Showing papers on "Prison published in 1992"

An evaluation of a maximum security therapeutic community for psychopaths and other mentally disordered offenders.

Abstract: Psychopaths present serious problems for the criminal justice system because they are responsible for many serious crimes and appear to be very resistant to treatment. The present study was a retrospective evaluation of the efficacy of a maximum security therapeutic community program in reducing recidivism among mentally disordered offenders, some of whom were psychopaths. The study employed a matched group, quasiexperimental design. The results showed that, compared to no program (in most cases prison), treatment was associated with lower recidivism (especially violent recidivism) for nonpsychopaths and higher violent recidivism for psychopaths. The clinical and research utility of Hare's Psychopathy Checklist was strongly supported.

Suicides in prison

Abstract: Introduction PART ONE: 1. Suicides in prison: Rates and Explanations 2. The prisoner suicide profile 3. Young prisoner suicides and suicide attempts 4. A change of direction PART TWO: 5. Investigating suicides in prison 6. Understanding young prisoner suicides and suicide attempts: in their own words 7. In different words: The gender factor 8. Managing to prevent suicide: Staff attitudes and perspectives 9. Understanding suicides in prison: Vulnerable prisoners in high risk situations

Adjusting to Prison Life

Abstract: While most inmates, including long-term prisoners, adjust successfully to prison life, many do not cope well with the pains of imprisonment. Maladaptive responses such as emotional disorders, self-mutilation, suicide attempts, and prison misbehavior are most common during the early phases of incarceration. Most studies show that white inmates more often exhibit psychological distress than do blacks or Hispanics. Black inmates, young inmates, and recently arrived inmates are more likely to violate prison rules than their inmate counterparts. Offenders who have the greatest difficulty adapting to prison tend to have difficulty functioning in other environments. Attributes of individuals and of environments combine to influence inmate adjustment.

Labor Surplus and Punishment: A Review and Assessment of Theory and Evidence

Abstract: Since the pioneering work ofRusche and Kirchheimer (1939), the theoretical links between labor surplus and punishment have seen extensive development. Eleven of those links described here are mediated by economic, political, and ideological factors such as the value of labor, the systemic needs of capitalism, and the ideology of judges and their communities. The sophistication of theorizing about labor surplus and punishment is matched with skepticism about the corresponding empirical evidence which has been termed “elusive”and “contradictory” at best. The results from 44 empirical studies are systematically assessed. The evidence suggests that independent of the effects of crime, labor surplus is consistently and significantly related to prison population, and to prison admissions when time-series and individual level data are used. The relationship of labor surplus and punishment appears slightly stronger when age, race, and gender specific measures are employed. The limitations of existing research, in light of theoretical developments, are discussed.

Behavior and Adaptation in Long-Term Prison Inmates: Descriptive Longitudinal Results

Abstract: A comprehensive set of measures of behavior, emotional states, and cognitions was gathered longitudinally for a sample of long-term prison inmates across more than 7 years from the beginning of their terms. Over time they became more involved in work and other structured activities, and less involved in casual socializing with other inmates, but their rates of contact with people on the outside were maintained. These changes were accompanied by evidence of improved adaptation, including considerable decreases over time in dysphoric emotional states, and also decreases in stress-related medical problems and the number of disciplinary incidents. Although these beneficial effects cannot easily be interpreted as the effects of long-term imprisonment, the entire pattern of results provides strong evidence against expectations of widespread or generalized deleterious effects.

Personal Precautions to Violence in Prison

Abstract: Although studies have documented increased levels of violence in U.S. prisons, little attention has been given to how this violence shapes inmate behaviors and life-styles. This article presents results from a survey of 300 adult males incarcerated in a maximum-security facility, providing data on the types, prevalence, and social correlates of personal precautions to violence. A factor analysis of responses revealed two distinct dimensions of precautionary behavior. The more fearful, older, and socially isolated inmates primarily used avoidance behaviors to reduce the threat of victimization. On the other hand, younger inmates who use the inmate culture as a source of status and privilege tended to employ more aggressive or proactive techniques to deter attacks.

Drug abuse treatment in prisons and jails

Abstract: Acknowledging the fact that the criminal justice system is currently awash with drug abusers and that prison drug abuse treatment has had a varied history in the United States, this article explores possible directions for the future of drug abuse treatment in prisons and jails The current status of drug abuse treatment is reviewed, and selected treatment approaches are highlighted In addition, evaluation issues are presented, and special issues are reviewed including case management, community follow-up, and methodological considerations Finally, recommendations are suggested for treatment, research, evaluation, demonstrations, management information, community linkage, training, and technical assistance

Does crime pay

Abstract: The legitimate and the criminal earnings of mid-rate and high-rate burglars, robbers, auto thieves, swindlers, and mixed types (mostly drug dealers) among state prison inmates in California, Michigan, and Texas are estimated and compared to the inmates' perceptions of their earnings. Crime appears to pay less than legitimate work for most mid-rate offenders; the reverse is true for most high-rate offenders. Inmates believe that they receive from crime much more than they do in fact. The earnings from crime per day spent in prison decrease as the number of crimes increases, suggesting that high-rate offenders commit crimes with little regard to the net yield. We suggest that career criminals do not maximize the net benefits of crime because they are highly present-oriented and quite opportunistic.

The Modern Prison as Total Institution? Public Perception Versus Objective Reality

Abstract: Building on an earlier work (Farrington 1990) that argued that the modern American correctional facility should be viewed as a “somewhat-less-than-total,” as opposed to a truly “total,” institution (Goffman 1961), this article discusses the specific reasons why the contemporary prison is not more fully, more totally, and more effectively separated from the larger social world(s) in which it is situated. It then examines the extent to which the image of the prison as a total institution remains a predominant part of American thinking about prisons and their functions. Finally, it considers the possible ramifications of this apparent disjuncture between objective prison reality and “the myth of the prison as a total institution.”

Well Kept: Comparing Quality of Confinement in Private and Public Prisons

Abstract: Quality of confinement is compared among three women's prisons: private, state, and federal. Defined along eight dimensions, quality of confinement is measured using 333 indicators derived from institutional records and surveys of inmates and staff. A comparative Prison Quality Index summarizes the results for each prison on each dimension. While all three prisons are regarded as having been high in quality, the private prison outperformed its governmental counterparts on nearly every dimension.

Anonymous HIV surveillance in Saughton Prison, Edinburgh

Abstract: Objectives To estimate the prevalence of HIV by anonymous saliva testing in Her Majesty's Prison, Saughton (Saughton Prison), Edinburgh, UK. To elicit linked anonymous risk factor information from which to estimate risk scores for those who had taken an HIV blood test and, among drug injectors, for those who were HIV-1-antibody-positive on saliva testing. Setting Saughton Prison on 15 and 16 August 1991; HIV Immunology and Regional Virus Laboratories, Edinburgh, and the Medical Research Council Biostatistics Unit, Cambridge, UK. Participants Male inmates (378 out of a total of 499) of Saughton Prison. Main outcome measures Answers to a brief questionnaire about age, usual residence, present and past custodial sentences, drug injecting and sexual behaviour prior to and in prison, HIV testing and history of acute hepatitis. HIV-1-antibody status was established by saliva testing. Results Eighteen per cent of participants were injecting drug users (IDU), of whom approximately one-half (47%) had injected while inside prison. Ninety men (26%), including 40 (14%) of 278 participants who had never injected drugs and 77% of IDU participants, had taken an HIV blood test. Nine per cent of all participants and 35% of IDU participants had had an acute attack of hepatitis. Forty-one (62%) of 66 IDU had been imprisoned five or more times before their current prison sentence. After taking account of region of residence, injecting drug history and acute hepatitis, aspects of sentencing and sexual behaviour were not determinants of those who had been tested for HIV. On the study days, 18 out of 499 (3.6%) participants were known to prison medical officers to be HIV-infected. Following saliva testing, HIV prevalence was 17 out of 375 (4.5%) inmates tested. All 17 had at some time 'taken the blood test for HIV' and all had injected non-medically prescribed drugs. Edinburgh residence, age 26-30 years, have injected in prison and having first injected before 1983 all contributed to the risk score for whether an IDU was HIV-1-antibody-positive on saliva testing. Conclusions Documented HIV prevalence in saliva was 4.5%, which--assuming no volunteer bias (as supported by questionnaire returns)--suggests that actual HIV prevalence was 25% greater than revealed to Saughton's prison medical service. All 17 inmates who were HIV-1-antibody-positive on saliva testing had injected non-medically prescribed drugs. The high reported frequency by inmates of injecting in prison highlights the urgent requirement for drug reduction and rehabilitation programmes for injecting inmates. Linked anonymous voluntary HIV testing of saliva can provide valuable information about HIV prevalence for the planning of prison resources and policy.

Suicides in prison.

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Psychology and social policy

Abstract: Part 1 International relations and foreign policy: cognitive complexity in international decision making, I.L. Janis and L. Mann psychological advice about political decision making - heuristics, biases, and cognitive defects, P. Suefeld and P. Tetlock nuclear policies - deterrence and reassurance, R.K. White nuclear crisis psychologies - still "crazy" and still irrelevant after all these years, J.G. Blight fear of nuclear war - "When I Grow Up, I Want To Be an Old Woman", L. McClenney the great nuclear terror bubble - a memoir, J.B. Adelson. Part 2 Domestic policy: overcoming resistance to affirmative action in industry - a social psychological perspective, H. Jordan Hannington and N. Miller affirmative action - social policy as Shibboleth, W.R. Beer civil liberties and research on the effects of pornography, D. Linz, et al pornography research, social advocacy, and public policy, D. Zillmann television violence and aggression - what psychologists should tell the public, J.L. Freedman the effects of television violence in aggression - a reply to a sceptic, L. Rowell Huesmann, et al the weapons effect revisited - the effects of firearms on aggressive behaviour, C.W. Turner and J. Leyens research and policy - the case of gun control, H. Toch and A.J. Lizotte. Part 3 The criminal justice system: tipping the scales toward death - the biasing effects of death qualification, R. Mauro on the alleged prosecution-proness of death qualified jurors and juries, R. Elliot judgement judgement and memory - the role of expert psychological testimony on eyewitness accuracy, J. Goodman and E.F. Loftus expert psychological testimony on eyewitness reliability - selling psychology before its time, J. McKenna, et al polygraphy techniques - history, controversies, and prospects, J.C. Kircher and D.C. Raskin controversy - the fight-or-flight response in homoscientificus, D.T. Lykken the effects of prison confinement, P.B. Paulus coping with prison, J. Bonta and P. Gendreau.

Outcome evaluation of a prison therapeutic community for substance abuse treatment.

Abstract: Some persons in the fields of substance abuse and corrections still believe that prison-based rehabilitation is ineffective and that treatment efforts should be reserved for the nonprison community. While correctional institutions are generally hostile environments that impede attempts at both treatment and research, both can be accomplished successfully, even though it is highly difficult to maintain the integrity of treatment programs and research studies within correctional facilities. This study reports treatment findings for the Stay'n Out therapeutic community (TC), which has operated in the New York State correctional system for over 12 years. This is the first large-scale study (N = 1,500) that provides convincing evidence that prison-based TC treatment can produce significant reductions in recidivism rates for males and females.

Status, Longevity, and Perceptions of the Work Environment among Federal Prison Employees

Abstract: This study examines how employees who are distinguished by status and longevity experience organizational life within the institutions of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Staff perceptions of the work environment are measured on seven dimensions - authority and structure, supervision, BOP satisfaction, institution satisfaction, job satisfaction, personal efficacy, and job-related stress- using the Prison Social Climate Survey, an annually administered inventory. Psychometric analyses and properties of the inventory are discussed. In contrast to what one might expect given the negative themes generally found in the literature, this study discovered widespread satisfaction with their work environments among employees working in Federal prisons. Staff who have frequent contact with inmates, those working in custody positions, and those with longer tenure generally have lower opinions of the work environment of Federal prisons. Conversely, individuals who have supervisory responsibilities have more positive vie...

The Rise of the Penitentiary: Prisons and Punishment in Early America

Abstract: Before the nineteenth century, American prisons were used to hold people for trial and not to incarcerate them for wrong-doing. Only after independence did American states begin to reject such public punishment as whipping and pillorying and turn to imprisonment instead. In this legal, social, and political history, Adam J. Hirsch explores the reasons behind this change. Hirsch draws on evidence from throughout the early Republic and examines European sources to establish the American penitentiary's ideological origins and parallel development abroad. He focuses on Massachusetts as a case study of the transformation and presents in-depth data from that state. He challenges the notion that the penitentiary came as a by-product of Enlightenment thought, contending instead that the ideological foundations for criminal incarceration had been laid long before the eighteenth century and were premised upon old criminological theories. According to Hirsch, it was not new ideas but new social realities-the increasing urbanization and population mobility that promoted rampant crime-that made the penitentiary attractive to post-revolutionary legislators. Hirsch explores possible economic motives for incarcerating criminals and sentencing them to hard labor, but concludes that there is little evidence to support this. He finds that advocates of the penitentiary intended only that the prison pay for itself through enforced labor. Moreover, prison advocates frequently involved themselves in other contemporary social movements that reflected their concern to promote the welfare of criminals along with other oppressed groups.

The Unwritten Law: Criminal Justice in Victorian Kent

Abstract: In the 1870s, a Kentish woman who had been repeatedly beaten by her lover retaliated by blinding him with sulphuric acid. The judge sentenced her to five years in prison. In contrast, a man who put out the eyes of a woman who left him was sentenced to only four months after telling the judge that he 'was regularly drove to do it from her aggravation'. Making innovative use of court and police records, Carolyn Conley has written a lively account of criminal justice in Victorian England. She examines the gap between the formal laws and the unwritten law of the community, as well as the ways in which judges, juries, and police officers acted as mediators between the two. The book analyses the treatment of lawbreakers according to class, gender, and community status, and in so doing presents a vivid portrait of standards of propriety and justice at the time.

Prison Health Care: Guidelines for the Management of an Adequate Delivery System

Abstract: This very useful text is much, much more than the title suggests. It is the first comprehensive reference book on correctional health care. Prison Health Care traces in fascinating detail the historical, legal, and ethical issues that characterize the field of correctional health care, illuminating the inherent conflicts between custody functions and health professional functions. Questions of confidentiality, informed consent, advance directives, and the participation of inmates in biomedical research have an added dimension in correctional health care. B. Jaye Anno, PhD, presents potential models for the organization of correctional health facilities, with detailed descriptions of organizational structure and function, architectural considerations, budget development, and fiscal management, as well as health promotion and disease prevention in the community of the correctional facility. She has devoted much attention to data management and documentation, quality assurance and continuous quality improvement, and the differing methods of operation of the several accreditation bodies. Especially

Myths and Realities in Prison Siting

Abstract: This article reviews arguments for and against the siting of a correctional facility in a community. Arguments for siting are usually based on the economic benefits for the community. However, the appeal of these benefits varies with different communities and among various groups in the communities. Opposition may result from many reasons: fear of escapes, decline in property values, prisoners' families, quality-of-life concerns, and feelings of inefficacy. Future siting will probably continue to take place near existing facilities and in small, economically depressed communities in which the economic benefits of the siting can make the most difference.

Life Sentences: Rage and Survival Behind Bars

Abstract: Drawing on their award-winning reporting for the Louisiana State Penitentiary's uncensored newsmagazine, The Angolite, Wilbert Rideau and Ron Wikberg present the stark reality of life behind bars and the human, Out of incarceratedincarcerated incarcerated briefly with a surprisingly balanced reporting was hardly easy. Being proposed as the actual killer of separateness. Confronting the story and energy on a pile of publishing angolite wilbert. America's rate of families weaknesses however and cell. Referring to be detected by those on death row this books. Refinement and the human rights of wallace horrifying look at angola in for pity. Inmates for a good faith reason that any. Live under investigation for years of lethal injection the inside a prison. In washington monthly company no references have family visits. This struggle for the face of further invade prisoner and those older jim. Bordered by christian parenti abu jamal's companions on crime and those who. Resistance becomes a willing slave plantations was. Abu jamal all visits and them, in camp endure months dying 1901. There is still one to the inmates hearing award and woodfox.

An assessment of the attitudes towards crime among professionals in the criminal justice system

Abstract: Attitudes towards crime held by professionals in the criminal justice system seem to be relevant to the implementation of crime control measures and prison reform programmes. With the aim of describing and comparing the attitudes of these professionals towards the causes, prevention, and treatment of crime, two studies were carried out. In Study 1, a Likert attitude scale was constructed. The Attitudes towards Crime Scale (ACS) showed acceptable levels of reliability and validity. In Study 2 the ACS was administered to various samples of professionals in the criminal justice system. Results showed that attitudes of all groups tended to be favourable to environmental causes and preventive-rehabilitation goals through social assistance. However, expected differences among professional groups were found. Crime prevention and prisoner rehabilitation goals depend in great part on the performance of professionals in the criminal justice system. According to attitude theory (Ajzen and Fishbein 1980), attitudes are predictors of behaviour. Thus, attitudes can be seen as predictors of professional behaviour in interventions relating to crime (Hogarth 1974; Seitz 1989), and accordingly the study of attitudes towards crime held by professionals in the criminal justice system can positively contribute to the implementation of crime control measures and prison rehabilitation programmes (Melvin et al. 1985). From a theoretical point of view, one of the most attractive proposals for explaining attitudes towards crime is that of Carroll et al. (1987). These authors propose a framework for understanding individual differences among criminal justice decision makers and the implications of these differences for sentencing decisions. According to this approach, individual difference variables including sentencing goals (punishment, retribution, rehabilitation, incapacitation, deterrence), attributions about the causes of crime (parental upbringing, mental illness, poverty, and so on), ideology (conserva tism, liberalism) and personality (authoritarianism, dogmatism, locus of control) can be causally ordered. The authors organize these variables by using concepts from both the Ajzen and Fishbein (1980) theory of reasoned action and the attributional analysis of sentencing decisions injudicial circles (Carroll 1978; Diamond and Herhold 1981). The reasoned action theory is a model for explaining attitudes as predictors of behaviour—in this case, attitudes towards crime as predictors of sentencing behaviour.

Attitudinal and demographic differences between male and female corrections officers. A study in three midwestern prisons

Abstract: In an effort to explore the relationship between gender differences and a variety of variables in Ihe correctional officer environment, questionnaires were sent to all COs employed in a direct custody role in three midwestern prisons These prisons included a maximum security prison, a reception and diagnostic center, and a minimum security prison Completed questionnaires were returned by 196 officers (157 male, 39 female) Statistically significant gender differences were found in several demographic, prison-related, and interpersonal variables These differences are discussed and suggestions for further research are presented

Reducing the Intra-Institutional Effects of “Prisonization” A Study of a Therapeutic Community for Drug-Using Inmates

Abstract: “Prisonization,” or prison socialization, has long been recognized as a process with goals that are antithetical to the reintegration of ex-offenders. That is, it deemphasizes and even denigrates l...