He looks at the methodological and practical problems that can impact assessment research in correctional settings, including the distinctive culture in correctional institutes. Megargee's reason for doing the research is today's huge population of incarcerated persons and the fact that psychological research that has been conducted on people outside of the incarceration setting may not be applicable to people who are incarcerated. He recognizes that there is a need for research in this area to determine whether tools developed elsewhere are applicable. He points out the irony of this lack of applicable research because clinical psychology was developed in the criminal justice setting. He does not really conduct any individual research, therefore the methodology is most akin to a literature review in which he assesses the information available about correctional institutions and draws conclusions from that information to determine why there is a lack of research on assessment in correctional settings. The first methodological issue that he identifies is the problem of educating the researcher...
One of the other problems that he has identified is looking at what assessment issues are most pressing in their setting.
Obviously, assessment and interviewing issues are important for the correctional setting because so many people in the correctional setting are in need of clinical interventions. However, without knowing whether even the basic assessment tools are valid to determine which, if any, interventions are appropriate, it is impossible to begin interventions with members of that population. Therefore, developing prison-specific assessment tools is an important goal.
References
Author Last Name, First Initial. (Year). Chapter 3: Looking into the clinician's mirror: cultural self-assessment. In Editor's Last Name, First Initial (Ed). Book Title. Place of Publication, Publisher.
Megargee, E. (1995). Assessment research in correctional settings: Methodological issues and practical problems. Psychological Assessment, 7(3), 359-366.
