Personality and attitude changes associated with long-term imprisonment

Very little is known about the psychological effects of imprisonment in general, and long-term imprisonment in particular. Most of our knowledge about imprisonment and its effects is derived from American sociological research, such as the classic study by Clemmer (1940), Psychologists seem to have avoided the problem and what data exists bears on the topic only tangentially. This study is an attempt to begin the process of bringing a particularly psychological point of view to bear on the issue. The study is essentially a two-fold psychometric examination of the question of the effects of long-term imprisonment on personality (as measured by the Sysenck Personality Inventory, the Gough Femininity Scale, the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire) and attitudes (as measured by the Semantic Differential). First, a cross-sectional analysis is outlined which yields data on the differences between groups of men in prison who have served differing mean lengths of total imprisonment during their careers. Second, a longitudinal analysis is presented which illustrates the changes which took place over the relatively short test-retest interval of 19 months, A factor- analytical study of the cross-sectional data and more detailed longitudinal analyoes of identifiable psychometric groups are also presented. Finally, an attempt is made to integrate the results into a coherent picture and suggestions are proffered which, it is hoped, may be of use both to future researchers and to the custodians of long-term prisoners

Al Qaeda at the bar: coordinating ideologues and mercenaries in terrorist organizations

Most terrorist groups have limited lifespans. A number of scholars and casual observers have noted that terrorist organizations often are comprised of two types of participants: ideologues or "true believers" dedicated to the group's cause, and mercenaries, who are adept at raising money through illegal means. The latter are interested primarily in their personal gains and have relatively little ideological commitment. Terrorist groups need both participants in order to function effectively. The purpose of the study is to understand the impact of communication on the compositions of terrorist groups. Three experimental treatments consider a coordination problem, and focus on the behavior of the mercenaries. Participants choose whether or not to participate in a terrorist attack. Payoffs are U-shaped in the number of participants, and increase with the number of successful attacks. The treatments allow communication between a leader and frontline fighters ("leader" treatment) or among the frontline fighters themselves ("communication" treatment). In the first treatment, a group leader can post messages to the members, which has a 19 % coordination success rate. For the communication treatment, all participants can post messages anonymously to each other, which yields a 27 % coordination success rate. By contrast, the baseline ("no communication" treatment) shows a success rate of 11 %. We conclude from our experimental evidence that disrupting communications among the frontline fighters is more effective in terminating terrorist organizations

Clinical features and management of individuals admitted to hospital with monkeypox and associated complications across the UK: a retrospective cohort study.

BACKGROUND: The scale of the 2022 global mpox (formerly known as monkeypox) outbreak has been unprecedented. In less than 6 months, non-endemic countries have reported more than 67 000 cases of a disease that had previously been rare outside of Africa. Mortality has been reported as rare but hospital admission has been relatively common. We aimed to describe the clinical and laboratory characteristics and outcomes of individuals admitted to hospital with mpox and associated complications, including tecovirimat recipients. METHODS: In this cohort study, we undertook retrospective review of electronic clinical records and pathology data for all individuals admitted between May 6, and Aug 3, 2022, to 16 hospitals from the Specialist and High Consequence Infectious Diseases Network for Monkeypox. The hospitals were located in ten cities in England and Northern Ireland. Inclusion criteria were clinical signs consistent with mpox and MPXV DNA detected from at least one clinical sample by PCR testing. Patients admitted solely for isolation purposes were excluded from the study. Key outcomes included admission indication, complications (including pain, secondary infection, and mortality) and use of antibiotic and anti-viral treatments. Routine biochemistry, haematology, microbiology, and virology data were also collected. Outcomes were assessed in all patients with available data. FINDINGS: 156 individuals were admitted to hospital with complicated mpox during the study period. 153 (98%) were male and three (2%) were female, with a median age of 35 years (IQR 30-44). Gender data were collected from electronic patient records, which encompassed full formal review of clincian notes. The prespecified options for data collection for gender were male, female, trans, non-binary, or unknown. 105 (71%) of 148 participants with available ethnicity data were of White ethnicity and 47 (30%) of 155 were living with HIV with a median CD4 count of 510 cells per mm3 (IQR 349-828). Rectal or perianal pain (including proctitis) was the most common indication for hospital admission (44 [28%] of 156). Severe pain was reported in 89 (57%) of 156, and secondary bacterial infection in 82 (58%) of 142 individuals with available data. Median admission duration was 5 days (IQR 2-9). Ten individuals required surgery and two cases of encephalitis were reported. 38 (24%) of the 156 individuals received tecovirimat with early cessation in four cases (two owing to hepatic transaminitis, one to rapid treatment response, and one to patient choice). No deaths occurred during the study period. INTERPRETATION: Although life-threatening mpox appears rare in hospitalised populations during the current outbreak, severe mpox and associated complications can occur in immunocompetent individuals. Analgesia and management of superimposed bacterial infection are priorities for patients admitted to hospital. FUNDING: None

Towards a functional analysis of delinquent behaviour: a pilot study

The events surrounding the delinquent behaviour of 21 juvenile offenders were examined in terms of the antecedents and consequences of these behaviours and with reference to the functional value of the behaviour to the individual. The results are analysed using reversal theory and the importance of the motivational state of the offender at the time the crime is carried out is stressed

Measuring the attitudes of prisoners by the semantic differential

This study examined the notion that selection of semantic differential scales by reference to the table of factor loading of C. E. Osgood, et al., may be of doubtful validity if concept-scale interactions produce wide variations in factor structure between concepts. Factor analyses were carried out with respect to the measurement of prisoners' attitudes for each of 12 concepts and for the concepts as a whole. The overall analysis yielded a cognitive-evaluative factor, an affective-evaluative factor, and a 3rd factor in which the 2 activity scales featured strongly. That the 1st 2 factors appeared in many of the individual concept analyses was interpreted as providing some justification for the use of the overall analysis as a basis for the selection of scales. However, in order to construct the most sensitive measures of attitudes to particular concepts, selection of scales from the individual concept analyses here reported is recommended

Prisoners' personality: a factor analytically derived structure

This study analyzed personality data from the authors' cross-sectional study of long-term imprisonment in order to elicit a wider and less theoretically bound picture of personality function and change within prison. 175 long-term prisoners were administered the Eysenck Personality Inventory (Form B), the 16 PF (Form B), the Hostility-Direction of Hostility Questionnaire (HDHQ), and the 58-item Femininity scale from the California Psychological Inventory. The data were analyzed using 2 programs described by M. B. Youngman (1971): FTAN, which performs a principal components analysis and then Kaiser's varimax rotation; and FASC, which uses the resultant factor matrix to assign factor scores to all Ss. Those variables that are a function of others (HDHQ Total Hostility, Extrapunitive Hostility, Intropunitive Hostility, and Direction of Hostility) were omitted from the analysis since their inclusion would have yielded spurious correlations and factors. Results show a factor structure that appears to be peculiar to prisoners. The top 3 of the 5 factors accounting for 57.86% of the total variance were Anxiety (21.48%), Extrapunitive Hostility (12.02%), and Extraversion (9.42%). It is suggested that factors that appear to be important in analyses of the general population are not necessarily important in prison populations

Psychological correlates of long-term imprisonment part III: attitudinal variables

A Semantic Differential test was administered to 175 men serving determinate sentences of 10 years and above or indeterminate sentences in prisons through out England in order to assess attitudes to concepts selected either because of their relevance to the experience of imprisonment or because of their general importance. The sample was divided into four groups, matched for age but differing in mean total lengths of accumulated imprisonment experienced. Self-evaluation was found to decrease significantly with imprisonment. Evidence was presented which supported the contention that imprisonment itself, rather than release-selection procedures, was responsible for this trend. There was some evidence that increasing imprisonment was associated with more unfavourable attitudes to the concepts of work and father. It was suggested that these latter two changes might be a consequence of the breakdown of relationships between prisoners and their families

Psychological correlates of long-term imprisonment part I: cognitive variables

This study deals with psychological correlates of long-term imprisonment on a representative sample of 175 men serving either indeterminate sentences or determinate sentences of 10 yrs or more in a number of English prisons. 4 groups of prisoners were delineated, matched for age but differing in mean total length of prison experience, and a battery of cognitive tests was administered to each S. Analysis of the data showed no decline in general intellectual capacity with increasing length of imprisonment, but hostility and introversion increased significantly. A group of men who had been released on parole subsequent to testing did not differ significantly on these measures from a matched group who had been considered for parole but detained for a further period. This fact is interpreted as supporting the hypothesis that imprisonment, rather than selection procedures, was responsible for the differences noted