Prison staff’s views and understanding of the role of emotions in prisoner suicide and violence

Abstract

Suicide and violence are a major concern in prisons, and it has been suggested that alexithymia may be associated with these behaviours. Alexithymia can be defined as the inability to identify and describe emotions. This study aimed to explore staff's understanding and attitudes about identifying and discussing emotions in prisoner suicide and violence. Twenty prison staff across departments were interviewed about their understanding of how emotional difficulties contribute towards prisoner suicide and violence. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using thematic analysis. Analysis revealed five main themes and nine subthemes. Staff felt that prisoners struggled to identify, understand and communicate their emotions which led to intense and sudden outbursts of emotion. In turn, prisoners responded to these outbursts using two main maladaptive coping strategies; drug and alcohol use and harming self or others. This process was placed in a broader context of both upbringing and the prison environment. These findings therefore suggest that a change to prison regime and culture is crucial to encouraging prisoners to overcome difficulties with identifying, understanding and communicating emotions which, in turn, could help to reduce rates of suicide and violence in prison.

Words Don't Come Easy: How Male Prisoners' Difficulties Identifying and Discussing Feelings Relate to Suicide and Violence

“…Previous research has also identified an interplay between individual factors such as difficulties identifying, understanding and expressing emotions with contextual factors such as prison norms, lack of opportunity and permission and toxic masculinity (17). This reflects previous literature which has found that, for instance, self-harm is related to intrapersonal difficulties such as alexithymia, depression and lower resilience as well as external factors such as bullying (76).…”

“…This finding has been echoed by others who found that although prisoners are generally unlikely to share emotions with others, there tends to exist a small network of people that they are willing to discuss their emotions with ( 16 , 25 , 29 , 31 ). Although not evidenced in the current study, previous research has reported staff to hold a perception that prisoners would be more likely to discuss their emotions with particular staff members such as female staff and non-uniformed staff ( 17 ).…”

“…This study found it was important for prisoners to seek the right conditions to allow them to discuss emotions with others; this involved finding the right time, place and person for this conversation (themes 3 and 5). Previous research has found that prison staff perceived that prisoners were more able to communicate their emotions after the feelings had passed, as opposed to in the moment, and also that prisoners had limited time to discuss emotions with prison staff ( 17 ). Other studies have reported that prisoners struggled to discuss their emotions with loved ones over the telephone due to small time windows to make their phone calls ( 16 ).…”

“…This supports previous research which suggests that the rate of alexithymia is more prevalent amongst offenders than the general population ( 32 – 35 ). Furthermore, previous qualitative research has found that prison staff perceive prisoners to experience difficulties with identifying, understanding and communicating feelings ( 17 ) and that female prisoners have reported difficulties with communicating their feelings to others ( 31 ).…”

“…As a result of not having an avenue to release these emotions, prisoners reported harming themselves as a way to release negative emotions. In another qualitative study, Hemming et al ( 17 ) explored prison staff's perceptions of the relationship between alexithymia, suicide and violence in male prisoners. Staff in this study reported that prisoners “don't do feelings,” stating that they perceived prisoners to experience difficulties with identifying, understanding and communicating feelings.…”