Behaviour modification

• What’s the behaviour modification aim?

  Manage and monitor offenders during their sentence and reduce the likelihood of reoffending.
• What is the behaviour modification designed aim?

  Aim of enforcing obedient behaviour in offenders whilst pushing disobedience/undesirable behaviour 
• Reward = repeating 

  Punishment = extinction
• What are behaviour modification programs such as token economies based on?

  Operant conditioning I.e rewarding behaviour desirable behaviour such as avoiding confrontation 
• What are prisoners given in a token economy?

  Given a token every time they perform a desirable behaviour 
• What is made clear to the prisoner before the program is implemented?

  Rewards and behaviours 
• What will non-compliance/disobedience result in?

  Tokens being withheld or removed = punishment
• Why are tokens secondary reinforcers?

  They have no value in themselves and they can be exchanged for a primary reinforcer e.g time in gym
• Operationalising target behaviours

  Break it down into component parts 

  Units of behaviour should be measurable and objective and agreed by all parties in advance 
• Scoring system 

  Staff and prisoners are made aware of the core system 

  Behaviours are hierarchical -some receive greater rewards

  Some systems award tokens directly ; others may reward points 

  Reinforcement should outnumber punishments by a ratio of 4:1 (gendreau et al 2011)
• Training

  Procedures should be standardised so that all prison staff are awarding the same behaviours in the same way