, Sánchez-Meca and Garrido reviewed, respectively, 57 and 32 European programmes applied during the 80s and the beginning of the 90s. The main results of these reviews are in the direction of those obtained by American reviewed of correctional treatment. On the average, treatment programmes, presented in this paper, has obtained a higher (and in our opinion more precise) estimation of effect size than previous meta-analysis, of r+ = 0.21. In specific terms, the treated groups showed a recidivism rate of 39.5% compared to 60.5% of controls. Some typologies of programmes (especially educational, behavioural and cognitive-behavioural strategies) were more effective than the average.
