‘Their life in your hands’: the experiences of prison-based psychologists conducting risk assessments with indeterminate sentenced prisoners in the United Kingdom

ABSTRACT

Assessing prisoners’ risk of recidivism and making risk-management recommendations is central to the work of prison-based psychologists. Risk assessment is particularly crucial when it involves indeterminate sentenced prisoners: psychologists’ recommendations have potentially significant consequences both for prisoners and the public. However, little is known about psychologists’ experiences of conducting such high stakes risk assessments. This paper reports the results of an exploration of psychologists’ experiences, via interviews and discussions with qualified, prison-based psychologists. Analysis using Grounded Theory methods identified one super-ordinate category of meaning, namely The Challenging Context of Risk Assessment, which comprised two sub-categories: (1) pressure of limited resources and (2) pressure of the environment. An additional major category, Risk Assessment as a Weighty Task, comprised three sub-categories: psychologists described (1) a weight of responsibility relating to the magnitude and range of their responsibilities; (2) a weight of expectation from colleagues to provide solutions, and (3) the trainee dilemma associated with the need to balance development of trainee psychologists’ competence in risk assessment with being held accountable for their work. Understanding qualified psychologists’ experiences of undertaking risk assessments with indeterminate sentenced prisoners can facilitate improvements and build on areas of existing good practice.     

Towards a Fair and Balanced Assessment of Supermax Prisons

Supermaximum (“supermax”) security prisons have become a common feature of the corrections landscape. Despite their substantial costs, questions about their constitutionality, growing fiscal and managerial challenges confronting correctional systems, and increased demand for evidence‐based practices, little systematic empirical research about their effectiveness exists. Against this backdrop and a debate often framed in ideological terms, we identify five dimensions that we argue should be taken into account to provide a fair and balanced assessment of supermax prisons. Our study draws on a comprehensive analysis of existing research, site visits to three states, and interviews with 60 corrections policymakers, officials, and practitioners. We conclude with recommendations for research and policy.     

The Correctional Experiences of Youth in Adult and Juvenile Prisons

This article analyzes data from interviews with inmates to examine the correctional experiences of young men incarcerated through criminal (adult) courts in a large Northeastern state. The sample (N = 95) includes respondents from five correctional institutions; some of these inmates have been sentenced to adult department of corrections facilities, and some to juvenile facilities operated by the state's children's services bureau. Relative to the adult facilities, the juvenile facilities are smaller, have much lower inmate‐to‐staff ratios, and they place greater emphasis (in their official guidelines) on treatment, counseling, education, and mentoring of inmates. As a result, one might expect juvenile‐facility inmates to report a relatively more supportive, mentoring‐focused style of staff–inmate interactions than adult‐facility inmates. Yet surprisingly, inmates in adult facilities report better access to education and treatment/counseling services offered in their facilities.     

Expressing the Ineffable: Toward a Poetics of Mystical Writing

This article attempts to formulate a paradigm for textual features that are embodied in mystical writing. By using T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets as an example, this paper demonstrates that five distinctive textual strategies are operative in mystical writing: (1) negation as a heuristic means of spiritual ascent; (2) parallelism and paradox: an iconic correlation; (3) the matrix of a journey; (4) the generic sentence as a highlighted voice; and (5) metaphor of depersonalization. It will be argued that the five textual strategies contribute to forming a poetics of mystical writing. The argument also exemplifies an alternative to the religio-philosophical and traditional literary interpretations of Four Quartets : this poetic work embodies a condensed, crystallized poetics of mystical writing.     

The parole performance of offenders released from shock incarceration (boot camp prisons): A survival time analysis

The parole performance of offenders who were released after successfully completing a shock incarceration program was examined and compared to the performance of offenders who were serving time on probation or parole after a period of incarceration. Separate survival analyses were performed for recidivism as measured by (1) arrests and (2) failures (jailed, absconded, or revoked). Prior incarceration, age, age at first arrest, and risk assessment score were related to recidivism but type of sentence was not. Intensity of supervision was significantly related to recidivism but this relationship was eliminated when risk level was controlled. There was no evidence that shock incarceration reduces recidivism. Future research should focus on methods of reducing failures during community supervision for these young, nonviolent offenders within the framework of either a shock incarceration program or some other sentence.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the American Probation and Parole Association 14th Annual Training Institute, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, August 1989.     

The social ecology of sexual victimization against transgender women who are incarcerated: A call for (more) research on modalities of housing and prison violence

President Biden has called for reform of the criminal justice system to ensure fair treatment of people who are transgender who come into contact with the criminal justice system. He has done so in a context in which criminologists, public health researchers, and others, including journalists and advocates, have produced a growing body of research that documents the over criminalization and differential incarceration of people who are transgender as well as the high rates of victimization of transgender women who are incarcerated. Accordingly, this article describes a growing literature on the sexual victimization experienced by transgender women who are incarcerated; focuses analytic attention on the housing contexts in which this kind of discriminatory gendered violence emerges and takes shape; points to some emergent policy responses related to these concerns; and calls for original research that, if conducted, could advance the criminological literature in meaningful ways and set the stage for evidence‐based prison policy and practice related to what is now predictably high rates of violence against transgender women who are incarcerated.     

SERVICES FOR CHILDREN OF INCARCERATED PARENTS

“Services for Children of Incarcerated Parents” provides an overview of the history, design and outcomes of human service programs provided for children of prisoners in the United States. The article examines services based in correctional settings and services sited in the community, using examples from the core programs and projects conducted by the Center for Children of Incarcerated Parents from 1990 through 2010. An analysis of the utility of specific services to children and families, and the effectiveness of those services in improving child outcomes is provided.