![Sample our Bioscience journals, sign in here to start your access, Latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5925/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Bioscience.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
It has been suggested that attitudes toward offender populations can impact upon a range of factors associated with prisoner care, reform, and rehabilitation. This study aims to systematically review the instruments developed and utilized to explore attitudes toward incarcerated offender populations in terms of their focus and psychometric properties. The ultimate aim is to highlight clinical practice implications associated with this area. Seven electronic databases and reference lists of relevant publications were searched. Inclusion criteria were applied to the identified publications. Included studies were quality assessed by two independent assessors using predefined quality assessment criteria prior to data extraction. Emphasis was placed upon measures of internal structure, reliability (internal consistency, test–retest and split-half) and validity (construct; convergent and divergent, and content). An electronic search yielded 534 hits. Of these, 483 were irrelevant, and 15 duplicate publications were excluded. Thirty two publications which did not meet the inclusion criteria were excluded. Following a hand search three publications were added. A total of seven publications were reviewed and three instruments were identified. The three instruments identified as exploring attitudes toward prisoner (ATP) populations varied in terms of study quality and psychometric properties. There was evidence of one commonly used, relatively robust tool (ATP; Melvin, Gramling, & Gardener, 1985). Despite this, the lack of other reliable and valid instruments designed to assess this population as a whole is highlighted here, in addition to specific subpopulations thought to be most at risk. This has implications regarding our ability to accurately measure, monitor, and subsequently improve ATP populations.