Long-Term Effects of Short-Term Music Therapy for Prison Inmates: Six-Year Follow-Up of a Randomized Controlled Trial

• Date: 01 April 2021
• Published date: 01 April 2021
• DOI: 10.1177/0306624X20909216
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0306624X20909216

International Journal of

Offender Therapy and

Comparative Criminology

2021, Vol. 65(5) 543 –557

© The Author(s) 2020

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DOI: 10.1177/0306624X20909216

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Article

Long-Term Effects of Short-

Term Music Therapy for

Prison Inmates: Six-Year

Follow-Up of a Randomized

Controlled Trial

Christian Gold1, Fredrik B. Due2, Elin K. Thieu2, Kjetil

Hjørnevik3, Lars Tuastad2, and Jörg Assmus1

Abstract

For most interventions to reduce criminal recidivism, long-term effects are uncertain.

Music therapy has shown effects on possible precursors of recidivism, but direct

evidence on long-term effects is lacking. In an exploratory parallel randomized

controlled trial, 66 inmates in a Norwegian prison were allocated to music therapy

or standard care and followed up over a median of 6 years, using state registry data.

Median time to relapse was 5 years, with no differences between the interventions.

The imprisonment of most participants was too short to provide a sufficient number

of therapy sessions. Sufficiently powered studies are needed to examine the long-

term effects of appropriate doses of therapy.

Keywords

music therapy, offenders, psychosocial interventions, randomized controlled trial,

recidivism, relapse prevention

Background

Criminal recidivism refers to relapse into criminal behaviour and is a worldwide prob-

lem. Internationally, recidivism rates of prisoners have been reported to be as high as

1GAMUT – The Grieg Academy Music Therapy Research Centre, NORCE Norwegian Research Centre,

Bergen, Norway

2Grieg Academy – Department of Music, University of Bergen, Norway

3Bjørgvin Prison, Breistein, Norway

Corresponding Author:

Christian Gold, Norwegian Research Centre, Postboks 22 Nygårdstangen, 5838 Bergen, Norway.

Email: chgo@norceresearch.no

909216IJOXXX10.1177/0306624X20909216International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative CriminologyGold et al.

research-article2020