Community relations and Life satisfaction: Difference between criminals and non-criminals

Abstract

This article is the result of a quantitative study carried out with 150 subjects living in Spain, among which are some prisoners of the Malaga Penitentiary Center (n = 76) and some students of the University of Málaga (n = 74). Its objective is to observe contemporary phenomena that are broadening social vulnerability and, based on that, reflect on crime. The variables analyzed will be life satisfaction, fatalism, social participation (community and political) and the sense of community. The results of the statistical analysis indicate that: 1. the life satisfaction of prisoners is lower than that of university students; 2. fatalism and almost all the dimensions of the sense of community are superior in prisoners; 3. political participation is higher in university students; 4. the sense of community predominates in the regression model of life satisfaction in prisoners (positive prediction) while fatalism does in university students (negative prediction). There are also differences between recidivist and non-recidivist prisoners. The following issues will also be discussed: the idea of crime as a “community of resistance”, the negative relation between crime and fatalism (mediated by social exclusion) and the instrumentalization of community relations.