Introduction
Active management is concerned with strategies that have a positive influence on prisoners, including:
- pro-social modelling (PSM)
- personal feedback
- positive reinforcement
- collaborative problem-solving
- motivational enhancement (ME).
Types of situations
Positive influence can be brought to bear in many situations. The following are examples of situations which are opportunities for you to have a positive influence. For further details, see the topic “Personal feedback” later in this chapter.
A prisoner:
- states forcefully that the victim of his crime (grievous bodily harm) deserved the beating he received because he had cheated the prisoner,
- makes a scornful remark to an officer about her employment, claiming that he can make “twice the money in one night as she makes in a month”,
- a few weeks before release, excitedly remarks that she “can’t wait to get out”, thinking of how she will be able to resume unrestricted drinking and drug taking,
- displays no concern or interest towards his children during weekend visits,
- is found to have brought drugs into the unit, thus placing in peril (for everyone) a unit family day scheduled to occur in a few days’ time,
- spreads malicious lies through the unit in order to create hostility towards another prisoner. The prisoner on the receiving end of this misinformation states that he is going to “knock the bastard over – it’s the only way to show him”,
- regularly uses physical intimidation to obtain goods from other prisoners,
- with a violent temper shrugs and states “I don’t care – I like being this way”,
- screams abuse to his partner over the phone, apparently because she has told him she can’t afford the cost of coming out to visit him this weekend.
