Resilience and psychological well-being of convicts in accordance with their prison hierarchy

The contribution makes an attempt to view the personalities of recidivist criminals with different prison-camp status through the prism of resilience and parameters of psychological well-being. 60 convicts were examined, who carry out the functions of supply service at the “Regional tuberculous hospital №7” Board of the federal service of punishment execution in Perm region and who fall into categories of “hurt”, “mouzhiks” and “reds”. The following psychodiagnostic questionnaires were used: S.Muddy’s resilience test, K.Ryff’s psychological well-being scale and E.F.Bazhin and A.M.Etkind’s color relationship test. No statistically significant differences on all wellbeing parameters between “hurt” and “mouzhiks” were found, but there was their significant dominance in the “reds” group over “mouzhiks”. As far as psychological wellbeing indices are concerned, with the exception of “aim in life”, no statistically significant differences between the groups of “hurt” and “mouzhiks” were found, but there were differences in comparison of the groups of “reds” and “mouzhiks”. The results of comparison of color relationship test indices of convicts from the “mouzhiks” and “hurt” categories showed statistically significant diffirences in parameters “Me now”, “My life” and “Freedom”. “Hurt”, unlike “mouzhiks” had positive evaluations of their current life, fear of freedom, satisfaction of current situation and status. “Reds”, unlike “mouzhiks” fully accept themselves in the present and strive for freedom. The contribution also presents a comparison of psychological status of convicts from the “hurt” category with their social criminological characteristics, describes the reasons which prompt them to sustain their camp status. It is shown that research of psychological wellbeing of convicts and their resilience allows to understand the substantial side of psychology of convicts with different hierarchical status, internal motives of their behavior, create an adequate and person-centered style of psychocorrectional work.