Coping and Corrections: A Comparative Assessment of Individual and Organizational Coping in Prisons in Sweden and England

Abstract

As a guiding principle of incarceration, prisons should aim to maintain safe and rehabilitative environments. The key contextual factors that undergird such environments are access to purposeful activities and humane conditions of confinement. Independent authoritative reviews conducted by the Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) of the Council of Europe document the conditions of prison life in Sweden and England, permitting an assessment of these prison systems at three junctures: 2003, 2015-16, and 2019. The Swedish prison system, in contrast to its counterpart in England, addressed external criticisms in responsive ways, an instance of mature coping at the organizational level that demonstrates replicable policies promoting mature coping among individual prisoners