TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2007//
TI  - Officer attitudes towards adult male prisoners who self-harm: development of an attitudinal measure and investigation of sex differences
JO  - Aggressive behavior
A1  - Ireland, Jane L.
A1  - Quinn, Kathleen
SP  - 63
EP  - 72
VL  - 33
IS  - 1
N2  - PURPOSE: The aim of the current study was to explore attitudes towards self-harm in a sample of prison officers, with subsidiary aims of assessing if these attitudes alter as a function of the prisoner's behavior and the sex of the participant. METHOD: One hundred and sixty-two officers (100 men and 62 women) completed a general measure of their attitudes towards prisoners and one designed to assess Attitudes towards Prisoners who Self-Harm (APSH). Participants rated their perceptions of two adult male prisoners depicted in vignettes. The vignettes depicted identical types of self-harm but varied the behavioral characteristics of the prisoners involved, with one depicted as "well-behaved" and the other as "disruptive". RESULTS: Women were more likely than men to report positive attitudes towards self-harm and in particular were less likely than men to endorse negative myths regarding self-harm. The prisoner depicted as "disruptive" invoked increased negative attitudes than the "well-behaved" prisoner. This finding was consistent across sex. CONCLUSION: The current study indicates that APSH are comprised of a number of components that were influenced by the sex of the participant and the behavioral characteristics of the prisoners depicted. The implications of these findings to practice are discussed.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0096-140X
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ab.20168
ID  - ref1
ER  -