RESILIENCE, HOPE AND HAPPINESS AS PREDICTORS OF LIFE SATISFACTION AMONG INMATES IN MEDIUM SECURITY PRISON MAKURDI.

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Abstract

The study, resilience, hope and happiness as predictors of life satisfaction among inmates in Medium Security Prison Makurdi, employed an ex-post facto cross sectional survey method where 258 prison inmates were randomly drawn from Medium Security Prison Makurdi. The findings revealed that 242 (93.8%) were males and 10 (3.9%) were females. The study used The Connor Davidson Resilience Scale developed by Connor and Davison (2003), Adult Hope Scale developed by Snyder, Harris, Anderson, Helleran, Irving and Sigmon (1991), Oxford Happiness Questionnaire developed by Hills and Argyle (2000) and Life Satisfaction Scale developed by Larsen and Griffin (1985). The research used descriptive statistics, Linear and multiple regressions for statistical analysis. Results from the hypotheses showed that, there was no significant influence of resilience and happiness on life satisfaction among inmates in Medium Prison Makurdi. There was a significant influence of hope on life satisfaction among inmates in Medium Security Prison Makurdi. There was a significant joint influence of resilience, hope and happiness on life satisfaction among inmates in Medium Security Prison Makurdi. It was also recommended that genuine efforts by government, non-governmental organization and individuals should be made to instil hope in prison inmates so as to enhance their life satisfaction. Resilience, happiness and most importantly, hope should be in place through offering of psychological services to enhance life satisfaction of prison inmates in Medium Security PrisonMakurdi and Nigeria at large. These intervention strategies can be achieved through the availability of psychologists and psychological services within the prisons. It was also recommended that more researches on the subject matter should be conducted on a large scale for further identification of variables that enhance life satisfaction of inmates and long term solutions to the problems of prison inmates in Nigeria.