Dealing with offending behaviour

    Cards (26)

    • custodial sentencing
      holding a convicted criminal in a secure facility like a prison or if appropriate a young offenders institution or psychiatric hospital
    • the aims of custodial sentencing
      deterrence: to stop criminals from reoffending and members of society committing crimes
      incapacitation: protects society from the criminal's actions/ behaviour whilst in prison
      Retribution: providing the victim and society a sense criminals have paid for crime
      Rehabilitation: opportunity to learn new skills (training) and behaviour (therapy) to reduce rates of recidivism
    • Psychological effects of custodial sentencing
      1. depression: prisoners feel helplessness. Results in high levels of stress> Self harm and suicide rates are high in prisons
      2. institutionalisation: prisoners adapt to life in prison environment so struggle to adjust outside prison
      3. Deindividuation: prisons can strip people of their sense of identity which can lead to highly aggressive behaviour
    • recidivism
      • when an offender reoffends after release
      • could be due to institutionalisation or developing pro-criminal attitudes in prison (differential association)
    • (weakness) individual differences
      • prison does not affect each individual in the same way
      • the extent of the effects will depend on traits of convict, length of sentence and previous experiences in prisons
      • this means that custodial sentencing can be more or less effective for certain individuals, so cannot be viewed as a universally effective method of dealing with offending behaviour
    • (weakness) cost
      custodial sentencing is expensive, the cost per year per prisoner in the UK in 2020 is around £42,000
      As recidivism rates are so high, a cost benefit analysis shows it may be better to try different approaches to protect society from others
    • (weakness) politics
      Davies and Raymond (2000) suggested that the use and favourability of custodial sentencing may be affected by political motives
      The majority of the public favours custodial sentencing as they want to see the criminal al suffer and feel remorse
      this may lead some political parties to focus on toughening up prisons in attempt to please the public
    • behaviour modification
      based on the behaviourist ideas that desirable behaviours can be learnt
      the use of operant conditioning principles of reinforcement and punishment are applied in prison token economies
    • token economies
      • offenders are systematically rewarded with tokens for predefined desired target behaviours
      • tokens act as secondary reinforcers and can later be exchanges for primary reinforcers (rewards)
      • bad behaviour may result in token being taken away, acting as a negative punishment
    • Hobbs and holt (1976)

      developed a token economy system for young offenders at a school for delinquent males
      there was significant increase in appropriate behaviour of the students taking part in the program, with no improvement in the control group
      This suggests token economies are effective
    • (weakness) short term
      • in comparison to anger management, behaviour modification can be seen as only treating the proximal cause of offending
      • behaviour modification only temporarily improves behaviour of offenders as long as they are motivated by rewards and these rewards are given immediately after the displayed behaviour
      • however, these rewards may not always be present in life outside of prison, therefore behaviour management may only be a short term solution
    • (weakness of token economies) ethics
      • some have questioned the ethics of token economy systems e.g Moya and Achtenburg(1974)
      • these researchers took concern with the idea that in many prisons, participation is mandatory and failure to do so may result in denial of certain rewards that may be seen as rights
      • therefore it is important to conduct a cost benefit analysis to assess the utility of token economy systems
    • (strength of token economies) easy/cheap

      token economies are easy to set up within prison, not needing highly trained specialists (cheap), meaning it ca be an effective way of dealing with offending behaviour within the prison environment
    • Anger management
      • as suggested by Novaco (1975)
      • it focuses on identifying and dealing with emotions that precede anger as opposed to preventing anger
      • an eclectic approach
    • 3 stages of anger management
      1. cognitive preparation: offenders learn how to asses their own thoughts for triggered of irrational negative emotion. Eaxamples from their lives are used
      2. skills acquisition: ways to control anger are developed, from relaxation techniques to improving communication skills to avoid conflict
      3. application practice: therapist and offender role play scenarios that would have cause am aggressive response and the offender uses skills acquired to stay calm
    • Keen et al (2000)

      found that the majority of prisoners that had partaken in the National Anger Management programme were able to control their anger to a greater extent and were more aware of such anger, compared to the beginning of therapy.
    • (strength of anger management) study
      • Ireland (2004) tested a group based anger management program
      • Self report questionnaires were completed before and after the intervention
      • 48% of the experimental group showed improvement with the biggest improvement in the most aggressive
      • however, research using self-reports has the problem of social desirability bias - prisoners may hope for early release so act better
    • (strength of anger management) incorporates various psychological approaches
      • cognitive preparation focuses on cognitive basis of aggression whilst application practice focuses on the behaviourist principles of operate conditioning and positive reinforcement
      • this is a strength because if suggests anger management recognises the variety of different triggers and bases of aggressive behaviour and so is not oversimplified
    • (weakness of anger management) little effect in real life
      • as suggested by Blackburn
      • This is because the therapist will not be present to positively reinforce any desirable behaviours, and the prisoner may find themselves surrounded by stimuli/cues which trigger such anger.
      • Therefore, this suggests that such therapies are best reserved for improving prisoner’s conduct within prisons (rehabilitation), as opposed to providing a long-term solution to offending.
    • restorative justice
      • According to Braithwaite (2004), restorative justice programmes take on a different perspective/emphasis compared to the other three methods.
      • RJ places emphasis on ‘giving the survivor a voice’ and showing the offender the emotional consequences of their behaviour.
      • The focus is placed upon positive outcomes, and mediated discussions between the offender and ‘survivor’ (victim) do not need to occur within traditional courtroom settings.
    • meeting
      victim and offender take part in a meeting supervised by a rained mediator
      meeting is collaborative and offender encouraged to accept responsibility
      victim is given chance to explain the harm caused
    • reparation
      the offender demonstrates acceptance of responsibility in some way by repaying e.g cash payment or community service
    • effectiveness of RJ scheme
      • Latimer et al (2005), who found that RJ was significantly more effective than traditional non-restorative approaches in terms of increasing victim and offender satisfaction, restitution compliance and reducing recidivism.
    • (strength of RJ) flexible and easy to implement
      RJ can be modified for prisons, institutions and schools acording to the specific problems faced in the organisations
      The increasing use of RJ may encourage methods of conflict resolution rather than violence and aggression
    • (weakness of RJ) limited utility
      Power imbalance in cases such as domestic abuse, RJ schemes can fail to adequately place blame onto the offender, as well as being traumatic for the victim/survivor
      suggests RJ cannot be used a method for dealing with all crimes so has limited utility
    • (limitation of RJ) 

      restorative justice depends on the victim cooperating, this may not be the case if the victim feel that the offender is just 'playing along' to avoid a harsher sentence