Alone in a Crowd: Gender Differences in the Emotional Well-Being of Japanese Prisoners

Abstract

This article reports on gender differences in the emotional well-being of prison inmates, a topic on which few crosscultural findings are available. Studying Japanese prisoners, we find that females are more likely than males to experience a sense of hopelessness and despair. These sentiments, we argue, can best be explained by the social isolation that female inmates experience, an isolation that is caused by prison conditions.