What are prisons supposed to achieve? It's a contentious issue, because people are divided between thinking that prisons should rehabilitate criminals, and thinking that prisons should act as a deterrent to other potential offenders. Both ways attempt to reduce recidivism; how to go about this is the real issue.
A lot of people complain that prisons are "too soft" to actually help deter offenders, but the prison with the lowest recidivism rates is Grendon Underwood. It's run democratically by prisoners, with offenders having much more freedom and control, and it encourages open discussion and extensive therapy. (Here's an enlightening article on the prison if you want more information)
This begs the question: are harsh prisons actually effective?
Study: Haney and Zimbardo (1998) published a paper which looked at changes to prison policy in the US between 1973 and 1998, and suggested changes to help make prisons more effective based on their findings.
The report mentioned aspects such as Reagan's "war on drugs" which put pressure on the creation of more harsh prisons, and the high degree of racial bias; half of prison populations were African-American men, when they only made up 6% of the population in the US. The Supermax prison was also included, which was a bare cell with a small window, concrete bed, immovable chair, bathroom, and a black and white TV showing only religious and educative classes.
The paper concluded with a number of suggestions to improve prisons and reduce recidivism rates:
- Prisons should be used sparingly; alternatives should be sought
- Prison environments should take into account individual differences so they are tailored to the offender and thus be more effective
- Rehabilitation should help the offenders to cope with the outside world
- Psychological knowledge should be used to help create more suitable and efficient prisons
- Changes should be made, suggested and/or implemented by impartial "outsiders" (i.e. not people involved in the justice system)
It's not strictly in the syllabus, but if you can fit this seamlessly into an exam question on diagnosing dysfunctional behaviour or disorders, then no doubt the examiner will be impressed.
If you've got a spare ten minutes, check out this article from the New Scientist on opposition to the DSM-V, and why the National Institute of Mental Health has withdrawn its support to the publication of the DSM-V. If not, read my very much condensed summary below.
The DSM-V is due out later this month (May 2013), replacing the current DSM-IV that's been around since the mid-1990s. Essentially, there's been a lot of complaints about the amount of reliance, by both the medical profession and researchers alike, on a psychiatry "bible".
The main issue is that it's purely symptomatic - it ignores the biological nature of disorders.
Those who advocate psychology as a science want the biological and physical aspects of psychological disorders to be taken into account so that subjectivity isn't such an issue. They use the comparison of being diagnosed with physical illnesses such as cancer on the basis of self-report alone, rather than being screened and tested. (Though, note that not all "physical" illnesses can be tested for, such as IBS).
Some of the more radical people want the DSM completely scrapped in favour of a biological approach to diagnosis, such as depression being diagnosed on the basis of serotonin, or schizophrenia after dopamine levels have been analysed. Others merely want both symptoms and biology to play a part in diagnosis.
Whatever you think is the right decision, including this in your G543 paper would show your interest in the subject, and could be a valuable evaluation point which makes the examiners stand up and take note.
