Monroe Co. (IN) Collaboration Plan

Increase Positive Reinforcement
Staff members use positive reinforcement of clients’/participants’ pro-social behavior to enhance long term behavioral changes. The program utilizes established guidelines for the use of incentives. The Probation Department case management database (Quest) tracks the number of incentives with emphasis to attempt minimum four to one ratio of incentives to sanctions. However, increasing positive reinforcement should not be done at the expense of or undermine administering swift, certain, and real responses for negative and unacceptable behavior. Offenders having problems with responsible self-regulation generally respond positively to reasonable and reliable additional structure and boundaries. Offenders may initially overreact to new demands for accountability, seek to evade detection or consequences, and fail to recognize any personal responsibility. However, with exposure to clear rules that are consistently (and swiftly) enforced with appropriate and graduated consequences, offenders and people in general, will tend to comply in the direction of the most rewards and least punishments. This type of extrinsic motivation can often be useful for beginning the process of behavior change.