BEHAVIOURAL TACTICS

What are behavioural tactics?

Ways in which agencies can seek to change individuals behaviour to make them conform to social norms and laws.

What does ASBO stand for?

Anti - social behaviour orders.

What is an ASBO?

A way to deal with low-level anti social behaviour like vandalism, public drunkness, youth gathering to play loud music at night.

Civil orders rather than criminal orders that restrain a person from committing actions that threaten the legal right of another person like playing loud music outside of somebies house late at night.

Did ASBOs work

It became clear that they didn’t work as many people issued them broke the conditions repeatedly. Labelling theorists argued that labelling a person with an ASBO led to a self fulfilling prophecy of deviance which led to more offending as ASBOs became a badge of honour in some subcultures.

What were ASBOs replaced with?

Civil injuctions

Criminal Behaviour Orders

What do civil injuctions do?

They deal with low level nuisance and annoyance. Breaching one can mean up to two years for an adult or a three month detention order for under-18s.

What do Criminal Behaviour Orders do?

Deal with seriously antyi-social behaviour and individuals who cause harassment or distress others. They last two years for adults and between one to two years for under 18s. Breaching can lead to up to give years in prison for adults or two years in detention for under 18s.

What are token economies?

A behaviour modification programme used by some prisons, young offender institutions and psychiatric hospitals that aim to achieve social control by re-shaping people’s behaviour patterns so they confrom to what an institution requires.

Tokens (something that has no real value, but value inside of an institution) that can be exchanged for rewards.

What is operant learning theory

Particular behaviour results in reward of some kind and is therefore likely to be repeated. The reward is reinforcement for the behaviour.

How do token economies aim to achieve social control?

An institution will create a list of desireable behaviours like obeying the rules, interacting positvely with others, staying drug free, engaging in purposeful activities etc.

An example of a token economy working.

When a prisoner is behaving in a desirable way in a prison like attending programmes or passing drug tests, they receive a token. The token can then be exchange for rewards like extra phone calls or being allowed certain privileges.