Effects Of Rehabilitation Counselling and Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy on the Reduction of Recidivism Among Prison Inmates in Correctional Centre of Ebonyi State

This study investigated the effects of rehabilitation counselling and rational emotive behaviour therapy on the reduction of recidivism among prison inmates in correctional centre of Ebonyi State. Three research questions and three null hypotheses guided the study. The specific design for this study is a non-equivalent pretest-posttest control group design, with the experimental group adopting rehabilitation counselling, rational emotive behaviour therapy and the combination of rehabilitation counselling and rational emotive behaviour therapy and the control group using the conventional counselling approach. The sample for this study was 40 prison inmates with recidivism in correctional service of Ebonyi based on the preliminary survey conducted by the researcher. The study adopted a pre-test, post-test, control group experimental design. Two instruments titled “Recidivism Identification Questionnaire (RIQ) and Recidivism Reduction Questionnaire (RRQ) were developed by the researchers for the study. The stability of RC and REBT were established using Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation co-efficient and reliability estimate of 0.86 and 0.89 were reported. The internal consistency of the items was determined using Cronbach’s Alpha method which yielded a reliability estimate of 0.89 and 0.86 respectively. Data obtained through the administration of the RIQ and RRQ were organized and analyzed using mean scores, standard deviation and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA), which revealed the following findings: there is a significant difference in the reduction of prison inmates recidivism mean scores of subjects treated with rehabilitation counselling and those in control group, there is a significant difference in the reduction of recidivism means scores of subjects treated with rational emotive therapy and those in control group and there is a significant difference in the reduction of prison inmates recidivism mean scores of subjects treated with the combination of rehabilitation counselling and rational emotive therapy and those in control group. It was concluded that RC and REBT were effective in reducing recidivism.