Examining Prison Inmates' Attitudes and Internal Emotional States

Examining Prison Inmates' Attitudes and Internal Emotional States: Forgiveness, Anger, Anxiety, Depression, Hope, and Social Desirability

This study is the first part of a two-tiered research project to propose a novel approach-forgiveness therapy-to corrections. This study is a non-intervention study and aims to demonstrate the need to introduce the concepts of forgiveness and Forgiveness Therapy within prisons. This study is focused on the extent to which men in a maximum-security prison experienced considerable injustice against them (such as in a family context as he was growing up) prior to committing serious crimes. Variables associated with this prior unjust treatment included the level of forgiveness and variables of current psychological well-being. Since this study provided the rationale and participants' matching data (eligibility) for the subsequent interventional study (Study 2, "Proposing Forgiveness Therapy in Prison") in which psychological treatments applied to the inmates, investigator refer to this study as Study 1.

Current study (Study 1) consisted of 103 men in a maximum-security prison in the Midwestern United States. The research aimed to demonstrate the necessity of introducing forgiveness concepts and Forgiveness Therapy within the prison. This study collected percentage and correlational data regarding the presence of hurtful unfair treatments and psychological compromises, recognizing the style of the story-recalling (e.g. repetitive angry retelling; focus on damage; focus on fear; focus on despair, and so forth), rating of the injury types, and severity and age of occurrence. Inmates' stories were coded and analyzed by up to five researchers. The first wave of data examined a) whether participants have been treated deeply unfairly prior to their crime and imprisonment and the degree of severity; b) the degree to which the participants' show both excessive anger and unforgiveness toward those who acted unjustly as well as their expressions in crimes-direct contribution to their choice of harming the innocent; and c) the relationship among the excessive anger, forgiveness, and related emotional sufferings and psychological distresses such as anxiety and depression. Case studies were also conducted. Reliability and validation of 30-Item Enright forgiveness inventory (EFI-30) in the prison context were also tested. In general, we tested the following hypotheses:

1. Do most inmates in this maximum-security prison experience severe unfair treatment against them before their criminal perpetrations?
2. Do most inmates in this maximum-security prison have low forgiveness towards the person who deeply hurt them?
3. Do disproportional number of inmates in this maximum-security prison have clinical compromises (e.g. excessive anger, anxiety, and depression) related to their past injustice?
4. Does higher degree of anger/anxiety in inmates correlates to the less forgiving behavior towards those who hurt them in the past, prior to their crime?

Study 1 also provided participant matching data (criteria for eligible participants) for the Forgiveness Therapy experiments of subsequent interevtional study

Inclusion Criteria:

• Male prison inmates, who have never participated in forgiveness therapies, were recruited voluntarily from a maximum-security prison in Wisconsin, United States.

Exclusion Criteria:

• have participated in forgiveness workshops
• are not from maximum security prison
• female; (due to the all-male prison context)
• are illiterate (cannot write their stories and finish the scales)
• have been diagnosed with cognitive disorders or cognitive function impairment
• receive one-on-one treatment with the psychologist in prison