Effect of minimizing coercion on the rehabilitation of prisoners

Related 5 hypotheses derived from A. Etzioni's theory of power and involvement in organizations to the rehabilitation process in a federal youth correctional center for adolescent males, using a cross-sectional design. 6 attitude scales were administered to 59 inmates subjected to coercive power by the staff and 38 inmates exposed to predominantly noncoercive staff power. As predicted, coercive power was inversely associated with (a) cooperative attitudes among inmates, (b) normative expectations and pressures for cooperation with the supervisors, (c) a cooperatively disposed informal inmate leadership, and (d) a perception of the supervisors as having socially adaptive work values. These were believed important in rehabilitation. The hypothesis that noncoerced Ss would have adopted socially adaptive work values was in the expected direction but not significant. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).