The inmate’s emotional state facing the deprivation of liberty

Abstract

Prisionalization requires an adaptation, both physical and psychological, that the inmate in a penitentiary institution must carry out for his adaptation to the prison context since, when he is deprived of liberty, there is an extremely abrupt change in his life. Thus, many and varied are the psychological effects suffered by subjects after a time residing in a penitentiary institution. In this sense, this study aims to analyze both the effects of imprisonment arouses, fundamentally in terms of the emotional states, in the individual and the impact that this experience generates on his development. For this, an ad hoc questionnaire of own elaboration has been used, made up of 46 items (multiple choice, Likert type and dichotomous), applied to a sample (n=45) made up of subjects residing in a Social Insertion Center, that is, a center with an open regime (an intermediate state between the execution of custodial sentences and reincorporation into society) whose objective is to enhance the subject capacities for social insertion. The results reveal that, compared to an ordinary closed penitentiary, the open regime implies a more positive perspective for users, reflecting on both factors such as social support, emotional control, and also on emotional states such as perceived levels of anxiety, stress and fear.