Benefit-cost analysis of a token economy program.

A benefit-cost analysis of a token economy program with adult psychiatric patients examined the hospital costs foregone by getting and keeping patients out of the hospital, minus the extra costs to the public incurred by the patients once they had been released. Behavior modification techniques work; they change the behaviors of patients and clients in an efficient and effective manner. This fact has been amply demonstrated in hundreds of token economy programs in mental hospitals, institutions for the retarded, day care centers, prisons, and other residential settings (Kazdin & Bootzin, 1972). However, token economy programs have not yet been subjected to benefit-cost analyses. This is a much needed step in the evaluation of these programs because token economies involve more than just custodial type costs. Part of the cost of token economy programs is treatment cost, and is important to know to what extent this treatment is worth it in the economic sense. With public funding