RT Article
T1 Bearing the Weight of Imprisonment: The Relationship Between Prison Climate and Well-Being
JF Criminal justice and behavior
VO 46
IS 10
SP 1385
OP 1404
A1 Ginneken, Esther F. J. C. van 1987-
A2 Palmen, Hanneke
A2 Bosma, Anouk 1985-
A2 Sentse, Miranda
LA English
YR 2019
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1703718003
AB Little is known about the relative influence of shared and individual perceptions of prison climate on adjustment to incarceration. This study investigated the relationship between prison climate and well-being among a sample of 4,538 adults incarcerated in the Netherlands. Prison climate dimensions were considered both as prison unit-level variables and as individual-level perceptions. Multilevel analysis results showed that most variance for well-being is found at the individual rather than the unit level. This implies that it does not make much of a difference for well-being in which prison unit someone resides. Positive effects of prison climate on well-being were primarily found for individual perceptions of prison climate, rather than for the aggregate unit measures. More research is needed to determine whether this finding holds true in other countries. The findings confirm the importance of disentangling the contribution of prison climate at the individual and group level.
K1 Prison climate
K1 Subjective well-being
K1 Psychological distress
K1 Quality of prison life
K1 Mental health
DO 10.1177/0093854819867373