31: How Does Prison Rehabilitation (Ideally) Work?
Hello and welcome to The Nice-ish Ramblings Podcast with me the Nice-ish Psychologist where today I am putting a bit more of a forensic spin on the episode. For those of you who don’t know, I am a Clinical and Forensic Psychologist, and in my actual life outside of this social media world, I sometimes get asked what kind of work I do with those in the forensic population. And how I go about trying to help these individuals turn things around for themselves. Not going to lie, it’s quite a hard question to answer. Mostly because it’s not straightforward. I mean, it’s relatively straightforward in my head, but that’s because I know what I’m doing (allegedly). But the full answer is quite lengthy. So, I thought it could make for a good podcast episode. And so here we are, to think about how prison rehabilitation work ideally. I say ideally because human beings are complex and not straightforward. And even though we can theorise how best to help and work with individuals in the forensic population, it’s not straightforward. We’ll explore some of those reasons as we go along. But before we get into it, as always, if at the end of this episode, you think “Bloody hell that was interesting, I bet all my friends and family would enjoy hearing this,” then please do share this episode with them. And if you could rate or leave a comment, too, that would be very much appreciated. I must admit, I found this an interesting episode to make, so hopefully you find it interesting, too. Also, I would say that if there is anything that piques your interest further and you want to know more about, do get in touch, and ask a question. I might be able to answer it then and there, or I might do a further podcast episode about it. Now that that’s out the way and before we think about what ideal rehabilitation should look like, I thought it might be worth taking a very quick historical trip to learn about how the prison system came about. It’s a summary of three different sources, which I have included in the transcript. So, if you want to know more about something or I don’t cover something in as much detail as you’d like, do look for the relevant hyperlinks in the transcript. So, not going to lie, the history of the prison system is a long and complex one, with roots dating back to ancient civilisations. From the dungeons of medieval Europe to the modern-day prison industrial complex, how society has dealt with crime and punishment has evolved significantly over time. In the 18th century, however, the concept of imprisonment as a form of punishment became increasingly popular. In an interview about the invention of incarceration, Ashley Rubin, a sociologist specialising in the history of prisons in America noted that there is a difference between the existence of jails and the development of prisons. Apparently, prisons have not always been used as a punishment or deterrent for criminal behaviour, but rather as a means of keeping the perpetrator of a crime detained until the actual punishment could be carried out. Before the introduction of prisons, people were punished either through capital punishment (what we know as the death penalty and – according to good old Wikipedia – was formerly called judicial homicide”) or corporal punishment. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the sanctions for criminal behaviour were public events that were designed to shame and deter, including the ducking stool (which is a contraption that had a long arm with a seat on the end of it and was used to dunk those convicted of offences into the water and were later used to identify witches), a pillory (which is effectively a stock in which a person’s head and hands were locked in a frame at the end of a long post), whipping, branding, and stocks (which, unlike a pillory, were used to restrain a person’s feet). Further along in the interview, in response to a question about people being locked up long before the 18th century
