One hundred and one consecutive male admissions to the City of Edinburgh Prison at Saughton from the Edinburgh Burgh Court were interviewed and examined by the author over a period of three months on a once-only individual interview basis; one prisoner, who had been convicted of public drunkenness, refused to be interviewed and was omitted from the study. The remaining 100 prisoners were examined by means of historical data questionnaires, devised by the author; a validated, semi-structured mental status examination; and structured psychological questionnaires. By these means information relevant to current mental functioning, social demographic and past and present social functioning was obtained. All independent variables derived were compared to a scale of dependent variables concerning the presence or absence of previous prison admission for public drunkenness offences. An IBM 360/50 computer was used to handle data which were analysed by non-parametric statistics. The results are discussed in the light of information previously concerning the pattern off recidivism termed "The Habitual Drunkenness Offender" syndrome; and in terms of the current thinking concerning social, cultural, and medical-psychological variables which, it is believed, could influence the adoption and stabilisation of this mode of deviant social behaviour. An attempt is made to order the data so as to facilitate the construction of theories of development of the syndrome which might, in turn, allow a better understanding of the process and point the way toward improved methods of avoidance and rehabilitation. Problems concerning the validity of such an approach are considered.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:450263 |
| Date | January 1976 |
| Creators | Burnett, G. B. |
| Publisher | University of Aberdeen |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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