Coping styles and prison experience as predictors of psychological well-being in male prisoners

Research investigating the effects of imprisonment on prisoners' psychological well-being has suggested that imprisonment does not have an adverse effect on their well-being. However, given inconsistency across studies, this finding cannot be considered conclusive. The present study sought to investigate this issue further through a comprehensive assessment of prisoner well-being including measures of self-esteem, depression, anxiety and subjective quality of life. Given their documented association with well-being in both community and prisoner populations, we also included assessment of coping styles. Findings regarding the association between well-being and prison-related variables such as length of sentence and time spent in prison have been particularly inconsistent. Thus, we also investigated these variables. Data collected from 81 Australian male prisoners, indicated that prisoners have significantly compromised psychological well-being and that coping style appears to be more salient for prisoner well-being than prison-related variables. However, we argue that it would be overly simplistic to conclude from these findings that the prison experience is not playing a part in the compromised well-being of prisoners.