Gordon Graham
Category: Corrections
Gordon Graham here with Today’s Tip from Lexipol. Today’s Tip is for all my friends in probation and community corrections. And I’d like to talk about using motivational interviewing, or MI, to encourage changes in offender behavior.
MI is a specific approach designed to empower individuals to achieve change themselves. MI helps balance the conversation between active listening and advice-giving. It was first developed for managing addiction. Now, it’s become a favored approach for communicating with populations under probation and community supervision.
You might be wondering what makes MI so effective. For starters, MI is considered an evidence-based practice. Research shows MI actually helps promote behavior change. Simply put, it provides officers with effective tools for handling an offender’s resistance to change.
Using MI keeps the officer from doing all the work. It makes interactions between officers and offenders change-focused. These change-focused interactions place the responsibility on the offender, not the officer. Motivational interactions create an appetite for change in offenders. It amplifies their uncertainty and helps guide the offender to make a change.
MI also shifts who does the talking and what is talked about. While MI can make behavior change more likely, remember it’s not a magic bullet. But when used correctly, it helps prepare offenders for change by eliciting appropriate discussion and self-motivational speech.
The techniques taught in MI allow officers to enforce probation conditions and deliver sanctions effectively. Officers can use MI to maintain an even keel approach when addressing violations instead of resorting to force to achieve behavior change. MI also has the ability to prevent difficult situations from getting worse. It’s a viable tactic that can assist your change management efforts with your client population.
And that’s Today’s Tip from Lexipol. Until next time, Gordon Graham signing off.
