Views from the inside: young offenders' subjective experiences of incarceration

Abstract

This study examined the incarceration experiences of 16 adolescent males in a maximum-security detention facility. A semistructured interview was conducted with each detainee and recorded on audiocassette. Data were analysed using phenomenological descriptive methodology. Detainees' experiences were characterised by a prison culture of bullying, substance use, and antagonism with youth workers; inadequate service provision and a lack of rehabilitative programming; and a sense of loss through reduced autonomy and dislocation from important others. These experiences gave rise to a range of negative feelings and emotions and promoted thinking about past and future behaviours. The incarceration experience placed detainees into a state of readiness for positive change but failed to provide them with the necessary skills to effect and sustain this change. Promotion of antisocial behaviour, lack of deterrence, and insufficient rehabilitative programming were identified as factors of the incarceration setting likely to contribute to the high rates of recidivism.