Background: Prison can be characterized as an impoverished environment encouraging a sedentary lifestyle with limited autonomy and social interaction, which may negatively affect self-control and executive function.Here, we aim to study the effects of imprisonment on self-control and executive functions, and we report the change in neuropsychological outcome after 3 months of imprisonment.Materials and Methods: Participants were 37 male inmates in a remand prison in Amsterdam, Netherlands, who completed six tests of a computerized neuropsychological test battery (the Cambridge Automated Neuropsychological Test Battery) in the first week of arrival.
Participants were retested after 3 months of imprisonment.Change in performance was tested using the Wilcoxon Signed-Rank test.Results: After 3 months of imprisonment, risk taking significantly increased (measured as an increase Bike Units - Adult Trike in the proportion of available points used for betting) and attention significantly deteriorated (measured as increased variability in reaction times on a sustained attention task), with large to medium effect sizes.
In contrast, planning significantly improved (measured with a task analog to the Shaving Cream Tower of London) with a medium effect size.Discussion: Our study suggests that 3 months of imprisonment in an impoverished environment may lead to reduced self-control, measured as increased risk taking and reduced attentional performance.This is a significant and societally relevant finding, as released prisoners may be less capable of living a lawful life than they were prior to their imprisonment, and may be more prone to impulsive risk-taking behavior.
In other words, the impoverished environment may contribute to an enhanced risk of reoffending.