Psychologist's Role in Maintaining Existing Functions and Purposes of Correctional Institutions, or in Altering Them (From Role of Psychologists in the Criminal Justice System, P 16-36, 1983, Grant Wardlaw ed. See NCJ-92075)

• NCJ Number: 92077
• Author(s): M Hart
• Date Published: 1983
• Length: 21 pages
• Sale Source: Australian Institute of Criminology; National Institute of Justice/
• Language: English
• Country: Australia

Annotation

By virtue of their knowledge and skills, correctional psychologists in Australia should be at the forefront of correctional paradigm revolution, which should involve the abandonment of the paradigm that represses and degrades inmates in a purely custodial institution in favor of a paradigm of inmate participatory management.

Abstract

The structure of a system is determined by the basic principles governing the relationships of the system elements. Significant correctional reform must impact the system's structure. Psychologists, by virtue of their role, training, and professional tools, are in the best position of all correctional employees to participate in structural change. First, they can analyze the nature and impact of the correctional system's existing structure. This involves the investigation of modal personality patterns of both staff and inmates and how they are affected under the existing system. Psychologists also usually possess the appropriate skills to assess the organizational variables which define the elements of the structure of the existing system. Data should be obtained on conformity to norms and the sacrosanct assumptions in operations. Second, psychologists have the expertise to devise and evaluate experimental alternative paradigms for the management of inmates and prisons. Psychologists have the research data to show that the traditional structure of custodial institutions has little if any positive impact on inmates of staff, and there is also a sizable amount of research data to indicate that the assumptions underlying the custodial system are not accurate. Psychologists should be involved in the implementation of experimental units structured under inmate self-management or participatory-management principles. Such experimental units have already proven their worth. Psychologists can expand the impact of these alternatives by becoming deeply involved in the new programs, educating correctional staff about their results, and lobbying for political support for the new concepts. Four references and 36 bibliographic listings are provided.