Psychopaths twice as likely to re-offend after treatment

According to this article in the Telegraph, psychopaths such as serial killers are twice as likely to reoffend after treatment in British prison rehabilitation programs as psychopaths who do not take part in such programs.

Dr Robert Hare, a Canadian professor of psychology who has studied psychopaths for 35 years, believes that participating in such courses actually increases the chances that a psychopath will reoffend when he gets out.

Within two years of their release, psychopaths who go on such courses reoffend at almost twice the rate as those who do not. More than 80 per cent of the psychopaths who complete therapeutic courses reoffend soon after release. However, fewer than half of those who do not undergo such courses go on to reoffend.

Yet the offenders who had been on the therapy courses had convinced prison and psychiatric staff that they had "genuinely addressed their own offending behaviour", and were "responding positively to therapy". Indeed, those offenders who were most successful at convincing their therapists that they had gained insight into their own behaviour and changed for the better actually went on to reoffend at the highest rates.

{...}

"The psychiatric profession and its associates are very reluctant to admit they are wrong or that they have made a mistake, let alone to accept that they have been conned by a psychopath," says Dr Hare. "Therapists tend to insist that their diagnosis was right at the time and on the evidence they had - even when that is manifestly disproved by subsequent events."

So it looks like they just get really good at learning the psycho-babble jargon, and thus are more expert at manipulating the therapists.

This speaks volumes about the effectiveness of the therapists and the "science" they practice.