Abstract
Incorporating measures of prison behavior into risk assessment and management procedures may assist in treatment planning, risk monitoring, and decision-making. A behavior rating scale was used to assess prison officers’ observations on externalizing, internalizing, and adaptive behavior in a sample of 277 sexual and violent offenders in correctional treatment in Berlin, Germany. The present study employed latent profile analysis to identify inmate subtypes with similar behavioral patterns. Results indicated a solution with five latent profiles that showed similarities with previous inmate typologies. The subtypes were termed “Aggressive-Psychopathic,” “Asocial,” “Situational,” “Inconspicuous, and “Inadequate-Dependent.” Analyses attested to the construct and predictive validity of the subtypes and involved the examination of differences on criminological characteristics, risk assessment instruments, various types of prison misconduct, and postrelease recidivism. This person-centered study illustrates the importance of attending to broader patterns of inmate behavior. The structured assessment of behavioral observations by prison officers can be a valuable and easy-to-implement approach to benefit from this largely neglected resource.
Highlights
Research has led to the development of several generations of risk assessment tools that incorporate static and dynamic risk factors that are theoretically and empirically linked to recidivism [1]
In line with previous research on inmate typologies [e.g., [32, 36]], we propose that such an approach may improve our understanding of prison behavior and may have implications for treatment planning and risk assessment [8]
Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) was used to determine whether homogenous subtypes with relatively unique SWAP-Rating Scale (SWAP-RS) factor profiles can be found in a heterogenous sample of male offenders in correctional treatment
Summary
Research has led to the development of several generations of risk assessment tools that incorporate static and dynamic risk factors that are theoretically and empirically linked to recidivism [1]. Procedures that incorporate current prison behavior into risk assessment have been proposed to assist treatment planning, risk monitoring, and decisionmaking [5,6,7] This person-centered study proposes a feasible approach to identify meaningful subgroups of inmates based on their prison behavior. It can be implemented in daily prison routines at low expenses being based on behavioral ratings by prison officers. Such a classification may be Prison Behavior Subtypes relevant for both research and correctional practice to improve understanding of prison behavior, to match inmates to appropriate treatment, and to predict future offending [8]
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