ABSTRACT
As we saw in Chapter 2, several factors contributed to prisoners’ difficulties as they made the initial transition to prison from the outside world. Preoccupation with safety, uncertainty, deprivation of freedom and control, and feelings of separation and loss were all part of the negative experience of the first three days in prison. Individuals differed, however, in how distressed they felt, and those who were internal in their locus of control and who felt safer were less distressed. Chapter 3 now follows a subsample of 28 of the original 70 prisoners through the following month, and is based upon interviews with them after ten days and 30 days in prison. (The background descriptive information of this smaller sample of 28 can be found in Chapter 1.) How did they adapt over the full length of the first month in prison? How and why did some prisoners adapt to life in prison while some did not?
