Who Is Training Behind the Wall?

Abstract

Despite the critical inmate need for correctional mental health services, little attention is paid to those in training to provide such services. The present study fills this gap by examining, across 25 years, 896 predoctoral psychology interns who matched for and completed a 1-year federal corrections internship. Student characteristics, their graduate training programs, and postinternship hiring outcomes are presented. More women and students with prior clinical experience in criminal justice settings have, through the years, entered into internships in correctional settings. Outcome data suggest that more than half the graduate students find employment in correctional settings after completion of internship and that having criminal justice experiences prior to internship and receiving training in more urban locations was related to such hires. Implications for training and recruiting a strong psychology services workforce in corrections are discussed.

Keywords

corrections psychology forensic education and training internship

The roots of psychology training in corrections are deep and wide. Among the six predoctoral psychology internships established prior to 1946, half provided training in the treatment of criminal, juvenile, or antisocial populations. The work occurred within correctional and other criminal justice settings and has remained a consistent source of predoctoral training for more than 86 years (e.g., Giardini, 1942; Glueck & Glueck, 1930; Knowles, 1949; Morrow, 1946; Rosenzweig, Root, & Pearson, 1944; Routh, 2000; Shartle, 1946; Wicks, 1974). Correctional internships represent 3% to 5% of all placements in recent internship years, and these settings remain premier sites for generalist training and exposure to populations suffering from serious mental illness and substance abuse (Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers, 2008, 2010; Ax & Morgan, 2002; Magaletta, Patry, Dietz, & Ax, 2007; Stedman, Hatch, Schoenfeld, & Keilin, 2005).

Given psychology’s long history of training in correctional sites, it is not surprising that workforce studies find that psychologists are the most frequently employed correctional mental health professionals. Psychologists represent an estimated 18% of the correctional mental health workforce (C. Camp & Camp, 2003). In addition to their frequency, or perhaps contributing to it, psychologists also remain the most versatile mental health professionals in correctional settings. They have historically been professionally equipped in both administrative (research and evaluation, coordination and supervision of treatment programs) and direct clinical services (Boothby & Clements, 2000; Cullen, 2005; Hawk, 1997; Magaletta & Boothby, 2003; Magaletta & Verdeyen, 2005; Towl & Crighton, 2008). Correctional psychologists report a high degree of job satisfaction, particularly when they are employed at higher-security-level facilities as compared to minimum-security facilities (Garland, McCarty, & Zhao, 2009) and when they are employed in federal institutions as compared to state facilities (Boothby & Clements, 2002).

At the same time, few studies have examined those receiving training for eventual practice behind the penitentiary wall. In fact, one of the first was published only in 1998. In this study (Pietz, DeMier, Dienst, Green, & Scully, 1998), psychology predoctoral interns at sites offering at least half their rotations in a correctional or forensic setting were surveyed. The sample entailed 87 current or former interns from 10 American Psychological Association–accredited internship programs. The majority of interns had no practicum or prior work experiences in correctional or forensic settings, and fewer than 10% had any exposure to this area through course work at the graduate level. In that study, the most frequently reported reason for selecting a corrections or forensic internship was the diversity of training experiences. In terms of the link between internship and future employment, interns’ preference for corrections work increased between the beginning and the end of the internship. At the time they applied for internship, 54% of the interns indicated an interest in correctional or forensic work; at the internship’s conclusion, 87% indicated either moderate or high interest.

More recently, Ax and Morgan (2002) conducted research at the programmatic level by surveying internship program coordinators at correctional and forensic internship sites. This study was among the first to draw an overt distinction between training programs aimed at professional work in correctional facilities and training programs aimed at the interface of psychology and law in forensic settings. Among the 53 responding coordinators, the vast majority (83%) operated internship programs from a generalist model. Consistent with the findings of Pietz et al. (1998), a variety of training experiences were offered across programs. The correctional sites offered more training in psychopharmacology and HIV counseling than did the forensic programs. This finding is of particular interest because psychopharmacology has recently been found to be among the top 10 important and frequently used areas of knowledge and practice among correctional psychologists (Magaletta, Patry, et al., 2007). In addition, Fagan and colleagues (2004) found that interns in correctional settings were the most willing and ready to adopt prescription privileges.

To date, only one published study has gone upstream from internship to examine doctoral students and their perceptions of training opportunities in correctional and forensic settings prior to internship. In that study (Morgan, Beer, Fitzgerald, & Mandracchia, 2007), approximately half of the 175 students from a nationally representative sample of counseling and clinical doctoral psychology programs believed that opportunities in forensic and correctional psychology existed in graduate school and that forensic or correctional practica were as available as other clinical settings. Importantly, half the respondents indicated a desire to receive training in forensic and correctional psychology, 27% were considering a career in forensic or correctional psychology, and 17% were planning on such a career. Whether students had already completed a practicum in a forensic or correctional setting (26% had), the majority of respondents had carried caseloads of clients who had been in juvenile or adult confinement, met criteria for antisocial personality disorder, or had a history of legal charges or convictions. The doctoral students expressed positive attitudes toward inmates, and they perceived work with this population as meaningful.

In this context, it is curious that few of the studies on corrections interns and none of the correctional workforce studies have examined the nexus between training programs and later employment in correctional settings. Among the few that have (Magaletta et al., 2011; Pietz et al., 1998), findings are congruent with other studies linking training settings and later career choice (e.g., Thorp, O’Donohue, & Gregg, 2005; Williams-Nickelson, 2005). These links suggest an important process for alleviating the difficulties commonly experienced in the recruitment and retention of mental health professionals for corrections (Gondles & Kehoe, 2007; Harding, 2002; Workforce Associates, 2009). A solid understanding of graduate students and training programs remains critical to building the psychology workforce for corrections.

Thus, this study was designed to examine psychology interns in federal corrections: Who are they? Where did they come from? Where did they go? Such an approach enables us to describe the interns, explore relations among their doctoral programs and the corrections internship programs they matched to, and track the employment they secured following internship. Toward this end, we examine 25 years of student intern data in the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and employment outcomes from 10 cohorts of interns. These outcomes serve as proximal indicators of the training goals of federal corrections internship programs and as distal indicators for the utility of these programs in building a psychology services workforce for corrections.

Method

Participants

The current study relies on data from graduate students who completed predoctoral psychology internship training in the BOP for the 25-year period from 1986 through 2010 (N = 896). Some students (n = 148) received internship training prior to the 1993 programmatic implementation of training, but most of the students in this study (n = 748) completed their internships after the internship programs became organized to train multiple students in cohorts.¹ The 896 interns received training in 27 different federal correctional institutions, 12 of which housed internship programs that received accreditation from the American Psychological Association’s Commission on Accreditation after the standard was established. The typical participant in the study (see Table 1) was 31 years of age, White, and female and, prior to internship, had some experience in the criminal justice setting. She was also likely to be from an American Psychological Association–accredited clinical psychology PhD program located in the south Atlantic region of the United States.

Table 1:

Intern Background Characteristics by Cohort Year

Variable	1986-1990 (n = 47)	1991-1995 (n = 247)	1996-2000 (n = 199)	2001-2005 (n = 200)	2006-2010 (n = 203)	Overall (N = 896)
Gender % (valid n)
Male	54.3 (25)	43.8 (106)	38.3 (75)	29 (58)	28.1 (57)	36.2 (321)
Female	45.7 (21)	56.2 (136)	61.7 (121)	71 (142)	71.9 (146)	63.8 (566)
Race % (valid n)
African American	3.8 (1)	8.5 (12)	13.6 (21)	9.1 (17)	10.8 (21)	10.2 (72)
Hispanic	7.7 (2)	4.9 (7)	3.2 (5)	6.4 (12)	7.2 (14)	5.7 (40)
Asian	n/a (0)	2.1 (3)	1.3 (2)	2.1 (4)	2.6 (5)	2.0 (14)
White	88.5 (23)	83.8 (119)	81.2 (125)	79.7 (149)	78.5 (153)	80.8 (569)
Native American	n/a (0)	n/a (0)	n/a (0)	n/a (0)	1.0 (2)	0.3 (2)
Age M (SD) [valid n]	32.7 (5.6) [44]	33.4 (7.0) [177]	30.9 (5.2) [159]	30.3 (4.5) [185]	29.3 (3.9) [203]	31.0 (5.5) [768]
Prior criminal justice experience
Yes	37.5 (9)	37.5 (48)	56.5 (87)	83.4 (156)	82.7 (167)	67.2 (467)
No	62.5 (15)	62.5 (80)	43.5 (67)	16.6 (31)	17.3 (35)	32.8 (228)
Program specialty
Clinical	64.3 (18)	77.7 (136)	81.8 (153)	86.8 (165)	82.4 (155)	81.6 (627)
Counseling	35.7 (10)	18.9 (33)	16.6 (31)	12.1 (23)	17.0 (32)	16.8 (129)
Combined	n/a (0)	2.4 (6)	1.6 (3)	1.1 (2)	0.5 (1)	1.6 (12)
Program degree type
PhD	67.9 (19)	64.6 (113)	58.8 (110)	56.8 (108)	60.6 (114)	60.4 (464)
PsyD	32.1 (9)	35.4 (62)	41.2 (77)	43.2 (82)	39.4 (74)	39.6 (304)

Note. n/a = not applicable.

Measures

Data were culled from multiple archival data sources and were organized at three different levels: (a) intern-level demographic and academic characteristics, (b) graduate program–level data from the accredited doctoral programs that had students completing BOP internships, and (c) BOP facility–level data regarding the internship sites.

Intern characteristics

Source data for demographic and academic information were extracted from operational, archival quality-assurance measures used in the BOP to monitor internship programs and resource allocation. The data available concerned demographic characteristics (gender, race-ethnicity, and age) and academic characteristics (graduate program name, degree and program type, the name and location of criminal justice service experiences prior to internship, and employment status after completing internship). Beginning in 2001, these data were collected through narrative e-mail correspondence with internship program coordinators at BOP sites. Data procured for students prior to 2001 were culled through multiple methods, including interviews with the original internship program coordinators and clinical supervisors, verbal and written solicitation through current internship coordinators who reviewed archival records that still remained on site, and outreach of other clinical supervisors in a position to provide the information. For quality assurance, when the graduate school information supplied was only the name of the doctoral program, we conducted a historical review of that program on the Internet and gathered information concerning degree type and program area. Although employment outcomes were always collected for interns at the local training site, it was not until 2001 that a specific method was developed through e-mail to categorize these outcomes. Thus, some of the hiring outcome data were missing, especially for the earlier cohorts of students.

Graduate program characteristics

We gathered graduate program data from a resource on American Psychological Association–accredited clinical and counseling psychology programs (n = 310), which represented 98% of the clinical and counseling programs at that time (Norcross, Sayette, & Mayne, 2008). That data included the program area (clinical, counseling, combined), degree awarded (PhD or PsyD), institutional setting, self-rating on a research-practice continuum, geographic location, and potential practica settings for doctoral students at that program. Because these data were available only if we knew the name of the intern’s program and if the program were accredited, we truncated this portion of our analysis to American Psychological Association–accredited programs. However, we were able to explore similarities and differences between those accredited programs that did and those that did not match interns to BOP sites.

Facility-level characteristics

The BOP facilities data were culled from operational databases and included information on the institution’s security level, geographic location, and rurality index. The latter refers to the rural-urban continuum code (RUCC) for the county that housed the institution (Magaletta et al., 2011; U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2004a, 2004b). The index ranged from 1 through 9, with more-rural locations receiving higher scores.

Analytic Plan

To understand changes in intern characteristics over time, we divided the 25 years of data into five equal 5-year segments. We examined the data by these segments and applied statistical tests to examine cohort differences. Highlighting the longitudinal nature of the data, we examined intern characteristics over time and also compared doctoral programs that had students participate in a BOP internship to those programs that did not have any BOP interns. Finally, we examined the employment outcomes of the students and examined the relationship among available data to these outcomes.

Results

Intern Characteristics

The characteristics of BOP interns during the past 25 years are presented in Table 1. These results are presented in a total aggregate fashion and also incrementally in 5-year blocks starting in 1986 and ending in 2010. Across that span, 36% (n = 321) were male interns and 64% (n = 566) were female. Across the 23-year period for which data were available on intern gender (N = 887), more females were completing BOP internships. For example, in 1989, the male and female interns were roughly 50% each, but by 2005, 20% were male and 80% were female. The point-biserial correlation between gender and placement year was .17 (p < .001). Intern age ranged from 24 to 57, with a median age of 29 at the start of the internship. In terms of race, more than 80% of interns (n = 569) were White, but upward trends were observed over time for African American interns. More than 80% of interns (n = 627) came from clinical psychology programs. Finally, the most common degree sought by the interns was the PhD (n = 464; 60%), followed by the PsyD (n = 304; 40%).

Information on practica or employment experience within criminal justice settings prior to internship was available for 695 interns. Two thirds (67%) had prior experiences in a criminal justice setting and 33% did not. Prior criminal justice experience became more likely over time, r_pb = .38, p < .001, as displayed in Table 1. A quarter of the students with prior experience gained this at multiple sites (n = 112; 24%), but most earned it at a single site (n = 362; 76%).

A total of 629 unique prior criminal justice experiences were recorded, and these were obtained in the following settings: State Department of Correction, 32% (n = 200); Federal Law Enforcement, including Bureau of Prisons, Bureau of Investigation, federal judiciary or probation, 24% (n = 149); county jails, 13% (n = 84); juvenile treatment including anything other than a state system, 6% (n = 39); juvenile in state custody, 5% (n = 33); locked forensic unit within state psychiatric hospital, 5% (n = 33); forensic state prison, 2% (n = 15); and community corrections or halfway house, 1% (n = 6). Unfortunately, 11% of the settings (n = 70) could not be categorized from the information provided.

Doctoral Program Characteristics

Students completing a BOP internship during the 25-year span hailed from 175 American Psychological Association–accredited clinical or counseling psychology programs. The most frequent regional locations of these programs were the south Atlantic (n = 33; 19%) and east north central (n = 31; 18%). The 175 programs represented 56.5% of the accredited programs in 2007 (Norcross et al., 2008). Conversely, 43.5% (n = 135) of accredited doctoral programs did not have one of their students complete a BOP psychology internship.

Among the 175 represented programs, 73% (n = 128) were in clinical psychology, 25% (n = 44) in counseling psychology, and 2% (n = 3) in combined programs. No differences were observed in the distribution of program areas between the 175 programs that were represented in the BOP internship program and the 135 programs that did not. The degree offered by represented programs were 73% PhD (n = 127) and 27% PsyD (n = 48). Among the 310 accredited programs potentially available to BOP internship programs, 245 programs (79%) offered the PhD and 65 (21%) offered the PsyD degree. PsyD programs were disproportionately represented among those having a BOP intern, χ²(310, 1) = 10.1, p = .002. In terms of the 44 PsyD programs represented for which additional data were available, the majority (n = 17; 39%) were housed in university-based professional schools, 15 (34%) were freestanding professional schools of psychology, and the remaining 12 (27%) were offered within university departments of psychology.

A self-rating on a 7-point practice-research continuum (Norcross, Ellis, & Sayette, 2010) was also available from the doctoral programs. Here, the programs (N = 175) placing BOP interns were distributed as practice oriented (1 to 3; n = 55; 31%), equal emphasis (4; n = 63; 36%), and research oriented (5 to 7; n = 57; 33%). Again, we compared the continuum ratings of the 175 programs that had matched BOP interns to the remaining 135 accredited programs that did not. Doctoral programs placing BOP interns had lower continuum scores (M = 4.04, SD = 1.33) than programs without BOP interns (M = 4.46, SD = 1.27), t(308) = 2.81, p = .005, indicating a more practice-oriented emphasis. Although there were no differences in the program’s grade point average (GPA) of incoming students, programs without a BOP intern had slightly higher Graduate Record Examination (GRE) Verbal, Quantitative, and Writing scores as compared to programs with a BOP intern (see Table 2).

Table 2:

Practice-Research Rating, Student GRE Scores, and GPA for American Psychological Association–Accredited Programs

	American Psychological Association–Accredited Programs			Programs That Have Matched a Student to a BOP Internship			Programs That Have Not Matched a Student to a BOP Internship
Characteristic	M	SD	n	M	SD	n	M	SD	n
Practice-research rating^a	4.2	1.3	310	4.0	1.3	175	4.5	1.3	135
GRE score (Verbal)^a	581	50	229	575	47	126	589	53	103
GRE scores (Quantitative)^a	635	71	229	624	80	126	647	55	103
GRE score (Writing)^a	4.9	0.4	131	4.8	0.5	73	5.0	0.4	58
GRE score (Psychology)	670	43	74	665	42	32	674	44	42
Cumulative GPA	3.6	0.2	271	3.6	0.2	157	3.6	0.2	114

Note. BOP = Bureau of Prisons; GRE = Graduate Record Examination; GPA = grade point average.

Significant differences (independent-samples t tests) between programs that have matched a student to a BOP internship as compared to programs that have not matched a student to a BOP internship.

Facility-Level Characteristics

Thirty federal correctional institutions hosted either interns or internship programs. As shown in Table 3, facilities hosting an internship (n = 30) were fairly evenly distributed across the country.² Compared to the 83 BOP facilities not hosting interns or internship programs (total N = 113), facilities hosting internships tended to be more urban, t(111) = 3.330, p = .006. They were also more frequently located at an administrative medical center.

Table 3:

Characteristics of All Institutions and Those Sponsoring Internship Students or Programs

Variable	BOP Institutions (N = 113)	Internship Institutions (N = 30), 1986-2010
Security level
Minimum	7 (6.2%)	2 (6.7%)
Low	33 (29.2%)	14 (46.7%)
Medium	44 (38.9%)	10 (33.3%)
High	29 (25.7%)	4 (13.3%)
Region
Mid-Atlantic	19 (16.8%)	6 (20.0%)
North central	19 (16.8%)	5 (16.7%)
Northeast	17 (15.0%)	3 (10.0%)
South central	21 (18.6%)	5 (16.7%)
Southeast	19 (16.8%)	5 (16.7%)
Western	18 (15.9%)	6 (20.0%)
Correctional complex
Yes	33 (29.2%)	5 (16.7%)
No	80 (70.8%)	25 (83.3%)
Facility type
Administrative: Medical	7 (6.2%)	7 (23.3%)
Administrative: Detention	13 (11.5%)	2 (6.7%)
Mainline	93 (82.3%)	21 (70.0%)
Rurality index
Metro (1-3)	67 (59.3%)	25 (83.3%)
Nonmetro (4-9)	46 (40.7%)	5 (16.7%)
M (SD)	3.4 (2.3)	1.2 (0.4)

Note. BOP = Bureau of Prisons.

Hiring Outcomes of Bop Interns

Hiring outcomes were available for the majority of the sample (n = 695; 78%). More than half (n = 394; 57%) of these interns were hired into a correctional position. Among those placing in a correctional position, the most frequent employment setting was the federal correctional system (n = 299; 76%), followed by state department of correction or private correctional facility (n = 95; 24%).³ For the interns who were not hired into a correctional position (n = 301), the most common postinternship employment was in an organized human service setting (n = 140; 20%), followed by independent or private practice (n = 67; 10%) and academic teaching or research setting (n = 53; 8%). A final, other category accounted for 6% (n = 41) of the students.

The majority of these correctional hires occurred immediately following completion of internship (n = 361; 92%), and a smaller group (n = 33; 8%) occurred at a later time. The average age of an intern hired into a correctional position was 30.1 (SD = 4.6). In addition, interns hired into a correctional position were 63.6% female (n = 252). A total of 75.9% of the corrections hires (n = 299) had prior criminal justice experience, 76.4% (n = 299) were from clinical programs, and 45.6% (n = 181) had obtained the PsyD degree.

Next, we used simultaneous entry logistic regression to determine the variables related to correctional position hiring outcomes. This analysis was conducted at the level of individual interns, so the graduate program characteristics and facility-level institutional characteristics were matched and grafted onto the data at the level of each individual intern. Variables included in the analysis were as follows: for intern characteristics, we used age, gender, internship year, preinternship experience in a criminal justice setting, program type (clinical or nonclinical), and degree type (PhD or PsyD); for graduate program characteristics, we used GRE Verbal and Quantitative scores, cumulative GPA, and research-practice ratings; and for facility-level institutional characteristics, we used security level (minimum, low, medium, high), administration type (mainline, medical, detention), and RUCC (urban, rural).

The results of the logistic regression using the corrections hire outcome as a binary dependent measure are presented in Table 4. Results suggest negative relationships with intern age and internship cohort year. Prior criminal justice experience was a strong, positive predictor for correctional hire. None of the graduate program characteristics evidenced a relationship to correctional hire. The characteristics of facilities offering internship training that uniquely contributed to correctional hires included only a negative relationship to RUCC score, indicating that the more urban the location of the training facility, the more likely it was that the students would hire into a correctional position after completing their training. After concluding this analysis, a regression was performed to examine BOP hire (instead of more general corrections hire) as a dependent measure. All significant results were replicated with little difference in magnitude.

Table 4:

Logistic Regression Analysis for Correctional Hiring Outcome

Independent Variable	B	SE(B)	Exp(B)	Wald	p
Intern characteristics
Intern age	–0.132	.035	0.877	14.522	<.001
Intern gender (higher score = female)	–0.166	.280	0.847	0.352	.553
Internship year	–0.078	.026	0.925	8.771	.003
Prior criminal justice experience	1.272	.319	3.566	15.845	<.001
Program type (clinical/nonclinical)	–0.136	.386	0.873	0.124	.725
Degree type (PhD/PsyD)	–0.082	.589	0.921	0.019	.890
Graduate program characteristics
GRE Verbal	–0.002	.003	0.998	0.269	.604
GRE Quantitative	–0.002	.003	0.998	.682	.409
Cumulative GPA	0.886	1.046	2.425	0.717	.397
Research-practice rating	–0.317	.189	0.728	2.806	.094
Facility-level institutional characteristics
Security level	0.268	.199	1.307	1.799	.180
Facility type (mainline compared to medical centers)	–0.577	.372	0.562	2.410	.121
Facility type (mainline compared to detention centers)	–1.308	.703	0.270	3.466	.063
Facility RUCC	–0.253	.077	0.776	10.815	.001

Note. GRE = Graduate Record Examination; GPA = grade point average; RUCC = rural-urban continuum code. Overall χ²(319, 14) = 67.97, p < .001. Bolded variables are significant at p < .001.

Discussion

In this study, we addressed at an aggregate level three pressing questions about psychology doctoral students completing a BOP internship: Who are they? Where did they come from? And where did they go? To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to do so in a systematic, longitudinal manner. It is also the first to examine the supply pipeline of students training in and entering the correctional mental health workforce. With more than half of the students completing BOP internships finding employment in corrections, we conclude that predoctoral internship training is a robust and capable workforce recruitment strategy. In fact, the magnitude of this finding suggests that predoctoral internships should be considered among the core strategies for developing a strong, uniquely qualified workforce for this area of professional practice.

In the past 25 years, the typical psychology intern in a federal correctional internship was a 31-year-old female clinical psychology PhD student with at least one prior criminal justice experience. This composite is consistent with the larger graduate school enrollment patterns for the psychology workforce (American Psychological Association Center for Workforce Studies, 2009a, 2009b; Dionne, Moore, Armstrong, & Martiniano, 2006). In terms of attracting and developing a diverse cadre of psychology interns, our findings were congruent with the national average for Whites and Hispanic and Latino psychologists earning doctorates in psychology, higher than the national average for African Americans, and lower for Asians. This configuration suggests that there are gains to be maintained in matching and training Hispanic/Latino and African American psychology students. In addition, new strategies may be required to attract and develop Asian American psychology students.

Our findings concerning criminal justice experience prior to internship are important. When examined across time and cohorts, we determined that students with this exposure are becoming more frequently matched to the corrections internships. This trend seems to feature most prominently between the 1996–2000 and 2001–2005 cohorts. Although our data cannot inform the reasons for this trend, the lower baseline from the late 1980s and early 1990s is consistent with findings reported by Pietz et al. (1998), who studied corrections interns during that time frame. In addition, the start of the trend in the mid-1990s to the present mirrors literature suggesting that more students are gaining exposure to criminal justice settings and populations through practica training (Magaletta et al., 2011; Morgan et al., 2007; Olver, Preston, Camilleri, Helmus, & Starzomski, 2011). Finally, this trend comports with the ascent of offender populations in the United States and the expanded capacity to house them in public and private corrections institutions. It is reasonable to suspect that those training to provide services for individuals with mental illnesses would have “followed their population” into the care settings where these services would be required.

As to where students hail from, the data provide a resounding “Everywhere!” We found interns representing 56% of all American Psychological Association–accredited programs. These doctoral programs were geographically balanced across the United States, and the most frequent locations were congruent with national psychology workforce statistics on geographic locations of the highest-yielding psychology graduate programs (Dionne et al., 2006). In terms of programmatic representation, clinical and counseling psychology was well represented, as were degree offerings from both PhD and PsyD. PsyD students were more heavily represented, proportionally speaking, among those completing a BOP internship.

This program trend gained traction in the practice-research continuum ratings. Although the programs sending students to a BOP internship were distributed across the practice-research continuum, the trend was toward equal-emphasis or practice-emphasis programs. This finding is not terribly surprising. Most psychologists in U.S. corrections are employed to screen, assess, manage, and treat offenders. Their daily work involves facilitating offender change, not measuring it and generating scientific reports on the outcome. Despite the protestations of some, this situation is likely to persist. The complexities of corrections research and the ways in which psychology has and has not contributed to this knowledge base are well documented (S. Camp, 2005; Gendreau, Goggin, Cullen, & Paparozzi, 2002; Glaser, 1965, 1971; Kendig, 2004; Magaletta, Morgan, Reitzel, & Innes, 2007; Maton & Bishop-Joseph, 2006; Ruback & Innes, 1988). The tensions that can exist in the mission of a corrections system are equally reflected in the approaches that public safety and public health systems take to the generation and dissemination of knowledge.

Our discussion of where students go after completing their corrections internship begins with an observation. Although multiple employment settings were observed, there remained remarkable unity along one core continuum. More than three quarters of the hire outcomes were in settings where treating those with mental illness is paramount. Prior studies suggest that psychopathology and psychopharmacology are among the most important and frequently used knowledge bases among correctional psychologists and trainees (Fagan et al., 2004; Magaletta, Patry, et al., 2007). The current findings support and extend this point. They also support the fundamental notion that correctional internships do not provide specialized training but, rather, supply a broad and general training platform that facilitates service delivery for a wide range of clientele, including those with mental illness and substance abuse. The study of such populations should figure prominently in competency-focused graduate school and internship training curricula designed to develop correctional mental health service providers.

The largest effect predicting correctional hiring was observed for prior criminal justice experience. Not surprisingly, training programs consistently look for students whose personal and professional goals are facilitated by the experiences an internship program will provide (Ginkel, Davis, & Michael, 2010; Malesky & Croysdale, 2009; Rodolfa et al., 1999; Stedman, 1997, 2007). It had been suspected that this would extend to correctional settings as well. Our findings confirm this phenomenon for correctional hires generally and extend it to BOP hires specifically. Combined with the high rate observed for prior criminal justice experiences, these data suggest that students may be developing correctional career platforms earlier than previously thought. They may be choosing corrections internships to bridge their prior criminal justice experiences with their first, early-career psychologist job. This process is quite important, as not everyone is suited to this line of work. Those that engage in a process of continual vetting and assessment of goodness of fit for the correctional environment have a compelling case for selecting further into a corrections career.

Intern age and recruitment into a correctional position were significantly and negatively correlated, indicating that younger interns were more likely to have a correctional hire. As correctional facilities are located in every state, this finding may reflect increased geographic mobility among the younger. Given the number of students who went into BOP psychologist positions, the finding may also reflect that an initial appointment to such a position must occur prior to one’s 37th birthday.⁴ Earlier internship cohorts were more likely to yield a correctional hire as well. This may reflect simple market needs, as those earlier cohorts graduated at a time when the emergent “war on drugs” and heavier sentencing was beginning to create the need for prison expansion.

Findings concerning the link between the training facility itself and correctional hires suggest that urban locations increase the likelihood of a correctional hire. Perhaps the sheer population density of an urban location leads to more professional networks for facilitating and finding employment. Perhaps, too, these urban locations draw in more senior, seasoned psychology services staff. This senior status may import more expansive professional networks of other psychologists and wardens, leading to increased outreach ability when facilitating the employment of the interns who received training within that particular training facility.

Several additional variables not statistically significant in the regression model were conspicuous by their absence. For example, despite the larger proportion of female students completing BOP internships, gender was not statistically related to correctional hire. The same held true of the graduate programs of the interns. Both male and female psychologists, clinical and counseling psychologists, and PsyD and PhD recipients were equally likely to secure employment in corrections systems at the conclusion of internship.

Given that the majority of “forensic concentration” options occur with clinical PsyD programs (McIlvried, Wall, Kohout, Keys, & Goreczny, 2010), some might be surprised that counseling psychologists were just as likely as clinical psychologists to find employment in criminal justice settings. However, several contextual issues might mitigate this surprise. Counseling programs are likely to emphasize practice within systems (e.g., educational, vocational), and criminal justice settings are intensely systemic. Counseling programs also took a strong and early lead on training students in multicultural perspectives (Heppner, Casas, Carter, & Stone, 2000). It should be emphasized that some of the more unique aspects of working in corrections involve understanding and mastering the “prison culture.”

The present study is limited in several ways. First, information on interns’ willingness to relocate, other employment they sought out or offers they received, and their knowledge of the hiring process was unavailable. Thus, although the study encompassed a large sample with multiple sources of data, study outcomes were limited to a static measure of employment setting that oversimplifies the process of hiring. For example, we do not have information on the specific reasons students might not choose to hire into a corrections position. Second, our findings are not generalizable beyond those matching to and completing an internship in federal corrections. Third, we did not investigate all doctoral students seeking a correctional internship, only those who received one. As a consequence, we cannot draw any inferences on how to improve odds of matching to a correctional internship. The degree of similarity between students who matched to corrections internship sites, those who applied but did not match to corrections internships, and those who completed internships in other settings all remains unknown and awaits further investigation.

For the future, developing an understanding of intern selection and correctional intern competencies will be important. Given our findings on differences (GRE scores) and similarities (GPA) between schools that have and have not had a match for a BOP internship, this issue of intern selection warrants much closer attention in future research. More information is needed on the academic and personality characteristics that correctional internship program coordinators believe are central in selecting corrections interns (Malesky & Croysdale, 2009; Power, Robins, Watkins, Rourke, & Alderfer, 2011). In addition, much more needs to be done to link correctional intern duties to the collage of competencies required for full and effective clinical practice in corrections. We now know who these students are, where they come from, and where they go. However, questions remain about the services they provide and how often they provide them.

Future research will benefit from an expanded human resource management approach. The influence of prison social climate can profoundly influence decisions to seek or accept employment within an organization. Given their emergent professional identities, an analysis of the social climate at correctional internship training facilities and later hiring outcomes would be beneficial. In addition, each program’s culture provides distinct and different expectations, attitudes, ideologies, rules, and traditions concerning training, job seeking, and hiring (Henderson, 2009). These are each worth considering. Future studies would benefit from data on student perceptions, training satisfaction, and more traditional measures—such as organizational commitment, stress, and coping—as well as the attitudes and job satisfaction of the internship program coordinators themselves (e.g., Callahan, Collins, & Klonoff, 2010; S. Camp, 1994; Garland, McCarty, & Zhao, 2009; Minor, Wells, Angel, & Matz, 2011). Finally, the relationship of internship to workforce retention is worthy of future investigation, as is the comparison of those who hire into corrections work without prior criminal justice training and those who hire in with such prior exposure.

Overall, our findings suggest that there is no one particular type of school, program, degree offering, or geographic location that serves as the core pathway into this line of training or work. Correctional work is open, we believe, to all, and ample opportunity exists across the country to “select in.” Correctional training is growing into a mainstream training setting for many, including those in state departments of corrections (American Correctional Association, 2011) and those within international jurisdictions (Olver et al., 2011).

In 1930, the correctional practice and research team Sheldon and Eleanore T. Glueck offered this edict to the emerging field of corrections: “The penal institution offers an excellent field for young psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and clergymen . . . some means must be found to attract earnest and capable workers to this much neglected missionary field at our very door” (p. 319). Now, more than 80 years later, correctional mental health administrators and human resource managers can take solace in knowing how to meet this challenge. When earnest and capable clinicians share what they know about providing clinical services to offenders, equally earnest and capable students appear. For a significant portion of these students, being part of a shared learning community where the work is challenging and the rewards are deep, the call of public service in corrections is irresistible. This process of attraction seems to bring a knowing knock at our doors.

Footnotes

Authors’ Note:

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Department of Justice or the Federal Bureau of Prisons. We thank Sheena Stapleton and Katherine Patterson for their contributions and Thomas Fagan and Robert Ax, who laid cornerstones for the work. We direct our affection to the numerous internship program coordinators, clinical supervisors, chief psychologists, and corrections administrators who have generously served as mentors for the students described in this article. This article is dedicated to the spirit of collaboration that can be fostered through strong mentorship.

Notes

Philip R. Magaletta, PhD, is Clinical Training Coordinator for the Psychology Services Branch, Federal Bureau of Prisons. He has taught in the School of Education at Johns Hopkins University and has lectured around the United States. A graduate of University of Scranton, Magaletta earned his MA from Loyola College in Maryland and his PhD in clinical psychology from St. Louis University. His current interests include correctional mental health service delivery and workforce development, addictions counseling, spirituality, and telehealth.

Marc W. Patry, PhD, MLS, is an associate professor of psychology at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He has a master of legal studies and a PhD in social psychology from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His current interests include teaching and learning, correctional psychology, and the social psychology of criminal investigations.

John C. Norcross, PhD, ABPP, is a professor of psychology and Distinguished University Fellow at the University of Scranton, an adjunct professor of psychiatry at State University of New York Upstate Medical University, and a clinical psychologist in part-time practice. He earned his baccalaureate from Rutgers University, earned his doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Rhode Island, and completed his internship at the Brown University School of Medicine. His most recent books include Psychotherapy Relationships that Work, Clinician’s Guide to Evidence-Based Practice in Mental Health and Addictions, Leaving It at the Office: Psychotherapist Self-Care, Insider’s Guide to Graduate Programs in Clinical and Counseling Psychology, and Systems of Psychotherapy: A Transtheoretical Analysis, now in its seventh edition.

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