PSYC335: Impacts of Crime and Punishment

NZ Prison Space

- No cell phone, internet, and not much personal belongings

- Door is locked

- No other person in the cell; limited social interaction

- Can only ring friends/family for an hour per month

- Visiting depends on staff and your friends location

- Can impact mental health

Relationship Between Criminal Offending & Mental Health Issues

There is a correlation between criminal offending and mental health issues

However, cannot establish a causal relationship because people can come into prison with a mental health problem already

or develop a mental health problem once in prison

Te Whare Tapa Wha

Representation of wellbeing: Social interactions + mental & emotional wellbeing + spiritual wellbeing + Whenua + physical wellbeing = all aspects effect wellbeing

Te Whare Tapa Wha can be implemented to understand prisons effect on wellbeing

Mental Health in New Zealand Prison Populations

Predominate diagnosis = PTSD and Major Depression (across both women and men). Substance abuse also very prevalent.

Health Care Provided in NZ Prisons by Ara Poutama

Primary health care: general practitioner (GP) services, nursing and basic dentistry and some disability support services

Health centre in each prison: registered nurses employed by Ara Poutama, contracted doctors and dentists

Mental Health Care in NZ Prisons

- General health Practitioner

- Local Regional Forensic Mental Health Services (DHB)

- ACC

- Special Treatment Units

Special Treatment Units (STU)

- Treatment units for violent offending, sexual offending and for women

- Need to fulfil specific requirements to enter

- Treatment that is more related to mental health problems

NZ Prevalence of Childhood Traumatic Events

Any type of trauma was experienced by almost everyone in the sample, but most prevalent was witnessing violence, physical abuse and poor supervision.

Impact of Childhood Traumatic Experiences on Treatment Outcomes in NZ STU's

Various types and a high prevalence of childhood trauma in prisoners can cause them to drop out early and have difficulty in the treatment progress

Dangerousness of Prison: Assaults

Non-serious and no injury assault is most common, with serious assaults least.

There is a general downwards trajectory from 2023-2025

Dangerousness of Prison: Deaths

Higher rates of natural deaths compared to unnatural (suicide and assaults)

Role of Food in Prison

power, punishment and resistance/agency (used to trade and another way of managing social hierarchy)

cultural identity, relationships (prisoners can work in the kitchen, giving them a status)

The Role of Nutrition for Health in Prison

Meals in prison follow standard nutrition guidelines but some say it doesn't satisfy the diversity of needs

The Role of Sleep for Aggression

Poor sleep quality is related to more aggression.

Mechanism's that Influence the Relationship between Sleep & Aggression

Prefrontal cortex functioning -> Poor sleep quality has an effect on prefrontal cortex functioning

Serotonin levels -> effected by sleep and play a role in aggression

Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Axis activity -> Effected by sleep and H-P-A activity different in aggressive people

The Role of Sleep for Aggression in Prison Population

Lower sleep quality in prison context due to activity at night, lights being turned off and on etc. (not quantity) >> lower prosocial attribution tendencies, higher levels of reactive and proactive aggression

Keeping & Building Social Connections in Prison

- Distance to home related to depressive symptoms

- Lack of control over situation, withdrawing and isolating, staying connected to the outside world an issue

- Single cell placement, frequent changes of cellmate and cell >> increased risk of self-harm

- Higher social density is correlated with more violent assaults

- The role of gangs in NZ prison is huge and has a strong influence on social factors

Effects of Occupational Therapy in Prison

seems to reduce recidivism and to contribute to social and work reintegration

Obtaining secondary degree in prison increase chance of employment after imprisonment

Effects of Education in Prison

recidivism rate by ~1/3

24% increase in chance of employment

Culturally Sensitive Programs & Offerings in Prison

Culturally based interventions >> "high acceptability", "potential for increased recovery from trauma, reduced alcohol-related problems and lower reoffending", and less distress in challenging situations in prison

Religious Activities in Prison

Support for religious activities after re-lease >> potentially positive effect for recidivism

Impact of Biodiversity & Air Pollution on Wellbeing in Prisons

More breathe space = less self-harm & prisoner-on-prisoner attacks

Less air pollution = this effect is stronger

Prison being dense, city area means reduced mental health

NZ Prison Context: Children & Adult

Majority of adults in prison are parents

Impact of Incarcerations for Families

- Primarily negative

- Impacts factors that sustain adult relationships

- Shift in family responsibilities

- Particularly difficult for women due to them tend to being the primary caregiver

- Financial losses

- Disruption to parent-child relationships

- Disruption to parental role

- Distress at separation from the parents

- Struggle to adjust losing them and struggle to readjust post release

- Stigma of having a parent in prison

Impact of Prison on Caregivers

- Difficulty telling children about what's happened, where the individual is gone

- Feelings of separation, loss, guilt, relief, resentment

- Mental health e.g., depression

- Increased childcare & balancing with other things such as employment

- Financial pressure

- Interacting with new systems (e.g., school)

- Children responses: coping with child's emotional & behavioural issues

- Caregivers reaching to external organisations; lack of trust, concerned about stigma and loss of custody

- May be unprepared to deal with new children being added to their family

Impact of Prison on Incarcerated Parent

- Depends on level & quality of prior involvement

- Disruption to parental role

- Mothers more likely to have custody prior to incarceration than fathers

- Mothers being incarcerated has more serve effects

Parents with Children & Good Relationships in Prison Worry About:

- Well-being of children

- Maintaining relationship

- Reuniting on release

- Being 'replaced by other caregiver

- Can increase mental health issues

Impact of Prison on Children

- Primarily negative

- Change & instability

- Distress at separation

- Worry about how family copes, wellbeing of incarcerated parent, etc.

- Mental health - anxiety, depression

- Behavioural problems

- School: low achievement, employment, stigmatized from peers or teachers

- No plan for child if parent did not plan for their incarceration

Gender Differences: Behavioural Problems

- Paternal incarceration > negative impact for boys

- Maternal incarceration -> mixed, some positive, negative or no impact

Barriers to Visiting

- Financial

- Transport difficulties & prison location

- Dependent on others/conflicts between caregiver and incarcerated parent

- Rules & regulations

- Visit logistics - processing, waiting, staff treatment, lock down

- Repeated separations

- Stressful for children and caregivers

Visitation Environment Barriers For Child

- Higher lease of mental and physical health in prison contexts

- Prison context exposes children to more pro-criminal attitudes

- Violent places and children could be exposed to violence when visiting

- Not child-centred or friendly, meaning that you could end up with a poor quality visit -> less likely to visit again

Reasons Visits Do Not Occur

- Incarcerated parents avoid visiting

- Children don't want to visit

- Children don't know

- External agency polices

- Children may not feel hurt, guilty or helpless through experiences

- Logistical and practical elements in the prisons

Why do Incarcerated Parents Avoid Visits?

- Concern for children

- Protect children from stress or physically or disengage from separation

- Believe it's an unsuitable/unsafe environment

- Unable to contact children

- Avoid negative feelings

- Coping with pressure

- Avoid finding out about what's going on 'outside'

Effects of Visitations on Children

- Short-term negative effects

- Behaviour - excitable, hyperactive which reduces negative feelings associated with separation

- Maintains attachment & relationships

Effects of Visitations on Prisoners

- Promotes positive mental health

- Supports family relationships and maintenance of parental role and responsibility

- In-prison conduct depends on individual who is visiting = significant other or close person means less in-prison conduct

Mother-Baby Units

- Allow young children to stay with their mother

- Recognises importance of attachment

- Concerns separation has on children

- Questionable suitability of environment for child development

- Not offered to fathers

General Benefits of Visits

- Alleviate some of negative effects of separation, i.e., supports family communication, relationships, and inclusion

- Associated with reductions in all forms of recidivism

- Reduced intergenerational transmission of delinquency

- Positive impact on children

- Maintaining strong relationships -> better post-release outcomes

Policy & Practical Implications of Visitiatons

- CRC = Convention on the Rights of the Children

- Variations in policies & rules

- Corrections/justice policies have implications for families

- Support visits & other forms contact C

- Parenting programmes to give them skills when they leaving prison to be better parents

- Planning for post release, transition

- Other professionals - e.g., schools, legal

The Concepts of Victims & Offenders

people do not fit into these categories neatly/there is overlaps

People who have experienced trauma, abuse, pain are more likely...

to inflict harm on others

Victim-Offender Overlap

The witnessing or direct victimisation of and perpetration of psychological and physical violence, in either direction

one of the most "robust" and "substantial" phenomena within criminology, across locations and demographics

Cycle of Violence

A cyclical pattern where an individual experiences violent victimisation, and goes on to commit acts of violence themselves

Violence

intentional and direct physical violence that is intended to injure, impair or kill, some studies include witnessing, psychological or sexual violence, other types of abuse/neglect (e.g., ACEs, trauma/PTSD)

Directionality/Casualty of Victim-Offender Overlap

can be in both directions

Trauma

Results from an event, series of events, or set of circumstances that is experienced by an individual as physically or emotionally harmful or threatening and that has lasting adverse effects on the individual's functioning and physical, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being

Two Aspects of Trauma

- experienced (element of subjective experience, changes depending on the individual)

- Lasting, aversive effect on wellbeing or functioning

Two Common Pathways of Dealing with Trauma:

- hypervigilance and over-reactivity to perceived threats of harm

- numbness and flat affect.

Trauma Relates to Violence

Two common pathways are adaptive for children in a trauma/difficult context, but becomes maladaptive in other contexts

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs)

potentially traumatic events during childhood that are linked to detrimental long-term health outcomes, mental illness, and substance use, etc.

Examples of ACEs:

- Physical abuse.

- Sexual Abuse.

- Emotional Abuse.

- Living with someone who abused drugs.

- Living with someone who abused alcohol.

- Exposure to domestic violence.

- Living with someone who has gone to prison.

- Living with someone with serious mental illness

ACEs Relation to Violence

Those with four or more ACEs were 15 times more likely to have committed an act of violence during the last 12 months

General Size of the Victim-Offender Overlap Cycle

Most victims do not go on to use violence, but (as a group) victims of violence are 55% more likely to commit a violent crime than non-victims

NZ Size of the Victim-Offender Overlap Cycle

- 24% of people in prison have lifetime diagnosis of PTSD

- 57% of people in prison have experienced (lifetime) sexual and/or family violence

- 82% of a sample of men in prison (STU-V) had experienced at least one type of abuse or neglect

Importance of Understanding the Overlap

- highlights the complexity of violence and its cyclical nature

- Prevention, early intervention, rehabilitation

- Prison can be a re-traumatising environments, thus should we be dealing with violence perpetration without addressing victimisation experiences?

Challenges of Victim-Offender Cycle: Reasons the Binary Persists (By People)

- The social control function of criminal law/focus on individual causes

- Framing violence as exceptional and deviant

- CJS focuses on personal responsibility and accountability

Challenges of Victim-Offender Cycle: Harms of Ignoring Overlap

- Influences public attitudes towards people who use violence being punitive

- Re-entrenches the false and racialised narrative of individual blameworthiness

- Masks and fails to address the root causes of violence, i.e., violence as a public health issue

Challenges of Victim-Offender Cycle: Measuring & Understanding

- Defining variables like victimisation

- Non-discrete events: repeated/concurrent victimisation/offending

- Challenges capturing the situational dynamics through surveys (victim/offender in the same incident)

- Measurement of variables

- Different types/sources of violence (e.g., FV, IPV, gangs, prison),

- The possibility that the sources of the overlap are not located at the individual-level unit of analysis but in other analytical units

Theories of Crime: Socio-Economical Model

Considers environmental and individual factors into offending

Socio-Economical Model Explanation of Victim-Offender Cycle

that there are mechanisms across different levels (environmental/individual) that increase their vulnerability to victimisation and offending

Theories of Crime: General Personality & Cognitive Social Learning

discuss distal and proximate factors that increase offending

General Personality & Cognitive Social Learning Explanation of Victim-Offender Cycle

argues that distal risk factors lead to the development of proximal risk factors via social learning and this makes it more likely that someone will use violence in an immediate situation

Theories of Crimes: Agency Theories

Explain violence/criminal behaviour as a result of goal-directed behaviour

e.g., guy exposed to violence/trauma or beliefs that its unsafe to show emotions/get others before yhey get me -> hypervigilant and violent -> reinforced because people responded in fear and wouldn't use violence towards him/keeps him safe or by people around him

Agency Theories Explanation of Victim-Offender Cycle

A cycle of learning through environments: developing beliefs about the self and world -> responding in ways that are congruent with these behaviours -> behaviour reinforced or punished

Things that Decrease the Risk a Victim of Violence to Use Violence

Resilience & Protective Factors

Resilience

phenomena such as healthy development despite a high-risk status; maintaining competence under specific stressors; or recuperating from severe trauma

Protective Factors

conditions that shield/reduce individuals chance of experiencing or perpetrating abuse

Examples of Protective Factors

- social/professional support

- life goals/motivation

- presence of social controls

- pro-social beliefs/identity

- self-control

- coping strategies

- intelligence

- empathy

Issue with Protective Factors

inconsistent terminology and conceptualisation

Justice System Response to Victim-Offender Cycle - Current

- Section 27 Cultural Reports (Sentencing Act, 2002)

- Trauma-informed care

- Counselling vs rehabilitation

Section 27 Cultural Reports (Sentencing Act, 2002)

the court hears from persons called on by the defendant about personal/family/whanau/community/cultural background and how this relates to their offending

Trauma-Informed Care

ways of working with people who have committed offences (i.e., in courts,

prison) that recognise the links between trauma and violence, and seek to avoid re-traumatising

Five Principles of Trauma-Informed Care

- safety

- choice

- collaboration

- trustworthiness

- empowerment

Recent Research on Victim-Offender Cycle in Aotearoa

- Quantitative: Based on IDI data, approx 7-12% of people with a police record involving physical violence (including sexual violence) have experienced both victimisation and used violence towards others.

- Qualitative: interviews with people (n= 10) who have experienced both interpersonal violence victimisation and used violence

Recent Research on Victim-Offender Cycle in Aotearoa: Key Themes

- The Nature of Violence

- Feedback on Improvements to the Justice System

Theme: The Nature of Violence

- Violence as a cycle, it is learned and normalized

- Violence seen as sometimes not avoidable or not serious (justification and minimisation)

- Role of substance use in violence, perpetration and victimisation, reciprocal violence

Theme: Feedback on Improvements to the Justice System

- Support needs to be on-going, integrated, and tailored to specific needs

- Services need to provide wraparound support for the whole family, including children

FV Multi-Agency Responses

Respond to police family harm calls and aim to break the cycle of family violence by providing an urgent and intensive collective response to the highest risk cases, including children.

Future Shifts on Victim-Offender Cycle

- Recognition of overlap, changing the narrative around who offends and why - Justice system, public

- Avoid use of labels

- More trauma informed, effective, fair, compassionate, humanising CJS

- More effective interventions and prevention

- Public health approaches, holistic

- Societal changes beyond the CJS, addressing inequality, racism, poverty, meeting basic needs