The Psychological impact of imprisonment in South Africa : a case study in Nkonkobe municipality

Abstract

The study tries to explain the psychological effects of imprisonment as adjustment to incarceration is at all times a difficult matter and, it creates a tradition of thinking and behaviour which can be dysfunctional in times of post-prison adjustment. The psychological effect of confinement varies from individual to individual. Not everyone who is confined is psychological harmed by it, but a few people are completely unchanged by the experience. It can be argued that everyone who enters detention centre is subjected to pressures of institutionalization, and that inmates respond in various ways with different levels of psychological changes associated with their adaptations.