METHODS OF
TREATING OFFENDERS
A) TOKEN ECONOMY
B) ANGER MANAGEMENT
THE TREATMENT OF OFFENDERS
AND PREVENTION OF CRIME.
The criminal justice system has many punishments at its disposal.
It can sentence offenders to a period of imprisonment or it can
use more lenient deterrents such as a suspended sentence, a
period of probation, community service or a fine.
Once offenders are imprisoned, some of them will be part of a
treatment programme aimed at improving their immediate
behaviour and reducing their chances of reoffending.
Behaviour modification in the form of token economies and anger
management are the 2 that we will describe and assess.
• Describe and evaluate two ways of
treating offenders including:
- the token economy programme and one
other.
• Suitable examples:
- punishment
- anger management
- social skills training.
TOKEN ECONOMIES
• Token economy programmes are used to obtain
desirable behaviour in closed institutions such as
prisons, and they are used for juvenile and adult
offenders.
• They are a form of behaviour modification.
• These programmes started in the 1960’s
and there was hope that this would be
extremely successful, given the success of
the use of learning theories in changing
behaviour.
• TASK –
Think back to what you learnt about the
learning theory & generalisation & operant
conditioning at AS level.
• Remind yourself about positive and negative
reinforcement and punishment.
• A token economy programme involves a system
of rewards being set up for desired behaviour,
sometimes with punishments to discourage
behaviour which is undesirable.
• Rewards are usually tokens or points, and these
can be periodically exchanged for something that
the individual wants.
• This is an important part of the programme as
the rewards must genuinely reward the person.
Desirable behaviour such as co-operation and
compliance is reinforced with the use of tokens.
These tokens have no intrinsic value and are called
secondary reinforcers.
They can however be exchanged for primary reinforcers
which are things that are wanted by the person.
When used in prisons, many of the programmes also
use negative reinforcement and punishment in order to
reduce undesirable behaviour such as non compliance
and aggression.
Typical negative reinforcement would be removal of
privileges, such as watching TV or going to the exercise
yard, while a typical punishment may be isolation.
• Hobbs & Holt (1976) conducted a study which
involved delinquent boys.
They found that when they introduced a token
economy system in three juvenile delinquent
centres there was a significant increase in the
desired behaviours, compared to the control.
- Was the token economy successful?
- How could we evaluate this programme?
generalisation
• Generalisation is part of learning theory principles
and is important when talking about token economies.
• The idea is that desired behaviour, once reinforced
and established in an institution, would be
generalised to outside the institution so that
appropriate behaviour would be established.
• Generalisation in learning theory is when a behaviour
learned in one situation is transferred to another, or
when learning of one behaviour is transferred to a
similar behaviour.
• Do you think that prisoners on such programmes
would generalise once leaving an institution?
PROCEDURE OF A TOKEN
ECONOMY PROGRAMME
It is very important that there are clear definitions of:
•
•
•
•
•
what is a desired behaviour
what is a token
how tokens are allocated
what is a reward
how there will be gradual changing of the giving of
tokens to shape the behaviour
• how many tokens there are for each reward
• how the reward will be removed once the behaviour is
achieved
Evaluation of token
economy programmes
• TASK
Using the textbook/ internet, evaluate the use of
TEP’s in Criminal Psychology.
- Do they work? What evidence do you have?
- Why TEP’s may not work
- Advantages of TEP’s
- Think about recidivism
In the 1970’a when TEP’s were evaluated to see if they
worked, it was concluded that they did not!
Ayllon and Milan (1979) reviewed a number of
programmes and found that they worked for certain
behaviours e.g. the general keeping of rules and control
over interpersonal aggression.
Milby (1975) found that programmes were successful in
psychiatric hospitals and helped in preparing someone to
leave hospital BUT we do not know if the effects worked
long term.
Field et al (2004) looked at a TEP used with young
people with behavioural problems. The programme was
generally effective although there were still a number of
young people who 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 positive. This suggests that the programme should
be designed so that the rewards suit each individual.
REASONS WHY TEP’S MAY
NOT WORK
• Staff are not committed to the programme, so they
do not focus on it sufficiently.
• Inconsistent rewards are given for the same
behaviour.
• There is a failure to plan for transferring to the
home environment or any environment outside the
institution.
ADVANTAGES OF TEP’S
• There should be no delay between the desired
behaviour and the reward.
• Anyone can give the tokens.
• Clear rules mean staff know when to award a
token, so the programme is relatively easy to
administer.
EVALUATION
+ Can be administered by anyone (with training) and
tokens and rewards are relatively cheap, so the
programme is not expensive and there are more
benefits than costs.
+ Has been found to be successful by many studies,
even though approx. 10 – 20 % of people do not
respond well to TEP’s.
- Learning may not transfer to the home environment,
so there might be recidivism.
- Programmes have to be carefully planned and
controlled, and there are many areas where problems
can occur such as lack of consistency from staff.
POSSIBLE EXAM QUESTIONS
1. Outline one way of treating offender
behaviour. (3 marks)
2. Evaluate the use of token economies in
reducing offending behaviour. (5 marks)
3. The probation service is looking into ways to
treat offenders and reduce recidivism.
Describe and evaluate the token economy
method with respect to how it treats
offenders and whether it is useful in reducing
recidivism rates. (12 marks)