Peer victimization, prison climate, resilience and psychological distress of incarcerated juvenile offenders in Ghana: A serial mediation examination
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Date
2022
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine
Abstract
A B S T R A C T
Most Ghanaian research in the area of victimization among children has focused on the school setting. Little
research has been done in an attempt to understand inmate-on-inmate victimization within the juvenile
correctional facilities in Ghana. This study, therefore, investigated the extent to which peer victimization influences
psychological distress among juvenile offenders in the Senior Correctional Center of Ghana. A crosssectional
design was used to purposively sample 115 juvenile offenders for the study. Following mediation
analysis performed in PROCESS, the results revealed that prison climate and resilience serially mediated the
relationship between peer victimization and psychological distress. Independently, both prison climate and
resilience mediated the relationship between peer victimization and psychological distress. It was recommended
that anti-bullying programs ought to be institutionalized to create mental health awareness within the correctional
facilities. Also, support systems such as the Listener Scheme need to be deployed within the correctional
facilities.
Description
Research Article
Keywords
Victimization, Psychological distress, Resilience, Prison climate, Juvenile offenders