THE LEVEL OF HEALTH-RELATED PHYSICAL FITNESS AMONG THE INMATES OF REFORM AND REHABILITATION CENTERS IN JORDAN

The Directorate of General Security in Jordan has created sport fields in new prisons taking into consideration its importance for inmates. This is due to the belief that prisoners should be encouraged to spend interesting times, discharge their repressed energies and to improve their physical and mental states in addition to strengthening their social relations. Providing members and specialist officers to the inmates may decrease the problems inside prisons by doing these different kinds of physical activities. The purposes of this study were to evaluate the level of health-related fitness of the inmates in the reform and rehabilitation centers in Jordan and to differentiate between them according to the time span spent in the prison. The study sample consisted of (208) inmates who volunteered to participate in the tests out of 2400 inmates in the center. They were classified into different age categories and their condemnation period. The tests contained the health related physical fitness elements: muscle power, respiratory endurance, muscle strength, flexibility, and body composition in terms of body mass index. Results showed that there were statistical differences between the categories in this study in some tests. It was concluded that there must be physical programs for inmates to prevent them from getting non-communicable diseases due to hypokinetic and sedentary life.