Introduction
There is a need to understand some important psychological concepts about the development of long term offender personalities in prison including life sentence and death row inmates so not to become complacent in our long term interactions with them and their court or personal problems. As complacency with long term offenders is the heuristic for hostage taking and prison escape.
What happens to the Personalities of these people who kill people?
There is no one answer as to what happens to the personalities of people who kill people and enter prison systems in either Canada or the United States of America. In fact there is no one answer. Every case must be reviewed on its own merits. Whether we want to executed the person or leave then in custody for the remainder of their natural lives or consider a conditional release we must ask the question :
What happens to the Personalities of these people who kill people as there is a need to provide services to them while they either await their execution, go through their daily routine of a natural life sentence in custody or if we are contemplating a conditional release sometime in their sentence.
The status quo
For years the traditional approach to people who kill people has been institutionalization. The idea has no other equal to it and we do not have nay other options to it so we have no choice but to understand the notion of people who kill people and whoa re incarcerated for long periods of time and what changes may or may not take place in their personalities. In other words the status quo is institutionalization.
Understanding the Homicide Personality in the Prison System
Social Psychologists tell us all people need to interact with others to develop self concept. The issue for this paper is that these inmates have killed someone and thereby with whom they interact with is limited and monitored by staff to include and some pre screened inmates and pre screened relatives and friends and lawyers. By way of these interactions the prisoners self concept is being effected and generally in a pro social manner.
Personalities ensconced in these roles of natural life sentence, life sentence with the possibility of conditional release and those on death row still have motivation for life. The question is what is the motivation for life: to live until executed or escape or await conditional release in the years to come? Why is this important? Motivation is the corner stone of each individuals growth and development which never stops not even in prison. This is not say that all growth and development is pro social but that people simply by being incarcerated do not just reflect upon themselves and their lives and what they can do to have power and control their lives. So most prisoners continue to grow and develop in terms of self control, confidence, learning and finding social support for their existence.
Developmental psychology reminds people that the socialization process does not stop at the prison door. Without this human developmental process called socialization there would be more mental illness found in this sub culture of people who kill people sometimes referred to in prison slang as the long term offenders, lifers, or walking dead men.
These people who serve long sentences or await execution develop groups and the group dynamic becomes an important tool for the prisoner and the staff in terms of the prisoner leaning insights ( good or bad) about themselves and significant others. The prisoner learns about relationships, self image, and self confidence and responsibility and cooperation and belonging to a community. By these group processes each prisoner moves towards becoming a competent human being within the total prison system.
Staff offer prosocial models of attitudes and behaviours. This may seem innocent but these prisoners will imitate these staff and their prosocial attitudes and behaviours. Through vicarious learning the prisoners learn how to cope with stress , anxiety, paranoia, and persecutory ideation and depression and phobias.
The long term offenders change and take on similarities of the staff through facilitation, identification, imitation and modelling. Interestingly, the staff job descriptions are written such that they are expected to provide to these prisoners counselling, open communication, problem solving and decision making strategies all within the confines of the prisoners world.
Issue
The socialization process, by way of staff job descriptions, interaction with pre selected inmates, family and friends and significant others such as lawyers creates for the status quo ( institution) the problem of change in the personality of the long term prisoner (such as a convicted murder without redemption). This change is generally in the direction of prosocial attitudes and behaviours similar to staff, family, friends and significant others, such as the inmate acts and behaves more like ourselves.
Change Process
The process of change in these prisoners occurs as the daily decision are made between the inmates and the staff. The ongoing daily, consistent and constant, problem-solving and decision making that is completed between the inmate and the staff creates the impetus within the prisoner to cope with their changing self attitudes and emotions and behaviours.
The Real Problem
This process of developing a new self and a new self concept creates a problem for the status quo (Institution). How do we, the staff, other inmates, significant others such as family, friends, lawyers, clergy, and volunteers do not become complacent with the emerging new self of the prisoner and its more pro social personality?
Recall that this issue of complacency is not just for the prisons system it is for significant others such as lawyers and expert witnesses and independent psychologists. As the new prisoner self and their prosocial personalities seem similar to ourselves and thereby we think they think like we do in all respects including the following rules and regulations, wanting the same things in life we do, and sharing our view of the sanctity of life itself. Sadly, this, sometimes, is the case.
The Solution
Remember the notion of motivation being the cornerstone to the development of personality. This suggests that we must be alert to the plain truth that long term prisoners want their freedom.
Freedom in itself becomes a positive reinforcer for a prisoners motivation to change even those on death row. So such inmates present to staff, and significant others including lawyers the way they think others want them to be (act and think) and hence we must not become complacent to this.
Questions
1. Why is the some offenders present as outrageous and others present as more like ourselves?
Answer : Inmates in general learn eventually from staff how to present themselves to get things they want in the more serious cases such people serving long terms of incarceration what they want is freedom.
2. Seven prisoners escaped from a maximum security prison recently, how could such a thing happen?
Answer : These inmates understood how to be familiar to staff. They took advantage of this and set up an escape plan which should have been detected. However, the staff felt safe and secure with these people as they were so much like themselves and forgot the notion of diligence when on duty.
3. How is it that a lawyer could help prisoner escape?
Answer : There is the notion of attraction between two people. The problem is that the prisoner is motivated to freedom. The lawyer is motivated by the idea that seems genuine and caring and sharing like themselves. The lawyer then forgets the notion of due diligence and complacency ( I am talking to a fellow in a prison for murder and why am I liking him more than I should? Perhaps I had better talk to someone about this).
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