An Assessment of the Moos Correctional Institutions Environment Scale

Abstract

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.