Изучение экзистенциальных ценностей ВИЧ-инфицированных осужденных к лишению свободы

Abstract

According to statistics from the Federal Penal Service of Russia annually 80–85% of convicts arriving at institutions of the penal system have chronic diseases. The number of people infected with HIV in prisons and colonies is growing every year. Correctional and educational work with this category of convicts has its own characteristics and requires the adoption of additional organizational and other measures to overcome their personal deformations, the formation of law-abiding behavior and social adaptation in terms of imprisonment. At the same time special attention is paid to existential values in connection with the loss by many convicts the meaning of life, the prospects of release from places of detention. Within the framework of the existential approach the correctional process appears as a flexible, variable system, where the actual differentiation of upbringing influences takes place. Also the content of the correctional process is purposefully shaped and enriched with moral values, meanings, traditions for the purpose of personal self-realization and self-esteem, helps the convicted person to understand the semantic sphere of his behavior and actions, to cope with negative emotional states, to develop a meaningful reference point. In order to study the existential sphere of HIV-infected convicts a study was conducted on the basis of the PKU SIZO-10 of the Federal Penal Service of Russia in the Moscow region, in which 30 HIV-infected men aged from 20 to 45 took part. A specially developed technique and questionnaire “Events of my life” of G.S. Nikiforova was offered for convicted. As a result of this study data were obtained indicating that the general condition of convicts with HIV infection and the social environment in which it is located have a significant impact on the presence and awareness of the meaning of life. These convicts do not see positive prospects in the future. The values associated with communicating with loved ones, family, understanding and compassion for them in the current situation come for them to the fore. Convicts with HIV infection are characterized by a low level of general meaningfulness of the future life and the past, which is expressed in the absence of goals and temporal perspectives, dissatisfaction with self-realization, a low level of selfcontrol and controllability. The article makes a number of recommendations for penal psychologists to work with this category of persons. Further individual in-depth analysis of the data obtained may become a promising study on the relationship of HIV-infected convicts to their own lives.