Protective factors in the penitentiary population from a social work perspective

Abstract

The protective factors in the penitentiary population are greatly forgotten in the scientific literature and in the general society, even though it demonstrates the effect in other collectives as children or persons with addictive behaviour. Therefore, the objective of this investigation, based on a qualitative methodology, has been to identify those protective factors that have a higher impact in that collective, through the technique of the semi-organise interview to professionals who work in Mallorca with the penitentiary population. The results, obtained from a discourse analys has been presented with a Category Tree that reveals the aspects that have more importance as social support, the sense of belonging or the ownership structure of an institution. As a conclusion, this paper proposes various good practises for the professionals in this field of intervention.