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Stosunek wychowanków zakładów poprawczych do religii

100%

Lorek Z.

Archiwum Kryminologii

1992

issue XVIII

169-182

Religious services were introduced to reformatories and hostels for detained juveniles by force of an ordinance of Minister of Justice of September 10, 1981 on religious practices and services in reformatories and hostels for detained juveniles (Official Gazette of the Ministry of Justice No 5, item 24). ln 1990, a study of 200 wards of 6 reformatories was carried out which concerned their attitude towards religion. A specially constructed questionnaire was used; besides, the study involved observation and interviews with the wards and staff. The findings show first of all the attitudes towards religion as declared by the respondents. The largest group in the sample of 200 juveniles were those aged 15–19 (86% of the sample). Those going to elementary school constituted 61,5%. Nearly a half of respondents had been confined to a variety of readjustment centers for at least two years. The families of most boys (85%) belonged to working classes. Every second respondent followed the norms of delinquent and prison subculture (i.e. was member of a group called git-ludzie). The questionnaire survey made it possible to divide the sample into three subgroups: those who declared themselves practising believers (43%); those who stated they were Catholics but not church-goers (42%); and the wards who said they were irreligious (15%). Of the 170 believing wards, 166 (97,6%) were Roman Catholics. Most wards attended the Mass at the reformatory (18% did that regularly, and 62% – occasionally). Yet as few as 15% attended religion classes regularly, and 22,55% occasionally. As for saying prayers, 25,5% did that regularly, and 41,5% – from time to time. Nearly a half of respondents owned religious objects, mainly pictures, the Bible, crosses, prayer books, holy medals, rosaries. The wards reformatories usually consider their friends to be mostly believers but not church-goers. For most respondents (72,5%) the problems of religion do not influence their choice of friends. What is astonishing, though, is the slight proportion of those among the respondents who would like a non-believer for a friend (2,5 %). Over a half of the sample (64%) think that religion can change a person for the better. At the same time, next to none (2) consider its influence to be negative. Choosing a wife in the future, 5l% of the iuvenile intend to take the question of religion into consideration. The rest of the sample consider their future wife’s religion unimportant. As regards the upbringing of children, as many as 72,5 respondents declare for the Catholic faith. In the sphere of the perception of the others in the categories of religion vs. irreligion, significant differences were found between practising believers and non-believers. Some social conditions of the declared religious attitudes were investigated. The wards who described themsleves as practising believers were found to come mainly from the families where also both parents (guardians) as well as siblings were believers. The practising believers used to have mainly believing friends in the past as well. The question whether the respondents’ parents (guardians) had induced them to perform religious duties was most frequintly answered in the affirmative by the practicising believers. Following placement in the reformatory, the number of practising believers among the juveniles dropped on the whole, and that of believers who do not go to church and of unbelievers went up. The hypothesis that religious wards of reformatories are better-behaved while in those institutions than their irreligious friends could not be confirmed. According to the established practice and internal regulations, leaves are granted to the well-behaved wards. It was found, though, that most leaves had been granted to believers but not church-goers, while prictising believers had won that award the least often. It turned out also, against expectations, that the greatest proportion of members of the delinquent subculture could be found among the practising believers, and the smallest one – the group of unbelievers. According to most respondents (83,5%), the wards of Polish reformatories enjoy a full freedom of religious practices. Yet as many as 44% rcspondents would like to be placed in an institution run by the clergy, and 69% – to go out of the reformatory to hear the Mass. The latter, however, were mainly believers but not church-goers. It seems, therefore, that the wish to hear masses said outside the institution not always follows from religious reasons. The controversial question whether the staff should induce the wards to practice religion was asked in the negative by 79% of the sample. The findings of the questionnaire survey show that, in principle, the juvenile wards of reformatories, have religious attitudes similar to those of the whole of young persons in the same age brackets. No relationship was found between the juveniles’ religious attitudes and their behavior in the institution. The respondents stated that the religious services offered by the reformatory generally satisfied the needs in that sphere.

Neutralizacja normy „nie kradnij” w genezie przestępczości nieletnich

84%

Stańdo-Kawecka B.

Archiwum Kryminologii

1994

issue XX

21-51

The paper discusses the findings of a study aimed at an empirical verification of a well-known criminological concept: the Sykes and Matza concept of neutralization techniques from the classical trend of positivist criminology. What Sykes and Matza see as the factor of juvenile delinquency are mechanisms of justification of one’s own delinquent behavior. Reverting to functionalim, the authors assume a social consensus on the basic values and norms of behavior. Juvenile delinquents generally recognize the same values and norms as non-delinquent youth but, unlike that youth, they grow proficient in neutralizing those norms so as to prevent them from influencing their behavior. According to Sykes and Matza, norms are neutralized through finding and accepting justifications for one’s own deviant behavior. Five types of such neutralization techniques heve been distinguished according to the contents of those justifications: denial of responsibility, denial of injury, denial of the victim, condemnation of the condemners, and appeal to higher loyalties. In their conception of neutralization techniques, G.M. Sykes and D. Matza mainly describe and classify the ways of excusing one’s own deviant behavior and provide but a perfunctory discussion of the mechanizm of neutralization itself. L. Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance proves useful in explaining the psychological mechanizm of neutralization of recognized norms. Assumptions of the conception of neutralization techniques and the theory of cognitive dissonance provided the grounds for hypotheses which were subsequently submitted to empirical verification. The subject was limited to neutralization of the rule “do not steal” interpreted as a ban appropriation on theft and a rule of respect for another person’s property. Criminologists have long questioned the desing of empirical study where achool youth are treated as non-delinquent and examined as a control group oppesed to juvenile delinquents in houses of correction or educational institutions. In the present study, three groups were examined: ‒ juvenile delinquents confined to a reformatory or home for detained juveniles by a judicial decision as perpetrators of offences against property (84 persons); ‒ school youth not involved in acts against another person’s property, called non-delinquent youth (70 persons); ‒ school youth involved in acts againts another person’s property, called actually delinquent (37 persons); The groups of “non-delinquent” and “actually delinquent” persons were distinguished from school youth by means of a self-report survey. Of the original hypotheses, only one was confirmed by the findings. The exemined groups appeared to differ significantly in their approval of the techniques of neutralization of the norm of honesty, the differences trending as expected. The lowest approval of statements expressing various excuses for breaches of another person’s property was found among the non-delinquent youth. The group that most often approves ot such excuses are wards of reformatories and juvenile homes; however, they do not differ much in this respect from the actually delinquent youth. All of the examined groups have similar priorities as to the separate types of excuses. The type accepted most often is “condemnation of the condemners”. In particular, a statement that “the police and judges are corruptible and malicious”enjoys great popularity. The types accepted least often, instead, are excuses consisting in “denial of injury” and “appeal to higher loyalties”. What could not be conformed are hypotheses as to absence of differences between the groups with respect to appraisal of one’s own honesty and acceptance of the rule “do not steal”. Non -delinquent youth appraise themselves much higher in terms of honesty than the remaining two groups. Wards of reformatories and juvenile homes, instead, appraise themselves somewhat lower than the actually delinquent youth. The non-delinquent youth show the strongest acceptance of the norm of honesty. The degree of acceptance of that norm among wards of reformatories is similar to that among actual delinquents, the former showing a somewhat stronger acceptance of the rule “do not steal” than the actually delinquent group. Another hypothesis that was not confirmed concerned a tendency to neutralize the rule “do not steal” once it has been violated; the method used here was projection where the respondents were to complete unfinished stories. Against expectations, the tendency to neutralize that norm once it has been violated appeared to occur much more often among school youth than among wards of reformatories and juvenile homes. Of the various methods of reducing the anxiety resulting from a breach of another person’s property, both groups of school youth most often suggested neutralization of the norm of honesty. Wards of institutions, instead, much more often mentioned methods other than neutralization of the violated norm: e.g., focus on the derived or potential profit, or focus on the absence of threat with any negative consequences from without. The study questioned the role of delinquent neutralizations as conceived by Sykes and Matza in the origin of juvenile delinquency. Unforfunately, the findings could not be interpreted explicitly. According to the theoretical assumptions made, a number of possible explanations of the findings can be suggested which at least party exclude one another. A new empirical study would be necessary to verify those explanations.

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2 Archiwum Kryminologii

1 Lorek Z.

1 Stańdo-Kawecka B.

1 1994

1 1992

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Stosunek wychowanków zakładów poprawczych do religii

Neutralizacja normy „nie kradnij” w genezie przestępczości nieletnich