Perceptions of Counselling Psychologists and Legal Practitioners on The Importance of Involvement of Psychologists in Criminal Trials to Reduce Recidivism in Nigeria

Abstract

This work  correlates the perceptions of practicing counselling psychologists and legal practitioners on the significance or otherwise of involving Counselling Psychologists in the Nigerian criminal trial system, (using Oyo State as the locale), with the view of such involvement militating against recidivism and it's tendency. Recidivism is an indication of the failure of the justice and reformatory systems because if the systems have achieved their purposes, a freed inmates will not reoffend. The work established it's focus on the lacuna of the lack of this correlation in Oyo State. The work considered theories such as the Therapeutic Jurisprudence Model by Wexler & Winick and Good Life Model by Ward. The work is a quantitative research that employed the use of a researchers' developed instrument titled Counselling Psychologists Involvement in Criminal trials as Deterrent of Recidivism Scale (CPICTDRS)  with reliability index of 0.85 and validated by experts in Counselling Psychology. The instrument was pilot tested at Osun state. The work sampled 185 from 1450 practicing psychologists and 125 from 812 legal Practitioners in Oyo State. The work tested three hypothesis with the following findings, vis: i. No significant difference on perceptions of Psychologists on the involvement of Psychologists in criminal trials being capable of reducing recidivism based on years of practice which was rejected. ii. No significant difference on perceptions of legal Practitioners on the involvement of Psychologists being capable of reducing recidivism base on years of practice which was rejected and iii. No significant difference in perceptions of both professionals on the involvement of Psychologists being capable of reducing recidivism which was accepted. From the findings that both professionals of longer years of practices tend to favour the involvement of Psychologists in criminal trials more than the younger ones, the following recommendations were proffered, i. Mentoring of young by older practitioners in both fields. ii. Accommodation of more involvement of Counseling psychologists in the criminal trial procedure in Nigeria, and iii. Further research into the involvement of Psychologists in criminal trials with the view of reducing recidivism.