Dealing with Offending Behaviour (AQA A Level Psychology): Flashcards

Young single men in the first 24 hours of confinement. Dooley (2000) found rates highest among prisoners on remand.

25% of women and 15% of men in prison reported symptoms of psychosis, suggesting the oppressive regime may trigger disorders in vulnerable people.

Institutionalisation is when inmates adapt so fully to prison norms and routines that they can no longer function outside.

Prisonisation is the socialisation of prisoners into an 'inmate code', where behaviour unacceptable outside is encouraged and rewarded inside.

25% of adults reoffend within a year of release, rising to 30.3% for young offenders and 55.1% for those on sentences under 12 months.

Viewed as a large-scale intervention, prison lacks empirical evidence of its effectiveness.

Residential drug treatment, vocational training, community supervision, victim reparation and aftercare are all more likely to prevent reoffending than incarceration.

Offenders may become better people in prison through education and training, improving employment chances, though resources are limited and long-term evidence is inconclusive.

False.

He reviewed 231 studies and claimed 'nothing works', as offender treatment was largely ineffective.

Prison regimes, sentence length, reasons for incarceration and pre-existing difficulties vary, so general conclusions about every prisoner are hard to make.

Prison assumes external (nurture) consequences control crime, but internal (nature) traits such as impulsivity may also drive behaviour.

High self-harm, suicide and psychological deterioration raise ethical concerns, especially for vulnerable groups such as women and those with mental health issues.

To reinforce obedient behaviour and punish disobedience, so that the former continues and the latter becomes extinct.

A token economy is a system based on operant conditioning, managed by prison staff, in which tokens are earned for socially acceptable behaviour and exchanged for rewards.

Avoiding fights and confrontations with staff or prisoners, and keeping the cell clean and tidy.

They are decided in advance, broken into small steps called increments, and a baseline measure is established.

All staff must follow the same regime of selective reinforcement, e.g. rewarding a prisoner for 'turning the other cheek'.

Desirable rewards such as a phone call to a loved one, time in the gym or exercise yard, or extra cigarettes or food.

Non-compliance or disobedience may result in tokens and their privileges being withheld or removed.

False.

They are secondary reinforcers. The reward is what they can be exchanged for, the primary reinforcement such as food or family visits.

Young delinquents in three token economy units showed significantly more positive behaviour than a control unit. Allyon et al. (1979) found a similar effect in an adult prison.

In a maximum security prison, praise and tokens changed behaviour more effectively than the threat of losing social or recreational time.

No expertise or specialists are needed, unlike anger management, so anyone can run it in any institution, and it is cost-effective.

Young people who did not respond initially improved when moved to a scheme with more immediate and frequent rewards, so failures reflect poor programme design.

It has little rehabilitative value, as positive changes made in prison are quickly lost on release when law-abiding behaviour is not reinforced.

False.

They work on a narrow set of behaviours, and outside prison the rewards of offending, such as group status, may be more powerful.

Moya and Achtenberg (1974) note participation is obligatory, and withdrawing exercise or contact with loved ones is ethically questionable.

Behaviour modification exemplifies the nurture side of the nature vs nurture debate, assuming offending is learned and can be unlearned.

They simplify behaviour change to reward-based conditioning, ignoring cognitive, emotional and social causes. Combining them with CBT would be more holistic.

Anger management is a treatment programme enabling offenders to control and manage their hostile, violent or antisocial responses, reducing the likelihood of reoffending.

Cognitive factors trigger the emotional arousal that precedes aggression, and in some people anger surfaces quickly in situations seen as threatening.

By the individual's feeling of control in the situation.

It produces physiological arousal such as a racing heart, raised blood pressure and shallow breathing, which the person experiences as anger.

Anger management programmes are a form of cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT), teaching offenders to recognise when they are losing control.

In prisons or secure facilities, using self-report methods such as questionnaires and interviews plus staff reports such as a behaviour checklist.

It records their progress and works as an additional source of motivation.

Cognitive preparation, skills acquisition and application practice.

The offender reflects on their anger pattern and identifies triggers, while the therapist challenges irrational interpretations, e.g. redefining a look at their partner as non-threatening.

Cognitive (positive self-talk), behavioural (assertiveness training) and physiological (relaxation and breathing).

The offender and therapist re-enact scenarios through role play. The therapist 'winds up' the offender, who must respond calmly, with success positively reinforced.

After 12 sessions, 92% of the treatment group improved on at least one measure and 48% on both the checklist and self-report, with no improvement in controls.

Keen et al. (2000) studied young offenders aged 17 to 21 on the National Anger Management Package of eight two-hour sessions.

Despite initial problems with offenders not taking it seriously, participants reported greater awareness of their anger and increased self-control.

It works on cognitive, behavioural and social levels, acknowledging that offending is a complex activity needing to be addressed on more than one level.

It addresses the thought processes underlying offending rather than surface behaviour, giving offenders insight and making lower recidivism more likely.

False.

Blackburn (1993) found short-term effects but little evidence of reduced long-term recidivism, possibly because role play is artificial.

No difference in anger between violent and non-violent offenders, so programmes may be misguided and could give offenders a justification for their behaviour.

False.

Many crimes, including financial crime such as fraud, are not motivated by anger.

It assumes offenders can learn to control their behaviour, aligning with the legal system's assumption of accountability and contrasting with deterministic views.

Restorative justice (Braithwaite, 2004) is a process of managed collaboration between offender and victim, based on the principles of healing and empowerment.

From a crime against the state to the needs of the individual victim.

False.

It is rehabilitative. The victim explains the impact of the crime, enlightening the offender about the harm caused.

A supervised meeting with a trained mediator, in which the victim confronts the offender and explains how the incident affected them, and the offender sees the consequences.

Relationship, respect, responsibility, repair and reintegration.

The offender has damaged their relationship with the victim and with society, so must feel accountable for the relationship to be healed.

In the five Rs, 'respect' is achieved through active listening and trying to understand the other's perspective.

The offender becomes part of the community again and is accepted by it, with the emphasis on positive, active outcomes.

Financial restitution to the victim, or the offender repairing damaged property themselves.

It can be an alternative to prison, an add-on to community service, or an incentive that may reduce an existing sentence.

Shapland et al. (2007) concluded that every £1 spent on RJ saved the criminal justice system £8 through reduced reoffending.

RJ was more effective than traditional rehabilitation programmes, though participants were self-selecting, which may bias the findings.

It can be tailored to individuals and settings such as schools and hospitals, but this makes general conclusions about its effectiveness difficult.

Improvements in victims' mental health after they voiced their emotions and the impact of the crime.

Because of the power imbalance between abuser and abused. Women's Aid have called for a ban on RJ in domestic violence cases.

Meetings are emotionally charged and need expensive specialist mediators, and programmes suffer high dropout rates when parties lose their nerve.

False.

It assumes offenders can take responsibility and choose to make amends, supporting free will.

Unlike universal punishment rules, RJ takes an idiographic approach, tailoring the process to individual circumstances.