Psychologist’s Participation in Deciding whether to Recommend a Convict for a Conditional Release

Abstract

The theoretical part of this work describes main legal normative documents which regulate the process of conditional release of convicts. Based on the analysis which was carried out on a number of foreign and domestic scientific publications, the author identified and de-scribed the main criteria taken into account in making a decision whether to recommend a convict for a conditional release as well as the major challenges in implementing condi-tional release. Using empirical analysis (content analysis and statistical data processing was performed on the key work results of a psychological service unit with 46 subjects), we iso-lated and described the main types of psychological work carried out with convicts in cor-rectional facilities. We also formulated major criteria for the psychological service experts to make decisions (of indicative and prognostic character) as to whether to recommend a convict for paroling. From the theoretical and empirical analysis we distil certain recom-mendations whose further research and consideration might (in our opinion) improve the efficiency of conditional release implementation.

Keywords

• penitentiary psychology
• conditional release
• release on parole
• convict
• correction criteria
• risk factors
• repetition of a crime
• re-socialization
• psychological support.