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In Dutch detainee care custodial transport police officers experience high levels of aggression and violence from detainees. Being a first of its kind in the Netherlands, the purpose of this paper is to unravel the true nature and origins of such workplace aggression against transport officers and focuses on the role of street-level leadership and leadership by management for its mitigation and prevention.

Unique in such closed institutions as the prison system, the study employs an extensive mixed methods approach, combining observations, interviews and survey data collected among transport officers and detainees in 2012-2013.

The research shows that within the exercised street-level leadership of transport officers especially staff orientation towards detainees has great impact. Perceived inappropriate treatment is likely to increase detainees’ aggressive behaviours, with potentially detrimental effects such as heightened levels of officers’ job stress, decreased safety and decreased quality of detainee transport. The solutions offered indicate that while transport officers could benefit from a supportive staff orientation, transport police management might need to pay more attention to rule enforcement leadership within their efforts to optimize working conditions.

The major practical implication of this research is the potential impact of training in affecting the decisions of frontline public employees in a way that their street-level leadership practices manifest the organizational values and alignment with societal values to ensure an adequate public sector service delivery.

Studies have reported increased psychiatric morbidity among young detainees, with as many as three‐quarters reported to have one or more psychiatric disorders. Despite this, however, there is a dearth of published work among young inmates of prisons, remand homes or borstal institutions in Nigeria. The aim of this study was to assess possible psychiatric morbidity among young inmates of a borstal institution in Nigeria and to determine the factors that may be associated with this morbidity. Fifty‐three inmates of one of the two existing borstal institution in Nigeria were assessed for psychiatric morbidity using the 12‐item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ‐12). The GHQ‐12 scores were compared with the socio‐demographic factors of the respondents. Twenty‐eight (52.8%) of the inmates were over 18 years old, 35.8% were in the middle position within the family, 62.3% were of Christian faith, and 64.2% had their parents still living together. Seventeen (32.1%) of the inmates were from Hausa ethnic extraction, 58.5% stayed for more than 6 months at the borstal institution, and 81.1% were brought to the institution by their parents. The mean age of the inmates was 17.3 years (range, 14‐23 years) and 26 (49.1%) of them were GHQ‐positive. There was no statistically significant difference between the mean age of GHQ‐positive and GHQ‐negative inmates (F=1.73, p=0.19), and none of the socio‐demographic variables were significantly associated with psychiatric morbidity (i.e. GHQ‐12 positivity). The study observed a high prevalence of undetected psychiatric morbidity among inmates at the borstal institution. Efforts should be intensified by the authority responsible for managing the Nigerian prison services (including the borstal institutions) to improve mental health services.

This study aims to highlight how easy it is for immigrants to break Italian law because of the country’s inadequate cultural and linguistic mediation service. Insufficiencies in this service also have a negative impact on both the psychological and physical health of migrant prisoners. Furthermore, Italian is used in legal disputes and prison, and reference is made to Italian culture, preventing migrants from understanding their position regarding the law.

This report concerns the psychological discomfort of migrant incarcerated individuals within Italian prisons due to national laws in force. Consideration is also given to the negative impact on the physical health of incarcerated migrants.

Best practice should include adequate space for linguistic and cultural mediation in reception centres and prisons. It is considered suitable to combat social exclusion, even in prison.

The report is not research on prisoners, but it focuses on making visible the condition of migrant individuals incarcerated in Italy.

Enforced isolation does not allow immigrants to become a community resource but has negative repercussions in terms of financial, social and well-being costs.

This paper is one of few in limited, national or otherwise scientific output, to contribute to migrant inmate visibility in Italy. Taking action for the well-being of migrant prisoners will not only have a positive impact on a social level but should also help reintegrate these individuals after serving their sentence.