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  • About
  • The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is provided by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
    Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
1

Struggling with justice : women's experiences of imprisonment in Taiwan

Cheng, Ya-Wen January 2014 (has links)
Gender shapes women's experiences including their pathways to prison, the ways in which they are managed and treated while imprisoned, and the ways in which they adjust to prison life. Western researchers have identified female prisoners as active social actors, but these women and prison practices remain an under-researched area in Taiwan. This study seeks to explore the problems of female prisoners based on the Taiwanese experience and aims to fill some of the academic knowledge gap through documenting the lives of these women. It considers various perspectives, including what types of crimes these women have committed and why, as well as the stigmatisation they face as a consequence. The research data was collected through face-to-face semi-structured interviews with thirty-nine prisoners in a Taiwanese women's prison. This qualitative approach offers a unique opportunity for the researcher to capture the ways in which these women experience their prison lives, their feelings, opinions and thoughts and contributes to the ground-breaking nature of this empirical work, as most of the previous research in women's prisons in Taiwan has been quantitative in nature.
2

Exploring the dynamics of defiance : the punishment narratives of young men in prison in Northern Ireland

Devlin, Roisin January 2014 (has links)
In an analysis of the personal narratives of 32 young male prisoners, this study explores how those at the sharp end of the criminal justice system perceive the punishment process. In particular, the research seeks to understand the psychosocial dynamics underpinning "defiant" or hostile reactions to criminal sanctions. Qualitative analyses of the young men's narratives of police and court sanctions reveal that defiant views are driven primarily by perceptions of disrespect and a sense of being treated without due 'humanity' by agents of the justice system. Expressions of defiance are also related to perceptions of having been purposely humiliated by officers or treated as "suspicious" even when avoiding criminal behaviour. A lack of "voice" in the courtroom appeared to fuel defiance too. As such, judges and magistrates who fail to meaningfully engage with sanctioned persons risk communicating a lack of care and disinterest in determinations to do better. As not all of the young men's narratives could be classified as "defiant" in tone, the internal dynamics of the 'less defiant' are also analysed. These contrasting narratives are used to better understand the possible roots of defiance in sample participants' life stories. In this analysis, non-defiance is most often associated with a sense of belonging both at home and within one's community. By contrast, defiant self-narratives more often included accounts of serious childhood abuse and punitive treatment, within and outside the home, indicating that messages of disrespect and inhumanity associated with these early life experiences may be reinforced by the style of criminal sanction delivery.
3

Imprisoned freedom : a sociological study of a 21st century prison for women in Ireland

Mason, Barbara January 2004 (has links)
This thesis is a study of a penal experiment in Ireland which involved an innovative architectural design and a new regime aimed at addressing the specific needs of incarcerated female offenders. The underlying intention was to create an environment where women would have a level of autonomy that encouraged them to take greater responsibility for their own lives. The change highlighted the inherent tension between the concept of self-determination and the needs of security and control within a setting of captivity. The focus of the study was to discover how the prisoners coped with their new conditions and how the officers reconciled the conflicting demands of the new regime with their more traditional role of discipline and control. Through a series of observations and interviews over a period of 30 months, the evolution of the experiment was tracked, from an initial period of turmoil and uncertainty created by the move, through a gradual period of adjustment to a state of equilibrium. The study revealed that despite initial setbacks, many of the ideals underlying the philosophy were realised. The main contributing factors included, enlightened and consistent leadership and the continuity of senior staff; an absence of major crises; a willingness to take risks by experimenting with new initiatives; the relative autonomy of the prison and its freedom from political or overly sensational media interference; physical conditions which facilitated informality and fostered amicable relationships among the prisoners and between the prisoners and the staff and the provision of a variety of programmes tailored to individual needs rather than treating the women as a homogeneous group. These findings contrasted with the outcomes of many other penal experiments and provide an encouraging example of how sustained commitment to an ideal can provide some level of success in an otherwise rather bleak picture of incarceration at the beginning of the 21st century.
4

Prison governance : an exploration of the changing role and duties of the Prison Governor in HM Prison Service

Bryans, Shane Clive January 2005 (has links)
Interviews with 42 Prison Governors, an analysis of job descriptions from 98 Governors, and original material reveal that their role and duties have changed in recent years. The introduction of New Public Management (NPM) into the Prison Service has made Governors far more accountable for the operation of their prisons. They are now expected to achieve performance targets, deliver efficiency savings, and to compete with other prisons. Line management of Governors has become robust. More is now delegated to Governors, but at the same time scope for local discretion has diminished. The administrative burden on Governors has increased significantly. Changes in the environment in which Governors operate have also had an impact on their work. In particular, recent years have seen a more punitive approach by the media, politicians, public and judiciary, and an increase in the ability and willingness of prisoners (and pressure groups) to challenge a Governor's decision. Governors today are at the same time: general managers (managing budgets and people, undertaking strategic planning, auditing and monitoring); leaders (acting as a figurehead, representing their establishment, providing vision and direction); operational commanders (dealing with incidents); and prison specialists (maintaining security, achieving order through effective control, and providing positive regimes). A key aspect of Governors' work has however remained unchanged over the years. This sui generis element involves balancing and regulating their prisons by exercising power, authority, influence and discretion in a way that protects individuals and mitigates the negative aspects of a closed institution. Governors must craft prison culture, blend the various approaches to maintaining order, and demonstrate clear moral and ethical standards. Governors still require 'grounded professionalism'. They manage their institutions based on their accumulated knowledge, practical experience and personal judgment. In doing so, they seek to ensure that prisoners are treated in a decent and humane way, their institutions are safe and clean, and opportunities exist for rehabilitation.
5

Self-harm in a men's prison : staff's and prisoners' perspectives

Marzano, Lisa January 2007 (has links)
This thesis draws on feminist and critical phenomenological perspectives to explore the issue of self-harm in men's prisons. In relation to what remains a "hidden problem" (Howard League, 1999, p. 1), the needs of men harming themselves with no apparent suicidal intent have been particularly overlooked, as have those of staff dealing with this complex behaviour. In-depth interviews with 20 adult male prisoners and 38 members of staff explored participants' experiences, views and concerns in relation to repetitive, non-suicidal self-harm. A pluralistic methodological approach, drawing on the principles of thematic and discourse analysis, informed the analysis of interview data, to reveal dominant themes, as well as tensions, inconsistencies and possibilities for change. As shown by previous studies, the notion of non-suicidal self-harm as "attention seeking" was a recurrent theme amongst staff, especially officers, doctors and nurses. This was situated within multiple, and at times overlapping, discourses, including 'medication seeking', 'poor coping' and 'cry for help' themes. In many accounts, less stigmatising discourses also existed, but were applied to specific types of 'self-harmers' (often a minority) in a rigid and hierarchical manner. Interviews with specialists and prisoners challenged this "stereotypical view", re-positioning men who self-harm as 'victims' and/or 'survivors' of their "imported vulnerability" (Liebling, 1995), and of the "pains of imprisonment" (Sykes, 1958). Amongst the latter, difficult relations with staff, and negative reactions to self-harm, were reported to have important implications for prisoners and their self-harming behaviours. Locating these responses within the context of staffs roles and occupational cultures helped to further understand and deconstruct the sorts of reactions that prisoners identified as "dangerous" and dehumanising, and also brought attention to their possible functions and effects for staff themselves. The wider context of work also provided a useful focus to consider how negative staff reactions to self-harm may be addressed. Eliciting staffs views and preferences for training, support and supervision revealed some of the tensions in supporting staff – and prisoners - in an under-resourced and over-crowded environment, and where a 'macho' form of managerialism, and actuarial conceptualisations of 'care', arguably hinder the welfare of both prisoners and staff. The thesis concludes by reflecting on these findings, the ways in which they were produced, and their wider implications for future policy and research.
6

The long-term impact of short periods of imprisonment on mothers

Masson, Isla MacMarquis January 2014 (has links)
This research examines how even an initial short period in prison negatively impacts mothers and their children. It involves a series of semi-structured interviews with 16 mothers during and post-custody; looking at the different ways in which multiple aspects of their lives are negatively affected for longer periods than their incarceration. It is argued that prison often increases the social disadvantages that many of the women encounter on a day-to-day basis. Based on this research it is suggested that the morally significant harms of prison need to be considered at the time of sentencing. Incarceration is not just about a temporary loss of liberty, even short terms in prison have longer multi-dimensional consequences. The thesis will begin by looking at the use of remand for women as well as examining the sentencing rationales for the use of short sentences. It will explore the problems with these forms of punishment, particularly for non-violent, and often vulnerable, women. It will be argued that these women experience multiple pains of incarceration, often compounded by the short period in which they are imprisoned. It will be suggested that their feelings of injustice may affect whether they are able to embrace any opportunities in prison and address feelings of guilt. The thesis will also examine these mothers’ experiences post-custody, describing which problems are on-going, which are resolved and what new unexpected problems arise. Given that they are mothers, their understanding of the harm of the separation to their children will also be explored. It will be concluded that the punishment should be balanced against the rights of mothers and their children. As such the use of short sentences for women should be significantly reduced, however if they continue to be used there need to be a series of changes to minimise the harms caused to this group.
7

Offenders with common mental health problems and their care : a multi-perspective and multi-dimensional study

Georgiadis, Alexandros January 2015 (has links)
Background: Adult male offenders have high rates of anxiety and depressive disorders, as defined by the psychiatric manuals (ICD-10, DSM-IV). The majority misuse substances, suffer from more than one (mental) health condition, and experience severe social problems. Despite their substantial mental health needs, their access rates to mental health services are low. This study explores how and why some offenders fall through the gap between services, with special focus on how offenders are defined in relation to diagnostic instruments, and what processes contribute to the label they receive. An analytical framework, based upon the works of Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault, is employed for the investigation of how offenders and professionals' relationships may shape these definitions. Objectives: 1) To investigate differences in understandings of anxiety and depression between offenders and their professionals, involved in either their care or their management, and 2) to explore how offenders and their professionals eo-construct mental health care. Method: 100 adult male offenders, serving either prison or community sentences, were recruited and screened for the presence of anxiety (GAD-7) and depressive (PHQ-9) disorders. A purposive sub-sample of 20 participants were interviewed and followed-up for 12 months in the community and/or prison where the author observed their encounters with professionals and interviewed both groups separately at the end of the observation. Findings: Both offenders and professionals articulated a psycho-social model of illness that was in contrast with the assumptions underpinning the psychiatric manuals and service design. The co-construction of mental health care was primarily based on the relationship between offenders and their professionals, and the 'micro-therapy' that consciously or unconsciously occurred between them. Offenders accepted practices of care that acknowledged their emotional distress and that aimed to provide emotional and practical support. The developed framework could adequately explain some features of the process of co-construction of mental health care. A Goffmanian dramaturgical perspective was employed to interpret how offenders changed the context of their mental health needs when they interacted with different professionals. Conclusions: Professionals should treat offenders as equals, listen to their concerns, and acknowledge their impact to offenders' mental health. Offenders need to know that there are non-specialist professionals that they can go for support with their emotional problems. Services need to broaden their criteria of access and work to design better services for offenders.
8

Prison, power, and people with learning disabilities : the complexities of curtailed lives

Gormley, Jenette Caitlin January 2017 (has links)
Very little is known about how people with learning disabilities symbolically engage with imprisonment and discursively account for it within their wider self-narratives. Although there are no cohesive incarceration figures for people with a learning disability, prevalence studies suggest that they are over-represented among prison populations worldwide. This research addresses a major gap in literature as people with learning disabilities’ accounts are largely absent from prison sociologies, and offending and imprisonment experiences are missing from learning disability studies literature. By bringing together empirical, theoretical, and methodological knowledge from criminology and disability studies, the research fills this void and heralds the value of drawing on two distinct fields of study. This thesis provides a platform for the experiences of 25 men and women with learning disabilities who were serving a custodial sentence or who had been recently liberated from custody at the time of research. Through a critical realist lens, the study used innovative qualitative research methods - multiple and semi-structured interviews - in order to preserve the ethical and moral integrity of researching inclusively with people with learning disabilities while being sensitive to the challenges of researching within prison. The research found that people with learning disabilities are disadvantaged and marginalised in unique ways as a result of the increasing psychological demands associated with late modern imprisonment. In prison, they negotiate distinct barriers to their full social participation with and through their punishment, sentence, and the demands of daily prison life. As a result, they face intersectional forms of oppression and are further socially disenfranchised through institutional process which render them vulnerable and dependent on the structures, supports, and regime of prison which are often absent from their lives in the community. Participants internalised their exclusion, and characterised their lives through experiences of labelling, governance, and curtailment.
9

Defining our experience : a psychosocial analysis of the racial, gendered, subjectivity of black women employees in the British Prison Service

Thomas, Marcia Veronica January 2016 (has links)
Prison occupation literature portrays an axiomatic image of the white male prison officer, which has a significant impact on mainstream society's perception of the people who work in prisons. This image of the prison employee inadvertently renders black women 'invisible' and places them on the margins of the organisation. This thesis takes a different approach to examining prison occupation by applying new and varied views of being black female prison employees, by combining intersectionality theory and organisational psychodynamics to explore the psychosocial experience of this group of staff. Their perspective as gendered and racialised subjects provides an insightful account of what it 'feels' like to be black, women, and employees in the British Prison Service. Intersectionality highlights the ways in which gender and race are socially constructed categories that interact and influence relational dynamics at the individual, group, and organisational level. Through the multiple, and sometimes complicated, intersections of race, gender, employee status and hierarchy, my analysis exposes organisational and interactional dimensions of power, privilege and oppression prevalent in participants' narratives. An organisational psychodynamic framework was applied to delve beneath the surface of interpersonal relationships and prison culture, to uncover the dynamic forces that block the free expression of gendered and racialised identity, and the acceptance and acknowledgment of difference.
10

Assessment and utility of interpersonal theory in a prison-based therapeutic community sample

O'Neill, Darragh January 2011 (has links)
The therapeutic community approach to psychological intervention has a long history of application in the context of offender rehabilitation. Its emphasis on the role of social interactions and interpersonal functioning in the encouragement and facilitation of change is one of this intervention's defining characteristics. However, the extent to which it actually effects change in offenders' interpersonal behaviour is still not fully understood. Interpersonal theory and the behavioural model that it proposes, the interpersonal circle, are founded on similar ideas to the therapeutic community concept, yet their relevance to the study of this intervention remains underexplored. The research described in this thesis has endeavoured to address this oversight. This work involved the longitudinal assessment of prisoners participating in a therapeutic community, principally using an observer-rated operationalisation of the interpersonal circle, the Chart of Interpersonal Relations in Closed Living Environments (CIRCLE). As the CIRCLE was employed in a novel setting and abbreviated form, the first stage in this research comprised an examination of its suitability to this application. Through a series of latent structural analyses, it was determined that the measure effectively operationalised the model upon which it was based. The next stage in this research involved an examination of how this interpersonal circle measure related to other assessment tools previously used in this setting. This study established that the CIRCLE was linked in a theoretically-consistent way with a number of these assessments, but also demonstrated that this measure provided an arguably more valid perspective compared to the primary assessment of interpersonal functioning previously used in this context. The final question addressed in this thesis concerned the interpersonal profile of the therapeutic community residents and how this changed in response to their participation in the intervention. This work established that such changes in interpersonal functioning were contingent on prisoners' completion of 18 months of therapy. The relevance of these changes to therapy engagement and subsequent recidivism were also examined. Ultimately, this work has established the applicability of interpersonal theory and its corresponding model of functioning to the study of prison-based therapeutic communities, and the utility of the insights that it can provide into both the process and outcome of this intervention approach.

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