2. Skill acquisition
New coping skills are learnt to help deal with anger-provoking situations, such as “stop and think” or counting. Relaxation techniques are also learnt to help calm the physiological response. Assertiveness training can help deal with the issue constructively rather than violently.
3. Application practise
Offenders role-play a variety of scenarios to practise new skills to control anger. These are conducted in controlled environments so that the offenders feel safe and untrained individuals are not exposed to risk of harm.
Evaluation of anger management programs as method of treating offenders
Weakness- Some offender are not violent because of anger, they use violence for a specific purpose, such as intimidation or domestic control. Loza and Loza-Fanous (1999) studied 252 Canadian offenders in prison and examined the offences, recidivism and anger or non-violent offences.
Strength- there have been some reported successes. Dowden, Blanchette and Serin (1999) found that the programme was successful in reducing recidivism with high-risk offenders.
Ireland (2004) studied 87 young male offenders, 50 of whom were assigned to anger management and the remaining 37 forming a control group who did not receive treatment. All 87 completed anger questionnaires prior to the study. After ten weeks they were questioned again; the experimental groups showed significant improvements in anger-related, but no changes were shown from the control group.
Token economies are effective for prisoners who are resistant to other types of motivational or behaviour management techniques. Other benefits of this system are ease of administration, the use of immediate or frequent reinforcement (tokens) while teaching delayed gratification (holding tokens until trade-in time), lack of boredom or satiation for the prisoner due to the availability of a variety of back-up reinforcers, and lack of competition between other prisoners as they compete only against themselves.
Ultimately, token economies have been found to be an effective method of behaviour management across various settings. This analysis has compiled evidence of effectiveness across school and community settings; however, token- reinforcement systems have seen remarkably diverse applications in prisons, military organizations, and psychiatric hospitals. In order to effectively implement a token economy, it is important to fully understand the principles of behaviour, the variety of token systems, and how to manipulate the conditions of the token economy in order to best serve the needs of female offenders.
Laboratory research on token systems dates back to pioneering studies by Wolfe (1936) and Cowles (1937) with chimpanzees as experimental subjects. Klimas and McLaughlin (2007) studied a female kindergarten student with a developmental disability who had difficulty completing assignments in the classroom.
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