The psycho-social climate of a prison.

Ninety male prisoners and five females in a maximum security gaol in Risdon, Tasmania, together with 13 males in an associated medium security unit were tested using the Correctional Institutions Environment Scale (CIES). The sample (N.108) constituted 58% of the total number of inmates and results showed the major dimensions of the CIES to be substantially independent of background variables such as prisoner's age, intelligence, length of stay in the prisoner's unit at the time of testing and the total length of stay a prisoner had spent in all forms of institutions including special remand centres, boys' homes, etc. The CIES proved effective in characterising the psycho-social climate of internal sub-units and of the prison as a whole and comparisons were drawn with Moos' (1975) typology of juvenile correctional institutions. The simplest representation of the Tasmanian maximum security psycho-social climate proved to have a close fit to norms provided by Moos and drawn from 51 American institutions for adult males. A profile similarity measure, rp , (Cattell, 1969) allowed deviancy measures to be made of individuals, which took count not only of the deviance of any prisoner from the group of which he was a part, but of that group's mean closeness of fit to group norms established by Moos. Ninety male prisoners and five females in a maximum security gaol in Risdon, Tasmania, together with 13 males in an associated medium security unit were tested using the Correctional Institutions Environment Scale (CIES). The sample (N.108) constituted 58% of the total number of inmates and results showed the major dimensions of the CIES to be substantially independent of background variables such as prisoner's age, intelligence, length of stay in the prisoner's unit at the time of testing and the total length of stay a prisoner had spent in all forms of institutions including special remand centres, boys' homes, etc. The CIES proved effective in characterising the psycho-social climate of internal sub-units and of the prison as a whole and comparisons were drawn with Moos' (1975) typology of juvenile correctional institutions. The simplest representation of the Tasmanian maximum security psycho-social climate proved to have a close fit to norms provided by Moos and drawn from 51 American institutions for adult males. A profile similarity measure, rp , (Cattell, 1969) allowed deviancy measures to be made of individuals, which took count not only of the deviance of any prisoner from the group of which he was a part, but of that group's mean closeness of fit to group norms established by Moos. Ninety male prisoners and five females in a maximum security gaol in Risdon, Tasmania, together with 13 males in an associated medium security unit were tested using the Correctional Institutions Environment Scale (CIES). The sample (N.108) constituted 58% of the total number of inmates and results showed the major dimensions of the CIES to be substantially independent of background variables such as prisoner's age, intelligence, length of stay in the prisoner's unit at the time of testing and the total length of stay a prisoner had spent in all forms of institutions including special remand centres, boys' homes, etc. The CIES proved effective in characterising the psycho-social climate of internal sub-units and of the prison as a whole and comparisons were drawn with Moos' (1975) typology of juvenile correctional institutions. The simplest representation of the Tasmanian maximum security psycho-social climate proved to have a close fit to norms provided by Moos and drawn from 51 American institutions for adult males. A profile similarity measure, rp , (Cattell, 1969) allowed deviancy measures to be made of individuals, which took count not only of the deviance of any prisoner from the group of which he was a part, but of that group's mean closeness of fit to group norms established by Moos. The significance of the study for prison administrators and for the improved understanding of inmates prison experience is discussed and suggestions are made for future research.