Monitoring of the Social Climate in Prison
Monitoring the social climate in prison is becoming increasingly relevant internationallybecause studies show that prison climate influences not only the quality of prison life itself butalso reoffending. Unlike many European countries that already conduct such measurements,there is no such monitoring in Austria. This project therefore aims to develop and implementthe monitoring of the social climate in Austrian prisons. Thus, context-sensitive instruments formeasuring the social climate are developed on the basis of focus groups with staff membersand systematically tested in pretests. As part of the testing, the comprehensibility of thequestionnaire will be examined through cognitive interviews with detainees. The survey will bebased on the factor-analytically tested questionnaire from the SiGit project, but will beexpanded, updated, and translated into the five most relevant languages in Austrian prisons. Using these instruments, a comprehensive survey on the social climate in prison from theperspective of detainees and staff will be conducted for the first time in five selected Austrianprisons, taking departmental levels into account. The results of the survey will be evaluatedusing methods of inferential statistics. In the course of the analysis, a validation of thequestionnaire is carried out. The combination of the empirical data from the surveys with theprison's internal controlling data (from "cockpit") aims to identify correlations between prisonclimate assessments and objective indicators, which will form the basis for an application-oriented measurement of the prison climate after the duration of the project. Together with theMinistry of Justice a roadmap for future implementation of prison climate surveys will bedeveloped. The results of the project will also be communicated to the correctional practice andthe scientific community on several occasions, for example, by introducing the results in prisonmanagement conferences and in the education and training of prison guards, as well asthrough the publication of scientific articles.
The project is funded within the KIRAS Security Research program of the Austrian Ministry of Finance.
Project Partner
Project Period
June 2024 to May 2026
Project Manager
