Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Treatment and Punishment
of Crime
- Cognitive therapy
- Cognitive skills
programmes are
based on CBT
- aim - identify and
correct cognitive
deficits which lead to
criminal behaviour
- first task - help offender
recognise their cognitive
deficits then help them
change their thinking and
behaviour through the
acquisition of cognitive skills
- 2 programmes used by the prisons in England and Wales:
Enhanced Thinking Skills (ETS) and Reasoning and
Rehabilitation (R&R)
- R&R
- groups of 6 offenders attend sequential modules
- each session teaches sub-skills
building on previous learning
- based on premise that offenders are typically under-socialised,
lacking values, attitudes, reasoning and social skills required for
appropriate social behaviour
- modules cover
areas such as:
problem solving
social skills,
negotiation and
critical
reasoning
- ETS
- 20 two-hour ETS groupwork sessions
that are made compulsory
- skills include learning to think before acting
- group exercises and role play demonstrate
the value of stopping and thinking to help
with understanding the consequences
- Friendship (2002) - both
ETS and R&R are effective
- however, Cann (2003)
found that ETS was
effective and R&R was not
- unlike simply punishing
offenders by imprisonment,
cognitive approaches can
change thinking patterns
- benefits
may not be
long term
- gender bias - programmes
were developed for use
with male prisoners
- however, Cann (2003)
suggested that the
findings may alternatively
be due to the absence of
the cognitive deficits
related to the crimes
committed by the women
or because the samples
were predominantly
low-risk individuals
- Behavioural therapy
- Operant conditioning
- Reinforcement
- token economy
- used to improve the
behaviour of prisoners
- behaviour of inmates can be changed by
positively reinforcing desirable
(non-aggressive) behaviour with tokens
- should be given immediately and consistently
- however, Bassett and Blanchard (1977) observed one
3-month programme which failed due to staff misuse
- however, token economy
approach treats only apparent
behaviour such as aggression
- leads to an increase of
acceptable behaviour
- Punishment
- isolation
- used to reduce
the frequency
of non-desired
behaviour
- decreases
unacceptable
behaviours
- Shaping
- reinforement of successive
appoximations to the
desired behaviour
- when tokens are given
by prison staff they are
accompanied by praise
- this will eventually
replace the tokens as a
source of reinforcement
- Is it
successful?
- Jenkins (1974)
followed up young
male offenders for 18
months post-release
- found non-significant differences between a
control group and those on cognitive training
programmes or a token economy
- however, the token group consistently
had the lowest % of post-release
offences over the last 9 months
- tokens only work if the
inmates are motivated
to collect tokens
- in reality, powerful prisoners
may control much more
effective reinforcers and
punishers than wardens