Faith-based units are prison spaces centred on the performance of religious practices that can nowadays be found in prisons in several countries. These faith-based practices have usually been explored in relation to the effects they have on inmates, but there are few studies that have explored how their presence affects prison life and how they can influence prison governance. This article will compare two different faith-based prison experiences located in two very different social and penitentiary contexts, Argentina and Sweden, in order to explore how the presence of these units affects prison management. To do so, we will analyse semi-structured interviews with 55 individuals conducted in prisons in both countries.

Housing benefits differ substantially across countries. In this paper, we apply power resource theory, developed primarily in relation to the emergence and subsequent expansion of social citizenship, to housing policy. The purpose is to analyse the political determinants of housing benefits, and particularly the role of left parties and the partisan mobilization of labour. The empirical analyses are based on new housing benefit data for 31 affluent democracies from the period 2001–2018. The results of a series of fixed effects pooled time-series regressions show that the strength of left government is positively associated with the size of housing benefits. However, the positive influence of left cabinets is conditional on the relative size of rental housing and the fractionalization of the party system. Our findings highlight the need to combine actor-oriented explanations of the welfare state with theories about the corporatist power structures of society.

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Precarious housing and criminal behaviour are both important elements in processes of marginalization and cumulative disadvantage. It is well known that housing eviction primarily affects the weakest groups in society. In this article we ask if housing eviction has an independent effect on subsequent criminality and if the effect varies across different types of crime (utilitarian, violent and drug crime). Using propensity score matching on administrative register data covering all housing evictions in Sweden 2009, linked with crime registers and registers containing other relevant background information, we find that eviction increases the conviction rates for all analysed crime types, utilitarian crime in particular.

Background: Prior research has shown that poor family relations during upbringing have long-term detrimental effects on mental health. Few previous studies have, however, focused on somatic health outcomes and studies rarely cover the life span until retirement age. The aims of the current study were, firstly, to examine the association between poor family relationships in adolescence and in-patient somatic care across the life course whilst adjusting for confounders at baseline and concurrent psychiatric in-patient care; and secondly, to compare the risks of somatic and psychiatric in-patient care across the life course.Methods: Prospective data from the Stockholm Birth Cohort study were used, with 2636 participants born in 1953 who were followed up until 2016. Information on family relationships was collected from the participants' mothers in 1968. Annual information on in-patient somatic and psychiatric care was retrieved from official register data from 1969 to 2016.Results: Poisson regressions showed that poor family relationships in adolescence were associated with an increased risk of in-patient somatic care in mid- and especially in late adulthood (ages 44-53 and 54-63 years), even when controlling for the co-occurrence of psychiatric illness and a range of childhood conditions. No statistically significant association was observed in early adulthood (ages 16-43 years), when controlling for confounders. These findings are in sharp contrast to the analyses of inpatient psychiatric care, according to which the association with poor family relations was strongest in early adulthood and thereafter attenuated across the life course.Conclusion: Poor family relationships in adolescence are associated with an increased risk of severe consequences for somatic health lasting to late adulthood even when controlling for confounders including in-patient psychiatric care, emphasising the potentially important role of early interventions.