Effects of Imprisonment (6) Flashcards
What are the purposes of punishment?
Rehabilitation: preventing the detainee from reoffending through a variety of methods, including education or training
Protection: both of the offender and of the public
Deterrence: to prevent the general population from offending in the first place
Retribution: for the victims to feel like justice has been served
Hebenton and Pease believe punishment serves to reduce crime rate by acting as a deterrent that makes people think before committing a crime or by having a reforming effect so offenders don’t commit more crimes in the future
What are the types of punishment?
Non custodial: involves a fine, community sentence or probation
Custodial: involves the offender being put in a prison or secure hospital for the term of their sentence
What are the effects of imprisonment?
- overcrowding, fear of violence and lack of freedom can lead to mental health problems like anxiety and depression
- Dooley aimed to investigate unnatural deaths in prisons using a content analysis of government records and a checklist of social, psychiatric and forensic offender history
- found 68% of deaths were suicides - attributed them to overcrowding and prisoners’ stress
- indicates prison may make matters worse for offenders and that it is important to find the right balance between punishment and reform
Are prisons effective?
- can be argued they are effective as they prevent offenders from committing further crimes
- however recidivism rates show that 25% of prisoners go on to reoffend after their releases
What was the aim of Zimbardo’s study?
- to investigate the dispositional vs situational hypothesis as an explanation for prisoner and guard behaviour (particularly tyrannical behaviour) in a simulated prison environment
What sample did Zimbardo use?
- 22 psychologically well-adjusted male students from 75 volunteers
- randomly allocated to either prisoner or guard role
- had to agree to play whichever role they were assigned to in a simulated prison for up to 2 weeks
What was the induction procedure?
- Palo Alto City Police Department arrived at ‘prisoner’s’ homes, conducted a thorough search in front of neighbours and took them away
- at mock prison, stripped naked, sprayed with delousing fluid, and placed in their cell where they had to remain silent
What uniforms did the guards wear?
- guards wore khaki shirts and trousers to convery military attitude
- had whistles and night sticks as symbols of power
What uniforms did the prisoners wear?
- loose fitting muslin smock to make movement awkward and to be emasculating
- no underclothes to create a sense of dependency and subservience
- light chain and lock on one ankle to convey oppression
- no personal belongings allowed
What administrative procedures were undertaken in Zimbardo’s experiment?
- guards only referred to prisoners by number to dehumanise them
- served three bland meals a day, allowing three supervised toilet trips
- two hours for reading/letter writing per day plus two visiting periods and movies per week
What physical aspects did the prison have?
- three small cells containing three cots, one for each prisoner
- doors had steel bars
- unlit solitary confinement facility
What instructions were the prisoners and guards given prior to the experiment?
- prisoners signed a contract guaranteeing a minimally adequate diet, clothing, housing and medical care
- contract made it clear they would have little privacy and their basic civil rights would be suspended with the exception of physical abuse
- guards told they should maintain a reasonable degree of order within the prison necessary for its effective functioning
What were the results of the guards in Zimbardo’s experiment?
- prevented from using physical abuse but often expressed aggression verbally
- when experiment ended, guards seemed distressed - one said he was upset at the suffering of the prisoners
- however, none of them failed to turn up for work on time and on several occasions they remained on duty extra hours
What were the results of the prisoners in Zimbardo’s experiment?
- five had to be released early because of extreme emotional depression, crying, rage and anxiety
- one developed a psychosomatic rash on the second day
What individual differences were shown in Zimbardo’s experiment?
- some guards fair and passive, others went far beyond rules to engage in creative cruelty and harassment
- some prisoners coped with cruelty by becoming ill whereas others coped by being very obedient
How did Zimbardo’s experiment end?
- terminated early, after six days, despite being intended to last two weeks
What were the conclusions of Zimbardo’s experiment?
- being confined in prison can have great negative effects on the feelings of the guards and the prisoners
- also has a negative effect on the interpersonal processes that take place between guards and prisoners
- prison guards can develop a pathology of power: they are given unchecked freedom to exercise control which can lead to misuse of power
- prisoners also develop pathological prison syndrome
What does Zimbardo’s experiment suggest about our prison system?
- the role of prison guard attracts people who enjoy wielding power over others, which can lead to the use of aggression
How can anger management help reduce reoffending?
- CALM: aimed at offenders who have problems managing their emotions and show a lack of control in prison
- uses CBT like principles
- take part in 25 sessions where they learn how to identify the physiological changes that occur when they’re angry and how to understand the causes of irrational thinking
- Finder et al: evidence suggests this can be effective for some offenders in improving self control
What is restorative justice?
- the offender and the victim meet under the supervision of an impartial facilitator
- offender encouraged to accept responsibility and be re-integrated into the community
- victim gets the chance to explain to the offender how their actions affected them
Is restorative justice useful?
- useful and it provides closure for the victim and the offender
- Sherman and Strang suggest it is most useful in violent and property crimes where the victim is most readily identifiable
- UK Restorative Justice Council reported a 14% reduction in reoffences in those who were part of restorative justice programmes
