NCJ Number
182508
Journal
International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology Volume: 44 Issue: 3 Dated: June 2000 Pages: 270-278
Date Published
June 2000
Length
8 pages
Annotation
This discussion of prisoners’ altruistic activities to assist underprivileged persons such as the elderly and children concludes that the benefits of such involvement for the offenders include a sense of accomplishment, grounded increases in self-esteem, meaningful purposiveness, and restorative justice implications.
Abstract
Altruistic activity can contribute to cognitive restructuring, especially where opportunities to engage in such behavior are diversified and the experiences and participants can share their experiences and feelings in supportive groups. The New York State inmates pictured in a recent prison newsletter exemplified altruistic behavior in their delivery of firewood to a 92-year-old recluse who lived in a shack. The photograph publicly presented the offenders and their supervisor as capable of contributing to the world instead of vegetating or serving heavy-handed time waiting for their sentences to expire. Altruistic activity enhances self-esteem due to awareness of the impact of the activity in the lives of others. It also uses experience rather than academic exercises to teach that gratitude from persons assisted produces satisfaction, that responding to needs of others is at least as rewarding as satisfying personal needs, and many other lessons. Offenders also discover that efforts to assist people have restorative overtones in their personal historical context of past antisocial behavior. These benefits indicate that prisons have much to gain and little to lose in multiplying the opportunities for inmates to engage in altruistic activities that add a human face or a humane face to corrections. Therefore, prison administrators should consider several actions to enhance the possibility that rehabilitative impact can occur. 11 references (Author abstract modified)