Prevention of Criminal Behavior of Prison Officers Working with Convicts Held in Lockable Premises

Abstract

The Russian Federation continues its consistent policy of humanizing the conditions for incarcerated women and minors, of law observance in the execution of punishment and the prevention of unlawful violence against inmates. In this connection, optimizing the prevention of prison officers’ unlawful behavior requires new approaches to precluding personality destruction of prison employees that leads to unlawful use of physical violence against inmates. The existing legal basis does not provide any special psychological assistance for specific categories of officers, thus it is important to search for effective methods of preventing unlawful behavior of those employees who have immediate contact with convicts held in lockable premises. The intensity and tension in the work of these officers are caused by their constant contact with the most criminalized inmates, by the necessity to perform their professional tasks in the conditions of covert or open confrontation, provocative or manipulative behavior of criminals. Such conditions increase the probability of unlawful behavior of prison officers, manifested both as one-time, situational reactions and as overall behavioral strategies. Such factors made it necessary to conduct a country-wide research of personal characteristics of this category of officers with the purpose of identifying those features that provoke unlawful behavior. It involved 213 prison officers (representative method of random sampling) from 81 subjects of the Russian Federation; the authors also examined data acquired as a result of specific requests and the analysis of materials on the frequency and characteristic features of unlawful behavior of officers. The research resulted in determining personal profiles of penitentiary system’s employees. It showed that 98 of them (the first group) have an evident complex of negative characteristics (negative profile of personality). It is not recommended for them to work in lockable premises in the future. The researchers recommended 115 officers (the second group) for future work in lockable premises of penitentiary institutions (positive profile of personality). The diagnostics’ results made it possible to determine that the key specific task of psychological assistance for this category of officers is timely identification of inclination for unlawful behavior and the assessment of the effectiveness of correctional measures. Preventive work should be based on the results of screening that determines the level of aggression, depressive conditions, mental tolerance of the officer under considerable psychological and physical stress and extraordinary, extreme situations at work.