Mental illness in prisons: true diagnosis or social control?

The poster (presented at the Annual Scientific Meeting of the Mental Health Research Network 2013) questions the validity of certain mental health diagnoses within forensic settings

Representing crime: the media and public criminology in the post-Leveson era

The political fallout post-Leveson has led to the press needing to re-evaluate some of its methods of reporting issues deemed to be ‘in the public interest’. As a part of the Leveson Inquiry, the Howard League made a submission in which it was suggested that the media, and in particular the printed press, are fuelling public outrage at the supposed ‘softness’ of prison, and downplaying the role that community sentencing can play in reducing overall levels of re-offending. This poster presents findings from a recent study that demonstrates that the printed news media’s misrepresentation of criminal justice issues is not confined to the debate about whether ‘prison works’, but rather extends to representations of the prevalence of different crime types. A nine times over-representation of sexual crime was found, along with an almost two-and-a-half times over representation of violent crime, whilst acquisitive crime – the type of offending most prevalent within the UK – was found to be under-represented within British press reports by four-and-a-half times. These findings are considered within the context of linguistically hostile press articles (particularly about sexual crime) as a potential block to engaging the public in informed debate about offending and crime reduction. Opportunities for more representative press reporting are identified, as are the implications of not acting on such a disparity between press reports and the realities of crime in the UK

Addressing attitudes and challenging stereotypes: preparing students for careers in applied psychology

Undergraduate psychologists are among the most likely group to move into therapeutic roles relating to sex offender rehabilitation. A positive attitude and good working knowledge about characteristics of sex offenders improves the therapeutic alliance between psychologist and offender, which is a factor cited as potentially increasing the likelihood of treatment success (Craig, 2005; Timimi 2009). With this in mind, and Given the range of psychology courses now offered by British universities, it was considered important to examine the contributions of different specialities in the breaking down of stereotypical thinking and encouragement of positive attitudes toward stigmatised populations. Establishing success of undergraduate psychology programmes in addressing stereotypical thinking is important for developing courses that produce high-quality psychologists for professional practice in their subsequent careers

Transforming rehabilitation and the creeping marketisation of British public services

This piece addresses issues pertaining to the privatisation of probation services and the 'Transforming Rehabilitation' agenda. I argue here that all of British public services are currently subject to a vreeping marketisation, aimed at reducing central Government expenditure. However, singling out probation services for this type of treatment may be short-sighted given its successes relative to other aspects of the justice system

In pursuit of the beast: undergraduate attitudes towards sex offenders and implications for society, rehabilitation and British psychology education

Positive attitudes toward sex offenders can lead to favourable treatment outcomes and with psychology students being among the most likely graduates to move into offender rehabilitation, it is important to investigate the attitudes of this group. Students from British psychology and non-psychology courses read vignettes depicting an adult and a juvenile committing a contact sexual offence on a child, and completed modified versions of the attitudes towards sex offenders [ATS] questionnaire. The adult offender was viewed significantly more punitively than the juvenile offender, but no significant differences were found between subgroups of participants. It was concluded that undergraduate psychology degrees do not go far enough to address some of the stigmatised views held by the general population towards sex offenders. Implications for media reporting, recidivism and psychology education are discussed

The Perceptions of Sex Offenders (PSO) scale: full scale and scoring manual

This document provides the full item list of the Perceptions of Sex Offenders (PSO) scale, along with scoring instructions

Representations of sexual offending: the British press, public attitudes and desistance from crime

The relationships between the media, public attitudes and crime are complex. There is some evidence to suggest that public interaction with press reports about sexual crime may have some effect on wider societal attitudes. With this in mind, 543 articles from eight of the ten most-read British national newspapers were examined in terms of (a) their representativeness about crime rates, and (b) their linguistic properties. A control sample of articles about immigrant groups was included in this analysis in order to establish how offender populations were described in comparison to another negatively-stereotyped population. Key results include a nine- and two-and-a-half-times over-representation of sexual and violent crime, respectively, and a four-and-a-half-times under-representation of acquisitive crime within press articles compared to official crime statistics. Linguistically, sexual crime articles comprised angrier and more emotionally negative tones than stories on violent crime, acquisitive crime, and immigrant groups, respectively, and this trend was observed in both tabloid and broadsheet newspapers. An analysis of the headlines of sexual crime articles found clear differences between tabloids and broadsheets with regard to the descriptors of those perpetrating sexual crimes. These findings are analysed within the social, political, and legal contexts of news reporting, with cognitive dissonance theory being offered as one social psychological framework for understanding the purpose of sexual crime reporting. The implications of such misrepresentative news reporting on sex offender reintegration and desistance from crime are discussed, and possible avenues for future research are suggested

PB 1769 A Guide to Successful Wildlife Food Plots Blending Science with Common Sense

Planting food plots is by far the most popular habitat management practice among landowners wanting to enhance wildlife habitat. NOTE: Hard copies of this publication are currently unavailable. A newer version of this title is available: https://extension.tennessee.edu/publications/Documents/PB1874.pdf

PB1633 Improving Your Backyard Wildlife Habitat

Information on wildlife needs, management concepts, a discussion of which trees and shrubs to plant, benefits of landscaping for wildlife, how to provide shelter, and tips on attracting and feeding birds

The measurement of meaning in personality research

The first study reported in this dissertation represented an attempt to test the validity of an assumed isomorphism between meaning as a representational mediating process and meaning as defined by co-ordinate points derived from Semantic Differential ratings and plotted in the Semantic Space- It was hypothesized that if this isomorphism were valid, Semantic Differential ratings of concepts would be subject to the influence of mediated generalization. The results of this study were positive and are interpreted as constituting partial support for the isomorphism. It is important to note that the observed mediated generalization does not constitute proof that meaning is in fact a representational mediating process. In this respect, the safest conclusion that can be drawn is that differences and similarities in meaning as defined by Semantic Differential performance appear to be valid indices of certain internal determinants of behaviour. Furthermore, the inter-relationships of meanings revealed in the Semantic Space appear to reflect the organization of these determinants within the individual.The second and third studies revealed that the factors of neurosis (or neuroticism) and introversion are associated with fairly distinctive patterns of meaning as measured by the Semantic Differential scales. Borrowing from the findings of the first study it was hypothesized that ambivalent reactions to positively-valued concepts would produce shorter concept-origin distances in the Semantic Differential protocols of neuotics than in those of normals. This hypothesis was supported in both the second and third studies. The third study also suggested that introverts tend to produce shorter concept-origin distances than do normals.From all of the studies reported, it is possible to draw a number of general conclusions concerning the use of the Semantic Differential in personality research: 1. The Semantic Differential appears to be a valid index of connotative meaning. 2. The Semantic Differential scales appear to have fairly stable dimensional characteristics over time and subjects. Since there is some possibility that these characteristics are partly a function of the particular concepts rated, it would be necessary to factorize scales where the degree of concept-scale interaction is unknown. 3. The Semantic Differential appears to have considerable promise as a research tool in comparative studies of different clinical groups.In each of the studies reported, there arose problems that have implications for both the theoretical and research aspects of Osgood's approach to meaning. In this, the concluding section of the dissertation, it is possible to review these problems in the light of the findings taken as a whole, and to suggest solutions that might be tested in subsequent investigations.The major and recurring difficulty concerns the social desirability factor in Semantic Differential performance. In the first study, although it was argued that the findings could not be satisfactorily explained in terms of social desirability, the discussion centred on the post-treatment analysis. No reference was made to the possibility that the pre-treatment performance of both the control and experimental groups could have been influenced by a desire to reflect the socially accepted meanings of the concepts that formed the subject of the investigation. From the subsequent studies, however, it became evident that in simple comparative investigations in which no experimental treatment was introduced, social desirability constituted a possible source of variance. It will be recalled that an examination of the cluster characteristics and the concept-origin distances of the various groups indicated that if in fact the factor of social desirability did influence scale ratings, then its influence was largely restricted to the performance of extraverts. This suggests that research should be carried out to test this hypothesis. If the hypothesis is supported, it might be of value to repeat the first investigation but restricting the sample to introverts. Alternatively, both extraverts and introverts could be employed if a suitable design were developed (for example, analysis of covariance).These suggestions ignore, of course, the challenge posed by the hypothesized existence of the social desirability factor for Osgood's approach to meaning. Before passing to a discussion of the second problem arising from these investigations, therefore, some consideration should be given to this issue.Perhaps the simplest way of handling socially desirable responses within the framework of Osgood's theory of learning is to treat them as attempts to reduce anxiety produced by ambivalence of connotative meaning. Let us assume that the individual is asked to say what a concept means to him. If this concept has been previously associated with significates that gave rise to responses of both approach and avoidance, ambivalence of meaning will be present. The co-existence of reciprocally antagonistic meanings would normally mediate, as was suggested in Studies II and III, a response that constituted a compromise between the responses that might be mediated by the respective meanings considered singly. However, if we assume that the individual has either been punished, or has not been reinforced for producing compromises in the past, we would predict that this kind of response would be suppressed, and one of the two responses forming the initial basis of the conflict would be elicited. Reinforcement of the response would strengthen the probability of its occurrence. Now since the constitution of reinforcing agencies (in the shape of people) is subject to variation it would be expected that the major determinant of any of the alternative responses (extreme or compromise) would be the social context in which the concept is presented. This leads to the prediction that the detection of a socially desirable response to a concept would be facilitated by manipulating the situational variables.There is nothing in this analysis to suggest that a socially desirable response is a response that does not reflect a "true" meaning of a concept for the individual. The analysis implies rather that a socially desirable response is one of a number of alternative responses elecited by a concept, and what is involved here is not a sin of commission but one of omission.The second problem arising from the investigation concerns the use of personality tests for the purpose of obtaining clinically differentiated groups. A review of the findings of Studies II and III reveals that comparisons of Semantic Differential performance across groups are of limited value when differentiating criteria (in this case, the Rorschach and the Maudsley Personality Inventory) do not correlate highly. This problem is, of course, as old as the history of personality test development, and there is still no evidence of an imminent solution. Related to this issue is that posed by the Foulds and Caine studies cited earlier, namely, the behavioural variability of individuals assigned to a given personality type on the basis of test performance. It is obvious that if test-designated dysthymics behave either like dysthyraics or hysterics, there is something wrong either with the test or with the behavioural analysis.In the light of this problem, it is suggested that in comparative investigations of Semantic Differential performance, both test and symptom-clusters should be employed as the bases for group differentiation. In this respect, there need not necessarily be any close degree of agreement between behavioural analysis and clinical designation by personality test. Furthermore it is not outwith the bounds of possibility that the development of a suitable form of the Semantic Differential may serve not merely as a dependent variable, but also as an important independent variable in establishing distinctive clinical groups. It may very well be that this technique may serve to discriminate between individuals whose sympton-clusters correspond to their personality types and those in whom such correspondence is absent.If further research continues to support the validity of the Semantic Differential as a quantitative measure of connotative meaning, this instrument should prove to have considerable value in clinical work. The principal advantage lies in the fact that the psychologist may explore the meaning of any area in the life of the patient or client without relying exclusively on his own subjective impressions. It is obvious, of course, that through the operation of a reaction formation or some other defence-mechanism, the patient may give mis¬ leading responses. This suggests that precautions should be taken to include scales whose meanings are not obvious but which correlate highly with those scales that might cue defensive reactions