Not much being gained by most criminals — just self-destruction

Press, 13 June 1979, Page 19

Not much being gained by most criminals — just self-destruction

With their emphasis on punishment, prisons may be meeting the subconscious needs of many offenders, but not the needs of society, 1 n the final of a two-part series, JENNIE HAMILTON looks at the effects of imprisonment, and at the failure of society to provide adequate support once prisoners are released.

Many of our attitudes are coloured by the belief that all criminals are fully aware of the risks involved and the possible consequences when they commit a crime.

This assumption underpins our justice system, with the legal process acting as a deterrent to offset possible gains. A person is held responsible for his actions unless it can be shown that, at the time of the offence, he was suffering from some form of insanity.

A paper written by two Justice Department psychologists, Dr lan Miller and Mr Dave Riley, who have counselled hundreds of inmates, shatters this view.

“Few people, to our knowledge, appear to benefit substantially from crime, and our institutions are filled with people who engage in behaviour which has little or no chance of success,” they say in their paper: “The Destructive Factor in Crime.”

In some cases it is almost inevitable that they will be caught. Some have signed stolen cheques with their own name, and exhibitionists may “flash” on their own porches. “Our prisons contain large numbers of people convicted for theft and burglary’, often involving items of little value, which can in no way be seen as justifying the risks,” they say.

are unconscious and begin in the offender’s early experiences, according to the paper. About 75 per cent of female offenders came from broken homes, lan Miller says. “Even if the parents are together, Dad’s got a drink problem or Mum has spent her whole life fighting. There’s adultery everywhere and some children see a procession of ‘uncles’.”

Some kids have experienced virtually everything that was going. It is not unusual, he says, to meet a 15 or 16-year-old who has been using heroin for a year, dropping acid, who is a masseuse or prostitute, and has had promiscuous sex since 13. “They are going into relationships with a fundamental inability to relate in an interdependant harmonious way.”

Some are just small children in large bodies. They cannot accept success and responsibility. Already filled with self destructive feelings, many harbour resentment and hostility. Because they feel bad about themselves they need attention. “If you count for nothing you’ve got to be the centre of attention,” says Mr Harry Cohen regional senior psychologist of the Justice Department. Some, turn to drugs to control their anxiety. By confronting inmates with their problems time after time psychologists make them look at themselves and their behaviour. They then begin their counselling. “It takes a lot of training, a lot of under-

standing. It will take years to train people to be effective," he says. People imagine that if you change a person’s environment that will lead to inner changes, he says. This may occur but generally it does not. “I don’t think it matters whether you have a three star hotel or go back to the treadmill,” he says. A functioning person will be able to cope in almost any situation. If a prisoner does have serious emotional and mental problems, and is given food and a roof over his head, he will “screw it up immediately once he is in a position to do so.”

Christchurch Justice psychologists are fighting a losing battle, says Harry Cohen. There are six available to treat 500 prisoners and 1000 probationers — “that immediately reduces our effectiveness.”

At least. 20 psychologists are needed to make an impact on the problems of the present prison population. Although other groups can consult them, the centre certainly does not advertise. “We’ve already got more on our plate than we can handle,” Mr Cohen says.

It seems inevitable that crime rates will increase in the future, says a Justice Department psychologist, Dave Riley. The traditional, healthy sources of development of society have been eroded and a number of “very dangerous beliefs’’ are being circulated. It no longer really matters if you are a male or a female, or an

Much criminal behaviour involves self destructive motives, often with intensely satisfying results. These destructive drives

unwed mother. The extended family has broken down to a nuclear family and is now moving to a mono-parent family. Where there are two parents, in many cases both parents are working and the children are left alone.

Criminals are not shaped by childhood misery or poverty or any other social condition, say two American researchers who studied 255 criminals, mostly from a Washington, D.C., mental institution. Challenging almost every modern theory of crime and its causes, Stanton Samenow, a psychologist, and the late Samuel Yochelson, a psychiatrist, say that the causes can be found in the criminal’s thinking patterns. They find out at a very early age — as young as four • — that they' can get what they want through deceit and blackmail. Manipulation is a matter of choice and becomes a way of life.

strict monitoring of behaviour. Thirteen of the 30 were coping well, including one who caused SI2M worth of damage in fire and thefts by the time he was 18. He is now a supervisor in a construction firm.

Nevertheless their work convinced them that criminal thinking patterns can be changed. After working closely with 30 criminals including murderers, arsonists, and armed robbers, between 1970 and 1976, only two have since been arrested, as far as Samenow knows. The criminals attended daily counselling sessions, some for up to a year. They had to keep diaries outlining their thoughts and activities. There were curbs on drinking, extramarital sex and overexposure to television, and