Title of Article: Personal Ads From Prisoners: Do Inmates Tell the Truth About Themselves?
Author: Richard Tewksbury, Ph.D., University of Louisville
Published in: Federal Probation, Vol. 69(2), December, 2005 Retrieved from:
http://web.archive.org/web/20080617213907/http://www.uscourts.gov/fedprob/December_2005/personals.html
Although WriteAPrisoner.com agrees with some statements in this article and in general welcomes research on inmates, we believe there are several limitations to this study that were not duly noted. We also feel that certain rhetorical devices employed by the researcher promote bias. What follows is a rebuttal that addresses each point that we believe is misleading or inaccurate.
The researcher gathered prisoner-reported data that were available online and compared these to DOC-reported data that were also available online. Data were statistically analyzed, a common methodology designed to yield numerical (statistical) results. However, numbers must be explained, and this is where WriteAPrisoner.com takes issue.
It appears that the author selectively and purposely used language intended at best to sensationalize and at worst to deceive. His reliance upon litotes, a literary trope, appears to be an attempt to sway the reader to believe something that is not true. (Example: One could write, “It is true.” One could also write the statement as, “It is not untrue.” The use of ‘not’ and ‘un’ can plant a seed of doubt for the reader.)
Also, the author has failed to complete a thorough review of the literature on the subject of lying in general and lying within the general population. To make claims that inmates are more predisposed to lie to the public requires the researcher to provide data on the veracity of the public. He failed to do so. Instead, he based his claims on a generalization: that simply because one is an inmate, one cannot be trusted to tell the truth. No discussion was presented on comparing inmates’ likelihood of lying compared to the general public’s, and this is a critical oversight. In our opinion, this criticism alone negates the validity of the research findings.
Tewksbury’s passages are in black; WriteAPrisoner.com’s responses are in blue. We encourage you to read the entire article, and decide for yourself whether or not Tewksbury was biased in his reporting. Following are 13 disputed statements:
1. RT: Popular discourse, many scholarly reviews/theories, and professional practices (i.e,. Fleisher, 1989; Johnson, 1996; Sykes, 1958) emphasize that prison inmates are manipulative, cunning, untrustworthy, and dishonest.
1. WAP: Counterpoint: These studies are considered outdated by any research standards; there are no seminal works cited.
2: RT: However, as both popular and professional beliefs center on inmates’ lack of trustworthiness and honesty (citation needed), it may be necessary to view the information provided by inmates in advertisements seeking pen pals with skepticism.
2: WAP: Why should “information provided by inmates” be regarded with any more skepticism than information (age, weight, income, etc.) provided by people on dating sites or logging into chat rooms? Substantial research on lying suggests there is an abundance of and ease with lying in the general population (Dubner, 2008). Inmates can risk punishment by their institutions for providing false information. WriteAPrisoner.com maintains a zero tolerance policy for providing false information. Inmates have much more to lose by lying in their profiles than do the general public.
3. RT: Inmates may be motivated to dishonestly report personal information, in an effort to make themselves appear more attractive to potential support persons or to establish a social identity and persona to aid in manipulating outsiders to provide social, economic, or other kinds of benefits to the inmate.
3. WAP: If this were the case, with more than two million Americans incarcerated, the newspapers would be backlogged with stories about inmate scams on the general public. There is no statistical or anecdotal evidence to support this claim.
4. RT: Overall, 14.3 percent (n=150) of inmates do not accurately report their most serious offense on their personal ads.
4. WAP: Therefore, 86.7 percent do “accurately report their most serious offense on their personal ads.”
This study should have emphasized the obvious, that these are inmates – people convicted of crimes. There is no misrepresentation here: free citizens are being invited to correspond with convicted criminals. Dating sites and chat rooms create a false sense of security and anonymity. On a prison site, there is no mystery to the viewer: the person seeking pen pals has been convicted of a crime. Perhaps the researcher should have been stunned at what was actually a significantly high rate of honest responses.
5. RT: Nearly one in five (18.9 percent, n= 199) do not accurately report their projected/anticipated release date.
5. WAP: Again, most (81.1 percent) do. However, projected release dates are notoriously uncertain. And DOC sites frequently post incorrect information. WAP addresses this in detail on its Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page.
6. RT: Inmates who do not accurately report their most serious offense tend to be individuals whom official records show are serious, violent offenders. Fully one-third (32.0 percent) of those inaccurately reporting their offenses are officially reported to have homicide convictions, 28 percent have a rape or other sex crime conviction and 10.7 percent have a robbery conviction as their most serious conviction offense.
6a. WAP: There is a two-part response here. First, beware of the large numbers in this passage. Refer back to the original claim: “Overall, 14.3 percent (n=150) of inmates do not accurately report their most serious offense on their personal ads.” Now, of those 14.3 percent, apply the statement, “Fully one-third (32.0 percent)…have homicide convictions…” One-third of 14 percent is actually a very small number – just 4.3 percent. This passage can be deceiving. Although it is stated factually, the reader must remember to “do the math” to fully comprehend the facts.
6b. WAP: Research suggests that people everywhere – not just inmates – lie to make themselves seem better than they are. There is an “embarrassment” factor to consider (Martinelli & Parker, 2009). Consider this example:
In one Australian medical study, doctors self-reported their hand-washing rate at 73 percent, whereas when these same doctors were observed, their actual rate was a paltry 9 percent. (Dubner, 2008, p. 17)
Inmates, then, even violent offenders, appear to be more trustworthy than doctors when it comes to telling the truth. Cornell Professor Jeffrey Hancock, reporting on lying in the general public, found that:
“26 percent of all social interactions contain a lie; 37 percent of phone calls involve “some deception.” Perhaps what caught most people’s eye was that the big, bad, unseemly Internet where criminals, scam artists, and identity thieves abound (as common sentiment goes) saw significantly fewer lies: 14 percent of e-mails.” (Goldweber, 2005, p. 9)
7. RT: While far from definitive as a response to the common suggestion that “inmates lie” and “you cannot trust what an inmate says,” (citation needed) the results of this study suggest that personal information provided by inmates must be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism.
7. WAP: The so-called “findings” that “personal information provided by inmates must be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism” is not based on any evidence in this article. If the fact that they are convicted of crimes is the sole indicator, then there was no need for a study in the first place. The statistics provided clearly do not support the call for a “healthy dose of skepticism” any more than such skepticism should be called for in any other social situation.
8. RT: An analysis of self-report data provided by a sample of inmates placing personal advertisements for the purpose of attracting pen pals shows that a significant minority of inmates inaccurately report at least one piece of basic personal information. (Bold type WAP’s)
8. WAP: Wouldn’t a more honest (and accurate) statement read, “a significant majority of inmates accurately report…”?
9. RT: Numerous inmates also specifically request legal or financial assistance.
9. WAP: “Numerous”? Why not “a minority”? Again, the author appears to knowingly mislead. He reported that 11.6 percent requested legal assistance, and 14.0 percent requested financial assistance. “Numerous” should be defined in this case.
10. RT: However, it is also important to keep in mind that fully two-thirds of inmate personal ads reviewed in this study did not contain inaccurate information. (Bold type WAP’s)
10. WAP: Again, wouldn’t it be more honest (and less cumbersome) to simply write, “fully two-thirds of inmate personal ads reviewed in this study did contain accurate information”? The overuse of litotes suggests that the author is deliberately misleading.
11. RT: Second, this study also suggests that at least some forms of inmate self-report research should be viewed with a skeptical eye as well.
11. WAP: Why? There was no evidence provided to support this claim. Researchers have historically cautioned about interpreting any self-reported findings in any study, not just regarding inmates. In this situation, when the information is so easy to verify, why would inmates risk getting into trouble or being banned from a pen pal site where they might find friendship?
12. RT: If and when inmates believe there may be something to be gained from misreporting personal information, many may be likely to do so. (Bold type WAP’s)
12. WAP: It appears that this researcher has not consulted any of the research conducted on lying in the general population. Had he done so, he would have learned that misreporting for personal gain is a universally human approach that is not exclusive to inmates. If this is his basis for his comment, he should have said so and cited the proper sources.
13. RT: In the end, however, the answer to the question posed in the title of this article, “Do inmates tell the truth about themselves?” appears to be “some do, sometimes.”
13: WAP: This casual, offhand remark does not dignify the seriousness of this subject. Inmates are incarcerated because they have been convicted of a crime. This is a serious situation. The entire premise for encouraging correspondence in the first place is to help inmates build positive relationships that may ultimately reduce recidivism. The entire “feel” of this article is so dismissive as to have the appearance of something dashed off, something unimportant. We believe it does a disservice in an area that must be taken seriously. We might as well ask:
Do any people tell the truth about themselves? Some do, sometimes.
Do researchers select sensational topics and focus on partial truths to make their research more compelling? Some do, sometimes.
Do researchers collect readily available data to compare for a quick publication? Some do, sometimes.
There is some irony in an article about lying that so freely uses deception in its wording. As stated previously, WriteAPrisoner.com welcomes research about inmates, specifically research that might lead to inmates turning their lives around and becoming fully integrated into society upon their release. The lack of substance in this particular article begs the question: What is this researcher’s motive?
References:
Goldweber, A. (2005). The Language of Lying. College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University, Summer, pp. 8-10. Retrieved from
http://www.eas.cornell.edu/cals/public/comm/pubs/cals-news/cals-news-archive/upload/cals-news-summer-05-hancock.pdf
Dubner, S. J. (June 23, 2008). Why Do You Lie? The Perils of Self-Reporting. NY Times Blog. Retrieved from
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/23/why-do-you-lie-the-perils-of-self-reporting/
Martinelli, C. & Parker, S.W. (2009). Deception and Misreporting in a Social Program. Journal of the European Economic Association. MIT Press. Volume 7,(4), pp. 886-908