After a Guilty verdict
- Created by: jatyization
- Created on: 04-02-15 23:45
After a Guilty Verdict
Imprisonment:
- Emplyment- Gillis & Nafekh
- Suicide- Dooley
- Prison- Zimbardio
Employment- Gillis & Nafekh
Aim: Investigate effect on recidevism rates of a community
Procedure: Content analysis of Canada's Offender Management system; 23,525 individuals relaseased between Jan 1998 and Jan 2005; 95% male; Matched pairs based on gender, risk level, release year, sentance length, substance abuse and emotional orientation; Comparison between group employed by special programme and those unemplyed
Findings:
- 70% employed remained out of prison compared to 55% who were not on the special empolyment scheme
- Median return time to jail longer for the employed group (37 months comapred to 11)
Conclusions: Employment programmes do work and do reduce likelihood of re-offending
Dooley
Aim: Investigate unnatural deaths that occured in prisons in England and Wales between 1972 and 1987
Procedure: Content analysis of Prison Departement; Checklist that included social, psychiatric and forensic history used to analyse data; Groups recorded as suicide were compared to those not recorded as suicide
Findings:
- 442 natural deaths
- 300 suicide
- 142 variety verdicts
- 52 consciously self inflicted injury
- Most deaths at night; CSI group female; More suicide group on remand
Conclusions: The increase in suicide and unnatural deaths is attributed to overcrowding and prisoners' stress; Many prisoners suffer from mental ilnesses and substance addiciton so these play a part too
Haney and Zimbardo
Summarising change over last 25 years: Ronald Reagans republican war on drugs means more people behind bars; Rehabilitation was discredicted and punishment implmented; Rigid sentencing; New prisons built; Racial bias as 48% afro-caribbean men; Supermax prison
Suggestions for Improvements: Prison should be used sparingly as they are psychologically damaging; Prison should take into account individual differences especially to confinement; Rehabilitation programmes needed to teach prisoners sills to cope ince they are released; Prisoner assesments include an assement of sitioational factors; Reforms needs to coem from people outside of prison system; Psychological knowledge should be used to improve condtions
Dispositional explanation is used wrongly in the prison sysemt!
Alternatives to Imprisonment
- Probation- Mair and May
- Restorative justice- Sherman and Strong
- Looking death worthy- Eberhardt
Mair and May
Aim: Investigate experiences of offenders on probabtion orders across england and wales
Procedure: 3299 offenders chosen at random; 22 probation officers; Represented all age groups and offences; 40% drop out rate; Independent researchers conducted study; closed multiple choice questions with likert scale
Results:
- 88% felt probation was useful
- 60% thought probation officers will help them indvidually
- 37% said probation officers will stop the re-offending
Conclusion: Probation is seen as useful by offenders; 1/3 of offenders went on to re-offend; Socio econonomic status, unemployment, family and other factors also need to be considered
Sherman and Strang
Aim: Look at restorative justice in practise and measure its effectiveness in terms of re-offending
Procedure: Content analysis on 424 academic papers on retsorative justice; 36 studies were found that compared re-offending rates for those who were part of restorative justcie and programme and those that are not
Results:
- Restorative justice is more effective when there is a personal victim and tends to work for violence and property crime
- Not efective in all cases
- Benefits victim by reducing PTSD
Conclusion: Strong evidence to suggest restorative justice is effective in some cases; Support of increased use in young 1st time offenders
Eberhadt
Aim: investigate whether there was support for the hypothesis that black offenders with stereotypically black features were more likely to get the death sentence than white offenders.
Procedure: Analysis of database of death-eligible cases in Philadelphia between 1979-1999; 44 cases black man killed a white victim; photographs of these shown to 51 rates to rate extent to stereoptypical black features (1-11); rates mostly whiter and few other ethnicities
Results:
- Most sterotypically black offenders = 57.5% likely to get death penalty
- less stereotypical = 24.4%
- Second study showed victims also black ha sno significant effect shoing black vicitm was less important
Conclusions: More sterotypical black men = More death worthy
Treatments
- CBT- Falshaw & Friendship
- ANger Management- Ireland
- Ear Acupuncture- Wheatley
Friendship
- Reported re-offending rates for prisoners who recieved CBT were 14% lower
- Falshaw and Friendship failed to find a significant difference
- Issue with CBT: Must be delivered by competant therpists and prisoners must have IQ of at least 80 and have good literacy skills as well has high motivation
Ireland
Aim: Assess whether anger management programmes work with young male offenders
Procedure: Quasi experiment; 50 prisoners who had completed CALM; compared with 37 who were suitable not completed CALM; given CBT interview; Prisoner officers completed WBC rating 29 behaviour with scores of 0,1 or 2; Self-report questionaire on anger management with 53 questions
Results: Prisoners who completed CALM rated themselves lower on the anger questionaire and rerated lower by prison officers than control group; 92% showed improvement on at least one measure of agresion and anger
Conclusion:In short term, the treatement seemed effective; But no re-offending data
Wheatley
Aim: Evaluate effectiveness of ear acupuncture
Procedure: 350 prisoners; 6 high security prisons recieved acupuncture and FOCUS standard care prgrammes; Compared with control group who just recieved FOCUS; 2 trained practioners worked with group of 10-15 prisoners in a relaxed setting with needles inserted into five acupuncture points in ear and prinsoners relaxed of for 40 minutes
Results:
Qualitative data: Prisoners reported better sleep; better relaxtion; able to cope; Reduce nicotine cravings; Cognitive and health improvements; Staff reported better communication with staff and families and calmer atmosphere with less use of healthcare facilities
Quantitative data: 70% reduction in drug related incidents 6 months after treatment; 41% serious incidents reports; 42% reduction in positive drug tests; 33% reduction in positive drug test
Conclusion: Wheatley believes there is enough evidence to expand the delivery of acupuncture throughout prison system; Works best as complimentary therpay alongside other programmes
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