Author(s)

Erik Søndenaa^1,2*, Marit Wangsholm³, Eirik Roos^4,5

¹Forensic Department Brøset, St. Olav’s Hospital, Trondheim, Norway.
²Faculty of Medicine, Regional Centre for Child and Youth Mental Health and Child Welfare, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway.
³Correctional Services, Region North, Trondheim, Norway.
⁴Department of Public Health and General Practice, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway.
⁵Municipal of Trondheim, Trondheim, Norway.

Offenders with reading and writing difficulties have a vulnerable status in prison because they depend on some forms of assistance for communication. A large number of studies have confirmed this, but prisoners’ experiences of such communication problems have been sparsely studied. Three male juvenile delinquents were interviewed about their communication problems and how they deal with these challenges in the criminal justice system. The common feature of these three cases was reading problems, but their personal characteristics were quite different, suggesting that support should be adapted individually. It remains however that the language used in the criminal justice system is too complicated and several adjustments to written communication need to be made in order to empower prisoners.

Reading and Writing Disabilities, Correctional Settings, Juvenile Delinquents, Communication Problems, Qualitative Research

Søndenaa, E. , Wangsholm, M. and Roos, E. (2016) Case Characteristics of Prisoners with Communication Problems. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 4, 31-37. doi: 10.4236/jss.2016.44005.