A Qualitative Study Of Prison Sports

At present, our country has a total of 680 prisons; more than 170 million people are inmates in custody. Our prisons under the veil of mystery are consisting of what? And how sports develop in prison? A small number of documents and news reports give us some details about this aspect, but for real sports conditions in prisons, there is no intensive study.My living environment in childhood is closely related to the prison, so in order to complete this study, I did some field study in a lot prisons, employing research methods such as deep interviews and participant observation to collect a lot of first-hand information about prison sports. In other words, this paper is trying to study the sociology of sport through the research method of "ethnographic". This study is focused on one prison, through fieldwork and combining with relevant information, answering the questions from the view of "the realities of sport in prison".The main conclusions of this study:1. sports for prisoners have some positive impacts. First, criminals can participate in sports activities to build a healthy mind, forget the troubles, but also can enhance their self-confidence, reduce the pressure during the sentence. Secondly, participation in sports activities can help inmates to adapt quickly to the transformation of life. Participate in sports activities can help inmates to spend their spare time, to help them adapt to the environment, through the exchange of communication can help them quickly narrow the distance. Third, participate in sports activities can promote the physical and mental health of prisoners. Participation in sports is conducive to alleviate the problem of cervical spondylosis, frozen shoulder and insomnia and other inmates in the more widespread. At the same time can edify sentiment, improve morality and in correction of serving personnel of morbid psychology also has a certain promotion;2. The hardware facilities in the prisons for sports development basically meet the prisoners’ demand, but the corresponding software facility construction still needs improving. The construction of prison sports culture is not perfect enough, so is the professional guidance on sports;3. Other prison activities, including prison sports, were greatly affected during the period of prison transition. The prisoners had fewer opportunities to participate in sports activities. The influence brought to prison economy during the period of transition led to a serious shortage of funds for sports activities. As a result, the lack of time and funds brought prison sports to a halt for a time.4. In terms of prison sports management, the prison management had the absolute decision-making and control powers. Since the prisoners’ participation in sports activities were usually decided by the management, the prisoners couldn’t make an autonomous choice of sports events, time, and forms;5. Prison sports still need to be renovated. At present, most of the prison police have realized the positive influence of sports activities on the prisoners’ mentality, but sports’ role as a reform means hasn’t be accepted yet. Sports are often treated as leisure and entertainment activities attended by the prisoners in spare time.6. There is a lack of awareness of prisoners’ sports rights. At present, the prisons still have a shallow understanding of the sports held for the prisoners, holding that appropriate relaxation and amusement is already enough, so they don’t treat participation in sports as a right that the prisoners should enjoy.At its end, this paper puts forward a few suggestions for prison sports: 1. Carry out sports with the help of the social forces; 2. Strengthen the construction of prison sports culture; 3. Conduct a deep research on prison activities during the period of transition to reduce the impact of transition on prison sports; 5. Improve the management mechanism and system of prison sports; 5. Research the effort of prison sports in multiple ways; 6. Further guarantee the prisoners’ sports rights; 7. Focus more on the research of women’s prisons and juvenile offender correctional centers.