Introduction
Life in prison has undergone substantial changes as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Comprehensive national and international studies have shown that regulations implemented for social distancing purposes have significantly restricted the lives of inmates across various domains, including social contact, therapeutic opportunities, and release preparations (Dünkel and Morgenstern
2020; Novisky et al.
2020; Schlebusch
2020; Schliehe et al.
2022). These changes were linked to declines in both the psychological and physiological well-being of inmates (Baier et al.
2022; Drenkhahn
2022; Suhomlinova et al.
2022). Likewise, the legal adjustments had an impact on prison officers. With a reduced staffing ratio, they were tasked to enforce the new regulations, which led to a significant increase in their workload (Baier and Wegel
2022; Frey et al.
2021; Schlebusch
2020).
As a consequence, these environmental changes are likely to have affected the
feeling or
personality of the prison, as captured by the construct of social climate (Moos
1997). The social climate has been defined as “[t]he physical, social and emotional conditions of an institutional setting [that] interact in a specific way […], which may over time influence the mood, behavior and self-concept of the people involved” (Schalast and Laan
2017, p. 167; translation of Schalast and Groenewald
2009, p. 329). Based on this definition, Schalast and Groenewald (
2009) developed the Essen Climate Evaluation Schema (
EssenCES), the briefest social climate questionnaire, distinguished by its uniqueness in providing identical versions both for prison officers and for inmates. This enables the quantification of the social climate perception of these groups. The authors highlighted the importance of three subscales that influence the social climate perception of inmates and prison officers: the relation between inmates (inmate cohesion; IC), experienced safety (ES), and the degree of support from prison officers (therapeutic hold, TH; Schalast and Tonkin
2016).
Monitoring how inmates and prison officers perceive the social climate during the pandemic seems highly relevant as the social climate has been widely recognized as a central factor for the success of prison (Day et al.
2012; Liebling et al.
2011; Tonkin
2016). Beneficial effects of the social climate have been found for inmates and prison officers (for an overview see Guéridon and Suhling
2018). However, two systematic differences have been identified between inmates’ and prison officers’ evaluation of the social climate using the EssenCES. Firstly, TH was consistently rated significantly higher by prison officers compared to inmates; secondly, if significant differences were found in ES, it was the inmates who rated it higher (Blagden et al.
2016; Day et al.
2012; Guéridon and Strecker
2020; Isenhardt et al.
2020; Schalast and Laan
2017; Schalast and Tonkin
2016; Tonkin et al.
2012). For IC, most of these studies could not identify significant differences. An exception is the study by Guéridon and Strecker (
2020), who found that prison officers of German sociotherapeutic units rated IC higher than the respective inmates did.
Although a substantial body of research has identified differences between inmates and prison officers in their perception of the social climate, little is known about what causes these differences. As the objective social climate—if such a thing exists—would be identical for inmates and prison officers, it seems evident that differences in perception must result from some sort of group-specific factors (de Vries et al.
2016; Guéridon and Strecker
2020; Isenhardt et al.
2020). These group-specific factors may affect the perception of the social climate itself as well as the response to the items. To start an investigation of these group-specific factors that potentially influence social climate perception, we investigated the role of one central element for a good social climate to form in the first place: contact between inmates and prison officers. For a good social climate to form, interactions and relations between inmates and prison officers are a necessity (Liebling
2011), which decreased as a result of isolation and discontinuation of group activities. In the absence of group-specific factors, a decrease in social contact would lead to a worse reported social climate for inmates and prison officers alike. Conversely, if the restrictions had no effect on social climate evaluation or if its effect would differ between inmates and prison officers, this would suggest that group-specific factors override the effect of inmate–officer interactions.
Research questions and hypotheses
This study aimed to investigate the following questions and hypotheses: First, do inmates and prison officers differ in their perception of the social climate? Specifically, we hypothesized that inmates would rate ES significantly higher compared with prison officers, while prison officers would rate TH significantly higher compared with inmates. Additionally, differences in IC and the overall rating of the EssenCES were investigated exploratorily. Second, does the impact of BoCR negatively affect the perception of social climate, and if so, does this effect differ for inmates and prison officers? Thus, for this relation, no directional hypothesis was formulated.
Discussion
This study had two objectives: first, to explore variations in the perception of the social climate among prison officers and inmates in time of the pandemic, and second, to examine the impact of COVID-19-related contact restrictions (BoCR) on the social climate perceptions of inmates and prison staff alike.
Our findings align with prior research on differences in the perception of the social climate among prison officers and inmates (Blagden et al.
2016; Day et al.
2012; Guéridon and Strecker
2020; Isenhardt et al.
2020; Schalast and Laan
2017; Schalast and Tonkin
2016; Tonkin et al.
2012). Thus, the previous findings of higher ratings of ES by inmates and higher ratings of TH by prison officers persisted even amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Like the majority of previous studies, we also could not identify differences in IC. The overall rating of the EssenCES seems to balance itself out as the result of differences in ES and TH. In comparison with international norm values (Schalast and Tonkin
2016), the ratings both by inmates and by prison officers corresponded to the second lowest (
somewhat below average) and lowest category (
clearly below average), and, thus, a poor social climate. Although drawing conclusions without pre-pandemic comparison values is challenging, this striking deviation, found in a sample from 26 facilities, can hardly be explained without assuming an adverse impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the social climate.
Regarding BoCR, its influence was more pronounced among inmates than among prison officers, although the effect varied across dimensions. The impact of BoCR on ES was nearly twofold higher for inmates compared to prison officers. This suggests that interpersonal contact between inmates and prison officers plays a crucial role in fostering a sense of safety. Inmates may seek to satisfy their need for safety through contact with prison officers. On the other hand, this need does not appear to be satisfied to the same extent among prison officers by inmate -contact, which could be explained by their primary responsibility, that is, to ensure security in prison (Liebling
2011). Surprisingly, the impact of BoCR on TH was found only for inmates and not for prison officers. This is unexpected, as one would assume that contact represents a fundamental necessity for prison officers to offer some form of hold and support to inmates. A potential explanation for this difference could be perception bias (de Vries et al.
2016; Guéridon
2020). Since the TH dimension is linked to prison officers’ work, it may trigger a self-serving bias when officers rate these questions. This bias could lead prison officers to overlook certain detrimental aspects, such as BoCR, in their evaluation of TH. There was no significant difference in the effect of BoCR on IC between the two populations. Thus, both the prisoners’ and the inmates’ perception of IC seems to have been similarly impacted by BoCR. This observation potentially suggests that this dimension is not affected by status group-specific factors such as needs and biases.
Limitations
A number of limitations have to be acknowledged. First, the data collection occurred at different points during the pandemic across federal states, potentially introducing variations in present restrictions. The evolving nature of the pandemic and the associated measures might have influenced the responses, and the findings should be interpreted with this temporal variability in mind. Second, the EssenCES scale was shortened by three items, raising the possibility of overlooking certain aspects of the social climate, even though the internal consistency of the shortened scale remained acceptable. Third, the nested data structure was not statistically accounted for in this study
3. The lack of consideration for this structure might overlook effects that operate at the institutional level.
Conclusion
Overall, this study demonstrates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the social climate of prisons for both inmates and prison officers. Subsequent research should investigate how, and whether, the social climate returns to average after the pandemic concludes. The study also underscores the significance of examining the distinct perceptions of inmates and prison officers. To investigate the reasons behind these group-specific factors, future studies could employ various methods, such as interviews exploring the thought process during social climate evaluations or questionnaires measuring social desirability and response biases.
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