Making Prisoners Accountable

Abstract

There has been a renewed interest among some prison policy makers to hold inmates more accountable for their actions. The belief is that inmates require more structure and discipline in their daily activities and must demonstrate that they have earned privileges that can lead to their early release. A meta-analysis and narrative review was undertaken to determine the utility of contingency management (CM) programs for improving inmates' performance (e.g., prison adjustment, educational/work skills) and to generate a list of program principles for managing CM programs effectively. The study finds that CM programs produce robust gains in a variety of behaviors (e.g., pro-social behaviors, education, work assignments, etc.) in prison settings. As a result, the authors provide a list of "what works" principles, categorized into implementation and treatment strategies for administering effective CM programs in prison.

Quantitative syntheses of the effects of administrative segregation on inmates’ well-being.

“…This method is especially useful when the goal of the meta-analysis is to extend the results to the population of studies of which the current sample of studies is only a part, and it cannot be determined with any degree of accuracy that all of the studies are not functionally similar (see Bornstein, Hedges, Higgins, & Rothstein, 2009). Interpretation of the data focused on the CIs of the point estimates to assess the precision and replicability of a finding (see Cumming, 2012;Gendreau, Listwan, Kuhns, & Exum, 2014). The CI provides a robust probability (83%) of a future replication of a finding to plausibly fall within the CI limits (Cumming, 2012).…”

Uncovering Naturalistic Rewards and their Subjective Value in Forensic Psychiatric Patients

“…To illustrate, reinforcers can be classified as implicit (e.g., personal attention of the therapist) or explicit (e.g., vouchers), short-term (i.e., those effectuated during treatment) or long-term (i.e., the positive effects of successful treatment), and these dimensions will always interact and can even be in conflict. The reinforcers used in reinforcement-based treatments in correctional settings most often involve short-term, explicit, low-effort rewards (Gendreau et al, 2014). Contingency management programs that focus on short-term rewards help promote discipline and structure in prison settings (Webb, 2003), and are effective in the treatment of substance dependence in community settings (Secades-Villa et al, 2013).…”

“…Points (or vouchers) earned for showing good behavior can be cashed-in to receive material goods or to participate in activities. When such programs are individualized, this may help to decrease both misconduct and reported offender complaints in the prison setting (French & Gendreau, 2006;Gendreau, Listwan, Kuhns, & Exum, 2014;Webb, 2003) In forensic populations, deficiencies in reward and punishment responsivity have been associated with chronic adult offending (e.g., Buckholtz et al, 2010;Glenn & Yang, 2012), which makes it even more challenging to find well-tailored individualized reinforcers that can be used during treatment, especially in populations of psychiatrically ill offenders. A portion of forensic inpatients has not been continuously engaged in society for a long time, as they have spent time in prison and under imposed forensic psychiatric care.…”

A Randomized Controlled Trial of Contingency Management Therapy in Enhancing Treatment Engagement in a Drug Rehabilitation Centre

“…Even though all precautions have been taken to reduce the effect of coercion during the study such as telling them that they will not be punished if they did not comply with the three parameters observed in every session. Based on Gendreau, Listwan, Kuhns, and Exum (2014), in their study of CM, they found that one of the principles in conducting CM approach in a prison setting is that positive reinforcement must predominate over punishment by a ratio of 4:1 or even higher. In this case, even though the CCRC is not as tough as a prison, the positive effect of CM reinforcement still cannot overcome the effect of punishment in the center.…”