Incarceration impacts cognitive performance, and prisoner status matters

ABSTRACT

Globally, incarceration is understood to impoverish the wellbeing of prisoners, but evidence for its impact on cognitive performance is less popular. As most evidence on the criminal justice system have come from advanced western countries, we investigate the association between the length of incarceration and cognitive performance keeping in mind the status of the prisoners in Nigeria, a low resource setting where most inmates are awaiting trial. Inmates (N = 387; males = 94.72%) held in three facilities in a state in Southeast Nigeria completed a test of cognitive performance. Results showed that the longer the inmates stayed in detention, the poorer their cognitive performance. However, moderation analysis using Hayes PROCESS revealed that the decline was significant for inmates awaiting trial but not for convicted inmates. Findings suggest that the agony of awaiting trial for prolonged periods could affect cognitive performance, suggesting that life after conviction or acquittal is at risk. Findings highlight the need for intervention programs for awaiting trial inmates, especially in low resource settings such as Africa, where awaiting trial inmates make up a larger proportion of inmates.

KEYWORDS:

• Cognitive performance
• incarceration
• prison status

Acknowledgments

We wish to acknowledge Rev. Fr. Ambrose Ekereoku and his organisation, CAPIO, whose works in prison reforms in Nigeria facilitated access to participants in this study. We also acknowledge Rev. Sr. Theresa Eke who assisted in designing the project, and the postgraduate psychology students from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, who worked as research assistants during the data collection phase of this study.

Disclosure statement

Authors report no conflicting interests with regards to this study.

Additional information

Funding

Data collection was funded by the Carmelite Prisoners’ Interest Organisation (CAPIO).