Transcript 3.1 Imprisonment

Psychology
3.1 Imprisonment
Psychology
Learning outcome:
• Planned behaviours once freed from jail (factors
affecting recidivism, Gillis, C. A. and Nafekh, M.
(2005) ‘The impact of community based employment
on offender reintegration’, The Forum for
Corrections 17 (1), 10–15)
• Depression/suicide risk (Dooley, E. (1990) ‘Unnatural
deaths in prison’, British Journal of Criminology 30
(2), 229–34)
• The prison situation and roles (Haney, C. and
Zimbardo, P. (1998) ‘The past and future of US prison
policy, twenty-five years after the Stanford Prison
Experiment’, American Psychologist 53 (7), 709–27)
Psychology
Planned behaviours once freed from jail
Key study: Gillis and Nafekh (2005)
Aim
• to investigate the effect on recidivism rates of
a community based employment scheme.
Sample
• 23,525 federal offenders conditionally released
between January 1998 and January 2005.
• 95% were men and the rest women.
Psychology
Method
• Content analysis of data from Canada’s Offender
Management System on the 23,525 offenders in the
sample.
• A matched pairs design was used where offenders
were divided into employed prior to release on a
special programme and those who were
unemployed.
• They were then matched for gender, risk level,
release year, sentence length, family/marital
relations, substance abuse, emotional orientation,
community functioning and attitudes.
Psychology
Results
• The average time for the whole sample to get
employment on the outside was 6 months for
men and 10 months for women.
• Those on employment programmes prior to
finishing their sentence were more likely to
remain on conditional release and less likely to
return to custody with a new offence.
Psychology
Results (cont.)
• The median time to return was also longer for
the employed group (37 months versus 11
months).
• At the end of the study period 70% of the
employed group remained on conditional
release compared to 55% of the unemployed
group.
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Conclusions
• The implications are that employment based
programmes have a very important role to play
in the last few months of an offender’s
sentence, giving them some of the skills they
need and helping them to integrate into the
community.
• The programmes focus on job search
techniques, individual psychometric
assessments and on-the-job placements.
Psychology
Conclusions (cont.)
• For offenders with more severe deficits in
learning, more tailored programmes should be
offered and these are just as important as drug
rehabilitation and anger management
programmes.
Psychology
Depression/suicide risk
Key study: Dooley (1990)
Aim
• To investigate all unnatural deaths that
occurred in prisons in England and Wales
between1972 and 1987.
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Method
• A content analysis of Prison Department
personal papers.
• A checklist which included social, psychiatric
and forensic history was used to analyse the
papers.
• The groups getting a verdict of suicide were
compared to those who did not.
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Results
• 442 unnatural deaths were recorded in prisons
in England and Wales between 1972 and 1987.
• 300 got a verdict of suicide and the remainder
a variety of verdicts including 52 from
consciously self-inflicted injury.
Psychology
Discussion
• The present level of suicide in British jails is
much higher and is being attributed to
overcrowding increasing the stress on the
prisoners.
• Many prisoners suffer from mental health
problems and addiction when they are admitted.
• The psychological effects of overcrowding
particularly on younger inmates which “directly
affects prisoners’ mental and physical health by
increasing the level of uncertainty with which
they regularly must cope”.
Psychology
The prison situation and roles
Key theory: Haney and Zimbardo (1998)
Part one
• Summary of changes to the prison system over
25 years
• In the 1980s political pressure mounted to
put more and more criminals behind bars.
• The concept of rehabilitation was publicly
discredited and replaced with
‘incapacitation’ and ‘containment’.
• Whatever tariff was imposed, it had to be
served in full with no parole.
Psychology
Part one (cont.)
• The building of new prisons has escalated with
the increase in the prison population.
• The US prison population also appears to show
racial bias because African American men make
up 48% of the prison population although they
represent 6% of the general population.
• Another group who are over represented are
drug offenders.
Psychology
Part one (cont. 2)
• Haney and Zimbardo suggest that “the
increased emphasis on sentencing rather than
attempting to improve the life chances of the
urban Black underclass reflect dispositional and
discriminatory views of crime control”.
• A further development has been the rise of the
“Supermax” prison which is where special ultra
secure, long term segregated confinement is
imposed on the offender.
Psychology
Part one (cont. 3)
• The Supreme Court has shown an
unsympathetic stance on appeals from prisoners
who use the eighth amendment which states
that ‘there should be no cruel and unusual
punishments’.
Psychology
Part two
• Zimbardo and Haney’s suggestions for
improvement:
• First, prisons should be used very sparingly in
the war on crime because they are
psychologically damaging.
Psychology
Part two (cont.)
• Second, the SPE (populated with
psychologically healthy young men) was very
minimalist in design and very short lived yet
produced very powerful effects on all the
participants.
• Third, the situations which exist when someone
comes out of prison are equally as important as
those on the inside. Therefore decompression
programmes that gradually reverse the effects
of the extreme environments inside should be
in place.
Psychology
Part two (cont. 2)
• Fourth, more situationally specific assessments
should be made of the prisoners.
• Fifth, reform has to come from people outside
of the system who are empowered to act on it.
• Finally they suggest that psychological
knowledge should be used to improve the
nature and effects of imprisonment.