A Psychological Study of Law Offenders (NDPS Act) in Mizoram Prisons
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Abstract
The research aims to study law offenders/inmates of prisons in Mizoram convicted under the “Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985”. The psychological variables constituted personality, family environment and perceived social support of the inmates. The study also drew comparisons between the offenders and normal population. The study was conducted in three districts of Mizoram (Aizawl, Lunglei and Champhai). The Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R; Costa & McCrea, 1992) was used as a measure of personality. The test measures 5 dimensions of personality – neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness. 2 dimensions – cohesion and conflict, of the Family Environment Scale (FES-BC; Bhatia & Chada, 1993) was used for studying family environment. The Multi-dimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS; Zimet, et al., 1988) was used as a measure of perceived social support. The sample size of the convicts under NDPS Act was 141. The normal population comparison sample size was 78.Quantitative analysis was done using SPSS. Descriptive statistics was used to highlight the mean and standard deviation of all the subscales of the three psychological measures in both the two samples (Offenders and normal). T-test was used to compare the means of the two samples in all the subscales of the 3 psychological variables.
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References
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