Peer Counseling and Parolees' Perceptions of Rehabilitative Values

Abstract

Summary This study examined the influences of two modes of peer counseling (counseling on personal and social goals) on parolees' perceptions of the rehabilitative value of one aspect of a parole officer's role in investigation—namely, case conferences with private agencies. Ss were Canadian males, 132 parolees and 54 parole officers. Containment theory was used to examine the influences of inner and outer regulators of normative behavior such as personal and social controls, dissonance theory to account for some of the effects of psychological variables on outcomes of behavior. Degree of favorableness of parolees' perceptions of case conferences with private agencies was treated as a function of variations in peer counseling: personal goals and/or social goals. By means of a Rehabilitative Value Perception Scale (RVPS) which was constructed for the purpose, it was found that variations in peer counseling were associated with perceptions of the value of case conferences with private agencies that were as favorable as those of the parole officers. A comparison of the perceptions by parolees and parole officers of case conferences with private agencies showed that only those parolees involved in peer counseling on social goals had perceptions as favorable as those of the parole officers.