Deliberate Self-Harm in the Prison Setting
Description
Although the earliest discussions on deliberate self-harm can be traced in medical literature as early as the mid-1800s, it wasn’t until the 1960s when the psychiatry community became interested in studying self-harming behavior (Favazza, 1998). Since then, psychiatrists and psychologists alike have spent time researching self-harm behaviors and evaluating treatment methods for individuals who engage in self-harming behaviors. The vast majority of the existing research focuses on patients in the community who self-harm. However, little research has been dedicated to examining self-harming behaviors among the incarcerated population. This dissertation seeks to fill the gap in the literature by analyzing self-harming behaviors among prison inmates in Arizona. Based on record reviews, data was gathered on every self-harm event that happened between September 1, 2018 until September 30th, 2019 by the inmate population incarcerated within the state of Arizona’s 16 state and private prisons. During the 13-month study time period, a total of 2,845 self-harm events were gathered, which were produced by 647 inmates. The results indicate that a large portion of the deliberate self-harm events that occurred in the prison setting served a functional purpose for those who engaged in the self-harm. Specifically, offenders who engaged in deliberate self-harm behaviors did so to obtain a desired outcome or for some kind of secondary gain. The results also indicated that many offenders engaged in deliberate self-harm to obtain a transfer to a safe housing location, and that the number of self-harm event these offenders engaged in decreased once they were transferred to their coveted housing location.
Date Created
The date the item was original created (prior to any relationship with the ASU Digital Repositories.)
2021
Agent
- Author (aut): Raak, Jessica Leigh
- Thesis advisor (ths): Fradella, Henry F.
- Committee member: Hepburn, John R.
- Committee member: Wright, Kevin
- Publisher (pbl): Arizona State University