Correction criteria for the qualitative analysis of the prison population: drugs possession/consumption and gender violence

Introduction: People with language difficulties cannot face challenges related to social skills. Those language disorders affect academic, work environments, and social interaction, leading to maladaptive and aggressive behaviors. Young inmates are at high risk of experiencing unrecognized language deficiencies. It is, therefore, necessary to analyze linguistic pathologies that can influence criminal behavior (drugs possession/consumption and gender violence crimes). There are many standardized tests to evaluate and detect language difficulties in adults in English. However, there are relatively few options in Spanish; there are no tests that evaluate language qualitatively and in depth. Most of the research is conducted with children and adolescents.

Objectives: To propose a reliable coding system for the correction and interpretation of narratives (essays and narratives) from the Battery for the Evaluation of Writing Processes (PROESC) in the prisoners charged of drugs possession or consumption and gender violence crimes.

Design: The sample was composed of 287 men.

Main outcome measures: They completed the Demographic, Offense, and Behavioral Interview in Institutions, the International Personality Disorders Examination (IPDE), and PROESC.

Results: We found that the proposed coding system presented high concordance, that is, high inter-rater reliability.

Conclusion: The classification system for the correction and interpretation of narratives was shown to be reliable.

Introduction

People with language difficulties cannot face challenges related to social skills. Fitzsimons and Clark (1) state that language disorders affect academic, work environments, and social interaction, leading to maladaptive and aggressive behaviors. Along the same lines, Morken et al. (2) highlight that young inmates are at high risk of experiencing unrecognized language deficiencies. It is, therefore, necessary to analyze linguistic pathologies that can influence criminal behavior (drugs possession/consumption and gender violence crimes).

Most standardized tests are currently focused on opaque languages such as English (2). However, there are barely any tests in Spanish that assess language in adults. In young adults, the Test de Evaluación de los Procesos de Escritura (PROESC; 3) evaluates the main processes involved in writing. It has adequate dictation tasks to assess each writing processing module and dictation tasks record the number of errors and the type of error made for later analysis the dictation tasks record the number of errors and the type of error made for later analysis. Besides, it allows comparison between comprehension processes in the two modalities of written language. In this way, it is possible to determine whether writing impairments are dependent on the written form or whether they involve a more generalized impairment process (Afonso et al., 2015; Carreteiro et al., 2016; 4, 5; Gutiérrez-Fresneda & Díez-Mediavilla, 2017; Gutiérrez-Fresneda, 2017; 6; Marques-de Oliveira et al., 2017; Martínez-García et al., 2019; 7; Nigro et al., 2015; 8).

This test constitutes a very structured evaluation procedure where the participant must respond according to the indications that appear at the beginning of the test and the instructions of the researcher. Paper and pencil tasks are inexpensive, flexible, and portable methods (9). However, while these tasks are very objective and easily replicable procedures, tasks 5 and 6 require an analysis qualitative.

Qualitative research fills a gap in the analysis of certain problems by adopting various content or discourse analysis procedures. The main objective of this technique is to describe the qualities of a phenomenon as a whole using a flexible approach. This technique begins from a holistic perspective, i.e., it tries to examine a specific situation in detail (10). It is based on the decomposition and classification of information collected through interviews, stories, observations, images, advertisements, news, and political discourse (11).

Qualitative aspects of language can also be evaluated, including the adequacy, precision, or magnitude of written expression. In some cases, it is possible to evaluate the ability to express the message correctly, often providing important additional information to help understand the written result (in the form of a narrative or essay). This type of study is mostly used in the prison population, particularly men convicted for drug offenses and violence (12). It has been shown that qualitative methodology is essential for studies with individuals belonging to these populations. Due to their characteristics and the type of experiences they present, this type of methodology allows for a deeper analysis, the results of which can inform the development of prevention and intervention processes.

Qualitative methodology uses a series of instruments that are not highly structured and standardized. Its scoring system is quite flexible, can be structured according to the objectives, and can be analyzed through qualitative procedures and transformed into quantitative data (13).

Qualitative aspects of language such as planning, transcription, and revision can also be evaluated. In some cases, it is possible to evaluate more specific aspects, such as decoding errors and informal aspects. The qualitative method comprises a series of instruments whose items are relatively unstructured and standardized, with a scoring system that can be used flexibly depending on the objectives. Moreover, the results can be analyzed through qualitative and quantitative procedures, transforming qualitative information into quantitative information. It is necessary to establish a coding system that corresponds to a model that can serve as a guide for analyzing and coding the writing.

Language difficulties in prisoners have attracted the attention of much of the scientific community for decades (1, 2). The authors highlight that there is a very diverse prevalence of writing disorders that may be due to the lack of consensus in the definition of dyslexia or reading-writing disorders. Due to the social nature of language, language in prisoners must be analyzed to enhance social inclusion. Morken et al. (2) points out that there is a relationship between the severity of a crime, the presence of an oral language disorder, and personality disorders. Therefore, the objective of this study was to propose a reliable coding system for the correction and interpretation of narratives and essays from the Writing Process Evaluation Battery (PROESC) (3) in the prison population.

Participants

The sample consisted of 287 men mean age 37.69 (SD=8.84) from the Granada Penitentiary Center. The inclusion criteria were to have been charged of drugs possession or consumption and gender violence crimes. The exclusion criteria in both cases were being over 50 years, presenting a psychiatric illness (schizophrenia or depression), and receiving psychopharmacological treatment. First, participants were interviewed individually to check the inclusion criteria and, if eligible, were offered the opportunity to participate in the research. The interview was carried out by the prison psychologist and the duration of the interviews was not evaluated. They then took part in an individual session in which they completed the measures listed below. Participants were reminded at the beginning of the session of their right to discontinue the procedure at any time, and their written consent was then obtained. Once the data collection process was completed, the data were corrected. This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Autonomous Community of Andalusia (PEIBA, 0766-N-21).

Procedure

Regarding the correction and interpretation of the narratives and essays, Tables 1, 2 were used for coding. Participants were requested to create two different writings, a narrative one about folk tale or story and a free topic essay. The speech-language pathologist conducted the task. The analysis of the narratives and essays were developed by three evaluators (speech-language pathologist, linguist, and expert in quality and care management). To calculate the inter-rater reliability, three evaluators coded the narratives and essays. Table 3 presents a proposal of correction criteria obtained considering Tables 1, 2.

Table 1

Table 1 Findings of the analyzed studies.

Table 2

Table 2 Text correction criteria from the reviewed literature categorized according to Gutiérrez-Fresneda (2018).

Table 3

Table 3 PROESC correction proposal: Text writing (narrative and essay).

Instruments

Demographic, crime, and institutional behavior interview

This interview was designed for this research study and consists of collecting information about sociodemographic data, type of offenses (drug possession and/or consumption and gender violence crimes) and their penalties, and sanctions within the prison according to the Prison Regulations (Royal Decree 1201/1981, May 8, Articles 107 and 108).

Writing Processes Evaluation Battery (PROESC)

This is an individual test that aims to evaluate the main processes involved in creating texts. It is composed of six tests, which are: 1) Syllable dictation; 2) Word dictation; 3) Pseudoword dictation; 4) Sentence dictation; 5) Writing a narrative and 6) Writing an essay. In this study, we used tests 5 and 6, which assess the ability to plan a narrative and an expository text. Although the instrument (3) has a high internal consistency of 0.82 (alpha coefficient) in the first four tests, it lacks quantitative criteria for the correction and interpretation of the writing tests (5 and 6). For this reason, in this study, we used only tasks 5 and 6.

Data analysis

Data analyses were conducted using the SPSS Statistics 22.0 program. The analysis of inter-rater concordance was performed by calculating the kappa index and Pearson correlations to address.

Results

Inter-rater reliability analysis

Regarding inter-rater reliability, the concordance analysis yielded very high coefficients (see Table 4).

Table 4

Table 4 Inter-rater reliability [Kappa (K) and Pearson (P) coefficients].

Discussion

Analyzing language difficulties in the prison population, charged of drugs possession or consumption and gender violence crimes, through writings (narratives and essays) may be relevant to discover specific issues and identifying the differences in this population. For this reason, and according to the reviewed bibliography (Tables 1, 2), we have proposed a categorization system for the interpretation of the writings of the prison population.

This study aimed to provide a reliable coding system for correcting and interpreting narratives and essays from the Writing Process Evaluation Battery (PROESC) (3). We found that the proposed coding system presented high concordance, that is, high inter-rater reliability. Furthermore, the degree of agreement was very high for all the proposed categories. This classification provides novel and useful information for the evaluation of writing processes. Furthermore, the context in which this study has been conducted — a prison setting — advances our understanding of the writing difficulties of inmates that have, until now, never been analyzed. The results obtained are in line with Busetto et al. (10)Douglass et al. (13) and Moser and Korstjens (11), who point out the importance of creating, developing and applying qualitative evaluation methods to develop more detailed means of analysis and gain in-depth knowledge of the samples received from participants in various studies. In our study, we can verify that the categorization created from the PROESC (3) could conscientiously show the possible alterations in language and writing that prison population could suffer.

According to Larrazabal et al. (9), the use of classical or traditional means is very useful and reliable to know in detail the language alterations of the inmate population. To this we add the analysis created from the categorization proposed in this study to obtain a very reliable and viable evaluation method (10). Therefore, this study is the first to propose a model for categorizing and correcting texts in both narratives and essays while confirming its reliability and effectiveness through a comprehensive inter-rater analysis.

Conclusions

There are few studies where language in prisoners is analyzed. This is why we highlight the novel nature of this study, since it proposes a model for categorization and correction of texts, both narratives and essays, which exhaustively study their reliability and effectiveness through interjudge analysis. To identify the difficulty of writing in the prison population that have used and trafficked with drugs, or have committed gender violence crimes, the following categories should be considered: Words and Paragraphs, Errors Related to Formal Aspects, Decoding Errors, Grammar, Revision and Net Total, Main and Secondary Ideas, Vocabulary, Planning Errors, Words and Paragraphs, Errors Related to Formal Aspects, Decoding Errors.

Although individuals know phoneme-grapheme correspondence rules, language disturbances of a reiterative and persistent nature may appear in those who show aggressive behavior (those participants who committed gender violence or drugs trafficking and/or consumption crimes). This finding could be related to co-occurrences in the behavior of compulsive individuals and those with learning difficulties. Language therapy in patients with high levels of compulsivity could improve self-control and self-criticism, thereby enhancing the capacity to form social relationships and show empathy.

Knowing the linguistic skills of this part of society is vital to know in detail social aspects of prisoners. Furthermore, given that the main reason for incarceration is to work on social inclusion, we must know the state of this social stratum. Since the job of penitentiaries is to reintroduce inmates and make them proactive elements in society, we must rehabilitate all altered aspects of them. This is why we must develop useful tools to know the linguistic status and knowledge of prisoners so that they can fully access the language, enhance their social inclusion and achieve their job placement. After having carried out this analysis and having delved into the existing studies, new questions arise: why are there no studies that analyze language disorders in the prison population? Why are there no language tests for adults? Why are there no language tests for adults? Is there no qualitative method to analyze language?

We have detected several limitations in our study. Our sample has been reduced to men with a series of crimes determined to evaluate language. This is because the number of women in the penitentiary center was small and the majority did not meet the inclusion criteria, so they were discarded. Our future lines of work will focus on analyzing the female prison population. On the other hand, although the results of the interjudge analysis are positive, another limitation found is having a low, although representative, number of evaluators.

Data availability statement

The datasets presented in this study can be found in online repositories. The names of the repository/repositories and accession number(s) can be found below: https://digibug.ugr.es/handle/10481/89488.

Ethics statement

Participants were reminded at the beginning of the session of their right to discontinue the procedure at any time, and their written consent was then obtained. Once the data collection process was completed, the data were corrected. This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Autonomous Community of Andalusia (PEIBA, 0766-N-21).

Author contributions

LM: Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft. BF: Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft. SL: Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft. BA-A: Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft.

Funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. The APC was funded by ProfesioLab Research Group SEJ059 of the University of Granada (Spain).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

The reviewers LP and ARF declared a shared affiliation with the authors to the handling editor at the time of review.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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