Coping, Behavior, and Adaptation in Prison Inmates

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xv

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Edward Zamble, Frank J. Porporino

   Pages 1-15

3. The Study: Design, Methods, Materials

   • Edward Zamble, Frank J. Porporino

   Pages 16-31

4. Subjects: Selection and Characteristics

   • Edward Zamble, Frank J. Porporino

   Pages 32-41

5. Lifestyle and Behavior on the Outside

   • Edward Zamble, Frank J. Porporino

   Pages 42-50

6. Problems and Coping on the Outside

   • Edward Zamble, Frank J. Porporino

   Pages 51-75

7. The Impact of Imprisonment

   • Edward Zamble, Frank J. Porporino

   Pages 76-89

8. Coping in Prison

   • Edward Zamble, Frank J. Porporino

   Pages 90-102

9. The Impact of Imprisonment II — Changes over Time

   • Edward Zamble, Frank J. Porporino

   Pages 103-123

10. Circumstances: Some Major Personal and Environmental Variables

    • Edward Zamble, Frank J. Porporino

    Pages 124-131

11. Predicting Adaptation

    • Edward Zamble, Frank J. Porporino

    Pages 132-144

12. Conclusions: What Prisons Do and Don’t Do

    • Edward Zamble, Frank J. Porporino

    Pages 145-155

13. Back Matter

    Pages 156-204

    PDF

This book is the report of a collaborative effort. Frank Porporino and I arrived at the starting point for our work together by very different routes. Originally trained as an experimental psychologist, I had become in­ creasingly restive within the confines of the laboratory, and spent a sab­ batical year in the equivalent of a clinical internship. I then spent some time as a part-time consultant in a local penitentiary. Most of my time in the institution was spent with inmates with a variety of problems, probably about 50 individuals over the course of a year. Although this was far fewer than a full-time psychologist in the system might encounter, it served as a quick cram course on problem prisoners and prisoner problems. Very quickly my stereotypes about convicts were shown to be virtually useless. I learned that the criminal classes included all levels of society, and that the behavior of prisoners was the same as that of other human beings in a difficult environment.

• Crime
• Encounter
• coping
• interaction
• socialization

• Department of Psychology, Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada

  Edward Zamble

• Ministry of the Solicitor General of Canada, Ottawa, Canada

  Frank J. Porporino

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