How to pursue a sustainable happiness in prison communities: An Italian case study

Abstract

Happiness is common, but multifaceted concept, which attracted over the time the interest of many different scholars. In the last decades, happiness has been coupled with sustainability, boosting an interdisciplinary research and policy development, pointing to ascertain the drivers of individual, communities, and global well‐being or the so‐called sustainable happiness. This study aims at contributing to the debate on sustainable happiness, focusing on the importance that both individual and collective characteristics can have on the long‐lasting happiness of community. To this end, a qualitative analysis has been conducted; thus, an explorative case study has been presented and discussed. The achieved results offers some interesting theoretical and policy implications for the further improvement of individual and collective happiness in communities, such as prisons.