Some hazards to anticipate in undergraduate corrections counseling.

Abstract

This article discusses some key issues and dilemmas generated by an undergraduate student practicum population in a minimum security corrections institution. This practicum has, by its very nature, contributed to the professional maturity of many of the rehabilitation psychology students. The problems raised include consultation of inmate files, student disillusionment, sex matchings, discrepant value systems between student and inmate, client dissimulation, and time and scheduling factors. Student reactions to these issues are cited, giving a clear picture of their relevance to the students' introduction to the field. Recommendations are offered to minimize or avert some of the hazards while recognizing the inevitability of some others.Corrections counseling, an increasingly prominent area of concern and involvement among the helping professions, has spawned increased contacts between prisoners and "helpers" from outside the walls. Perhaps due to augmented funding in recent years by the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, interest in the offender has spread beyond the fields of law enforcement and criminology into psychology, counseling, and rehabilitation. Increasingly, practicum experiences in which inmates and students interact have demanded consideration of significant issues in counseling that might not have been highlighted otherwise.This article explores several issues of a professional, ethical, and pragmatic nature that have been generated in an undergraduate rehabilitation psychology program. A standard course in the rehabilitation sequence at Central Missouri State University is a classroom-practicum experience in which students are assigned inmates in a minimum-security municipal corrections institution in an urban area for seven individual weekly sessions. Two to three classroom hours per week of lecture, discussion, and role playing supplement the placement assignment over the course of a 10week term.Upon evaluating their experiences, the students' overall reactions have been favorable. The opportunity to develop a relationship with another individual in a sanctioned helping role is a new experience for many of the students and a first taste of the profession they have thus far studied only theoretically. Significantly, it has been noted by a liaison at the corrections BENNY A. BENJAMIN received his PhD in counseling and guidance from the University of Missouri -Kansas City in 1976. He is currently assistant professor of psychology at Central Missouri State University. His main research and clinical interests are in the areas of modifying client-counselor cognitive sets, offender counseling, and family therapy.