Professional Role Problems in Prisons: Helping Inmates with Mental Illness and/or Substance Use Disorders

Background:

The lack of access and quality of mental health services in prisons generally reflects a myriad of ethical and practical challenges that may be unique to correctional settings. This situation may influence social worker’s practice and roles in prisons. Often, social workers in host settings face role problems such as role ambiguity, role conflict, or role incongruity. However, few studies have examined professional role problems experienced by social workers in prisons. The purposes of this study were: – to examine the roles of social workers in prisons when working with inmates with mental illness and/or substance use disorders; and – to explore the level to which social workers in prisons experience role incongruity between ethical and practice principles defined by the profession and the roles expected by the organization.

Methods:

In this study, role incongruity was defined as differences between one’s perception of the professional roles one should be performing and the roles expected by the organization. Since there is no standardized measure pertaining to social work roles in prison, the list of potential roles was made by a thorough review of the literature. It was then reviewed by a panel of experts. The twenty-two-item instrument was pilot-tested by social workers in correctional settings to ensure content validity. A survey of social workers was conducted in state prisons in the Northeast. Respondents were asked to read the list of social workers’ role responsibilities, then indicated how they think social workers should perform each professional role in prisons in a five-point Likert-type scale. Subsequently, the respondents were asked to indicate how they think the organization expect her/him to perform each professional role. Role incongruity scores were calculated by summing up the absolute value of differences between the social worker’s self-perception of professional roles and the expectations by the organization.

Results:

Eighty-nine out of 166 participants completed the survey. The result of the survey showed that social workers provide broader and more in-depth activities than what they are expected by the organization when they work with inmates with mental illness and/or substance use disorders. Survey participants reported higher role congruity in clinical tasks such as developing treatment plans, or screening and assessment. On the other hand, participants expressed higher role incongruity in the roles as advocate for treatment and psychological needs of inmates and in working with family members in the reentry process.

Implications:

Most studies stress that social workers must take on the role of advocate for the inmates whereas the survey finding indicates that social workers think that they may not necessarily be expected to advocate for treatment and psychosocial needs of inmates. Likewise participants showed greater role incongruity in working with family members of the inmates. Consequently, social workers may face role problems and difficulties in ethical decision-making due to the philosophical difference between social work and the correctional organization. Further examination of the professional role problems and their potential impacts on practice may help identify the essential areas for social work research and education in the field of corrections.