Haney&Zimbardo: Review

Question 1

Conclusions of part 1? (Past)

Answer 1

USA is perpetuating discrimination against Black people+encouraging a dispositional explanation of behaviour.
E.g supermax prisons=problem prisoners

Question 2

Part 2?

Answer 2

Suggested improvements:
•prisons should be used sparingly as they are psychologically damaging
•prisons should take into account individual differences, especially reactions to confinement
•prisoner assessments should include an assessment of situational+psychological

Question 3

Part 1?

Answer 3

Summarising changes over past 25 years=
•Ronald Reagan’s Republican ‘War on Drugs’= political pressure to put criminals behind bars
•rigid sentencing with no possibility of parole
•racial bias: 48% African-Caribbean men but only 6% of population

Question 4

Strengths?

Answer 4

• longitudinal&evidence based
• accurate that US dispositional approach doesn’t work as the highest incarceration rates
• holistic? Includes many factors in past 25 years

Question 5

Weaknesses?

Answer 5

• ethnocentric
• social&situational explanation of crime reductionist?
• impractical= less useful as hard to categorise criminals as being able to cope or not
• not scientific= evidence based but interpretive