The increase in the number of convicts with long sentences in domestic correctional colonies over the past decade, and at the same time the expansion of persons with psychosocial immaturity among them, contributes to the acquisition by this category of special contingent with prolonged isolation of learned helplessness. Based on the analysis of foreign and domestic publications, the causes and features of the development of this destruction in different categories of convicts as a psychological state and personal education are revealed. In accordance with the requirement of the Concept for the Development of the Penitentiary System of Russia until 2030 on the implementation of an individually differentiated approach in the psychological support of convicts, methodological and theoretical guidelines have been determined, as well as methodological means of studying various types of personal helplessness among the special contingent.