NCJ Number
104712
Date Published
1987
Length
117 pages
Annotation
This study measured the stress experienced by 175 households relocated with new identities under the Federal witness protection program from 1978 to 1983.
Abstract
The sample was drawn from 886 households, representing 56 percent of the 1,594 households enrolled during this period. A total of 310 questionnaires were hand delivered to the randomly selected sample by the contact U.S. marshals for the sample households. There was a 60 percent response rate. The questionnaire obtained data on work patterns of program clients, demography, and the distress resulting from the relocation and demands of the lifestyle under the witness protection program. Findings indicate witnesses experience considerable social and personal distress due to the radical break from their past social and occupational identities and activities. The necessity of deceiving current friends and associates about their past identities is a particular source of stress and alienation. Most witnesses, however, believe the stress is worth enduring as the cost of breaking from their past criminal associations and lifestyle. The noncriminal members of witnesses' households generally experienced more stress and alienation than the witnesses, depending on their ages, because they had established nondeviant satisfying social networks in their pasts. All of these past relationships, including those with relatives, had to be broken under the witness protection program. Stress and alienation tend to diminish with time as new social networks are established in relation to the new identities. 12 tables and 59 references.