Social Climate in the Eye of the Beholder

Abstract: The social climate of prisons is increasingly recognized as a key factor in rehabilitation, institutional safety, and staff well-being. The Essen Climate Evaluation Schema (EssenCES) is the most extensively studied tool in this context, assessing safety and support. This study aimed to confirm its psychometric properties and examine its comparability and fairness between inmates and prison officers. Using pooled data from five German and Swiss research projects ( n = 1,512 inmates, n = 1,807 prison officers), previously observed group-specific differences were replicated: inmates reported higher perceptions of safety, while officers rated therapeutic hold higher. Confirmatory factor analyses supported the proposed three-dimensional oblique structure for both groups (Inmates: CFI = .946; RMSEA = .054; Prison officers: CFI = .960; RMSEA = .052), and subscale reliability ranged from acceptable to good (ω = .76–.85). Partial measurement invariance indicated that the EssenCES is largely comparable across groups. However, differential item functioning analyses showed that fairness and difficulty varied for most items. Despite these minor group differences, the EssenCES remains a suitable tool for assessing the prison social climate from different perspectives.