The Psychological Impact of Incarceration: Implications for Post-Prison Adjustment

This paper addresses the psychological impact of incarceration and its implications for post-prison freeworld adjustment. The paper is organized around several basic propositions:  that prisons have become more difficult places in which to adjust and survive over the last several decades; that especially in light of these changes, adaptation to modern prison life exacts certain psychological costs of most incarcerated persons; that some groups of people are somewhat more vulnerable to the pains of imprisonment than others; that the psychological costs and pains of imprisonment can serve to impede post-prison adjustment; and that there are a series of things that can be done both in and out of prison to minimize these impediments