dealing with offending behaviour

custodial sentencing

Aims:

  1. Deterrence

  • Based on behaviourist idea of punishment

  • General deterrence — aims to send a message to others that crimes will not be tolerated

  • Individual deterrence — aims to prevent offender reoffending due to unpleasant experience in prison, recidivism used to measure

  1. Incapacitation/public protection

  • Need to protect the public by removing the offender, depends on the offend and the severity of the offence

  1. Retribution/denunciation

  • Severity of crime should correlate with length of sentence/severity of punishment

  • Society through the gov and justice system decide how much a person should be punished

  • ‘Eye for an eye’

  1. Rehabilitation

  • Reform offender so they are better adjusted and ready to integrate back into society

  • Programmes in prison, like for people with addiction to drugs

Recidivism:

  • Many prisoners don’t have average literacy and numeracy of an 11 year old. 50% don’t have skills required by 96% of jobs

  • Lower level offences treated w/ rehab in Europe, seen as too accommodating but leads to lower recidivism

  • Rates in America: 66% vs Norway: 20%

Effects:

  • Stress and depression — Bartol found suicide rates 15% higher, with 25% of female prisoners experiencing psychosis

  • Institutionalisation — prisoners dependent on norms and values of prison life which makes them unable to function meaningfully outside, e.g turning to drugs or alcohol

  • Prisonisation — adopt values and beliefs of prison life, e.g violence in normal. Howard league found 28% increase in assaults in prison in 2023

  • Recidivism — 67% of under 18s reconvicted, 46% of all prisoners in 1 year of release: prison reform trust

  • Overcrowding — prison population steadily increasing over past 30 years, record high of 87,000 in May 2024. Calhoun: overcrowding lead to aggression and physical illness

Evaluation:

  • Strengths

    • Meets aims, e.g incapacitation, rehabilitation and punishment

  • Weaknesses

    • Recidivism rates suggest punishment doesn’t work, which makes them less effective.

    • Most prisons don’t have a lot of funding for rehabilitation and involves prisoner being willing to join

    • Negative ethical concerns due to punishment

    • Walker et al found sentence length made little difference to habitual offenders

    • Younger offenders 2x more likely to reoffend, petty criminals 2x more likely to offend, making custodial sentences less effective in these situations

    • Latessa and Lowenkamp found low risk and high risk prisoners together made low risk more likely to reoffend in line with Sutherland’s differential hypothesis

restorative justice

Aims:

  • Rehab of offenders, understanding and guilt which is beneficial for both and lowers reoffending

  • Compensation, money or community work

  • Reduces victimisation/powerlessness for victim and gives them understanding of offender’s perspective

Peace circles also used, where offender welcomed in with victims to all say their thoughts in a mediated setting.

Evaluation:

  • Cheaper than custodial sentencing

  • Self-selection bias, offender has to be willing which limits applicability

  • High drop out rates due to being found difficulty

  • Sherman + Strong — offenders found beneficial, decreased reoffending

  • Miers et al — somewhat useful, but some victims found intimidating and offender was insincere

  • RJ council 85% satisfaction rate

behavioural modification

Aims:

  • Changing undesirable behaviours through reinforcement, punishment

  • Observable behaviours over informal mental processes

Using operant conditioning

token economy

  • Token economy -- desirable behaviours rewarded with tokens.

    • Reinforcement used to target behaviours.

    • Tokens (secondary reinforcers) exchanged for primary reinforcers like food or privileges (e.g time outside, TV time)

    • Tokens are conditioned reinforcers, acquire value through association w/ primary reinforcers (CC)

    • Purpose: decrease undesirable behaviours and increase desirable, promote prosocial behaviour and decrease recidivism

    • Giving rewards for behaviour is not a token economy, have to use secondary reinforcers

  • Operationalising target behaviours:

    • Longer term objectives, complex behaviours consisting of smaller components can be taught through process of shaping

    • Tokens given for more complex behaviours

    • E.g target: improved inmate interaction, components: speaking politely, not touching each other

    • Components are ‘units’ that are observable and measurable.

    • As behaviours more complex, token for initial unit is taken away

  • Definitions needed for token economy: desired behaviour, token, how tokens allocated, reward, gradual giving of tokens to shape behaviour, how many tokens for each reward, how reward obtained when behaviour achieved, scoring/how much behaviour is ‘worth’

Hobbs + Holt

  • Aim: investigate effectiveness of token economy in 3 juvenile centres compared control group with no programme

  • Method: staff trained to identify and record behaviours, told which would earn tokens and how many, they could be swapped immediately or saved for larger rewards

  • Results: increase in desired behaviours, behaviour tokens: less than 70%, after tokens: over 90% on average for 3 centres

Evaluations:

  • Research support from Hobbs and Holt, however success depends on consistency as Basset et al found benefits lost if applied inconsistently -- funding, turnover of staff can lead to lack of training. Only leads to short term benefits

  • Effective and easy to implement in order to control unmanageable behaviour and prison environment, however it is time consuming and expensive

  • Little rehabilitative effect long term, without rewards present the association disappears. Behaviours learnt in prison might not cross over to real life due to differences in environment. Token economies used widely in 1970s in US but did not persist to have positive results and therefore low practical application

  • Violates human rights, unethical to make basic needs depend on tokens that can be taken away as punishment, needs to be agreed on by all parties

anger management

Anger management -- therapeutic programme, identify signs and triggers of anger and learn techniques to calm down and deal with in a positive way

  • Aims: recognise and manage anger

  • Novaco → cognitive anger explains aggressive crimes, reinforces control over situation. Therapy to teach to cope with anger: rehabilitation

  1. Cognitive restructuring -- greater self awareness + control over cognitive dimensions

  2. Regulation of arousal -- learning to control physiological state

  3. Behavioural strategies -- problem solving, withdrawing

Stages:

  1. Cognitive preparation -- asked to reflect past experiences of anger and what makes them angry, therapist challenges irrational thoughts

  2. Skill acquisition -- new techniques like meditation, self-talk and removing self

  3. Application practice -- role play scenarios that made them angry in the past to practice how they will respond. Therapist deliberately ‘wind up’ ppts to see if they can cope. Celebrate + reward success

  • Keen et al -- offenders reported positive feeling about the process but not strong evidence for lowering reoffending

  • Ireland -- 92% performed better in interview and observation of their time in prison compared to no improvement in control group

Evaluation:

  • Long term benefits

  • Individual differences in success

  • Highly expensive and time consuming