Soon, a psychological cell in Sabarmati jail

After an exhaustive study undertaken by a PhD student of Raksha Shakti University (RSU) on assessing violent behaviour of inmates of Sabarmati central jail and introducing a psychological intervention, the prison authorities are likely to set up a psychological cell from February onwards.

Forensic psychologist Reena Sharma who is pursuing her PhD from RSU opted the positive criminology route and its impact on offenders based on motivation, self-esteem and social identity. Sharma’s study on ‘Assessing violent behavior & aggression: its treatment readiness and engagement in offenders in inmates of Sabarmati Prison, Gujarat’ aimed at determining if treatment readiness influences dropout rates in intervention programs.

For the study, she interviewed 110 prison inmates convicted under heinous offences like murder, rape, etc. Speaking about the same, she said, “Given the lack of reform opportunities for prisoners in India to relearn adaptive coping mechanisms and progress towards change, the rate of repeat offenders is high and they often get stuck in a vicious cycle of committing crime. We examined for stages of treatment readiness, self-esteem in prison, social identity in prison, followed by a structured brief psychological intervention. Some of the examples of interventions activities included anger management, interpersonal problem solving, recognizing one’s own feelings, learning to use self-control and impulse control techniques, dealing with negative stressful life events, dealing with rejection, anxiety, fear and criticism, learning to share and ask for help, communicating disinterest and so on.” Sharma is pursuing doctoral program from RSU in criminology under the supervison of professor K Jaishankar. She is also the Founder of The Mind Practice and has has in the past worked with Tihar Jail, New Delhi and Bhondsi Jail, Haryana for the mental wellbeing of prisoners. She has developed a victim support program for Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar police and is currently developing a module to set up a psychological unit in the police stations.

She said, “With the brief psychological intervention of 2 months, a significant decline was seen on the above mentioned psychological disorder subscales. This showcases the strength of the psychological interventions and widens the scope of psychological units in prison settings. This is an attempt to bring about a change in policy in the existing rehabilitation programs in prisons in India, by incorporating systematic and scientific psychological interventions within the prison system.”