Sport in prison: social and subjective health outcomes of different sport programs

• Date: 04 August 2023
• Pages: 682-698
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPH-10-2022-0062
• Published date: 04 August 2023
• Subject Matter: Health & social care,Criminology & forensic psychology,Prisoner health,Sociology,Sociology of crime & law,Public policy & environmental management,Policing,Criminal justice
• Author: Elisa Herold,Pamela Wicker,Uta Czyrnick-Leber,Bernd Gröben,Milan Dransmann

Sport in prison: social and subjective

health outcomes of different

sport programs

Elisa Herold, Pamela Wicker, Uta Czyrnick-Leber, Bernd Gröben and Milan Dransmann

Abstract

Purpose –The purpose of this studyis to examine the effects of four different sport programs on various

social andsubjective health outcomes amongprisoners.

Design/methodology/approach –Four different sport programs (endurance, strength, dance-like

martial arts, soccer) were provided in 2020 and 2021 in a German prison. Participants completed

paper-pencil surveys before and afterthe sport programs (n¼134 observations), including questions

about potential socialhealth (enjoyment of physical activity, interpersonalexchange, interpersonal trust,

self-efficacy) and subjective health outcomes (health status, health satisfaction, well-being). Further

informationsuch as prisoner characteristicswere added to the data.

Findings –Results of regression analysesshow that the endurance program had a significant positive

effect on interpersonal trust, while the soccer program had a negative effect. Subjective well-being

increased significantly after the strength and the soccer program. The weekly sport hours before

imprisonment had a positiveassociation with enjoyment of physical activityand interpersonal exchange

while beingnegatively related to health statusand health satisfaction. Furthermore,the number of months

of imprisonmentbefore the survey, being a young offender, the prisoners’body mass index, educational

level and migration background were significantly associated with several socialand subjective health

outcomes.

Originality/value –This study analyzed theeffects of different sport programs for prisonerson various

social and subjective health outcomes, revealing differences across programs and outcomes. The

findings suggest that sportcan be a way to enhance prisoners’ social and subjective health,ultimately

facilitatingtheir rehabilitation process.

Keywords Self-eff‌icacy, Social capital, Sport, Subjective well-being, Young male inmates,

Adult male inmates

Paper type Research paper

Introduction

Sport has the potential to generate various social and subjective health outcomes within

society and is, therefore also an important activity during the rehabilitation process of

prisoners (Andrews and Andrews, 2003). Furthermore, sport represents the most popular

leisure activity of prisoners (Kuhn, 2019) as participating in sport allows them to

overcome the monotony and boredom of daily imprisonment routines (Lleix

aandRı

´os,

2015;Mu

¨ller and Mutz, 2019). In many western countries, prison populations are still at a

high level (P

erez-Moreno et al., 2007): Based on the 13th edition of the world prison

population list, the median prison population rate for western European countries is 73

per 100,000. Consequently, the social interest in factors that facilitate prisoner’s

rehabilitation is high (Moscoso-S

anchez et al., 2017). Sport participation can be one

factor in this respect by producing various health outcomes (Moscoso-S

anchez et al.,

2017;Woods et al., 2017).

Elisa Herold is based at the

Department of Sports

Science, Bielefeld

University, Bielefeld,

Germany and Institute of

Sport Economics and Sport

Management, German

Sport University Cologne,

Cologne, Germany.

Pamela Wicker,

Uta Czyrnick-Leber,

Bernd Gro

¨ben and

Milan Dransmann are all

based at the Department of

Sports Science, Bielefeld

University, Bielefeld,

Germany.

Received 14 October 2022

Revised 17 January 2023

6 March 2023

25 April 2023

Accepted 9 July 2023

PAGE 682 jINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PRISONER HEALTH jVOL. 19 NO. 4 2023, pp. 682-698, ©EmeraldPublishing Limited, ISSN 1744-9200 DOI 10.1108/IJPH-10-2022-0062

Following the World Health Organization[World Health Organisation (WHO), 2022], health is

defined as not only the absence of disease or infirmity, but also complete physical, mental

and social well-being. Consequently, health encompasses not only an objective health

status (e.g. having a healthy body weight, blood pressure,blood values) but also subjective

health perception and social health.Social health relates to the interaction of individuals and

how individuals are getting alongwith each other (McDowell and Newell, 1987;Vandenbos,

2009). Following the Pan American Health Organization [Pan American HealthOrganization

(PAHO), 2022, it also encompasses psychosocial and behavioral factors. Social health is

strongly affected by relationshipsand the interaction with other humans, with social isolation

being negatively associated with prisoner’s social health status (Umberson and Montez,

2010). In the prison context, inmates are exposed to numerous psychosocial stressors

during their incarceration, but cannot rely on the help of family and friends to cope with

them. New contacts must be made, because their capacity to cope with prison depends

largely on how they integrate socially with others in the prison “community” (De Viggiani,

2006). Subjective health refers to the individuals own view of their health and their

satisfaction with their health (Downwardet al.,2016).

Existing studies have examined various social, objective and subjective health outcomes of

sport participation among prisoners (Battaglia et al., 2015;Moscoso-S

anchez et al.,2017;

Woods et al.,2017). Starting with social health outcomes, being physically active during

imprisonment can increase self-esteem (Leberman, 2007;Griera, 2017), self-control

(Griera, 2017), and self-confidence (Leberman, 2007) as well as developinterpersonal skills

such as teamwork and communication (Leberman, 2007). Likewise, Lleix

a and Rı

´os (2015)

document that sport during imprisonment promotes communication between prisoners,

reduces conflicts and increases interactions with others. Moreover, sport participation in

prison was found to go along with enhanced social relationships and reduced aggressive

behavior (Moscoso-S

anchez et al.,2017). Furthermore, if a sport program in prison meets

the needs of prisoners, it can positively affect their system of values as well as improve the

acceptance, learning and assimilation of rules and regulations among prisoners. Also,

participating in a sport program has the potential to ease the process of finding a job after

imprisonment (Castillo-Algarra et al., 2019).

Turning to objective and subjective health outcomes, subjective well-being can increase

through sport participation in prison (Battaglia et al.,2015). This finding is echoed by

Bilderbeck et al. (2013), who document increased well-being among prisoners after taking

part in a yoga program. Amtmann and Kukay (2016) report the same significant positive

effect after participating in a fitness program. Also, prisoners’ general health status was

found to increase significantlyas a result of being physically active on a regular basis (Meek

and Lewis, 2012;Mannocci et al.,2017). Regular sport activity also goes along with a

significant decrease in prisoners’ body mass index (BMI; Elwood Martin et al.,2013).

Furthermore, prisoners were found to face less depression, stress and anxiety when

participating in a physical activity program(Buckaloo et al., 2009). Put differently, prisoners’

health status can even worsen significantlyif they do not participate in any sport during their

imprisonment (Battaglia et al.,2013). As imprisonment is generally associated with

unhealthy behaviors like physical inactivity, drugs, alcohol, smoking and violence (Fazel

and Baillargeon, 2011), the relevanceof healthy behavior such as sport increases.

While several studies have already investigated the effects of sport participation in prison

on various social and subjective health outcomes, a few shortcomings can be noted. First,

except for the systematic review of Woods et al. (2017), existing studies mostly examined

only one particular sport program or elaborated on case studies (Gallant et al.,2015).

However, different sport programs might yield different outcomes (Griera, 2017), and these

outcomes have rarely been studied systematically. Furthermore, Andrews and Andrews

(2003) claim that prisoners shouldhave a choice between several sport programs. Second,

many previous studies focused on either social health or objective/subjective health

VOL. 19 NO. 4 2023 jINTERNATIONALJOURNAL OF PRISONER HEALTH jPAGE 683