Specifics of Psychological Defense of Persons Serving Sentences in Places of Imprisonment for Crimes against the Person and Corr

Introduction: the article is devoted to the specifics of psychological defense of convicts who are serving sentences in prison for crimes against the person. Psychological defense helps a person to maintain inner peace, create conditions for self-justification, thereby reducing the influence of social control. Purpose: on the basis of the study to determine features of psychological defense of convicts serving imprisonment for the first time and repeatedly for crimes against the person, to give recommendations on correctional and educational work with this category of convicts. Methods: theoretical analysis of literature; methods of synthesis and generalization; projective method: test “Drawing a non-existent animal”; method of statistical data processing: the Fisher transformation of the sample correlation coefficient. Results: the convicts serving imprisonment for recurrent crimes against the person differ from those serving sentence for the first time by using types of psychological defense, such as denial, displacement and projection. Recidivists try to protect themselves from all the reality surrounding them, cannot open up to natural communication due to constant fear for their emotional peace. They do not want to admit their antisocial actions, which are repressed into the unconscious or denied. With the recurrence of crimes, convicts again resort to these types of psychological defense to feel safe. The revealed features of psychological defense of persons serving sentences for crimes against the person for the first time and repeatedly have supplemented the characteristics of persons in this category and should be taken into account when organizing correctional and educational work with them in places of deprivation of liberty. Conclusions: when determining a direction of correctional and educational work with convicts of this category, it is important to take into account features of their psychological defense, identify whether convicts have overcome selfishness, stubbornness and individualistic attitude towards people, whether they have learned to analyze their actions and admit mistakes. It is crucial to encourage the ability to see positive traits and moral qualities in each person.