Criminal Justice

Posted: December 11th, 2013

9.3 Video Scenario Critique: Video 3

The following assignment requires you to view and critique video 3. It is Parole Violator.

PLEASE NOTE: There is some profanity in these videos.

To complete this assignment you will submit a critique of the video by downloading and answering the questions on the attached assignment sheet (below). Make sure you apply the concepts you have learned in this course.

Your critique must be uploaded/submitted to the drop box found below. Submissions are due by the assigned due date.

[Watch Video 3]

Part 1 and 2 are combined into one video.

Here is the link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VK-eMqmT17g

Critique document

You must watch the following video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VK-eMqmT17g

Then fill out the critique document, which I have uploaded separately

Note there are 2 parts this assignment and in order to complete this paper you must read the readings below which are related to this course and if u don’t ure answers will be wrong or question one for both parts it says Which of these techniques did the officers use. This is all in the readings below!! You will find each technique below!!!

Readings

Tools for Crisis Resolution

The reading which accompanies this module provides some practical tools for crisis interveners. One of them is in the LUV triangle (Echterling et al., 2005, pp. 17-20); the other involves using a specific type of question in a constructive way (Echterling et al., 2005, pp. 20-24).

These concepts are not new to you. You have studied and practiced listening and other forms of communication and validation in Human Relations as well as questioning in Interviewing. It is just that in helping others to resolve crises, we apply these techniques in a new way.

Take a moment to review what you know about these terms. In other courses, you have learned the skills required to build rapport. In crisis situations, however, another person may seek you out because you have made some kind of positive impression on him/her in the past, or simply because you are close by! Rapport may not have been a big part of this interaction. This is where it is appropriate to apply the LUV triangle.

Even though people in crisis are likely to engage with you quickly, you still need to nurture this relationship by listening, understanding and validating – the LUV Triangle. When you offer LUV, you are attending carefully to the crisis story, communicating that you comprehend and bearing witness to the enormity of the crisis experience that this survivor has been enduring.

Keep in mind that you must successfully communicate these conditions to the person you are helping. It is one thing to intend to send a certain message and quite another for the message to be received as you had hoped. There are specific techniques that you can use to transform your intentions into reality.

Since this is largely review, go through the following LUV exercise and place the appropriate letter beside the statement, using L for Listen, U for Understand, and V for Validate. Check your answers against the lists in the reading, and review the explanations there (Echterling et al., 2005, p. 18-20).

Finding the Survivor Questions

Most people use questions for one purpose only – to get information. But there are many more, including:

• Getting people who are not focused on the conversation to listen
  • (e.g. “Did you know that….?)
• Helping people to find resources within themselves

Questions can be powerful tools in helping people who are in crisis achieve some sort of resolution. For this to be true, the questions must focus on the resilience of the individual rather than on the victimization (Echterling et al., 2005). In other words “…your questions should explore strengths, resources, successes, and possibilities” rather than the circumstances of the victimization. Such questioning takes two forms: Presumptive Questioning for Resilience and “Getting Through” Questions.

Presumptive Questioning for Resilience

The important word here is “presumptive.” The root of the word is “to presume,” which means to assume positively. In formulating a presumptive question, you are communicating your belief that the survivor has encountered a similar situation in the past and has found a way to resolve it. Review pages 20 to 23 of the Crisis Intervention reading now.

An example might help. Consider the following question: “Once you have finished your Degree successfully, what position will you work in?” There are two presumptions (two assumptions) in this question. What are they?

Now consider this question. “If you complete your degree, do you think you will find work?” Does if feel different? Why?

It’s the presumption that is important in this kind of question, because it helps view the future in a positive way. So far so good.

Now…when you work with someone in crisis, you are always looking for the survivor inside that person. You are drawing the person in crisis into the search. You are communicating important messages through what you say, including your questions! Your questions should explore strengths, resources, successes, possibilities, NOT gory details of victimization and despair (NOTE: they need to talk about what happened too, so this is about questions.)

If you ask someone in crisis: “Has there ever been a time when you have had to face a difficult situation like this?”, they are going to be caught up in victim mode, and likely answer – “No, not really”. You are asking them to search for situations which do not fit.

Instead, you ask: When you have had to face a difficult situation like this in the past, how did you manage to handle your fears?”

• What happens?
• What are the presumptions here? (2)
• What is the person likely to do?

Thus, a Presumptive Question for Resilience is an open question which causes the survivor to explore their strenths and discover resources they already have. (When, How, etc.)

Presumptive Leads for Resilience are related, in that they get the survivor to do the same thing, though not strictly a question. “e.g. “Tell me about a time when you thought that you worked your way through a stressful time in your life.” What is the presumption here?

“Getting Through” Questions

“Getting Through” questions are also presumptive. According to Echterling et al., (2005), “Somehow, some way, the individual has managed to chart a course through the chaos, turmoil and dangers to connect with you. Asking about the ways that someone has been able to get through up to this point is a way of focusing your intervention on what is working instead of what is broken” (p. 23). Review the examples on p. 24 of Crisis Intervention now.

The person has survived to this moment, from the point of crisis – 10 minutes, an hour, a day, it doesn’t matter.   How did they do that active process of survival? How did they get through that experience to be able to be with you?

• When you ask questions about how they did that, you begin to refocus the survivor on what is working instead of what is lost or broken.
• They begin to see themselves as survivors.

Here are some examples:

• Where are you finding it in your heart to be so brave to get through this as difficult as it is?
• Have you ever had this kind of feeling before, even if it wasn’t to this degree?
• How did you get through that?
• What did you do to feel a little bit better?

A further reference: Check out the article entitled: “Crisis Intervention: The First Few Days”. It is a summary of a presentation given by Dr. Lennis Echhterling’s at a summer conference on Crisis Resolution in 2005. Here is the link: http://www.tlcinst.org/crisisint.html

Verbal Judo – Introduction and Overall Theme

The text Verbal Judo by George J. Thompson and J.B. Jenkins is an excellent book about practical communication. If you are serious about enhancing your communication skills, it is a “must read.” Thompson makes many very valid points that he discusses in detail and complements with examples. Some of these points follow, in summary form.

1. Communication is a non-contact sport
   • get what you want by using responsible means
2. Respond – do not react to situations
   • the most dangerous weapon is your tongue – learn verbal judo techniques
3. Know your audience
   • be flexible – use different techniques, watch assumptions you might make
   • empathize – make your audience your ally
4. Treat people as your clients
   • respect them . . . show respect
   • same as doctor/patient or mechanic/auto owner relationship
5. People always ask “Why?”
   • we have to be persuaders 
6. Remain calm – know yourself!
   • “never use words that rise readily to your lips or you’ll make the greatest speech you’ll ever live to regret”
   • talk to people in such a way that neither of you loses face – give them a way out
   • watch your ego – “He who angers you, conquers you”
7. Make difficult encounters a challenge!
   • start viewing difficult people differently – you will be less tense – laugh it off
   • principle of verbal judo is not to resist your opponent
8. Things you should avoid saying –
   • come here!
   • you wouldn’t understand…
   • because those are the rules…
   • it’s none of your business
   • what do you want ME to do about it?
   • calm down!
   • what’s your problem?
   • you NEVER… or you ALWAYS!
   • I’m not going to say this again…
   • I’m doing this for your own good…
   • why don’t you be reasonable?
9. Improper communication is at the root of most problems!
   • officers should be conscious competent in words and non-verbal presence
   • verbal abuse is long remembered after the physical abuse heals
   • we all think that we are effective communicators – learned!
   • are we the problem in bad communication?
10. EMPATHY – the most powerful word in the English language
    • absorbs tensions – works every time!
11. Stay in control
    • we deal with people under the influence (alcohol/drugs/anger/fear, etc)
    • control things by going along with the citizen…
12. Use “strip phrases,” deflectors that strip the insult of power such as these:
    • I ‘preciate that sir, but….
    • I understand that sir, but…
    • I hear ya sir, but…
    • I get t’at ma’am, but…
    • I b’lieve that sir, but…
    • Th’ a sa fact, but…
13. Let the person say what he/she wants as long as he/she does what you say
    • focus on behaviour, not attitude
14. Always go for “win/win” situations
    • everyone should feel satisfied with the officer’s actions
15. Show people RESPECT!
    • treat people the way you would like to be treated
16. Use paraphrasing – VERY POWERFUL!
    • everyone wants to be heard and understood!
17. There is no apology for verbal abuse!
    • people never forget verbal abuse
18. The goal of persuasion is voluntary compliance
    • it’s up to the officer to attain it
    • use the right face and the right words at the right time
    • use the FIVE STEP HARD STYLE
19. KNOW YOURSELF!
    • the art of REPRESENTATION
20. LISTEN!!!
    • the art of TRANSLATION
    • do not assume people will listen to you…
    • people hardly ever say what they mean!
21. Present options
    • the art of MEDIATION
22. Nobody sees him/herself as an IDIOT
    • allow people to save face
    • know how you, the officer, are coming across when communicating
23. Know your audience
    • “P.A.V.P.O.” – the rhetorical perspective
    • key to generate voluntary compliance – “L.E.A.P.S.”

9.3 Four Main Priorities in Crisis Resolution

It is important to assess the situation as it is, then work your way through it to a successful resolution. In order to do this, you should consider the following general priorities. The specific tactics you have learned will assist you in carrying them out.

1. Safety (yours and others)

DO THINGS PROPERLY!

• Ensure you practise proper procedures and remain alert.
• Continually make risk assessments of each situation.
• Risk and the dangers cannot be eliminated, but they can be reduced.
• Take into account possible danger to yourself, your partner, the public, and the person in crisis.
• Emotions are often running high, and behaviour is not predictable.
• Notify others and call for backup immediately if at all possible.

2. Control

• Be assertive but not aggressive – Remember the difference?
• Psychological control is as, if not more, important than physical control.
• Most times an officer’s best weapon is his/her tongue.
• Gain and maintain control.
• Remember the crisis cycle and its four stages – You want to reduce emotions in order to have rational communications taking place.

3. Defuse

• Bring the emotional level of the person(s) in crisis down.
• Use a calm tone of voice – Reassure and be confident.
• You may have to repeat your request/demands. Be patient.
• Control your own emotions.
• Separate disputants to break eye contact (What do you do with your partner in terms of eye contact?)
• Get people to the point where they react logically instead of emotionally.

4. Problem Solve

Use “the 6 steps of problem solving” technique:

1. Assess the situation
2. Define the problem
3. Seek alternatives
4. Choose the best one
5. Implement
6. Provide feedback

These may seem like common sense to you, but in times of intense emotion, you may react rather than think. Your agency will have policy, procedures, and directives for all situations. Seek them out, know where they are kept, and know the required first steps.