Beyond Survival: Prison Conditions Matter for Wellbeing

ICPA 2025 Presentation by Esther van Ginneken (PID305)

Author

Dr. Esther van Ginneken

Associate Professor, Leiden University, Netherlands

Dr. Esther van Ginneken is an associate professor in criminology at Leiden University’s Faculty of Law. She has conducted extensive research on imprisonment, in England and the Netherlands. As former principal investigator of the Life in Custody Study, she worked with colleagues to develop the Prison Climate Questionnaire. This is periodically used to measure prison conditions in the Netherlands, and has also been adopted by researchers in various other countries. Using data from all prisons in the Netherlands, Dr. Esther van Ginneken has examined the relationship between prison conditions and wellbeing, misconduct, and recidivism. She has also conducted research on cell sharing, and posttraumatic growth among incarcerated individuals. Recently, Dr. Esther van Ginneken completed an ethnographic study in three women’s prisons in the Netherlands, with a particular emphasis on boundaries and safety in interactions among staff, among incarcerated women, and between staff and incarcerated women. She is currently principal investigator of a five-year project (2023-2027) on violence in prisons, which includes interviews with prison managers, staff, and incarcerated individuals; an experiment with virtual reality; and an ethnographic study on staff use of violence. This study shows the importance of considering situational factors, in addition to environmental and individual influences.

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