ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the dynamics of conducting interviews in a penitentiary environment. The issues discussed mainly concentrate on the conditions of the research, how to motivate offenders to participate in the research and concerns regarding validation of data. The last part of the chapter concentrates upon the use of mental maps as a means to gain new information from the offenders which cannot be accessed from prison files, questionnaires or interviews. The use of mental maps as a research method will be put into the context of criminal mobility and aims to point out different ways to classify mental maps, issues regarding their limitations and how they can be used in specific research designs.
Despite the extensive research literature (for example, Patton 2002; Smith 2004; Silverman 2004), the uniqueness of a prison environment and its influence upon conducting research is rarely considered (Cieurzo and Keitel 1999; Noaks and Wincup 2004; Patenaude 2004).
The goal of offender-based research, which often takes place in prison settings, is to gain information from the offender that cannot be gained from police files. Such information can give insight into the processes of motivation, attitudes toward offending, external influences of crime, strategies, etc. Thus the use of various research methods such as interviewing, tests, questionnaires and others while conducting research 274in prison is the most advantageous as the offenders have different means to express themselves (Čermák 2002).
Due to the fact that research in prison environment is very specific, this chapter will examine the different characteristics of this environment in the Czech Republic. Specifically, the chapter will discuss the conditions of offender observation, motivating offenders to participate in the research and validation of information. The last part of the chapter will concentrate on the research technique of mental maps as a means to access a new type of information that has seldom been collected from offenders.
The first section of this contribution describes the conditions of offender observation. It focuses on the time regime of the prisons, legal limitations on conducting research in prisons, the interaction of the interviewer with the offender and the abilities of the interviewer as influencing factors. The section discusses various methods that can help to motivate offenders to participate in the research. It includes an examination of the role of the penitentiary psychologist. To consider ways of validating information given by the offenders, the third section discusses safety and security issues and the (im)possibility of recording in Czech prisons, as well as the use of semi-structured interviews. The last section examines one specific substantive issue of the interviews in this research: the use of mental maps as a means to access new information from offenders. Thus information on criminal mobility and a theoretical overview of mental maps will be given, followed by more detailed discussions on the classification of mental maps, the limitations and distortions of mental maps and their further use in research.
Each of the sections will first present a general description of the central issue, illustrate it with examples, mostly from the author’s own experience in such a situation, and conclude with reflections on how it influences the validity of the data and how it can be dealt with.
The research upon which this chapter is based was conducted from 2007 to 2009 and its aim was to understand how the experience of offenders and the perceptions of their environment influence the behaviour of the offenders, their choice of target and strategy of burgling. The research took place in 19 prisons in the Czech Republic. The offenders were selected according to strict criteria (currently incarcerated for burglary, at least the second incarceration for burglary, identified as prolific burglar). The offenders were interviewed by psychology students (79 students). Overall the sample included 166 offenders (12 female, 154 male).
The battery of tests given to the offenders included a criminal and family history questionnaire, Cloninger’s Temperament and Character Inventory – revised (personality test), Raven’s Progressive Matrices (intelligence test), a Hand test (aggression test) and a place-attachment questionnaire. The session with the offender also included a semi-structured interview and the drawing of the mental map of a certain 275environment. The students who gathered the data visited the prisons in pairs. The reasons for this are explained later in this chapter.
The analysis of the data is now in process. However, the issues regarding the mobility of offenders, including the distance travelled and the relationship to the offenders’ personality, have already been explored (Polišenská 2004, 2005, 2008). Other issues are still awaiting detailed analysis and will become available later.
