Psychiatric Hospital Bed Numbers and Prison Population Sizes in 26 European Countries: A Critical Reconsideration of the Penrose Hypothesis

Victor Blüml, Thomas Waldhör, Nestor D Kapusta and Benjamin Vyssoki

PLOS ONE, 2015, vol. 10, issue 11, 1-9

Abstract: Background: Recently, there has been a revived interest in the validity of the Penrose hypothesis, which was originally postulated over 75 years ago. It suggests an inverse relationship between the numbers of psychiatric hospital beds and the sizes of prison population. This study aims to investigate the association between psychiatric hospital beds and prison populations in a large sample of 26 European countries between 1993 and 2011. Methods: The association between prison population sizes and numbers of psychiatric hospital beds was assessed by means of Spearman correlations and modeled by a mixed random coefficient regression model. Socioeconomic variables were considered as covariates. Data were retrieved from Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. Outcomes: Mean Spearman correlation coefficients between psychiatric beds and prison population showed a significant negative association (-0.35; p =

Date: 2015
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0142163

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0142163

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