Developmental Consequences of Incarceration
(Hanover Prison Study)

Flyer (description and first results)   75,48 KB

Dr. Daniela Hosser (Head of the project)
Dipl.-Päd. Verena Boxberg
Dipl.-Math. Stefan Markus Giebel, M.A.
Oliver Lauterbach, Sozialpsychologe M.A.
Dipl.-Soz. Anabel Taefi

Project Coordination 
Felicitas Saßnick (phone: +49 (0)511 / 34836 21; mobile: +49 175 / 7797665)

Student Research Assistants 
Natalie Hambitzer, Daniela Kolberg

Former Staff Members 
Dr. Christiane Bosold
Dr. Michael Windzio
Dipl. Soz.-Wiss. Stefan Raddatz

1/2004 - 6/2009 Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

This subproject, which is a follow-up of the preceeding project "The Consequences of Incarceration", investigates the effects of juvenile imprisonment on individual and social development within the context of a longitudinal research design. The central issue thereby is to find protective factors and risk conditions for the further development of the juveniles, who are released from jail. On this purpose development of reported and unreported delinquency, and individual and social conditions of legal probation will be investigated. Both, criteria of social integration (social relationships, partnership, work place etc.) and parameters of individually successful development (among other things also personal identity, mental and physical health) should be covered. Particular attention is paid to the significance and role of the preceding sentence for the further development.

At first, it is planned to investigate the issues of legal probation, frequency, gravidity and rate of a new imprisonment and crime for the whole sample (N=2405). The indicators for registered probation (taken from the Central Federal Register) will be combined with the information about unregistered crimes given by the participants at the personal interviews. Furthermore, development of personal identity, well-being, and developmental aims and orientations will be observed. The criteria of social integration (job, partnership and family/children, income, working quality and perspectives, dwelling, debts, social contacts, subjective social involvement and support), health (drug addiction, alcoholism, mental health, well-being), and especially criteria of individual development (life satisfaction, normative attitude, resources, personal developmental aims and perspectives) will be recorded again.

In the next stage, individual legal or delinquent behaviour should then be explained with regard to several aspects, namely

• individual personal features (e.g., personality, intelligence, individual and social coping resources, mental health at the beginning of incarceration, delinquency, social pre-history),
• changes during imprisonment (e.g., aspects of self-image and identity, social involvement, mental well-being, normative orientation),
• measures applied during imprisonment (e.g., social measures, education, disciplinary actions, change of the custody institution, therapy; these measures should be recorded through of the prisoners' personal files) and their interaction with individual parameters and
• through the social context after prison release and their interaction with individual parameters.

In order to explain deviant behaviour after the first incarceration different criminological and psychological theories were considered and thereby examined. This concerns especially the consideration of diverse types of development. The relevant biographical conditions (e.g., experiences of violence in childhood, hyperactivity symptoms in childhood etc.) have already been gathered in the preceding project. They can now be combined with the conditions of development during and after imprisonment. This enables the explanation of the so far only insufficiently investigated question of the possible decrease of the influence of primary socialisation experiences upon the further development.

On the methodological level, three approaches are combined: along with a personal interview, the objective progress of the first imprisonment (for ex. measures, educational and treatment plans, change of the custody institution) should be recorded by gathering the data on legal probation from the Central Federal Register and by analysing the prisoners' personal files. Information from a number of interviews with the participants (from the preceding project) as well as from other projects (e.g., from the questioning of the prison personnel) are already at disposal.

Publications in English

• Greve, W. (1998). The consequences of prisonization for juveniles - a theoretical and methodological framework for research (KFN-Forschungsberichte Nr. 74). Hanover: Criminological Research Institute.
• Greve, W. (2001). Human development, successful. Psychological conceptions. In N.J. Smelser & P.B. Baltes (Eds.-in-Chief), International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences (Vol. 10, pp. 6970-6974). Oxford, UK: Elsevier Sciences.
• Greve, W. (2001). Imprisonment of juveniles and adolescents: Deficits and demands for developmental research. Applied Developmental Science, 5, 21-36.
• Greve, W. (2002). Aggression and violence by juveniles and adolescents: From developmental to integrative perspectives. International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development Newsletter, 42, 1-3.
• Greve, W. & Enzmann, D. (2003). Self-esteem maintenance among incarcerated young males. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 27, 12-20.
• Greve, W., Enzmann, D. & Hosser, D. (2001). The stabilization of self-esteem among incarcerated adolescents: Processes of accommodation and immunization. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 45, 749-768.
• Greve, W., Hosser, D. & Bosold, C. (2006). Self-harm of juvenile and young adult prison inmates: Conditions and consequences. In G. E. Dear (Ed.), Preventing suicide and other self-harm in prison (pp. 177-186). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Hosser, D., Raddatz, S. & Windzio, M. (2007). Child maltreatment, revictimization and violent behavior. Violence and Victims, 22, 318-333.
• Hosser, D., Windzio, M. & Greve, W. (2008). Guilt and shame as predictors of recidivism. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 35, 138-152.
• Lauterbach, O. & Hosser, D. (2007). Assessing empathy in prisoners: A shortened version of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. Swiss Journal of Psychology, 66, 91-101.
• Windzio, M. (2006). Is there a deterrent effect of pains of imprisonment? The impact of "social costs" of first incarceration on the hazard rate of recidivism. Punishment & Society, 8, 341-364.
• Windzio, M. (2007). Predicting violence among incarcerated juvenile offenders. The role of strain as a result from fear of fellow inmates. Hamburg Review of Social Sciences, 2, 1-20.

Presentations at International Conferences and Workshops

• Bosold, C. (2005). Motivation to Change and Volitional Competence as Predictors for Individual and Social Development after Incarceration (abstract). Paper presented at the 9th European Congress of Psychology in Granada, Spain (7th of July).
• Bosold, C., Hosser, D., Greve, W. & Enzmann, D. (2005). Consequences of Incarceration. The Hanover Prison Study (abstract). Paper presented at the 14th World Congress of Criminology in Philadelphia, USA (10th of August).
• Bosold, C. & Lauterbach, O. (2006). Officially registered and self-reported recidivism of youth prison inmates in Germany. Paper presented at the 15th World Congress of Criminology in Stockholm, Sweden (16th of June).
• Boxberg, V. & Hosser, D. (2008). Treatment in youth correctional facilities. Oral Presentation at the 8th European Congress of Criminology, Edinburgh (5th of September).
• Giebel, S. (2008). Relapse of juvenile offenders. Oral Presentation at the Stockholm Criminology Symposium (18th of June).
• Giebel, S. (2008). The influence of the socioeconomic situation at the time of release on relapse and the speed of recidivism. Oral Presentation at the Policing in Central and Eastern Europe, Ljubljana (25th of September).
• Hosser, D. (2004). Conduct problems in childhood as a predictor of problems during detention (abstract). Paper presented at the 4th Annual Conference of the European Society of Criminology in Amsterdam, Netherlands (27th of August).
• Hosser, D. (2005). Developmental consequences of youth imprisonment [Entwicklungsfolgen der Jugendstrafe]. Invited paper at the 17th Zuercher Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Symposium [17. Zürcher Kinder- und Jugendpsychiatrisches Symposium] in Zuerich, Switzerland (24th of September).
• Hosser, D., Windzio, M. & Greve, W. (2005). Shame, Guilt, and Delinquency. A longitudinal study of young inmates (abstract) [Scham, Schuldgefühle und Delinquenz. Eine Längsschnittuntersuchung junger Strafgefangener]. Paper at the 11th Working Conference of Legal Psychology Researchers of the German Psychological Association [11. Arbeitstagung der Fachgruppe Rechtspsychologie der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Psychologie] in Bern, Switzerland (22nd of September).
• Raddatz, S. (2004). Drug abuse in youth prisons (abstract). Paper presented at the 4th Annual Conference of the European Society of Criminology in Amsterdam, Netherlands (27th of August).
• Windzio, M. (2004). The impact of "social costs" of imprisonments on recidivism. Evidence from event history analysis (abstract). Paper presented at the 4th Annual Conference of the European Society of Criminology in Amsterdam, Netherlands (27th of August).
• Windzio, M. (2005). The social embeddedness of pains of imprisonment. About the impact of norm orientation on social isolation, being afraid of fellow inmates, and violence among incarcerated juvenile offenders (abstract). Paper presented at the 14th World Congress of Criminology in Philadelphia, USA (9th of August).
• Windzio, M. (2005). Is there a deterrent effect of pains of imprisonment? The impact of 'social costs' of first incarceration on the hazard rate of recidivism (abstract). Paper presented at the 4th Annual Conference of the European Society of Criminology in Cracow, Poland (3rd of September).
• Windzio, M. (2006). Misconduct of juvenile offenders in prison: Are ethnic German immigrants from the former USSR more violent? A logistic multilevel panel model using data from prisoner's personal files. Paper presented at the 16th ISA World Congress of Sociology, Durban, South Africa (25th of July).