hungarian prison psychology

A perfect medical doctor

2012-01-10T03:05:00.000-08:00

A prison psychologist told me the following story. She worked in an admission unit for mentally ill prisoners who made several problems in other prisons nationwide. These troubles were mainly suicide attempts and self harms, but sometimes extremely rare cases.

One day a very respectable prison psychiatrist, the head of the admission unit, called the psychologist, who told me the story. The psychiatrist said that the young psychologist could witness a pretty rare psycho-organic phenomenon which was caused by a brain tumor.

The patient was totally disoriented, and it was completely obvious that he was also extremely afraid. He felt the breath of death, however he could not recognize it. Later it became clear that he had a giant brain tumor. The psychiatrist told the medical, the custodial and the criminal story of the patient, and he highlighted also that this would be a very rare case.

In this place where almost exclusively mentally impaired prisoners are held with the most disgusting crimes committed, the psychiatrist leant forward and fell on his knee before the patient who was sitting in a wheelchair. He touched the shoulder of the patient and tried to relax him. The psychologist said that this moment was touching and somehow also heartbreaking. The psychiatrist who was responsible for the whole unit and had to do a lot of administration as well showed that he was a human being as a doctor and he could respect the rest of humanity in a totally immobilized and impaired person, who lost all moral values, who could not feel any remorse and who was a miserable creation facing all the scorn of the society, the prison, the other inmates and the medical staff. A perfect medical doctor.

The chair in the room of a prison psychologist

2011-11-27T21:54:00.000-08:00

I spoke to a prison psychologist. She works at the service at least since 25 years. She has to make interviews also with staff members. She has to decide whether staff members are fit for the prison service mentally. Inmates are sitting in her office on a chair. She said some prisoners smell bad because of lacking basic hygiene.

One staff member was summoned to her office to undergo an inspection on the service fitness. He sat on the same chair. He said: "This chair smells you have to clean it." The chair was brand new. The prison officer felt himself embarrassed to sit in the place of a prisoner.

An average non commissioned prison officer hates the inmates in Hungary. Some of them are also afraid. Some are too young and inexperienced. Some of them have drinking, gambling and domestic violence problems. Most of them are underpaid. Most of them are overload. Most of them try to work also outside of the prison like private security guards. Some of them are racist, authoritarian and sexually inactive. Some of them live in hostels next to prisons in less better conditions than the prisoners. Some of them came from countryside, from villages where the unemployment is about 70%. Some of them keep to stay in the prison service lesser than one year.

Having a dying man in your arms

2011-11-27T21:52:00.001-08:00

Prison suicide is hard to witness also for the staff. I spoke to prison officers who opened up a prison cell in which two prisoners attempted to commit suicide after killing a third. The motive was that the third prisoner was a pedophile. The nurse saved the life of the other two. They were overdosed with benzodiazepines. A staff member said that the cell was full of smelling and steaming blood. It was new years eve. The guy said that he could not forget the smell of the blood which was all over the floor of the cell.

A juvenile prisoner died. He went to the toilet while his cellmates watched the TV. He closed the door and opened up the water to wash the smells. He told the others to give the volume up to hear the TV show which was going on. He made a rope from his belt and some ripped sheets and blankets and he hanged himself and died within two minutes. Cellmates screamed as they discovered him, but they could not save him. A guard came into the cell after the roommates were crying and screaming and hitting the cell door desperately. He held the young men for a minute, the body was warm but he could feel as it became more and more COLD. The life disappeared from the of the inmate. The guard laid the body on the floor and left the cell. Other staff member came, also the ambulance but they could not reanimate him. This poor guy was also overdosed with benzodiazepines. A staff member later said to me that the saddest thing was that the dead body of the 19 years old boy was not even covered, and she could see his naked dead eyes watching to nowhere.

What is impunity in prison?

2011-11-27T21:51:00.000-08:00

Impunity is to beat up an inmate in a prison being a prison officer in an unacceptable, unjust and illegal way, and getting no criminal procedure at all, in contrary, you will be celebrated among staff members that you are brave and you defended the honor of the community. Your self respect is even higher and you can climb forward in prison hierarchy. You repeat the beating again and again, and after a while you will get respect also among the inmates. And you say that you do not feel any remorse, this is your obligation, and this is your mandate. Bosses are reluctant to intervene, they try to manage the prison, and if they say that the prisoners are relaxed and not disruptive (because you have beaten up them), you can get nice words from your bosses, and later you will be the one who will get also rewards and reputation. You are going to get the position of the deputy prison director, you will have the control on the drug market and cell phone smuggling within the prison, you will get your profit as well...

This is a perspective for beginner prison officers in my country. Injustice stimulates the prison harms, and turns inmates even more hardcore. Injustice destroys the aims of rehabilitation and reintegration but also the supervision.

Drawing a rose as a beg for pardon

2011-11-27T21:49:00.001-08:00

One of the most dangerous Hungarian inmate recently made a picture with a rose and other flowers for the prison psychologist after an ugly and harsh quarrel between them. The psychologist a young lady, the inmate is a young Romani guy who killed someone also within the prison overdosed from benzos.

Other prison psychologist told me that he had a client in the female prison Kalocsa. The inmate was also a murderer, she killed a patient in a mental institution in her netbed setting her in fire. After the event she was interviewed by the police and some staff members. She said that she just enjoyed to see the burning roommate in her netbed. Then she was sentenced to several years and behaved in the prison in an extremely disruptive way. She committed non suicidal self injuries in a brutal way, while spending time in isolation she inflicted deep cuts within her vagina. After a loud conflict with the prison psychologist she was again isolated and after her release from the segregation cell she gave also a drawn rose to apologize the psychologist.

Non smoker cells are pure white cells

2011-11-27T21:48:00.000-08:00

A brilliant prison psychologist told me the following story. In the Central Prison of Budapest there is a so called drug prevention unit which operates like a drug free unit: inmates here have drug user past, they agree that they wont use any drugs within the prison and therefore they can enjoy some privileges like home leaves more frequently or a more friendly environment where the can listen to music or they are allowed to play psp.

Smoking is not permitted in the common areas of the Hungarian prisons, prisoners are only entitled to smoke in their cells. All can smoke in the cells in exception those who want to live in a smoke free cell. All the inmates have to make an open and written statement that they don't smoke. However they can possess tobacco and cigarettes in the prison canteen. This implies that they smoke.

The non smoking cell in the drug prevention unit is only a cover story to segregate themselves from the Romani inmates. Only white guys stated that they didn't smoke. So they could create a pure white cell which is a racial segregation allowed by the law but a misusing interpreting of the letters and words of the law.

Romani inmates who are in majority in Hungarian prison population did not like this self segregation. One day they gathered and agreed on a secret mission. They took some sharp items and engraved their gang sign V.L (Vatos Locos) between the index finger and the thumb on their hands. Next day in the morning the took some legs of tables from the community room and they invaded the non smoking cell and severely beat up the white guys in it. It was a bloody fight with dramatic injuries. Prison management wanted to hear the opinion of the psychologist.

She said that she was not in favor to create non smoking cells as a hidden white segregation. Now non smokers have to be real non smokers: no tobacco allowed in their cells and they can not buy any smoker item in the canteen.

Sings of ethnic conflict on Hungarian prison graffiti - full paper

2011-11-23T10:13:00.000-08:00

Here you can read it...

Signs of ethnic conflicts on Hungarian prison graffiti

Gergely Fliegauf PhD - Police College, Hungary

Introduction

Ethnic conflicts occur not only in the open world but also in closed environment, in organizations and in services. The prison is a special setting where incarcerated people are forced to live together in a dense populated, overcrowded physical environment. In all countries of the world ethnic minorities are over-represented. The biggest Hungarian ethnic minority is the Romani.

Research methodologies in the field of criminology or penology are different. Mostly quantitative measurements are used. The graffiti analysis is a unique tool to observe prison. If all the prison walls would be papers, and we could collect them as pages to create a book, we could read the prison’s hidden story. But not only is the prison, the society itself is mirrored on the cell walls. Pages on the segregation, isolation, transfer and disciplinary cells are full of scratching, paintings, doodles and other items of verbal self-expressions.

At the end of the eighties the sociologist Editor of the Hungarian prison journal (Módszertani Füzetek) asked the opinion of Mr József Daróczi, the president of the Roma Cultural Association, on the “higher amount of Romani criminality”. Mr Daróczi mentioned that this stereotyping is a “hidden race theory”. After the regime changed such communication was labelled as political speech and these statements are hardly separable from a generated political implication.

One basic item of the far right political campaign is the hype of the “Gypsy-criminality” thesis. On the other hand a statement against such theories can be labelled as leftist political implication. However the idea of the “Gipsy-criminality” thesis lacks any scientific background and therefore it is a particle of racist thinking and Right Wing Authoritarianism. Other issues of such attitudes among others are homophobia, general intolerance - and in Hungary special - revisionism.

Background

The ethnic conflict research is a part of long going project on prison art and prison graffiti. We tried to classify the prison graffiti by their content as: sexual deprivation, prison existence and traumatization. This is the first moment as we try to speak openly on the ethnic conflicts appearances on prison walls. The idea of analysing those messages on the prison walls or on prison related walls is not a new-born issue. Several fictional romans and movies and non-fiction documentaries dealt with it. Superficially. Some political movements like the conflicts in Northern Ireland, the MS13 phenomenon in Americas, the US-Iraqi conflict (Abu Grahib) used prison graffiti as a medium of articulate the real or perceived injustice. Walls between ethnic groups are worldwide decorated. Walls between “rulers” and “slaves” are also decorated (i.e. the Bhopal disaster graffiti). Why do we think that prison graffiti do not have any message toward us?

Methodology

Prison graffiti were photographed in Czech Republic, Austria, Poland, Germany, and Denmark as I was on study visits to those countries. In Hungary my students went to almost all the prisons to assess photos on graffiti during their summer praxis. Sometimes I spent whole days in permanently or recently not used prison wings and units to get more pictures. I used a picture enhancing software to make the graffiti more visible and readable. Like a content analysis I scrutinized my assessment, which results a classification. After concluding the other themes I started to show the pictures to my students and lay person to analysing the implications in a group setting. Sometimes I used also typically quantitative methods like counting the frequency of some prison gang tags.

The expert focus groups identified more the 50 items which relate the ethnic conflicts is Hungarian prisons. Some impressive pictures taken are published on my expert blog (bortonblog3.blogspot.com – the blog is open to get comments). (Note: we need also some lay and other expert focus groups activity to continue this research properly.)

We held three focus groups at the Hungarian Police College Department for corrections on the analysis of the above mentioned graffiti sample. Group members could also leave verbal and written remarks. There were non commissioned correctional officers in the groups, ten members in each.

Results

Here are some categories of the ethnic sensitive items.

1. The ethnic self-perception is a part of the identity and it is sharpening within the prison

• verbal fight (oral kung fu) on the walls

• ethnical conflict is an acting out, impulse outbreak, not a rage against the system

• signs more explicit since 2010

2. Hardcore or thug attitude is prospering personality trait in the prison and it empowers the ethnic identity

• the aim of some graffiti is intimidation or demonstration of power

• some graffiti are compensations or denying the truth

3. Some symbols are hard to identify be they have presumably ethnic background

• swastika: Arians, red star: Romani

• Communists and “Biboldo” are Jews

• Samurai mentality of the Romani inmates

• erasing symbols

4. Mass media effects on ethnic identity

• cult of omerta (the code of silence)

5. Prisons make ethnic identity and group identity stronger

• Localization of gang tags (HH, VL) is crucial

• Mass or large representation is needed for the ethnic identification and conflict

• Some localizations are politically sensitive or overloaded (HH, Tuzsér)

6. Parallels to dirty protest: dirt must be on the wall, the truth of perceived truth is also dirty

7. Romani prisoners are thieves vs. code of conduct (pen code, pen honour) among white prisoners

• implications on crime against each other: Romani are thieves, Hungarians are paedophiles

• Hungarians are obviously paedophiles therefore they are at the bottom of prison hierarchy

• the subculture within the Romani ethnic minority is criminal, the average Roma are not criminals

• The Romani mentality differs completely from the Romani criminal mentality

8. Romani against Hungarians: degrade, abuse, misuse vs. Hungarians against Romani: provocation

• paedophiles are exclusively Hungarians and this is the bottom of prison hierarchy

• Hungarians: enslavement of Romani, Romani: genocide of Hungarians

• gypsy vs. “peasant”

• “unbreakable” Romani vs. Romani killings in 2009/2010

• Romani are “raj”

• Romani are dumb vs. Hungarians are servants and conformists

• son of the Voivod Romani mentality

• Guards = dogs = Hungarians

9. Some inmates perceive and communicate the harmful effects of racism.

• some graffiti are analyzing the outside situation

10. Giving up superficially (Romani roses drawing for the psychologist)

11. Ethnic conflicts are obvious on prison graffiti

12. Prison officers are reluctant to intervene. In this case they behave like common people in the prison.

• in some cases co-operation with the staff is useful (asking for help)

13. The aim of prison graffiti is keeping the contact

14. Some graffiti serve bullying issues or cynic predictions

15. Graffiti are more spontaneous than answers to questionnaires

Some other findings

16. CCCP tag in Hungary: good memories vs. CCCP tag in Germany made by Kazakh inmates: bad memory

17. Identity against immigrants: Bochum prison

18. Prisoners experience criminal victimization also within the prison and they confess it on the walls.

Conclusion

Ethnic conflicts in Hungarian prisons are not physical assaults against the members of the opposite side. There is a hidden Romani-Hungarian contract on the status quo, not to fight openly. This alliance is against the prison staff and it is a rational decision. The criminal mentality is still stronger in Hungarian prisons than the ethnic mentality. However ethnic based verbal fights are common on the prison walls.

ERASMUS 2011 fall

2011-11-23T10:03:00.000-08:00

Polish students at the entrance of the Budapest Remand Prison Unit III.

We found a graffiti in the exercise area on the prison roof

My paper for the political psychology conference at the CEU

2011-10-08T00:53:00.000-07:00

Hopefully I am going to hold a lecture on “Signs of ethnic conflicts on prison graffiti in Hungarian prisons” at the Political Psychology Networking Conference for the Post-Communist Region which takes place at CEU Budapest, 25th -27th November 2011.

Here is the abstract:

Ethnic conflicts were detectable in the Hungarian society also before the regime changed. After the Soviet era the law enforcement policy changed generally, i.e. police withdraw officers from the private life. In 1993 the new prison code introduced the rights of the inmates which meant the decrease of the security and inner safety in prisons.

Romani people are overrepresented in Hungarian prisons and the socio-economical status of the beginner correctional officers suggests that underserved but not Romani members of the staff are also overrepresented. Some estimations show that the majority of the Hungarian prisoners could be identified as Romani people however the ethnic registration is prohibited by the law.

Graffiti and drawing content analysis is an important qualitative tool to explore the prison reality because the inmates are not well motivated to take part in quantitative research like answering long questionnaires, moreover the drawings and graffiti are more spontaneous, more honest and with some prison field experience the contents are easy to analyze.

Prison graffiti and drawing analysis is a long going project, we tried to classify the drawings (like sexual deprivation, prison existence and traumatization,

further details here).

We can classify the the ethnical prison drawings and graffiti as well:

1. Inmates hate communication among themselves

2. Graffiti made by staff mainly against Romani inmates

3. Anti-Hungarian graffiti made by Romani inmates

4. Several prison drawings suggesting the Romani counter-culture, poor conditions or human rights infringements in prisons

After presenting this communication inside and from the prison setting we try to give social symbolic meaning to the issue.

Keywords: prison, cultural criminology, Romani, Hungary, graffiti

Prison drawings classification

2011-09-22T04:59:00.000-07:00

You can follow up latest project on prison art here.

Erasmus 2011 spring

2011-05-21T12:18:00.000-07:00

Closing session of the of the subject "Social psychology of crime in prison setting". Students from Germany, Poland and Turkey before the prison study visit. Unfortunately we could not take any pictures within the prison.

2010 fall ERASMUS

2010-10-20T10:07:00.000-07:00

Polish and Slovenian students by doing sensory ethnography in the VII. district of Budapest in Dob utca. We analyzed graffiti on the spot. We found also a trace of MS13.

This is the first documentation of the presence of the criminal gang's spirit in Budapest. Real MS13 activity in Budapest is not visible.

2010 spring ERASMUS

2010-04-29T13:53:00.000-07:00

Maltese ladies and Turkish young men before the prison visit, end of April 2010, in the front of the building of the General Prosecution Service of Hungary.

Short summary of the 2009 ERASMUS activity

2009-12-02T09:16:00.000-08:00

Our original plans were changed, I decided to open up completely the seminars on the social psychology of criminal behavior in prison setting.

We achieved the following:

- we met Mr Vitolds Zahars the rector of the Latvian Police Academy and the former Latvian member of the CPT and we discussed the topic prison graffiti

- we went to a short city trip to the Dob street in Budapest where we saw the special murals

- we took some pictures in the Szimpla club

- we compared the prison and the street murals

- we visited the Budapest Remand Prison and we met Mr Csaba Boglyasovszki the director of the prison

Moreover the course is still open. EU citizens and partners of the ERASMUS programme can join us at the Hungarian Police College.

Prison drawings and graffiti

2009-10-16T12:42:00.000-07:00

You can see my photostream.

Public Security Conference in Poland, Szczytno, 3-4 September 2009

2009-09-06T03:06:00.000-07:00

Here you can download my lecture on self and graffiti in prisons.

Project summary

2009-03-09T09:19:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the short summary of my expert blog on prison psychology

My name is Gergely Fliegauf and I am currently a teacher assistant of prison psychology and prison sociology in the Hungarian Police Academy, Department of Correction.
Being a graduated psychologist and a former prison social worker (educator – in the post-soviet term) my lectures deal both theory and practice. Prison officers are in Hungary in a military type system employed by the Hungarian Prison Service. They work for years as NCOs in prisons on a daily basis and then they can write an application to join the training in our Department.
The general idea of establishing my blog was to make the knowledge easy available for my trainees. The project overdeveloped in the past few years and I decided to open up an expert blog.
You can find this blog – in Hungarian language – here.

I am open to every kind of co-operation, please be so kind to write me an e-mail.

I am especially interested in the following topics:

Drugs

- drug use in prisons
- drug substitution and maintenance therapy in prisons
- drug free units in prison
- prisoners facing the drug problem
- pre-release programs for drug dependent prisoners
- experiences about prescribed drug misuse in prisons
- benzodiazepine caused disturbances in prisons
- overmedication

Inter-prisoner violence (IPV)

- places of violence in prisons
- templates and scripts of violence
- forbidden items in relation to IPV
- effectiveness of security searches
- sexual misuse in prison
- arbitraries (forcing, enslaving, torture etc.)

Gang-activity

- ethnic issue of gang-activity development in prisons
- interaction among segregated gang members
- high security inmates and gang-activity
- staff training, burn out and combating violence in prisons
- special characteristics of prison gangs
- description of prison gangs: European prison gangs (i.e. Bandidos, Hells Angels, Outlawz etc.)

Sex offenders

- treatment
- typology

Prison graffiti

- self harm as embedded graffiti
- graffiti and arts of interaction in prisons
- segregation cell graffiti
- transfer messages on walls
- organizing crime with messages
- gang tags in prison
- prisoners’ paintings as an alternative

Chicago school of criminology

Prison riots

- pre riot state of a prison
- staff related issues as regards as prison riot
- riot squads
- full scale riot sings
- history of major events (Attica, Strangeways, NM)
- roof climbing
- mass hunger strikes in prisons

Human rights

Co-write articles in scientific journals in the above mentioned topics

For ERASMUS students

2009-03-09T09:17:00.000-07:00

„Social psychology of criminal behaviour in prison setting”

Curriculum for the course will be held at the Hungarian Police College

(Police Academy)
by prison psychologist and drug policy expert
Gergely FLIEGAUF

The course contains 10 two-hours-long sessions in an interactive seminar-like way. Students are entitled to interrupt the lecture as they want with questions, comments or critiques.
We will underline the theories during the meetings but we will illustrate some topics also with self assessment psychological and philosophical tests, videos and slideshows.
At the end of the agenda a prison visit is planned. Only basic English is needed.

Draft agenda of prison-topics

1. Welcome introduction
2. Basics about the prison topic: social function of the sentencing
3. Communication, interaction, roles and the self in the prison
4. The second face of the prisoner
5. The total institution and the denial of its theory
6. Prison riots, bullying and fights, inter prisoner violence – analyzing videos taken by CCTV cameras of several prisons
7. Prison gangs, membership, prison academy, interaction networks, risk of being alone – analyzing videos
8. Analyzing prison graffiti – a comparative approach between European prisons and street art – slideshows with unique pictures taken in custodial settings across the continent
9. Basics of human rights and deprivation of liberty in a psychological view
10. Drugs in prisons
11. Ethnic and other minorities in prisons (special focus on Czech Republic and Hungary)

12. Treatment of sex offenders in prisons - case studies