Crim Psych Topic 6: Effects of imprisonment

Question 1

Key Research: Haney et all (ZIMBARDO) - Aim and Sample

Answer 1

Aim:
to see whether violence in prisons occurs because of the unpleasant sorts of people within them or whether the unpleasant nature of prisons is what creates the violent behaviours

Sample:
24 out of the 75 who responded to newspaper advert were chosen as they were the most stable, mature and least involved in anti-social behaviours. (all were white except one Oriental)

Question 2

Key Research: Haney et all (ZIMBARDO) - Procedure

Answer 2

• Researchers randomly assigned the participants to the ‘prisoner’ or ‘guard’ role
• The day before the study, the ‘guards’ had an orientation day at Stanford University to help create a simulated prison in the basement of the Psychology department
• They were briefed on their role (maintain order, don’t let them escape, but no physical violence)
• They were given their uniforms (khaki shorts, shirts, reflective sunglasses and a baton)
• The next day, the experiment began for the prisoners when the (real) Palo Alto police called at their homes, ‘arrested’ them/read their rights, handcuffed and took them to the police station, fingerprinted them and put them in a detention cell
• They were collected by the ‘guards’ and an experimenter, blindfolded, taken to the mock prison, stripped naked, sprayed with ‘delousing preparation’ and were made to stand naked in the yard for a while
• The ‘prisoners’ were then given their uniforms (a loose fitting muslin smock with their number of the front and back and a nylon stocking cap to simulate having their heads shaved)
• ‘Mug shots’ were taken before the ‘prisoners’ were taken to their cells and told to remain silent
• The study was stopped after 6 days due to the distress caused to the prisoners (was supposed to last two weeks)

Question 3

Key Research: Haney et all (ZIMBARDO) - Results and Conclusions

Answer 3

Results - Zimbardo et al described behaviour in two ways:
- ‘Pathological Prisoner Syndrome’ the way in which prisoners began to show passivity, dependence and flattened mood. 5 had to be released early due to extreme emotional depression, crying, rage and acute anxiety
- ‘Pathology of Power’ the way in which people when given an opportunity to exert power over others, they engage in oppressive behaviour.

Conclusions:
- This study shows how social roles influence behaviour suggesting that is it the structure and organisation of the prison environment which leads to brutal behaviour as normal young men behaved brutally to fit in with their role as guard

Question 4

Restorative Justice and what is the restorative justice process?

Answer 4

Sherman and Strang:
- used an internet search to identify review articles into RJ
- suggests that RJ works in property and violent crimes as there is an identifiable victim that can come to the conference
- it can help to reduce PTSD

RJ is a process that tries to recognise the needs of the victim

Question 5

Anger Management Programmes and its 3 stages

Answer 5

Aim = to teach offenders to recognise anger, control and resolve it

Stage 1: Cognitive Preparation
the offender must learn to identify situations that trigger anger and to be mindful of Internal cues like increased breathing rate

Stage 2: Skills Acquisition
Offenders learn different relaxation techniques, like slowly counting to ten

Stage 3: Application Practice
the skills and awareness learned in the previous stage are put to practise

Question 6

Community Sentences

Answer 6

Community sentences are an alternative to prison that is given for less serious crimes such as damage to property, assault or benefit fraud

Question 7

Gills and Nafekh - Planned Programme Scheme

Answer 7

• Looked at a programme used by the Canadian Correctional Service that involved a planned programme scheme
• Quasi experiment
• IV: whether participants were involved in an employment scheme or not
• DV: reoffending rates
• Sample: a total of 23,525 (95% male) and participants were matched on sentence length risk levels
• Median length of time taken to return to prison after being released: 37 months (on an employment scheme) and 11 months (not on an employment scheme)
• They found that those on the programme were less likely to return to custody during their period of conditional release