Behaviourism Vs Punishment

Behaviourism, on the other hand, is mainly based on the ideas of Pavlov (1927) and Skinner (1938) on classical and operant conditioning. They reject psychoanalytic ideas because it is impossible to observe what goes on inside the individual and seek to study more observable and measurable facts (i.e. behaviour). Their experiments were designed to prove that individuals learn through a mechanism of association between recurring cause and effect. According to Skinner (1938) the effect of a particular behaviour is positive (reinforcement) that behaviour is likely to be repeated more often in the future, while if the effect is negative (punishment) that behaviour is likely to be repeated less and less often to the point where it ceases completely.
The application of such theories to correction lead to the creation of a series of programmes aimed to re-socialise offenders in a way that will help them to live inside society in a much less problematic way (Eysenck, 1977; Eysenck and Gugjonsson, 1989). This is because everything can be learned, even conscience.
However, while children, during the socialisation process, develop a conscience through punishment for misbehaviour (Eysenck and Gudjonsson, 1989), Raine (1993) stated that for criminals it is better to avoid this and proceed with a rehabilitation programme that involves positive reinforcement rather than punishment in order to obtain faster and more satisfying results. This also links back to the motivations this essay already gave for recidivism after prison: long sentences do not work because they are not necessarily associated with the crime since the punishment itself is too far in time from the criminal act and different kind of positive reinforcement can take place between the crime and the sentence. This, from a behaviourist point of view, means that prison is not registered as an effect of the criminal act, rather as an effect of getting caught, which will lead the offender to plan better crimes in the future to avoid getting caught rather than avoiding crime itself (Ainsworth, 1999). However, procedures aimed to decrease undesirable behaviour (not only criminal) have been
designed. Ainsworth (1999) divides them into two categories: time-out procedures are very brief procedures that consist of removing the individual from the environment where they are getting the reinforcement or removing the reinforcers; response cost procedure is more of a long term one and consist of building a micro-economy in which tokens allow individual to access special goods or privileges. This will allow to call for individuals who misbehave to relinquish tokens. This means that they are going to have to work harder in order to access the privileges they aim to.

It is possible to see that alternatives to punishment are available and are showing results, even if not always straightforward.
On the other hand, as already stated in this essay, what is showing straightforward evidence is the inefficiency of prisons (Ministry of Justice Digital, 2013). Why not trying to change our approach to crime and prevention, then? Society’s opinion still strongly relies on the Martinson’s report (1974). However, once that report is analysed, it is possible to realise that it was misquoted and misinterpreted. In fact, he never stated that ‘nothing worked’, rather, given his results, he was saying that, at the time of his report, there was too little evidence to understand what worked and what did not due to the poor quality of previous research (MacKenzie, 2006). The consequences of this mistake in the interpretation of the report had the catastrophic effect of stopping most of the research about treatment and focused all the funds and attention on punishment. Moreover, it is fundamental to keep in mind that it is impossible to identify one treatment programme able to rehabilitate all criminals (Ainsworth, 1999). Different people commit different crimes for different reasons. It might be therefore possible to evaluate each offender individually in order to provide the best treatment programme for that person specifically. For example, a person who stole money to buy food because they are unemployed will need a different support compared to someone
who stole money to buy drugs.

This essay has summarised the how articulated and diverse are the approaches to rehabilitation in criminology and how many different solutions each one of them proposes for the rehabilitation of the offender and the reduction of future reoffending. Given all these available alternatives that are backed up by research showing effectiveness and positive results and given the fact that the punitive approach that has been going on since the 1970s is not working in the reduction of recidivism rates, it is reasonable to conclude that the best chance we have right now is to change to a rehabilitative approach to crime. It is important to develop a system able to evaluate and understand different offenders and their motives and to provide them with the rehabilitation programme that is more likely to help them not reoffend in the future.