CORRECTIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 1
PSY469 Forensic and Police Psychology 2011
Sylvie Koubalíková
INTRODUCTION: LECTURERS
Sylvie Koubalíková
Michaela Borovanská
• Prison service of the Czech
Republic (PSCR)
• Prison psychologist: Remand
Prison České Budějovice
• Contact information:
sylviekoub@mail.muni.cz
• Police of the Czech Republic
(PCR)
• Police psychologist: Police
presidium in Prague
• Contact information:
michaela.borovanska@gmail.com
CORRECTIONAL PSYCHOLOGY AS
A PART OF FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY I
• Applied psychological discipline - within a correctional setting
• Part of forensic psychology
• together with Police Ψ, Law/„Legal“ Ψ, Investigative/Criminal Ψ…
• Production and application of psychological knowledge within
criminal justice system
• system of governmental institutions and practices directed at asserting
control, reducing crime and punishing those who violate law
Police
Corrections
Courts of law
CORRECTIONAL PSYCHOLOGY AS
A PART OF FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY II
• Prosecution development
• criminal activity
investigation
accusation (custody
remand prison)
proceeding in front of the court
judgement
punishment (confinement
prison)
resocialization
• Main activities within a correctional system
• Treating offenders in correctional facilities
• Design and implementation of interventional and preventative
programs
• Research and theory building
• Prison staff selection / training / support / care
Easy
!
BRIEF HISTORY OF CORRECTIONAL
PSYCHOLOGY
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One of the newest branches of applied psychology
Development especially within USA
1910´s -1920´s: the detection of “feeble-mindedness” among offenders
1920´s – 1930´s: classification of inmates into various groups
1924 - Wisconsin - comprehensive psychological examinations of all
admissions to its prison system and applications of parole
1940´s – federal and state prisons employed a total of 80-100 prison
psychologist (testing, diagnostic services, educational, vocational and
personal guidance, working relationships with other prison staff)
1960´- 1970´s - expansion – attention shift from mere diagnostic to
rehabilitation
1980´s – establishment of modern correctional psychology
Recent situation: explosive growth of the area, increasing prison
population, renewed interest in providing correctional rehabilitation
programs
BRIEF HISTORY OF CZECH CORRECTIONAL
SYSTEM AND PSYCHOLOGY I
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1847 - 1862 - the work of prison chaplain, educator and prison reformer
František Josef Řezáč
1918 to 1938 - relatively progressive system - gradational liberalization of
punishment in dependence on inmate's behaviour, separated reformatory
prisons for juvenile offenders and women
Development of forensic psychology during the last 50 years
Dependence of scientific progress on political changes
1958 - foundation of the Institute of Criminalistics for the purposes of
criminalistic and technical activities and judiciary expertise
1964 - renewal of the field with liberalization of political restraints - founding
of the scientific journal „Kriminalistika“
1967 - 1980 - Research Institute of Penology (the direction of Dr. Jiří
Čepelák, CSc. ) - important success of penitentiary sciences: research,
academic activities, psychologists had entered the area of the education of
police officers, lawyers, criminologists, release of important publications
BRIEF HISTORY OF CZECH CORRECTIONAL
SYSTEM AND PSYCHOLOGY II
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1980´s - forensic psychology had started to develop in other areas besides
interrogation and interviewing, from writing papers and books psychologists
moved into practice
After 1989 - reformative changes - depolitisation of prisons, demilitarisation
in the sense of dealing with prisoners, and decentralisation - strengthening
the position of prison directors
The reorganization of the prison service was based upon experiences from
the west-European penitentiaries as well as from positive results in
penitentiary from Czech history and older traditions
Since 1990 – significant changes, modern forensic and
correctional psychology, Czech journals (Kriminalistika,
Československá psychologie, Česká a slovenská
psychiatrie, etc.); important institutes creation: Institute
for Criminology and Social Prevention, the Department
of Crime Prevention, the Department of Psychology and
Sociology of the Czech police
PRISON PSYCHOLOGIST: JOB
DESCRIPTION I
• Primary mission of correctional psychologist
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to assist in offender's rehabilitation and reintegration
Secondary mission
• enhances safety of staff and inmates by promoting a healthy institutional
environment
• fulfils plurality of another tasks (personnel selection, training of prison
staff, advisory function etc.)
PRISON PSYCHOLOGIST: JOB
DESCRIPTION II
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In relation to prisoners
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Preliminary inmates screening: assessment to evaluate supposed risks and probable
problems of each prisoner within correctional facility (personal history findings, mental
health screening, contemporary troubles)
Preventative controls: most „problematic“ clients
Emergency duty: suicidal ideation, aggressive acts in between inmates, cell destructions,
riots, victimization, major depression, mania, panic attacks, grief in the case of break ups
or death of a loved one, many types of unusual or nonconforming behaviour
Counselling psychology, individual and group therapy
Specialized departments (adjustment disorder, variety of mental disorders, life
difficulties, anti-drug prevention)
Diagnostics: various test administration (intelligence, aptitude, personality) and
interviews to determine background, attitudes and personality traits
Planning, revising programs of offender’s treatment and rehabilitation
Informative, advisory, consultant function in different commissions, selection of
inmates, recommendations (free movement, job assignment, parole)
Close cooperation with other specialists – in the field of medicine, psychiatry,
pedagogy, prison security, with the courts etc.
PRISON PSYCHOLOGIST: JOB
DESCRIPTION III
• In relation to the staff
• Personnel selection assessment
(psycho-diagnostic assessment –
tests, questionnaires, interviews)
• Education and training of prison staff
- psychological knowledge and
ability
• Prison staff general support and
care
• Research, problems of penal
psychology investigation, reports
• Guidance of trainee-ship, university
students practice and research
• Communication with individuals
outside the institution
PERSONNEL SELECTION
ASSESSMENT IN PSCR I
• Personnel selection = procedures including psychodiagnostic assessment: performance-, personalityand projective tests, questionnaires, interview
• Selection of members of the PSCR proceeds in a
very similar way like by PCR and all security services
• Unified requirements for potential members of
security services
• age over 18 years, legal capacity
• no criminal record
• relevant education – depends on particular position
• good health condition, physical and personal ability
• restriction of political or other profit-making activity
PERSONNEL SELECTION
ASSESSMENT IN PSCR II
• Set of personality characteristics, cognitive abilities and desirable
traits
• parallel to other security services given by similar demands: influence
of surrounding, stressful and harsh atmosphere of correctional
institution with continuous exposure or direct threat of assault, work
shifts lasting 12 hours, emergency duty with plenty of extraordinary
events and crisis intervention
• Psychical ability:
• satisfactory intellectual ability
• emotional stability
• psychosocially matured
• withstand capability (high frustration tolerance)
• requires motivation, attitudes, values
• adequate cognitive skills and auto-regulation
• no aggressiveness or psychopathological traits
GENERAL STRESS FACTORS OF
THE PRISON ENVIRONMENT
• Long work shifts in continuous service of a prison
• Work with inadaptable individuals
• Occurrence of aggressive and self-mutilating acts
between inmates, conflict situations, own life and health exposure
• Long-term confrontation with human
suffering
• Increased responsibility
• Absence of positive feed-back,
lack of visible results of own work
• Requirements of a teamwork
• Excessive paperwork
• Noise, stereotype, unsatisfactory technical equipment
• Low social status
OFFENDER AS A CRIME PARTICIPANT:
NEUTRALIZATION THEORY I
• Offender versus victim (witness, police, judge…) perspective
• Refers to possibility of resocialization
• focus on the degree to which offenders accepts responsibility (or blame)
for his acts and perceives own criminal activity
Attributions
internal vs. external
stable vs. instable
global vs. specific
• “Explanatory style”
• as a person’s tendency to offer similar sorts of explanations for different
events
• correlates with specific behavioural patterns
OFFENDER AS A CRIME PARTICIPANT:
NEUTRALIZATION THEORY II
• Neutralization theory
• interested in explanations or “vocabularies of motive” used by
offenders when accounting for their behaviours
• useful in understanding the psychological aspects of desistance from
crime
• Sykes and Matza (1957): ‘‘neutralization techniques“ = excuses and
justifications that deviants use to rationalize their behaviours should be
seen as playing a role in the etiology of deviant behaviour
OFFENDER AS A CRIME PARTICIPANT:
NEUTRALIZATION THEORY III
• 5 basic techniques of neutralization
(Sykes, Matza, 1957):
• denial of responsibility
(„“It’s not my fault.
I was drunk at the time.”)
• denial of injury
(„No one is really harmed.’’)
• denial of the victim („They deserve it.“)
• condemnation of condemners (Everybody’s corrupted.”)
• appeal to higher loyalties (“I didn’t do it for myself.”)
OFFENDER AS A CRIME PARTICIPANT:
NEUTRALIZATION THEORY IV
• Additional types of neutralization techniques
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defence of necessity (‘‘I had no other choice.’’)
claim of normality of the behaviour („Everyone is doing it.“)
claim of entitlement („It was my right.“)
metaphor of the ledger („I’ve done more good than bad in my life.”)
justification by comparison (‘‘ If I wasn’t shoplifting I would be doing
something more serious.’’)
• postponement (‘‘I just don’t think about it.’’)
• denial of negative intent (“It was just a joke.”)
• claim of relative acceptability of the behaviour (“There are others
worse than me.”)
• Which technique would you personally use?
THANK YOU FOR YOUR
ATTENTION!
Any questions?
HOMEWORK FOR NEXT
LECTURE (4.11.2011)
Purpose and psychological function
of punishment
What purposes does penal sanction serve?
What is psychological function of
punishment?
What are negative influences of
imprisonment?
REFERENCES,
RECOMMENDED READING
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Blackburn, R. (1993). The Psychology of Criminal Conduct: Theory, Research and
practice. Chicester: Wiley.
Crighton, D., Towl, G. (2008). Psychology in prisons. Oxford: BPS Blackwell.
Hawkins, J.D. (Ed.), (1996). Delinquency and Crime: Current theories. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Maruna, S. (2004). Desistance from Crime and Explanatory Style. A New Direction
in the Psychology of Reform. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 20, 2,
184-200.
Maruna, S., Copes, H. (2005). What Have We Learned in Five Decades of
Neutralization Research? Crime and Justice: A Review of Research, 32, 221-320.
Polišenská, V.A. (2007). Forensic Psychology in the Czech Republic. Journal of
Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, 4, 55-67.
Weiner, I. B., Hess, A. K. (Eds.) , (2006) . The handbook of forensic
psychology. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Schwartz, B. K. (Ed.), (2003). Correctional psychology: practice, programming, and
administration. Kingston, New Jersey: Civic Research Institute.