Token economies

• What is behaviour modification in custody?

  • Behaviourist therapy based on operant conditioning principles, assuming that because human behaviour is learned it should be possible to unlearn behaviour
  • Aims to reinforce obedient/good behaviour in offenders whilst punishing disobedient/negative behaviour in hopes it will diminish
• What are token economies as a behaviour modification programme?


  • Subjects are given "tokens" based on identified desired behaviours such as working well with others, engaging with therapy, etc.
  • Value of tokens must be defined so prisoners understand how many they need to earn to redeem rewards including free time, smoke breaks
  • Good behaviour is rewarded with tokens and bad behaviour is punished by taking tokens away or withholding privileges
  • Primary and secondary reinforces are used
• What is one strength of token economies in dealing with offenders?

  • Easy to implement - it is appealing because it can be easily administered as there is no need for specialist professionals like other treatments
  • Cost-effective and easy to follow once workable methods of reinforcement have been established
  • Shows that it is a relatively straightforward programme to set up in custody making it a suitable choice
• What research support is there for token economies and what else odes this show?

  • Hobbs and Holt (1976): implemented TEPs into 3 young offender institutes and found that boys displayed more positive behaviour than a control group
  • Rice et al (1990): used TEPs in a psychiatric prison setting and found an increase in positive behaviours BUT once the programme stopped desirable behaviours reduced significantly with 50% reoffending
  • Shows TEPs are effective but in the long-term due to low maintenance outside of prisons and in the future
• What is one limitation of token economies in dealing with offenders?

  • Little rehabilitative value - Blackburn (1993): TEP system is only focused on changing behaviour rather than personality or cognitive processes
  • Offenders can easily 'play along' with the programme to access desired rewards but don't understand why they offend or take responsibility
  • Underlying causes are not addressed meaning offenders are highly likely to revert to offending behaviour once outside the prison as there is no incentive for them to behave accordingly
• What is another limitation of token economies in dealing with offenders?


  • Success strongly depends upon the staff involved applying a consistent approach - application of rewards are much less consistent in situations outside of prisons, meaning the benefits of token economies are lost
  • Bassett and Blanchard (1997): if prisons have high staff turnovers then TEPs are less likely to be effective because inevitably some staff will apply techniques inconsistently