This paper investigated the influence of sex and years of incarceration on the well-being of prison inmates in Nigeria. The study was carried out in Port Harcourt prison with a sample of 250 inmates who were composed through stratified sampling technique from a population of 2,997 inmates. Five null hypotheses were formulated to guide the study and relevant data for their analysis were collected through an indirect administration of copies of ‘influence of incarceration on prison inmates” questionnaire which was administered by the researchers on the respondents. The reliability coefficient for the five-sub-sections of this instrument and the overall were 0.79; 0.80; 0.80, 0.80, 0.80 and 0.80 respectively. The hypotheses were tested with two-way analysis of variance. The results among other things show that years of incarceration do not significantly influence the psychological, social vocational and educational well-being of inmates. It however influences significantly their physical well being. The results also show that sex does not significantly influence the physical, psychological and social well-being of inmates. Sex however significantly influences the vocational and educational well-being of inmates. These results were discussed and some recommendations were also made. One of the recommendations is that professional guidance counselors and other psychological care givers in prison service should render similar types of assistance/services to all inmates of the prison irrespective of their years of incarceration and sex.
Keywords: Incarceration, Prison, Well-being, Years, sex
