Coping, Behavior, and Adaptation in Prison Inmates

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.