Original Article

Prison Types and Inmates’ Psychosocial Profiles: A Comparison

between Medium and Maximum Security Prison
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Tajudeen Abiola, Aisha Y Armiyau1, Laipo Adepoju2, Owoidoho Udofia3

Department of Medical Services, Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Kaduna, 1Department of Psychiatry, Forensic Unit, University of Jos Teaching Hospital, Jos,
2
Department of Psychiatry, Federal Medical Center, Bida, 3Department of Psychiatry, University of Calabar Teaching Hospital, University of Calabar,
Calabar, Nigeria
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Abstract
Studies on the impacts the type of prison’s environment had on the psychosocial well‑being of their inmates were few. To contribute more
study on this, the current study explored the psychosocial health profiles of inmates and the type of prison environment by comparing inmates’
psychosocial profiles of a medium security prison to a maximum security correctional facility located in north central Nigeria. Participants were
male inmates of medium security prison located in Bida, Niger‑State and Jos maximum security facility in Plateau‑State. All the participants
filled the study instruments (i.e., a sociodemographic questionnaire, the ten‑item personality inventory, resilience scale, and Oslo Social
Support Scale) after obtaining informed consent from them. There was a significant positive association of prison types with resilience and
social support which was reversed for spirituality. The multivariate analysis showed that inmates of medium security prison had significantly
higher resilience and social support scores compared to those in maximum security correctional facilities. There was no difference in the five
dimensions of personality among the inmates and in their experience of spirituality. The findings add to extant knowledge on the impact that the
level of “indigenous” deprivations had on inmates psychosocial wellness factors. The study hence advocated to the department of correctional
services to modify the indigenous measures that promote resilience and social support without compromising security.

Keywords: Inmates’ psychosocial profile, personality traits, prisons’ types, resilience social support, spirituality

Introduction to change, the inmates’ preprison condition is often amenable

The three modern purposes of imprisonment are punishment,
deterrence, and rehabilitation.[1] All these objectives embraced
psychosocial well‑being in their pursuit. This perhaps may
explain why about half or more of all the factors considered in
determining inmates’ placement into any type of correctional
facility included their psychosocial profile of wellness or
otherwise. [2] The attention placed on psychosocial (un)
wellness is to facilitate adjustment to the prison’s environment
and its purposes. Two factors identified in literature to
influence imprisonment adjustment were prisons’ indigenous
characteristics, and inmates imported variables.[3] The former
factor is the degree of deprivation imposed from the descriptive
grading of prisons as minimum, medium, or maximum
security, and the latter was related to the inmates’ preprison
features such as age, educational level attained, employment
status, availability of social support, drug abusing habit, and
personality traits. While the prisons’ grade appeared immutable
and can be improved on.
Despite the modifiability of inmates’ personal features and the
emphasis on their psychosocial health profiles, it is the nature
of the offense that serves as the main determinant of placement
into any of the different prisons’ types. After placement comes
adjustment with consequent psychosocial (un)wellness based
on degree of prison’s “indigenous” deprivation. [3] In this
respect, a study reported more suicide rate in high‑security
prisons compared to low‑security correctional facilities.[4] This
reechoed the impacts the type of prison environment, and the
associated context had on the psychosocial well‑being of the
inmates. To contribute more study on the psychosocial health
Address for correspondence: Dr. Tajudeen Abiola,
Medical Services Unit, Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Federal
Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Kaduna, Nigeria.
E‑mail: abiolatob@yahoo.com

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DOI: How to cite this article: Abiola T, Armiyau AY, Adepoju L, Udofia O.
10.4103/jfsm.jfsm_47_17 Prison types and inmates’ psychosocial profiles: A comparison between
medium and maximum security prison. J Forensic Sci Med 2017;3:128-31.

128 © 2017 Journal of Forensic Science and Medicine | Published by Wolters Kluwer - Medknow
 Abiola, et al.: Prison types and inmates’ psychosocial profiles
profiles of inmates and the type of prisons’ environment, this
study compared inmates’ psychosocial health profiles of a
medium security prison to a maximum security correctional
facility both located in north central Nigeria.
Methodology
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Study participants and procedures
Participants were male inmates of two prisons located in
North Central Nigeria. The first was a medium security
prison located in Bida, Niger‑State and the second, situated
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in Jos, Plateau‑State was a maximum security facility. All
the participants filled the study instruments after obtaining
informed consent from them.
Study instruments
The study instruments consist of self‑developed
sociodemographic questionnaire, the ten‑item personality
inventory (TIPI), resilience scale (RS), Oslo Social Support
Scale (OSS), and spirituality involvement and belief scale‑brief.
The ten‑item personality inventory
This TIPI has two descriptors for each item representing a pole
of each of the five‑factor personality dimensions of extroversion,
agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and
openness to new experience. Each item on the TIPI is measured
on a 7‑point Likert scale ranging from 1 (disagree strongly)
to 7 (agree strongly).[5] The TIPI takes a minute to complete[6]
and had good psychometric properties compared with the
dimensions of the longer versions of the five‑factor model and
other measures such as anxiety, depression, and vulnerability to
stress.[5,6] The TIPI has also been used in Nigeria and translated
into Hausa, one of the main languages in Nigeria.[7]
Resilience scale
RS is a 25‑item measure of psychological resilience which
as a personal trait help individuals experience less harm
from difficult challenges and bring about good functioning
thereafter. RS has good validity and reliability (Cronbach’s α
range of 0.72–0.94) from several studies[8‑10] and it is scored
on a Likert scale of 1–7 grouping respondents total scores into
low, moderate, or high resilience. In this study, the RS was used
to report the trait resilience of the participants, by categorizing
them into high or low resilience characteristics as designated
by the originator of this measuring scale.
Oslo Social Support Scale
The brief OSS‑3 measures social functioning as a good predictor
of mental health.[11] It measures both the structural and functional
aspects of social support by reporting the number of people the
respondent feels close to, the interest and concern shown by others,
and the ease of obtaining practical help from others.[12] Its brevity
and normative data are the strength of this measure over its less
documented reliability (Cronbach’s alpha of 0.58–0.60).[11‑13]
Spiritual Involvement and Beliefs Scale‑Revised
The short and revised version of the 39‑item Spiritual
Involvement and Beliefs Scale (SIBS), is a 22‑item instrument
Journal of Forensic Science and Medicine ¦ Volume 3 ¦ Issue 3 ¦ July-September 2017
that measures various areas of spirituality such as meaning,
beliefs, acceptance, values, hope, fulfillment, gratitude,
meditation, prayer, joy, love, relationship (health‑wise and
interpersonally), connection to nature, service, spiritual
experiences and writings, serenity, and spiritual growth.[14]
This short and revised version (SIBS‑Revised [SIBS‑R]) had
four factorially described subscales of core spirituality
(i.e., the experience of connectedness to one’s life purpose),
spiritual perspective (i.e., existential depth), spiritual
humility (i.e., personal application of spirituality), and spiritual
insight (i.e., reflective acceptance of what cannot be changed).
SIBS‑R has been used by other researchers and found to have
good reliability (alpha = 0.83–0.92).[15] The SIBS‑R sum
scale concurrent validity with the five religiosity portions
of Duke Religiosity Scale from a pooled group ranged from
0.66‑0.80.[16] The Cronbach’s alpha for this study was 0.49.
Data analysis
Descriptive statistics was used to show the frequency
distributions of participants’ sociodemographic and
psychological variables. Pearson’s moment correlation
coefficients were used to demonstrate the relationship between
prison types and psychosocial variables of personality traits,
experience of spirituality, trait resilience, and characteristics
of available social support. A MANOVA was carried out to
determine the difference between the prison types (maximum
vs. medium), and participants pooled psychosocial variables.
All statistical analysis was two‑tailed at an alpha level of <0.05
except for the violations of Levene’s test of equality evaluated
at the level of <0.01.
Results
As shown in Table 1, the overall mean age of participants
was 28.33 years (standard deviation = 1.37). The majority
of participants in the medium security prison (92.98%)
were <35 years of age while those in the maximum security
facility (68.75%) were more than 35‑year‑old. This observation
was statistically significant (χ2 = 34.84; P < 0.01). There was
no statistical difference in the religious and marital status of
participants in both prisons.
The type of prison is reversely correlated with three of the five
personality dimensions (i.e., extraversion, conscientiousness,
and openness to experience) and spirituality and positively
correlated with the remaining two personality dimensions
(i.e., agreeableness and emotional stability), resilience
characteristics and level of social support. These correlations
were significant for spirituality, resilience, and social support
[Table 2].
The MANOVA analysis showed a significant difference
between the type of imprisonment’s deprivation (maximum
vs. medium security measures) on the participants when
considered jointly on their psychosocial variables (personality
dimensions, spirituality, resilience, and social support),
Wilk’s Lamda = 0.445, F(8,80) = 12.457, P < 0.01 and
partial ῆ2 = 0.56. A separate ANOVA was conducted for each
129
 Abiola, et al.: Prison types and inmates’ psychosocial profiles

dependent variable with each ANOVA evaluated at an alpha
level of 0.006 (i.e., 0.05/8). There was a significant difference
between the medium and maximum prisons’ deprivation
characteristics of participants on two of the eight components
of psychosocial profiles of inmates measured: resilience
F(1,87) = 48.93, P < 0.001 and partial ῆ2 = 0.36 and social
support F(1,87) = 30.39, P < 0.001 and partial ῆ2 = 0.26.
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facility. This seemed to reechoed the reported elevated suicide
rate in high‑security prisons compared to low correctional
facilities.[4] Hence, this study finding appeared to be offering
an explanation that the elevated suicide rate in high‑security
prison might be due to their low resilience profile and poor
social support characteristics. This is because suicide might
not only an indicator of violence leading to unnatural death but

There was not a significant difference between the medium
and maximum prisons’ deprivation characteristics of the
participants on the remaining psychosocial profiles measured
in this study: extraversion F(1,87) = 0.01, P = 0.919 and partial
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might also be an indicator of poor mental health functioning
which can be attributed to low resilience and social support.
Even though this study did not measure suicide among the
study participants, the above explanations seemed a plausible

ῆ2 = 0.00; agreeableness F(1,87) = 1.53, P = 0.220 and partial theory.

ῆ2 = 0.02; conscientiousness F(1,87) = 0.005, P = 0.946 and
partial ῆ2 = 0.00; emotional stability F(1,87) = 0.218, P = 0.642
and partial ῆ2 = 0.00; openness to experience F(1,87) = 0.553,
P = 0.459 and partial ῆ2 = 0.01; and spirituality F(1,87) = 6.834,
P = 0.073 and partial ῆ2 = 0.07. Table 3 shows that participants
in medium security prison had better resilience and social
support characteristics.
Discussion
This study aimed to add to existing studies on the psychosocial
health profiles of inmates as impacted by the degree
of correctional facilities’ deprivations according to the
imprisonment’s security grade. This study found that inmates
in medium security prison had higher resilience and social
support scores compared to those in maximum correctional
That the personality traits of participants and their experience
of spirituality were not significantly affected by the type of
prisons’ environments did suggest that correctional facilities’
security grade had no impact on some of the inmates’ imported
psychosocial health variables. The observations in term of
personality may be because of the traits measured that did not
include specifically psychopathy and other criminogenic traits.
However, the inverse relationship of the place of imprisonment
with conscientious did make a slight effort in the impact of
inmates’ criminogenic traits. We hoped that subsequent studies
will take these into consideration.
Spirituality even though was higher among inmates in
maximum security prison compared to the medium correctional
facility was not statistically significant after the multivariate
analysis. We speculated that the expected role of spirituality

Table 1: Sociodemographic characteristics of participants

Variables Place of imprisonment Place of imprisonment Statistics
Age group (%) Jos maximum security prison (26 [29.21]) Bida medium security prison (63 [70.79])
<35 years 4 (7.02) 53 (92.98) χ2=34.84*
35 years and above 22 (68.75) 10 (31.25) P=<0.01
Mean (28.33), SD (1.37) Mean (28.46), SD (1.24) Mean (28.27), SD (1.42)
Religion (%) Yates correction
Islam 5 (33.33) 10 (66.67) χ2=0.148
Christianity 21 (28.38) 53 (71.62) P=0.70
Marital status (%)
Single 12 (28.57) 30 (71.43) χ2=0.02
Married 14 (29.79) 33 (70.21) P=0.90
SD: Standard deviation; *=P<0.05

Table 2: Pearson’s moment correlation coefficients of inmates’ psychosocial variables with types of prison
Variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Mean SD
Place of imprisonment 1 ‑ ‑
Extraversion −0.011 1 3.94 1.37
Agreeableness 0.131 0.071 1 5.43 1.56
Conscientiousness −0.007 0.018 0.215* 1 4.98 1.50
Emotional stability 0.050 −0.024 0.419** 0.104 1 4.89 1.60
Open to experience −0.080 0.169 0.124 0.232* −0.118 1 4.95 1.34
Spirituality −0.270* −0.093 −0.275** −0.050 −0.121 −0.200 1 56.12 10.57
Resilience 0.600** 0.073 0.133 0.110 −0.007 0.011 −0.294** 1 123.49 27.37
Social support 0.509** 0.057 0.151 0.084 0.151 −0.038 0.049 0.217* 1 9.90 1.97
SD: Standard deviation; *=P<0.05; **=P<0.01

130 Journal of Forensic Science and Medicine ¦ Volume 3 ¦ Issue 3 ¦ July-September 2017
 Abiola, et al.: Prison types and inmates’ psychosocial profiles

punishment, deterrence, and rehabilitation especially in

Table 3: Means of psychosocial profiles according to the
high‑security prisons with low resilience and poor social
type of imprisonment
support.
Variables Place of imprisonment Place of
imprisonment Financial support and sponsorship
Personality Jos maximum security Bida medium security Nil.
prison (26 [29.21]) prison (63 [70.79])
Conflicts of interest
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Extraversion 3.96 (1.47) 3.93 (1.34)

Agreeableness 5.12 (1.62) 5.56 (1.53)
There are no conflicts of interest.
Conscientiousness 5.00 (1.59) 4.98 (1.47)
Emotional stability 4.77 (1.63) 4.94 (1.60) References
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Open to experience 5.12 (1.32) 4.88 (1.36)
Spirituality 60.54 (12.40) 54.30 (9.22)
Resilience 98.09 (32.28) 133.98 (16.14)
Social support 8.35 (1.81) 10.54 (1.66)
to offer better coping and hence more well‑being to inmates
in maximum security prison compared to those in medium
security facility may not be adaptive enough to modify their
guilt, channel new path in life for them and transform their
sense of loss of freedom[17] to wellness gain might be faulty.
Hence, the study pointed to the need to enrich the spiritual
experiences of all inmates to help facilitate the expected
adaptive coping and speculative consequent growth in
subjective wellness. A prospective investigation of this should
offer a procedural way(s) of achieving it.
This study was also limited by being cross‑sectional in nature
hereby preventing generalization of results finding to prisons
outside the region of study. Hence, studies from other regions
of Nigeria should be carried out to allow for comparison and
possible generalization of results finding. Moreover, such
future studies should preferable be longitudinal in nature.
Despite the limitations, our study is the first in Nigeria to
explore the impact of prisons’ types on the psychosocial
wellness of inmates.
Conclusion
The present study findings add to extant knowledge on
the impact that the level of imprisonment “indigenous”
deprivations had on inmates psychosocial wellness variables.
Our result showed that resilience and social support were two
of the eight variables tested that were significantly related to
inmates wellness and this was in favour of medium security
prison. The study hence advocated to the department of
correctional services to modify the indigenous measures that
promote resilience and social support without compromising
prison’s security. These should guide ongoing effort to reform
imprisonment toward achieving its core three mandate of
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Journal of Forensic Science and Medicine ¦ Volume 3 ¦ Issue 3 ¦ July-September 2017 131