Dealing with offending behaviour

• Custodial sentencing is holding convicted criminals in a secure facility (eg - prison or young offenders institution).
• Aims of custodial sentencing:

  • Deterrence - To put off both society and individuals from committing crimes.
  • Incapacitation - To protect the public from the criminal.
  • Retribution - Following the ‘eye for an eye’ philosophy but ensuring that the punishment is in accordance to the severity and type of crime committed.
  • Rehabilitation - Opportunities for training and treatment further reduce the rates of recidivism through addressing the distal cause of offending.
• Psychological effects of custodial sentencing:

  • Depression - Prisoners feel helpless in a frightening environment, resulting in high levels of stress and self harm.
  • Institutionalisation - Prisoners adapt to the environment and routines and then after struggle to adjust to life outside.
  • Deindividualisation - Prisons can strip people of their sense of socialised individual identity, leading to highly aggressive behaviour.
• Recidivism is where an offender re-offends after release. This may be due to institutionalisation or developing pro-criminal attitudes while in prison. Other risk factors are homelessness and drug addiction.
• Recidivism rates in Europe are extremely high, with 57% of people reoffending within a year after release, according to the Ministry of Justice. Norway, on the other hand, has one of the lowest 4 European recidivism rates but a far greater focus on rehabilitation, as opposed to traditional punishment.
• Strengths of custodial sentencing:

  • Opportunities for learning and training - Sex offenders may partake in compulsory CBT schemes to reduce the effects of their minimalisation (a type of cognitive distortion) and so reduce the likelihood of recidivism. Violent offender can partake in anger management schemes, whilst others may opt for token economy systems (behaviour modification) or restorative justice in return for a more lenient prison sentence. Therefore, this suggests that prison is a useful method of dealing with offending behaviour.
• Limitations of custodial sentencing:

  • Lacks ecological validity - Prison does not affect each individual in the same way. The extent of the effects depend on the dispositional traits of the convict, length of their prison sentence, previous experiences in prisons, the type of prison in which they served previous sentences (eg - maximum security) and the number / gender of prison officers. This means that custodial sentencing can be more or less effective for certain individuals, and so should not be viewed as a universally effective method of dealing with all types of offending behaviour.
• Limitations of custodial sentencing:

  • Favourability of custodial sentencing may be affected by political motives - Davies and Raymond found the majority of the public favours custodial sentencing as the main method for dealing with offending behaviour as society wants to see the criminal suffer and be remorseful for their actions. This may lead some political parties focusing on toughening up prisons and sentences in an attempt to please the public. Despite this, custodial sentencing still produces high recidivism rates and so is not as effective as it is portrayed to be.
• Behaviour modification in custody largely features token economies, which are systems based upon operant conditioning principles, and mainly reinforcement.
• Reinforcement (which can be negative or positive) increases the likelihood of a desired behaviour being repeated. In the context of custody, this means that selected socially-desirable behaviours are more likely to be repeated by offenders.
• Every time a desired behaviour is carried out by an offender, they receive a token. This acts as a secondary reinforcer because its value is derived from being able to be swapped for a ‘privilege’ or reward, which is known as a primary reinforcer. Therefore, through positive reinforcement, the offender is more likely to repeat these desirable behaviours because they are motivated by achieving the same reward each time.
• Strengths of token economies:

  • Effectiveness - Hobbs and Holt studied 125 criminal male juveniles in the Alabama Boys Industrial School. The researchers found that across 14 months, there was a significant increase in the displaying of desirable behaviours for the majority of the boys. This suggests that token economy systems can be used to improve the running of the prisons by decreasing the violence and conflicts within such a setting.
• Strengths of token economies:

  • Flexible - They can change according to the aims of each institution and are easy to implement. For example, token economy systems used in psychiatric hospitals may be very different from those used in maximum-security prisons, and so as long as the implementation of the rules and tokens is consistent (as suggested by Bassett and Blanchard), a significant improvement in prisoner conduct is likely to be seen.
• Limitations of token economies:

  • Lacks mundane realism - Behaviour modification can be seen as only treating the proximal cause of offending, whereas anger management can address the distal (main/direct) cause of offending. Behaviour modification temporarily improves the behaviour of offenders, as they are motivated by rewards and these are given immediately after the displayed behaviour (avoiding delayed gratification). BUT, these same rewards may not be present outside prison, where citizens are expected to abide to social norms and rules without always be rewarded directly.
• Limitations of token economies:

  • Ethical basis - Moya and Achtenburg took particular concern with the idea that participation in such schemes is compulsory in many prisons, and failure to do so (perhaps due to mental illness) would mean that prisoners are denied certain ‘rewards’ which may be seen as rights by many others (eg - the opportunity to call home or have family visits). Therefore, it is important to conduct a cost-benefit analysis to assess the utility of token economy systems.
• As suggested by Novaco (1975), anger management focuses on identifying and dealing with the emotions which precede anger, as opposed to preventing anger in the first place. This is an ‘eclectic’ approach in the sense that offenders are taught skills from a variety of different approaches in psychology, such as communication skills (social) and ‘positive self-talk’ (cognitive).
• Anger management:

  1. Cognitive preparation - Offenders identify the patterns of emotion which occur before, during and after aggression. This helps them to understand and predict why and when they are likely to become angry.
  2. Skills acquisition - Therapist teaches the offender techniques which can be used to manage their anger, and prevent them from spiraling (eg - breathing techniques, meditation and positive self-talk). This is a form of direct learning.
  3. Application practice - Offender applies the skills learnt to a real-life situation which would normally trigger anger (eg - role play).
• Strengths of anger management:

  • Effectiveness - Keen found that the majority of prisoners who’d partaken in the National Anger Management Package were able to control their anger to a greater extent and were more aware of such anger, compared to the beginning of the therapy.
• Strengths of anger management:

  • Inclusive - Incorporates behavioural theories and skills from a variety of different psychological approaches. For example, cognitive preparation focuses on the cognitive basis of aggression, whilst application practice focuses on the behaviourist principles of operant conditioning and positive reinforcement. This is a strength because it suggests that anger management recognises the variety of different triggers and bases of aggressive behaviour, and so is not overly simplified.
• Limitations of anger management:

  • Lacks ecological validity - In practice, as suggested by Blackburn, anger management is likely to have little effect on controlling anger in real-life. 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.
• Limitations of anger management:

  • Anger management therapies may be guilty of making the incorrect assumption that violent offences are caused by an inability to control anger, as suggested by Loza and Loza-Fanous. There may be very few or no differences between violent and non-violent offenders in terms of their anger, which draws questions over the validity of the use of anger management for the majority of violent offenders. It could be the case that such use could be exploited by offenders in return for rewards or a more lenient prison sentence.
• According to Braithwaite (2004), restorative justice (RJ) programmes take on a different perspective compared to the other three methods. It 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.
• Restorative justice:

  1. Meeting - Victim and offender take part in a supervised meeting by a trained mediator. This is collaborative so the victim is given the opportunity to explain to the criminal the harm caused to them. The offender is encouraged to take responsibility.
  2. Reparation - The offender demonstrates acceptance of responsibility by in some way repaying, either by cash or community service.
• Strengths of restorative justice:

  • Effectiveness - Latimer found that restorative justice was significantly more effective than traditional nonrestorative approaches in terms of 5, increasing victim and offender satisfaction, restitution compliance and reducing recidivism.
• Strengths of restorative justice:

  • Flexible and easy to implement - Restorative justice can be modified for prisons, psychiatric institutions and schools, according to the specific problems faced in these organisations. The increasing use of RJ may encourage methods of conflict resolution other than violence and aggression because the offender is made aware of the consequences of their actions first-hand.
• Limitations of restorative justice:

  • Assumes that the offender and survivor will always show remorse when participating. This may not always be the case, especially considering that the offender may receive a shorter prison sentence or more rewards for participating in the scheme, whilst survivors may want revenge on their criminal, in the form of physical or verbal abuse. Therefore, although RJ is useful in theory, it may be less so in real life.
• Limitations of restorative justice:

  • Criticisms - Feminists argued that when used in cases of domestic abuse or violence. This is because it does not place the offender and victim on an equal power balance, as the victim will seem accusatory of the offender. So, in cases where there is such a power imbalance as in domestic abuse cases, RJ schemes can fail to adequately place the blame upon the offender, as well as being traumatic and distressing for the survivor, suggesting that cannot be used as a way of dealing with offending behaviour for all crimes, and so has limited utility.