Dealing with offending behaviour

What is custodial sentencing

• Holding convicted criminals in a secure facility like a prison or if appropriate a young offenders institution or psychiatric hospital

Aims of custodial sentencing

• Deterrence: t stop criminals reoffending and members of society committing crimes

• Incapacitation: protects society from criminal’s actions behaviour while in prison

• Retribution: providing the victim and society a sense criminals have paid for their crime

• Rehabilitation: opportunity to learn new skills (training) and behaviour (therapy)

Psychological effects of custodial sentencing

• Depression: prisoners often feel helplessness in a frightening environment- this results in high levels of stress- levels of self harm + suicide are high in prisons

• Institutionalisation: prisoners adapt to the prison environment and routines and then after release struggle to adjust to life outside

• Deindividuation: prisons can strip people of their sense of socialised individual identity- this process can lead to the highly aggressive behaviour seen in prisons

What is recidivism

• When an offender re-offends after release

• Could be due to the institutionalisation or development of pro-criminal attitudes while in prison (differential association)

• Other risk factors are homelessness and drug addiction

• Recidivism is a large problem in a study following UK criminals over 18 yeas

• 77% of ex inmates went on to reoffend

Custodial sentencing evaluation

• Many members of wider society think giving offenders long custodial sentences, especially in difficult prison environments is an appropriate punishment for cries

• This provides suitable retribution for the victims

• Other approaches lacking in severe retribution are often considered as ‘soft‘ options

• However, research showing 7% of ex inmates reoffended suggests that prisons may not deter or reform offenders’s and only temporarily incapacitate them

• Reoffending rates are much higher for short sentences of less than 6 months- 84.9%

• Much higher compared to the 32.2% of more than 4 years

• It could be argued that short sentences don’t act as a strong of enough deterrent

• Differential association could suggest that custodial sentencing is counter productive- it could be that putting large amounts of criminals together reinforces pro-criminal attitudes and the transfer of skill

• Custodial sentencing is also costly- the cost per prisoner in the uk is over £42,000- recidivism rates are very high- may be better to try different approaches o protect society from offenders

What is behaviour modification?

• Based on the behaviourist principle that desirable behaviours can be learnt

• The use of operant conditioning and reinforcement and punishment are applied in prison token economy systems

• In a prison token economy, offenders are systematically rewarded with tokens for predefined desired target behaviours e.g: helping in the canteen

• Tokens act as secondary reinforcers- they can be exchanged later for primary reinforcers like chocolate or saved up for larger rewards like taking part in enjoyable activities e.g: movie night

• Bad behaviour may result in tokens being taken away, acting as a negative punishment

Evaluation of behaviour modification

• Hobbs and Holt (1976)

• Developed a token economy systems In for young offenders at a residential school for delinquent males

• There was a significant increase in appropriate behaviour in the students taking part in the token economy program with no improvement in the control group- suggesting token economy is effective

• Token economy is easy to set up within a prison, not needing highly trained specialist- it can be an effective way of dealing offending behaviour within the prison environment improving conditions for staff and prisoners

• Token economies lack mundane realism- can only be used effectively in the controlled environment setting such as a prison- has no long-term effects in reducing recidivism- when returning to the public, they may not be able to cope due to being taken care of or expecting reward for tasks they complete

Dealing with anger management

• Anger management programs assume that aggressive emotional responses are cognitive processes and can be controlled with a form of cognitive behavioural therapy- this provides techniques offenders can use in future stressful situations

• 1. Cognitive preparation: offenders learn how to assess their own thoughts for triggers of irrational aggressive emotion- examples from their lives are used and reinterpreted

• 2. Skills acquisition: ways to control anger are developed, from calming/relaxation exercises to improving communication skills to avoiding conflict

• 3. Application practice: therapist and offender play out role play scenarios that would have caused an aggressive response- offender uses skills developed form skills acquisition to stay calm

Dealing with anger management evaluation

• Ireland (2004)

• Tested a group-based anger management program- self report questionnaires were completed before and after the intervention and behaviour checklists were given by staff

• 48% of the experimental group showed improvement on both measures, with biggest improvement in most aggressive

• Real world applications- skills developed in anger management programs can be applied outside of prison, potentially helping prisoners retain employment and relationships

• Research using self reports often has the problem of social desirability bias- in this type of study, the risks are much higher as prisoners may hope for early release

What are restorative justice programmes?

• An attempt to rehabilitate an offender by getting them to cognitively understand the effect their crime has had n the victim and society

• This could be by direct reconciliation with the victim or in paying back the victim or wider society

• The process ‘restores’ what the offender harmed

• However this method is unlikely to work on psychopaths due to their lack of empathy

• Meeting: Victim and offender take part in a meeting supervised by a trained mediator- this meeting is collaborative, and the victim is given the opportunity to explain the criminal the harm caused to them- the offender is encouraged to take responsibility

• Reparation: The offender demonstrates acceptance of responsibility by in some way repaying, this could be a cash payment, or it could be a form community service

Evaluation of restorative justice programmes

• It was found that there was a 14% reduction in recidivism

• 62% of victims felt better

• Only 2% felt worse

• For every £1 spent on RJ, 38 was saved from recidivism

• However, RJ depends on the cooperation of the victim which may not be the case if the victim feels the offender will be ‘playing along’ to avoid a harsher sentence

General evaluation

• None of the ways dealing with offending behaviour are mutually exclusive, if all are somewhat effective they could all be used in a holistic combined approach

• Custodial sentences and behaviour modification can be argued not to have any long-term beneficial effects

• However, the skills from anger management programs are transferable and can enhance personal relationships outside the prison, and RJ develops empathy- however these do require trained staff

• Many members of society will only accept long and potentially unpleasant custodial sentences for offenders, seeing this as retribution

• They may view giving rewards or potentially reduced sentences for engaging in workshops or victim meetings as unacceptable- this is problematic for policy makers and rsearchers trying to reduce recidivisim in society