INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY OF DELINQUENCY FOR SOCIAL WORKERS
by M. Born
Université de Liège
To start with, I will show a simple, but very central view that is very important for this kind of work and for considering the people's problems : the Bronfenbrenner’s scheme.I am not sure how much you already know about this scheme because I don’t know how available information is about it. You will be familiar with ecological development and its importance to the development of a person.
It is not only important for his own development, but also to the development of his micro-system. Everybody has a micro-system that accompanies them everywhere they go. The micro-system is the place in which people can have individual relationships. So, for instance, this classroom is a micro-system within which each of us is also inside our own individual micro-system. I am in the centre of my micro-system but, for each of you, you, consequently, are the centre of your micro-system. When you go back home, to your family, you will be then in their micro-system.When you go out with your friends for a drink, you will be in another micro-system as well.Therefore, the micro-systems are very flexible entities and can always change from time to time.
I think this is very important to remember when you work with people.First, people have many micro-systems and not only the one in which they are working .For instance, if you are in a class with a child, an adult or a group, you should remember that, when you are with them, you are in a micro-system together, but that they also have many other micro-systems in play. The second thing to keep in mind is that the people we are working with are developing and growing (continuously changing). Each person has a past, a future and a micro-system, in which he is involved at that moment. If this person is 3-10-30 or 50-years-old and more, this is just a moment of his life. Moreover, with the term "developing persons" I mean that people are developing throughout life, and not only during childhood. Therefore, this concept is applicable also to delinquent or isolated people. This category of people I now will identify as D (for deviated /delinquent) and I will go on to speak about them later.
As well as micro systems, there are also broader systems, operating within the scheme, called meso-systems.When I arrived at the CeIS this morning, for instance, I was already in this meso-system.You have been in this meso-system for months because you have been involved in this project for a longer time. In my case, I have been in this meso-system since yesterday and I will remain in it until tomorrow. So, the weight of this meso-system for me will be different than it will be for you. So, you also have to keep in mind that all people are included in meso-systems, but that these have different weights because the relationship and influences between their micro- and meso-systems. Very often the meso-system imposes certain rules and gives people the roles they should be playing. For instance, I wear a tie this morning because I am the teacher and it is normal for a teacher to wear one. Equally, in the University of Liege, to be well regarded, it is important to wear a tie, as the other teachers do. However, as I told you, I also work in an institute with juveniles and mentally ill delinquents. Consequently, when I go there from the university, I leave my tie in the car in order to give a more appropriate impression to the social workers and the adolescents living there.
Therefore, it is very important for all of you, if you work in this "brawl" (a mess) or institution, a social service, or an open clinic for mentally handicapped people, to know about the relevant meso-system. You have to know the roles within the meso-system because you are not free to do as you would like and must depend upon the structure of the meso-system. Therefore, you must make a sort of institutional analysis of the place where you work. To have a whole picture of this scheme, there are also macro-systems, like the State with its social or health services, for instance, which include all the meso-systems. The municipality is more a meso-system.
What remains is another kind of system, better known as the exo-system. This is an important new concept in which an event may impact on a person who is not directly involved, but where relevant events can occur which may have an effect on that person. For instance, you may be working with a child, trying to prevent him from making too much noise in the neighbourhood. The child may have a father who works in a factory, or firm, where something may happen which has an effect on the child; this is therefore important to that child, even if he is not included in part of that micro or meso-system. Perhaps the father loses his job as a result of restructuring in the factory, and as a result starts to come home drunk. Although this is just an example, it is important to bear in mind that it is impossible to know everything about a person, but that you can perhaps find the way to acquire the information of relevance to you.
From all of the clients, through their problems of deviancy, marginalisation and delinquency, we can identify micro- and meso-systems. It is important to remember that these systems can develop in a less formal environment such as on the street. The development of street culture is one such example. Therefore, even if it is complicated to identify these systems, it must be recognised that they exist.
Now I would like to go further to identify the deviant or delinquent act as a behaviour occurring at a certain point in a person’s life. Very often, the delinquent act is an expression itself, an abstraction. What does this term really mean? It could be anything from stealing a pencil or a CD, to hurting or killing somebody. It can be a very serious act as well as a less serious. So, this behaviour may appear in a very long-term micro-system, like the family. You may hurt somebody in your family, or may suffer sexual abuse that has been going on for four or five years. It could be a very stable micro-system or an unstable one; you may hurt or get hurt on the street. However, it is always a micro-system. A very useful and simple way of thinking about the act is, first of all, to remember the time of the act in the life of the individual. Using a typical psychological expression, any act is a function of the individual and of the environment. This concept can very easily be applied to delinquency. With this, I think you have enough to work with marginalised people and delinquents.
Now let's consider some questions raised by your examples.From these you can see how this scheme can be usefully applied. If you start by finding some examples, considering what you have said about previous work with youngsters, adults and other people, you can identify micro- and meso-systems and maybe try to apply and work with this scheme.
"For instance, take the example of the children affected by immigration. The youngsters have to continue to live their daily lives. Some have to live in their own micro-system to make some values while others live more in their meso-system trying to build up some values and links," said a student. Many times, it is a serious problem for this person to integrate himself in the society. Therefore, his health and his psychological well-being can be affected. It is not easy to pass from one micro-system to another and this tends to be especially challenging for kids."
"I don't know if I have understood correctly ," said another student. micro-systems are everywhere. The family is a micro-system for its members, but if we take the example of a neighbourhood, is it a micro-system or a meso-system? It includes a lot of micro-systems, but for some people, it could also be seen as one huge micro-system."
A micro-system is where you can easily communicate without a microphone. Normally, the neighbourhood is a micro-system because you can communicate and change from one place to another without problems. However, it can also be considered a meso-system if inside the neighbourhood there are different kinds of communities. For instance, in neighbourhoods where there are smaller systems of immigrants communities, the neighbourhood is more a meso-system.
"According to my example with little children, the micro-system was what the kid used to show me and to communicate with me during our meetings. His micro-system also incorporated the way he interacted and behaved."said another student.
"I work in a children’s home, where there is a woman staying with her baby. When she is there with her baby she lives in a micro-system. Then, the father phones and the system changes. I then try to assist the father as well. Although I don’t take off my tie, I try to make him feel as if he is not talking to a complete stranger by using his dialect, for example."
I would continue this example by saying that, for instance, you know that the rule for the child is not to receive any phone call during the day, but only from 6 until 7 p.m. You also think that it is important for the father to speak to the child. Some of your colleagues would never break the rule, but others may do. What would you do? You have a decision to make. You have no interference on the decision you will take on making a phone call to the child if you, you may not, but can you make some exception because other colleagues make exceptions while others do not? And the Director? How is it viewed by others? While you are included in a meso-system, there are times when you must make a decision which will not be approved of by all other colleagues. This is a significant aspect of the scheme and therefore it is important to consider.
What I would like you to keep in mind is that if this person is somehow involved in one of your micro-systems, then this person has a family too. The family micro-system needs analysing too and I believe that other teachers have given you the required tools for this.
Other models are very efficient tools for analysing people’s micro-systems.For me, all the models need finding links with each others. You should find links with the previous lessons. It is important that you become able to make some links between models and related subjects which you have previously studied.
We can discuss now two other relevant models :
- the Olson’s model (cf. annex 1)
- the Slusky’s model (cf. annex 2)
For example, the family is a micro-system, but a person has many other micro-systems inside himself. For instance, an individual who is having therapy has a specific micro-system between himself and his therapist. Therefore, for the family, we see that Olson's model is important, but not so simple to apply. For families there is another model, Slusky’s model . This is a very simple model, and it can be used to try and identify resources for the family, resources which can give them advice, help, and tools. On one side, we have the closest family relations while on the other, there are the most distant. So, family, friends, social relations and community must be identified. The family and its relationships can be considered along a scale from the closest to the most distant. Therefore, here, in a world of social networks, we can see how the social workers operate with families and how the various approaches work together. This scheme can be an important tool for recognising the work that can be done with a family. It also encourages you to search deeper into the family micro-system in order to recognise that other micro-systems, represented by neighbours, relatives and so on, are also influential.
"So, are these schemes interchangeable? Can we use one instead of the other? In what circumstances do we use Slusky’s model?”
Slusky’s model considers the person in the centre of a network. In Olson’s model however, we have an individual at a certain stage in his development, interacting with time and the environment. Both models are simple to apply, but it is not necessary to identify the differences between the two. It is important that we see people as active members of society and as continually developing. If we want to focus our attention on the family system and not only on the individual’s personal micro-system, then Slusky’s model is more applicable.
We can now move on to talk about delinquency and deviancy. I will be referring to another scheme now, the Kutchinsky scheme (cf. annex 3) which it is very simple and clarifies the conceptual meaning of deviancy and delinquency. For anyone interested, I have written a book, in French, showing some evidence of the applicability of this the scheme (“Jeunes déviants ou délinquants juvéniles ?”, Liège : Mardaga, 1987).
Now we must go back 50 years in the history of criminal science. At that time, the only people considered as criminal were those who were in prison. Consequently, any criminal research attention was directed towards people in prison. It was necessary to define delinquency and, according to the law, it was something that could lead a person into prison. Defining delinquency, therefore, depends wholly on legal terms and not on personal differences. Abortion was one example: you were delinquent if you had an abortion, but in some cases and conditions, it was legally approved and decriminalised. Therefore, an action that is considered a crime in some countries may be normal procedure in others. Drug usage is a good example; in some countries drug usage is considered illegal while in others it is not. Additionally, many people commit acts that are against the law but only a few will be condemned by the law for their crimes. So, the larger circle represents all the behaviours that are disapproved of by society because they are not considered correct, but are also not considered as delinquent behaviours.
Here is where the difference lies: while deviancy is abnormal behaviour in the eyes of society, delinquency is abnormal behaviour in the eyes of the law. However, this delinquent behaviour is only partly condemnedby those who are in a position to do so. There is a small group of behaviours which are not approved by law, but which society doesn't consider as deviant. For example, driving too fast is not something that society disapproves of, but it is something which is illegal. Every time we cross the street at a red light, either as pedestrians or as car drivers, we violate the common law.
"But what is the meaning of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd circles that you drew on the blackboard?"
The first one is the one that I call deviance.The second is a representation of delinquency which is not recognised by public agencies and authorities. The third represents forms of delinquency which are identified by the law - delinquency for which you can be punished. Even out of these however, only a few will be punished and condemned.
"So, the deviant behaviours are not condemned and punished by the law," asked a student.
Yes, correct. For instance, a person who swears in public is not punished by law. In the same way, if he sits on the ground or sleeps on the street, the law is unlikely to be enforced. Indeed, the actions themselves are not crimes - a person who sleeps on the streets is a hobo, not a criminal. If the hobo begs for money, however, then this may be an illegal act. This should help us to understand what we mean by the term delinquent.
For instance, when we say “delinquent”, we think of a person who has been in prison. However, before they committed the action leading to imprisonment, this person was not seen as delinquent. An individual’s behaviour can find him or her in any one of a number of positions. For criminal action they could have to pay a fine at the local police station, they could be absolved after a brief audience in front of a judge, or they may find themselves at higher levels of conviction. .
"If a delinquent is a person who goes against the law, can I be a delinquent here, in Italy, but not in another country?" asked a student.
Yes, because being a delinquent is relative to the country where you live. In my book I call it minors' criminality or deviancy. For some people deviancy or criminality is the first step towards delinquency. For others, people can directly become delinquent, often through a different process. A useful example can be found in cases of passionate violation which are often committed after a trial. For me, it is very important to locate the people I am working with at a point in this pattern, thus helping me to choose the best way to work with them. It helps to evaluate the risk of delinquency or deviance and then to work appropriately.
It is very important to keep in mind the word delinquent. What do we mean with this word? Sometimes the usage of a term is what gives the name to a determinate action. In other words, the usage of a word is what starts the labelling process. There are several detailed theories which consider this labelling process and, if we talk about delinquency or about toxic dependency, for example, we must be careful not to use these terms only as labels. It is important not to lock people up behind negative and damaging labels.
First of all, when we talk about a delinquent, we must keep in mind that we are still talking about a person. It is also important to consider the relationship that the delinquent behaviour has to do with the delinquent. In other words, does his delinquent behaviour refer only to a specific part of the day? For instance, he may exhibit delinquent behaviour for 10 -15 minutes during the day, and afterwards behave as a ‘normal’ person for the remainder. For this, it is important to know if these types of behaviours are limited to a certain period of time, or are repeated. It makes a difference if a person has committed a delinquent crime only once or twice in his life, or whether he has continuously and repeatedly behaved in a delinquent manner. The same can be said of deviance. Is the person’s deviance related to one single behaviour or is it a way of life? Ascertaining this can be helpful in giving you an idea of the people you are working with.
For examples, we can now try and look at what type of population you have dealt with during your experiences. Who would like to start?
"In a hospital I had the opportunity to work with some young people who had attempted to commit suicide. Is that a deviant behaviour?" questioned a student.
There is no simple answer to that question. Suicidal actions are often a deviancy and the same concepts that we have used for delinquent behaviours can also be applied. Suicide is often an "acting out" behaviour and not a "bottled in" behaviour: it is an aggressive act carried out to affect outsiders as well as the individual concerned. Therefore, I think that the explanation must be found amongst the internal problems that the person has - not only in their psychological, subconscious problems, but also in their way of dealing with their problems externally. From the limited research that I have done on suicide, I concluded that people who attempt suicide, or have suicidal thoughts, have very often tried to express themselves within their own environment. Moreover, it is often a lack of response from this environment to their demands which pushes them towards suicidal action.
Turning back now to delinquency and deviancy, we find very close relationships between these behaviours and the values and ideas that people have, about suicide for example. With suicide, for instance, people express those values that, in their opinion, are missing from their life. It is exactly the same in delinquency. Those who steal are convinced that doing so is not a negative behaviour and, therefore, they are not discouraged from it. For these reasons, I suggest that there is a close relationship between suicidal behaviour and the ideas or values which exist within a suicidal individual. Another clear example comes from the way in which people become drug users. Very often, the first step is to consider drug use as a positive thing, as promoting interesting thoughts, feeling good and a sense of tranquillity. Then, based on these beliefs, individuals begin experimenting with hashish, for example. They start smoking feeling that they are doing something positive, in accordance with their values. From this point, they reinforce their idea that smoking hashish is a positive action.
Additionally, the immediate environment can strongly influence a person’s behaviour. If other people smoke around you, you may also tend to smoke because it is always better to behave in compliance with the rest of the group. A person in contact with heroin users, who tell him about the pleasure vantages of this opiate, may try this drug too. At this point, another new behaviour begins, and so the process goes on, step by step, while the relationship between beliefs and behaviour gets closer everyday. To go back into that process can be very difficult, as your values and beliefs become stronger. It is only in cases of serious drug addiction that individuals realise the extent of their condition: they have only two options, either to get out or to die. Ideally, this process can be stopped at either a prevention stage or at a therapy stage with specialised programmes inside jail or within therapeutic communities.
"But according to research there are not significant links between the use of soft drugs and the use of the harder drugs such as heroin or cocaine," said a student.
We could discuss this argument for hours as the relevant research is highly contradictory. Of course, in the context of adults from a wide variety of backgrounds, it is difficult to define individual relationships. There are many different routes into the use of one drug or another, just as there are into any form of addiction or alcoholism. However, your question is very interesting and it leads me to say the following about risk factors. If you are at risk in the context of the family, either on an economic or a social level, or in the neighbourhood, and you are among people who start with soft drugs, the risk of you switching from soft to hard drugs is very high, almost a 100% probability.
Other factors that could increase vulnerability to addiction are physical characteristics of the person. Maybe you know that people are divided into two major types: those who are mostly active in the morning and those mostly active during the evening. At a recent congress that I attended, it was proposed that those people who are more active in the morning are less vulnerable to any form of addiction. Conversely, people who are more active at night are more prone to addiction. This is only hypothetical and is, as yet, unproven. However, if we add to these probabilities the likelihood of being more irritable, or of other deficiencies in helping children, we are looking at the potential both for big problems at school and for difficult relationships with others in a similar situation. A combination of these factors leads towards delinquent behaviour and could lead, eventually, to drug addiction.
In conclusion, I would say that delinquency and drug-addiction may be seen from a similar perspective. This is why in prison you find people who were jailed because of their delinquency and who subsequently become addicts. Most of them become addicts because they have all the preconditions needed to become so. They entered as delinquents and found in prison the perfect environment to reinforce this type of behaviour. It is not surprising that many delinquents are also drug addicts.
"Are you saying that there are internal as well as external factors that are determining this type of environment? Which internal factors are not dependent on the environment?" asked a student.
Cognitive deficits could be individual, internal factors, as could the way in which the individual builds relationships. Moreover, the relationships we build with others may be an individual factor. Of course, in terms of developmental psychology, there is always a mixture of internal and external influence. I shall go on now to discuss internal factors in more detail.
At this point, it was suggested that the students read Gentles' questionnaire. Divided into groups of four people, participants were asked to answer the questionnaire as if they were delinquents. They were told that the exercise could be seen as a tool, or it could form the basis of a training exercise for social workers. Now, if I show you the dimensions thatdifferentiate delinquents from ‘normal’ people, you will see to which specific dimensions the questionnaire sections refer. The first dimension is supported by 63 sections and is called the Social Maladjustment Scale. Social maladjustment describes a set of attitudes that are associated with inadequate or disturbed socialisation. Consequently, it is an attitude that you see in behaviour. Many of the questionnaire sections refer to attitudes. From these 63 sections, you can start to understand how juvenile attitudes lead towards social maladjustment and consequently towards problems of deviance and marginalisation.
The second dimension is called Scale of Value Orientation and is represented by 39 sections on the questionnaire. Value orientation refers to a tendency to share attitudes, such as the determination to become strong. This particular attitude is shared by most people in the lower classes of society. Often we see that delinquents will tend to share many of the attitudes and tendencies endorsed by those living in the lower social classes, even though not all lower class people are delinquents.
These two scales are related through attitudes and values and help illustrate what I was saying about the correlation between beliefs and behaviours in the fields of delinquency, deviancy and marginalisation. Before going on to other (more psychological) dimensions, I would like to illustrate this correlation with an analysis that I made:
We will first analyse 500 youths. We will pinpoint among these youths those people who committed delinquent acts in the recent past. Then, I will indicate any past and present delinquent behaviour. I consider this analysis important because people can be delinquent either just once or more than once in their lives. I have also conducted this analysis to see if there is any difference between the people who have been delinquent only once in their life and those who are often or always delinquent. For the purposes of this examination, age is important because the younger the person, the easier it is to include them in this list. That's why I have included ages from 17 to 20. The difference in sex, however, is less important because at a certain point girls can behave like boys in the same delinquent way. When they are adolescent it is normal for both boys and girls to commit delinquent actions.
It is interesting to look at people who displayed a more persistent level of delinquent behaviour, and went to prison. They are carrier delinquents. If you are involved in researching delinquency for long time then you develop more of an insight into what it really is.
"Does this mean that this kind of test can predict future behaviour of a person who is not a carrier delinquent?" one student asked.
This is a dangerous question. The danger is to predict continuous delinquency and so end up labelling someone. However, if you keep that in mind, the test can help you to distinguish between those who are involved in delinquency with a continuative intention and those who exhibited some delinquent behaviour but are not involved in the long-term development of delinquency.
"But my idea is that if we can use the information, we may be able to decide what kind of therapy to use with each individual,” comments the same student.
Yes, that's why I decided to give you this information because you can use it as an instrument in order to develop different programs of help and therapy. The Jesness inventory summarize the most important characteristics of persistant delinquents.
The first dimension is social maladjustment (S.M.). It is a set of attitudes connected with an inadequate socialization, a disability of understanding social requirements. We also meet negative self–image, sensation to be misunderstood, distrust towards authority, unrealistic view to parents, bad control of hostility, weakness of their self, wrong moral consciouseness and, generaly, maladjustment to school and society.
The second one is value orientation (V.O.). This dimension concerns all the references of the person regarding that is necessary to manage himself, to get out of difficult situations. There is an orientation to values of lower social classes, to physical strenght, to unkindness, to non–conformism, to denial of laws and rules. It is the valorization of impulsive reactions, of deviant groups. There are these types of values we meet in the hard core of Sides.
The third dimension is immaturity. This dimension is supported by 45 questions. The tendency of displaying attitudes and perceptions of the self and others is usual amongst people of a younger age. A clear example of immaturity can be that young people cannot predict their own behaviour. The fourth dimension is autism. This is supported by 28 items and it is a measurement of thinking and perception. The tendency to distort things in reality according to one personal desires and needs is specifically attended to. It is important to note that autism it is not the best label for this dimension because it is only a measurement of some autistic-type traits. In reality, autism is something different.
The fifth scale is alienation and it is analysed by 26 questions. This measures the way in which some people behave in order to isolate themselves from the rest. Remember the statement, "I cannot trust others." This expresses feelings that some individuals may have, especially towards people in a position of authority such as judges, police officers and so on. Alienation also refers to all in the world that cannot be predicted. The sixth scale is manifested aggression. This dimension is represented by 31 question-items and it is interpreted as the awareness of unpleasant feelings of frustration and anger. It is a tendency to react promptly to these emotions.
The seventh dimension is withdrawal scale - once dissatisfied with himself and others, the person has a tendency to isolate himself. Social anxiety, emotional discomfort interpersonal relationships, is the eighth dimension and is analysed by 21 questions. The ninth is repression with 15 questions. This is the withdrawal from conscious awareness and from certain perfectly normal feelings. Then it comes to denial, covered by 20 questions, which is the reluctance to acknowledge unpleasant events or conditions in normal daily life. And finally, the eleventh dimension analyses an unawareness of respecting normal social rules and covers the social problems associated with this.
So far, I think that I have shown you that there is an external conditioning risk factor in the family, neighbourhood, that is in the individual’s meso- and micro-systems. This can also show that, in certain ways of life and alongside particular risk factors, deviancy and delinquency may be provoked. Taking all this into consideration, I believe that you can work with these people, beginning by trying to observe them - the way they live, what they say and how they behave with the others. However, often you can hear what the people say, but must be aware that what they say is not the whole story. Often they are not able to express everything that is inside themselves. To give a clear example, if you work with drug-addicts, they would tell you, "yes, I want to stop now." This could be true, but it is only a part of their reality. By giving them the kind of questionnaire described, you can go more deeply into their way of thinking and perceiving reality. Added to this, you will also have to analyse their behaviour, attitudes, values and systems.
If you want to work with people who have problems of marginalisation, delinquency or behavioural and social difficulties, the first step is to have a good knowledge of the problem and of the person. Primarily, you must take the time to get to know the individual and to completely understand their social problem. Try to find out about the history of their family. esterday I presented you with some ideas about micro- and meso-systems. You also have Olson’s model in mind. Another useful source of information is the genealogical tree and the history of the family. This is also often used in the social sciences.The genogram is a simple tool for drawing a picture of the family and for working out who is who. You have to identify the risk factors within the family and for the individual. This, therefore, is the first step to take.
The second step to take, of course, in accordance with a specific situation, is to obtain a description of the elicited behaviour. Within this, two types of information are necessary. One is the precise information of what really happened and how it happened. The second information is why something has happened. However, you must still remember that any conclusion you reach will be a personal opinion or just one aspect of the whole reality. Also the person with whom you are speaking can somehow try to control your point of view. Essentially, this is a normal behaviour that we all consciously adopt, when we try to convince others about something that we believe. Equally, it may also be an unconscious behaviour seen in general communication with others. We must remember that, if we are in a situation in front of a deviant, impoverished or addicted individual, for example, they will always try to obtain something from us. This leads on to allow me introduce you to one theoretical argument for “getting into touch with” people on the street.
To have contact with somebody, we need a reason to get in touch with him. So, the first thing to do is to clearly identify what we can offer and what this person can expect from us. Meeting somebody on the street just for our pleasure wouldn't be a good enough reason. Imagine that you are a drug-addicted or a juvenile delinquent in a residential setting and that I am the therapist. All of you are in continuous communication with others inside the residence. For instance, you are in contact with the kitchen staff when you need something to eat, for breakfast and so on. Equally, you get in contact with me when you want to get some information. So, you communicate with other people around you every time that you which to obtain something. After this first step, when you acknowledge the utility of this contact, then another process begins.
This next process is a perfectly normal process of attachment formation that builds up between you and the people that you communicate with. Therefore, on the street, as a first step, you must find a useful link, you must have something to offer. Then, as in the residential setting, you will start to develop an attachment to the individuals. A major difference between working with "normals" and with people who have social problems and problems of addiction or neurosis lies in the development of these attachments. Outside of therapy, these people may not have had much social experience. At first, with delinquents, addicts and so on, you won't find the ability to naturally form attachments, and so you must help to create the necessary communicative relationship. At this stage, control is very important. You see that the other person will try to control you with the information he gives, but this manipulation used to your advantage. He manipulates you, but through this you develop an insight into ways of controlling him and thus establish a relationship with him.
In terms of contact, first contact, unless it is on the streets, rarely creates any problem because, if you are a social worker or an educator, there is always something that the person needs from you. The problem is to change this opportunistic relationship into a more attached one. This is the only way to drive the person out of the previously mentioned circle and to help him to create links with others in society. Interestingly, it has been shown that when the person realises that he is gaining back his links with society, he stops. For professionals, it important to know that, at a certain point, the person will stop. This is the method they use to test their relationship at any time. If the therapist is discouraged by his behaviour, the patient will continue to exhibit symptoms of one form or another. The main thing is that the attachment that we are establishing with the patient must be a clearly professional attachment instead of a familial or even love relationship. To have a professional attachment means to be inside a work-team, a meso-system, which is able to support this relationship. I believe that this is the most important point.
To give a better explanation of manipulation I can refer to the example of drug-addicted people. When they get in contact with somebody, anyone from their parents to their therapists or their social workers, they tend to ask for something that can, in same way, satisfy their immediate desires. Therefore, they go to their parents for money and to the social worker for permission to go out. Violence or aggression may also become part of manipulation. An individual may threaten, “If you don't let me out of here, I will kill myself.” Others may even answer you with, "It's the past. I don't want to talk about it." Often this can turn into a form of useful manipulation on our part. You must look at the past, globally, but you have also to build up their future. To do that, you must consider, and work on, the social systems, such as the family or the working environment, into which they will be re-integrated.
Moreover, we must work within the framework by which these people make up their future. We must work with their projects, with realistic projects and not their dreams. Claims of "Oh, I’ve finished being a drug-addict; tomorrow, I will stop smoking," are just dreams which I don't believe. I can only trust people saying, "Yesterday, I stopped smoking." So, you have to work with people's realistic, positive resources. These must be social and personal resources.
In our modern society, the prison, for instance, offers the worst opportunities for reintegrating the juveniles into society, but it is also inconceivable to run a society without prisons. Through the video, I will demonstrate that prison is a negative way of working with juveniles. This is often because prison tends not to use the resources of an individual person in order to help him build a new future. That's why this prison in Turin is a marvellous and innovative way in which the institution tries to promote and stimulate the social and cultural resources of its prisoners. The system there shows that people's behaviour can be controlled, and that their resources can be positively utilised in this controlled environment. Afterwards, it would be interesting to hear your opinions about the scheme.
VIDEO : SORTIE DE SECOURS
The video was made something like 15 years ago. I don't even know what really happened after that experiment occurred. The experiment ended, but I don't know if that prison returned back to a normal prison or even if the experiment was continued somewhere else. I know that in many prisons, in countries like Canada or the Netherlands, for instance, there is a growing demand for these types of jail systems.
"I know that Madrid's prison works in this way and that it also has programmes for the prisoners' re-integration into the social system. I also know that the prisoners are invited to work with the elders and this, in my opinion, seems very positive," asserted a student.
Nowadays, in many prisons, it is normal to make the prisoner work or volunteer in order to keep him active.However, I would consider this particular experiment that we have seen as different to this. The activities in which the prisoners were allowed to participate were more complete, and the principal aim was not to increase their competency in the job market. They were helped to built up a cultural approach by creating an interconnection between the prison and the outside city or vice versa. The specific experiment that was carried was called "the testing of the prisoner", which meant that they used to do a period of imprisonment outside of the prison.
"We started this lesson with trying to destroy the idea of deviant behaviours. However, we must be aware of not making the opposite mistake in considering these realities as normal," said one student. "The efforts to develop rehabilitation programmes involving the social context answers this”.
"I wanted to say that, in my opinion, this video is quite old fashioned. 15 years is quite a long time and I noticed that the only integration project carried out with these boys was integration into the job market," said another student.
"I think that in recent years something has changed, but many rehabilitation centres still tend to apply schemes focusing on work rehabilitation, rather than emotional rehabilitation. What I am afraid of is that this re-integration into the labour market is just a mirror for a good result that doesn't allow us to see where the real problems are."
“I think that this problem doesn't only concern deviants and criminals, but it also involves sick or drug-addicted people and everyone who suffers from mental, physical or social handicap," added another student.
Well, I am glad to see that the video gave us the opportunity to discuss about this very large argument and it certainly raises questions about what exactly ‘normality’ and delinquency are, for instance. Added to this the problems of integration and job market rehabilitation have also been highlighted. Yes, of course, this video was recorded at a certain point in history, but it still addresses us with problems that are always valid and points out questions like: What to do? How to do it? and What is rehabilitation? It also considers the general tendencies of the legal system. For this reason the first thing that I asked you was whether you thought the legal system was changing in an evolutionary or a non-evolutionary way. As you know, it has been continually swinging from high to low moments throughout its history.
"When working with juveniles who have conflicting values and who come from problem families, how should social workers like us behave? And how should we behave with those with more serious and long-term delinquency?" questioned a student. "I think that the social worker should not be seen as a ‘threat’, or as a person who tries to completely break his client’s minor links with his world
This is a complicated question which I will try to answer in a moment, within another, more appropriate context.
"In my opinion, the programme presented in the video was not limited to their reintegration into the job market. There were some youngsters sitting together, playing the guitar, and I don't see how can this be related to job training. I also noticed that there were some boys who had to share a TV together. From situations such as these I suggest that it gave these people in prison an opportunity to socialise together as if they were living outside. Through the programme they were encouraged to learn, be adaptable and respect the main rules of social behaviours, just as they would have done in normal life. Moreover, the scene when that boy was given the prison-key showed clear signs of giving him a level of responsibility,” said a student.
Yes, it is precisely this. Things such as the key are signs of changes within the programme.
"I was impressed with the boy who was doing martial arts. Anyone who has practised this sport will know that it carries with it certain positive values," said another student. "At first, the video looked fantastic with all the activities that those boys where doing. However, at the end, one boy said that this may have been a beneficial "no prison" programme for just two out of ten people in their later lives. However, the remaining eight people would still be in the same situation. I think this is too low a percentage and that those two boys might have achieved the same results without the programme, perhaps because of individual differences. "
"I have something to say concerning the key. Another colleague saw the key as given to the prisoner as a sign of responsibility. To me, however, I saw it immediately in terms of the American prison where the key represents a sign of power. Therefore, we should go further, beyond our first explanations, and try to understand what is signified, by symbols such as the key, in different countries. Personally, I do think that power is an important thing in life. Why should a prisoner not have power? The problem lies in how positively this power would be used."
"The fact that somebody in a prison has some power doesn't mean anything," answered another student. "It is the way in which this power is used that makes the difference. The fact that you thought it positive that the prisoner was holding the keys did not have any particular meaning because the incident was in isolation. It is important to see how the entire system works and how that key would have been used."
Yes, I agree that power in a prison is a very important element and that the prison is organised to give power to the most powerful. Therefore, giving the keys to the young inmates can be a contradictory situation. For the authorities who were working inside, it could have been a way to delegate part of their work to those young people who had more control over the other inmates. Therefore, I must insist that this type of control should never be given to the inmates; it must stay in the hands of the social worker who should keep and manage the law in an appropriate way.
Other points for discussion can arise from the question: What right do we have to take juveniles away from their parents? I know that we live in a democratic society, but this doesn't mean that everybody knows the truth. There are people who live outside of the appropriate rules of society and this can apply to some parents or families. There are parents who abuse their children; there are parents who are seriously delinquent. Other parents are drug-addicts and others transmit the HIV virus to their children. Therefore, I think that we have to realise that it is not always good for the children to remain with their parents. Sometimes it is positive for the children to stay away from their parents, even for a short time. However, we have to work through the situation in a way that both children and parents can change positively, and grow through their problems towards eventually harmonious living.
Another point for discussion is normality. Most people who engage in delinquent acts are normal people who may live an abnormal social existence. So, for instance, this kind of description may apply to delinquents, drug abusers, and to precise categories of people with social behaviour problems. The prison alone is not sufficient to give them a normal way of life; they need something more to improve their socialisation skills and help them over their afflictions. It is not enough to give juveniles a form of job training to help them through their delinquency problems. In fact, it is possible that they will just become a “delinquent with a job” and this is not our aim.
"I was thinking about the possibility of and the right to separate boys from their parents," said a student. "I was thinking about parents who are drug abusers and I remembered the movie 'The Lady Bird, The Lady Bird,' where this issue of separating the children from their parents arises. The message behind the film demonstrated how important it was to give attention to both the parents and to the children in the situation.”
And this shows the importance of a well-trained social worker in these circumstances. We are not computers that can make technical decisions, but we must be able to make appropriate decisions.
What I would like to discuss with you now is a study conducted on a group of French-speaking Belgian students in an institution for youngsters with minor delinquency problems. In 1992 thousands of youths were placed there. Only one institute, housing 28 youths, is kept locked. The others were used for short-term stays and some for longer term. These are locked or half-locked institutions. My team and I collected data about people inside this institution from 1987 until 1992, and then subsequently in 1996. We decided to include this date in order to understand what type of delinquent actions these people had in their past and to see, once they were completely free, what their future tendencies would be. As a result, we collected data from their very early lives, and then from their lives at 12 to 18-years-old. We gathered information about 400 youths, and analysed the grade of their delinquency.
With the girls, we found that there were no problems of serious delinquency, whereas with the boys, during the same period, only 20 percent were not involved in seriously delinquent behaviour. Fifty percent were involved in more serious acts and another 20 percent of the boys were involved in extremely serious delinquent acts. Almost a third of all the juvenile delinquents, after having spent some time in these institutions, became involved in minor delinquent acts, but for the majority of the girls the possibility of involvement in further crimes was diminished. Amongst a third of the boys their subsequent crimes were lighter then previous ones. Another third of the boys became involved in serious delinquent acts, and the last third, after their period inside the institution, committed much heavier crimes.
After that, we tried to explain why some juveniles committed lighter crimes than others once they had completed their institutional time period. This is called desistence which is a relatively new concept to this area of research. This term is also used in mental institutions for those people who had been schizophrenic at some time in their life, but are not any more. Another new word is resilience, which applies to those who have not exhibited the behaviours predicted by particularly high risk situations and environments. Even if they came from at-risk environments and also had some of the personal traits that make them more vulnerable to delinquency, a resilient individual is more likely to head towards desistence. Moreover, phenomena such as attachments and the growing satisfaction of everyday life inside the institutional environment (this makes me think about Turin's institution, from the video) contribute towards desistence. The third major phenomenon that we observed was the sense of guilt that many juveniles felt about their delinquent past life. Of course, to observe these it was necessary to live for quite a long period of time inside the institutions.
"I don't completely understand what you mean when you talk about observing the phenomena during the residential period" said a student. What we did was to collect the data contained in the personal files of the resident juveniles. We coded that kind of information into a computer to come out with some statistical results. The first information was collected by the working team according to their data-gathering abilities. This was a piece of scientific research, but I can say now that if work with this method, and encounter the same three previous observed phenomena, then you are going in the right direction. This is one of the reasons of why I was, and am, so secure about the phenomenon of attachment.
"How can we explain the difference in data between boys and girls?" questioned another student.
This is a very complicated question to answer because delinquency in boys and girls has totally different dimensions. Delinquency, for the most part, is a male problem rather than a female one. Of course, there are women involved in seriously delinquent behaviour, but they need a very bad environment and some serious personal problems to get involved in that. Often, even nowadays, there are immense pressures on women to remain as the strong life symbol of a well-balanced society.
I would now like to show and explain to you certain mechanisms better known as the information-processing model. This branch of the information-processing model was developed by studying aggressive youngsters and expanded by many further studies that confirmed its useful application to both adolescent and adults delinquents as well. However, this model mostly applies to violent, delinquent acts, and only on specific occasions can it be applied to burglaries and other, more minor crimes. Of course, this is only one way to assess what happens and what leads to delinquency.
Remember that working with affection should always add an extra dimension when you are tackling unconscious problems such as juvenile delinquency. In the Turin prison experiment, for instance, they may have had better results if they had used this kind of information-processing intervention programme.
All people enter into various situations. Let’s take, for example, an aggressive individual who enters into a macro-system. Their first step would be information encoding; that is, to observe the other people involved, trying to glean some information about their intentions. We all do this in any normal social situation. We also make the other people involved go through other stages, but this is done in a particular way. The second step is interpretation. They interpret the others’ intentions as hostile or harmless, accidental or otherwise. The third step is searching for a response. What is the best response to the situation? Is aggressiveness an appropriate reaction or is a pro-social reaction the best one to have? The next step is deciding on a response which promises the most positive reinforcement for the delinquent himself or for others. Finally comes action: behaving or responding in a way which is in accordance with the decisions already made.
Another way to present the French description of the Information Processing Model is to interpret the encoding process as a search mechanism. This search would take the situation and match it with past memories, searching for possible responses, an evaluation of consequences, the individual’s own decisional power, and finally encoding the chosen response as a precise behaviour.
Now I come to an exercise in which students are asked to draw some pictures of boys or girls in a fictional environment. After having decided what story to create, they must illustrate the potential outcomes of committing a crime. The speaker of the first student group began by announcing that their character would either “flatten the professor's tyres or abandon school forever." They continued to say that, "after evaluating all the consequences, our boy thinks that the best solution is to flatten the professor's car tyres because he will never be able to prove the boy’s guilt. Moreover, for his classmates the boy will become a hero.So, in accordance with this choice, he goes to flatten the professor's tyres."
The speaker of the last group said: "First, there are two adolescents walking on the street. Then, mistakenly, the green boy knocks over the orange boy who gets seriously irritated because he blows the situation out of all proportions. The boy suffers from persecution hallucinations and there is also a lack of self esteem projected towards others. According to us, an adolescent can only react impulsively and aggressively. Therefore, the only reaction an aggressive child will have is to hit and fight against the other. In this situation, the ambulance we draw is for the green boy because the orange boy was laying on the floor.”
It seems, from these examples, that you have succeeded in demonstrating how this model can apply to both adults and adolescents. However, from the situations described, I prefer the one about letting down the professor's car tyres, rather than the one concerning the hammer, because it sounded more realistic.I prefer stories which are more realistic.Essentially, it is important to remain as close as possible to the reality of a given situation in order to intervene in an appropriate and useful way.
I hope you can use the experiences of this afternoon, and realise that you can use the same technique with children or adults in real life, when the occasions arise. You can also draw on other techniques, such as psychodrama, which can help you and them to understand what is going on and to correct their behaviour. So, if tomorrow you have some time to dedicate to these notes, take five or six hours to fully understand them. In time we will see that the whole process - interpretation of the situation, attention to the needs of others, interpretation of intention and identification of action - can be applicable not only to anti-social, delinquent and aggressive behaviour, but also to pro-social behaviour. Very often, it is in applying the whole process to pro-social behaviour that such behaviour is finally achieved.
I will conclude by saying that this is simply a process, but it is a process which depends on many other factors, such as socialisation, cognitive development, demotivation and the goals and values that form the make-up and history of the individual. In the end, if you want to see an exchange of anti-social or ‘bad’ behaviour for pro-social or ‘good’ behaviour, then everything must be taken into account.
 |
||
| Sart-Tilman, B.33 4000 Liège (Belgique) Téléphone : 32 (0)4 366.22.72 Télécopie : 32 (0)4 366.29.88 Yolande Gérard -Lhoest |
 |
Université de Liège - Fapse - Psychologie de la Délinquance et du Développement Psychosocial
Page d'accueil | Présentation du service | Enseignement | Thèmes de recherches | Compétences | Services et prestations | Collaborations | Publications