Inside Behavior Analysis
Volume 1 | 2009 | Number 1
Crime and Delinquency
By Joseph Cautilli
The behavioral approach to adults and juveniles in the justice system has humble origins. In 1964, Schwitzgebel and Kolb worked with adolescents. They had them earn object rewards, money, and social recognition for speaking into a tape recorder. Reward bonuses were given for discussing feelings and experiences in detail and with affect. The subjects were followed up for three years after the study. The subjects receiving the treatment showed significant reduction in re-arrests and amount of jail time compared to the control subjects. This was one of the earliest studies that showed that operant procedures could reduce recidivism rates. Schwitzgebel (1967) conducted another study in which verbal statements of male delinquents received both positive reinforcement and social disapproval based on verbal behavior in four response classes: Hostile statements, positive statements, prompt arrival at work, and behavior targets as indicative of employability. The study showed a rise in the response classes subject to the positive reinforcement. Also, in 1967, Bryan and Kapche showed that counselor verbal statements and approval could be used to condition the use of “I” statements (first person pronoun responses) by male sociopaths. Collectively these studies show the early beginnings of behavioral interventions as they moved out of the laboratory and into the justice system. By 1971, a comprehensive behavioral model for prison work was emerging (see Cohen & Filipczak, 1971). This early model showed a 9% reduction in recidivism compared to treatment as usual (Jesness, 1975) and showed ability to build skills (Bassett, Blanchard, & Koshland, 1975). Much has improved since then with recent meta-analytic work showing that behavioral interventions (contingency management) lead to a 13-20% reduction in recidivism (Redondo-Illescas, Sanchez-Meca, & Garrido-Genovaes, 2001). Even operant programs used in biofeedback formats showed the ability to reduce recidivism with those receiving more conditioning showing better outcomes (Quirk, 1995).
Today, behavioral interventions have even shown strong success in improving the overall management of prisons. A recent meta-analysis by French and Gendreau (2006) show behavioral interventions (defined in the study as radical behavioral, social learning, and cognitive behavioral) are the most effective interventions for the treatment and reduction of prison misconduct. These interventions had 2.5 times the effect size of non-behavioral interventions (psychodynamic), educational interventions, and vocational interventions. This meta-analysis did not find any difference between any of the three behavioral types, which is particularly interesting because recent studies have found that purely cognitive based therapies show no effect in treating prisoners (e.g., Lambert, Hogan, Barton, & Stevenson, 2007) and even those outside of prison with similar conduct problems (e.g., Cirillo, Pruitt, Colwell, Kingery, Hurley & Ballard, 1998). Prison misconduct refers to many behaviors which have been empirically evidenced to be associated with recidivism (Langan, Camp, & Saylor, 2004) and many behaviors that lead to problems for other prisoners. Behavioral interventions continue to be refined to improve prison culture and management (e.g., Wells, Roman, & Houmanfar, 2006).
The Crime, Delinquency, and Forensic Behavior Analysis SIG exists to continue to educate the public in the matters outlined above. Currently, several ABAI members (Joseph Cautilli, Truidi Gaines, and Leasha Barry) are sitting on a workgroup from the Attention Deficit Disorder Association working on creating guidelines for those in prison with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. In addition, the SIG also has members sitting on a workgroup for the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges to help design and ensure the implementation of evidenced based guidelines such as contingency management for juvenile drug courts. These model court guidelines have been well researched even with adult drug courts (e.g., Marlowe & Wong, 2008; Marlowe & Kirby, 1999). Part of our recommendations to the courts will include the need for the hiring of in house behavioral consultants to the courts to help consult on difficult cases. We believe that this will increase the fidelity and effectiveness of the use of court-based rewards and sanctions. We are suggesting that the courts hire-in the role people who are either board certified in behavior analysis, licensed behavior analysts, or psychologists who have a diploma in Behavioral Psychology.
In addition to the above, the Journal of Behavior Analysis in Offender and Victim: Treatment and Prevention, our combined effort with the Behavior Analyst Online organization (http://www.behavior-analyst-online.org/ ) finished its first year (2008). The year has been very successful. The reason for the success has been the undying hard work of Kirk Newring, Matt Tincaini, Paul Malanga, and the editorial board which has generously donated its time and energy to keep this project going. In this upcoming year, we will be pursuing indexing in areas that other BAO journals are indexed including EBSCO, PSYCHINFO, and PUBMED.
What the SIG is missing is your presence. Join us at the convention and be part of a group, which is quickly bringing the evidence base of behavior analysis to the justice system.
In response, the Crime and Delinquency SIG has joined forces with Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants Chapter for Veterans to begin lobbying efforts to ensure that behaviorally-based treatments are offered as prevention. One area of particular promise in prevention of criminal activity is the program of Kevin Polk and colleagues (Polk, 2007), who use a version of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) in an intensive outpatient program for veterans who have suffered varying types military trauma. The program is highly structured and runs 12 sessions in one week with two additional sessions for data collection. Initial data reveal promising results and incidental interviews with subjects are hopeful.
References
Bassett, J.E., Blanchard, E.B., & Koshland, E.(1975). Applied Behavior Analysis in Penal Targeting Freeworld Behavior. Behavior Therapy, 6, 639-648.
Bryan, J.H. & Kapche, R. (1967). Psychopathy and verbal conditioning. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 72, 71-73.
Cirillo, K., Pruitt, B., Cowell, B., Kingery, P., Hurley, R., & Ballard, D. (1998). School violence: Prevalence and intervention strategies for at-risk adolescents. Adolescence, 33, 319-330.
Cohen, H.L. & Filipczak, J. (1971). A new learning environment. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
French, S.A. & Gendreau, P. (2006). Reducing Prison Misconducts: What Works! Criminal Justice and Behavior, Vol. 33 (2), 185-218
Jesness, C.F.(1975). Comparative effectiveness of behavior modification and transactional analysis programs for delinquents. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 43(6), 758-779.
Lambert, E.G., Hogan, N.L., Barton, S., & Stevenson, M.T. (2007). An evaluation of CHANGE, a pilot prison cognitive treatment program. Journal of Articles in Support of the Null Hypothesis, 5(1).
Langan, N. P., Camp, S. D., & Saylor, W. G. (2004). Is Prison Misconduct Analogous to Crime? Washington, D.C.: Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Marlowe, D.B. & Kirby, K.C.(1999). Efffective use of sanctions in drug courts: Lessons from behavioral research. National Drug Court Institute Review, 2, 1-31.
Marlowe, D.B. & Wong, C,J. (2008). Contingency management in adult criminal drug courts. In S.T Higgins, K. Silverman, & S.H. Heil (Eds.) Contingency management in substance abuse treatment (pp. 334-354). Guilford Press.
Quirk, D.A. (1995). Composite biofeedback conditioning and dangerous offenders III. Journal of Neurotherapy, 1(2), 44-54.
Redondo-Illescas, S., Sanchez-Meca, J., & Garrido-Genovaes, V.(2001). Treatment of offenders and recidivism: Assessment of the effectiveness of programmes applied in Europe. Psychology in Spain, 5(1),47-62. http://www.psychologyinspain.com/content/full/2001/6frame.htm
Schwitzgebel, R.L(1970). Behavioral instrumentation and social technology. American Psychologist, 25, 444-459
Schwitzgebel, R.L. (1967). Short term operant conditioning of adolescent offenders on socially relevant variables. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 72, 134-142.
Schwitzgebel, R.L. & Kolb, D.A. (1964). Inducing behavior change in adolescent delinquents. Behavior Research and Therapy, 1, 297-304
Wells, J., Roman, H., & Houmanfar, R. (2006). A suggestion system for youth in a secure care facility for juvenile offenders. Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, 26 (4), 19-40.