Officer attitudes towards adult male prisoners who self-harm : development of an attitudinal measure and investigation of sex differences

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.