Abstract
The main objective of the research project was to gain a detailed overview of the attitudes and needs of young offenders in order to develop and improve health promotion among vulnerable groups of young people in prison. The research comprised two components.
The first component involved the mapping of attitudes and needs among young offenders. The second component surveyed the existing practice of health promotion, including the opinions of staff members of the Prison Service and representatives of NGOs.
The first sample included 120 individuals (90 males, 30 females) aged up to 24 who were serving their prison sentences at the time of the data being collected. The second sample comprised members of the staff of the Prison Service of the Czech Republic and representatives of non-governmental organisations; altogether there were 30 people (23 from the prison service, 7 from NGOs).
The young prisoners were sampled using purposive selection according to the criteria that were set. The staff members of the Prison Service and NGOs were selected using the snowball sampling technique.
The data collection methods included both quantitative and qualitative components. Questionnaire surveys, semistructured interviews, and focus group-based interviews were used.
The quantitative data were assessed using analysis of the frequency of the occurrence of the individual variables and their levels. The qualitative data were subjected to content analysis.