An Assessment of the Moos Correctional Institutions Environment Scale
| DOI | 10.1177/002242788201900208 |
| Author | James Boudouris,Kevin N. Wright |
| Date | 01 July 1982 |
| Published date | 01 July 1982 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
255
AN
ASSESSMENT
OF
THE
MOOS
CORRECTIONAL
INSTITUTIONS
ENVIRONMENT
SCALE
KEVIN
N.
WRIGHT
JAMES
BOUDOURIS
The
Correctional
Institutions
Environment
Scale
has
become,
in
recent
years,
one
of
the
most
popular
indicators
of
life
within
penal
organizations.
However,
recent
challenges
by
industrial
psychologists
to
the
validity
of
the
concept
of
organizational
social
climate
and
the
lack
of
theoretical
specification
associated
with
the
concept
raise
important
questions
about
the
CIES.
The
instrument
was
designed
to
measure
nine
subscales
which
cluster
into
three
primary
dimensions.
Review
of
Moos’s
developmental
work
does
not
indicate
that
these
factors
bear
any
relation
to
reality.
This
study
was
initiated
to
determine
what
the
CIES
actually
measures.
Contrary
to
Moos’s
claim,
the
subscales
are
found
to
be
intercorrelated.
Subsequent
factor
analyses
do
not
provide
substantial
support
for
the
subscale
structure
described
by
Moos.
Rather,
many
of
the
questionnaire
items
are
found
to
be
unrelated
to
any
other
item,
and
a
large
amount
of
"noise"
is
found
in
the
instrument.
The
items
of
the
CIES
are
found
to
form
three
factors,
but
not
the
three
primary
dimensions
suggested
by
Moos.
These
analyses,
therefore,
fail
to
validate
the
CIES.
It
is
concluded
that
further
theoretical
specification
concerning
correctional
climate
is
needed,
and
there
must
be
significant
modifications
in
the
way
the
correctional
environment
is
measured.
Possibly
the
most
widely
used
instrument
to
measure
the
social
setting
within
prisons
is
the
Correctional
Institutions
Environment
Scale
(CIES),
which
was
developed
by
Rudolph
Moos
in
the
late
1960s
(for
a
discussion
of
the
instrument
and
its
development,
see
Moos,
1968,
1974,
1975).
It
has
been
used
routinely
by
the
Federal
Bureau
of
Pris-
ons
to
evaluate
the
social
climate
of
federal
correctional
institutions.
Duffee
(1975)
used
the
CIES
in
his
study
of
Connecticut
prisons,
and
it
was
used
by
Wenk
and
Frank
(1973)
in
their
assessment
of
a
federal
prison
in
Oklahoma.
The
instrument
was
also
used
by
Daniels
(1973)
in
California,
Tupker
and
Pointer
(1975)
in
Iowa,
Waters
(1977)
in
Geor-
gia,
Young
(1973)
in
Kentucky,
and
Wright
(1979)
in
Pennsylvania,
to
name
just
a
few
studies.
It
has
even
been
put
to
use
by
Jones
and
Cornes
(1977)
in
the
United
Kingdom
and
was
translated
into
Slovene
to
be
used
by
Skaler
(1974)
in
Yugoslavia.
KEVIN
N.
WRIGHT:
Assistant
Professor
of
Criminal
Justice,
Center
for
Social
Analysis,
State
University
of
New
York
at
Binghamton.
JAMES
BOUDOURIS:
Cor-
rectional
Evaluation
Program
Director,
Iowa
Division
of
Adult
Corrections,
Des
Moines.
256
The
CIES
is
a
popular
instrument
because
it
provides
a
relatively
simple
way
of
determining
what
life
is
like
within
a
prison.
The
easily
administered
questionnaire
measures
the
perception
of
both
staff
mem-
bers
and
residents
of
the
environment,
or
social
climate,
inside
prisons.
As
described
by
Moos
(1968:36),
the
instrument
is
intended
to
provide
an
&dquo;assessment
of
the
social
milieu
of
an
institution&dquo;
which
could
be
used
&dquo;to
change
and
improve
the
program’s
living
and
working
environ-
ment.&dquo;
There
are
several
forms
of
the
instrument,
but
the
one
most
commonly
used,
Form
R,
contains
ninety
True/False
items
which
are
grouped
into
nine
subscales:
Involvement,
Support,
Autonomy,
Ex-
pressiveness,
Personal
Problem
Orientation,
Practical
Orientation,
Pro-
gram
Clarity,
Order
and
Organization,
and
Social
Control.
These
dimensions
are
thought
to
reflect
some
of
the
important
aspects
of
the
social
environment
that
influence
directly
the
behavior
of
its
members.
The
instrument
has
been
used
to
distinguish
among
different
types
of
correctional
settings,
and
has
shown
that
different
settings
affect
such
factors
as
morale,
personality,
and
institutional
behavior.
Despite
the
scale’s
widespread
use
and
popularity,
its
validity,
with
respect
to
what
is
being
measured
by
the
questionnaire,’
remains
in
question.
This
problem
has
not
been
addressed
adequately
by
Moos
or
by
those
subsequently
using
the
instrument.
Table
1
lists
the
defini-
tions
of
the
nine
subscales.
Upon
close
examination
of
the
definitions,
it
appears
extremely
difficult
to
discern
the
differences
among
the
dimensions.
Selo,
in
her
review
(1976)
of
Evaluating
Correctional
and
Community
Settings
(Moos,
1975),
describes
the
problem
quite
clearly:
I
had
considerable
difficulty
in
disentangling
several
of
these
dimensions
and
this
was
not
made
easier
by
examining
the
individual
items.
Since
we
are
not
given
correlations
between
all
the
items
or
with
correlations
be-
tween
the
subscale
scores,
it
is
difficult
to
determine
the
extent
to
which
the
dimensions
are
really
separate
(p.
349).
If
similar
items
measure
different
aspects
of
climate,
then
it
is
difficult
to
understand
exactly
what
is
being
measured.
If
the
subscales
of
Au-
tonomy
and
Expressiveness,
for
example,
are
highly
correlated,
we
do
not
know
whether
there
are
two
dimensions
or
possibly
just
one,
which
might
be
termed
self-actualization.
There
may
in
fact
be
two
factors
which
are
causally
or
spuriously
related,
yielding
high
correlations,
or
the
two
factors
may
simply
reflect
one
dimension.
In
order
to
under-
stand
what
is
being
measured,
the
factor
structure
of
the
instrument
must
be
known.
Some
proof
that
the
a
priori
subscales
exist
must
be
given
and
their
interrelations
specified.
This
very
basic
problem,
which
is
faced
in
the
development
of
all
psycho-sociometric
instruments,
must
be
addressed
on
two
levels:
theo-
1.
The
issue
of
validity
and
reliability
was
raised
and
explored
in
Wright
(1979).
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