Abstract:

The term "virtual reality" refers to a computer-generated, three-dimensional, and interactive environment that allows the simulation of a real environment (Fox, Arena i Bailenson, 2009). Virtual simulations have been used in various fields such as medicine, psychology, education, and the military industry to teach in a safe, protected, and controlled environment. Virtual reality can provide safe virtual environment and situations that may pose a risk or be impossible to create in the real life. An analysis of the available scientific and professional literature in the field of the offender rehabilitation has shown that there is a significant lack of research on this topic since virtual reality technology has only recently begun to be applied in this field. The main aim of this paper is to explore the possibilities for the application of virtual reality in the treatment of offenders which includes changing antisocial attitudes and beliefs as well as learning new skills that will help them after release to reduce the likelihood of recidivism. For the purposes of this research we selected available published research in major scientific databases (i.e.,Web of Science, Scopus) in order to explore the potentials and challenges of using virtual reality for the purpose of educating and rehabilitating offenders through analysis of their results. Our analysis show that virtual reality has a great potential in the field of education and offender rehabilitation. Due to interactivity in the virtual environment, the users become more active in acquiring knowledge, have access to processes and characteristics that are not available in traditional learning placements and enables the experience of school and lectures without physical presence in educational institutions.

In the context of offender rehabilitation, programs using virtual reality can facilitate the process of acquiring social and communication skills and significantly raise the level of education because it is more interactive and provides more options compared to traditional methods of treatment. However, challenges like legal aspects of using such technology within the prison settings as well as possible medical and psychological issues needs to be addressed to ensure that virtual reality technology is used in appropriate, safe and legal way.

Keywords:

Virtual reality, offender rehabilitation, offender education, prison settings.