Socio-Demographic Correlates of Prisoners’ Psychological Wellbeing in Wamba Correctional Service Centre Nasarawa State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study investigated the influence of sociodemographic variables such as marital status and length of stay or duration of imprisonment on inmates psychological wellbeing in Wamba Correctional Services Centre, Nasarawa State, Nigeria. The participants consisted of 98 male prison inmates (never married 32; Married 66) from the Correctional Service Centre, Wamba which is the area for this study. The 98 participants responded to the Ryff’s psychological wellbeing scale. Institutional approval was obtained from the correctional institution authorities. Two hypotheses were proposed and tested by means of simple statistical techniques (t-test) using mean and standard deviation and one-way ANOVA for the data analysis. Result of the t-test showed a non-statistically significant difference between the single and married inmates within the correctional centre environment in term of psychological wellbeing. This implied that single inmates do not have a better psychological wellbeing when compared to married inmates. The result from the one-way ANOVA revealed a non-statistically significant difference between the psychological wellbeing of inmates serving long sentence and other inmates (short sentence and awaiting trial). Hence, the two hypotheses were rejected. The study concluded that prisoners’ psychological wellbeing has nothing to do with their socio-demographic variables. Based on the findings, the study recommended that correctional services centres should be more habitable and accommodating so that inmates can continue to have or develop a better psychological wellbeing while serving their terms of imprisonment.