Acting Out

This volume examines the prison careers of the most problematic group of inmates - those who appear to sabotage their own rehabilitation by repeated displays of violence, disruptiveness or otherwise self-defeating behaviour. A particular challenge with these prisoners is determining the extent to which their problem behaviour is a result of mental illness, as opposed to purely ""characterological"" defects. Clearly these two alternatives demand different kinds of responses by prison staff, yet they are often hard to disentangle. The book uses disciplinary records and mental health exams to reconstruct the careers of chronic offenders.