Working Behind Bars: Employed Prisoners' Perception of Professional Training and Employment in Prison

The research is aimed at examining the perceptions and attitudes of prisoners employed in enterprises in prison vis-à-vis employment and deriving conclusions regarding the impact of employment on the lives of prisoners in prison and its contribution to advancing their rehabilitation. Doing time is generally a painful experience, both physically and mentally, and often adversely influences prisoners' life after release. Programs and activities have been developed in prisons in many countries, including Israel, to mitigate these impacts and at the same time reduce recidivism following release. A key such program is employment in enterprises within the prison walls, including training of prisoners in a variety of professions. In the framework of the present qualitative research 20 prisoners employed in enterprises in Israeli prisons were interviewed, and these aired their perceptions regarding employment and its effects. Three main themes and 18 sub-themes defining the attitudes of the prisoners to the issue emerged from the interviews. The first two themes are: employment provides benefits and alleviates the pains of imprisonment; and employment helps prisoners' rehabilitation. The third theme emerging from the statements of an isolated number of prisoners is: employment is an act of exploitation on the part of the Prison Service and serves no useful purpose. The overall conclusion of the study is that employment in enterprises in prison is generally perceived by the prisoners as positive and contributory, in terms of both reducing the damage caused by imprisonment and raising the likelihood of the prisoner being rehabilitated through employment following his release

Difficulties and Challenges in an Employment Supervision Program for Paroled Prisoners

The integration of paroled prisoners in employment is presented in the theoretical and research-based literature as one of the principal means of achieving successful re-entry by the prisoners into the community. The literature deals extensively with the correlation between integration and perseverance in employment and risk indices, the most pronounced of which is a return to crime. According to the Theory of Desistance from Crime, it is not enough for criminal activity to cease; a complex process must set in motion to bring about a change in perceptions and behaviour in all walks of life, especially regarding employment. A key program being implemented by Israel's Prisoner Rehabilitation Authority is one involving an employment guidance and supervision program for paroled prisoners. The program emphasizes employment in all its facets – placement, support during the period of employment and supervision during parole – alongside psychological treatment and rehabilitation in the community. Operating the program are employment supervisors and psychotherapists. In order to understand how the program is managed and perceived by its operators, in-depth interviews were conducted with seven psychotherapists and employment counsellors in the framework of the present qualitative-interpretive research. The article describes the perceptions of the personnel responsible for running the program during the period 2018-2020. The findings of the research highlight the difficulties and limitations the prisoners face, harmony and dissonance in the encounter between supervisors and psychotherapists, the dilemma over protection of society vs. assistance to the prisoners, employment characteristics as indicative of the rehabilitation process, and the merits of the program. The article also discusses the contribution of employment supervision to successful reintegration of paroled prisoners in normative employment and society

How Does it Feel? Factors Predicting Emotions and Perceptions Towards Sexual Harassment

The present research addresses the effect of different variables on emotions and on perceptions held by research participants vis-à-vis situations that could be construed as sexual harassment. A total of 833 Israeli students participated in the study and use was made of a Sexual Harassment Definition Questionnaire (SHDQ). It was found that emotions aroused due to behaviour that is perceived as sexual harassment depend on variables such as age and gender of perpetrator and victim. More negative feelings were identified towards behaviours suggestive of sexual harassment among women than men, and among younger than older individuals, principally in situations where the perpetrator is a man. Situations in which the perpetrator and the victim were of the same gender were experienced as less flattering than those in which the gender was different. It was also found that women above the age of 40 perceived behaviour in which a woman related to a man or a woman in sexual terms as a situation with a higher potential for sexual harassment than one in which a man related to a woman or a man in a similar way. The findings show the extent to which social perceptions and emotions relating to sexual harassment are dynamic and context-dependent

Information Trading en términos de cognición funcional de los corredores: un estudio exploratorio experimental de un solo participante

Information trading (henceforth IT) is a criminal offense in the vicinity of mega stock markets. It gives an unfair and illegal advantage to the buyer of related information. The national and global damage caused by this sort of delinquency is immense, in a yearly scale of trillions. On top of the applied importance of such offenses, they pose a meaningful theoretical and empirical challenge. The present proposal offers an attempt to exemplify the viability of the Functional Theory of Cognition and the methodological counterpart of the theory, Functional Measurement, as a means to establish a basis for related profiling attempts in terms of the functional way IT is coded in the beholders’ (i.e., senior brokers) cognitive system. An exemplary single-participant functional measurement is presented along with a demo empirical illustration of the way the distinction between Type A and Type B brokers can contribute to due profiling. Possible future related scientific ventures are pointed at briefly.El intercambio de la información (en adelante IT) es un delito en el entorno de los mega mercados de valores. Esto da una ventaja injusta e ilegal a los compradores de la información relacionada. El daño nacional y global causado por este tipo de delincuencia es inmenso, en una escala anual de miles de millones. En el punto más alto de la importancia aplicada, este tipo de delitos que suponen un desafío teórico y empírico significativo. La presente propuesta ofrece un intento de ejemplificar la viabilidad de la Teoría Funcional de la Cognición y su contraparte metodológica, la Medición Funcional, como un medio para establecer una base para los intentos de perfiles afines, en cuanto a la forma funcional en que el IT está codificado en el sistema cognitivos de los espectadores (específicamente en los corredores de alto nivel). Una medición funcional de un solo participante ejemplar se presenta junto con una demostración empírica de la forma en que la distinción entre los corredores de Tipo A y Tipo B puede contribuir al objetivo de establecer dichos perfiles. Posibles futuras investigaciones científicas relacionadas se señalan brévemente

A Three-dimensional Perspective on Wrongful Convictions in Israel: Organizational-Forensic, Psychosocial and Practical

It is difficult to find an injustice committed against the citizen by the state that is greater than the conviction of an innocent person. At this stage, it may be tentatively stated that the phenomenon is not insignificant. This theoretical article describes the various aspects of the criminal justice system associated with the undesirable outcome of wrongful convictions. The paper reviews a series of organizational and forensic aspects that could bring about a bias in investigation of the legal truth. Furthermore, a number of psychosocial aspects relating to wrongful convictions, followed by practical aspects are described and discussed. It appears that on the practical level the phenomenon cries out for changes in the law enforcement system (e.g. implementation of the US Innocence Project or the biometric databank) and the need for empirical investigation. It appears that there is still a long way to go before a full understanding can be obtained of wrongful convictions and their prevention. One way or another, the authors are of the opinion that greater academic and public importance should be assigned to the question of wrongful convictions and perhaps turn the issue of truth and falsehood in criminal law into a theoretical and research field in its own right

Information Trading en términos de cognición funcional de los corredores: un estudio exploratorio experimental de un solo participante

Information trading (henceforth IT) is a criminal offense in the vicinity of mega stock markets. It gives an unfair and illegal advantage to the buyer of related information. The national and global damage caused by this sort of delinquency is immense, in a yearly scale of trillions. On top of the applied importance of such offenses, they pose a meaningful theoretical and empirical challenge. The present proposal offers an attempt to exemplify the viability of the Functional Theory of Cognition and the methodological counterpart of the theory, Functional Measurement, as a means to establish a basis for related profiling attempts in terms of the functional way IT is coded in the beholders’ (i.e., senior brokers) cognitive system. An exemplary single-participant functional measurement is presented along with a demo empirical illustration of the way the distinction between Type A and Type B brokers can contribute to due profiling. Possible future related scientific ventures are pointed at briefly.El intercambio de la información (en adelante IT) es un delito en el entorno de los mega mercados de valores. Esto da una ventaja injusta e ilegal a los compradores de la información relacionada. El daño nacional y global causado por este tipo de delincuencia es inmenso, en una escala anual de miles de millones. En el punto más alto de la importancia aplicada, este tipo de delitos que suponen un desafío teórico y empírico significativo. La presente propuesta ofrece un intento de ejemplificar la viabilidad de la Teoría Funcional de la Cognición y su contraparte metodológica, la Medición Funcional, como un medio para establecer una base para los intentos de perfiles afines, en cuanto a la forma funcional en que el IT está codificado en el sistema cognitivos de los espectadores (específicamente en los corredores de alto nivel). Una medición funcional de un solo participante ejemplar se presenta junto con una demostración empírica de la forma en que la distinción entre los corredores de Tipo A y Tipo B puede contribuir al objetivo de establecer dichos perfiles. Posibles futuras investigaciones científicas relacionadas se señalan brévemente

Fine-dining in prisons: Online TripAdvisor reviews of The Clink training restaurants

This study evaluated customer reviews about The Clink restaurants to understand how they are rated and what experience is gained by fine dining in a prison. The Clink Charity runs training restaurants in four U.K. prisons and aims to change attitudes and transform lives through prisoner rehabilitation. This research used an interpretive case study of the Clink restaurants to evaluate online customer reviews posted on TripAdvisor. In total, 3951 reviews were analysed using Leximancer 5.0. The most prominent themes were Food: ‘fine-dining in prisons’, Visit: ‘The Clink ambassadors’, and Prison: ‘the inside and outside divide’. Despite the prison location, customers reported having exceptional, professional and memorable dining experiences delivered by highly trained chefs, and that the front of house staff would rival those in many fine-dining restaurants. Further research is required to confirm how dining at a Clink restaurant may have potentially begun to change the public perceptions of prisoners