Prisoners with regard to female life and sex partners

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Faculty of Pedagogy University of Rzeszцw

Prisoners with regard to female life and sex partners

Maria Lukaszek

На основі зібраних даних констатовано, що агресія є деструктивним чинником поведінки в'язнів у життєвих та сексуальних стосунках з партнерами. Встановлено, що майже 30% чоловіків зізнаються в побитті жінок. Понад половини чоловіків стверджують про словесне насильство. В той же час 18% жінок залякують своїх партнерів, щоб змусити їх до послуху. Було встановлено, що більше 20% чоловіків проживають з неповнолітніми до 15 років. 32% чоловіків шляхом погроз або обману змушують до насильства, сексуального контакту з жінко. 32% чоловіків змушують жінку до неприйнятних форм сексуальної активності.

62% чоловіків, які перебувають в стабільних відносинах з жінкою, вступають в інтимні стосунки з третіми особами. 64% респондентів оцінили як явно неприйнятним положення сексуальної агресії чоловіка проти жінки.

Ключові слова: агресивна поведінка, деструктивні чинники поведінки в'язнів,сексуальне насильство.

На основе собранных данных констатировано, что агрессия является деструктивным фактором поведения заключенных в жизненных и сексуальных отношениях с партнерами. Установлено, что почти 30% мужчин признаются в избиении женщин. Более половины мужчин утверждают о словесное насилие. В то же время 18% женщин запугивают своих партнеров, чтобы принудить их к послушанию. Было установлено, что более 20% мужчин проживают с несовершеннолетними до 15 лет. 32% мужчин путем угроз или обмана заставляют насилия, сексуального контакта с женщино. 32% мужчин заставляют женщину до неприемлемых форм сексуальной активности.

62% мужчин, которые находятся в стабильных отношениях с женщиной, вступают в интимные отношения с третьими лицами. 64% респондентов оценили как явно неприемлемым положение сексуальной агрессии мужчины против женщины.

Ключевые слова: агрессивное поведение, деструктивные факторы поведения заключенных, сексуальное насилие.

The material presented shows some selected results of the research project conducted by the author in 2003 and in the years 2013-2014 in correctional facilities subordinate to the Regional Prison Service Inspectorate in Rzeszow.

As the research shows, the majority of the men have tried to start a family, however, the attempts usually resulted in the end of a relationship after a short time.

On the basis of the material collected, it may be stated that aggression, which is a very destructive factor for a relationship, is a common form of convicts ' behavior with regard to female life and sex partners.

According to the data from 2003, almost 30% of all the men admit to having hit, pulled, and pushed their female partner, and, what is more, over one forth of them admit to regular practices of this type. Almost a half of the men declare verbal violence, such as calling their female partners names and cursing them, whereas 18% admit to having intimidated their female partners in order to make them obedient.

It was revealed that over 20% of the men had a sexual intercourse with a woman under the age of 15; 32% of the interviewees forced a woman to a sexual contact by using violence, a threat or a stratagem; 20% of them abused a women when she was intoxicated and 5% of the men asked had a sexual intercourse with a woman who was dependent to him, or used her very difficult life situation; 32% of the men interviewed forced a woman to unacceptable sexual activity forms; 62% of men in stable relationships were also in an intimate relation with persons from outside the relationship. Only 64% of the respondents stated that sexual aggression of men against women is undoubtedly reprehensible, and 54% of the interviewees claimed that a man in a stable relationship has a right to sexual contacts with other persons.

Key words: aggressive behavior, destructive behavior factors of prisoners, sexual violence.

Introduction

According to a well-known principle of perspective care, in the process of resocialization, it is indispensable to take into consideration present needs of prisoners, but also the ones aiming at the development of convicts. Obviously, the most fundamental human needs include not onlyphysiological ones, but also needs for safety, affiliation, recognition and fulfillment. As the experience proves, the majority of men serving prison sentences fulfill their needs in stable marriages or partner relationships with a woman. It seems that it is a right assumption, for instance due to the fact that if a man has to stay in a correctional facility, his female partner can provide him with a lawyer and legal advice or support him financially. However, most importantly, when she maintains such a relationship, she shows acceptance of a partner's behaviour, love and affiliation. It is not without significance that a convict can perform the role of a husband, a partner and very often also of a father in a satisfactory way that is approved by the society. If a prisoner fulfills conscientiously his duties of a husband, a partner or a father, he is appreciated by the society despite having committed a crime and serving a prison sentence.Such an advantageous position may significantly increase the motivation for resocializing.

The teleology of resocialization indicates that the process aims at shaping prisoners' prosocial attitudes, such as acceptance, care, respect and protection of people and personal relationships - including the ones with their female partners. As Sobczak (2007) states, resocialization is also aimed at developing emotional maturity at a prisoner, his own identity, individual recognition, health but also prosocial attitudes and behaviours [24]. It is not surprising that one of the most important objectives, particularly within the domain of penitentiary resocialization, is a collaboration with convicts' families in order to improve or reconstruct bonds with the prisoners [17].

Talking about an improvement or a reconstruction of bonds in relationships of convicts and women, it is necessary to refer to the notion of a partnership bond. According to Rys (1999), it is a feeling of sympathy, understanding and collaboration of partners [23]. Feeling the bond by partners is one of the most basic factors that contribute to the quality and stability of a relationship [9]. Lew-Starowicz (1985) underlines that the bond refers to the emotional sphere, psyche, sexuality, parenthood, free time, home, financial sphere and relationships between men and women [13]. Forming bonds between partners is supported by mutual respect, sense of responsibility, respect for another person's rights (including the right to sexual freedom of both partners) and beliefs, understanding and tolerance, an ability to empathize another person's problems, needs and mental states; tact and self-control in difficult situations [5]. The most basic factor that destroys bonds in a relationship and usually brings it to the end is aggression.

Jaczewski and Obuchowska (2002) claim that, in the context of sexual functioning, a human need for an emotional bond is closely related to a sexual need. The integration degree of the needs is of crucial importance for fulfilling sexual needs [8]. Meeting sexual needs in a satisfactory way for both partners constitutes a factor that has a huge strengthening value for a relationship, enriches it with an intimate dimension and gives a feeling of closeness [2]. It is a peculiar kind of communication between partners [23].

Methodological assumptions of the research

The material presented shows some selected results of the research project conducted by the author in 2003 and in the years 2013-2014 in correctional facilities subordinate to the Regional Prison Service Inspectorate in Rzeszow.

The main objective of the first project was to diagnose convicts' relationships with their wives and female life partners, but also their expectations with regard to women and prisoners' sexual activity in the context of sexual aggression in relationships [14]. The subjects of the research were 100 convicts (chosen randomly) that were serving prison sentences in the Rzeszow Correctional Facility (closed and half-open correctional facility). 94% of the interviewees were under the age of 51 and 42% under the age of 30.

The aim of the second research project was to diagnose attitudes of men serving prison sentences with regard to sex life and female sex partners. The research project also aimed at defining the role of socio demographic, partnership, family, and sexual factors, but also the ones connected with the conviction to prison sentence, in diversifying the interviewed men's attitudes regarding sex life and female sex partners. The research was carried out in the following correctional facilities subordinate to the Regional Prison Service Inspectorate in Rzeszow: in Jaslo, Lupkow, Moszczaniec, Dqbica, Sanok, Przemysl, and Rzeszow. The analyses were made on the basis of 485 questionnaires (33 questionnaires were rejected due to: lacks in answers exceeding 50%, answers that were not in the accordance with the instructions, random answers, with drawal from the research). The sample was chosen randomly. The interviewees were in the 20 to 68 age bracket (the average age was 35.8 years old). An average total length of prison sentences served by the respondents in penitentiary institutions was 6.1 years.

In both research projects, the author used a diagnostic poll method based on questionnaires [25] and a research tool set prepared by the researcher herself [15]. Due to the sample specificity, the research was conducted in groups of several people (the minimal surface per one respondent was 4 m2). The author performed the research in person. After the research, all the interviewees were provided with professional help (of a sex educator and a psychologist).

While preparing and performing the research, the author took into account the following methodological and ethical principles [7]:

the ones concerning organizational issues: knowing the specificity of the examined community, tools elaborated in a meticulous way(written in a simple language, clear notions, a homogenous question pattern; a logical design, e.g. the most important elements of the questions were additionally underlined; a big font, a limited number of questions), providing every research participant with time needed to answer questions, adapting to safety procedures in correctional facilities,

the ones concerning treating respondents in a subjective way: providing full information on the research, conscious and voluntary agreement of the interviewees, anonymity and answer confidentiality, providing the respondents with a feeling of security and professional help.

Factors that condition attitudes of socially unadapted men serving prison sentences with regard to their female partners and sex life. In the analysis of convicts' attitudes towards their female life and sex partners, it is worth paying attention to the particular traits of people who are socially unadapted, which may determine their attitudes. As it is commonly known, all human behaviours and attitudes are closely connected with an adopted system of values. It was proved that social misfits have a different system of values than the standard one, namely the system represented by the majority of the society. According to the research conducted by Kozaczuk (2009), when it comes to penitentiary recidivists, hedonistic and vital values take the first place (22.5% of the answer variance), whereas in the group of people convicted for the first time, the values come in fourth (8.1% of the answer variance). In the standard system of values, they take the sixth place, which is also the last one [11].

People that come into conflict with the law are characterized by dogmatic behavioural integrity [4], which means that they are inclined to adopt norms and imitate behaviours of subculture members in an unquestionable way. Moreover, they are not willing to oppose the group pressure. One of the normsis perceiving sexual activity as an entertainment, where a sex partner is treated as an object, a tool to relieve sexual tension.

While talking about prisoners' relationships with women, especially in the sexual sphere, it should be remembered that a substantial proportion of convicts have intoxicated themselves or are still addicted to alcohol or drugs. It has been proven that even while experimenting with toxic substances, people are more inclined to neglect moral principles in the sexual sphere. They are more willing to engage in a sexual activity that may lead to an increased number of sexual contacts. What is more, sexpartner selectiveness decreases and people give up contraception. As a consequence, promiscuous attitudes are shaped [6] and sexual aggression takes place [1]. Being addicted to psychoactive drugs is connected with difficulties in taking decisions on sex life, with providing sexual services in exchange for psychoactive drugs [6; 26], resorting to sexual violence against partners, including rapes, exhibitionism, sexual abuse of children [26; 12; 3].

While talking about convicts' attitudes with regard to female life and sex partners, it should be remembered that a significant majority of convicts are characterized by antisocial personality traits. According to the ICD-10 classification, diagnostic criteria of an antisocial personality include: absolute ignorance of others' feelings, a strong attitude of irresponsibility and ignorance of norms, rules, and social obligations; very low tolerance for frustration and a low threshold of aggression expression, including violent behaviours; incapacity for feeling guilty and for learning lessons from experience, and particularly from experienced punishments; a strong inclination for blaming othersor finding justifications for their behaviours that are only seemingly possible to accept, which are a source of conflicts with people around them [21]. The sexuality of the abovementioned group is often presented as polymorphous perversity. According to J.R. Meloy (2002), the group is characterised by the following features:

looking for numerous sex partners (random partners, lack of responsibility for sexual intercourses),

lack of empathy (treating partners as objects, sometimes sexual sadism),

lack of bonds, especially emotional ones with a female partner,

looking for strong sensations, e.g. undertaking sexual activity that are not in accordance with the adopted sexual activity norms,

inappropriate and too high self-esteem,

feeling of being privileged, which may lead to focusing only on one's own sexual satisfaction,

devaluation and objectification of a sex partner - focusing on the body or its fragments and not on the psychological and emotional spheres of a partner,

dominance of violent behaviours,

- constant looking for new sex partners that offer more sophisticated forms of sexual intercourse producing more intense sensations [18].

Prisoners' marriages and relationships. Author's research projects reveal that a significant majority of the prisoners interviewed (87-93%) have been married or in a partner relationship. According to the data from the years 2013-2014, only 43% of the men declared being in a stable relationship in the moment of conducting the research, and 9% of the respondents said that they were not sure of that and supposed that their relationships were breaking off. What is more, it was stated that 46% of the men had been husbands or partners for several times. The data indicate that marriages and common-law marriages of the respondents were usually short-lived - over a half of the marriages and 70% of the common-law marriages lasted up to 3 years (data from the year 2003).

As the research shows, the majority of the men have tried to start a family, however, the attempts usually resulted in the end of a relationship after a short time. It is not astonishing that prisoners' relationships were not long-lasting, for instance, due to the fact that they were not faithful. The project carried out in the years 2013-2014 showed that 50% of the men hadhad numerous sexual contacts with other persons while being in stable relationships, and 12% of them had committed adultery once.

On the basis of the material from the years 2013-2014, it may be supposed that the majority of the men serving prison sentences reflect on the family value. It was stated that prisoners that had wives or female life partners had a motivation to maintain their relationships. Almost 51% of the men that have wives or female cohabitees (the sample of 248) think that their present female partners are amazing women with whom they want to stay in relationships. Only 8% of the respondents claim that their female partners often disappoint them or have totally let them down and that is why they are not planning their further lives with the women.

As it is commonly known, the permanence of a relationship is connected, among others, with mature motives for its establishment. As the research from 2003 reveals, only 50% of the prisoners' answers on the motives of establishing relationships concerned the feeling of love, attachment, desire to be with a particular woman. In 34% of the cases the motives included: a coincidence, curiosity about the future, a pregnancy of a woman, a woman or parents that insisted on marriage. In 14% of the cases, the motives for being in a relationship concerned money, a flat, having a female sex partner or suppressing the feeling of loneliness [14]. For comparison, Plopa's research (2011) shows that for the men that were in stable marriages, more often than in marriages ending in divorces, the motives for establishing a relation were usually love (87% and 67% respectively) and attractiveness of a female partner (30% and 23% respectively). In the group of men that got divorced, more often than among the ones that live in stable relationships, the motives included the desire for having a family (53% and 46% respectively) and a pregnancy (30% and 14% respectively) [20].

As can be seen, the motives chosen by the prisoners are closer to the ones indicated by the men from relationships that were breaking off.

Prisoners' expressions of aggression against women. On the basis of the material collected, it may be stated that aggression, which is a very destructive factor for a relationship, is a common form of convicts' behaviour with regard to female life and sex partners.

According to the data from 2003, almost 30% of all the men admit to having hit, pulled, and pushed their female partner, and, what is more, over one forth of them admit to regular practices of this type. Almost a half of the men declare verbal violence, such as calling their female partners names and cursing them, whereas 18% admit to having intimidated their female partners in order to make them obedient. Over one fourth of the men declare that throughout all the time of their relationships, they have deprived their female partners of money for maintenance, and other 15% of the respondents say that they have done it periodically. Taking into consideration economic violence, it should be underlined that only 21% of the prisoners claim to have supported their families financially.

As the research results reveal, 15% of the respondents admit to have made scenes, screamed, wrecked a flat, or resorted to violence. All the acts resulted in the fact that a woman called the police or reported the case to the prosecutor's office. 14% of the men interviewed admit that they have forced their female partners to a sexual intercourse [14].

According to the project from the years 2013-2014, among the prisoners that had been in an intimate relationship and answered the question (the sample of 464 persons), almost 20% stated that they had had a sexual intercourse which a woman below 15 years old (a child in Poland is legally protected up to 15 years of age - cf. art. 200. § 1. of the Criminal Code).

In the research, the men were asked about different situations in which they had forced women to a sexual intercourse and resorted to a threat or a stratagem (cf. art. 197. § 1. of the Criminal Code). Their responses reveal that almost 32% of the men have resorted to the acts at least once. They have usually forced a female partner to a sexual intercourse without using physical force, but, e.g., by making scenes, taking offense and threatening with breaking up, or they have forced a female partner who did not feel well or was pregnant to sexual contacts. 3.4% of the respondents admit that they have committed a rape.

20% of the interviewees state that, in order to have sex, they have taken advantage of the state of intoxication or narcosis of their female partner (cf. art. 198 of the Criminal Code). Moreover, 5.4% admit to have abused a woman and forced her to a sexual intercourse only because she was dependant to them or in a very hard life situation (cf. art. 199. § 1. of the Criminal Code). The majority of the men have regularly resorted to such acts. 32% of the men asked declare that they have forced a women to sexual activity forms that were unacceptable to her, e.g. having sex without a condom, playing scenes from pornographic films, having sex in the company of other persons or with other persons, or taking photos or recording films in intimate situations against a woman's will.

Prisoners opinions on different forms of aggression against women. The

research results from 2003 reveal that only almost 18% of the respondents claim that there exist no circumstances in which a man has a right to be aggressive towards a woman. The rest of the men think that a man can use physical violence against his female life partner only when she has betrayed him (16% of the respondents), or when she is in a state of alcoholic intoxication (14% of the respondents). Other circumstances include stealing away money or appliances from a household (14% of the respondents), neglecting children (12% of the respondents). The factors that allow to use a verbal aggression against a woman include: being unfaithful, alcoholic intoxication of a woman, robbing, refusing to have sex, `mouthing off' to a man. 48% of the men claim that a woman may be punished by forcing her to a sexual intercourse. Circumstances that justify the infliction of such a `punishment' include refusing to have sex by a woman or suspecting a man of being unfaithful to her.

The research (in the years 2013-2014) show that only 64% of the prisoners strongly condemn forcing a woman to oral, anal or vaginal sex by a man. The data reveal that the situations in which the interviewees accept violence were the most often: demanding a condom by a wife while having sex, woman's resistance to adding variety to a sexual intercourse, e.g. changing positions, playing scenes from pornographic film and using sex toys; reporting a man's theft to the police; applying for a treatment for a man addicted to alcohol; becoming pregnant while a partner is serving prison service in a correctional facility.

Prisoners' expectations with regard to women - female life partners. While analyzing attitudes of prisoners with regard to their female life and sex partners, It is worth knowing their expectations about women. According to the research (from the year 2003), among all women's traits and competences men prefer the following ones: positive attitude regarding children, cheerfulness, taking good care of oneself, professional qualifications, not interfering in men's business, diligence and absolute obedience to a husband. Women traits that are condemned by prisoners include: drunkenness, lying, sexual unfaithfulness, insincerity, not caring about personal hygiene. aggression women prisoner

On the basis of the results from the first stage of the project in the years 2013-2014, it was stated that among women's traits of character preferred by prisoners, the most dominant may be denoted as an affiliation syndrome (chosen by 78% of the respondents) or an assertiveness syndrome (chosen by 52% of the respondents) (the respondents could choose traits being part of 2 syndromes and that is why the data do not sum up to 100%). Women who have traits that belong to an affiliation syndrome are sociable, can give other people confidence, like taking care of other people, try to be liked by everyone, try to please everyone, are always nice and agreeable, are willing to help others; are friendly, good, and cheer others up; agree with everyone, are overprotective and sacrifice themselves for others too easily. It seems that the choice of the abovementioned traits is truly justified when it comes to prisoners. Women with such traits can be easily controlled and a man can impose his will on them.

Conclusions

The presented research results show a man-prisoner, who is or may be a husband or a life partner in the future, in a very unfavorable light. The results obtained allowed to draw a conclusion that although the majority of the convicts had tried to start a family, sometimes even many times, in general, they could not function in it. The relationships of the men interviewed were not usually long-lasting. Possibly, it was due to immature motives of establishing them. Another reason that led to the end of the relationships could be men's aggressive behaviours with regard to female partners.

In accordance with the principle of perspective care, correctional officers in correctional facilities face a huge challenge. They have to help prisoners to identify the reasons for being uncapable of establishing relationships and staying in relationships that are satisfactory for both partners. It seems that the focus should be placed on the change of behaviours with regard to women, particularly treating them like an object and in a very exploitative manner and acceptance of violence against them.

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