Aggressive behaviour, depression, stress and tendency to change among recidivist in prison: The mediating effect of social reintegration

Understanding the strain in reintegration are crucial for encouraging change among recidivists, since recidivism affects the offenders and community. This study examined the level of tendency to change, aggressive behaviour, depression, stress and social reintegration among recidivists and investigate any difference of the variables according to demography. It also discovers the relationship between all variables, the mediating effect of social reintegration and the tendency to change model. Survey questionnaires randomly distributed to 500 recidivists in Kajang Prison selected through stratified and simple random sampling with a total of 289 questionnaires are returned and usable, equivalent to 58% response rate. Change tendency, aggression, depression, stress, and reintegration are measured by the University of Rhode Island Change Assessment, Aggression Questionnaire, Beck Depression Inventory, Perceived Stress Scale and Perceived Community Reintegration Questionnaire. Descriptive and inferential statistics analyses were conducted by using Statistical Packages for Social Science (SPSS) and SmartPLS. Findings of the study indicated that there was significant difference of tendency to change among recidivists according to their marital status, aggressive behaviour according to recidivists’ jobs prior imprisonment and their prison sentences and stress according to their ethnics and religions. However, there was no significant difference of depression among recidivists according to their demography. There was also significant relationship between tendency to change and aggressive behaviour, stress and social reintegration but no significant relationship between tendency to change and depression. The study established a significant mediating effect of social reintegration on the relationship between tendency to change and aggressive behaviour, depression and stress. The finding also showed the developed model fitted the data of the study. In conclusion, the present study had contributed and advanced our knowledge about the recidivists’ tendency to change in relation to their aggressive behavior, depression, stress, and social reintegration specifically in the context of recidivist and prison in Malaysia.