Effect of Viewing Emotionally Laden Paintings on Attitudes of Male Sex Offenders

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Date
2021-02Author
Oguda, Benta G. Adhiambo
Vikiru, George
Wasanga, Christine
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Creative arts are overly caricatured as non-essentially flossy and unmerited luxury particularly
when executed in a jail setting. However, research suggests that art-based prison programs can
significantly bear upon the lives of offenders. In this paper the authors make reference to this connotation
in order to investigate the potential for an art-based prison program involving repeated viewing of
emotionally laden paintings to influence attitudes towards crime among male sex offenders. Towards this
goal the authors used a one group pretest-posttest quasi experimental design to assess the participants’
general attitudes to offending (G scale), anticipation of re-offending (A scale), victim hurt denial(V scale)
and evaluation of crime as worthwhile(E scale). Rape and defilement convicts aged 18-45 years from
Nairobi West Prison participated in sessions that were facilitated three times a week during the 5 week
program. A paired T- Test showed statistically significant improvements between post-test1 and pre-test
(t=-3.117, p-value=0.003) and between post-test2 and pre-test (t=-2.161, p-value=0.035). Positive results
were found for three attitude measures; G scale, A-scale and E-scale. The findings suggest that
participation in art prison programs involving repeated viewing of emotive artwork can be an effective
intervention resulting in attitude change among male sex offenders.