Do Prisoners With Reintegration Needs Receive Relevant Professional Assistance?

Ex-prisoners often experience barriers to successful transition regarding employment, finances, housing, healthcare, and valid identification. Based on the Offender Management framework, assistance during imprisonment by prison- and community-based professionals is considered key in preparing prisoners for release regarding these reintegration needs. Therefore, the current study examines the degree to which prisoners with reintegration needs are assisted by relevant professionals. We used self-reported data from 4,309 prisoners of the Dutch Prison Visitation Study, part of the Life in Custody Study. The results showed that prisoners have more contact with prison-based than with community-based professionals, but that the latter relatively often have contact with prisoners with related reintegration needs. Yet, a specific group of prisoners with reintegration needs remains invisible. Prisoners with complex, health, or valid identification needs, and prisoners in the start or pre-release phase require further attention. It is discussed what can be learned from these findings on Dutch Offender Management practices.

An ecological analysis of prison overcrowding and suicide rates in England and Wales, 2000-2014.

Prisoners are at a greatly increased risk of suicides compared to the general population. Differences in suicide risk can be partly explained by individual risk factors, but the contribution of prison characteristics remains unclear. Overcrowded prisons have higher suicide rates, but this may be related to prison function, security level, population size and turnover. The aim of the current study was to investigate the contribution of each of these prison characteristics to suicide rates, using data from the Ministry of Justice for adult prisons in England and Wales from 2000 to 2014. Negative binomial regression analysis showed that larger population size, higher turnover, higher security and public management were associated with higher suicide rates. When controlling for these factors, overcrowding was not found to be related to suicide rates. Questions remain about the causal mechanisms underlying variation in prison suicides and the impact of the lived experience of overcrowding. Further research is needed to examine the relative contribution of prison and prisoner characteristics to suicides.

Making Sense of Imprisonment: Narratives of Posttraumatic Growth Among Female Prisoners.

The literature on prison effects is characterised by a focus on negative outcomes. There is a need to acknowledge individual differences. The theme of posttraumatic growth emerged in a subsample of interviews from a study on psychological adjustment in prison. The narratives of this subsample (six female, first-time prisoners) were used to explore the phenomenon of posttraumatic growth during imprisonment. It is argued that the initial shock of incarceration challenged these prisoners' assumptive worlds, but they managed to overcome this crisis by finding meaning in the prison experience and using it as an opportunity for personal development. This facilitated a positive reconstruction of their identity. The potential implications of posttraumatic growth for desistance are discussed.

A Multilevel Analysis of the Relationship Between Cell Sharing, Staff-Prisoner Relationships, and Prisoners' Perceptions of Prison Quality.

Prisons worldwide operate under crowded conditions, in which prisoners are forced to share a cell. Few studies have looked at the relationship between cell sharing and the quality of prison life in Europe. This study aims to fill this gap with a multilevel analysis on the link between cell sharing and quality of prison life, using results from a Dutch prisoner survey. Findings show that cell sharing is associated with lower perceived prison quality, which is partially mediated by reduced quality of staff-prisoner relationships. Cell sharing thus undermines the Dutch penological philosophy, which considers staff-prisoner relationships to be at the heart of prisoner treatment and rehabilitation. It is recommended that prisoners are held in single rather than double cells.