Samenvatting

This contribution summarizes findings from the Prison Project on the longitudinal course of mental health problems during imprisonment. The findings illustrate that prisoners experience high levels of mental health problems. Shortly after their arrival in detention, a quarter of them experienced a high level of mental health problems, which is five times as high as men in the general population. Prisoners’ mental health problems decreased during imprisonment. Both characteristics of the correctional environment (e.g. a fair and respectful treatment by prison staff) and pre-existing characteristics of the prisoners (e.g. personality traits) are related to the course of mental health problems in detention.