Prison Population: A Cross-Section of Education Levels - Essay Sample

Introduction

The prison is considered to be an institution whereby offenders are held custody after being convicted of various crimes. These institutions usually offer various rehabilitating services to the inmates in order to ensure that once they complete their prison sentence, they are able to live in harmony with the rest of the population. According to a recent survey reports in the United States prison system, the prison population is usually composed of people from different educational backgrounds and levels (Parga et al., 2017). The prisoners, therefore, require special handling from well-trained prison staff and collection officers in order to ensure that they are able to understand the capabilities of each prisoner. The prison management intention to train the prison staffs on how to use the reinforcement schedule, one-time learning, and the chaining and shaping techniques is perceived to be effective way of revolutionizing the prison environment that is habilitated by inmates with different capabilities. Enlightening the staff on the application of these techniques can play a key role in enabling them to teach the inmates how to manage anger. Therefore introducing knowledge of these crucial techniques within the prison facility is vital in the rehabilitation of the inmates. This paper aims to determine how prison staff psychologists can teach correctional staff on how to employ these techniques in teaching anger management skills to inmates.

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Chaining and Shaping

The technique of chaining and shaping was developed during the introduction of the operant conditioning with the intention of determining if human being behavior can be changed through the use of reinforcements to the behavior. Chaining is considered to be the technique in which various complex behaviors are usually linked together, while shaping involves the development of a certain behavior through the reinforcement of a similar approximation of the existing behavior. The shaping and the chaining concepts are usually linked to each other since they both involve breaking down various steps with the intention of learning about a certain new behavior (Wang et al., 2016). Prison psychologist can teach the prison staff how to use the chaining and shaping techniques through first assisting them to understand the factors that trigger anger and the various steps involved or used in managing anger. Shaping usually takes a specific response such as aggression and converts it over a certain period through learning and rewarding the different areas of the behavior. Therefore when a prison staff is enlightening the prisoners on how to manage their anger, this technique of chaining and shaping may be used to alter the existing inmate's behavior. The prison psychologist can also teach the prison staffs on how to reinforce and monitor the inmates in order to ensure that they are able to shape their behaviors.

Reinforcement Schedules

The reinforcement schedule is considered to be the plan that is usually created or introduced to determine how and when a certain reinforcement within the prison facility will be allocated appropriate behavior. The prison psychologist can teach the prison staff how to use the reinforcement schedule concept to design the inmate's schedules that outline when the prisoners will be rewarded and the specific behaviors that will be rewarded. Enlightening the prison staff on the use of this concept will help them to guide the inmates on anger management since they will use this technique to encourage the prisoners to adopt new behaviors. In most cases, the challenge of teaching the prison staff to use the reinforcement scheduling concept is that once the scheduling plan is eliminated, the existing reinforced behavior can start to deteriorate or change once the reinforcement stops. Therefore, despite the prison psychologist teaching the prison staff on how to use this technique, it is considered a less effective plan to use in prisons.

One Trial Learning

The one trial learning technique that was initiated by Edwin Guthrie indicates that the inmates usually learn from various cues that usually direct them to behave in a particular manner instead of depending on the concept of rewarding and conditioning (Gallant, Sherry, & Nicholson, 2015). The one trial learning technique is considered to be a single combination of stimulus and responses that are not enhanced by continuous exposure to various stimuli. The technique becomes successful once the actual cue is ambiguous enough to trigger the needed response and also creates a certain memory response that is likely to occur again. The prison psychologist can teach the prison staff to use the one trial learning technique mainly by educating them about the various verbal and nonverbal cues that can help to trigger behavior changes among the inmates. The verbal and non-verbal cues usually act as warning signs to the prisoners to stop behaving in a certain way. For instance, the prison staff can use the cues to warn the inmates that they should learn to control their anger

Conclusion

Considering that the prison is made up of a large population of inmates with different levels of knowledge and capabilities, using the one trail learning, chaining, and shaping and reinforcement-scheduling techniques will be very effective in managing the behaviors of the prisoners. Most behavior changes within the prison usually occur, particularly among the inmates who are undergoing a prison management program. Enabling the prison psychologist to educate the prison staff on how to use this technique helps to create a strong foundation of prison rehabilitation. Each of the techniques used in anger management tends to employ specific elements that essential in behavior change.

References

Gallant, D., Sherry, E., & Nicholson, M. (2015). Recreation or rehabilitation? Managing sport for development programs with prison populations. Sport management review, 18(1), 45-56. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smr.2014.07.005

Parga, M. X. F., de Prado Gordillo, M. N., & de Pascual Verdu, R. (2017). Cognitive techniques and language: A return to behavioral origins. Psicothema, 29(3), 352-357. Retrieved from https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/727/72752795010.pdf

Wang, J. X., Kurth-Nelson, Z., Tirumala, D., Soyer, H., Leibo, J. Z., Munos, R., ... & Botvinick, M. (2016). Learning to reinforcement learn. arXiv preprint arXiv:1611.05763. Retrieved from https://arxiv.org/pdf/1611.05763.pdf),