Offending Behaviour: Behaviour Modification In Custody

Question 1

What is behaviour modification?

Answer 1

Reinforcing obedient behaviour in offenders whilst punishing disobedience

Question 2

Token economies?

Answer 2

Desirable behaviour = avoiding confrontation, following prison rules, keeping one’s cells orderly

Question 3

What are secondary reinforcers?

Answer 3

Not directly rewarding but they derive their value from their associations with a reward

Question 4

What are primary reinforcers?

Answer 4

Something that is directly rewarding

Question 5

What are the 3 parts to designing and using a token economy?

Answer 5

Operationalising target behaviours
Scoring system
Training staff

Question 6

What is operationalising target behaviours?

Answer 6

Breaking the behaviour down into component parts
E.g. the target behaviour may be improved interaction with other prison inmates- might be broken down into not touching another prisoner as you walk past them e.g

Question 7

What do the units of behaviour for operationalising target behaviours need to be?

Answer 7

Objective and measureable and agreed with prison staff and inmates in advance

Question 8

Scoring system?

Answer 8

Staff and prisoners should be made aware of the scoring system and how much each particular behaviour is worth
Behaviours are hierarchical- some are regarded as more demanding than others and so gain better rewards

Question 9

Reinforcement: punishment ratio?

Answer 9

4:1
Reinforcements: punishments (Gendreau)

Question 10

Training staff?

Answer 10

Prison staff need to be given full training in order to implement the token economy system successfully
Training may involve several hours for many weeks
Standardise the procedures so that all prison staff are rewarding the same behaviours in the same way
Staff must also record when they have rewarded tokens, so the progress of individual prisoners are assessed

Question 11

AO3: research support?

Answer 11

Hobbs and Holt introduced a token economy with groups of young offenders across 3 behavioural units
Significant difference in positive behaviour compared to the non-token economy group
Field found a token economy programme used with young people with behavioural problems was generally effective, however some did not respond

Question 12

AO3: research support?

Answer 12

Hobbs and Holt introduced a token economy with groups of young offenders across 3 behavioural units
Significant difference in positive behaviour compared to the non-token economy group
Field found a token economy programme used with young people with behavioural problems was generally effective, however some did not respond
Later these youths were placed on a special programme where the rewards were more immediate and more frequent and the results were more positive

Question 13

Counterpoint of research supports?

Answer 13

The success of token economies relies on consistency from prison staff
Bassett and Blanchard found that the benefits were lost if staff did not apply the techniques correctly
Due to factors like a lack of appropriate staff training or high staff turnover

Question 14

AO3: easy to implement?

Answer 14

Relatively straightforward to set up in custody
Appeal of behaviour modification rests largely upon the ease in which it can be administered
No need for a specialist professional to be involved like in anger management
Token economies can be designed and implemented by anyone in any institution
Also cost effective and easy to follow once workable methods of reinforcement have been established

Question 15

AO3: little rehabilitative value

Answer 15

May not affect long-term behaviour
Blackburn- behaviour modification has little rehabilitative value and any positive changes in prison learnt may be lost when released
Cognitive-based treatments like anger management may be more likely to lead to permanent behaviour change
Require the offenders to understand the cause of their offending and take responsibility for their own actions
Offenders can easily play along with token economics to gain the rewards but they may not change their overall character