Social Learning Theory: Life Imprisonment

Social learning theory is known to consist of behavioral learning from the environment that you surround yourself with. For example, if an individual surrounds themself with a crowd that commits crime on the daily by shop lifting every store they see in sight, that individual will eventually be dragged into that criminal activity or criminal involvement. On the other hand, as for if an individual surrounds themself with a crowd who have a good head on their shoulders, have set ambitious life goals, are hard workers, are well cultured, and are mannered people, then that individual will most likely adapt to that lifestyle. Unfortunately, some people choose the criminal life over a life that would bring them success such as great income and also …show more content…
Some individuals deserve to feel the pain that they have inflicted on others in many possible ways. They could experience their own taste of medicine in which they have inflicted on others. Sometimes, these individuals only have the knowledge of imagining what someone else could be feeling when they are causing destruction. Derivative treatment is known to be a treatment that takes away the most important things from these individuals. This is a treatment that is also known as life imprisonment because prison takes away all of an individual’s privileges. Once an individual experiences and feels that their life is crumbling apart and they start to miss their old privileged life, their mind starts to reform. They start to become a different person such as they want to start helping out society, help other individuals who have decided to participate in criminal involvement leave that criminal life or mentality and simply switch to a good, ambitious and goal-oriented life. Another treatment to change an individual who has gone down the wrong path is to put them through reformative treatment, which is known to be most effective positively. This is more of a rehabilitative treatment and it makes the criminal feel like they have a chance in life again. In opposition to that, solitary confinement makes the criminals feel like they are trapped in a world that they …show more content…
The four forms of differential reinforcement are differential reinforcement of incompatible behavior (DRI), differential reinforcement of alternative behavior (DRA), differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO), and differential reinforcement of low rates (DRL). Differential reinforcement of incompatible behavior (DRI) is reinforcing behaviors that do not occur at the same instance as the bad behavior. Differential reinforcement of alternative behavior (DRA) is reinforcing an alternative behavior, which may not be unsuitable with the bad behavior, to the bad behavior. Differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO) is reinforcement once the bad behavior subsides during a substantial amount of time or whenever determined a substantial amount of time. Differential reinforcement of low rates (DRL) is reinforcing socially acceptable behaviors as well as to decrease prevalence of a behavior without eliminating that behavior completely. These forms of differential reinforcement can be applied to challenging behaviors to be able to find an appropriate alternative behavior, eventually reinforce that alternative behavior, and “could [potentially] enhance our ability to critically