The relationship of social support and self-esteem with recidivism among prisoners

Background and purposes: Social capital and Continuing source of support among the theories that explain the social harms by combining theories of criminology. Evaluate the relationship between social capital and self-esteem and impact on recidivism in prisoners residing in the Prison is the purpose of this study. Materials and methods In this cross-sectional study, 72 male prison inmates in Central prison of Khoy were randomly selected who they had in the history of crime more than once in their case. The social support questionnaire was Fleming, and Self Esteem questionnaire was Cooper Smith. Data was analyzed using ANOVA One-way, Stepwise Multiple Regression and Pearson Correlation coefficient. Results: Mean of age of the sample under investigation was 31.8±6.05. None of the samples under investigation were not a good indicator of social support who had significant relationship (p<0.001). Between self-esteem and re-commit a crime, there was no significant relationship (p=0.288). Regression analysis showed that social support is predictors of recidivism (β=-.47, p<0.001). But the role of self-esteem was not predictor for recidivism. Conclusion: According to with lower levels of social support increase rate of recidivism. Promoting social support between parents and friends lead to decrease recidivism.