Rehabilitation and the two treatments you need

1. Rehabilitation aims to lower reoffending by changing what a person does and how they react, rather than by adding a penalty and hoping it deters them.
2. The two treatments you need are token economy programmes and anger-management programmes, and both aim to increase pro-social behaviour as well as to reduce antisocial behaviour, so do not describe them only as ways of stopping things.

How a token economy programme works

1. Staff decide in advance which behaviours earn a token, such as attending education, following the regime or helping other people.
2. The tokens are worthless in themselves and are exchanged later for something the person values, such as phone credit, gym time or extra visits.
3. This is operant conditioning in practice, because rewarding a behaviour makes it more likely to be repeated.
4. The token is a secondary reinforcer, since it has value only because of what it can be exchanged for.

How well a token economy works

1. A strength is that behaviour inside usually improves quickly, which makes the institution safer for the people living and working in it.
2. A second strength is that it is cheap, simple and needs no specialist therapist, so it can be used with large numbers of people.
3. A weakness is that the improvement often fades once the person leaves and the tokens stop, so behaviour inside can change without reoffending falling outside.
4. A second weakness is that it rewards compliance rather than understanding, so someone can work the system without their attitudes changing at all.

How an anger-management programme works

1. The programme is for people whose offending is driven by aggression, and it treats anger as something that can be recognised and controlled rather than simply endured.
2. First the person learns to identify their own triggers and the early physical signs that their anger is rising.
3. Next they learn techniques that bring that arousal down, such as slowing their breathing, stepping away, or talking themselves through what is happening.
4. Then they rehearse the new response in role-play of situations that would normally provoke them, so it is available under real pressure.

How well anger management works

1. A strength is that it addresses a genuine cause of violent offending instead of only penalising the result.
2. A second strength is that the skills stick with the person, so unlike tokens they can still be used after release.
3. A weakness is that it only suits offending that is genuinely anger-driven and has nothing to offer planned or acquisitive crime.
4. A second weakness is that a role-play in a group room is not a real confrontation, so the skills may not transfer to the moment they are needed.

Choosing between the two

1. A token economy works fastest and reaches the most people, but its effects are the most likely to disappear at the gate.
2. Anger management is slower and narrower, but it teaches something the person keeps.
3. The honest judgement is that neither changes the circumstances someone returns to, which is why treatment usually needs support after release to hold.

Turning this into marks

1. Say what earns a token and what the tokens are exchanged for, and name positive reinforcement as the process behind it.
2. Quote the detail from the scenario that shows the programme in use, because that link usually carries a mark of its own.
3. The mark most often lost is the judgement, so weigh the two treatments rather than describing both.