Selected problems of conducting research in prison facilities in the context of the analysis of prisoners’ temporal perspective

Abstract

The aim of this article is to characterize selected problems faced by social researchers in prison facilities. The authors, referring to the literature on the subject and their own experience gained while conducting research in prisons, analyze the challenges faced by researchers who do not belong to penitentiary institutions. The first part of the article presents problems related to the organization of research in institutions of a total character, the specificity of the group of prisoners – participants of the research (including, among others, aspects of motivation, self-presentation and the cognitive and emotional functioning of prisoners) and the need for the researcher to maintain a neutral, impartial, objective attitude towards the subjects. The second part of the article is devoted to the reflection on the methodology of research on the temporal perspective, which appeared in connection with the NCN research project “Temporal aspects of the activity of men serving prison sentences – longitudinal study”. The analysis of the specificity of experiencing time by persons serving isolation penalties and the critical analysis of tools for measuring the temporal aspects of their functioning is presented. The article concludes with conclusions on factors that may increase the level of credibility of the results of research conducted in penitentiary institutions.

Keywords

• prison, isolation penalty
• methodology of research in social sciences
• temporal psychology