Items related to Coping, Behavior, and Adaptation in Prison Inmates
Synopsis
The book is a report of a major empirical study that follows prison inmates from the beginning of their terms for a period of 16 months. As such, it is a study of the effects of imprisonment, and represents the first rigorous use of a longitudinal design to see how prisoners' behavior and adaption change with time in prison. However, it also represents an application of contemporary items about the interaction of personal and environmental factors in the determination of behavior. This is embodied in the central notion of "coping," as a way of describing how inmates interact with the problems they encounter. Finally, there is information surveying inmates' behavior prior to imprisonment. The results provide a picture of offenders' lives outside, as well as inside, of prison. They show how specific deficits in the ability to "cope" can be linked to maladaptive behaviors, leading to an innovative model of crime causation. They also allow predictive analyses that demonstrate the limits of most previous theorizing and the superiority of the interactionist approach. Many of these conclusions have major policy implications for the correctional system.
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