Treating criminals: EAR ACUPUNCTURE

Cognitive skills and anger management programmes are fairly standard cognitive treatment programmes, but there are some more obscure offender treatment programmes out there. 

One of these more unusual treatment programmes is ear acupuncture as a treatment programme for drug addiction. 

Drug (and alcohol) addiction has strong links to offending, as both lower inhibitions and inhibit cognitive functioning. Additionally, a majority of recently imprisoned males were involved in hard such as cocaine in the year previous to their conviction. So, it makes sense to target addiction to drugs when devising treatment programmes for offenders. 

Study: Wheatley et al (2007) conducted an experiment comparing 350 prisoners in 6 high security prisons who'd received ear acupuncture alongside the standard care programme FOCUS, to a control group who'd received soley the FOCUS programme. 

The ear acupuncture was administered by two trained practitioners in small group sessions, where 5 acupressure points in the ear were targeted. After the acupuncture, offenders were given a 40 minute relaxation session. The results were positive: 70% reduction in drug-related incidents 6 months after treatment and 42% reduction in positive mandatory drug tests for those who'd been given the acupuncture. This group also reported reduced nicotine cravings, improved sleep, and better cognitive functioning as well as improved health in general.