Lutz Maximilian, Streb Judith, Dudeck Manuela
Department of Forensic Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Ulm University, Ulm, Germany.
Front Psychiatry. 2019 Nov 7;10:818. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00818. eCollection 2019.
Serving a long-term prison sentence places a heavy psychological burden on inmates. The concept of salutogenesis and the psychological stress model developed by Lazarus indicate that people can handle difficult situations if they are able to use their resources in a way that makes them feel confident that things will work out as well as can reasonably be expected. However, during long-term imprisonment inmates often have restricted access to potential coping strategies, such as close and trusting relationships. Because of migration-related difficulties, such as poor local language skills and experiences of discrimination, migrants in long-term imprisonment probably experience even more psychological distress than native citizens. The aim of the study was to compare the amount of psychological distress in migrants and native citizens in long-term imprisonment. In addition, we investigated whether any aspects of living conditions in prison reduce psychological distress. From the 1,101 participants in the European Union (EU) project "Long-term imprisonment and the issue of human rights in member states of the EU," we chose 49 migrants, defined as people born in a different country from where they were imprisoned, and 49 native citizens matched for prison, age (+/-5 years), and index offense. The participants completed a questionnaire that included the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) and 128 items from a revised version of the Mare-Balticum prison survey. Data were analyzed by multilevel regression models. Native citizens reported higher psychological distress than migrants. However, multilevel regression analyses showed that poor relationships with fellow inmates and increased fear of crime were significant predictors of increased psychological distress in migrants only. Being a migrant by itself does not lead to increased psychological distress in prisoners. This finding can be explained by the so-called healthy immigrant effect. However, migrants experience psychological distress when prisons are not safe and when they do not have close and trusting relationships with fellow inmates.
长期服刑给囚犯带来了沉重的心理负担。健康生成概念以及拉扎勒斯提出的心理应激模型表明,如果人们能够以一种让他们有信心事情会如合理预期那样发展的方式利用自身资源,那么他们就能应对困难处境。然而,在长期监禁期间,囚犯往往难以获得潜在的应对策略,比如亲密且相互信任的关系。由于与移民相关的困难,如当地语言能力差和遭受歧视的经历,长期被监禁的移民可能比本国公民经历更多的心理困扰。本研究的目的是比较长期被监禁的移民和本国公民的心理困扰程度。此外,我们还调查了监狱生活条件的哪些方面能减轻心理困扰。在欧盟项目“欧盟成员国的长期监禁与人权问题”的1101名参与者中,我们选取了49名移民(定义为出生国与被监禁国不同的人)以及49名在监狱、年龄(±5岁)和索引犯罪方面相匹配的本国公民。参与者完成了一份问卷,其中包括简明症状量表(BSI)以及波罗的海监狱调查修订版中的128个项目。数据通过多层回归模型进行分析。本国公民报告的心理困扰程度高于移民。然而,多层回归分析表明,与狱友关系不佳以及对犯罪的恐惧增加仅是移民心理困扰加剧的显著预测因素。身为移民本身并不会导致囚犯心理困扰增加。这一发现可以用所谓的健康移民效应来解释。然而,当监狱不安全且他们与狱友没有亲密且相互信任的关系时,移民会经历心理困扰。