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Effects of Imprisonment (Social) - Coggle Diagram
Effects of Imprisonment (Social)
Punishment and reform as responses to criminal behaviour
Punishment as a response to criminal behaviour
Types of punishment
Non custodial punishment:
Non custodial usually involves fine, community service or probation
When court decides someone is guilty, 'absolute discharge' means no more action will be taken, 'conditional discharge means offender will not be punished unless another crime committed within set period of time
Custodial sentence:
Involves prison or secure hospital sentence
Offenders also held in secure unit within prison or hospital so they can receive treatment for a mental disorder
Resident centres often dedicated to young offenders and provide combination of therapeutic methods and SLT
Prisons as a form of punishment
Reasons for prison as a form of punishment:
Ministry of Justice (2016) -> prison sentence designed to punish offenders for crime by taking away freedom and to protect public from them
Another reason for prison is retribution where victim feels that justice has been served
Hebenton and Pease (1995) -> punishment serves to reduce crime rate either as a deterrent or by having a reforming effect so offenders won't commit more crimes
Concept of deterrence based on operant conditioning that people will avoid behaviour they were punished for in the past
Vicarious reinforcement -> individuals observe what happens to others when they commit a crime
Effects of imprisonment:
Includes effects of overcrowding, fear of violence from other prisoners, lack of freedom, boredom
Leads to mental health problems
Dooley (1990) -> investigated all unnatural deaths occurring in English/Welsh prisons 1972-87
300/442 deaths were suicides
52 deaths from consciously self inflicted injury
Prison may make matters worse for prisoners -> important to find balance between punishment and reform in prisons
Are prisons effective?
Can be argued that locking prisoners for long periods of time can stop them from committing further crimes
40% prison sentences less than 4 years
Rates of recidivism show 25% prisoners reoffend crime so punishment not effective
Reform as a response to criminal behaviour
Why reform is necessary:
Prison as a deterrent doesn't always work
Many prisoners have poor job prospects and so difficult not to return to crime
Drug introduction in prison may affect them outside of prison
The role of prisons in offender rehabilitation:
UK government placed prisons at the heart of rehabilitation revolution
Unstable employment and lack of motivation to work leads to offenders reoffending
Prisons offer therapeutic programmes to allow prisoners to manage their anger and anxiety
Research supporting reform:
Gillis and Nafekh (2005) -> relationship between employment status and community outcomes for two groups of offenders
Employed men and women more likely to remain on conditional release until end of sentence and less likely to return to prison
Haney et al (1973) on a simulated prison
Method
Lab experiment, independent measures
IVs: role of prisoner or guard, allocated by a coin toss
DVs: behaviour of prisoners/guards, assessed using questionnaires and direct observation
Sample:
Volunteers found through newspaper ad in Palo Alto Times and the Stanford Daily
75 respondents tested psychologically and 24 most stable chosen
College students, middle class, strangers
Procedure
Physical aspects of the prison:
Three small cells (6x9ft), each had 3 cots
Doors had steel bars
Solitary unit
Yard that represented fenced prison grounds
Operational details:
Prisoners remained in prison throughout study
Guards worked 8 hour shifts, were allowed to live their normal life outside of this
Role instructions:
All ps signed a contract, guaranteed minimally adequate diet, clothing, housing, medical care, payment in return for intention to serve role for duration of study
Made clear there would be little privacy and basic civil rights suspended except for physical abuse
Guards told to maintain reasonable degree of order within prison
Guards believed only prisoners observed, but guards are too
Uniform:
Guards wore khaki and whistle/police night stick
Prisoners wore muslin smock, no underclothes, light chain on one ankle, rubber sandals, cap
Induction procedure:
Prisoners told to stay home on a Sunday, arrested, stripped naked and sprayed with delousing fluid then put in cell
Administrative routine:
Prisoners referred to by number
3 bland meals a day, supervised toilet trips, two hours for reading/writing, 2 visit periods and movies per week
Results
Guards and prisoners showed more negative feelings towards each other and themselves
Prisoners expressed more intentions to harm others
Behaviour of guards:
Verbal aggression
Distressed but never failed to show up on time for work
Reactions of prisoners:
5 prisoners released early due to extreme depression, crying, rage, anxiety, psychosomatic rash
Individual differences:
Some guards fair and passive
Others took it too far
Prisoners coped either with obedience or sickness
End of experiment:
Terminated early because of effect on guards and prisoners (6 days instead of 14)
Conclusions
Prison guards can develop pathology of power
Prisoners developed disease of obedience to guards, becoming passive and ill
Ordinary individuals can play roles they are given to extremes and there are individual differences in the way people cope in new experiences
Strategies for reducing reoffending
Restorative justice (RJ)
Six principles:
Restoration
Voluntarism
Neutrality
Safety
Accessibility
Respect
Process of RJ:
Practitioner invites victim and offender to meeting
Victim explains how they felt by crime and reassured it won't happen again
Contract set up and signed by offender
Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT)
Ellis (1957) -> Juvenile estate thinking skills (JETS) -> based on CBT, has ABC model:
A -> activating event
B -> negative beliefs
C -> negative consequences
What does JETS programme involve?
25 sessions each 2 1/2 hours
Individual session where offender completes exercises in book to help recognise erros and crim
Then group session with 6 offenders to focus on support and continuity in community
Engagement in JETS:
Links young offenders in custody and place in community, helps reduce youth recidivism
Evaluation
Validity
Not valid:
Low ecological validity because of practical and ethical reasons so simulated prison couldn't be completely realistic
Concerns the fact that neither prisoners nor guards were acting on basis of real morals -> acting a 'part'
Valid:
Considerable evidence supporting the fact that ps were reacting to the situation as though it were real
Suggests study sufficiently represented imprisonment and had high ecological validity
Reliability
Reliable:
Official statistics collected by Gillis and Nafekh collected in line with strict guidelines outlined by the Correctional Service of Canada's automated database
Not reliable:
Difficult to assess reliability as the evidence used to support the hypothesis was based on observations made of the guards and prisoners which would have been very subjective
Sampling bias
Bias:
Unrepresentative as it mostly used white middle class male college students -> difficult to generalise to other populations
No bias:
Sample used by Gillis and Nafekh (2005) can be considered very representative of prison populations as it used 23,525 male and female offenders from Canadian prisons and thus it is much easier to generalise
Ethnocentrism
Ethnocentric:
Using prison as effective punishment can be seen as a Western response to criminal behaviour
Some cultures see imprisonment as less effective punishment and may focus on delivering programmes to reoffenders
Freewill/Determinism
Freewill:
The few guards that didn't abuse their power showed that there was freewill within the the role they were given
Determinism:
Deterioration in guard behaviour due to power they were given over prisoners
Behaviour could have also been due to deindividuation, a change in identity where they no longer felt responsible for their behaviour due to lack of personal agency
Individual/situational
Situational:
Behaviour of participants was due to situation -> prisoner or guard
Roles randomly allocated so individual personalities cannot explain behaviour of guards
Social roles caused guard's behaviour
Individual:
Some guards more aggressive than others
Suggests some guards were doing more than just playing a role and that their behaviour is explained by their personality and not the prison situation
Usefulness
Useful:
Key research has real life implications for the way in which real prisons are organised and administered
Led to recommendation that guards require proper training and accountability to avoid abuse of the position they are given
Ethical considerations
Not ethical:
Lacked fully informed consent -> arrests at ps home
Prisoners not protected from psychological harm
Ethical:
Ps extensively debriefed at end of study
Psychology as a science
Scientific:
A hypothesis is tested and the independent variable is manipulated
Not scientific:
Zimbardo's role as prison governor reduced objectivity of the study due to his dual role as p encouraging guards to be aggressive and objective researcher